Our Other Blog: Two Sisters and Two Points of View
by Taswegian1957 & Human59
A place to write about and post photos of all creatures feathered, furred or scaly.
Although I live in the country and I see farm animals pretty often, the chances of taking any nice new ones between now and Christmas are not great. Here are some that I have taken over the past few years instead.
I haven’t been able to visit the Huon Show for several years and this year I really wanted to go. I was considering catching the bus to Ranelagh where the show is held when Ally called me and said that she and Matt wanted to go too. Could they come and stay with me on Friday night? Of course, I said yes. Saturday morning came and the weather was bright. We set off early to be sure of getting a park close to the Showgrounds. Ranelagh is just outside of Huonville so we were there in less than half an hour.
We all wanted to see the animals more than anything else and we spotted the Alpaca enclosure as soon as we came through the gate. There are several breeders in the area and some others had come from other parts of the state to show off their animals.
I also particularly wanted to see the cows this year. The reason for that is that I have been reading about the issue of de-horning cows in “Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss” this week. The Swiss are having a vote on whether this practice should be continued. I do see the odd cow near my house but I wanted to see if the practice was widespread in Tasmania. Well, I saw several breeds of cows, Jerseys, Herefords, Friesian etc and nary a horn between the lot of them I’m afraid. I decided to look it up and found in the RSPCA knowledge base a document that says that it is legal to de-horn cattle in every state and territory in Australia.
https://kb.rspca.org.au/is-dehorning-of-cattle-legal_274.html
https://www.ava.com.au/policy/84-dehorning-cattle
There are some guidelines about what age and how this should be done and apparently it is recommended that a procedure called disbudding be used instead. Disbudding is the removal of horns before they attach to the skull but I wish it wasn’t done at all. At least the Swiss cows get a referendum to support their cause.
We went to see the dog judging. It’s a small dog show compared to a city show but it’s always fun to see the dogs. I find dog show people are a breed of their own too.
On the main arena, the Tasmanian Light Horse Society was giving a demonstration of riding and training exercises that the troops would have done. Of course, we stopped to watch this for a while and to look at the Draught Horses in their pens nearby. There was some show jumping too but I had not brought my long lens so I could not photograph that well.
We saw goats and poultry but missed the sheep who were penned in an area of deep shade. Good for the sheep as it was warm but not very interesting to photograph.
There was wood chopping, which I forgot to photograph and wood carving with a chainsaw. There were carnival rides, sideshows, and Showbags. There were vintage machinery and farm equipment, handicrafts and afternoon teas.
To finish off here are a few more photos. WordPress is not letting me do galleries today or it could be this computer because I can usually do them on the laptop. The computer is seven years old so I forgive it.
This was taken in the poultry hall at the Huon Show. I assume that this man is a judge and is examining the bird but when I saw him holding it I just had seconds to take the picture so I didn’t inquire.
There will be more pictures from the Huon Show in another post very soon.
I was busy taking photos for Cee’s challenges and wanted to include one of Cindy’s water bowl. She decided that she would come and sit on her bed while I was doing it so I took a picture. I decided it wasn’t suitable for the challenge but it was too nice to waste.
Here I was trying to take a photo of Cindy with her tongue showing for Cee’s Black & White Challenge but every time she did I was too slow. She looks quite mean in this one but she was in a perfectly happy mood.
I was quite pleased to see that today’s prompt was about birds as I already had a draft on the subject. So here, as they say, is one I prepared earlier.
I’ve often mentioned how much I enjoy the birds that visit my garden. I think that I’m quite lucky that as I live in the country we get a wide variety of birds although not all of them visit me. Some prefer the tall gum trees of adjacent properties and some I spot just flying past. I am always trying to photograph them but rarely succeed. Here are a few of my attempts.
Of the garden visitors of course the most common are the sparrows, starlings, swallows and honeyeaters. I have a soft spot for sparrows although some consider them vermin.
Less common visitors are the blue wrens and robins who only seem to be around in winter time. I have seen Zebra Finches too but I haven’t managed to photograph any of these small birds successfully. I have also had occasional visits from a pair of Green Rosella’s and once a flock of ducks but they had escaped from a neighbour’s garden so I can’t really count them I suppose.
The plover family dynasty has adopted the plot of land adjoining my driveway and I often see them looking for food there or flying around shrieking. They are quite vocal birds.
In the neighbourhood category the crows are the ones I hear most often. Their distinctive “Caw, caw” call is easy to pick. Surprisingly I don’t see or hear magpies nearby but we do have kookaburras. They prefer the taller gum trees or perhaps a power pole to perch on. I also hear seagulls as it is not far to Port Huon where there are plenty of fish and sometimes flocks of noisy Sulphur Crested Cockatoos. Sometimes I’ll even see an eagle flying overhead. They are too far away for me to say what kind they are.
http://www.birdlife.org.au/bird-profile/scarlet-robin
http://www.birdlife.org.au/bird-profile/superb-fairy-wren
http://www.birdlife.org.au/bird-profile/zebra-finch
http://birdlife.org.au/bird-profile/laughing-kookaburra
On Friday my garden guys came to prune the apple tree and after they left I went out to take some photos of it as I do every year. The sun was quite bright and concentrating on the tree I entirely failed to notice that Cindy had more pressing business on her mind. Oh well at least it gave me a bad photo Monday shot.
