Animal Farm is a busy place

Life on the farm is certainly different from city life – and most the differences stem from animals that aren’t cattle and sheep.

One evening three gunshots rang out and two dogs that should have known better - Kate and Weasel, a visiting Jack Russell – rushed inside where they cowered and trembled. The farmer and a visitor had knocked off the possums that were stealing lemon peel (they had been leaving peeled fruit on the lawn).

The next day when I picked up the deceased possums I found Kate munching a joey. It was ghastly seeing its tiny naked body with curled up hands and wee dangling legs disappearing into Kate’s mouth as she crunched its bones.

Another day Kate and Floss raced into the bush and a rabbit raced out. Kate grabbed it in her mouth, flipped it over and, with a quick nip, left it paralysed. This dog also does sweet little nose kisses with two of our cats.

I lay the rabbit right side up in the hope it was merely paralysed with fear (yes, I know they’re pests), but it didn’t move. Kate took it home and thoughtfully left it in the garden. The farmer put it out of its misery.

Then Floss burrowed into a mound of kikuyu and emerged holding in her mouth what looked like a bird’s nest but was a terrified hedgehog curled in a ball.

Then, when I returned from a few days away, I found two swallows that had been killed by the cats positioned imaginatively on the brick mantelpiece above the fireplace. I bet you’ve never thought of that as an interior design concept.

The farmer had found them in what he now calls ‘the bird room’ since it’s where four swallows (and counting) have met their demise. Their deaths please him because they poo and nest all over the house.

Sadly, bigger animals die as well. The latest was a young white-faced bull that broke its hip and had to be shot. It’s hanging up somewhere (don’t ask) and makes a generous contribution to dog tucker.

Every few days hunks of meat arrive. Their dissection is a job for the farmer who sometimes leaves buckets of meat in the laundry for a day or two (I call it aging). That’s another interior design concept you won’t find in a magazine.

This is a boon for Kate whose reward for sneaking inside has only ever been morsels from cats’ plates. I arrived home one day to find her on the back door mat chomping on a massive chunk of beef.

And finally we’re raising calves. I met the second bunch when they were still on the truck, having stopped to say hi to the farmer. He ignored my white running shoes and said, “Great, you can help with unloading.”

I obliged and, in doing so, created a fashion statement that won’t catch on in the city.