It appears to be customary amongst errant bloggers to at this stage apologise for their laxness. Typically this is not Sonja’s style instead she just said “bad luck… I’m back!"
All the horses are putting their best foot forward for a great year
Sadly Alison Duthie has had to stand down from her role as bloggist controller (controller, in her dreams) due to a recent major shock … Sonja Johnson has done a blog! So what has the errant blogger been up to? Well I suppose half the reason for the lack of blog is it all seems a bit boring really. Its pretty much same old, same old.
The farm is looking very dry after a delightfully dry summer. To us a good season is stop raining mid-November and start raining 1 April. Well the mid November bit went well so now we just pray for the 1 April bit.
If it rains any earlier it destroys the quality of our summer feed and excites the summer weeds. Much better they stay away. I don’t like having to do summer spraying! We do however have the contingency plan of Kiku paddocks so if it does rain instead of bemoaning the ruination of the dry feed we can go “oh gosh at least the Kiku is enjoying it” Best to keep all bases covered
Our great sheep
The sheep are happy having finally been shorn about two months late due to wet weather holding up the shearing team but when it finally got to sale it certainly sold very well. Must say if our wool ever didn’t sell well above valuation I would be pretty sad on life. Bit proud of our sheep and the wool they produce. They even taste good. Like our Norwood blood sheep. Tasmania does have its uses.
The cows are happy not much to report there. The Bass barley decided to all fall on the ground which didn’t help the amount in the silo but we have plenty of fat sheep while the canola was a snorter of a crop. Not quite sure how we go this year getting the crop in while at Sydney CCI but we do have excellent contractors so it should all be OK.
So having done the important news I suppose I should perhaps touch on the horses, after all this is theoretically an equestrian blog.
The ponies are well.
The two princes of the stable Nikki Harwood’s Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison (aka Ben) and Simon and Rebecca Bell's Belfast Mojito (aka Mojo) had a short holiday after Adelaide and are now prepping for Sydney. They have been galloping down at the local beach but are about to start the run up the hill. The hill is a 1.2km climb with an increase of 70m in elevation up the run. Seems to get them pretty fit. They have done one show jump training day with more coming up. Both boys are in great form and seem to be very happy with life.
The horses love their time on the beach
A new member to the team is Kaitlyn Prenderville’s ESB Irish Leprechaun. Leppy as we call him is with me as Kaitlyn is doing a double degree at Uni and couldn’t cope with two so I am lucky enough to have Leppy for a while. He is about to do his first 2* and will hopefully make Melbourne CCI** this year. He is so different to the TB horses but is just such a jumper.
Elizabeth Nicholson’s Misty Isle Valentino aka Fred is the stable smooch. His name could not be more apt as kisses are his specialty. Fred did a year of 1.05 last year and will this year step up. He gets his first big boy trip in April coming over to baby-sit the princes at Sydney. I just hate taking two horses away as I find they tend to stress more. As long as Fred gets kisses and food, stress is not on his agenda.
The smoochy Fred in action
Running behind this are a number of others that we actually own. Three are by our own TB stallion Future Options plus a couple of nice OTT ones and a really nice purpose bred mare.
I am really lucky that long time sponsors Europa Saddlery, Mitavite, Oakford Equine Hospital, Advanced Joint Helper are all still on board as is new sponsor Sue Poole of Red Light Therapy. Sue's pads of lights help strip pain out of my abused body so well. The ponies like it to.
So how do I keep all this running … a farm and 11 horses in work ? Well there is of course my amazing mum Phoebe and my dad Dan who are always there to help keep the show on the road then there is George.
George is actually Georga Brennan who is another useful product of Tasmania. I had been coaching George on my yearly trips to Tassie since about 2008 and last year after she finished school she came for a year and thank goodness is back for another year. Mind you she has been promoted and mum and dad now introduce her as their adopted daughter. It was in fact George's little sister Olivia who rode Jaguar at the interschools in WA last year to win.
George and peregrine
George is competing three for me at this stage in Parkiarrup Riverside and Parkiarrup Graphite both OTT and our home bred Parkiarrup Peregrine. She is also working three younger ones, which she will bring out at some stage.
So that is about the story Im afraid I do not promise to blog on a regular basis but you never know I just may attach my fingers to the keyboard some time in the future
Cheers
Sonja
