Day 3- The Goat's Head Garden

I started my garden today! Yee haw!  I hoed. A lot. It was brilliant. Here is my little plot.

On one of my breaks I went down to pet the cows and low and behold, what did I find hanging in a tree, but a goat's head! Complete with horns, teeth and fur. It was amazeballs! Look! See for yourself.

After a bit of recon I concluded that it must be the head that Blair, Craig's friend, had found because there was no body and I highly doubted that the thing struggled hard enough to take its own head off. 

After basking in horrified fascination I took it down by the horns and, using them like a set of handlebars, steered myself with appropriate sound effects back to my garden. After looking around I hooked it by it's horns to my fence and dubbed my plot " The Goat's head garden."

I have high hopes that Sam will be just as effective as a scarecrow.

Day 4- Ahhh Shoot!

I got to shoot guns today! 4 of them! And I got the nick name "Annie Oakley." They tell me this is good. -big grins- It was on my 5th round of 5 shots.

5 shots at 20 meters

I was using a BRNO bolt action 22. (And I totally know what all of those random words mean now!) I think maybe I like shooting.

Oh and here was the sunset today.

The road onto the farm. The house is behind the trees on the
left and the quarters are to the right.

The farm vehicles.

Day 5-Morning Feeding

Ok, so I have to share with you the best way to start the day. Ladies and gentlemen, my kids.

They are greedy buggars and they love their milkies. They come out with THE BEST milk faces you have ever seen. And yes, it's faces. The milk will not be contained to mere mustaches.

Meet the crew!

Mama: Connie
Babies: Mr. T, Gutsie, and the new spotty, brown, unnamed one. (I'm toying with Pinto but open to suggestions.)

Mama: Queenie
Babies: Prince George (He's a big fatty), Frank Castle aka. The punisher, and Elwood from the blues brothers.

Mama: (Mean name describing her temperament and the fact that she sometimes kicks her calves. We'll call her...FB)
Babies: Panda (on account that his spots look like a panda face), Gus, Daisy and Slick Rick.

I love them. They come and nuzzle me and I scratch their soft faces. It's everything I imaged it would be when I watched "City Slickers." Baby Normans. Everywhere. So much love.

Day 2- Drenching

Drenching the cows. We chased 20-22 into the run at a time
and then Craig administered the pink goop of health. 

Property Tour. A panorama of one of the lower fields down by the river. 

The ladies. We got to chase a small group down to a VIP pasture
to eat their fill.

Oh sweet mercy

I am in heaven. I woke up this morning, walked out my front door and beheld the most beautiful sight I had ever seen in my life. Green hills bathed in golden sunlight and baby cows frolicking around in the pasture. I stepped off the porch, hopped the fence and gave my fleet of baby cows a morning scratch, visited FJ and Frankie the horses and then helped with the morning feeding.

While Brenden and I were working with the wee ones Craig rounded up the herd for drenching. We're going to be tackling that task after breakfast, which I burned. It was oatmeal.  I am ashamed to call myself a Mathis.

I am covered in wool, I smell of maneuver and hay and I couldn't be happier. Cheerio!

The classic cappuccino

This is for anyone who has ever worked at a coffee shop in Hawaii and has had an Aussie or a Kiwi look at them incredulously when you handed over a cappuccino without chocolate powder on top. This is what they are supposed to look like. Just less blurred. I had just taken a sip before I took this shot and my taste buds were dancing, hence the less than sharp picture. Yummity yum yum.

Auckland sights

St. Matthew's church.

Outside.

Inside.

Their take on the space needle. Except they BASE and Bungee jump off of theirs. ;-)

This guy just hangs at the airport.