For the past few nights something new has turned up here at the farm. Scritchy – the boss dog – and I, go for a walk at night to keep an eye on the kangaroos, wallabies and wombats just to make sure that they’re not wreaking too much havoc in the orchard. The past few nights the torch that I carry on those walks has shown that we’re being watched by a set of eyes glinting in the torchlight. Those eyes when spotted quickly run for cover and then peek out at us from a nearby hiding spot.
The title of this week’s post is actually a nod to a 2006 zombie film. It is a known fact that zombies clamour for brains. I was hoping that the eyes in the forest weren’t a zombie clamouring for my brains as I believe that would be an unpleasant encounter with an uncertain ending. Maybe the eyes were actually after Scritchy’s brains as she is boss dog here after all? Who knows?
The kangaroos, wallabies and wombats were certainly aware of the new intruder, but they were mostly unconcerned by the new presence. I took this to be a good sign as it is good common sense to avoid zombies and wombats and their friends generally display good common sense.
After a couple of nights of the furtive behaviour from the eyes, the intruder displayed themselves for the creature that they actually belonged to. Fortunately for the readers of this blog it wasn’t a zombie as I’m uncertain as to whether I would survive such an outcome and few people would want to read a blog that went like: “brains, brains, brains … moan”. Honestly it would get quite boring after only a very short while.
The eyes became comfortable with the torchlight and eventually the new presence revealed itself to be two fox cubs. I’m not sure what to make of this new addition to the farm.
The Aboriginals believed that the Dreaming has two rules: obey the law, and leave the world as you found it – not for better or worse, for God judges that, but the same. The first rule enforces and exists for the second. Together they let place dominate time, and translate well understood ecological associations into social relations (taken from The Biggest Estate on Earth written by Bill Gamage). This is not an entirely helpful set of rules as to what to do about the fox cubs and it is worthwhile mentioning that dingoes which are the native dog (similar to a coyote) presumably arrived on this continent via a trade between the Indonesians and Aboriginals many millennia ago. The dingoes then out competed the Thylacine’s (Tasmanian tigers) on the mainland and resulted in that species extinction on the mainland. Certainly there are no wild dogs in this forest though.
At this point I’m going to take an observe and wait approach to the two fox cubs here. On a positive note, the rat, field mice and rabbit population here has taken a savage blow so perhaps there is a place for them at the farm?
Returning back to the zombie theme, I’ve recently installed a stainless steel mesh over the glass and timber door to the cantina shed. Alright, it wasn’t actually for zombies, but it was to reduce the likelihood of that door breaking during a bushfire. I also installed an aluminium door jamb on that particular door and very observant readers will notice that the underside of the cantina shed is now enclosed by dark grey corrugated steel sheeting.

For the rest of the blog entry go to: http://ferngladefarm.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/the-hills-have-eyes.html