farmdoc's blog post number 352

I’ve previously written [1,2] of the environment group Still Wild Still Threatened, and its non-violent direct action campaign to halt the logging of old growth forest in southern Tasmania’s Upper Florentine Valley. I’ve never been to the Florentine Valley, but from the photographs I’ve seen, its forests are ancient and spectacular. So much so that earlier this year our friend Miff was arrested and charged for being inside Forestry Tasmania’s Upper Florentine Valley ‘exclusion zone’. Last Sunday the biennial Ten Days on the Island arts festival ended. To coincide with this year’s Ten Days, an art exhibition, ‘Shadows in the Forest – The Art of Exclusion’ was set up inside the same exclusion zone. All of which introduces today’s Farmdoc’s Blog topic: last Saturday Sue Lester and Greg Smith brought me a new wombat. Her name’ s Florence (Flo for short) because she’s from the Florentine Valley where her mum was killed by a vehicle (I don’t know if it was a logging vehicle). When she was found, Flo weighed 215 grams. Now she’s a robust 15kg – probably the biggest/heaviest wombat I’ve received – so all going well, I aim to release her in 4-5 weeks time. The pen has rehabilitated well since 28 February when I released Otis. Florence is the tenth wombat – sixth girl – it’s been my privilege to have here. Yo, Flo.

farmdoc's blog post number 314

Nowadays stereotyping is politically incorrect. But my iconoclastic tendencies still whisper to me that all billy goats are gruff. I suppose that’s because the Norwegian folk tale Three Billy Goats Gruff was often read to me when I was a nipper. (‘Trip trap’ is marvellously onomatopoeic. I chant it most times I walk over our bridge.) Anyway, long story short, experience’s taught me not all billy goats are gruff. Here in Mole Creek we’ve had maybe ten, with all but two as gentle as gentle. The gentlest of all was Otis, who was more friendly and inquisitive than many humans I know. When he died, Sharon and I cried. We buried him on a grassy bank visible from our house. Now to wombats: I’ve previously written about Otis the wombat who came under my care last Boxing Day preceded by a reputation for obstreperousness. In the two months since then he’s been totally friendly. Not one bit cranky. Otis the wombat is to wombats what Otis the billy goat was to billies. I thought Kai Kai was the most wonderful wombat I’ve known. Otis sure gives her a run for her money. Anyway Otis’s been signalling to me he wants to be released. So yesterday I obliged, making him the ninth wombat I’ve released – four boys, five girls. If he and Kai Kai make babies together, their littlies should be charmers. But maybe they won’t be. I’ll never know.

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.