Ostriches are highly intelligent and the most philosophical thinkers in the bird kingdom - said no bird expert ever. So why we would wake up to find an entire congregation of them sailing down our road, will only be known to the said bird experts! When we decided to farm with ostriches - many moons ago - we were given profound advice. "The most important thing you need to know about ostriches, is how many dead ostriches fit into a wheelbarrow". We were disgusted with the cynical approach. Then we started farming with them. We made some horrifying discoveries. The first of which is that ostrich meat is most definitly not the healthy animal protein "experts" claim it to be. I doubt you will find a single ostrich farmer coming within a mile of a nicely fried ostrich steak. The other horrifying lesson we learned is that they are the most bird brained of all their feathered relatives. They truly do die on a whim with no explanation or motivation whatsoever. Our ostrich days are thankfully behind us. But it is not uncommon to find some rogue batch/flock/herd/gaggle of ostriches sailing down the road. Watch out for their legs! They kick harder than a donkey and can be far more aggressive.
Speaking of donkeys: It is not unheard of in farming communities to have a visit from your neighbour's donkeys....turkeys...sheep....cows....chickens....or ostriches. Through the chilly mist of a winter morning, we recently could hear - and eventually see - the clip clop clip clop of donkeys. We were taking the goats to pasture after milking and they dived behind us in disgusted disbelief when the intruders trotted down their road. The three donkeys live about 10km away and had decided life on the upper end of our valley is not quite as exciting as down this end. The donkeys were promptly encouraged to do an about-turn before I had the goat union coming with their demands.
What I miss about the city I can write on the back of a postage stamp. I sometimes feel that I need to spend a day in the city just for some predictability. I think most city dwellers think country living is easy. And slooooooooooooooow! Little do they know. No two days are the same. We seldom get to do what we had planned for a day. I don't miss the crowds, sky rises, conveniences or glitz of the city, neither do I miss the traffic. However we are not without our own traffic jams. Whether it is ostriches or donkeys or even my own goats. We sometimes are delighted to see the wild life. Buck, beautiful wild birds and on occasion a venomous snake.
We have also caused our own traffic jams. Moving a tiny home onto the homestead was not as easy as we had anticipated. Although tiny, it is not that tiny. And our roads are not that big. The traffic jam increased as the spectators arrived. Then we had to call in the neighbour and his two 4 x 4 tractors to help as our one tractor alone didn't have the power to pull the tiny home into the mountainside.
During the summer months, when we have an abundance of water we are able to cut and bale lucerne. Then the valley road is busy with tractors on each farm moving bales into the storehouses.
Of course if it isn't animals - farm and wild - or tractors and tiny homes. We've had various floods closing the road. First a freak flood which nearly had the entire farming community evacuating. Freak because we live in semi desert with an annual rainfall of maybe 200mm. During the drought and the severe water restrictions everyone in the area was drilling new boreholes. Us included. Much was our jubilation when we struck water!! Little did I know in my city days how valuable each drop of water was. There are many things that I have come to value which before I simply took for granted.
Homesteading is not an easy life but it is a good life