Bulls, butts and counting blessings…

It’s easy for us to start taking the great things in our lives for granted, isn’t it?

When we get so hectic and frantic and busy in our lives, we sometimes fail to properly absorb the very things that make our own world so special.

I know I get like that – when the washing pile and the bills and the ‘in tray’ start overflowing… it’s why I take photos really.

The following series was shot in an hour – on Mother’s Day, as we mustered and treated some bulls to prepare them to travel to a ‘tick free’ area.

Not a job that sounds awfully beautiful, is it?
The bulls in the Bull Paddock working their way into water mid-morning. (The mill and trough are out of shot to the right).

Dash poking along quietly on ‘Chimmy’…

Dash likes to chat. Doesn’t matter if no other human is around… his dog Diamond is in on many conversations…

I wonder if she is following instruction here?

My husband on Trooper tailing in more bulls from the northern fenceline…

Bulls in lovely paddock condition heading over a rise towards the yards… perhaps you have to have worked with beef cattle to be able to admire those bottoms. I don’t know. Trying to look through my ‘city eyes’ I can see that perhaps some nappy wipes might come in useful. Heh.

Hubs and his team of helpers – Jet, Dani, Diamond (the ring-in) and Cruel.

Violet and Dash helping push the boys along. It was a glorious bush Autumn day… you can almost SEE how clean that air is!
Do you know that I have hand-fed each and every one of these big boys? (The ones in the foreground!)

It’s true – as weaners (straight off their mums) I bring them all home and spend time with our bull calves (and heifers too) in the yards, making sure they have decent temperaments. It’s one of my favourite things to do – a time of year that coming up again very soon!

Yards in sight, and the boys happily checking out the bulls. I cannot tell you how relieved we are still feel after the very late rain this season. I cannot let myself imagine what this same scene might have looked like otherwise…

A cool drink for the horses at a small trough in the laneway before the yards…

I wasn’t privvy to the trough-side banter, but apparently my husband was being amusing…

He does it with a very deadpan expression. Makes him even funnier.

Then the drafting out commences… the kids ADORE this part.

Violet gets almost lost among all those bulls – I admit looking at this pic it does look a little scary, but she is never nervous and while the bulls do have the occasional dust-up amongst themselves, they always manage to avoid the horses.