Saturday...15 March 2014

We are minding a friends place for a few days. There are ten horses and a not so young blue heeler dog. Himself says the horses are turbo charged food processors. You put high quality lucerne hay and oats in one end and get high volume poop from the other end! The horses do not mind who feeds them just so long as they are fed and have lots of water in their troughs. They alternate quiet grazing with the occasional spirited frolic and gallop around the paddock. No wonder humans are so taken with the horse. A horse galloping free across an open paddock is a magnificent sight. Pure poetry in motion.

The dear old dog misses her humans when they go away and is a bit clingy with the replacements! She is also a touch deaf and is given to dozing off at regular intervals and then jumping awake with a rather startled expression on her face.

We have quickly settled into a routine of getting up early and feeding the horses before breakfast, then doing a spot of housework before gently walking the old dog around the outside of the house paddock. She shuffles and snuffles her way along a route known only to her which involves the checking of last nights rabbit diggings and any unsavoury deposits from other nocturnal visitors.  Himself has seen a fox and rabbits and kangaroos so far as well as lots of different birds. There are magpies, pink and grey galahs,  red breasted robins and very colourful grass parrots.

With afternoon tea over, it is time to feed the horses again and walk the dog again if she is so inclined and then we have happy hour sitting on the back patio in the quiet of the late afternoon where for a little while we can pretend we are the owners of this lovely place.

We could never tire of the views here. The vista from the front verandah reminds me of the view from the back door of the property I grew up on. You can see forever across the slightly undulating paddocks towards a distant mountain range. We have a similar outlook from the back deck. Very easy on the eyes.