farmdoc's blog post number 252

Obstreperous. That’s how John Hayward described Otis, the wombat he asked me to take for release. I wasn’t keen on a male because so far I’ve released three males and five females, and a female would’ve been preferable. But it was 15 July, i.e. over five months ago, when I’d released Kai Kai, I’d ascertained that no others were in the offing before Spring 2009, and I was suffering from the little-known complaint called Wombat Deficit Disorder. (Indeed WDD is so rare, a google search turns up a total blank.) So I said yes to John. And on Boxing Day morning, Otis became the ninth wombat to stay in our pen (aka the Wombat Hilton). The pen having been wombatless for months, its grass was knee high, and Otis promptly scuttled off into it. I checked him a few times during that day, and he seemed fine. Yesterday morning I took his first feed into the pen. My heart was thumping because I didn’t know what obstreperous meant in practical terms. But Otis was fine. Remaining near the opening of the pen’s burrow, he watched me empty the feed container into the concrete feed bowl. We resembled two boxers warily shadowing each other. How he reacts when he knows me better, only time will tell. But so far, so good. Welcome, Otis.