MY DIARY
November 18th 2009
And on a lighter note and talking of pictures, Charlie took these of me at the weekend 
October 12th 2009
Yes, I know, my bad.
To be fair, I’ve been having all sorts of problems with the site again, something is messing with the front page and I can’t figure out what it is, and when it happened last week, I restored the site and lost the last post. But that’s ok cos it was crap anyway. And I’m happy not to have the reminder that the Saints lost the Grand Final.
Sooooooo what’s been happening since.
Well the big news is Grotty went and ripped a chunk of flesh off her chest. OUCH!!!! Poor thing. So had to get the vet out and he wasn’t able to stitch it up as most of it had been ripped off, so there was nothing to stitch, so he chopped off what was left hanging and she now has a huge open wound.
Have to give her twice daily penicllin injections, I hold her whilst Katie injects. They have both been fantastic. Katie was a little nervous with the first couple but 8 later and she handles it like a pro. And Grotty bless her heart, just stands there and lets it all happen. Only flinched a couple of times but the last 4 shots she hasn’t moved at all.
Also getting twice daily squirts of a paste to cut down the swelling. And on top of that she had a tetanus and an anto toxic injection, so poor thing has been chopped and squirted and pricked non stop all week.
Anyway, here are some pics to totally ruin your dinner
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September 21st 2009
Yes, well that was fun
You might have noticed the webiste looking odd and the blog not working over the last few days.
Yes it got hacked yet again …. sigh, sort of reminds me of Bazz’s blog during his hay day, hay day!!! lol, funny as.
Anywayyyyyyyyyy all fixed now. I think it was Ezme cos it went wrong after that last comment
So, thanks everyone for telling me it was bust Maybe if I actually wrote something now and again you’d come and check and you’d notice it wasn’t working and could have told me … my bad 
To be fair it is still really cold here still and nothing happens in winter / early spring with the horses.
Footy is another matter though. My team the Saints (St Kilda) are into the Grand Final to play Geelong (Boo) on Saturday.
They ended up in first place at the end of the season, only losing two games. But that really doesn’t count for much as it’s all about the final series which happens in September.
I can tell you lot are really interested LOL. Oh well they will proberbly lose anyway, they haven’t won a final since 1720 or something like that, maybe it was in the 1960’s but whatever.
I’m excited anyway, and Grotty is too cos she follows the Saints
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Septemerthingy 7th or whaetever something like that who cares
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It’s pissing down, I’m soaked, fed up, cold, hungry and partly beige and not at all happy, that stoopid prissy princess Stinky, urm anyway not sure what happened to my food, it was there one minute, gone the next, my feet ache, OH YEAH!!!! that’s right that Stinky udder faced mole Minky went and stole my food yet again!! can’t believe it, I’m stood there looking up at the , err , the, urm anyway what do you do? RAIN!!! that was it, I was looking up at the rain, looked back down and she had pigged the lot!! what a cow!!! And I can’t believe I didn’t notice anything!! well, erm, somthing, forgot, bollox. So anyway, had enough, kicked my dads door down and now I’m on here letting you know, the gloves are off. I’m taking a a a fark knows… god I hate being senile. WHERE IS MY FRIGGEN DINNER!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah I ate it, no Minky ate it, whatever. |
You right there Toothy? :) Tanty much lol
Oh and keep your muddy hoofs out of my office!!!
August 30th
Stoopid idiots at Google.
Haven’t been posting on here as Google had the site flagged at having a virus / mallwear or whatever.
Went through all of the code for the site and couldn’t find anything that would be causing the problem, in the end I had to get Googles third party authenticator to do a report saying there was nothing wrong with the site before Google would remove the warning
5 bloody weeks GRRRRRRRRRR Not happy.
Anyway looks like everything is now back to normal with Google which is great seeing there was nothing wrong in the first place … sighhhhhh.
So what did you miss? Nothing much except the odd bit of extreme weather LOL , had some manic storms over the last couple of weeks, some 120kmh winds, got a tree down in the paddock. Been peeing down with rain for last couple of weeks, so have more water now than I know what to do with but at least the dam and all the water tanks are full just in time for another droughty type summer
Horses are doing there thing in the paddock, Grotty is looking pretty Grotty lol, Stinky is stinking and Toothy is still muttering away to himself about god knows what.
Have no news on Bazz, last I heard is what I posted. Someone got all shitty about my last update on Bazz so I’m not expecting to get any more updates anytime soon.
Anyway I’m freezing and off to get warmed up :) Just thought I’d pop in say g’day to you all
July 10th 2009
Well that was a bit weird!!! So I’m coming home, pull into the driveway and there is a big truck in my paddock, no light on, just parked up at the back near the gates to the horses.
Someone is stealing my horses!! OMG!!!
I get out of the car and as I come around the back of the truck some bloke is there closing the tailgate. So I ask him what he’s up to and he explains he’s from the doggers and come to pick up a dead horse to take to the knackery.
Mild panic sets in, I look around the truck into my paddock and can’t see Grotty. Big panic sets in.
I asked if it was a big bay standardbred and he’s like err no it was an old Shetland from that paddock over there, pointing to the paddock with the 28 virgin hobbits in it.
Thank phark for that !!!
I go inside and there is a message on my answer phone from owner of said virgin hobbits, oh by the way there is a dead horse in your paddock
Mental note, next time I see a truck in the paddock, check phone first. Poor little Shitland
Oh and we had some rain LOL so good news is both water tanks are now full, shame all the trees got blown down though.
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HAHAHA LOL Soz Cheers. I was hiding behind dee tree having number 2’s and stuff that’s Y you couldn’t seez me. And then the BIG truck cames in2 the paddock and I needed to poop again, and then you’s turned up with that muzik blaring and lights on an’ all that and I needed to poop again So soz if I scared you but I woz scaredy too |
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Well I wasn’t scared, I just wanted to see what was going on and to say hello to the human that was driving the truck. I saw him pulling the old horse to the truck and I’m thinking why’s he even bothering? Like come talk to a live one that’s pretty and does dressage and jumps. Like ME!!! Me me me me , coooeee over here!!!Mind you at least I could see myself in his truck mirrors. Gosh I’m hot!! |
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Oh great suppose I’m next, dropping like bloody flies, one minute running around, next, groak, gone, didn’t even have time to say goodbye or nothing, maybe I can have their feed, yeah, where is my … err , I’m freezing, what’s going on with .. with??? oh yeah the bloody weather, raining all sorts of stuff here the other day, cold, wet, dead horses, no hay, it’s all crap really, and that truck, noisy as, why did it have to go park right next to me, stoopid old sod, could have fed me, erm err … pants .. forgot |
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June 30th 2009
Well I guess winter is here then :) Wind is going right off, up to 120km/h gusts coming through Ballarat today and some much needed rain I might add. Time to baton down the hatches and stick the fire on.
Poor Grooty looks half drowned at I think Toothy got blown into next doors paddock
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Oh hardy bloody har! should see my mane been blown all over my head it is, all got tangled and it’s now all wet and I’m freezing, and the hay isn’t tasting as nice as that oaten stuff cos of all the mud that’s about and, and, and, um. Phark forgot what I was talking about, anyway I can’t wait for this winter to end so that I can run around the paddock in the sun without icicles hanging of my boy bits and have to put up with Stinky stinking cos she’s all wet and then there is that whole, err stuff, hmm, just not right, no it’s not, hmmm |
June 29th 2009
Well, guess what? Wrong!!!
Katie fell of Minky again in her riding lesson last night. First time they had done jumping for a while and the trainer was trying to put Minky off by putting items around the jump to try and put her off so that Katie had to really push Minky through the jump.
Anyway they tried heaps of stuff but nothing was working, Minky just kept jumping everything, in the end the trainer put Katies coat on the jump and Minky freaked and ground to a halt which resulted in Katie sliding down her neck in slow-mo before dropping unceremoniously on to the ground
Well at least she is jumping again lol.
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Oh forget the ‘Uman, I was awesome, jumped everything and the teacher said I was brilliant. Yes, me me me me. Showjumper she said. I just jumped everything and only stopped because I didn’t want to get the ‘Umans rug dirty. You should have seen me jump, I looked fantastic, awesome infact, I am da bomb |
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Oh whateverrrrrrr. Leg-end in her own lifestime that 1. lol soz but I’ve seen fleas jumpz biggr than that fat cow. All mouth and no jodhpurs that one. I woz talking 2 my paddock homie Tooffy and he said sumfink, not sure what it woz mind, anyways I don’t fink he likes her and stuff either. But I reckon he could jumpz better than her. Anyway better go, bye bye lol soz ta. CHEERS |
June 20th 2009
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Whoa 2 cool for skool, I’m on my dads blog He told me all about the other horsies that comes here from all over da world and how is old horsie Bazzy was famous and I dint believe him. This is so rulz. Well I’m Dorthydeedinosaur but my dad callz me Grotty … hmpppf. I’m the good lookings one in the paddock and I loves to hangz around dee paddock eating lots of stuff like chaff and hayz and wooden posts hehe. |
| I share da paddock wif Miss Boss Boots Minky, she steals my food and is a horrible smelly witch who finks she’s the beez kneez cos she does ponny club with the human but I don’t care coz my dad loves me the most and give me cuddlez and I never seen him give the witch face a cuddle.
And my dad ridez me, well he hasn’t lately cos he’s a big slack arse but he keeps threatening to lol. Anywayz I better scoot coz me dad will be back soon and if he finds out I’s been on his puter he will be well not cool about it. Laterz horsies |
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Yes, yes, YESSSS I’m on the BLOG , woohooo. this blog is all about me, right? ME ME ME ME ME ME ME !!!!! You all know who I am, everyone knows who I am cos I’m the bestest horsie in the paddock. MY PADDOCK!!!Why I have to share it with a Standard Bred ewwwwww and that nasty grumbling little fur ball is beyond me. I’m use to sharing my paddock with the top of the crop horsies like me. I once shared my paddock with Bazzy, he was my fren. |
| But he ain’t here no more so it’s now all about ME ME ME ME ME ME again, as it should be. I’m the one that gets ridden, I do pony club and I win loads of ribbons because I’m super and I have a trainer :)So I’m special and a princess. And my mum says I’m the prettiest horse in the whole world, she got that right. Anyway I’m off to eat all of Grotty’s feed cos I need the energy as I have training on Monday. |
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What’s this crap? why do I have to come in here and write stuff on a stoopid human letter thingy, I want to go back to the paddock, it’s not fair dragging me away from my snooze to have to come do this, I always have to err umm where is my feed? probably blown away in the hurrican in the paddock, bloody wind blowing a gales, it’s icy cold, my waters frozen, any minute now my nob will drop off, how long to summer? where is my feed? did I say that already? fark I’m confused it’s having to share a paddock with these two idiots. Big hairy fat cow grotty and that prissy posing princess drives a man insane, can’t think straight with those two around, can’t even remember what I was even |
| saying now, oh I give up, where’s my feed? Oh I ate it already, well it wasn’t enough, too much chaff in it, not enough hay, to cold, bugger this I’m going back to the paddock, waste of time this is. Oh and before I go, never mind, I forgot. |
June 16th 2009
I was thinking of starting a diary as Grotty, really miss writing as a horse
And loved the goings on betwen all the horsies, and with Grotty, Minky, Toothy and the paddock full of the stumpy hobbits next door it would be fun.
Whatcha fink?
Leave it as it is as a first person or go back to from the horses mouth perspective?
June 15th 2009
Woohoo I got some hay!!!
Next door neighbour has a shed full of it :) And now so do I
June 13th 2009
Well that was a manic couple of weeks I’ve just had. Been real busy at work trying to get on top of some big orders, thankfully it will settle down a bit and life can return to some normality.
I ran out of hay on Friday night, well technically there were no bales left so Katie who is now feeding the horsies only had hard feed until I picked up some more today. And I say technically there were no bales left because when I went to put the new hay in the shed I had to sweep up all the hay that had been dropped on the floor and that turned out to be a couple of bale loads … sigh
Anyway that means the horsies didn’t get any hay Friday night and guess what, yup, Grotty ate through the rest of the post and started on another one, so that’s obviously the connection to the post eating then as it’s happened twice and both days they missed a hay feed.
On other news, the swine flu has still got the attention of the media, they stopped testing for it last week so no-one actually knows how may people have it over here. We do know that outside of the US and Mexico we have more cases here in VIC than anywhere else in the World. See I told you we were competitive
Zippy made a half arsed attempt at humour by starting up a facebook group called ”bring Bazzyboy back home” That didn’t make it past the stalker filter though, prompting a rather curt “stop it” email :) Which then caused Zippy to change it to an unofficial Bazz fan club. Had to laugh, waking up on a Sunday morning to a bit of tanty chucking.
Oh and Toothy bit Katie the other day Well more like sucked her hand maybe, she was feeding the horses and went to move Toothy out of the way and he turned around and nipped her. She was just looking at him as if to say what the heck was that for, he’s looking back at her mumbling away “should have fed me first, I never get fed first, you always feed that precious princess Minky and that big cow Grotty and I have to wait till the end and have the scraps and it’s not fair, bad enough when that Bazz was here but at least I got something I could eat till the others had finished, but now, oh no, feed the bloody favourites, leave the little guy till last, oh is that mine? err well I was still last and I’m the oldest and need my strength and I’m the male of the paddock and ……..”
I think he forget where he was in the conversation at that point because he just promptly shut up jibbering and got on with his feed.
Oh and before I forget, need to book the dentist this week, that should be fun
May 31st 2009
Bazz is on the move again
Big bugger has been up to his usual tricks and driving his new owner insane … oh dear :) First of all I got a copy of this email sent to me.
“I am having a number of issues with him and after a lot of consideration I have decided he does not suit me and I would like to find him a home elsewhere. My other two horses are covered in cuts and bruises from Bazzy constantly bullying them around (now he is tearing rugs). They are both old horses and don’t need this constant abuse. I have tried separating him – but as you know he just frets and runs up and down the fence line, where he is at risk of serious injury. Obviously I have thought long and hard about this and I cannot see any other option”
And then today I had another update from the person that had Bazz last before he went to Canberra.
“Just letting you know that I’ve organised for Bazz to be taken under the wing of the President of one of the local Adult Riding Clubs (on the outskirts of Canberra). She is qualified by the EFA as an Introductory Coach. She picked him up this week and has taken him to be rehomed by one of her students.
She has got two of her students lined up to adopt him. The first one to have the opportunity to score Bazz, is a 50 year old woman who has a daughter who rides. Though she is an experienced rider the woman had a bad fall a few years ago, which was a severe blow to her confidence. She has been riding one of her horses in her lessons. She believes her student and Bazz could be a nice combination. If Bazz goes to her he will be living on 30 acres of great pasture with a nice mare.
If it doesn’t work out with that student, she has an adult male student who Bazz may suit. Whatever the case Bazz’s rehoming will be managed by her – who I believe is a more than suitable candidate to manage such a task. On all accounts Bazz is in very good nick, “probably a bit fat” are her words.”
Obviously I’ll be interested to see how long he stays at his new home this time before he’s terrorised his new owners into moving him on again. Hopefully if he can behave himself to the new year and then start acting up I might be able to get him back
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May 28th 2009
What on earth is going on over here???? Seriously this swine flu is getting a bit over the top and to be honest I’m over it already. It’s in the news 24/7, mass hysteria has broken out, people retreating to underground bunkers to hold out until after the flu season has finished. Ships held up in Sydney because two passengers have been infected, schools closing and general cases of running around with heads up arses going on everywhere.
Here in Victoria we have out of a population of a fair few million, 50 confirmed cases with people suffering from mild flu like symptoms.
100 times more than that reported cases of ingrowing toe nails this week, didn’t make the front pages did it? No it didn’t, and yes, you can die from it if it’s left untreated, and no, I don’t know if it really was 100 times more cos I made it up. But isn’t that the fun of scaremongering.
People losing their families and homes in the bush fire, families devastated by the recent floods, the everyday victims of alcohol abuse and violence are “suffering” some poor person coming back from their holiday with a runny nose isn’t by any stretch of the imagination suffering, in fact I’m the one suffering right now cos they are giving me a headache just having to listen to all the crap going on.
Some people over here are now convinced not only are we all going to die by the weekend, but there is no cure!!! we are doomed.
Well sorry, but that’s bollox, cos I found one
Now can everyone just settle down, stop going on about it and just keep it to yourselves (Literaly) honestly there is much bigger news out there. North Korea tore up the armistice agreement between North and South Korea, effectively reversing the end of the Korean War, this was shortly after North Korea let off another nuke and a flurry of short range missles.
This is of course very disturbing to the whole Asian region, which happens to be on our doorstep. Hardly a mention in the papers … sigh.
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May 21st 2009
BOO!!!
FFS, I lost the login details Had to reformat my pc went to log in here and it asked me for my password and I’d forgotten it (Muzzy shut it)
Really sorry about that, bit embarrasing really. Finally managed to sort it out by hacking into my own server (hacking into, as in, try every password I could think of cos I forgot mine, thought I’d clarify that to save anyone being petty and thinking I was actually hacking into my own server) :))))) I have now written them down and hid them in my mattress LOL
So what’s been a happening? Well ….
You missed the whole post eating saga!!! Grotty and don’t ask me why, decided to eat one of my posts, this happened over ONE night!!! Fed her in the evening pole was ok, went to feed her in the morning and the pole had been eaten.
Now Bazz windsucked but he took 6 months to shave a few mm’s off the top of the post, he never ate it
Check it out
How stuffed is that?
Katie still hasn’t had the repeat of the games that were cancelled, she does have pony club next weekend so might find something about it then.
Charlie is in love with his quad bike, went to tuck him in the other night and he was asleep in bed with his new crash helmet on LOL ….. Bless him
And me, I’ve just been really full on with work, next week will be really busy too but it should settle down a bit at the start of June which would be nice.
Anyway enough of all that, what’s been happening with you lot?
May the 4th (Be with you)
Happy Star Wars day
On another note, this Pig flu … sigh … Called the pig flu hotline earlier to get some information and all I could hear on the phone was crackling.
Ok I’m going
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April 29th 2009
Little bloke has got himself a new hobby
Went to a BBQ over Easter if you can remember that far back and Charlie and Katie had an absolute ball hooning around the paddock on a quad bike, so I bought Charlie one on Monday so he can take it over to his friends to go riding.
Taken this long to get it going, apparantly it needs fuel LOL, oh dear, anyway after discovering it also has a choke and you need petrol, I had it up and running this evening.
I took it for a burn around the paddock so I could set the throttle inhibitor so it goes nice and slow and just before Charlie went to have a go, the chain came off , oh dear, anyway. I’ll get it all fixed up for next weekend which is when I said he could have a proper go as he’s away this weekend.
Anyway, what ya reckon?
April 28th 2009
Sorry been a bit slack just had no time this week.
Katie had her zone games on Sunday, Captained her first team
Fantastic day what there was of it. It was totally freezing, pouring with rain and then hail and 100km winds.
The event got called off 2/3rds of the way through so I guess it will be rescheduled for another day, so no ribbons this time around.
Anyway here are some pics of the day, and for those that asked, it’s Katie and Minky
Katie being all Captainy and showing one of her team where to go
Pole race (zig zag through the poles and back)
Poor thing was so cold she ended up borrowing my fire coat
Bottle race (Stick bottle on barrel and hoon it back to the start)
Katie had to knock the blocks over with the stick
April 18th 2009
Had a great morning watching Katie do her games practice ready for the zone games event next week, Minky was really behaving herself today so Katie had a great time.
I did nick off in the middle to grab a winter rug for Grotty as I don’t have one for her and managed to scoop one for half price at pet stock because they can’t sell 6ft 9″ ones
Picked up some feed today for Grotty and Minky, took the trailer over to grab some hay. When I got to unloading it I was one short, so retraced my steps beck to my supplier but couldn’t find it
Drove home and went around the side of the house to get to the shed and the bale is sitting in the paddock …ffs .. put the bale in the shed and then reversed back to park the trailer and reversed into a tree. So that was fun then … pfft
And here you go just for Muzzy
April 17th 2009
So, fine, I’ll just stick to my photography then
Oh, yeah, forgot to mention. On Saturday I’m taking Katie off to do some games practice on Minky. Remember a while back I mentioned Katie was competing later this month, well she will be representing her Pony Club next weekend in Ballan. (About 50km away) all the local PC’s take place.
Anyway Katie got a letter yesterday and she’s been picked as the team Captain. How like totally awesome I’ll make sure I take the camera and get some photos.
On that note, here are some recent pics of Grotty Dotty, who is not only back in work but I’m riding again and I’ll start taking some lessons on her in couple of weeks cos I fancy jumping her. I reckon she’d be pretty good at it if she doesn’t trip over her own hoofs with those gangly legs of hers
Gee that post was a bit horsie not sure what happened there LOL
April 14th 2009
Well I’ve decided that this recession is a bit of a worry and I need a back up plan.
Our main airline just laid off over 1,500 workers today, stock market is a mess, Dollar is week and things are looking a tad gloomy.
And it got me thinking about what I would do if I lost my job. I don’t really want to go back into the web building business cos that was too much of a headache, I’m never going to mass a fortune from this blog now my money train Bazzy Boy has gone to a new home
So I’m sitting at my desk scratching me head, back in to retail? Nah too old for that game, maybe back into corporate? probably not a good idea as my sense of humour tends to rub people up the wrong way, maybe something creative.
THAT’S IT!!! And then it hit me.
I’m going to paint horses and sell my paintings!!! Yeah awesome idea. I can do shows and stuff and sell on line and put them into stores.
So I sat down and did this!! What ya reckon? Cool or what?
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April 13th 2009
I Just had one of those days before Easter.
One of my drivers was off today so I took the truck out to do the mattress collections. My GPS stuffed up so I got totally lost somewhere in Melbourne, I reversed the truck when I had to go back the other way and took a tree out and then I pull up at this house and knocked on the door and said I’m here to collect a mattress so this old boy said it’s in here and led me up the hallway to the bedroom, opened the door and his wife was still asleep on it..
What the ???
So I said “well your going to have to wake her up cos I’m not putting her on the truck”
No sense of humour went right over his head.
So I’m looking at him as if to say “well?”
And he says she’ll be up in a minute would you like a cup of tea.
Really wasn’t in the mood for this, already running late and had a mountain of work to do, so I throw my hands up in the air and put the whole day in the too hard basket and said “yup that would be lovely, any chance of a sandwich I missed breakfast”
15 mins later the old dear comes out in her dressing gown wondering what’s going on and I’m sat there reading the paper, with a cup of tea and a bacon and egg sandwich on the go.
And that was before I shot myself in the leg with the staple gun
I was training someone on how to use it and I forgot to put the compressor on so they staples wern’t coming out properly and then I remembered the compressor and tried again and shot myself in the shin. Stapled my jeans to my leg
Funniest thing was the guys face
I’m holding on to my shin shouting and cursing like mad, and then went, nah only kidding just skimmed , here you have a go.
He had this stunned and confused look on his face
I think he thought I meant I wanted him to try shooting me in the leg with it
So I was really looking to having four days off over Easter LOL
Anyway nuff of that.
Had a really busy Easter, took the kids over to the Dandenong / Yarra Ranges (Otherside of Melbourne) for a BBQ at some horsie frens place. Their grandson had a few problems when he was born last Month so it was a BBQ / fundraiser for the Royal Childrens Hospial In Melbourne. They raised about $1,100 which was sensational and I met up with a heap of people from vichorse forum which was great.
Kids had a total ball, Charlie spend the whole day running around the paddocks with a group of kids and by the time we left he was covered head to toe in mud and had this huge smile on his face.
Saturday went to another BBQ at some frens just over at Mt Egerton (Just up the road) that was a fantastic day, they had some kiddie quad bikes and Katie and Charlie spent the day zooming about on those.
I took a heap of horsie pics on both day’s check them out if you are interested (www.photobucket.com/crossflow)
And today, I fixed the float. have been meaning to do it all weekend as the back panel was loose on the tailgate, so spent the morning getting that all sorted.
Might go for a ride now
April 12th 2009
Yes we have Easter here, apparently it’s a Christian thingy and I know must of us are Pagans and sun worshipers but there must be a few followers here judging by the huge Easter egg stocks that have been on the supermarket shelves since Boxing day
And on that note. I woke up this morning to find this in my kitchen and the kids giggling away, so obviously not all traumatized by the other day
April 9th 2009
Gross out moment this afternoon, one of Katies riding friends brought over an injured bunny to my place, it was in a pretty bad state, by the time I got home it was pretty clear that it was pretty close to gone.
It was lying in a box in my tack room so I told Katie to put it in the paddock and see if it would pick up on its own.
About half hour later she comes and gets me and says it’s dying and could I sort it out because she couldn’t put it out of its misery, So I’m like .. oh great, so what am I suppose to do with it.
So she tells me to hit it with a spade or something. Righty ho, so I grab the spade from the shed and I’m looking at this rabbit and then looking at Katie. ffs, so I told her to go inside cos I didn’t want her seeing it, so off she go’s inside.
So I’m back looking at this rabit in my paddock with spade in my hand never had to do anything like this before thinking I can’t do it. And then I’m thinking if I don’t what example am I setting to my daughter and she’s going to think I’m a wimp, so phark it, you have to do what you have to do.
At least she wont see it.
So I whacked the rabbit with the spade and it’s pharken head flew off and hit my kitchen window just as Katie appeared at the window to see if I had finished, next minute she’s in the kitchen screaming, I feel like throwing up cos I have a headless rabbit at my feet, my stoopid cat rocks up and starts pulling the rabbit off under my shed. Charlie my 7 year runs out to see what all the commotion is and steps on the rabbits head and starts screaming as well and I’m just stood there head in one hand and spade in the other and all I could think of was bugger this I’m moving back to the City.
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April 4th 2009
Hello Wanda and welcome to the blog thingy.
So sorry for the lack of posts but life is a bit hectic at the moment, been stupidly busy at work trying to get enough emergency beds over to the bushfire survivors. Had to make 200 last week so at least that’s a few more people that can now get a decent nights sleep or still no sleep on a comfortable bed.
Anyway nuff of that. So today has been my first decent break for ages and I decided to spend it worming Grotty. FFS you would have thought I was trying to suck her whole insides out of her body into the syringe rather than squirt a small blob of worming paste into her mouth.
I understand it’s not the nicest of things but after chasing her head around for 5 mins I decided it would be easier to just stick her head in a head lock and wrestle her into submission
Sort of worked which impressed the heck out of me :) Ended up using the lead rope looped over her nose to stop her from pulling her head back up and tickling her mouth so she opened it enough for me to squeeze the whole tube in.
I’m going to clean the tube out and fill it with something like puree carrot and keep doing that couple of days a week till she gets use to it so I don’t have to go through all that grief just to worm her.
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March 28th 2009
Well with the exception of March 24th when I did bugger all :) I’ve been real busy this week with work. One half of the factory (the recycling side) got closed on Friday and we let go 4 of the staff which was a bit of a bummer.
Ironically the other half of the factory which makes mattresses had the busiest week since it opened last February, so anyway, most of my time has been taken up getting that all sorted out.
Had a great day today though, we ended up having a BBQ this evening and I got a nice fire going in the old oil drum which was pretty cool cos last time I attempted that I nearly set my head on fire
Trick to it is to light the fire from the hole in the bottom and not chuck a load of petrol in and then lean inside the drum with a cigarette lighter.
We are all off to watch Charlie in the Buninyong Gold King parade tomorrow, he’s going to be a pair of dragons legs Wont see the top half of him as he’ll be inside the dragon so no idea how we will know which one he is but least he will have some fun.
And just so you can have some relevant horsie content ;)
Now I have Grotty back in the main paddock, I did some ground work with her yesterday and today decided to have some floating practice. I thought she might have made it difficult for me because she was having floating problems before I started retraining her, but she farted about for 5 mins before she got what I wanted her to do and then I had her self floating in about 10 seconds.
Got her to get off again just on a rope wiggle and then back on, did that about 10 times straight on and straight off again before I knocked it on the head for the afternoon. I was so happy with her, she’s such a good girl and I love being around her.
So now we will start riding her regulary again so I can start going out on trail rides with Katie. Katie had a ride on her couple of days ago and is aiming to take her to her Equine course in a few weeks time and I’m going to start taking her to riding lessons on the week Katie has off after Pony Club, be nice to get back to some horsie content
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March 24th 2009
Guess what I did today? Cos I’m not telling you
Snigger
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March 23rd 2009
I bought Grotty and Minky and Toothy back to our paddock yesterday. Really missed seeing them every day without having to trek through a forest to find them
Katie is going to give me a hand to get Grotty back up to speed seeing as I’m working all week, and she can ride her after school for me.
Had the biggest snuggle with Grotty this morning, I think she’s missed me as much as I missed her. Need to give her a wash though cos she’s stinky, oh no she’s not, that’s Minky
Can’t believe I’m having to go do all this just so you lot can see some photos of me riding horsies … sigh
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March 20th 2009
Oh deary me :) On a totaly non horse realted topic for a change
Katie my lovely daughter finished school today and waited at the bus stop as usual so she could make her way home. Obviously a busy week decided to have a quick nanna nap whilst waiting for the bus turn up.
So there she is having a doze in front of 100+ other kids also waiting for their buses.
Wakes up 10 mins later at the bus stop completely on her own and no bus (Cos it’s gone)
I can’t believe no-one woke her.
Poor thing will be up for so much grief on Monday. It’s probably a good time for me to stop laughing now and show some compassion … snigger :)
Anyway I pooped 
so I’m off to bed to watch a mooooovie
March 17th 2009
Whoops my bad, forgot all about you lot
Been busy updating gravarty (www.gravarty.com)
It was well out of date and totally missing horsie pics.
Now has three horse related sections and you can even donate to the bushfire appeal if you really want to that is.
I’m pooped and I’m off to bed 
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March 12th 2009
It’s Chucky’s (Charlie) Birthday today !!!!! Little bloke is 7 and was soooo excited when he woke this morning.
He got a heap of new clothes, a snazzy pair of RM Williams boots and some cool toys that were so cool I think I might have to confiscate them for an hour or two when I get home tonight
But his big pressie is a party at the indoor mini golf that he’s been asking for over the last couple of Months, so he’s going to invite 10 of his mates to run riot for an afternoon.
So if you happen to be thinking of driving past Ballarat on the freeway I’d take another road on that day
And today he’s getting not one but THREE birthday cakes, he’s getting one at the after school centre and carol his morning carer said she was bringing a cake over this evening and I think his mum will bring one over with her as well. So I’m off to go buy a bucket for him to throw up in
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLIE!!!!
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March 7th 2009
Opps my bad :) Put the forum link back up. It was when I updated the blog with the weather panels I must have used an old file that didn’t have the forum link on it, oh well, all fixed now.
Well the weather has finally sorted itself out, gone are the super hot days, high winds, bush fires etc and we had settled into a much colder, wetter, more safer period.
UNTIL THE EARTHQUAKE!!!! WTF???
Seriously (LATEST NEWS) apparently it registered 4.6 on the sphincter scale or whatever it’s called.
Oh and we had snow on the top of Mount Hotham this week.
Seriously enough already!!! Yes we know there is global climate change and all that jazz, but come on at least spread it about a bit. I now have frost bite on my sunburn!!
This is what happens when people go moving cows off of mountains!!!
It’s bad enough that last week I had to put my electric blanket and heater on one night to have the aircon on the next to put my heater back on the following day to cope with 34 degrees and high winds the next and then rain and 15 degrees. Settle the fark down!!!
Good news is that no damage has been reported, probably the last thing we all need right now is another natural disaster but it did spook out quite a few people in the city last night when it spilt their lattes and not wanting to be left out people as far away as 150 - 200km’s are claiming they felt it
They are still trying to locate the epicentre, think they might find it had something to do with Muzzy falling out of bed last night
Whoops did I just type that???
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March 4th 2009
Wooo Hooo It’s finally over
Latest news (Click to view) from over here is that the fire danger for this year is now over … finally!!!
Yesterday thankfully, the fires that remained were kept under control, which was no mean feat given that we had winds of up to 125km/h going through the fire affected areas, many new fires did break out but these were put under control pretty quickly, all of the major fires stayed within the containment lines, and then …. the rain came
So, thanks to all you guys in the US, UK, Canada etc that were doing the rain dance and blowing snow in this direction, and on that note, you can pack it in now if ya don’t mind, it’s bloody freezing tonight.
So finally .. :)
Now I guess it’s time for those communities that were devastated by the fires to start to re-build, time for people who lost family and friends to lay them to rest and start grieving them properly, and time for idiots to start pointing the finger to who is to blame for it all happening, well ok she started doing that whilst we were still trying to put the fires out but you get my point.
And so all the arguing and bickering will begin. The Royal Commission will listen to everything and anything about the need for culling back the fuel loads (and rightly so), the put the cows back in the mountains twaddle (yawn), more resources etc etc and all the usual tripe that they will have to go through to try and get to a place where this doesn’t happen again.
And they will still be arguing about it next year when we will get the call to get out there and do it all again. But in the meantime we can at least relax.
Well I guess that means I have nothing else to talk about for a while other than Grotty :) I’d almost forgot about her. Oh and the kids, Minky, Toothy and Toby (The cat)
And seeing as it’s the long weekend and there are no fires to be fighting.
Oh and btw, do you like my weather tracker at the top of the page :) Left one is for home, right is for work because there can be a big difference between the two
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March 2nd 2009
FFS, no peace for the wicked as my mum use to say
Just when I thought / was rather hoping it might all be over and now we have rising tempreatures in this next 48 hours coupled with winds of up to 150kmh
They are now predicting fire conditions to rival Black Saturday
Some sites are predicting more losses of property and people
March 1st 2009
Well thank god February is finally gone, for the shortest Month of the year I thought it would never end.
And thankfully the bush fires seem to have calmed down and we can all start getting on with some sense of normality.
And today was the first Sunday of the Month so off to Pony Club we go.
Katie had a really good day, did fantastic at Cross Country and Show Jumping and now is easily jumping grade 4 and even some grade 3 jumps. Ok I told her a little fib because she wasn’t listening to the instructor who told her to do the grade 5 jumps if she wasn’t ready to do grade 4, so when Katie had to do Cross Country, I left out the bit about grade 5 and said she had to do grade 4, so she did for the whole day without a problem.
And she also had a great session on games and has been invited on to the games team for the zone games in April and has also been invited on to the musical ride competition (Basically a synchronised 4 horse dressage test) on the same day which is an elimination event and if the team gets through, Katie and the team will represent Victoria later in the year, so Katie has a real chance of representing her State in an equine event which is pretty darn good for someone who was told she was a hopeless rider and would never get anywhere.
Anyway, here are some pics from today. I’m pretty chuffed with how well her jumping is coming on.
Katie gets off to a good start on the first fence
Minky can’t be arsed and Katie is totally not impressed
So Katie decided to have a go from the other side and narrowly avoids a massive stack
Third time lucky and launches Minky into outer space, I love this pic
On to show jumping and another clear round for Katie
Last fence of the first round
Increased the height and still a breeze, nice jump Katie
February 28th 2009
Bad news, I’m still here
Didn’t have any tinnies dropping from trees which was a bit of a bummer
All good yesterday, bit of a non event really. Despite the hotter weather and high winds we managed to keep on top of all the major fires and no flare ups got out of control which is really good news, so hopefully now things will settle back down for the remainder of the fire season.
Oh and I forgot to mention the other day, when the Dayelsford fire took off earlier in the week, I made an offer on VicHorse for anyone in that area who wanted to evacuate their horses they could bring them to me.
So I recieved a call from a lady called Lucy who had a couple of horses she was worried about, so I told her to bring them over, so I’ve had some of visitors this week.
I’m glad I could help out and give Lucy some peace of mind, we had no idea how big that fire was going to get or how far it could spread, so she totally did the right thing by moving them early.
Anyway here is a pic of the cuties :) On that note, I better go feed them
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February 26th 2009
So it’s back on again, pager message came through this evening. I will be on the 1530 strike team deployed over at Daylesford. Leaving from Wendouree at 8am, the good news is the fire is pretty well contained and the tempreature for tomorrow has been revised down to 36 degress (96.8f) the wind is still looking to be a Northeast to Northwesterly 20-30kmh with a change to Southwesterly in the evening.
The wind change could cause us some big problems but hopefully we will be able to keep on top of it all.
I’ll let you all know when I’m back and how it all went, might even grab some photos if I get a chance.
February 24th 2009
No panic everyone, the day time strike team shift was held back so we didn’t have to do anything in the end.
Mind you had to laugh, did end up getting called out when we got back when someone in Buninyong set fire to their paddock when their lawn mower caught fire.
Not quite as bad as Daylesford but at least we got to put it out
So all quiet again for now, Friday is looking like it could be a real problem though as tempreatures are looking to be in the high 30’s again so might end up back on Strike Team on Friday and over the weekend.
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February 23rd 2009
When will it ever stop.
Fires have flared up again, couple of big ones, one on the otherside of Melbourne near a place called Belgrave and the other one about 50km’s from here at Daylesford.
We lost another fire truck today and a couple of our fire fighters got themselves injured at the Daylesford fire and we lost another house in Belgrave.
I’ve been called back in again and am off to the Daylesford fire in the morning, I’ll let you know when I’m back. It looks like it’s going to get into Wombat State Forest if it hasn’t allready, so I guess I’m going to be busy for a while.
Catch you when I get back
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February 19th 2009
I’m having so much fun reading the comments of the last post and to be honest, I’m too scared to post anything new :) Hi Mum
February 16th 2009
Oh my gawdddd. I got an email from my Mum in England tonight, she’s worried about the bushfires, that’s not the bit that troubled me though, it was the bit about Mum has been reading my blog everyday
Mental note to self. Behave, your Mums watching
Well some good news and some better news on the fire front. All the major fires are now either totally under control or at least within the containment lines and being left to burn themselves out, also the weather forecast is looking pretty dandy, with moderately warm weather and piss weak southerly winds.
Please tell me I didn’t actually type piss weak, oh and they named the arsonist of the Churchill fires that claimed 21 lives, just so you know, his name is Brendan Sokalouk.
The media is blocked from giving out his address or publishing his image, but give it half hour and he will be all over google.
Oh, cos there are a lot of oh’s at the moment. I had to bury Willow :( she got herself run over outside the property at the weekend, so that was a bit of a crap way to wrap up a crap week really. I told Charlie what happened at showed him where I buried her, I was unloading my car at the time, I looked over to see where he was gone, and he was standing over her grave saying a prayer for her. Totally melted me, bless him.
I’m sure there are some more oh’s but I’m tired and I’m going to bed so they will just have to wait.
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February 15th 2009
There has been a lot written this last week about the Aussie bushfires, amazing stories of heroics, stories of pain and suffering, sense of loss, pride, hope, you name it, it has been written about.
Some of it well written, some of it factual, some of it just plucked from the air, some of it speculative or un-informed, some of it calming, some it creating panic, some of it just plain tosh (that would be me than :) )
But every now and then when scanning through the news, something grabs you and makes you stop, it totally absorbs you, captivates you and holds you there as it captures the essence of what happened with such intensity that you just end up staring at the paper with the sense that someone just beat you sensless with it.
The following article was published in the Herald Sun, written the day after the fire took hold of and wiped out the town of Marysville. Never have I read anything as compelling, as sad, as thought inspiring and as powerful as this piece of classic journalism.
The article was written by Patrick Carlyon and was entitled “Where the hell is everyone?”
THE Marysville Bowls Club hums with chatter. It’s open, finally, for the first time in 12 months. About 15 bowlers roll on the new drought-resistant grass.
Colin Paul, 83, a crack rifleman who served in World War II, watches. He is armed with walking sticks. A recent fall has slowed him down.
Paul is the oldest bowls club member. Like the youngest member, who is a year 9 student, he has less than eight hours to live.
The bowlers play a couple of games. It’s 11am on Saturday. The sun is heating up.
John Cartwright, 78, goes home and gazes at the photo of his wife, Jean, on the lounge room wall. This is his daily ritual. She died a decade ago from cancer.
Jean is 19 in the shot, taken when they first met. Cartwright has never really recovered from her loss.
They were married in the 1950s, two locals in the “honeymoon town” to which Melburnians would bus for a weekend of tea and scones at English-style guesthouses.
The relics of the era endure. As does the mood.
Marysville, according to the official guff, is a “place to relax and unwind”.
Once a sawmilling town that was a gateway to forests of mountain ash and waterfalls, it has also come to embrace tourist lurks, such as arts and crafts.
Still, it sags in the wider rural malaise. No jobs for young people. The footy and tennis clubs are gone. The local CFA boasts a tanker, a pumper and about a dozen volunteers.
Once there were 14 timber mills, and a big bell in the middle of town that rung terror in children’s imaginations when smoke was seen.
Nature has been kind to the hamlet. Even the 1939 fires flew over the leafy basin.
Now, there are no mills, and a CFA siren in Barton Ave that, for reasons not yet clear, will not be heard by many residents this afternoon.
Today, it’s too hot for tourists or anyone else.
Leigh Jowett has been fixing a neighbour’s slide door. The builder, 56, goes home to close the blinds and do some paperwork.
His son-in-law and a mate pop in to borrow something. He can’t remember what. They walk out, then walk straight back in. It’s about 4pm.
“Oh s—,” they call.
“Come and look at this.”
No one guesses at the twilight ahead. How could they? History offers no precedents.
The storm that will blow and burn Marysville’s 146-year history to rubble, sparing only a crooked chimney here and there, a bakery, a motel, a cafe and the odd house, passes before many people grasp it has arrived.
After bowls, Cartwright watches a Gregory Peck flick. He’d prefer the races, but the Caulfield meeting had been postponed until the next day. Damn heat.
About the same time, the town’s doctor, Lachlan Fraser, has returned from puffing up a nearby hill.
Like all ultra-marathon runners, he’s a bit mad - recently, he finished a 220km run to Mt Kosciuszko.
Fraser, 46 and “looking for a lady”, is training for a 50km jaunt the following Sunday. His training partner, the blue heeler Indi, is starting to tire.
Fraser doesn’t push.
He, too, is feeling unnaturally hot for the morning.
The town’s first resident doctor since it was founded in 1863, Fraser came to Marysville so he could be close to the snow.
He goes home. Reads a medical magazine. Measures the house - new insulation paid for by the Federal Government would be welcome on scorchers like today.
He flicks on a taped episode of The Simpsons but never finishes it.
“It was going to be another hot day, when you can’t do much outside, much inside, and you don’t want to eat anything,” he says.
Mark Simmons, 48, the president of the bowls club, fills up the car with petrol then settles in at home.
He notices the smoke about 3pm, but it’s a long way away. Still, he’ll keep an eye on it and cancels a trip to Werribee. Just in case.
Local radio station UG-FM gives regular fire updates in the afternoon, interspersed between country music songs.
The playing of tunes frustrates Fraser - it lacks the requisite urgency demanded of the threat.
He drives to a higher point to gauge the smoke.
He rings the bushfire hotline and waits 20 minutes before someone comes on the line.
Murrindindi, maybe 30km northwest, officially starts burning at 2.57pm. Its flames fly southeast, towards Narbethong, fuelled by towering mountain ashes, thick undergrowth and wind that some say gusts to 120km/h.
In Marysville, as the ex-CFA captain Cartwright suggests, people try to look on the bright side.
“You always believe that the worst will not happen,” he says.
Others aren’t as convinced.
Fraser takes another drive after the power goes out about 5.15pm.
He has watched the Channel 10 news, which led the bulletin with the Bunyip fire.
He looks across to Narbethong, about 12km away, from Keppel Falls Lookout, about 10 minutes from town.
Narbethong is spotting with flames.
The wind rises in Marysville, hot and roaring, like a million hair dryers set on high.
Fraser returns to discover a road accident on the corner of Lyell and Sedgwick streets.
A gum tree has squashed Beverley McGearie’s car. She’s all right, but shocked - she keeps asking how she got here.
In the first of many dreadful ironies, Fraser notices the advertising on her car - “relaxation therapist”.
Two masseurs stop at the scene, fresh from client jobs.
Fraser can’t compute this. Fire threatens to zap a town surrounded by, and filled with, trees. And people are getting massages?
Marysville has had fire warnings, of course, but it appears that confusion shrouds the town before the smoke rolls in.
The FoodWorks supermarket, for example, remains open after authorities start plotting evacuation strategies.
Pauline Harrow, the CFA radio operator, has taken a call from the Mt Gordon spotter, 3km west, at about 4.30pm.
Flames are still three mountain ridges away, but it’s suggested to Harrow that evacuations begin.
She relays this information to the local SES.
“I said to (the SES), ‘you better start evacuating’, but she had only three members there,” Harrow says.
“People could see smoke coming into the town and I think they were starting to evacuate their families.”
How many get away is unknown, but Jowett says the SES and police get around to many residents, who head off north to Buxton.
By 5.50pm, a convoy of cars is banked back into town. For the CFA’s John Munday, of the nearby Acheron crew, it suggests people have, belatedly, decided to flee.
He glimpses a vision that will haunt him. A father standing in the middle of the road with two small children.
They wear shorts and T-shirts and expressions of utter bewilderment. Behind them, the smoke darkens and that orange glow everyone will talk about starts to show.
“It was pandemonium,” Munday says.
A man in a 4WD stops his tanker and begs the crew to save an elderly couple trapped in their house up the hill.
Munday has to refuse. He knows the full blast is about to hit.
He cannot think about saving anyone else. Saving his crew will be tricky enough.
“This was just so far off the scale of anything,” he says.
“It may be that this was the worst fire day in the history of the world, well, at least the history
of Australia.
“Five hundred Elvises and 1000 tankers would have made absolutely no difference.”
He says it was clear-cut that Marysville was doomed from the start.
“There was no way anything was going to get through it,” he said.
Harrow bunkers down with Marysville CFA chief Glen Fiske and seven others.
Fiske’s son, Kellan, 18 or 19, is in a tanker crew that heads to Yea about 4.30pm.
The family are well-liked. Fiske’s forebears, who date back to 1800s Marysville, used to run the Marylands guesthouse.
Married to Liz, with two sons and a daughter, Bronte, Glen works in an Alexandra timber mill.
The family is known for its “s— stirring” of one another. They’re good people.
In the corrugated iron CFA building, cut into the hill, as smoke pours in, Harrow will peek from a window when “everything” catches fire in Barton Ave.
Her wider family will lose six houses in the next 15 minutes, including her daughter, Leah, who with husband Luke is supposed to move into a new home in Steavenson Close on Monday.
“I just started panicking,” she says. “The urge to run was pretty strong. We did the best we could, but lives were lost, and obviously it wasn’t good enough.
“(But) I don’t think it would have mattered if we had had 100 trucks there. It wasn’t going to stop it.”
The sun is about to hide. Birds are about to fall out of the sky.
And something wicked is about to roll down the hill from the west, engulf Our Lady of the Snow Church, and rumble through a town so shaken it may never breathe again.
It arrives about the time that Jo Hall introduces the 6pm Channel 9 news, and leaves before she signs off.
Its roar will be likened to jet planes and freight trains.
There will be reports of the sorts of fireballs that visited Dresden and Tokyo in 1945.
Embers will swirl like lit matches in a clothes dryer.
Lawnmowers will explode. Tyres will pop, gas tanks will blow, and 30m gums a metre wide will be ripped out by the wind.
People will draw smoke for their last breaths and perhaps wonder how and why they could be taken so fast.
Some, it seems, will fall where they stand, to resemble those petrified bodies at Pompeii.
What emerges in these tales of survival in Marysville is that no matter how thorough the preparation, no one could properly prepare for the fire ahead.
Something else becomes clear, too. Luck is not only handy; today, in Marysville, it is everything.
Untended houses still stand, defended houses burn down. And conventional advice, such as staying inside and filling baths with water, is shown to sometimes offer the thinnest veneer of protection.
Time. There isn’t enough of it before the fire hits Marysville.
And once the fire does, time distorts so that 10 minutes feels like a day, and the rest of your life hinges entirely on getting that next bucket of water right bloody now.
“We knew it would be a bad day,” Cartwright says. “Everyone was warned the day before. But if you took notice of every fire danger day, you’d be leaving every week in fire season.
“This wasn’t a fire, this was an inferno. Fires and infernos are two different things.”
Lachlan Fraser has a methodical way. Patients like that in doctors.
He fills the bath, wheelie bin, sinks and bottles with water.
He is as prepared as he can be, yet his frantic efforts, which lead to a burned face and sliced tendons in his hand, will be futile.
He runs about with a bucket of water like a confused contestant on a game show.
Dousing spot fires, at the front and back, that spark and multiply when he puts them out and looks the other way.
The neighbour’s place (they are away) erupts like a blowtorch. His dogs, Indi and Lani. He must save the dogs. He ties them to furniture inside.
He is armed with a hose when the jasmine trailing up the side of the neighbour’s house catches light.
Embers shower. He tries to splash the neighbour’s home. Too late.
Suddenly, despite his panic, he realises he needs to relieve himself. He lets go in his pants, which helps keep him wet.
“Two birds with one stone,” he says.
Fraser’s eaves catch alight. He slips on the veranda and puts his hand through a window.
Toilet paper stems the flow of blood, but he knows it will need surgery - assuming he survives.
He wets his windbreaker and breathes through it.
He grabs the dogs, telling them over the roar that they will survive.
And, right then, Fraser gives up on saving his house.
Mark Simmons, the bowls club president, leaves a tap running before ushering the family into the hallway and donning a tea towel like a baddie in a cowboy movie.
Mark, partner Sue, and his sons, Ben and Beau, get on the floor.
“It was like a foundry when it actually hit, the amount of embers and sparks, it was just like you see in the movies or working in a foundry,” he says.
You could hear the windows shaking and buckling at one point when it was really ferocious. I could see smoke coming off our drapes.”
They play a waiting game. If the brick house withstands the blast outside long enough, they have a chance.
If toxic fumes enter too soon, forcing them outside, they will die of radiant heat or smoke inhalation.
The fire box, an opening for gathering wood, becomes the fear. It burns and smoulders and, finally, after maybe 20 minutes, opens.
Also, a window finally shatters.
They will die if they stay in the house. They will probably die if they dash for the lawn, where they can hose each other in water.
Simmons notices the neighbours’ weatherboard house.
The couple are home, their daughter’s not.
Well, notice isn’t the right word. Simmons comprehends that the house is no longer there. Its raised floor presumably allowed ember slurries to form underneath.
His quick summing up? Nothing anyone could have done.
His family takes turns spraying one another on the blackened lawn. Beau almost collapses, but revives. The house crackles to a pile.
They move to the horse paddock next door, chattering about the fate of others, and ready themselves for the next perceived threat - lightning.
It’s raining. They’re cold.
John Cartwright is hoping his good friends, the Simmons, will swing by to pick him up.
There is a problem - their three cars are destroyed, including Beau’s 2004 Commodore, which presents the family with a fireworks display that all, except maybe Beau, find rather intriguing.
Cartwright has stayed inside, watching fence palings flare like flaming matchsticks, one after the other.
He ventures outside to put out the eaves - no outside water.
He rings Wayne, his son, as windows crack. Wayne tells him he can’t survive in the house. Cartwright says he can’t survive outside the house.
But it gets too hot. Ash whooshes in. Better to cook outside than inside.
Cartwright is making it up as he goes along.
This is how it is when you’re about to die, he thinks.
Or is it? He’s never been about to die before.
Cartwright grabs a bucket of water and a tea towel, forgets his dodgy hip, and staggers through smoke to the empty swimming pool of the motel next door.
He sits on the bottom step and wipes embers when they settle on him.
This is where he will be found four hours later.
Cartwright has watched his house burn down.
He has also pondered the loss of every photo he possesses of his late wife, Jean.
Six days after the blast, Leigh Jowett, the builder, still will not have checked a Tattslotto ticket he buys on Saturday.
He isn’t hopeful of winning.
He reckons he has used up his good fortune.
“I don’t think I have a chance as long as my bum points to the ground,” he says.
His house survives the fire, perhaps because it is sheltered by a hill. He isn’t there when the blast comes through.
Fearful of falling gum trees, he parks at the golf club and waits an “eternity” before the radiant heat dwindles enough to open the door.
He later sees the logging truck, abandoned beside him in the car park, melted to the ground.
The newly laid neighbouring bowls green, a lingering source of community kinship, is untouched. It’s not much. It’s something.
Jowett’s cat, Old Taz, leaps from the car during the worst of the blast. Jowett gives up on him.
Three days later, Old Taz will turn up meowing at the door, looking for breakfast and sympathy for a burnt paw.
Lachlan Fraser sits on the road, hugs his dogs, and cries.
The house, the fruit trees, everything, is lost.
His phone rings. It’s someone called Andrea asking about a planned group dinner in Melbourne tonight.
“The house is on fire, the town is on fire, speak to me next week, bye,” he tells her. It’s unclear what Andrea makes of this.
A few hours later, Fraser rings his mother Barbara in Eltham on a satellite phone (all other communications are out).
“I’m alive,” he tells her. “The dogs are alive. The house is gone. The town is gone.”
“What?” replies Barbara.
Like the rest of Australia, she doesn’t know that Marysville isn’t there any more.
Through busted fences and around fallen trees, survivors head to the football oval at Gallipoli Park.
It will be a long night of burning eyes and no sleep.
It stings to even blink. Fraser treats people as well as he can. He has replaced the toilet paper on his wound with a bandage.
He checks the clinic - it’s gone. He sees signs everywhere, signs marking piles of burning rubble. Television footage later shows a front door and nothing else, except a no-smoking sign hung on it.
These signs speak of a “before” that, regardless of rebuilding efforts, can never be recreated. But it’s no time to start dwelling on the chances for an “after”.
Not yet. Fraser makes do with the medical kit he carries for marathons in his glovebox. Eyedrops. Anti-nausea medication. Panadeine Forte.
He offers the worst piece of medical advice he will ever give to an overweight patient: “Eat as much as you like tonight.”
Around the oval, gas cylinders keep exploding, such as the big one at Marylands guesthouse, which flames like the fiery geysers at Crown casino.
The pavilion smoulders. Someone, somewhere, somehow, starts snoring.
Melbourne will not grasp the dimension of the tragedy here for days. Dozens, perhaps more, die in Marysville before Victoria knows they are gone.
And over the coming week, Marysville will loom as the site of most deaths.
The name will take on a sinister echo.
The town is a morgue. How many dead bodies here lie untended under sheets of corrugated iron and on the sides of roads?
Its crime scene status, which quarantines the town from visitors, will allow ugly rumours to baste, such as the supposed death of 100 people in the Anglican church.
Yet right now, no one here at the oval munching on biscuits and cakes taken from the Marysville Bakery (the absent owners won’t mind) is trying to grasp the magnitude of the disaster.
They can’t make sense of it. Not now. Maybe never. They have lost their homes. They don’t know where their friends are.
Everyone knows everyone in Marysville. There are about 20 or 30 people here (and a lot of dogs) from a permanent population of about 500.
Where is Kirstie Nilsson, 39, the cheery mother of two who runs the Christmas shop?
Where is Len Postlethwaite, once a champion woodcutter, who comes in heavier than 18 stone?
Where is Marie Walsh, the tree-changer who moved here with her retired dentist husband, Dan?
Where is Nicole Jefferson, the waiter two weeks from giving birth, and fiance Jamie Bowker?
Where is the wife of one of the local policemen? She got in the car. But then what?
Where is everyone else? They must have moved “bloody fast”, as Fraser puts it, to have got out before the flames. Or . . .
Among the gathering are Glen Fiske and his son, Kellan.
Kellan is told about the death of his mother, Liz, and his brother, Dalton, in their Lyell St home.
Dalton, who is 14 or 15, is the bowling club’s youngest member.
His brother falls to the ground. He cannot breathe.
“Two people trying to save their town, and losing part of their family,” Cartwright says.
“And then to see the boy puffing to survive, but still there wanting to save more people.
“That’s bravery, isn’t it?”
It’s perhaps 2am at the oval. Earlier, Rod Liesfield had come in, distressed. He and his family took over Nanda Binya Lodge a week ago.
“He said to somebody: ‘Liz and the kids are gone’,” Fraser says.
“This person said: ‘That’s good’. And he said: ‘No, they’re gone.”
It’s unclear what has happened to his wife and their two boys, Matthew and James.
Liesfield is inconsolable.
In coming days, talk will move to a tree falling on the spa the family were huddling in.
It’s after dawn on Sunday. Fraser wanders the Marysville streets. He’s strangely curious. He wants to search for any relics of his home.
Others will later count - 32 houses stand where there were once a few hundred. He wonders how long the rebuilding will take - and there has to be a rebuilding.
Five years? Ten years?
Flames lick a couple of fence palings. Fraser kicks them over to stop a carport going up.
He walks past the Fiske home in Lyell St. Glen Fiske is in the driveway. He has been inside.
His wife and son, it’s said, have been found arm in arm.
Fraser puts his arm around him.
Fiske does not - cannot - say anything. Fraser, too, struggles for words.
“Oh God,” he manages.
The only memento Fraser has found from his home is a Swiss cow bell, lying under ash about 10m from where it once hung in the kitchen.
He keeps walking, with the dogs, the cow bell clanging in rhythm to each step.
“It’s this lonely, grey, ash landscape,” he says.
“It’s like a nuclear bomb has hit. And this cow bell keeps ringing. It’s like For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
Fraser turns the bell upside down and chokes the hammer.
February 13th 2009 (Quick update)
Unlucky Friday the 13th my arse.
Seriously there is so much I can write about right now it’s just stoopid. I have a really great article I want to post but don’t want to push the post about Bec saving all the horses down the page, I have so many more updates to update you all on, I just don’t know where to start
Anyway, this is a quickie about the Clydie in my post of February 10th. The really sad pic of the Clydie in the burnt out paddock. Anyway, after seeing Bec’s post about the “Out of the ashes” story, I stuck up a post about the Clydie.
And tonight there was a message from Spell who found him!!!!! WOOOHOOOO. He’s in a paddock with plenty of grass and some hay and water and a little white fren to keep him company
Check this out
Thanks so much Spell, you truly are a legend, you totally made my week and I just can’t thank you enough. I was gutted having to leave him when the fire truck got called away and to know he’s safe and with company really lifted me.
And thanks to Vichorse, if it wasn’t for the awesome community on this website I’d have been stressing about that Clydie for god knows how long.
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February 13th 2009
Only just realised I burnt my nose the other night
Anyway, something I already knew but became apparent today is that life is all about balance, you can’t have happiness without sadness, you can’t have life without death, and you can’t have good without bad.
And when it comes to extremes you can’t have people that step up to the plate and show the most amazing courage in the face of adversity without there being some low life pond sucking rat bag to off-set it.
In the news today, along with amazing stories of courage and survival, two more bush fires were started by arsonists and if that wasn’t bad enough or predictable enough, they have arrested two guys for looting.
Sometimes I just have to shake my head, it would actually depress the crap out of me without the balance, and today I came across a post on VICHORSE (vichorse.com) which was a lovely bit of balance.
Bec (bobbiegirl08) and a group of the girls and guys from the forum went on a mission to recover a number of horses from the bushfire areas and take them to a safer environment.
The area they went in to was where I was on Sunday - Tuesday and all I can say is fair play to them. They all got together at the Kinglake Riding Club and then it looks like they headed out in convoy from there
They then spent the day just recovering horses that had been caught up in the bush fires. The photo that I think is one of the most classic pics of this whole incident is so inspirational and moving it is beyond words. It is called “Out of the ashes”
Bec is making it available to people via donations to the bushfire appeal, not sure of the final details yet, but if you want to get a copy of the print, you will need to visit either www.petshaven.com.au OR www.triplerequinewelfare.org and make a donation.
Anyway here is the pic
Bec and all the folks from Vichorse and anyone else involved in this initiative, that was an outstanding effort, you should feel really proud of yourselves, you did a great thing yesterday and I think you all rock.
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February 12th 2009
I can’t believe it is only Thursday, talk about a full on week.
Just when I was enjoying a couple of days respite from the fire front, I get a call at work to go to Ballan where I was fighting fires and carrying out search and rescue only two days ago, to pick up a load of mattresses that have been donated so that we can clean and sanitise them before re-supplying them back to the survivors who are desperate for replacement basics, like beds.
And to answer your question Muzzy, how do we do it?
We just do. I don’t tend to look outside of the job in hand and just focus on that, you have to. If you start thinking about everything else that is going on it will do your head in.
I joined the CFA after seeing a picture in a newspaper of a firefighter sitting on a tree trunk totally exhausted, no idea when a relief crew would come because they were short of replacements, I just thought that was so bad. There I was at home in the City, sitting in my office reading about some guy in the country giving up his time to help others, and no-one was helping him. So when I moved to Ballarat that pretty much was one of the first things I did, joined the CFA so that I could give something back to my community.
The CFA is almost totally made up of unpaid volunteers. There are some brigades that are paid career firefighters, Ballarat City for example, but the vast majority (90%+) are doing it because they want to. The CFA is the Worlds largest volunteer based firefighting organisation (58,000 volunteers) and rated one of the best firefighting units in the World especially when it comes to bushfires.
We comprise of people of all ages (16 - 70+), male and female, able and not so able bodied. (I have seen at least one firefighter with a hook instead of an arm) we don’t discriminate on anything, if you want to give it a go, we will support you, simple as that.
At Whitlesea on Sunday I was fighting along side this old boy who must have been about 75 at least. There has been a lot of talk about how brave the CFA firefighters are but I swear I have never seen courage like when the reporter told the old boy how brave he thought he was for fire fighting at his age, that took some bollocks
Why do we do it? … Really? … Because we want to help our fellow Aussies and to protect our beautiful Country, simple as that. We expect nothing, ask for nothing and give everything we can to make a difference.
And how can we do it? Training and a strong sense of Community and plenty of support. It needs to be done and we put our hands up to do it, so we just do, but I couldn’t do what I do without the support of the Brigade, my family and friends. It has been fantastic this week, I had heaps of help with Katie and Charlie and this meant I could just focus on the bushfires without having to worry about what was going on at home, it made a huge difference and was much apprciated.
And we never question why, whether we should or shouldn’t, Jesus if we did actually stop to think about it none of us would be doing what we do :) I mean, seriously, even I know that fighting a raging fire at my age on a 47 degree day and then spending 2 days sifting through rubble for survivors it not a good idea, certainly not fun, but needed? Hell yeah, so that’s why we do it, because as I said, it needs doing.
A lot of the public out there have voiced that we should get paid by the CFA for what we do, why? … We don’t want the money, it’s not why we do it. We don’t need to be paid to feel that what we do is appreciated, we know that by the looks on the faces of everyone we have contact with, that is our reward.
Anyway, I’m lucky because I will get paid for the days I took off from my work to go to the bush fires, however some people are not so lucky. Some firefighters had to take annual leave to attend the bushfires, others had to take unpaid leave and in some cases firefighters were told they could not have any time off paid or unpaid so quit their jobs just so that they could help others.
To those employers who do not release their CFA members for incidents like this, I say to you … shame on you!!!! Despite what you might think, your precious business is not more friggen important than people lives being saved, and when you are sitting there with your colleagues going on about how bad and terrible the situation is and those poor people etc, don’t forget to mention you wouldn’t release your CFA members so people can see you for who you really are. (Sorry but that really shits me)
Anyway, we are certainly not the hero’s, we don’t like the title because it puts us above others and that’s not fair. If you look at the footage of the firefighters being interviewed on TV, they all start looking at their feet at the slightest mention of bravery and heroism, we are uncomfortable with it because we are just doing our job, nothing more, nothing less.
The true hero’s are the everyday Aussies out there, battling for their homes, protecting their loved ones and having to pick themselves up and move on with their lives. The things I have seen, the stories I have read and heard from the people that survived the events of this weekend have left me feeling very humbled. The strength of these people is simply amazing, I don’t know how they do it, where they find the strength. To me these are the real hero’s and they make me feel proud to live in this great Country.
February 11th 2009
I received a pager message today, the Eureka Group has been stood down from Strike Team duties, our work at Whitlesea, Ballan and Kinglake is complete for now, the fire has been contained and its status has been down graded to no longer a considerable risk.
That may change, but for now at least we can take a break, for how long that will be we don’t know.
As I type this, the two biggest fires that are still going at Bunyip and Murrindindi look like they may well merge into one. If that happens we face a major challenge, a fire front that we may struggle to contain.
Next week the forecast is not looking good, hotter tempreatures, gusty North winds and extreme conditions are looking to return. This could mean new fires or re-ignition of existing ones.
And if we get the page to go, we will, because it is what we do.
To all the Emergency Services, the Police, Ambos, SES, DSE and all the support teams, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and everyone else who has helped and supported the CFA during this crisis, thank you so much, we could not have done it with any of you.
And to all my colleagues in the CFA, The Eureka Group, The Buninyong Brigade, I thank you all. I thank you for the sacrifices you make for others, the professionalism you show, the guts and determination to get the job done and for watching my back. I am proud of each and every one of you and feel honoured to be by your side doing what we do.
I found this video on U-Tube posted my mickmorrison2008 and it seemed somewhat fitting … enjoy
February 10th 2009
Well it’s my Birthday, in fact it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to …
I’m back, exhausted. I left home at 4am this morning and finally got back at 10 to midnight, first thing I did was go see my kids, both fast asleep and not a care in the world. For the first time today I was happy.
The rest of today I was deployed around Whitlesea and Wallan. I have tried to spend the day getting my head around what has actually happened here. Lives wasted, property ruined and once beautiful forest turned to kilometers of ash.
All over this beautiful state of Victoria it is pretty much the same, in some cases whole towns have been completely wiped out. The death toll is now 174 and will rise to over 200. That will be the bodies that we find. Total missing is now estimated at over 300, some of those we will never find.
Their families will have no-one to bury, they will be officially listed as missing, their families will never get closure and for that I feel a great sadness.
At least three of the major fires that killed most of the 174 so far are suspected to have been deliberately lit. Words can simply not express how I feel about that. The forecast for Saturday was 43 degrees celcius (+100 f) with high Northerly winds, low humidity and a fire index of over 300. A fire index of 100 is classed as a worst case scenario, Saturday’s rating was three times that. It was always going to be a disaster if a fire broke out on that day. Simple fact.
Everyone knew it, it was obvious, and whoever started the fires knew it too. In temperatures close to 47 degrees someone decided it was a fun thing to do to go and start a small little fire in a forest, just a bit of fun, keep the firefighters on their toes, no-one will get hurt.
The hot Northerly wind and the searing heat grabbed that small flame and hell came down on all of us.
Within 5 minutes the damage was done, a demon had been let loose and no-one was going to stop it. It rose up, in places 50m high and the heat was so fierce it lit everything in it’s path, igniting the ground in front of it sometimes kilometers away and it roared, oh it roared alright, it roared straight up the mountains like a tornado travelling at over 500kms and hour and destroyed everything in it’s path.
At one point it was leap frogging so fast, the head of the fire so fierce it created a new one in front of it which created another one in front of that and on and on it went, an eye witness in Kinglake said it travelled 20km’s in two minutes. That’s close to 1,000 km’s an hour.
A simple flame, a silly harmless prank, lets keep the firefighters on their toes.
3,000 firefighters from all over Victoria, some more shipped in from New South Wales and Tasmania, we were all on our toes.
We will play your game and we will stop it because that is what we do.
We will risk our lives to stop your demon, stop it killing and destroying, are you having fun now?
The Police and the Government have now classed arson leading to death as murder, about time. When they catch the person responsible for this, and they will, he or she will be prosecuted for mass murder and will serve the time, and I have no pity. Not for them.
We finally get control, at least of some of them, some are still going and will keep going whilst we try and contain them too, but for now at least Whitlesea is at peace, or as at peace as you can be in the circumstances, I’m far from at peace if I was honest, right now I’m troubled.
I was troubled at 6 o’clock on Monday morning, standing beside the fire truck after spending the night putting out countless hot spots, having a stretch, waiting for the sun to come up when it struck me just how peaceful it was, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and became troubled. It was silent, I mean really silent, not a single bird twittered it’s morning chorus, everything was gone.
Today I was troubled when we drove around checking properties again, we had given up searching for survivors, there was never going to be any, we looked anyway. We marked places we had checked with red tape so other crews and the Police knew it had been checked, some properties had already been checked and some has our red tape on the front of the property, some had the blue tape of the Police to indicate a crime scene, a body or bodies had been found here.
I’m working my way through a property, I lift a piece of metal roof, it crumples in my hand, underneath there is nothing but fine dust, I lift another section and a bed frame had partially survived, beside it is a big pile of dust about 2m long and half a meter wide, I should have called my crew leader over after heeding the warning not to disturb any odd looking dust piles as this could be all of what is left of someone, as I turn to call out, the wind picks up and blows it away.
I guess I will never know, but then again it wasn’t my family, I don’t really need to know, I don’t need closure, but I am troubled.
I go outside and check the perimeter, just in case someone had try to run outside and got caught in the fire, there was nothing there, just more dust, burnt out buildings and vehicles. I stand outside what was the front of the house and look out over the scorched landscape and imagine what it would have been like before the fire. It would have been magnificent, even with everything I could see as far as I could see destroyed, the view was still amazing.
I imagined a family, happy there, sitting on their porch, kids playing in the garden, I carry on with my search and see a pile of burnt out childrens bikes and a swing set, the seats melted away. Fot the first time, I was more angry than troubled.
All I could ask myself was why?
It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.
Anyway, here are some pics I promised. Some are quite disturbing but it gives you an idea of how I spent my Birthday today.
Whitlesea Staging Post Tuesday Morning 10th Feb - My Birthday
Eureka group gets ready (Ballarat City, Wendouree and Buninyong Tankers)
Sorry had to take this, just loved the Ladies sign behind the Army Personnel Carrier
Craigeburn Tanker decided to do some off-roading, driver got stuck and had the piss taken out of him
Had a break for some well earned cricket
Reality bites, this would have been dense forest with heaps of shrub, now all dust
Barren Landscape
Just goes on and on and on
This broke my heart :( Whole paddock was burnt out, how the horse survived I will never know
Spent some time grading and clearing tracks to create fire breaks in case it re-ignites
Sam from Buninyong putting out another hot spot
Search and Rescue, the devestation hits home
Amazing, one side of the gate all the trees were lost, otherside they all survived
Totally gutted
Nothing I can say .. just so sad
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February 9th 2009 Update
Video news update for you. I’m off back to Kinglake / Whitlsea at 4am.
I’ll let you know as soon as I get back
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February 9th 2009
I’m back, stinky and buggered
Spent first half of the night on search and rescue, trying to locate people that are isolated and need help or to locate those that didn’t make it.
Can’t believe how many properties were destroyed and so random. There were a row of three houses gone, next one was totally untouched and the the two the other side totaly gone.
Had a really bizarre one, I swear was divine intervention, there was this property with about 5 buildings on it, all totally destroyed and raised to the ground, everything in the paddock had been burnt to a crisp and outside one of the buildings was a trailer again totally destroyed, and then get this, 8 inches from the trailer, totally untouched, shiny as new coins and not one single heat mark were two beer kegs!!!! Fantastic
Second half of the night we were on firefighting duties, putting out hot spots. I was putting out a burning hollow tree and stuck my hose into a hole to get rid of the heat, we were using foam and it came flying out of one of the other holes and hit me straight in the face, I must have looked like father Christmas
I was so focussed on putting out the burning tree it took me a while to register my feet were actually burning because the ground was so hot, so I then had to hose my feet to cool my boots down, and then I slipped trying to get out of a trench and fell over a burning log and landed in a puddle of foam, so now I have foam in my face, in my boots and running down the back of my neck, fan-bloody-tastic.
We covered a heap of ground and put out a lot of hot spots so hopefully they will stay down and not re-ignite, I can’t believe just how much damage had been done, kilometer after kilometer of just total devestation. I lost count of the number of houses that had been gutted. The landscape reminded me of the first world war trenches, just nothing but dust and black stumps.
Anyway I got back to the staging post in time for some bacon and eggs cooked up by the Salvation Army and then headed back to Buninyong. Got home about 11am.
My Boss has given me an open ticket if I need to go back out, so it’s very possible I might be back out again tonight, great way to start my Birthday.
We have a really big one on the go over at Beechworth, we really need to get that one under control as there are some big townships over that way and we have lost way to many people and property as it is.
As of this morning the number of deceased was up to about 120 and it looks like there will be many more, so far about 900 properties have been lost.
I’ll keep you all up to date with how it’s going
Great way to start my Birthday
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February 8th 2009
Well last night got totally out of control. At one point there were 3-4 new fires popping up a minute, in one hour alone over 100 fires took hold.
A town called Marysville has been completely burnt down, the whole town gone :(
I use to go there every year on the way to the snow fields, beautiful old town, now it’s all gone, about 80 homes lost.
Kinglake is also out of control, again loads of homes lost, the town was completly surrounded by fire this morning as was Kilmore, Bendigo, Yarra Ranges, Bunyip and looks like Neerim is now being threatened.
I’m on Strike Team again tonight so I’ll head out about 4pm and will go fight the fires over at Kinglake or Killmore probably. I’ll check in when I get back and let you all know I’m ok.
Just an update on that last paragraph, I’m going to be deployed at Whittlesea which is part of the realy big Kilmore fire, I ship out at 3.30pm and should be back at some point tomorrow.
Good news is that the Ballarat area is not at risk and we actually had some rain this morning, so at least the house is safe.
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February 7th 2009
Well what a horrid day. Temp in Melbourne reached 47.4c this afternoon (117.3f) which is the hottest day since records began in the 1850’s and on top of that we have 60km/h winds.
There are a dozen major bushfires going and it’s going to get worse in an hour when the direction of the wind changes. 1000’s of our firefighters are out there fighting as we speak (Good on ya guys).
I’m on stand by at the moment hoping the cool change and rain will come and we wont be needed.
Anyway, just wanted to let you know we are all ok. Most of the fires are about 150km’s from here over the other side of Melbourne, so touch wood they will stay away from here, tomorrow is forecast 24c and rain.
WE REALLY NEED THAT RAIN!!!!!
February 6th 2009
Well it’s started warming up again ready for the big one tomorrow. Temperatures will be back up to 41 - 45 degrees (105 - 111 f) and the press are saying the conditions for bush fires are going to be the worst for 20 odd years and even worse than “Ash Wednesday”
For those that don’t know, Ash Wednesday was on the 16th of February 1983.
75 people died and over 500,000 hectares of bush went up in flames and the fire front stretched across both Victoria and South Australia destroying over 2,400 properties and a heap of wildlife.
It took over 16,000 firefighters to finally control it.
Anyway, tomorrows conditions are a lot worse. High temperatures, very low humidity, hot Northerly winds, dense undergrowth and bugger all rain for weeks.
I will be on call all day tomorrow, hopefully everything will be sweet and I wont have to spend the day putting out fires.
On a totally not connected in any shape or form sort of way, except I guess it’s a way of hydrating and keeping cool, so I guess sorrta connected, but not … oh whatever.
I found a USA store in Melbourne today that sells a heap of imported stuff from Hamerica. I bought loads of Hershey bars and stuffed them all till I nearly threw up and then ate some more
And I bought two cases of Root Beer :) (Root Beer just sounds like the perfect evening doesn’t it ) How could I resist. LOL
If it was sold here as an alcoholic aphrodisiac sales would go through the roof
Reminds me of the anti drink driving campaign “Drink and drive?, you bloody idiot !!!!!” I always thought that was more of a directive “Drink and drive !!!!! … you bloody idiot”
Anyway back to the USA store, next time I go, what should I be buying? What could you not do without?
And don’t go batteries, cos (one) it’s not funny and (two) we have those, I’m thinking more of brands of drink, food, candy etc.
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February 5th 2009
Well that’s just pants!!! 44 degrees again on Saturday but then down to 20 for the rest of the week, seriously, it’s up and down like a tarts knickers, stoopid weather.
Least it could do is rain. We have had , wait for it … 0.8mm of rain so far this year, that’s just stoopid, that’s a mist
Anyway, I checked the horsies tonight just for Poopy and they are all ok, glad for the cool change by the look of it. Grotty was much happier than she was last week in all the heat. I had a ride around the paddock on her which was fun, and then when I got off she decided to itch her head on my leg and nearly pushed me over
No idea what I’m going on about, it’s late, I’m tired and I’m going to have a shower and go to bed, thanks for coming, sorry it was a pointless post, have a nice day / night. Loves ya, miss ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.
February 1st 2009
Finally a day where I can go outside and not bake to death
Nice cool start to the day, got to about 30 and started going back down again, all next week is pretty much 30 degrees (86 fahrenheit) so no more 45+ degrees days (113 fahrenheit) at least for a while … phew…
And I have both drivers back on deck so I actually get to spend some time in the office :) I’m still going to move the office downstairs where it is cooler though, even at 30 degrees the office will be hot.
All the hosies are ok, been checking them 2 / 3 times a day and making sure there is plenty of water. Grotty was really pleased to see me this morning, came cantering up to say hello, Minky was still half asleep bless her and Toothy was in good spirits and trotted over grumbling about the heat
Yesterday afternoon (Saturday) I took the kids swimming, got all the way over to Ballarat at 1/4 to 6 to be told they close at six … bugger, so back in the car and over to Buninyong which closes at 7pm so had a decent hour swim with Charlie, Katie didn’t want to swim cos it was too cold???? what the?????
And then got home and flashed up the bbq. I was dead chuffed because it didn’t catch fire for a change :) Had some really nice steak and salmon steaks, sausages and chicken wings … yummmmm, so the kids and myself had a nice meat fest, ok we did have some salad
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January 30th 2009
Seriously … I can’t be arsed!!!
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January 29th 2009
Ok this is just stupid now!!!
Today it reached 44.5 degrees Celcius (112.1 Farenheit) I have both drivers off (One on holiday and one quit because of the heat) so for the last two days I have been driving the truckand picking up 50 mattresses a load , 3 loads a day and will be doing the same tomorrow when the forcast is it will be 44 degrees again
If that wasn’t / isn’t bad enough I have not been able to get near my office all week, so finally this afternoon I get to catch up on all my paperwork etc.
Its 49.4 in my office WTF!!! That’s 120.9 Celcius. The aircorn is fine if you sit there with your head in front of the outlet but otherwise it’s doing nothing to cool the actual office, and to make matters worse, I started 2 hours early to beat the heat and the replacement driver I borrowed from the other factory is still not back, he’s already an hour and a half late and still an hour away.
And I have to wait till he gets back in this red hot factory so I can lock up and go.
And stupidly I checked the news to see what’s happening due to hot weather only to read that some bloke threw his 5 year old daughter off the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne (Melbournes main bridge) and killed her.
Whole worlds gone mad
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January 28th 2009
UGHHHHHHH!!!! Pahhhhh Mehhhhhh!!!!! 43 frigen gahhhhhh!!! That’s 109.4 Farenheit!!! and for the next three days!!!! Ughhhhhhhhh!!!!! :( Farrrrrkkkkk!!!!
Sorry gotta go have a cold shower and sit on the aircon for the rest of the day. Just got home, it’s 5pm and STILL 40 degrees (104 Farenheit) UGHHHHHHH!!!! Pahhhhh Mehhhhhh!!!!! 43 frigen gahhhhhh!!!
Ohhhhh Noooooo Not the UGHHHHHHH!!!!
January 27th 2009
First day back at work and I have cracked my office heat wave dramas :) I stuck the air con on top of an old drawer so now it actually blows on me and not the side of the desk I’m all nice and cool now.
And yes, I forgot, it was Australia day yesterday. It was good to have an extra day off work to celebrate the English discovering this fine land
Just as well cos the Aussies would never have found it, they would still be standing at the bar in Southampton.
Anyway here is a tester so you can see how “Aussie” you all are.
You know the meaning of ‘girt’ (A dig at the national Anthem “Girt by sea)
You believe that stubbies can either be worn or drunk(bottles of beer)
You think it is normal to have a Prime Minister called Kevin
You waddle when you walk due to the 53 expired petrol discount vouchers stuffed in your wallet or purse
You’ve made a bong out of your garden hose rather than use it for something illegal such as watering the garden
When you hear that an American ‘roots for his team’ you wonder how often and with whom
You understand that the phrase ‘a group of women wearing black thongs’ refers to footwear and may be less alluring than it sounds
You pronounce Mel bourne as ‘Mel -bin’
You pronounce Penrith as ‘Pen-riff’
You believe the letter ‘L’ in the word ‘Australia ‘ is optional
You can translate: ‘Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas’
You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep
You call your best friend ‘a total bastard’ but someone you really, truly despise is just ‘a bit of a bastard’
You think ‘Woolloomooloo’ is a perfectly reasonable name for a place
You believe is makes sense for a country to have a $1 coin that’s twice as big as its $2 coin
You understand that ‘Wagga Wagga’ can be abbreviated to ‘Wagga’ but ‘Woy Woy’ can’t be called ‘Woy’
You believe that cooked-down axlegrease makes a good breakfast spread
You believe all famous Kiwis are actually Australian, until they stuff up, at which point they again become Kiwis
You know, whatever the tourist books say, that no one says ‘cobber’
You know that certain words must, by law, be shouted out during any rendition of the Angels’ song ‘Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again’
You believe, as an article of faith, that the confectionary known as the Wagon Wheel has become smaller with every passing year
You still don’t get why the ‘Labor’ in ‘Australian Labor Party’ is not spelt with a ‘u’
You wear ugg boots outside the house
You believe that the more you shorten someone’s name the more you like them
Whatever your linguistic skills, you find yourself able to order takeaway fluently in every Asian language
You understand that ‘excuse me’ can sound rude, while ’scuse me’ is always polite
You know what it’s like to swallow a fly, on occasions via your nose
You understand that ‘you’ has a plural and that it’s ‘youse’
You know it’s not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle
Your biggest family argument over the summer concerned the rules of beach cricket
You shake your head in horror when companies try to market what they call ‘Anzac cookies’
You still think of Kylie as ‘that girl off Neighbours’
When returning home from overseas, you expect to be brutally strip-searched by Customs - just in case you’re trying to sneak in fruit
You believe the phrase ’smart casual’ refers to a pair of black tracky-daks, suitably laundered
You understand that all train timetables are works of fiction
When working at a bar, you understand male customers will feel the need to offer an excuse whenever they order low-alcohol beer
You get choked up with emotion by the first verse of the national anthem and then have trouble remembering the second
You find yourself ignorant of nearly all the facts deemed essential in the government’s new test for migrants.
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January 26th 2009
Holy Crapolla!!! Just looked at the weather for the rest of this week and we have 5 days in a row of 40 degrees and over (104 fahrenheit +) thank gawd I bought the aircon for my bedroom :)
Work will be unbearable, my office is normally 5-10 above ambient temperature … ouch
Oh well, good news is we are due a cool change on Sunday when it’s looking to drop to 30 degrees … whateverrrrr I’ll be well cooked by then
Had the horsies back in the main paddock today as they were having their hoofs trimmed, Minky had a metal plate stuck to one of her hoofs that she must have picked up in the neighbors paddock, thankfully it didn’t do any damage.
Anyway she’s looking like a little fat pig at the moment, if there was a stallion about I’d swear she was pregnant, all that grass she is munching on :) I might have to bring her back to the main paddock for a while and have her work some of it off, saying that she’s looking in great condition as is Grotty. The trimmer was pretty impressed with the condition of them both.
So anyway best I dig myself in and prepare for the impending heatwave, thankfully the kids only have this week of holidays left and then they are back to school after nearly six weeks off and pony club starts up again on Sunday so hopefully Katie will have a great day and I can get some more photos
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January 24th 2009
Opps sorry for the lack of posts, no-one reminded me
Anywayyyy. It’s Katies 16th Birthday today … woohooo … I can’t believe she is 16 already, where does the time go?
I just got back from picking Katie up after she spent a couple of days staying with one of her girlfriends in Ballarat.
We ventured out yesterday to go see Ballarat’s main attraction (Sovereign Hill) loves that place, it’s a replica of an old mining town from the 1850’s complete with actual gold mines that you can go look at and this awesome old main street complete with original stores selling all sorts of oldie worldie type stuff.
Even has a Hotel (Pub to you lot) where you can buy a beer served by someone in period costume, all very cool and the attention to detail they put in is just awesome. During the school year the local schools send the students there to live a day as it was in the 1800’s and they all get dressed up in period clothes and go to the old schoool for lessons. Charlie went last year and had an absolute ball.
Oh and they have horsies there too :) Here are some pics especially for Ezme cos they are pulling stuff. I know they are Clydesdales but you could pretend they are Shires
Looking down onto Main Street (This is about 10% of the actual park)
The Old Stage Coach which would have run from Geelong to Ballarat (100km’s)
Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Look who we saw on the way home Tooooo cute
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January 18th 2009
Woohoo I’m back. Totally knackered but back none the less.
Thankfully I missed out on the Sydney weather, day before I got there it was 43 degrees … ouch.
Calmed down to 32 degrees by the time I arrived on Friday :) Headed up the Blue Mountains for Friday night and had a great time in the mountain cottage before heading back to Melbourne.
Plan was to head back nice and easy, stop in Albury on the Saturday night and get back to Ballarat early Sunday morning.
Ended up doing a marathon 1,000km+ drive leaving the Blue Mountains at 11am and then heading home via the Jenolan Caves, Bathurst, Wagga Wagga, Albury, Kilmore, Daylesford and getting back to Ballarat 15 and a half hours later at 2.30am on Sunday morning.
Anyway here are some pics as promised.
Route home
The Blue Mountains in NSW near Wentworth Falls
The Blue Mountains in NSW near Wentworth Falls (Again)
The Carlotta Arch at the Jenolan Caves
The Grand Arch at the Jenolan Caves
Ahhhh cute, another snake in the wild
Ohhh maybe not so cute :) That’s a very very poisonous Red Bellied Black Snake … Run awwwwayyyy.
Stopped off on the way to check out the wind farm at where ever it was :) Too tired to notice at that point
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January 15th 2009
Oh how crap am I then
So sorry for not updating the blog thingy, been manically busy with work since I got back after Christmas and it’s been really hot this week. Got up to 37 degrees (About 98 fahrenheit) the last couple of days so just been sitting in front of the aircon and away from the study which was like a sauna last night.
I’m off to Sydney tomorrow woohoo. Have a meeting at the Sydney factory.
I can’t wait to see my Jeep again
Checked in on the horsies last night and Grotty has the shits with me :( I went over to say g’day and she just walked off. Guess she’s thinking I don’t like her cos I moved her to the new paddock. Mind you she’s loving the grass :) I ended up chasing her around the paddock until she caved in and let me give her a big hug and scratch and kiss and brush .. bless her cotton hoof covers.
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January 11th 2009
Well would you Adam and Eve it, we took the horsies next door to go eat all out neighbors grass for him. He wasn’t kiding, there are literally acres and acres of grass for the horses to munch on.
That is really going to help the budget out not having to hard feed them everyday. Just need to keep an eye on their weight And also means I can rest my main paddock for a few Months and maybe if it rains actually have some grass in there for when they come back.
I am so stoked and if that wasn’t good enough news he has some hay I can buy at a really good price for when they do come back here.
Here is a pic of them looking really stressed out in their new enviroment
Took them all of 10 seconds to wander off on a munch fest. And because the paddock joins on to the one they are in now, it all smells the same, looks the same and they can still see us at the house. (If they squint, through the trees)
Oh and a quick update on Bazz, he’s settled right in to his new paddock in Canberra, hanging with his paddock buddies and being waiting on hand and foot, or hoof and hoof in his case
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January 10th 2009
Busy busy day!!!
Katie had some friends over for a sleepover / early Birthday Party as It’s Katies 16th in two weeks.
Was a great day!!! Trudie and Charlie came back from Melbourne for the afternoon so we ended up having a huge BBQ with enough food to feed half of Cambodia.
And I didn’t set the BBQ on fire!!! It’s true!!!! It was perfik!
Anyway after the BBQ the girls decided to go ride the horses into the dam, Katie had so much fun, she was smiling so much I swear the top of her ears touched one another.
Perfect timing as we are going to move the horses next door for a couple of Months, my neighbor called me yesterday and said he had 5 acres that he needs to have the grass cut down so can he borrow my horses to eat it? Hell yeah!!!! How cool is that, the paddock next to mine as well, so like a two minute walk. Too easy, stoked
Anyway here are some pics of Katie having fun with Minky, the last pic is Katie on her friends Moniques horse who really wasn’t that keen on going in (The horse, not the girl) apparantly it hates water. Not no more
Bet they fall in, no they won’t, yes they will, no they won’t
Katie and Minky test the water, check the smile
Minky … I can’t bear to look. Katie …. me neither
In she goes
Hey check out my pink and purple vest, it’s a buoyancy aid
Katie on Maverik
January 9th 2009
I would like to point out that nothing on this site is random!!!
I seriously can not believe the hoo-haa that is going on in Australia about Vegemite FFS.
It all started when it turns out that Vegemite may end up being subjected to the “Fat tax”.
I can’t even believe they are even thinking of a “Fat tax” in the first place but that’s by the by. Turns out Vegemite is full of salt, unhealthy and therefore should be taxed through the roof and banished from stupidmarket shelves.
Vegemite has been around since the 6th century B.C and is the stable diet for every Australian, it is part of the Australian way, part of its heritage and taste like crap
Opps I so didn’t meant to say that.
The acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the government will never banish Vegemite cos she eats it on her toast every morning and will continue to do so, so there ;P
This is obviously great news for the plumbing industry who use it for grout when putting up tiles in bathrooms.
Now I know all you poms are going, hang on a sec, that looks just like a jar of Marmite with a different sticker on it, but trust me it’s not. It taste nothing at all like Marmite. Nothing is that good, especially Vegemite.
Anyway it’s been all over the media. The TV, Radio, Newspapers etc have all gone off their rockers about it, the Government are even discussing it in Parliament!!!!
It’s a National Travesty!!!
It’s a friggen joke!!! If no-one noticed there are some real issues going on out there people
FFS!!!
Oh and on a semi-related note, Bazz has arrived safetly in Canberra and is settling into his new home, no doubt wondering why all the politicians up the road are going on and on about a jar of hoof paste
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January 8th 2009
Well it was a scorcher yesterday. Actually it wasn’t that hot but it was in the office. Outside was 29 degrees, inside was 34 and that was with the aircon on. My office has no windows and is huge so the pissy little aircon uint is as useful as a chocolate teapot / ashtray on a motorbike / pork chop at a Jewish wedding.
So today I thought I had better check the forecast and it was going to be 34 degrees. I’m like, oh crap that means the office will be at least 40. So I wore shorts and a thin top.
Spent most of the day wondering where the hell my jacket was and the rest of the day thinking next time I should actually check the weather in Melbourne and not Sydney. Oh Sydney had a nice warm day, 34 degrees apparently, Melbourne was only about 20
Had a new driver start today (8am) he was keen as mustard. (Where does that come from anyway??) Visions of me making a sandwich, hmmm what shall I put on it? “ME,ME,ME … PICK ME” says the mustard jar.
That’s just silly.
Anyway I was really impressed because he actually lasted until lunch break before he screamed out of the car park never to be seen again. Oh except for when he came back for his car and then screeched out of the car park never to be seen again.
Have a new one starting in a week or two, we have a book going on how long this one will last before he screams and screeches. hopefully one of the 100,000 unemployed will stay, least for a while, a whole day would be nice.
I’m looking to fly up to the Sunshine Coast next Friday and will drive back from Queensland over the weekend, that’s over 2,000km’s
Anyway I’m going to go say g’day to Grotty cos she’s being all good and waiting for me to go say hello. She is such a sweetheart :)
I’ll take some photos of them later and stick them up, later, (when I get around to it) which will be … later
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January 5th 2009
Well the weather is nice and warm
So anyway where was I?
The situation that was situationing earlier has been resolved and will hopefully remain that way. So maybe now I can focus on producing some quality posts cognisant of the fact that when I still type the same old drivel I’ll have no excuse or anyone to blame for the content being not what I want it to be :)
Unless I of course blame Muzzy because to be fair, she is a great scape goat as goats go, or scapes go, err hmm I know what I meant.
Thanks everyone for your feedback and encouragement to continue my daily out-pourings of mindless banter. You are all great, love you lots and you all should be getting out a bit more if you think this is entertaining
Off to Unicorn Park tonight to watch katie do some free-falling. She will be trying out her new body protector that Santa got her from ebay, that bloke has gone right downhill I might add, when I was a kid he would have made it or his elves would have, now he’s just some sad plonker with a keyboard buying it all on-line.
Oh .. hang on, that needs a better spin , me thinks.
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January 4th 2008
Finally looks like we have some decent warm weather coming, course we would have because I’m back to work tomorrow
10 days off and we have had about one day of nice warm weather and the forecast for next week is warm and sunny
Katie is having her 16th Birthday party next weekend and it looks like it’s going to be 30 degrees and sunny, so that’s cool cos she’s having a load of her horsie girlfriends over for some riding and a BBQ.
And some good news. Bazz has a new home!!! He’s off to Canberra to live in the Capital of Australia so he can mingle with all the politicians :) I’ll sure miss the big fella cos that’s a fair way from here but at least he’s going to a good home and will have plenty of lush green paddock to munch on.
January 2nd 2009
My arse aches!!!
Had my first ride of 2009 on Grotty today. Went for an 8km walk / trot around the block.
Yes the block is 8km’s. It’s great cos it has one long straight of small blue stone road, a forest track that’s all curvy and up and down hill, another long straight on tarmac and then a short sand stone road that joins me back on to my road again.
So plenty of scenery / surface changes.
Grotty went really well, started getting tired towards the end but then woke up when she knew we were getting closer to home again. I might get her some boots though because her feet were a bit sore on the small stone roads as she had her hoofs trimmed last week.
so now I’m on the look out for another horse 15.2hh - 16+hh white / grey.
So if you have one in your paddock and will ship it to Australia let me know
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January 1st 2009
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
Hope you all have a great 2009 (Even Muzzy)
And thanks to all of you for stopping by and reading the blog, wouldn’t be the same without you
I had a great New Years Eve. Katie, Charlie and Myself went and stayed over at a friends place in Melbourne and had a huge party, some fireworks and way way too much drink.
I passed out at about 5am totally mulleted
YAAA-HAAAWWW!!! BANG! BANG!!!!!
December 31st 2008
Woohoo New Years eve already!!! Well here it is anyway :) Time to ring out the old and welcome in the new one. I’ll be pretty glad to see the back of 2008 to be honest and I’m certainly looking forward to 2009, although to be fair there was some pretty good things happening this year, especially with the kids doing so well.
But I just have a good feeling about the next 12 Months and I’m even going to try and give up the smokes for good but I’ve been saying that for the last 20 years at least it should be easier this time as I’m down to about 5 a day now. I only smoked 10 ciggies when I was in Queensland for 4 days
Talking of which, here are some of my holiday pics :)
One of the many watering holes in the rain forest walk on the first day
Another water hole it was really hot so we were going to go for a swim
Did some off-roading in the Jeep and came across this 6ft long carpet snake
CRIKEY!!! Scarey bugger, not poisonous apparantly
Me having a poo in a hollow tree
Photo doesn’t really do it justice, the tree trunk was about 6ft wide
Looking down on the narrows, great spot to swim
Another shot of the narrows
Top of the mountain rainforest looking into the valley
Walked down to the bottom of the narrows to go for a swim
Looking over the mountain ranges on the sunshine coast
Had a BBQ at the top of the mount and had a surprise visitor, a wild turkey.
The legendary Ettamogah pub made famous by the aussie cartoonist Ken Maynard who drew a whole heap of cartoons from 1959 - until the late 90’s they featured a band of misfits and all their carrying on was centered around the Ettamogah Pub.
Well just had to go in and have a beer or three
Went to the ocean but the weather was crap and the beach was packed
150km’s of non stop sandy beaches, gotta love the sunshine coast
Lovely beach not far from Noosa
And back on topic!!! Look what I found in the paddock when I got home
Just love the white marking on her back, she’s about 1- 2 days old.
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December 29th 2008
Whaey, I’m back!!!! Soooo, what did I miss whilst I was away??? C’mon spit it out.
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December 26th 2008
OMG Only 364 more shopping days ’till Christmas.
Where will I find the time
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December 25th 2008 ~ Yo Ho Ho
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!!!
Wooohooo the day has finally arrived. Started for me at 12.01am when my cat Toby turned up at my front door miow-ing. Nothing overly unusual about that except he’s been missing since Weds / Thursday of last week and last I saw of him (I thought) was on Sunday when he was dead on the side of the road after getting himself run over.
So you can imaging my surprise when I saw him last night. I’m now too scared to go look to see if the other cat is still there just in case it isn’t because that would freak me out big time because I swear to god I thought it was Toby. And the other cat was definitely dead, I knew that cos it had no head. Ewwwww.
I woke the kids up at 8.30am because I was getting impatient and excited about them opening their presents How buggered is that!!! I have to wake my kids up on Christmas day. To be fair Charlie was still awake at 1am because he had seen Rudolf’s nose so knew Santa had been
Katie and Charlie are currently playing tennis on the wii system I got Charlie for Christmas. I reckon their energy levels should return to normal in about an hour as the exercise burns off all that sugar they had in their stockings
Grotty, Minky and Toothy are munching their way through a bag of carrots, Willow is munching her way through her breakfast of minced chicken and Toby is eating a mouse he just caught in the shed.
And I’m going to go start on Christmas dinner cos I’m starving and can’t wait to get stuck into a nice big roast
I’m heading off to the Sunshine Coast in the morning so I’ll be off-line for the next few days so I just wanted to pop in and say g’day, Happy Christmas and have a great day where ever you are.
And to all the regulars, lurkers and those of you that just drop by every now and again, thanks so much for your support this year, your comments, your participation and your friendship.
Have a great holiday and I’ll catch you in a few days
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!
December 24th 2008
One More Sleep!!!!! Ok two for most of you, but I have ONE MORE SLEEP!!! Till Christmas .. woohoo.
Ok, I have heard back on the blood tests for Bazz, and even more good news.
There was no significant abnormality found, no infection, no disease, no anaemia, no inflammation. His white blood cell count was a little low and that coupled with him being about 50 kgs light on in body weight means that he needs a hard feed as well as good pasture. He will be going back onto herbal supplements and he will be going back on his mare cubes!
The conclusion from the Vet was that Bazz will have a future, shouldn’t have a heart attack and/or drop dead. As long as he keeps hooning back to his mares whenever he’s taken away from them and exhibits a general joie de vivre (albeit under saddle ‘cos he’s a lazy bugger) then he’s doing ok. If he starts standing around more than usual and not moving much in the paddock then it’s likely his heart condition has worsened. Obviously face that hurdle if it comes to that.
So basically, all is good with the Bazz Monster so panic over.
So on that note, I have decided to cancel the fund raising for the “Bazz is a lazy big doof head fund” seeing as there is going to be no need for any on-going care for him. And will refunding back to those of you that made a donation.
Well I really appreciated the gesture, it speaks volumes about how you feel towards Bazz but I would find it difficult to keep on to the money or pass it over when really there is no change in Bazz’s circumstances.
Anyway, the main thing is that Bazz is ok and that is all that really matters.
Oh and there’s only one more sleep to go …. woooohooooo
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December 22nd 2008
OUCH!!! I just had to pay out $470 for the vet check on Bazz.
But the good news is that he’s pretty much ok. (It’s not the Mitral insufficency murmur we were worried about) He does have a couple of leaky valves in his heart that are letting blood back in but the vet didn’t seem overly worried about it from what I understand and even suggested that he should be kept in work rather than not working him at all.
And at worst he can at least go move his fat butt and do some trail rides etc, maybe his racing days are finally over though
So … phew
He may deteriorate with age or he may not, the vet said to look for signs of lethargy. WTF!!!! How the heck are you suppose to spot that in Bazz
He also had some blood taken because they want to figure out why he’s losing condition so quick. He was down in Melbourne for a week and he had lost weight, so hopefully they will be able to find out what the go is there.
So it’s back to waiting I guess to see if there is anything else to be worrying about, but as it stands at the moment it’s back to business as usual and at least the immediate panic is off so he doesn’t need to be put out to pasture quite yet.
So thanks everyone for the huge support you gave earlier in the week but looks like we might not need to do a fund raising after all.
OK ~ LATEST UPDATE !!!
Letter from the Vet
I examined this horse today because a heart murmur had recently been diagnosed during a pre-purchase examination. I noted the following:
- Light body condition - weight 530 kg
- Heart rate 36 bpm
- Right sided grade 2 holosystolic murmur
- Normal pulse pressure and rhythm
- Pink mm with capillary refill less than 2 seconds
- Mild jugular pulses
Ultrasound of the heart on both sides showed normal cardiac dimensions but on pulsed wave doppler and colour flow doppler a small regurgiant jet into the rigth (sic) atrium could be seen during systole. This represents mild tricuspid valve insufficiency or in other words a leaky valve. In many horses the murmur is an incidental finding. If the heart rate is elevated above 45 bpm and there is poor excercise tolerance or the grade of the murmur is IV or greater then significant disease may be present. In this case the effect this leaky valve has on the horse is minimal and I believe he can be ridden but if any of the above signs occur he should be returned for another evaluation.
Yours Sincerely
Dr Brian H. Anderson BVSc, MVSc, MS, Diplomate ACVS
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December 21st 2008
Thought you all might like this from Katie, Charlie and myself
Only 4 more sleeps till Christmas … Woohoo
What a bummer, someone deleted my Christmas dance :( Bah bloody humbug to you too!!!!
Oh tell a lie, the website that is hosting it is down
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December 19th 2008
Just a quick update on Bazz, he is booked in for an ultra sound scan on Monday.
So soon as we know what the go is, we will let you all know.
On a cheerier note. Katie won a scholarship award last night at her high school awards night. WOOOHOOOO
Katies high school is split into 4 mini schools and Katie is in the one called Canadian.
Katie picked up a parents award which goes to the top 3 all round good eggs in the 4 mini schools. The winners are chosen by all the kids and teachers etc in the mini school so it’s a pretty good award to get and Katie also picked up a cheque for $50 so she is stoked.
And of course I am as proud as punch, and that was on top of Katie picking up an A in English.
And Charlies school report came in yesterday and he’s well ahead on English and Maths and got two B’s which was great for his first real report. More importantly every subject he got really good comments from the teachers who all said they enjoyed teaching him this year.
I loves my kids ahhhhhhh …
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December 17th 2008 ~ Bazz Flash
Ok here is the good news / bad news on Bazz.
The person that was going to be leasing Bazz on the other side of town has declined the lease after a vet check so he will be heading back to Buninyong.
He is going to be “retired” in the paddock as the official paddock ornament and Cherry lecher.
So at least now he will back up the road (Which is the good news)
Bad news is that during the vet check they picked up a heart murmur which is not entirely uncommon. The concern though is that this may be a mitral insufficiency murmur which is not good news.
I recieved an email earlier that pretty much covers this, and obviously I will keep you all updated to the progress, but I have to say it’s all a bit worrying.
Hi Keith
I’ve decided to retire Bazz back on my agistment at Durham Lead. His new job is going to be Cherry’s life companion. I will make a public announcement on his ad on vichorse.com today of his Heart Murmur, which coupled with his strange pale gums may mean it’s likely to be a more serious mitral insufficiency murmur. I laughed….and then actually cried lots when I read that the symptoms of this are EXERCISE INTOLERANCE!!!
Here’s some more info re: these sort of Murmurs - taken from
http://www.thehorse.com/viewarticle.aspx?ID=554
“A more serious murmur in horses is a mitral insufficiency murmur. The mitral valve is the valve between the left atria and left ventricle and slams closed when the left ventricle contracts, moving oxygenated blood out of the aorta and to the body. The murmur is during systole and typically causes a more serious problem. This murmur can be caused acutely by the rupture of some of the support structures of the valve.
The mitral valve has leaflets with cord-like tissue that attach to the free edge of the valve and to the heart muscle in the ventricle (the valve is almost like a parachute with the cords). If the cord tissue ruptures, the valve will flap backwards into the atria and become leaky.
The signs of acute mitral valve rupture are extreme exercise intolerance (many pull up while working and are extremely prostrate), collapsing, tremors, high heart rate, rapid breathing, blue gums, colic, and/or death. A more chronic mitral valve murmur might have no clinical signs or just exercise intolerance. The aortic insufficiency and mitral insufficiency murmurs are two of the relatively common heart murmurs that horses develop, but there are others that can develop that are caused by turbulence of blood flow within the heart for a variety of reasons.”
I’ll ring Ballarat Vet Practice today and get a quote on an ultrasound so that we can get an accurate diagnosis. As recommended in the article I read:
“The diagnosis of heart murmurs obviously is based on hearing them with the stethoscope. A common clinical sign, if the murmur is causing a problem, is exercise intolerance. Once a murmur is detected, the most accurate and sensitive way to evaluate the heart and the murmur’s extent is by using diagnostic ultrasound. The use of ultrasound will allow the direct imaging of the heart–the chamber size, muscle thickness, valve structures, and a number of other details that will aid in determining the significance of a heart murmur.”
I will NEVER dog him, he’s going to be my baby girl’s boyfriend and King of the Paddock and the horse that gives everyone pony rides! He will never have a saddle on him again.
So what do you think?
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December 15th 2008
Well it looks like you have all managed to keep yourselves amused judging by the comments on the last post
Anyway, got some news for you.
Bazz has gone to a new home, he’s out on lease with an option to buy to someone the other side of Melbourne
Bit sad he’s not local but it sounds like he’s gone to a really really good home which at the end of the day is good news.
I can always go and see him if I’m that side of town but I will miss the big doof head.
Did bugger all with Grotty at the weekend other than feeding her due to a nasty cold spell and rain rain rain all weekend. Really can’t wait for some consistent warm, sunny weather.
December 11th 2008
I got attacked by a suicidal terroristic emo headed roo on the way home last night!!!
There I was minding my own business, cruising along at 110kph signing along to Rolf Harris’s “Mow me Kangeroo down sport” and the next minute one is stood staring right at me, in the middle of the road, hands on hips, tapping it’s foot, hoof or whatever it is and giving me that mexican stand off stare that they do.
And there I am in my 4ltr American Jeep, staring back at it, hands on steering wheel, tapping the throttle and giving it that remember the Alamo stare back (YEEEHAAAA BANG BANG!!!).
Actually it was more like the “SHIT!!!! ROO!!!!” look but lets not split hairs.
So I calculated I had about one second to figure out what to do. I actually had about 12 seconds but wasted 4 of them going “OHHH NOOO NOT THE JEEP!!!” and another 7 working out how long I had left to make a decision.
Anyway, I narrowed the choices to (And I must say that was pretty darn good for 1 second).
A - Swerve left, go off the road, flip and burn
B - Swerve right, take out the car next to me, go off the road, flip and burn
C - Slam my brakes on, back end of car flies up into the air and flips the car on to it’s roof , hit roo at 80kph whilst upside down, car careers off the road, down the embankment, flips and rolls into a tree and explodes.
D - Fuckit
Anyway I guess the sub-concious jumped in and picked fuckit for me cos the next second my car is actually airborn. I swear the impact of the roo hitting the bottom of the car actually made it leave the road. I landed back on the road still doing 110kph and in a perfectly straight line.
I’m waiting for the warning lights to start coming on, massive oil loss, radiator bust and engine overheating, gearbox taken a slamming and the gears are stuffed…….nothing.
I’m like, err whoaaaa. Better have a look to see what the damage is.
So, there I am under the car picking the roo off of the bottom of the jeep, the whole length of the car looks like some manic jelly fight from a Tarantino movie. My exhaust pipe has got more meat on it than the average deli counter at Woolworths (before they went bust that is, cos now they don’t have any) and still no damage.
Anyway here’s some pics
I hope none of you were just about to eat your lunch
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December 9th 2008
Well Katie had her lesson last night and insisted she did jumping so that she could put her fall from Sunday behind her. Have to admire that spirit
Katie said that she was shaking before she started but as soon as she went for the first jump she was ok and then had a great lesson doing some really good jumps.
Karen her trainer had her doing some pretty interesting looking jumps and other than a couple of refusals near the start of the lesson, Minky settled and pretty much took to everything Katie pointed her at.
She ended up jumping about 2ft 10″ jumps which is the start of level 3 and about as high as you go on level 4. (Katie is currently graded at PC at level 5 so this was great experience for Katie and a major confidence boost)
But there was this one jump You knowwwww it’s coming lol. Minky pulled up so Katie gave her a whack on the shoulder to encourage her over and Minky decided to bunny hop over it and cleared the fence by about 3 foot and Katie was on the floor again, this time she landed on her bum in the sand.
Katie just got up, brushed the sand off her bum and went and did the jump again, this time Minky went straight over. After that the bars were raised and Katie and Minky spent the rest of the lesson doing some really good jumping.
And talk about focus!!!! Outside the arena at Unicorn Park about mid-way through the lesson some kids were riding around on these really noisy motorbikes. It was so noisy Karen could just about hear Katie, not sure Katie could hear Karen at all and it was like having a riding lesson at the Motorcycle grand prix
But Minky was totally not bothered by it and both Katie and Minky just blocked it out and focussed on the jumping. Fair play it was a great effort, if Minky was going to spook that would have done it, I said to Katie in some ways that was actually a good thing because it showed that Minky was focussed on what Katie was wanting to do and not what was going on around her.
December 7th 2008
Well what a farked up day it was today
Today was Katies Pony Club gymkhana, her first ever!!!
So it started with Katie getting up late because she forgot to set the alarm, and then when she went to get her horse blanket and pony Club uniform out of the dryer it was still damp because the dryer door had popped open mid cycle.
And then just as we went to get washed the main pump from the water tank carked it, so we had no water in the house (Still don’t)
We finally left and headed off to PC, we should have made it with 10 mins to spare …. until
Of course, we shreaded and I mean shreaded one of the float tyres, so had to replace one on the side of the road and ended up 20 mins late for PC.
Anyway we finally get there, Katie sorts out her gear check and I head to the club house to sign Katie in.
Katie then goes and joins the wrong group and takes part in one of the games and then they announced Katies grade was ready for the show jumping.
So off she goes and has a practice, determined to break the PC jumping jinx.
So up comes Katies turn, she enters the arena.
They give her a 45 second warm up, Katie has about 5 seconds and is off over the first jump.
She had a great round, the idea was that you had to jump as many fences as you could in 60 seconds, some fences were worth more points than others and you could jump the same fence twice (From different sides) to gain extra points.
Anyway Minky played up on one of the fences worth 100 points (2nd highest) so Katie just skipped it and did another, and then decided on the way back to have another go, just as she got to the fence, minky slames the brakes on and spins awy from the jump and Katie comes flying off, side first into a fence post.
Poor thing was really hurting and was in tears, had a real bad scrape down the side but luckily missed her ribs by an inch or two so nothing was broken.
Anyway Katie was gutted because she was going so well. Turns out that the bell went 2 seconds before Katie went airborne signalling the end of her go, so her round still counted
So all was good, had a nervous wait to find out the results and Katie ended up coming 4th out of about 26 which was a huge effort.
So she finally gets her first ribbon for a place in an event. WAY TO GO KATIE!!!
How chuffed is she
And to add icing on the cake, Katie ends up getting another ribbon and her certificates for completing her Grade D and Grade D star tests.
So it all started off a bit crap, but what a way to finish. Top day and nice one Katie!!!
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December 5th 2008
Oh yeah horses
Back on topic. OOOOOMMMMMGGGGG!!!!
Check this out, soooooo sweet. One of the white pygmy thingies dropped a sprog in the paddock next to Grotty.
Totally adorabubble
How cute is that … ahhhhhhhhh
Little fluff tried to double barrel me
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December 1st 2008
WOOOHOOO JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE ALL THE WAY!!!!
Only 3 and a bit more weeks till Christmas. I’m soooooo excited.
Got up first thing this morning and unpacked the tree, will decorate it tonight I have been so looking forward to Christmas this year.
Last couple of Christmas’s have been pretty average to say the least :(
But this year I have the kids Christmas Eve, ALL of Christmas day and the first half of Boxing day so we will have a huge awesome morning and an “eat till you pop” Christmas dinner. YAH!!!
ANNNND I have 10 DAYS OFF!!!!! So I finish work on Christmas eve at Lunchtime and then I’m off till January the 5th , WOOOHOOO.
Only poop is my love life is heading North for 4 weeks to see her family and friends on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, but that’s cool cos I have an invite ;) so I may be heading up there after Boxing Day so I can spend some time with her over Christmas, which will be super cool.
Oh and before I forget, seeing you all asked so nicely, I spent hours getting the forum back up and running so you can now post pics etc. Link at top of page.
Anyway , back to Christmas !!!
WOOOHOOO JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE ALL THE WAY!!!!
November 30th 2008
I like Canadians cos Avril Lavigne comes from there and she’s pretty snappy lately. Just thought I’d chuck that in cos I have had her playing back to back all this week.
Mind you I like Hamericans too cos they have Kate Perry and she snogged the lips of some chick and liked it, or something like that, wasn’t really listening to the words because I was too busy perving at the video
Anyyyyywayyyy looks like my fav shetland (The one that looks like Tina Turner) might not be looking too good :( The owners popped over today and took her away in a truck, she was looking pretty thin and they had to lift her on to the truck because she was wobbling so much, hope she is ok.
Other than that it’s been pretty quiet, except the noise my new super lawnmover has been making as I took to my jungle with it. Mental note to self… cut grass before it reaches head height
Actually it’s a pain in the butt because the blades are too small for major cutting jobs, I was going to hire a tractor or a ride on but the daily hire rate was more than I ended up paying for my lawn mower. Anyway once I have got it down to a decent level it will be much easier, just got to work out now how I can set it up on a jig and have Grotty mow my lawn for me
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November 28th 2008
Hope all my Hamerica frens had a great Thanksgiving.
I have no idea what that all means by the way, just sounds like a good excuse for eating loads of stuff and there is nothing wrong with that.
So come on, spill the beans, do you get pressies? What gets eaten other than the turkey? what’s it all about?
And do the Canadians celebrate it as well or are they just busy celebrating not being American? :)
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November 24th 2008 (Again)
OMGGGGGGG !!!!! I had the biggest WTF moment this morning and have to share this
I was just leaving the house to drop the kids off to the bus stop for school etc. And Katie asked if Willow the cat had got out of the house.
We had been going through a “DON’T LET THE CAT OUT” phase before Willow was desexed because we didn’t want a house full of kittens.
Anyway, one night Katie had the back door open and out Willow got and spent the whole night outside with this big black tom cat. Finally caught her and had to put up with her wailing to him every night until she escaped again, so this time it was straight off to the vets.
Anyway, so back to this morning.
I turned to Katie and said “No I think she is still inside” and Katie goes oh that’s ok because she’s been desexed I don’t suppose it matters now anyway.
Charlie pipes up with “What does desexed mean?” And Katie just said, “oh it means Willows boyfriend can’t have sex with Willow anymore”.
So I corrected her and said “well actually technically he can have sex with her but she wont be able to get pregnant”.
To which Charlie my 6 YEAR OLD boy says “Oh well if Willows boyfriend can’t have sex with her he will just dump her”
Me and Katie just looked at one another, going where the heck did that come from??? PUHAHAHAH I nearly died.
Oh deary me :)
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November 24th 2008
Stoopid weather :( Been a really average, cold and wet weekend so didn’t really get much chance to do anything with Grotty, which is a shame because I was really hoping to go for a ride Sunday.
So we ended up have a major can’t be arsed day instead
I was really tired Sunday morning so was all sleepy. I looked out the window and all three of the horses were all lying down fast asleep as well :)
I went out and fed them all and half hour later Grotty is lying down having another sleep :) She looked so cute. Katie went over to give her a rub and Grotty rolled on to her back so Katie could rub her tummy!!! Ahhhhhhhh how sweet.
November 20th 2008
Ah-haaa I have some lurkers on the site :) Yesterdays post chucked up some comments from people who haven’t commented before which makes me think there are more of you out there hiding. Why you sneaky little devils.
Come on show yer faces, who’s reading and not commenting?
Actually who’s commenting and not reading?
Anywayyyyy I got told a joke today and I don’t get it. Not sure if it’s cos I got confused about a penguin driving a car, but anyway here goes.
A penguin is driving his car (That’s the bit that confused me) and the car breaks down, luckily outside of a garage. So the penguin goes in to the workshop and explains to the mechanic that his car is rooted (Broken down)
The mechanic is busy so suggests to the penguin that he might like to pop over to the 7-11 across the road and get something to eat because it might take a while (Hope they have some fish or this is really stupid) .
So the penguin waddles across the road (Strewth) to the 7-11 and decides to buy himself some ice-cream but because he has flippers he can’t eat it properly and it ends up all over his face, or beak, or bill or penguin mouth (ffs this is retarded)
Anyway he waddles back across the road to the mechanic, his face all covered in ice cream and asks the mechanic how he’s going.
The mechanic say’s “why the fuc@ am I talking to a penguin”.
I made that bit up
The mechanic looks at the penguin and actually says “It looks like you have blown a seal”
And the penguin says, “no, it’s ice cream”
And that’s what I don’t get.
Bit obvious really, I mean, seriously what are the chances of a penguin walking into a 7-11 and finding a seal that’s game enough to let the penguin blow him in the middle of a convenience store.
Stupid if you ask me, of course it was ice cream. I think the mechanic was just being silly.
Anyyywayyyy Tonight I cooked Pasta Tioli, cos I’m a good dad.
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November 19th 2008
So here is the thing … Haven’t done anything horsie since the weekend and most likely wont until this weekend coming, except feed them, give them a hug and that sort of stuff.
Soooo, it got me thinking. I could either not post unless I had something worthwhile posting which would normally be at the weekend, I could post some mindless non horsey stuff like yesterday in between my horsie posts that I pinch from somewhere else and then comment on it, or I could post something else about whatever, or nothing at all and stfu and go away :)
For the first time EVER, I’m open to editorial input :) What would you like to see? Less and keep it just about me and my horsies, or open it up to more and if so, what? I could (for example) just chuck in random rants about things that are irking me, really don’t mind what I do if people are reading it and enjoying it.
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November 17th 2008
Only in Australia!!!
Article from this weeks news below.
An Aboriginal group plans to sue the Victorian Government for ignoring its heritage in the renaming of Mount Niggerhead, a mountain in the Alpine National Park.
For decades, the 1846m Mt Niggerhead in the state’s northeast has been at the centre of a heated debate about its name.
State Environment Minister Gavin Jennings pledged last week to rename the rocky outcrop Jaithmathangs, after one of the traditional languages of the Bogong High Plains.
But another Aboriginal nation, the Dhudhuroas, says the peak is part of their country and the proposed new name is just as offensive to them as Mt Niggerhead.
“It’s a bit like renaming Australia as England,” Gary Murray, co-chair of the Dhudhuroa Native Title Group, said.
“Jennings might as well have taken any old name from Arnhem Land - it’s bullshit.
“This is offensive to our people. The Jaithmathangs are from the other side of Omeo, which is miles away. The name is linguistically and culturally inappropriate.”
Mr Murray said Dhudhuroa members met over the weekend to discuss their options, including possible legal action to force the minister to reconsider the new name.
They are also planning to travel to Melbourne to protest outside Parliament House when the mountain gets its new name next month.
Mt Niggerhead will be officially renamed on December 12 according to a letter from Mr Jennings obtained by The Border Mail newspaper.
Comment was being sought from the minister’s office.
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Brilliant, bugger all to do with horses except it gets very cold there in winter and wild horses wouldn’t drag me there, but that’s about it
I do love the quote by Gary Murray, co-chair of the Dhudhuroa Native Title Group though.
“blah blah blah - it’s bullshit” And that’s the official word from the official
Anyway it’s all been resolved now, apparantly they agreed to call it Mt Shut the **** up
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November 16th 2008
Well I had a ride on Grotty yesterday, didn’t go too far because I had a mate of mine coming over in the afternoon so just went around the block which is about 3km’s. She was soooooo good, just flopped along the whole way and I got her trotting and figured I’d see how long she would trot for before stopping,
Bazz’s record is 5 metres before he needs reminding Grotty went about 1km before I had to stop her LOL. I swear she would have just kept trotting all day if I had let her. And she has one hell of a stride on her, great big gangly legs that’s why
Anyway got back just in time to get changed and go grab something to eat in Ballarat before we came home, hit the beers and bitched about the planet. Well not THE planet, more like everything and everyone on it
Oh except you lot cos your all nice, well most of the time anyway.
November 13th 2008
My babbbbbby has a blog
Katie had an assignment for school so decided to put a blog together for Stink Minky. I think blogs are a silly idea
Anyway when you get a chance, why not have a sneaky peak (http://www.minkystinky.blogspot.com/) and say g’day to her.
I added a link to the side menu ( —————–> Over there) so you can check for updates.
My babbbbbby has a blog
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November 12th 2008
Hope you scroll wheel is working on your mouse
An update about Cherry chops the floosie hussy (Bazz’s words not mine)
WWWWWwwwwwwwweeeeeeellllllll I was waiting to get through the first tenuous 45 days before I posted again about Cherry’s foal-to-be.
Yesterday Cherry had her 45 day scan and to my delight she’s maintained the pregnancy, and I could actually see her one inch long bubba via ultrasound. There were little legs and head bobbing about, and I was amazed with what the Vet, Anne Jacobson told me about the babies development to date.
Have a look at the images which show what the bubba looks like now. It is floating in a 3 inch vesicle, and has- tiny ribs under its skin a domed head that looks a bit like that of Chihuahua! a distinct skull, tiny, tiny little ears
Day 40 Day 50 Full Term
This was the last chance for me to see the foal via ultrasound….’cos it will be too big for the monitoring screen in a matter of weeks!
Anne is an absolute breeding expert, specialising in Artificial Insemination. They have soooo many mares and foals in their pastures at the moment…Anne foaled down 5 in one night!
Anne will be foaling down Cherry and my TB mare Gigi for me. Gigi is confirmed 14 days in foal to Woody - so her foal will be due just over a month after Cherry. Gigi ended up being covered 6 times by Woody to get a pregnancy happening….and both horses were extraordinarily well behaved, considering the effort of the situation.
Anyway Cherry is going to be one of the first foaling mares of Spring 2009 - due on 28th August :)
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November 11th 2008
Well the good news is Katie thought of a name “HUMBUG” bad news is she’s gone
Katie had a ride in the arena last night with her and decided that she wants to keep Minky. Humbug was a little too challenging for her, bit too forward and the bottom line is that Katie just wasn’t that excited about her.
It’s a real shame because she was such a lovely horse, really really well behaved, even lifted her legs for you if you just touched her leg so you could check her hoofs, dead easy to catch and float and the sweetest nature.
I’ll actually miss her
As I said to Sue the owner, right horse, wrong time.
What did it for me, and I really can’t argue this point, was when Katie said something quite profound.
Humbug was much easier than Minky, easier to get moving forward, stayed in the trot and didn’t need to be constantly reminded to keep trotting, easy to handle etc and Katie didn’t want a horse that was easier.
She was learning more on Minky and had unfinished business with her. If she moved on to another horse now it would be like she only did half the job, and wanted to get on top of Minky’s attitude and get her jumping properly and behaving herself.
She knows that means more work but she knows Minky and has a confort level that’s still a challenge.
As I said, I can’t argue with that.
Oh well I tried I’m sure Humbug will go to a good home and make someone real happy, if she had been a hand bigger and I didn’t have Grotty I would have snapped her up myself.
The search continues
November 9th 2008
Well we gave the new horse a go today to see how suitable she would be for Katie.
She was soooo quiet and well behaved
I rode her first figuring that if she was going to do anything dirty I’d rather I was on her at the time than Katie. Actually I would have prefered it if Katie had been on, but that wouldn’t have been the responsible thing to do, now would it.
Anyway she was as good as gold with me, so I got off and let Katie put her through her paces. She has a lovely trot and Katie had no trouble getting her to canter.
Big test tomorrow, Katie will take her to her riding lesson.
At least she is good to float like Minky and Grotty so that’s a good start.
Anyway here are a couple of pics of Katie on her.
Her name by the way is humming bird but Katie is thinking of changing that if we keep her. She has a nice solid build but is much thinner in the fact than Grotty. Oh so you know, she is 15.1hh 10 y/o Standard Bred , Dark Bay, Mare
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November 7th 2008
Oh crap I forgot the blog
YOU ARE SUPPOSE TO REMIND ME!!!!
Had a really busy week, had the big race on Tuesday (Melbourne Cup, the race that stops the Nation) so missed a days work and have been busy trying to play catch up since.
I really switched off over the big race when they turned Bazz down. Too much pressure from the bookies. They don’t like it when the favourite wins by 10 lengths because they have to pay out too much money so they figured the big race would be fairer if he wasn’t running.
Ended up a fight between a couple of inferior horses and the winner (Don’t ask me who it was because my care factor is sub zero) won by 2cm’s. If the horse that came second had puffed his lips out he might have taken it, that’s how close it was.
Anyway, that was that for another year. It was blokes day yesterday, sorry I mean Oaks day. That’s the official ladies day when all the fit young fillies turn up looking a million dollars in their designer dresses and end up a few hours later legless (Very drunk) passed out on the grass with sick in their hair and their skirts over their heads. And all the sleezy letchy guys turn up to cope a gaze of some cleverage and drool down their pants. (I hope it is drool btw) All very sad really
Suppose it beats watching the horses racing though
And it was made even more special when Connex the state of the art train service in Melbourne totally collapsed and stranded 50,000 drunken race goers in Flemmington.
Hissy fits started , major tantrums followed and quite a few finger nails got broken in the process
This would sooooo not have happened at Epsom (UK) It just would not be proper!!!
LOL I am such a snob.
Anyway I’m going to go have a sneaky peek at a 15hh Standard Bred tonight, got my eye on it as the next horse for Katie
November 1st 2008
Well the Spring Racing carnival at Flemington (Melbourne) got well under way today with the Australian Derby. The Australian Derby has been running (Under various names) for the last 150 years, but should not be confused with the real Derby that’s run at Epsom which has been running a hell of a lot longer, or the Kentucky Derby, that hasn’t been run as long but is more entertaining because they run in Western rigs and go YEHAAAA BANG BANG!!! Across the finish line.
Yes, this is another one of those “I have no idea what I’m talking about” moments.
Anyway the race was won by a horse.
Oh you want more Ok it was won by a horse called “Rebel Raider” (Well isn’t that just a YEHAAAA BANG BANG!!! moment).
And the most fascinating thing about this race, is that this horse has never won it before, well actually it might have done but who cares, oh and the Jockey was a woman. (Claire Lindop)
And a woman has never won the derby before.
Oh and the horse was 100-1 cos it had a girl on it and you would expect the book makers to now be well and truly out of pocket after all the girls betting, bet on the girl.
Except they didn’t because she was a girl, girls don’t win big races, so because of that, the horse was at 100-1 odds, it had a snowballs chance of winning, so none of the girls backed the girl because frankly why waste your money?.
And she won by a couple of lengths
I love stuff like this, it is what legends are made of and there is nothing like a good old bit or prejudice to create a legend.
She isn’t a legend because she is the girl that won the friggen Derby ok!!!
She was the best jockey on the day. She probably trained a lot harder, wanted to win it more that the others and had some grit determination to win and why? Cos she is a woman and has had to put up with everyone reminding her of that and that a woman has never won the Derby.
She would have been actually aware of that when she noticed the odds of her winning were 100-1.
What makes her a legend is that she persevered in a male dominated world, rode her way to the top and took one of the most coveted crowns on the racing calender, not because she was a woman, because she was the best jockey in the race … period.
And anyone that can rise to the top of the crop and take out the Derby deserves that accolade.
After the race, when interviewed, she was asked how it felt to be the first woman to win the Derby and she said she didn’t want to be remembered for that but as one of the best jockeys on the racing circuit.
Well she is.
Maybe when she runs again at the Melbourne Cup (The biggest race in Australia) the odds might actually reflect her standing as a top notch Jockey with a will to win, rather than her sex.
Oh and fair play / good effort for the owners and trainers on putting their best Jockey forward, paid off for them big time. Maybe more owners / trainers might take their heads out of their arses and focus on the jockeys ability.
Bet the blokes are spewing though beaten by a girl
October 29th 2008
Look what Katie made me in pottery class
IT’S GROTTY :) … Brilliant, I loves it
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