A farm story (more becoming a saga) still in the process of invention but heck read it anyway...

It needs refining, it needs tweaking, but right now, I'm doing this just for the fun of it. One bit of the more to come. That's what I do when I feel a bit down, and a bit put upon. It's been like that for a day or so. So what do I do? I write. Good therapy for the soul.

In the back of the way out of the way, in the rather strange rural district of Mad Bush, a rebellion was going on.

It started, with a character going by the name of Russell. Just that name. No other name. Wherever chaos arose, Russell was sure to be the one behind it all.

A year or two ago perhaps more, in a charming old farmhouse, there little Billy lived with his dad Patrick, his mum June, and a thousand or so rather thick brained sheep. About the only sheep there, with any brains, was a ram with pedigree lines, and a pedigree name too long to write down. So, they just called him Dan the Ram.

Dan the Ram was now a bit long in the tooth. The trip to the works was getting nearer day by day. Dan the Ram’s days were numbered on that peaceful farm, in the lush green valley, where nothing much ever really happened. Until the day Russell came, that was, and Dan the Ram’s fate was changed forever.

Christmas time had come. Much to little Billy’s delight, the tennis racket he waited all year to unwrap, at last, was his. Out into the sunshine, with his shiny new racket he went, to spend all afternoon bouncing a tennis ball off the back wall of the old woolshed to perfect his swing. He wanted to be a tennis pro when he grew up, he had told his mum and dad. A tennis pro he would be, no matter what.

When the shadows grew long in the early evening, finally Billy decided to go back up to the old farmhouse where Grandma and Grandpa now waited to sit down with all of the family for a special Christmas dinner. Turkey in the oven, lamb in the roasting dish with all of the trimmings to match. Well into the evening they celebrated, unaware of a small dark hairy shadow creeping slowly up the verandah stairs…

As for the prized tennis racket? It was left on the verandah, lent against the wall, ready for the next day’s tennis practice session. The small hairy shadow slowly, but steadily inched its way up the steps, nearer, nearer. With one quick movement, a paw shot out, grabbed the tennis racket with well practiced stealthy silence, before it, and the hairy shadow vanished back into the night......to be continued........