Dungarron Highland Ponies

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An unexpected blessing

Posted by dungarron at 04:32 AM on March 08, 2010

Last weekend was yet another trip to Melbourne. This time to my lovely cousin Katelyn's wedding out at Coldstream. Got to Melbourne after lunch on Saturday and we all tumbled out at Tam's (Thank's Tam for putting up with us YET again. Love you!) Taking turns getting ready, alternating with sitting out on the deck trying to get some air. It was still and humid, and something was brewing over the city. We watched the clouds getting blacker and blacker, but it was 3pm and we had to head out to Coldstream, and as we backed out of the drive the scary looking clouds were driving in over the suburbs with terrifying speed.


The little black Alfa flew us out and around the foothills of the Dandenong's, we watched a solid wall of rain chase us while dodging tree limbs crashing over the road. A series of texts and a phone call from Amanda informed us that they would be late as the whole city had been closed because of torrential rain and hail ... little did we know just how big the storm really was! We got to the winery and parked where we thought the car would be most protected, and we watched as it all headed towards us. Poor Katie & Kyle, what a way to get married! But the ceremony was moved inside, but now with the very dramatic backdrop of storm clouds annd lightening over the Yarra Valley behind them. And it was a lovely ceremony, and gorgeous little Kate arrived on her Dad's arm wearing the most beautiful dress, with a stunning bouquet made by her step-mum Kez and all 18 months of little man Chase wearing a three piece suit and tie (and Kyle looked pretty schmick too) I don't think one person noticed the rain or the thunder and lightening.


Katelyn & Kyle Hadland.

Photo pinched from Aunty Tamaris because i didn't take my camera. Doh!


It wasn't a late night, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable one, and a rare chance to catch up with many people we don't get to see nearly enough.


Got home late, no major damage to Tam's house or garden, we all headed in for cups of tea (Nana's that we are) and bed. Up at 9, after listening to rain on the roof most of the night (such a lovely sound) Packed up, hugs all round, off to have breaky with Morgan before heading home to muster and sort cattle for sale. Parked near the cafe in Ivanhoe, Muzz points to car and says "Did you notice that?" "Notice what?" and then i wanted to cry a bit ... poor hi-lux ... dints every where. Orange-peel like dints all over the bonnet, all over the roof ... aaaawwwwnnooo.

"Hello, NRMA? I need to make a claim ...my car was in Melbourne on Saturday March 6th..."


By the time we hit Broadmedows it was sunshiney and humid and the air-con was on. By the time we headed down the big hill at Glenrowan, it was black to the north and obviously raining. Hmmm. Raining at Chiltern. Raining at Wodonga. Still black to the North, raining at home?? Pissing with rain! Yay .. not so fun for mustering cattle though. Made the decision to put it off til monday .. until on a quick look around we found the cow having trouble calving .. so we mustered, drafted and pulled a big, live, heifer calf - all in the pouring rain. And i was more than happy to come in a couple of hours later well and truly soaked to the skin!



Can you make that out? It says 72mm! add that to the 16mm tipped out on Friday,

which makes the best rain we've had for about 10 years!


The Ten Mile Creek - flowing.

Amazing (and i hope it keeps flowing too.)



This is the first time in all of Romi's 3 years that she's had an opportunity to wade through the creek!


You can not imaginge how much time i have spent smiling today. And there is not one new photo of the foals to be seen, because i was just having too nice a time looking at the green and the water. And i am grateful, so very grateful for the opportunity to just look and feel happy, because it's been a long time since i have been able to do that. Thank you Universe.







Autumn arrives

Posted by dungarron at 06:13 AM on March 02, 2010

Autumn is here already!

January / February were nearly pleasant, with not too many ultra hot days (though there were more than enough hot and sticky nights)
We had rain, 4 whole inches that were soaked up by parched paddocks - leaving dry dams dry - but enough to see the existing pasture green up and newly germinating grasses and clovers push away with the sunny days and cool nights. We can only hope that autumn is as generous.


Rose and Millie are both back in foal to Adie. Rosie will be going home at the end of March. We will be sad to see her go, but thank Julia from Harkaway Lodge for the fantastic opportunity to have her with us for as long as we have (and put up with our false start) and hope that Rose's next foal is as lovely as Ghillie is. Millie and Flora will foal in the spring, with Flora quite early (mid-August) and Millie not until November. Both mares will then have a well deserved 12 months off, and (fingers crossed) Tammy and Verona will join the breeding program for the 2010-11 season.


As water gets more and more scarce out in the paddocks, we end up with a fair bit of wildlife coming in closer and closer to the house and yards to drink out of the troughs. Tammy is not a fan of 'roos and had chased this lot out of the creek paddock into the shed paddock next to the house, where they looked to be debating as to where to try next for a drink.


Geordie was content to sit and watch them this time ... he's not as keen to negotiate fences in pursuit of kangaroos as Senga was.

New pictures of the foalies in their albums and some reference pictures on Ghillies for sale ad.

the boys

Posted by dungarron at 11:23 PM on February 06, 2010

Hard at work ... sleeping;

McLeod (Cloud) on the left, Harris (Harry) on the right.

It's looking a bit dry ... again, but from Harry's appaloosa impression

you can see we did actually have a shower of rain pass over.



Back to work

Posted by dungarron at 06:57 PM on January 28, 2010

Happy Australia Day! (ok, it was on Tuesday, but i'm just getting around to posting today)

Even the locals reckon it's too hot to be out in the sun.



Well, it's Jan 29 and today (friday) marks the end of the unofficial Australian holiday period.

School goes back, the long weekends are over, no mor cries of  " ah, CBF" will be accepted.

Knuckling down begins Monday.


We got an unexpected Australia Day surprise.



We don't usually plan calving in the heat of summer, but since reducing our herd to the absolute bare minimum,

We only run two mobs, and a bull runs full time in each mob.

Nice to see the bull is working even in the off season.


Ponies are all doing exceptionally well, not surprising considering they have done absolutely nothing for nearly 8 weeks.

All in good to forward condition *grin*


Flora looks great and looks definately in foal.



Gypsy & Flora have formed a bit of a club hogging all the good shady spots, making the younger

girls go find themselves a spot somewhere else.



The girls had to hike all the way from down in the creek to come see what was going on..




Tamaris...this girl makes my heart sing!

Partbred by Barrymoor Dorian out of Gypsy (above)


Once they'd all had a checkover and had been assured there was nothing

in the car except a skinny yellow dog, it was back to the the boys to turn off the

pumps and head back to the house. The sun was too high and glarey to take photos of Cloud and Harry,

but did get shots of big and small (not that either were happy about having their photos taken)

Cam is making a similar face to that which i seem to make if a camera is pointed at me!


Cam is also by Dorian, as is Harry.



Welsh troublemaker and standover merchant, Dez.


Obligatory shot of foalies and advice that there is yet more pics in their folders in the gallery.




Scorching January

Posted by dungarron at 01:44 AM on January 07, 2010

Forecast for the next week - 34, 39, 42, 42, 42 then a cool change on Tuesday. Sheesh! I hate the hot weather.


New photos in the photo gallery. All the other ponies are here. I just seem to spend a lot of time in the afternoons when it's cooler sitting out with the foals. I will make an effort to get some pics of the boys as soon as possible.





Merry Christmas

Posted by dungarron at 06:57 AM on December 27, 2009

Merry Christmas to all.

First of the summer storms ...

Posted by dungarron at 09:42 PM on December 18, 2009

...arrived with a vengence on Thursday 17th. What was said to be a cool change with up to 40mm of rain, became a cyclonic change ripping through at about 2.30pm. Connor and i were in Albury when the clouds startied building up, and we abandoned thoughts of going to the movies when the dust arrived. The past couple of years have seen plenty of dust storms, and they were generally a pretty good indicator of high winds following.  That combined with the chance of thunderstorms and the fact it was 40 degrees was enough to make the trip home in case of fires.


Morgan arrived home from work at 2pm, and had noticed the clouds and for a change parked her car in behind mine instead of under the red gum in the yard ... good choice Morgan. This is where he car normally sits! (The following photos are from the day after the storms.)



Storm was here and gone again in a matter of minutes, but it was a terrifying couple of minutes! Started with everything turning red with dust, that eerie light and muffled sound, and then the wind started, and got stronger, and stronger ..doors slammed open, garage gate slammed open, tried to close it only to be blown off my feet into the car, finally got it wrenched closed as the tiles on the garage roof started flying off. Limbs were falling everywhere, chook house door flew off, the sound of splitting timber could be heard over the howling wind. Steel sheeting tore off the machinery shed, Cloudy went over a fence as a tree in his paddock came down. Rain and debris were thrown across the yard horizontally in what we now know were 107km / hr winds. I headed out with a halter to catch Cloudy but as more limbs hit the ground and hail began to fall it was deemed too dangerous. So we stayed inside, listening, waiting, and in no more that 5 minutes it fell calm and silent (which in itself was pretty eerie and scary!)  after another 5 minutes it was decided it was safe enough to go and catch Cloudy and check all of the other horses (all well and pretty unfazed)


There were (still are) limbs down in every paddock under just aboout every tree. We only lost one whole tree ...




While checking the big mare mob on the creek i did find one casualty .. a barely fledged Blue Heron strutting about on the creek bank making little peeping noises. I hadn't realised that the heron's nested here, and have no idea where or how they nest, but this little guy could only just fly.


The mares are all looking fat and sassy. I normally wouldn't let them get this fat, and they've had so little opportunity to do so in the past couple of years. I just couldn't justify locking them up ...



Flora (BF Kylie), Tammy, and Verona.


Tammy, Gypsy, Romi, Verona


Flora


And have i mentioned how superbly Verona has matured??






December rolls on...

Posted by dungarron at 09:11 PM on December 14, 2009

Nearly Christmas. Things are heating up and drying out. Foals are going ahead in leaps and bounds, literally.

Heaps of new pictures of both Ghillie and Keziah in their respective photo albums on the Gallery page.


DG Keziah, just over 1 month old

Little Miss Adie-tude

Posted by dungarron at 09:26 PM on November 22, 2009
Hmmm... Keziah is an absolute rocket and is keeping her Mum Millie on her toes.
She's earneed the nickname Miss (Mac) Adie-tude.




She's a lovely girl when she does stop though! Lots of new photos in her photo album.




Flora is settling in well.

It's been terribly hot for spring, more than 10 days in a row over 30, 5 in a row over 35. All the grass has hayed off already. Little trees are struggling with the heat and drying hot northerly winds, despite hand watering and mulching. Hopefully they'll come through. Cam has had another abcess. This time i take responsibility for not keeping that hoof short enough, he's been out for ages while i was busy with youngsters and then foaling. Luckily it wasn't bad, and exited through the bottom of his hoof after two days of poulticing. Smack on the wrist for me. Harry and Verona are having a hard time with the little black flies, both have rubbed their faces quite badly. They are getting both healing and fly repelent lotions to help combat it. I'm not a fan of fly masks, have tried several on Gypsy (who this year seems not to be having a problem) and none proved safe or effective. Rose has been re-served by Adie, and will be preg tested soon. Fingers crossed for a positive so she can be returned to Harkaway Lodge Highland Pony Stud carrying another Mac Adie foal. Millie will also go back to Adie.


Haven't forgotten Ghillie, new pics of him in his album too.


Filly has a name

Posted by dungarron at 02:02 AM on November 15, 2009

After much deliberation, Millie's girl has a name. DG Keziah (kez - ee- ah) It's a family name that's not been used for a while, it's been in my head since she was born. New photo's in the photo gallery.






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