Farm Tales: The Horse named George Yeo and 300 sheep.

Hi Nix,

Terribly sorry for the late reply. Things have been busy. The weather is so hot that we hit 40s a few times this summer so far. With the high temperatures, we are not allowed to work (on the farm). So we had to do a lot of 'chionging' in the wee hours of the morning or late into the night. We are more or less done with harvest now. Good weather over winter and spring reaped good (though not excellent, but better compared to last year) returns on canola and barley. My stock of clover hay sold out within 2 weeks, which was perfect, because we were hit by the 2 days thunderstorm after that. (Wet hay= not good)

I had a chuckle when you mentioned about the lack of picture of Geoff! Geez Mate! The last thing I need is to document it or worse, put it on FB like everyone else with their food; and have animal rights greenies troll me. To be honest, I wished I would have given Geoff a bit more dignity; even though he didn't contribute much in his lifetime.

A note on Lao Fu Zi. I am pleased to report that it has been successfully trained and it is currently serving as a therapy horse. Except that it is currently school holidays, so he is having his term break too. We acquired another two horses recently; one was named 'Alberto' by its previous owner. I hate the name. So I renamed it 'George'. George is such a character. You see, sometimes when you want to inform a horse that you are approaching or about to lead it, one makes a clicking sound with your tongue against teeth. But George responds when I say, 'yo yo'...(literally!) I discovered this during a training session. So in true Sg spirit, I registered his name as 'George Yeo'. 

Megawati
The second horse, I named in 'MegaWati'. She is supposed to be a mate for Lao Fu Zi. No megawatts sparks yet at the moment.

Over the holidays, I visited our little island Singapore. Every time I go back, a new building seems to have sprout out like a mushroom. People are grumpier as ever. I ordered my coffee with a smile and 'how are you', I was given the 'Are you on steroids?!' look of disbelief.

Anyway, happy new year to you and Jen. I hope that this year holds for you and your family many blessings and joys, laughter and love. And as for me, our acquisition of 300 sheep finally arrived today. We spent the morning marking them, by dipping their tail ends in ink and deworming them by drenching (pouring medicine down their throats. This is one method. Another method is to put tags on their ears (which is more common in cattle farming). I know it doesn't sound all humane. The photos don't make it better either, unfortunately. Hope it doesn't offend your readers.

L

The de-worming process