The Water Lamb

By Pixie Chick

 (Susanne Hughes)

    Handing me another lamb, this one cold and wet and very soggy, Tom, the farmer next door chuckled and said he thought this one didn’t have much of a chance, just as he chuckled with all the lambs he brought to me.

    We lived on a tiny property we’d purchased surrounded by farmland, and being former farmers ourselves, I was quite used to the annual influx of orphaned lambs that came through my door each spring.

    I kept two Saanen milking goats who also kidded in early spring and they produced so much milk that I would freeze it and use it on the orphan lambs when they arrived, and the two orphaned calved we would take in as well, or save it for when the nannies had reduced their output then use it on the late lambs. It saved a lot of money by not having to buy dried milk for the orphans.

    Being new to the area, the local farmers took me as a bit of a joke because I volunteered to take all their orphans off their hands as I knew that most farmers on large stations would not even pick them up.

                                                                         

      It was just too much hassle for them to raise pet lambs as they didn’t have the time. That didn’t mean they didn’t care, and when they heard I would take the orphans, they would bring them home and either drop them at my house or I would collect them.

     “He’d been born in a puddle of water; mother just up and left him there,” said Tom.  It was a cold, wet spring morning and the weather didn’t look as though it was going to clear up anytime soon.

    I had the fire going in the dining room which was nice and warm so I put the lamb into an old towel and rubbed him to try and get his circulation going, and to dry him off a little. I always kept goats colostrum in the freezer for the new lambs as many of them were very weak and hadn’t had the first milk they needed to survive.  

    The little lamb was too weak to even suck and I myself had a few doubts as to whether or not he would make it, but I persevered. I ran warm colostrum down a stomach tube to try and start off the warming process and to give the little guy some strength. I moved him onto a special pillow I had made for these little babies who were so close to death, made of an old mutton cloth filled with Angora wool, from our other goat that lived with my in-laws. (Each year we would shear his wool to make him cool for summer, and I kept the fleece for my orphans).

                                                                                

    I continued to gently rub him to keep his little heart going and to help warm him by the fire, and soon he started showing signs of life. I named him Moby.  As the day wore on he got strong enough to hold his head up and as night approached, he could sit up, although he was still quite wobbly. He was holding his own and began to bleat so deciding that he may see the night through, I put him in a plastic lined box with warm dry hay in the bottom.  After two middle of the night feeds, he was gaining.

    Moby made it through the night and before long, was running around all over the lawns and gardens with the other orphans, thoroughly enjoying line up at feed time, with five other heads all vying for the bottles.

    Weeks went by and soon there was no need to keep feeding Moby and his other adopted siblings so he was put out into the paddock with the others, to graze his life away. He would amuse me as he played tag and head butt with the other lambs but his one enjoyment seemed to be sleeping on the tree stumps in the paddock. None of the others ever did that, only Moby, and sometimes he’d sleep so soundly, he’d fall off.

    Months went by and he was happy in the paddock with his mates until one winter’s day, Mike noticed the sheep in Tom’s paddock, where Moby and his siblings were with Tom’s sheep, being chased and he knew there was no-one there. He sped across the paddock on the quad bike, to the opposite corner, and around the end of the hedge spotted two dogs barking at Moby, who was standing in the trough, and wondered why Moby wouldn’t get out.

    Mike shouted and the dogs ran off but Moby was still standing in the trough. As he got to the trough he saw a bull terrier inside the trough lying in the bloody water, holding Moby by the throat. Mike was angry. He knew how much my lambs meant to me and he knew how much I hated seeing packs of dogs on the loose. After a struggle he had managed to release Moby from the dog’s brutal hold, and dragged the bull terrier away from Moby and tied it with a piece of wire, to the nearest pipe.

    He ran back to Moby who was still standing in the trough, and realized the extent of the viciousness and brutality inflicted on my poor defenseless lamb.  His entire bottom jaw was gone, ripped away brutally and agonizingly, by a pack of bored dogs. His tongue hung down on the outside of his neck and blood poured from his severed veins. The only thing Mike could do was put him out of his misery. It was such a sad end to my poor little water lamb that was born in the water, and died in the water.  

'Mr. Undies'

By Pixie Chick

          We moved house a few months ago, from a single level unit to a townhouse. And while there isn't much joy in moving house, other than the fact that you get to live in a whole different place with new places to explore, and new neighbours to meet, I really do not like moving at all.

          It's not the actual moving that beats me up, that's easy....get the movers to do that one. It's the packing, sorting, unpacking, sorting, finding places for everything and then on top of all that, having to remember all the different companies I have to change address with; power, phone, internet, transport department, insurances, Post Office to mention just a few, but most importantly, my family and friends.

          However there are things that really make moving house an absolute grind, on the day. The heat for one. Here in Queensland I think I should have thought this out a lot better and do as the dairy farm workers do in New Zealand, and move in the middle of winter, although I guess there is always the possibility of rain there or possibly even snow in the high country....or mud, or all three!

          The day our belongings were moved, I had arranged for the movers to come and transport everything as I am too old to do it all myself anymore, and movers are generally young, strong men. Hubby went to work as usual, which was rather necessary as I am sure we'd have ended up in arguments over the moving and placement of stuff...so it was easier just to get the movers to do it, and a lovely friend came to help me move my potted plants.

          Everything went plain sailing, loading up and moving and most of the unloading. I'd used this company before and the movers were really good then, had sensible ideas on putting things together and moving things about. However, I didn't know that these two were actually just international backpackers. The driver was an Italian doctor and his sidekick was a literary student from Sweden and neither had been in the country very long, and knew diddly squat about moving furniture.

          They managed to bring everything into the townhouse, only breaking the corner off my workstation, which didn't bother me that much, but when it came to moving the bed up the stairwell, that was a whole other story. The mattress went up just fine, but being an ensemble bed, the base did not want to fit. The guys tried different ways but still it would not fit past the newel.

          Suddenly, a half naked man appeared from somewhere, and tried to give his sixpence worth to the moving men as to how to get this base up the stair well. He was dressed only in a pair of old grey undies, but they had holes in the bottom and there were 'bits' hanging out where there shouldn't have been. I was stunned and didn't really know which way to look. I didn't know who this man was, so my mind nicknamed him 'Mr. Undies'. I'd been trying to ensure the movers didn't mark the walls so when Mr. Undies invited himself in to 'direct traffic', so to speak, I had to leave the room and hid out in the kitchen behind the cupboard.

          The operation went on and on and after a while I'd had enough of the sweltering heat and humidity and the nonsense going on in the next room, I had to come out from my hiding place and tell the movers, "Don't worry about it, just put it in the garage and we will sleep on the mattress on the floor."  With that, Mr. Undies wandered off and as I went outside to show the movers which garage was ours, I spotted Mr. Undies sitting outside his unit 2 doors along.

          A couple of days later, he saw me returning home from somewhere and asked if the movers had gotten the base up the stairs. I said they hadn't and that it didn't really matter too much at the moment.  He was still sitting outside in his old grey undies, so I opened my door and walked inside, not wanting to be engaging in conversation with a strange man who sat around in his holey undies all day.

          Since that day, there have been many times when I come home from being out, and he has been sitting outside his unit, smoking his smelly cigarettes and still sitting in his grey undies. The only times I have ever seen him with other clothes on is when he is waiting at the gates for his ride to work.

          One day, I was trimming up my rosemary which sits in a large pot outside the front door. Mr. Undies arrived on his chair in the front of his townhouse, and started chatting to me, so I answered politely and carried on with what I was doing. He asked me what I do with the cuttings, so I told him I grow them. However, I did have rather a lot of clippings so I asked if he used rosemary. He said he did, so I offered him a bunch of cuttings which he took and put in his freezer.

          I got the feeling he was a little lonely there as he never has visitors and lives alone, so I asked him where he worked. He told me he was a gardener at a local golf club. I thought, that explains his garden and his interest in plants. Now, I'm a friendly sort of person and I like to know my neighbours, but for all my trying, I just cannot get past those undies. It makes me cringe, and each time Mr. Undies has tried to involve me in conversation, I politely answer then quickly walk away. I can't, in all honesty, stand around talking to a strange man only wearing holey undies!

          Most mornings I get up anywhere between 4 a.m. and 6 am. to do the work run as hubby doesn't drive. Whenever I get back early, it's generally a really good time to water my garden out back. I don't think there's been a single day when I have been out watering, when I haven't heard Mr. Undies in his back yard, coughing his very bad smokers cough. I know its him so I don't even bother to look.

          Then the other morning, hubby was up early in the weekend and he decided to go and water the plants for me. He heard Mr. Undies out back, coughing and coughing. At one point he thought the man would collapse from all the coughing, so he looked through the palings in the fence and was stunned to see, Mr. Undies was out back standing in his yard, stark naked! Hubby couldn't believe it so finished watering then went inside to get the bird food. (We feed the birds around here every day, then go upstairs to watch which birds are coming in and which ones bring their babies).

          He watched the birds for a few minutes then found that Mr. Undies, still naked and coughing in his back yard, was distracting so he sat at his computer and watched a movie instead. About an hour later, he'd heard the crows arrive for breakfast and looked out the window to watch these smart birds, dipping their food into their water dish to make it soggy before eating. They were showing junior how to do it. Then Mr. Undies coughed again and hubby looked over and saw he was still in the same place and hadn't moved, and now that the sun was higher, he didn't think it was appropriate for Mr. Undies to be standing outside stark naked, when he has single women living either side of him. (Or maybe that's why he does it.)    

     

          I wondered, is this just me or does he have the same affect on everyone else as well? So, the next time I was at the office, I asked the manager if he sits around there all the time in his undies because I find it quite inappropriate in a communal living space like this. She just laughed and said she'd seen it too, but she doesn't engage in conversation with him either for the very same reason, yet when he goes to the office, he is fully clothed.

          I wonder why he does that? Why sit around out in public, in holey old undies where people can see you and your 'bits'? And why stand in the back yard of your rental townhouse, stark naked, knowing that when residents look out their upstairs windows, they can see you?  I don't get it. If he wants to run around naked in front of people, then join a nudist colony!