As the days grew warmer out of winter, I was looking forward to the new growth in the garden and explosion of vegies onto the table.

What I hadn’t counted on was the huge growth of grass around the place. It was starting to become a bit of a problem as high grass and snakes seem to go together.

The first sighting had been after our last party on the October long weekend. Raph had seen the brown snake as he walked back to the shed, prompting a frenzy of mowing and a clean up around the area.

Since then, I’d tried to keep on top of the mowing with the standard Victa mower, pushing up and down the hill and throughout the vegie garden and fruit trees. I’d had some success, but then a bit of extra IT work, the fencing project and some weekend trips to Adelaide mounted up and suddenly I hadn’t mown for a month!

During this time, the grass had taken off again and I’d had a few confrontations with various browns. Raph and I had successfully relocated one near the shed (relocated = relocating the snake’s head far away from the rest of the body) using a combination of long handled spade, rake and lightning fast ninja skills.

I’d seen a second hand ride on advertised at a reasonable price and so Pa and I went for a look and ended up bringing it home.

How much quicker is it to use a ride on mower to cut the grass? In a couple of hours I had not only mowed all of the grass that I normally would, but had extended the mown area significantly.

Meg approved and promptly named the mower “Penfold”. Apparently this was a reference to the lights on the front looking like glasses and the old “Dangermouse” cartoon that she watched as a kid.

So Penfold now sits patiently at the wood shed, waiting for the grass to grow and the opportunity to put around the hillside.

The major advantage I’ve seen so far is the increased visibility when you walk around. I used to hear the grass move and not know whether it was a snake, lizard or “other”. Now I can keep an eye on the ground around me as I walk and pick up movement quickly.

Raph and I used this increased visibility just last week when we were working on the new water tank. We’d both walked past the snake, but Raph saw it in the mown area and we relocated it easily.

Raph took a picture of this one on his phone and posted it at his site.

The grass is drying off a lot now and I’m glad that we kept on top of it. The fire season is well and truly here and reducing the fire fuel load is pretty important. The cows are eating steadily through their paddock and Penfold clears around the shed, toilet, vegies and fruit trees.

All we need now is to hook the fire pump up to the water tank and I’ll be a lot happier.

Today the calves arrived and I think I feel a little more like a farmer!

Barry came up with a trailer load of three of four month old Friesian calves (six heifers and one steer) as well as a large round bale of hay to get them started.

They were keen to get out of the trailer and avoid us and as they were starting to wander around I saw a large brown snake slithering to safety away from us.

The calves kept well together and immediately set off for the fence line, tracing it over the hill.

Later in the afternoon the herd returned to the hay that was near the water and tucked in for a good feed and a drink.

It seemed that there wasn’t too much to worry about, with the calves settling down quietly in the paddock and checking out their new environment.

We’ll see how long it takes them to mow their way through the feed.

Barry dropped in the other day to look at the feed in the stock paddock and assess the number of sheep he could put in.

Strangely enough it was raining when he arrived and we crossed the fence and walked out to look through the feed.

Barry “ummed and ahhed” a bit and then announced that he would bring up some calves, stating that they would not only eat through the feed, but push over the larger dried weeds and clear it better.

So there it was. I’d spent a few weeks preparing the fences for sheep and in a five minute conversation it had been decided that we would be having some calves!

I was left to call Elders regarding the agistment pricing for calves and Barry told me that he’d bring some calves up in a couple of days.

Now to plumb in the water trough and await their arrival.