3 Days early and a perfect birth - not that either of us saw anything. We'd been checking her every half hour since midnight and I'd got up at 4am to see if there was any chance she might be inclined to birth this foal... apart from a slight agitation in temperament she was non plussed so by 7am I figured she would foal later in the night and left for work, she wasn't even due yet so why panic. Dale went back to bed (shift worker). I got the email at work to tell me to head home again as Dale had checked Duchess on getting up 8.30am and he was looking at this very mobile foal trying to work...

Finally some rain! We’ve received weekly showers on average and the grass is green with the tanks full and flowers everywhere. Just beautiful seeing the dormant trees and shrubs after such a long dry spell, take shoot and flourish. The birds have been in a frenzy feeding on the abundant of nature and nesting all over the property, the fairy Martins have taken over the stable roof. We have red/green lorikeets and the pale headed rosellas at the moment shrieking through the trees bickering over blossoms and space. The bee eaters will be arriving soon for their summer stint to add to the plethora...

Well nothing really happening. We washed Rebel and Pearl today despite Salazar helping, he's not concerned with water but backs into Pearl literally shoving her about with his bum smearing the soap all over himself in the process or eating it. We're not sure why he does this but he's a very curious foal (5 & 1/2 months old now), perhaps the water dribbling off his own fur makes him want to swipe it off on mum.... was funny when he was little but now standing at 13.5hh he's quite disruptive as he's not deterred by shooing or having water sprayed at him. Apart from this excitement the itch...

Cooler days and little rain to speak of this season leaves us with dusty paddocks and horses pushing fence wire to the limits in an effort to reach any tendrils of green. The QLD itch still drives Rebel and Pearl to distraction and nothing we've tried alleviates their maddening desire to scratch off manes and tails, even rugging does little to help. Little Zar is growing like a weed and has settled into a quiet routine. On weekends the 4 of them are in the house yard so the boys can get boisterous with their play but mum is always within reach to hide behind when the play gets too rough much...

After such a horse focused year we decided to have some R&R and took time out in Brisbane. Took ourselves over to South bank, investigated the maritime museum and took a ferry ride up the river and back and tottered about in the Queen Street mall to top of the day. With so many photos that are in themselves boring unless you were there sort of thing I've made a collage of the day. Everyone is fine of course. Rebel's in the next edition of Horse Deals so we're going to be sad to send him off to his new home but he needs to be working and prancing about showing off his big boy moves. A...

Phew! It's been fantastic, exciting, exhausting, entertaining and at times frustrating and sometimes scary but we've managed to move through the last 3 months and pack in the most amazing Heavy Horse Field days we've had the pleasure of being a part of, present a brand new Shire bloodline into Australia with the presentation of our foal Salazar, Settle into my workplace after passing my final probation and manage the property and all our beloved animals with our usual passion and dedication without going loopy. For all those that managed to get down to the Field Days and say hello, hope the event...

He's here, Salazar born 24/02/2010 4.45am.   Life has been busy since so apologies for the delay folks. Mum and bub doing fine. Field Day's now consume us so I'll update with further news when time permits. Pearl and Salazar will be at the Gatton Heavy Field Days 1st & 2nd May 2010 so stop in and say hello.

A sad sad day yesterday with the beautiful shire mare Dimity Pearl passing just hours after of giving birth to her filly foal, Toora Cocking Pearl, (Amber), with tragic news received today advising Amber died her poor little body just couldn't cope. I am still bursting into tears every time I think about this shocking news and my heart goes out to Terry and John who I can only imagine are immobilised with grief for their two beuatiful horses... more tears as I think of how hard this time is for them both. Our Pearl is due in 3 weeks and with each harrowing story we hear, we are more fearful...

Well we quietly slipped through the festive season without any dramas and managed to spend time at home together for more than 2 days in a row. Shift work has its advantages but during the week it's just me entertaining the animals which can be scary if problems present and no Dale to help out. Thankfully no horrible moments that have required a call home but when funny stuff happens my phone version just isn't the same as the seeing of the moment. We had around 30mm of rain during the December period which gave us a great flush of green and feed for a few weeks but its back to the dust and hot humid...

How appropriate is it to have a full moon to herald the end of a challenging year. Fireworks are yet to come and scare all the horses of course... but despite this, it's a relief to be moving on to what we hope is a 'normal' 2010 without redundancies, illnesses, court battles, transport issues, flooding, drought and whatever else that afflicted us in 2009.   Hoping 2010 is just as 'normal' for you. Thank you to all for the birthday thoughts and Christmas wishes we don't do much when there is just the two of us but we did celebrate Xmas with friends and had a good old laugh and of course we ate too much...