We have been eagerly awaiting our first calves from our AI program, and this morning Delloreen has presented us with a polled black heifer, she looks homozygous polled.  She is sired by Kenny O'Shea and we were hoping for a bull, but a heifer is always welcome.  I am going to call her Rawlings Holly O'Shea after her grandmother Baunatal Holly O'Shea.  She looks really sweet, I will get some pictures shortly.

And here she is just a few hours old.  Check the head shape which is much more rounded, that is what makes me think she is homozygous polled.

As most people know I am turning 50 in two weeks time, I am constantly getting reminded how OLD I will be.

But today my lovely husband gave me an early birthday present.  Something which I have wanted for nearly 20 years.  A blue Burmese female kitten, who I have named Lily.  She is just gorgeous as I am sure you can tell from the pictures below.  She is the one at the front.

The weather has been very unkind to us and work on the outside of the barn has ground to a halt.

But Mark is not one to be still for long and so has started on the inside which is much warmer and drier.  The beams have been manhandled into place, and we found a very interesting bracket which we thought would make an ideal cross brace. Sadly we only had one, so the hunt was on for another one, even just similar shape would be OK.  We happened to mention this to Ron & Julie Hunt and Julie rushed off to come back with the other half to our pair of brackets.  It was a little bent and slightly larger but identical shape.  Our hunt at the Hunt's had been a success.  Mark did some heating and beating to get it back into shape and hey presto, a pair of brackets, now painted in hammerite black and looking stunning.  The mezanine floor has been installed with a blackwood floorboards  left over materials from our house extension, along with stairs up to the bedroom from an old set that were lying around.  It is all very rustic!!

Work has just started on the comapct bathroom and hopefully the weather will be a bit kinder in coming months to allow us to do some more to the stonework.

See the pictures on our Barnstay page

Just a few weeks after the puppies left which was the end of May, we happened to be out feeding the cows and they were intent on looking at something in the grass.  Very unusual as they are very food driven our girls and we thought we better investigate, my first thought was a snake, but what a surprise we got, a tiny smokey gray kitten.  We had a rag in the ute so Mark gingerly picked her up and we took her back to the house.  She was going to be named Hiss as that is all she seemed to do and we thought if she was to live in the shed and keep the mice under control that would be a fine outcome. Fine thought, she has become very epople orientated and now lives in the house, she was sitting on my lap earlier purring her head off.