Christmas Feast

Beautiful surprise Christmas Eve dinner was prepared by our beautiful European and middle Eastern volunteer staff this Christmas. Complete with menu's courtesy of  Josh Campen, printed in Swedish Dutch French and Yes .... Hebrew.... What the?  Sarah joined in the family Christmas and bought to the table her favourite Jewish dishes. How lucky are we to have the opportunity to celebrate with these delightful young travellers!

 Christmas Day of course was prepared by the Men of the Household and duck terrain and asian salads and rice paper rolls were perfect for the tropical temperature in the North East here at Spring Spur.

Christmas Greetings from the Bogong Bairds

Christmas AGAIN the start of many exciting new roles for us all here at BHA and especially for George and Mildred the Christmas Mule~deers! LOL
To all of you whom we adore out there in the world of Cyber Space ~
Have a Safe and wonderful Christmas with your loved ones, don't eat too much and send a little something to a charity or buy a goat for a village in Africa rather than a whole lot of stuff from China~ Compassion is a gift and the heart of life ~ Generosity sustains us ~ Be generous in simple acts of kindness ~ See the smiles from my family to yours ~ AND smile too ~ With all of our love from deep within our PUMPS ~
We all love to celebrate this special time  ~ Influenced by great SAINTS that have walked our earth ~ since time began ~ Time for Stillness~ Contemplation ~ Love ~ and a couple of  DAYS OFF! Ya Hoo!

Mildred, Lin, Kath, Steve, Clay and George

Spring garlic harvest

Garden meisters Lin and Kath braid the seed garlic thinnings. Garden fresh garlic is a whole new experience in the garden kitchen and adds that fresh flavor missing from dried garlic.

Yard works

Last summer a little brumby colt jumped out of our round yard and more recently a new horse on the block breasted and broke the old top rail, confirming what we already knew, that the top rail needed to be higher and stronger. Lin and Nathan dropped a few long tall blue gum regrowth poles and set to work putting up a new top rail. The job will be ongoing as time allows, but the first rail is a good indicator of things to come.

New top rail firmly in place

Pack mules rule

With an overnight ride heading bush this weekend, it seems like an ideal time to introduce George and Mildred, our new mules, to their future employment option - as pack mules carrying goodies and comfort into the renowned BHA bush camps. George was given a trial run today and passed with flying colours, taking to the pack load like an experienced hand. I'm sure Lin's extensive experience working with mules at Rock Creek Pack station in the USA made sure the job went well.

Big George dwarfs Lin with his oversized bags

George meets the dentist

Once a year equine dentist Barry Stephan checks and files the teeth on the horses. Amongst the patients this year George and Mildred the mules had their teeth worked

It's a long reach into Georges mouth

Brodie takes a leek

Long time family friend and sometimes staffer, Brodie Pownall plants leeks in the Spring Spur veggie patch

The everlasting leeks are constantly divided to produce a year round crop.

Falling from the sky

Twice now during my life I have witnessed a paraglider falling from the sky! The first time was when Steve and I were driving back from the Township of Mt Beauty, when as I was gazing out at the beautiful blue sky, a glider off in the distance above the airport suddenly spiralled out of control towards the earth!

I rang the police and reported my sighting, immediately.

The poor man lost his life that day, as the sun shone brilliantly on the rest of us, but for the family and friends of this man the news they were about to receive would shatter their shining world forever.

I was saddened to hear later that the man died instantly, with no chance of surviving.

Yesterday at exactly 10.24 the phone rang and I answered the call, It was our good friend Tim Cope the adventurer ringing me to tell him he was back renting next door in his little cottage and settling back in to Tawonga life after returning from Mongolia with his beautiful partner Haulo.

As I settled in for a chat on the verandah over looking my beautiful valley, I thought I witnessed this terrible sight again across the valley this time on the edge of the National Park!

I gasped as I saw an orange parachute suddenly crash and disappear out of sight! I told Tim what I thought I saw and hung up! I grabbed the binoculars that we have handy, and saw the Ryder's cattle, who's property it was, all cantering away from the area!! Alarm bells rang as I know there was a motorised Hang gliding club in the Valley, as on Friday they were flying over our house annoying the peace of Spring Spur Life with their lawn mowers in the sky flying very low over us.

I then rang 000, explaining what I had just witnessed calmly explaining the National Park Track the emergency services would need to access to find him, on or near where we take our riders everyday called Moncrieff's fire trail at the eastern end of Rock Pool rd in Mt Beauty.!

It is frustrating when explaining to emergency services that I was witness to an incident some three kilometres away as the crow fly's, on the other side of the Valley, and the ambulance was not needed here at Spring Spur but in the National Park!

My darling son Lin, recognised my anguish and drove down to the National Park gate with his first aid kit and hiked in, running most of the way, calling me to see if he needed to go further. Thank god for iPhones and excellent signal now days, as I was able to pinpoint the approximate location of both Lin and where he needed to get to, from my awesome lookout point on the verandah of my home.

In the meantime I had rung my neighbour Glen McIlroy, paramedic and in search and rescue, direct to alert him of what I had witnessed and gave him Lin direct number!

I then rang Lin back and just at that moment he had found him! "He's conscious mum I have found him"

Nigel was in a bad way, but the ambo's were on their way. Lin had found Nigel at exactly 11am. and the The first ambulance officers, Glen and his partner  arrived at 11.20am. Although Nigel was in terrible pain, there was no external bleeding so Lin could only make him as comfortable as possible while they waited for the ammo's 20 minutes later.

Lin said it seemed like a very long time to wait, but it was difficult to access the site. Lin shared with us last night when we had a family de- briefing, that Nigel's sense of humour remained in tact and he had told Lin he had hit the power lines and fell from about 20+ metres, (actually 60-80 metres) landing strapped to his machine on his back!  Later when his friends arrived at the scene Nigel overheard someone say "It's his birthday today and he is 60 years old" On hearing this Nigel whispered to Lin who was still supporting his head, "I'm 59 tell 'em I'm 59!"

Lin was so amazingly brave, as was Nigel,  comforting and supporting Nigel while they waited for help to arrive, it was a long wait. He was very pale and couldn't move. He was airlifted to Melbourne at 1.45pm,  after great life saving stabilising efforts from out emergency services team, Nigel's blood pressure was dangerously low at the scene, he remains in a critical but stable condition, fighting for his life!

We are hoping he can pull through, and celebrate his 59th birthday some other day, in some other way, with his loved ones, mates from the club and maybe with his feet firmly on the ground!

Our thoughts are with Nigel and his family and friends.

Kath Baird

View from the verandah

Daisy's Tilly arrives

Daisy is arriving after Christmas to lend a hand and sent her filly Tilly on earlier to get aquainted with the BHA team. A smart little Quarter Horse and a beautiful foal will be had in the future to Lin's Red Robin.

'Tilly' on the green pastures of the Kiewa Valley

Chooks arrive

After great anticipation, the construction of their transport cage and fox proof shed, the point of lay chooks have arrived here at Spring Spur. There are nine ISA Browns and one White leghorn. The girls have settled quickly into their new home and we await the eggs!

Chooks check out their new home

Clay's Middle Eastern Taverna

Diner time at Spring Spur is a never ending ode to good food. Tonight Clay prepared a middle eastern meal including hand made dolmades using the homestead grapevine leaves, fresh baked flat bread, a spiced chicken Shawarma, minty youghurt, spiced cous cous and a mixed bean salad.

Dinner time at Spring Spur

New trees for pack saddle

Nathan and Lin have fired up the forge to smith some new fixed trees for the pack saddles

Nathan on the old Buffalo Blower

Veggies

Spring crop is in the ground and loving the warm, damp weather

Food, the giver of life

Living and working at Spring Spur is punctuated by meal times, food and good company.

 The cookhouse, source of many happy meals

 Family lunch on the veranda

Lin's vegie garden

Horsemob

The horses benefit from living as a herd, and running as a mob is balanced with lots of work.

Plenty of energy in the spring pastures.

Family life

Living at Spring Spur has it's quiet times and jumping times.

Family life - pic Charlie Brown

Stables

The stables were built in 1992, and are the "engine-house" of the working life at Spring Spur

Lin and Clay in the Big Shed - pic Charlie Brown

Welcome to Spring Spur

Spring Spur is a rural property in North East Victoria's High Country Region, sitting in the Kiewa Valley and surrounded by the peaks and High Plains of the Alpine National Park.

Shed and Yards at Spring Spur