they are truly delightful animals, with a well-organised social system...usually one of the adults sits in the sunshine, surrounded by babies while the others eat; even the bull takes his turn at minding the young ones when the mothers are off grazing.
today has the added entertainment of extracting a bogged sheep from one of the nearly empty dams. it's up to its neck in fine black mud (perfect for a bit of mud-dyeing!) and we have to crawl to it across a couple of sheets of corrugated iron so as not to be swallowed up by the quicksand-like goop.
where are Frank Hopkins and Hidalgo and a lassoo when you need 'em? Pegasus would have been welcome, too
perseverance wins, helped by much digging in mud with bare hands. scrubbing it off later in the day i discover that my legs have been screenprinted (using jeans as mesh) with black marks. we're reduced to washbowl baths (due to low rainwater) and the water takes on a disgusting smell from the mud. collapsing into my pillow i discover the scent is still firmly embedded.
all night i dream....of mud.
I have added your gorgeous blog to my sidebar favorites and plan to visit often. It's wonderful!
ReplyDeleteOooo, I knew you led a glamorous life. All that jet setting. Clever cattle, have better parenting skills than some humans I know. Oh, and poor old sheep getting bogged like that, mind you, mud dyed fleece ... there are possibilities there you know, shibori those sheep with some eucalypt leaves and stick them in the mud for a few days, cold dye process, the mind boggles with opportunities.
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