50 Shades of Purple

Things are still a bit tight at home. We have received some rain since Christmas, but no large falls to get any depth of moisture. The grasses had some good growth after some further falls in February, lucky for those showers we have some feed on the ground for Winter. As a result our oats haven’t had a great start. The first paddocks planted are up and going – just. It takes a bit of heart to live in an oats crop. You’ve got to be tough. We planted on minimal moisture this year (after a long dry spell), in the hope that further rain would fall. It hasn’t. The small amount of rain we have had has kept the oats going, and it has turned every shade of purple in the hot and the windy days. Given good rain whilst it is still warm it will be off and growing again for Winter feed.

You don’t see much of the colour purple in the country. Writing this about the purple oats, reminds me of a story about a male peacock we had on the farm when I was a kid. I won’t win any points with Mum for this one, but it’s not a bad yarn.

Mum used to get about in a very pretty blue and purple dressing gown on Winter mornings.
At the same time we had quite a few peacocks who liked to wander around the yard looking pretty (when they weren’t shitting all over the verandah!). One young male peacock took a particular liking to Mother Dearest as she put the washing on the line in the gown. I guess the long legs and the blue ‘dress’ were just too much… and after all we do live a bit out of town…

After some weeks of dancing and showing his feathers he was ready to make his move. Having seen this coming, Mum was ready for him and he received a swift towel in the chops for his efforts. This didn’t dampen his spirits and I believe there may have been several weeks of peacock harassment before Mum finally convinced my smiling Father to give the peacock away…