15/09/2026
Challenges, Challenges and more challenges!!!
The trouble with living in the most beautiful place on earth is that all the animals also agree it's a great place to hang around. And when I say all, I'm pretty sure the only ones missing are those that can't possibly live this far south.
I knew there were going to be some issues keeping the animals off the plants when we started, so we started out with building the compound which is just two large chicken pens joined together to keep out the cockatoos, kangaroos, wombat, possum, rabbits, hare, Echidna and whatever else is out there.
Katie the baby magpie made herself known on the first day we started work up there. She was a young fledgling, borderline too young. She had me a little concerned as no adults seemed to be around feeding her. As we were up there all day every day I thought it best to just observe, she seemed to be doing OK finding bugs to eat. I never fed Katie but as the days went on, she started following me around and running to me when older birds came to attack her. Nearly a month has gone by, she is bigger and stronger but hasn't left. For now it seems we have a nursery magpie.
The baby rabbit explosion!
We were set up for rabbits but my goodness me suddenly tiny baby rabbits everywhere and finding every weakness in our set-up. They destroyed everything they could. I was busy racking my brain about what I was going to do about it, when one morning I came out and they were nowhere to be seen, Katie was also missing.
Much to my relief Katie was back the next day but there didn't seem to be as many baby rabbits.
The day after, I walked up and found Mr Fox in broad daylight, he stared at me for a minute and then took off running in circles like a puppy doing zoomies. I never thought I'd be happy to see a fox but the baby rabbit problem is no more.
At night, this place is far from quiet, it is not people or traffic we can hear, but at least 3 species of frogs all trying to out croak each other.
I was in the house garden when I came across something I hadn't seen before. A frog with its mouth wide open eating something that seemed a little too large for it. On closer inspection I found it was eating a mouse. Luckily, something eats them here because the last mouse I found, my silly golden retriever tried to make friends with it, she's certainly no hunting dog.
With the rabbit plague under control, it was time to put more seeds on. I worked all day getting as many trays done as possible. The next morning I went to check the greenhouse temperature and to my devastation I found yet another animal had gotten to the trays and pulled out all the seeds. I strongly suspect some type of mouse but with the knowledge the frogs here eat them, baiting is definitely out of the question.
One day soon I'll be the master of growing around all the animals but for now I'm tired, so very tired š“
