no camera when you need it

Well not handy enough to grab.

It is tiki tour time of year for me again - this week Taumaranui. Which is much the same as it was when I was six and lived there - except someone has made a gorgeous job of doing up our old house, the school has had a coat of paint and the town pool has got smaller (at least I could have sworn it was bigger than that). The gene pool is definitely smaller - the town population has shrunk over 40% in recent years!

Anyway I digress...

In my tiki tour of the far flung provinces I did a few country kilometres. And all over these backroads were feral goats. Round every bend you inevitably found another goat browsing the roadside foliage. And all these goat had one, two or three of the most adorable little black kids. Tiny little,the size of a cat, black goatlings, very very cute.

I was so tempted when I got two babies pinned against a bank quite by accident. I was out of the car contemplating grabbing them and jamming them into the car before reason reasserted itself and I remembered that it was six hours before I got home, I didn't have a change of clothes and I had an appointment in an hour - probably not a good look showing up covered in goat excreta, and finally we don't need any more goats...

I'm still sort of wishing I had grabbed one.

snoozing on a winter afternoon

Tee and Storm having a lie down after an exciting walk up the road (there are gates and trees and cows out there ya know!).

Spoke too soon

Ali the redhead had a major meltdown over getting her cover back on tonight. After she had bucked and reared and got over trying to leave she was okay again but it was a fraught two or three minutes.

I guess we just put the cover on, take the cover off, ignore the panic and praise the bravery.

This could take some time.

Call the police!

Got home a day or so ago to find a note from a policeman in the mailbox saying please ring (gave number) followed by "PS There were horses in your garage so I shut the door it's a bit of a mess in there"

A check confirmed that it was indeed a bit of a mess in there, some small horses had helped themselves to a large bucket of sugarbeet (thankfully soaked) leaving a lot of it on the floor and also several kilos of carrots. At least the guilty trio looked none the worse for wear from the feast and hadn't found the unsoaked sugarbeet or the grainbased food.

So I went and rang the policewoman who was still laughing about the naughty ponies who had looked very guilty she reckoned.

While still laughing she said she was passing by to look at the remains of a burnt out stolen car in the area and thought she would drop in as someone had complained about husbands driving - they had reported him overtaking in what they considered a dangerous manner. So we chatted about that and that when you drive a large 4WD you have a better view than drivers in a sedan and how the brain dead don't realise that pulling out in front of a vehicle travelling at 100km an hour is ill advised. I also scratched my head as to why people have so little to do - I mean I see a dozen idiot drivers a day sometimes but it never occurs to me to complain about them.

Anyway still laughing about well fed little horses she rang husband at work and suggested he don't overtake people dangerously. He agreed not to.

Guess that just proves that there is a policeman round when you need one (to get horses out of the feedshed)

Giving the girl a blanket

Ali the redhead doesn't like covers. There are a few things in her life that cause her anxiety and covers is one of them. So on the reasoning of why waste a cover on a horse that really doesn't want it thanks we haven't covered her for the last two winters. But this winter has been a bit colder and she really doesn't like it when it is cold and raining, she gets an "I'm about to die of misery" look, even when handed half a bale of hay and a bucket of warm boiled barley.

So with a really cold front on the way it was time to put a cover on Ali whether she liked the idea or not. And we were waiting for some major hysterics but they didn't really arrive, once she gave up trying to sidle away from the cover and it was actually on her back it was fairly straightforward. And once it was on she shook herself and decided that it was really quite pleasant thanks.