Winter pastimes

Winter was getting a grip, with temperatures down to 5 degrees Centigrade and not much more than 10 C during the days, and Bianca took pity on our old horse, Bobby. Even though he had a perfectly serviceable, warm winter rug, she thought it might just be a hand-width too short. So Bianca ordered a new rug for the old former pacer, and took delivery on the eve of a three-day rainstorm. I had considered the $A100 ill spent, considering the age of the horse (32+ years, 25 of them with us), and muttered into my beard that Bobby might not see out the winter... But I didn't interfere in the compassionate decision-making, and Bianca put the rug on the horse just before the first horizontal sheets of rain were whipped across the paddock by mean southerlies gusting up to gale force. Branches were torn off the trees, and several young trees were uprooted around the house.

The next morning, I spied - from our bed in the loft - the horse standing 'naked' near the fence. No, Bianca said, she hadn't taken the rug off to dry, so out she scampered into the dripping coastal brush, finding the torn garment some distance away. Bobby had rolled and worked at the wet rug until he had freed himself... So the old rug was back in service, though not for long: when Bobby didn't front up for his breakfast of rolled oats, Bianca went out in driving rain on a search&rescue mission in her yellow oilskins. She found Bobby, she said when she came in to dry herself, twisted around a tree trunk, his old, sturdier rug caught on a stump - he was unable to free himself. Bobby wasn't injured; Bianca worked the rug free and took it off the sodden horse. Bobby got up and stumbled away, but he eschewed his oats, and he didn't touch his two cakes of lucerne hay either (prime hay, at an exorbitant $A17 a bale!) at night. Instead he trotted around, rolled repeatedly and seemed annoyed with himself, or something invisible.

He didn't touch his oats the next morning but went to a far corner of the narrow 50-acre bush block, where he could see the neighbour's horses across the road and relax in the sun. Bianca took him a piece of home-made bread and an apple, but Bobby took no interest in either. I thought - and expressed this idea later - that he had decided not to bother with us any more, inept horse-owners that we were!

We went shopping in town with the CyberBrat (she came by bus with 5-month-old Harley, since we still haven't got passenger seats in the new van; we ferried back her shopping and the stroller), and when we got back Bobby had disappeared. Bianca spent hours checking possible hideouts, until she found him, just before sunset at 4 p.m., obscured by clumps of serrated tussock grass. He had already gone stiff, so Bianca couldn't even bend his head back into a normal position from the way he had it twisted backwards. His legs were stretched out in a most relaxed way...

Water, water everywhere...

Back at the house we had another pressing matter at hand: there was no water at the taps following a nasty hammering sound in the hot-water system, so on a hunch we went down 300 m to the gate to check the meter. Water was gushing out of the one-inch pipe leading from the meter at a rate of thousands of litres a minute, or so it seemed! I carefully turned off the inlet valve and called the original plumber, who 15 years ago had botched the job by omitting the necessary brass elbows and underground copper pipe, instead connecting the 2in agricultural pipe straight to the meter outlet, suspended in mid-air without any support. It was this connection that had snapped off, years after our then sovereign carrier had pulled at the pipe when ploughing in fibre-optic cable across 200 metres of our 'front lawn'.

Today (Friday) the plumber deigned to come by, before disappearing on a long holiday to HIS property, and we arranged to meet me at the gate so he could brief me on what parts he would like me to have on hand when he returned to the job "first thing next week" - which, when pressed on the point, he translated into "Wednesday arvo, for sure!". Five minutes after my call to him, I was 10 m from the gate when I saw Russ giving the meter a little tug - which resulted in a medium geysir as he had managed to free the meter from its remaining bit of supply pipe...

After admiring the instant fountain for a while amid some pleasantries (essentially me saying he had appeared at the scene so quickly as to give tradesmen a bad name) Russ left it to me to delicately convey the current state of affairs to the utility. I went back to the house to call their emergency number, was assured of almost immediate attention (after all, it was now THEIR water that when into the air, unmetered), then drove our little Leyland tractor with its bucket full of shovels down to the gate again on my way to Bobby's resting place. I noticed that someone, most likely Russ, had hobbled the geysir by covering it with concrete blocks! I drove the tractor to its intended spot for Bobby's burial, then dashed back on foot to the house to ring the utility again and get absolved of potential claims that I wrecked their meter by heaving concrete blocks onto it.

But as I passed the gate, there stood the utility's emergency service truck, with two sturdy blokes already studying the situation. "Someone has blown off our meter with concrete blocks", the Irish-looking foreman said accusingly. I demurred, explaining again what had happened. They set to work to rectify their side of the problem, offering in passing to fix my side while they were at it. I asked what it might cost, pointedly injecting the price Russ had quoted me, namely "50 bucks, if that!". At this they fell silent, but carried on working. Seeing my enthusiasm for their trade, they became most friendly, saying they would fix everything in one go if I could find them some meter-to-plastic pipe fitting.

By then I had become so bold as to offer them some home-made beer, but neither was very keen on that. They were both red wine drinkers, they averred. So I said I would hunt down a suitable fitting among my irrigation pipe stuff, and dredge up a bottle of red for each while I was in the shed...

I traipsed back with the bottle and an assortment of plastic plumbing fittings, but they were sturdily at work with their own supplies, soldering with silver solder ("you give sterling service", I said with no hint of flattery), cutting and bending copper pipe, even digging up part of my old plastic pipe to bury it properly, as it were. I was so impressed by then that I told them that if I had my time again, I would learn the plumbing trade, seeing how satisfying it was to work with solid materials and how I'd never be retrenched or pensioned off, as plumbers seeemed to have so much work that they never needed to advertise their services in the local paper...I also mentioned slyly that if I hadn't been happily married to my wife for 40 years, I would have happily settled for an Irish gal, as I was very fond of redheads.

At this point Bianca appeared wielding a kitchen knife, and when challenged explained that she was going to do an autopsy. "But he's not dead yet", said the Irishman's germanic offsider. Bianca informed him of the horse's death, the possibility of Bobby having had an abscessed molar, and that she wanted to cut open his cheeks and study the dental situation. She mentioned that she had once paid $A150 to a local woman veterinarian, who consulted the Internet before telling Bianca her favorite hen 'Honey' was suffering from gout. (She had offered to confirm this preliminary diagnosis, but it would require further tests. Considering what she was charging us for the initial verdict - later confirmed when I looked up symptoms on the Internet - we abstained.) This story of suckerdom set the utility's plumbers off on the matter of remuneration, and how it would normally have cost me $A70 just for a plumber to call, plus perhaps $A200 for the work performed, so I hastily offered to fetch another good bottle of red for each, and they accepted with reasonable grace...

They finished the work in the shadow of four bottles picked at random from my cellar, including a stellar shiraz or two and a renowned pinot noir, while I all but finished a 750 mL bottle of my own version of Coopers ale. We parted amid admonitions from the tradesmen never to admit that I knew them, exchanged names for good measure and they were gone before Bianca reappeared clutching a 2in molar. She explained that it, like the others in Bobby's surprisingly long mouth, was healthy, with just the expected signs of wear...

We returned to the cadaver while crows cooed softly above, and glumly set about covering our huge pet with earth. When we got back to the house, there was a message from a neigbour whose backhoe had been ominously parked in his driveway for days. He was now well enough to help bury the beast, he said. I politely declined, saying we had almost finished the job. Neither of us made any reference to my rash offer to fix up his non-functioning WiFi network in return for the backhoe service...

This gave me time to fine-tune my own digital TV setup on one of my computers, and write up my el cheapo route to high-definition digital TV for the local paper, in case others needed a detailed how-to.

All told, it was a rather challenging week.

(And I haven't even mentioned our playing host to Harley's father and two of his children midway in his 1200 km weekend quest to check on his latest sprog's progress! Or Cristina's mediation in what shaped up as a spot of married maunderings... ) Ah, well...