The Moaning Chorus

This bit of grass is greener!

The idyllic country morning....one wakes up to the sweet sonnet of birds welcoming the new day and everything is wonderfully peaceful. Try living at Mad Bush Farm - the sweet (cracked) sonnets I get aren't the songs of little birds but the shriek of grumpy magpies, the grouchy cluck of Maggie May as she comes storming out of her egg hoard nest and a bunch of cats complaining breakfast is nigh. Beyond is the Terrorist letting me know she hasn't forgotten that the bottle was stolen away from her several weeks ago. Bottle must be returned or be mooed at for the next several years thank you very much and why isn't it forthcoming stupid human caregiver. Also human explain why I the Terrorist is not allowed to dwell amongst your wierd kind in that box thing I look longingly towards each morning...Just because I came into your box thing one morning and left a big green deposit on your kitchen floor doesn't mean I should be banned for life from entry. By the way that loaf of bread you stupidly left on the bench tasted very nice thank you very much. Such are the trials and tribulations of my mornings here on this crazy farm....

The old man turns 29 this year

Back in early 2005 a few months before Ed came in June my farm was being grazed by my neighbours five cows. All had calved in the November before and their babies were now large, fat and ready to be weaned. Easily enough done. We put the cows with the calves into the yards seperated them, then sent the cows on their way down the road with Fran and Ian their owners leading the way. Left behind and now put back into a secure paddock five little calves wondering where their Mums had gone. Of course the mournful mooings of lonely little calves missing mummy began an hour later and continued on through out the night. I wore ear plugs for three nights...so did my kids. Up in the top paddock where the calves had been put was an old piano. A piano you ask? What the heck is a piano doing in a paddock for goodness sakes. Yes you lot there at Mad Bush Farm must be truly mad after all. Well almost....An old barn used to be in the paddock but the wind had blown it over so Ian had kindly removed it and left behind was an old upright piano. The keys on it were up and down like a crazy staircase and its timbers were well past their use by date. So there in the paddock it stayed. One thing for sure it certainly caused a lot of speculation as to what the reasons were behind those strange new agers that had apparently moved onto that weed infested 12 acres with Kikuyu grass past their heads. First I knew about it. No it was a Mum and two kids that had moved there not New-Agers. That music coming out of my stereo wasn't whale song it was Metallica... The only way to shift that old piano would be with a digger. Solid and heavy it wasn't going anywhere. The calves though soon found some amusement with this worn old musical instrument. Used as a scratching post, a bowl em over target and for the resident magpies (akaThe Beagle Boys) a great roosting spot to watch over the proceedings. On early morning I had woken up to the sound of music. Piano music that was. The sound was coming from the top paddock...shoving on gumboots I trudged up the hill to a sight that had me staring in utter disbelief. Walking up and down the staircase like keyboard was a magpie singing his head off with two more perched on the piano's top watched by an appreciative audience of five calves who had forgotten all about mooing for mummy- instead they had been distracted by a little scene straight out of a cartoon. If only I had had my digital camera back then. It was a classic. I don't think my neighbours ever did get over that noisy laughter going on from over the back paddock. Those calves are now long gone - as for the piano? That ended up being shoved under a big pile of clay which is now part of my mother's garden. And that's the story of the Moaning Chorus.

They won't let me into that Box thing!