Thursday, August 11, 2011

Country matters

On Monday afternoon I drove to school to collect the children. A minute away from home there was a paddock full of ewes and new-born lambs. There were also Friesians, alpacas, Shetland ponies, pigs, donkeys and the occasional horse en route, but they are always there. The lambs were new, and gambolling.

Children collected, I drove back. A minute away from school, which is opposite a milking shed, we saw a cow giving birth with the farmer squatting behind her to deliver the calf.

On Tuesday morning I dropped the children off at school. There was a pair of ducks (“a pair of duck”, real rural people say) calmly waddling along the path, oblivious to the cars and children.

We didn’t get this sort of thing when we lived in Mount Eden.

6 comments:

BookieMonster said...

Very much the same around here (Te Aroha) - little lambies everywhere. On Saturday afternoon driving back from Morrinsville we saw two calves that looked brand-spanking-new in the space of about 5 minutes.

It's some kind of awesome really.

laughykate said...

Just as long as they stay off the road....

sonja yelich said...

Where the bloody hell are you?

Stephen Stratford said...

Heh. Not in Australia, that's for sure.

Cambridge. The one in the Waikato, not the one in England.

Graeme said...

I hope the lambs are not suffering from this cold spell.

But if they are, does this make them problem gambollers?

Stephen Stratford said...

Ewe crack me up.