Meet Ben. Benjamin Franklin. When I told Merrill she asked if it was cause Benjamin Franklin had a big nose. I asked 'Did he have a big nose?'

But no. I just liked the name and of all the names that Wayne and I both liked, thats the one I settled on. Its a nice name and I like names I can play with:

Benjamin Franklin when being stern. Ben for short. Benny when wheedling. Benji when being cute. Big Ben when admiring. Benny Hill when he's being a clown.

I'm in love with my horse.

He's coming along well. When we got him he wouldn't let us near him while he was eating. I could catch him easily with a halter, but bring out food and he'd become a slippery eel. Now Wally has drawn the line and is refusing him access to his food bucket, Ben has been forced to accept my presence near his food bin.

First I'd just stand there and wait for him to approach. If he wanted the food he had to come get it. But he's a clever cookie. First few times he grabbed the bin with his teeth and pulled it to

He's really coming along. Or should I say, I'm really coming along. This afternoon I took him out and worked with him a while while Wayne looked on approvingly. I didn't hardly stuff up at all! I was so proud.

I haven't named him yet. I have a list of names, some of which we both like. I figure I'll go through them again and delete the ones we definitely don't agree on for whatever reason. That should leave us with only about 205 names which will narrow it down nicely.

I thought I could get my boy to pick. Write the names on pieces of paper and put them in a bucket, then let him sniff around. I'll name him whichever name sticks to his nose.

Well... it could work!

He looks so handsome in Wally's bridle with its silver bits and the western saddle. I should have taken a photo. TIme enough for that I guess. He has this habit of nibbling on my sleeve as I lead him. Its cute. As long as he doesn't nip hard. Tonight after working him a while I ended with some bonding time. Hugs and

The horse that is still nameless is settling in fine. He and Wally are becoming inseparable which is bad when you want to work one horse. We take my horse into the paddock and leave Wally in the yard and all my horse wants to do is get back to Wally... Wally meanwhile goes galloping around like "I'm having so much fun here and you're missing out" just to make things worse!

You may have noticed the reference to MY horse. That's what we've been calling him till he gets a name. Its 'Your horse needs x' or 'My horse did that'. Wayne's concerned that he wont have a name till he's 29.

But I'm having so much trouble finding the right name. And my horse wont help me! I walked with him today and asked him who he was and he didn't say. I've been suggesting names and Wayne scoffs at half of them, makes wisecracks about the other half, then makes faces at the other half. Yeah. I know that doesn't add up, but its true.

William - scoff
Jack - his grandson is named Jack
Milo - scoff
Biscuit -

I have my own horse!

He's not the prettiest thing I've ever seen, in fact I think he's quite plain, but I love him anyway. Merrill thinks he's athletic looking and beautiful and in about a week I'll have him sitting in my lap.

This is how it came about: We'd started looking for a horse seriously online and by word of mouth. Apparently there are quite a few pacers in the area as there is a lot of harness racing in the area so we thought we might see about the possibility of a horse from one of them. A reject from racing. On Wednesday Wayne and I went to visit a training facility and to see a standardbred gelding, a deep red bay with a white blaze and one white sock. They were calling him 'Noddy' but he doesn't have a real name. He's a calm, gentle boy who was just too slow to race. He's 3 yrs old and already 15.3hh so he's going to grow a bit more and fill out heaps still.

He arrived here this afternoon and Wally went crazy when he heard another horse on the property. It was really

I always thought that described Melbourne... but it turns out Tasmania is just as guilty. Since my spontaneous weeding session the other day the weather has been unpredictable. But perhaps that's unfair. Its been predictably unpredictable. The kind of weather you can't make any plans in. The sun comes out and you think 'What a wonderful day' and you go outside and start working, then go running inside when it suddenly buckets down. When you've lit the fire cause its cold, the sun comes out again and you have to open the doors to let some cool air in. So you think, 'What the heck, go outside and do more work', only to get soaked to the skin cause it started to rain when you were at the other end of the paddock.


Friday was gorgeous. I took Montana and Romeo for a play date at the park with Harvey and his friends. The weather was perfect.

Afterwards I groomed Moghli (the bouvier) and his mom gave me some forget me nots. They've gone feral all over their garden and they look so nice. I

When we bought the farm we inherited a vegie patch, complete with a nice high wallaby-proof fence, watering system, weed barrier underneath the entire lot, 4 raised beds with gravel paths between and raspberrie stalks or whatever they're called. In fact, its probably the only thing around here which had been done to a decent standard. So far all we've grown in the vegie patch is weeds cause we aren't keen gardeners.

Wayne did get all excited at once stage and weeded, then turned the soil in one and a half beds, adding some of the lamb poop rich soil from under the shearing shed in the last few weeks. I promised I'd get out there and take care of 2 of them myself to help, but mainly so I can try growing strawberries.

Note: I'm not a gardener. In my world plants either live or die. I try but I manage to kill about 3/4 of all plants I put in the ground. Even some in pots! The perfect plant for me is a 'Zefi-Proof' plant. In fact, it'd be really handy if that was written on labels, it

We bit the bullet a couple of weeks ago and let Wally into the front yard WITH the dogs! It was a huge success. I'd been a bit worried, knowing that Wally likes to chase Barney and Mischa and that the poodles like to race along the fence line with Wally, barking at him. But when we let him into the yard with them everyone got along fine. The dogs gave Wally plenty of personal space.

Mind you, we'd never leave them all out alone, we're out there with them. Partly cause we're not sure what would happen if we left them unsupervised, but mostly cause Wally can be a destructive b------ ! He drank my tea and knocked over the cup, he chewed the clothes on the line, he tried eating the phone and the camera has a couple of tooth marks. But we've had quite a few glorious afternoons at the outside table with the dogs cowering under the table and Wally hovering over us.


Wally's losing his winter coat. I bought new brushes for him and we take turns giving him a groom. He just loves it. We brush

Well, Wayne isn't the only one who bogs the ute around here. I managed to do it too.

This is how it happened: We took the dogs out into the paddock with Wally as we looked over the mess-that-will-one-day-be-a-stable. The poodles ran around, chasing rabbits and kicking up their heels when suddenly they shot off up the track side by side, looking for all the world like the Great Escape in stereo.

We looked at their disappearing tails, looked at eachother and agreed 'They'll be back'. But time passed and they didn't come back and I started to worry. I had visions of white poodles prancing over the manicured lawns belonging to the neighbour behind us... ok. I pictured them chasing the jack russells they own. Not so bad. Then I pictured them chasing the goats on the property further up...

That's when I decided to take the ute and drive up and see if I could find them.

It sounded like a good idea at the time. SuperZefi to the rescue!


I drove up the neighbour's road (cause our ford has