Category: Turning the Page

I had to shoot back home to New Zealand recently for some sad times.

While at the airport waiting for my return flight back to Aussie, I checked my CCTV and saw Dilan digging a garden.

I asked what he was up to and he said something about a fruit garden or some shit.

When I got home, I tapped into my finely tuned, fading eyes and ears and concluded that a fruit garden was a pair of ducks.

I’m like, “What the fuck, man?”.

Dilan’s like, “They’re Indian Running Ducks, or one is anyway. Crystal and Shaniqua. Cool aye.”

“No, not even a little bit cool, man.”

Knowing we don’t really have a duck pen or pond, or whatever it is that ducks live in, I shake my head in wonder.

Around the same time we got our first duck egg, we also took in Harry the Huntsman. He roamed our house and grounds freely, taking down cockroaches, mice, rats, and the odd weak wallaby. Talk about feeling safe, man.

I buggered off on a cool little overseas trip and was again ambushed upon return.

Fuck me, I now had a chicken in my backyard.

I’m like, “Nah seriously Dilan, ya cunt! What the fuck, man? This ain’t even a little bit cool.”

“Hey, nah Dad, don’t be like that. Bad Betty’s cool and she’ll be laying eggs soon.”

A few days later Bad Betty had Skanky Sally join her.

I go to work and whinge to my mate.

That didn’t do shit, because I woke up the following morning and glimpsed what I initially thought was a goat on my patio.

Lucky I took another look though, because I then realised it wasn’t a goat at all. It was two goats!

Two goats pissing and shitting all over my patio area, looking up at me with cute as ‘come cuddle me eyes’.

Dilan had already left for work and I’m about to myself but I’ve got goats bleating, ducks quacking and chickens bock-fucken-bocking.

Ol’ Bad Betty had escaped her piss-weak prison and was out front showing me chickens can cross the road, no matter what the answer to the age old joke.

So I hunt chook for a bit and throw her back into the backyard, where she doesn’t yet know she even belongs.

I’ve also got our dog Bella that now wants in on the action. But she doesn’t know if she wants to eat them, protect them, shepherd them or what, but she’s whining and running around like a spastic.

And lets not forget the first of them all, our cat Pudding. Her scorning look of absolute disgust, as she looks on, following the recent farm annexation.

On a positive though, now that the trauma of the goat invasion has somewhat subsided, one of the ducks has started laying eggs again.

Yesterday I thought one of our chooks was being raped but apparently she gave birth to her first ever egg.

Dilan, full of pride, watched on from his room.

As for the goats, I’m pretty sure, I won’t be getting any eggs from them. The fact that they’re both males – without nuts has something to do with it.

So without even goats milk to make cheese, they’re kind of useless, except for maybe cooking or cuddling.

I actually started this blog hoping someone would want the goats, maybe on a loan basis, or buy back situation, but I’m going to change the theme a little.

Shall I let Dilan keep the animals, does somebody else want them, or shall we eat them for Christmas?

I’ll try work out how y’all can vote for a few options at the end.

Oh, and they’re some sort of midget goats by the way. You know, like the equivalent of our human dwarfs or midgets… and, like some of those cunts, these goats also try to root each other.

Now there’s a sales pitch if ever ya heard one right aye. Miniature gay goat porn. Bit of a niche there, I’m thinking.

Or maybe you’re a midget and love riding horses but always need a leg up. No longer a problem. You can own your own goat. Man’s new best friend.

In hindsight, maybe I would’ve been better off letting Dilan get a dog. For the record though, I did not say yes to a menagerie, ark, zoo etc.

I now have a backyard that, should I wish to access, I have to study architecture and train as a ninja warrior to get through the obstacle course Dilan created in an ad-hoc solution to animal containment.

I’m not sure Dilan realised, that none of these animals, are actually rocks that do not move.

Their current living arrangement is a cross between a shanty town shack in South East Asia and bivouac style camping.

There may come a day when I build a mountainous Himalayas themed backyard to accommodate these animals but until then, anyone interested in them is asked to sing out very loud, or even whisper. Fuck it, just a hint will suffice.

The goats are like petting zoo level of friendly, cuddly and far too cute and cheeky for me to want to spend heaps of time with.

Not sure why I feel so inclined but I am purchasing a decent chook pen. If I don’t use it for the chooks and ducks, I might move Dilan into it.

They say a Mum, can’t really be replaced.

Unless it’s with two ducks.

And two chickens.

And two goats.

And a huntsman spider.

Nah, she can’t be replaced but I do wonder what Marjana would’ve said.

I guess it’s all part of turning the page.