ANZAC Day in our little town

 Every year for as long as I can remember our little town has commemorated ANZAC Day with a march and a service,now held  in the local park.

As a child I remember my parents being very involved with many aspects of the day.

We would be dropped at the school to assemble  with the return service men and march  to the Memorial Hall for the service. My father used to call the march and take part in the service. My mother would be in the kitchen with the other RSL ladies Auxiliary members cooking up a storm to feed the large number of returned servicemen after the service. Once they had eaten their fill they would all retire to the hotel for the men  to play two up, have a few drinks and one of my mother's friends would play all those great old wartime songs on the piano. I remember these times with great affection.

We always encouraged our children to march in the dawn service  with the school or the groups that they were part of when we lived here in town and  on the coast and now it's good to see that repeating itself in the next generation.

Yesterday we headed into town and the men, school children and townspeople were assembling  outside the Memorial Hall

Everyone had been given a sprig of rosemary to wear, my friend Lyn was busy helping the students to pin theirs.

They set off to the beat of the drums, students from the local school volunteering for the honour of playing them under the tuition of former drummers.

My brother in law(centre) marches and  carries a photo of my Father in law to honour his service and memory. 

The march comes along the main street, the council or police  always block the roads  for the procession and people line the street to applaud them.

The march ends and everyone assembles in  the park.

Many towns people gather for the service which is ran by the local Central School students who do a wonderful job.

Many wreaths are laid at the memorial, firstly  by our  ex servicemen,

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Then  representatives of local organizations, including the school, Show society, Rail Heritage, progress,  boxing club,  fire brigade ect and any one else who wishes to lay a tribute.

The service concludes after The Last Post is played,  a minutes silence is observed , then Reveille is played and the service men headed to the hotel where a meal was to be served and the traditional two up played , a few  drinks and lots of catch ups to be had  with many memories and  stories shared.

A few of the ex servicemen were happy to pose for a photograph for me.

After we left the service, we paid a visit out to the cemetery to place some rosemary on both of our father's graves.

Last week I visited the cemetery with my sisters in law when they were visiting and  when I approached my Father's grave I noticed a snake curled up on it in the sun and when he spotted us he gracefully slid down a hole where the grave was sunk slightly and disappeared  below the ground.

I had hoped that it wouldn't still be there but alas for me it still was.

So unfortunately my father did not  get a bunch of rosemary yesterday and we placed both bunches on Brian's father's grave instead, I am sure my father would understand in the circumstances.

Hopefully our not so nice visitor will move on sooner rather than later.

Another ANZAC Day has come and gone, it was so lovely to be able to commemorate our  amazing  servicemen both still  with us and departed after not being able to commemorate it in the normal way  last year due to Covid . It was wonderful to see such  great attendance by our locals and many ex residents and family returning for the day.

I hope that this wonderful tradition continues for many years to come, so until we meet again,

Take care,

Stay safe

Cheers,

Jane and Brian.

A Population Explosion( both wanted and unwanted)

 When we first moved to the farm we purchased an incubator and a brooder with the intention of always raising our own laying and table poultry, but slowly we put it on the back burner and a few times purchased the laying hens from a local supplier, which worked quite well for a few years.

The last two lots of hens we purchased at point of lay failed to meet our expectations miserably , laying much later than normal and  nowhere near  reaching the laying totals that our earlier birds had done, even though they were all the same breed( Isa Browns). The prices had also dramatically increased.

One of our hens had gone clucky with a few eggs under her, so we decided to let her sit and she hatched out 3 sweet chicks.

The seed was sown !, So we decided to dust off the incubator, sourced some fertile Speckled Sussex eggs from a nearby breeder and added some of our Isa Brown eggs X with a Rode Island Red rooster.

We had a go at candling the eggs( as novices, had no real idea of what we were looking for, but took pictures to learn from)

They began to hatch, what sweet  fluffy little darlings they were, I had forgotten how much that we love baby chicks.

It was also at about this time a friend offered us a free rooster from some new ones she had bred,  so meet young  Barney !

He settled in immediately with our girls and eventually we will turn our  flocks into two breeds, Barnvelders(like Barney) and Speckled Sussex. The plan is to build some new hen yards.

After 24 hours in the incubator to fluff up we transferred our babies to the brooder.

We moved the brooder onto the back verandah for ease of care, where  there is power, and we were able to help protect it from the mice and rat plague we were also dealing with. We had  purchased this brooder from overseas many years ago  and it is a brilliant set up that makes care of the birds  really easy.

There are little adjustable slides on the side that as the chicks grow you can increase their "windows" to reach the feed and water trays that are attached on the outside.They can also be attached on the inside but are messy.

The chickens grow and change rapidly day to day,

We traveled to the coast for a few days  to see our daughter and her family, Brian's brother looked after our chicks and we were  really surprised to see  the changes  in them on our return. They are so funny to watch and they are such inquisitive birds.

The chicks are now not far off moving to the next stage, where we will put them in a big cage  out on the grass with a heat lamp for the cold nights  to keep them warm.

Meanwhile Mumma hen has been doing a great job with her babies, we now let them out of their cage on the lawn of a day to scavenge and she automatically  heads back to bed each evening and we lock her in.

They will soon move up into the big hen yard with the other girls.

When we feed our cats, any left over food on the plate( and occasionally like in this video we place the plate into the brooder and the chickens go crazy over it. they love it.

NOW !!!

 

IF YOU ARE  SQUEAMISH ABOUT SEEING LIVE OR DEAD MICE, LOOK AWAY OR GO NO FURTHER.!!!!!

Here in central NSW we have been suffering from a mouse plague,  some people to a greater degree than us, but we still have WAY TOO MANY MICE.

When it all started we though that the cats were  so  cute how each night they would kill and bring inside some  mice, carefully laying them as a gift  along Brian's side of the bed,

Now the novelty has worn off a little, the numbers have  increased.

Very soon it was evident to us that we needed to purchase some more traps, but these were not to be found, all our attempts to source locally and afar failed, so when Brian's brother said they were coming for a visit from Brisbane and asked "Was there anything we wanted", we immediately  responded with "Mouse Traps"

He arrived with a box of 21 rat  traps instead of mouse traps and baits for us( which we are a bit  hesitant to use due to the pets) We thought that the rat traps would be useless but they are absolutely  brilliant.

So we run the traps, baiting them with peanut butter,any brand ,any kind , all day long about every hour until we head to bed. Sometimes we lay in bed hearing the traps snapping and get back up to do one more or even two more rounds to collect the mice.

This is our average  catch  every day. No less than 150 rotten little mice.

We have various traps of different styles place all around in our sheds and it takes up a major part of the day just routinely emptying them.

I have to admit we are a bit over it, but I am grateful that  we are enduring a smaller plague to many other farmers, there are people out there ( including some  family)  dealing with thousands upon thousands of the little rodents and are seeing their lively hood disappear before their eyes, and all this after many  years of dealing with ongoing drought conditions.. Some of the videos we have seen are horrendous .

Hopefully this will pass soon, we are thinking that as winter moves in hopefully the numbers will decrease, but so far they show no signs of slowing down.

So, until we catch up again( hopefully mouse free)  we wish everyone well,

Stay happy and safe.

Cheers

Jane and Brian.