Farm Friends

by Rebecca Johnson

  For Maddy and Sam

  Our greatest achievements. RJx

  I wake up really early. Chelsea slept over last night as we’re leaving early with Mum. She’s doing a lot of rounds at the local farms at the moment because it’s Spring and there are heaps of animals having babies that need help.

  Mum’s first stop is Brown’s Dairy Farm, where our friend Maisy lives. Mum will be going there a lot in the next few weeks because all the cows are due to have their calves and some of them will need our help, especially the ones who are having calves for the first time.

  Chelsea and I have been invited to stay for the week because it’s the holidays. My brother Max is staying too, because Maisy has a brother who is Max’s age. He’s really into dinosaurs, just like Max. Groan.

  Anyway, I’m sure Mr Brown will be very happy to have me there for the week. He knows about my skills as a vet and I will be able to keep an eye on things when Mum is off doing her rounds at the other farms.

  ‘Juliet, are you nearly ready?’ Mum taps on my door.

  ‘Chelsea, you’d better get up.’

  I nudge my friend with my toe as I try to ram the last of my equipment into my vet kit. It’s really Dad’s fishing box, but I know he won’t mind that I’ve borrowed it. Chelsea is asleep on a mattress next to my bed. All I can see is her blonde hair poking out from the top of her sleeping bag. She is surrounded by the stuff I had to clear away from my floor to make room for her. Luckily I notice my tweezers just near Chelsea’s head and push them into my kit too.

  Chelsea sits up and with a sleepy smile pushes a strand of hair out of her eyes. She looks like she has just spent an hour in the bathroom getting ready. Her pink flowery suitcase stands by the door with her clothes for the day lying neatly on top of it. How does she do it?

  We get dressed quickly then scoff down a bowl of cereal. Mum and Dad are out at the car packing Mum’s vet supplies. Dad is having an argument with Max about how many boxes of dinosaurs he can take. I slip past them and put my vet kit and Chelsea’s suitcase in the boot.

  ‘Aren’t you taking any clothes?’ Chelsea asks.

  ‘Whoops!’ I race back inside and grab a couple of pairs of jeans, a shirt, some undies and my toothbrush. I don’t have time to find a bag.

  Dad is about to close the boot as I throw my stuff in on top. He looks at me and shakes his head as my toothbrush lands in amongst the dinosaurs. Then he sees my vet kit.

  ‘Hang on!’ he says. ‘Isn’t that my –’

  ‘Come on, Juliet,’ Mum calls from the front seat. ‘We need to get going.’

  I look at Dad and shrug. He shuts the boot and sighs.

  We wave goodbye and head off. This holiday is going to be great practice for being a vet. I flip open my notepad. I have already made a list of animals the Browns have.

  When we get there, Maisy’s little brother Harry is hanging off the front gate waiting. He’s put a plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur on the posts on either side of the gate. Max laughs hysterically and holds up his triceratops. Luckily, Mum stops the car and lets him out. It’s going to be a very long week if we have to spend too much time around those two.

  As we pull up near the house I can see Maisy hanging over the fence talking to her dad. He is looking at a huge black-and-white cow in the yard. She is obviously pregnant with a calf.

  ‘She’s getting close to having it,’ says Mum as we walk towards them.

  ‘She sure is,’ Mr Brown agrees as he runs his hand down the cow’s smooth coat. ‘I just hope she’ll be okay, being her first calf and all.’

  Mr Brown loves his cows. This particular cow, Bella, has won many prizes at shows. Her calves will be worth a lot of money.

  ‘One of our sheep had triplets last night!’ says Maisy excitedly. ‘They’re in the hay shed. Come and have a look.’

  ‘Three lambs!’ I say. ‘I’d love to see them.’

  ‘Would you like us to get our suitcases out of the car first?’ says Chelsea helpfully.

  ‘You can get them later, honey,’ Mum smiles. ‘I’m going to help Mr Brown drench some cattle, and I’ll need to check those lambs too, so you’ve got plenty of time.’

  ‘Why’s your mum going to drench the cattle?’ pants Chelsea as the three of us run towards the hay shed. ‘It only just rained last night. Why does she need to hose them?’

  Maisy and I stop running because it’s hard to run when you’re laughing.

  ‘Oh, Chelsea, drenching means giving them some worm medicine. I’ve seen Mum do it heaps of times.’

  Luckily I have my Vet Diary shoved into the back of my jeans. Vets have to be prepared at all times. I pull it out and flip to a diagram I drew earlier.

  ‘This is how they give cows their medicine for worms. They need to make sure every cow in the herd gets exactly the same amount and none of them miss out.’

  ‘Ergh! That’s horrible. Fancy having a tube stuck down your throat. Thank goodness my mum just gives us all a little square of chocolate with worm medicine in it.’

  ‘It’s all part of a vet’s job,’ I laugh.

  ‘Well, I’d rather be the vet than the cow,’ giggles Maisy.

  All animals are beautiful. I know that. But the three tiny lambs that are hiding behind their mother in the hay shed are just the most adorable things I have ever seen. They are tiny and white as a tissue with little pink noses.

  The three of us sit quietly and watch as they peer out at us.

  ‘She’s going to have trouble feeding all three of them, so we might have to give them some bottles of formula,’ said Maisy. ‘It’s fun at first, but after a while it gets to be a real drag with all the mixing up of the milk and stuff.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I blurt. ‘I’ll do it every day. I won’t get sick of it, I know I won’t.’

  Mum and Mr Brown walk up behind us.

  ‘Mum, will these lambs need a bottle? Can I do it? I can make a schedule and give them names and –’

  ‘Slow down, Juliet. Just let me have a look at them and then we’ll let Mr Brown decide what he wants to do.’

  I twist my hands together impatiently as I watch Mum gently reach in to pick up each lamb. She’s so lucky. I can’t wait to be a real vet.

  ‘This one’s going to be the weakling,’ says Mum, passing the tiniest lamb to Mr Brown. ‘You can see the other two have taken over already. She seems healthy enough at this stage but she’ll soon fall behind. Do you have any ewes that only have one lamb?’

  ‘Unfortunately, she’s the first to lamb,’ says Mr Brown. ‘None of them are due for another week at least.’

  I turn and whisper to Chelsea. ‘Sometimes, if a sheep can’t feed her lamb, another sheep who has a lamb the same age will feed it as well as her own. It can be a bit tricky to get them to accept the new lamb though.’

  Chelsea looks worried as she gently strokes the little lamb in Mum’s arms.

  ‘Marg isn’t going to be too happy,’ says Mr Brown. ‘She’s got a lot on this week already.’

  I can’t control myself for a second longer. ‘I’m here for the week, Mr Brown,’ I almost shout. ‘I can do it for Mrs Brown. I’m nearly a vet, aren’t I, Mum? You can just tell me what to do and I’ll . . .’

  Mr Brown looks at Mum and then me. He looks a little overwhelmed by my enthusiasm.

  ‘You’ll need to go and talk to Marg when she comes back from town. See if she wants you to help.’

  ‘Okay. I will. I’ll be a great help, I promise.’

  Maisy and Chelsea are nodding at Mr Brown. But I can see he might take a bit of convincing.

  After we’ve looked at the lambs, Maisy and Chelsea decide to go for a ride on the horses, Midgie and Thunder. Horse riding is not really my thing. And anyway, Mum definitely needs my help with the catt
le drenching. Someone needs to make sure the hose doesn’t get a kink in it so the medicine can get through easily.

  The cows don’t seem to like being pushed into what Mr Brown calls the ‘cattle crush’ (sort of like a cow cage). They moo and flick their tails angrily. But sometimes vets have to be cruel to be kind. After all, if a cow gets worms it can get very sick.

  As each cow gets herded into the crush Mum and Mr Brown hold their mouths open and feed them the medicine with the drench gun. I check the hose lots of times but it’s fine. I start to get a little bit bored so I make some notes in my Vet Diary about the things I still need to learn to be a Great Vet.

  ‘Can I have a go?’ I ask after a while.

  Mum looks at me for a moment. ‘I guess so. But you’ll have to be very careful and let me help you.’

  I am so excited! Imagine getting to drench a cow! Mum helps me to line the nozzle up in the cow’s mouth and press the trigger. BAM! The medicine goes straight down her throat. It’s easy. I stand back and wait for my next patient. I hold the trigger with my finger and spin the drench gun around like a cowboy in a gunfight, giving it a little squeeze for practice. I spin on the spot and shoot. BAM!

  Whoops. I didn’t see Maisy’s dad behind me. He looks down at the worming mixture all over his shirt and trousers.

  ‘Juliet!’ blurts Mum. ‘What were you thinking?’

  ‘Um. Sorry, Mr Brown. The nozzle seems to be working fine now, Mum.’

  I look up towards the hay shed because I hear shrieks of laughter. Max and Harry have climbed to the very top of the hay bales and are looking out of the window near the roof. They have just seen me ‘worm’ Mr Brown.

  I feel my face go red. I hand Mum the worming gun and run towards the hay shed. I can hear Mum apologising again. I have just blown my chance to show Mr Brown I am responsible. Now he probably won’t want me anywhere near his lambs.

  I sit on an old barrel out of sight behind the shed so I can feel sorry for myself in peace. Although it’s not really peaceful with all the clucking and quacking going on around me. I watch the chickens and ducks pecking at my feet. I like chooks. I think if I was an animal, I’d be a chook. Whenever they find a worm or something nice to eat they get so excited about it that they make loud bok bok noises. Then all the other chooks get really excited and come running over to join in the hunt. Chooks don’t get in trouble for being enthusiastic.

  In the distance I can see Chelsea and Maisy riding across the paddock, and the big pregnant cow, Bella, standing under a tree.

  Suddenly I hear a rustling sound coming from behind the barrel I am sitting on. I pull my legs up and sit very quietly as a large red hen sneaks past the barrel and heads down to the pond for a quick drink. I peer down into the grass behind the barrel at her well-hidden nest. I can see eight small brown eggs and four big white eggs. Boy, she’s been busy.

  As soon as she’s across the yard she starts clucking like mad. Hens do that when they lay eggs. They start clucking in a spot a long way from their nest to make foxes and snakes think that their nest is somewhere else. Clever, hey?

  I add these notes to my section on hens and roosters.

  As I’m doing this, a large white duck comes up from the pond and settles herself on the red hen’s eggs. Uh oh. I don’t think this is going to end well.

  The hen comes back to her nest. But to my surprise, she just sits down right next to the duck and pulls some of the eggs underneath herself. I smile at the strange friendship.

  A loud sound like a rusty gate swinging backwards and forwards really quickly makes me almost fall off the barrel in surprise. It is coming from the hay shed. Making sure not to disturb the duck and the red hen, I race around the corner to investigate.

  A pair of guinea fowl are standing on a bale of hay shrieking like mad. They look a bit like chooks, but they are covered in grey and white spots and have tiny little heads. They are also a lot noisier.

  As I get closer I see Max and Harry still on top of the hay bales. But they’re not laughing any more. Max looks like he’s about to cry. And I suddenly see why.

  A snake is slowly making its way across the floor of the shed and the guinea fowl are shrieking and hissing at it. I slip to one side and start to climb the bales of hay towards the boys. Harry grabs a plastic dinosaur and throws it at the snake. The dinosaur clips one of the guinea fowl on the tail instead, making them both screech louder and fly out of the barn.

  ‘No, Harry,’ I whisper urgently. ‘Don’t hurt the snake. You’re all right up here. Just sit quietly and let me have a look at it for a minute.’

  Max hides his face behind my back. I put my arm around him and peer at the snake. Just as I suspected. It’s just a large carpet python that’s probably in the barn to catch rats and mice. Carpet pythons are not the least bit interested in attacking humans. Humans are usually the ones that attack them! It’s probably more scared of us than we are of it.

  ‘Max,’ I say, ‘do you know what this is? This is a relative of a dinosaur! Snakes have been on Earth for as long as some dinosaurs. You don’t want to kill a dinosaur, do you? If you leave it alone, it will go back to its hiding spot and leave you alone.’

  At the mention of the word ‘dinosaur’ Max’s head pops out from behind my back.

  ‘A dinosaur?’

  ‘How you do know that stuff?’ says Harry, suspicious that I am making things up.

  Before I can open my mouth, Max pipes up, ‘Juliet’s nearly a vet, you know.’

  I smile and smile.

  Mrs Brown is in the kitchen when we all troop inside for morning tea. The smell of fresh baking makes my mouth water.

  ‘How did the riding go, girls?’ she asks as we sit down around the kitchen table.

  ‘Great,’ laughs Chelsea, ‘although in my case it’s more like hanging on for my life than riding!’

  The screen door swings open and Mr Brown appears. He looks even bigger when you’re sitting down.

  ‘Rachel says we’re going to need to feed the smallest lamb, Marg,’ he says.

  Mrs Brown sighs. ‘Oh dear, I suspected that. This week is just getting busier and busier.’

  ‘Good news is, we’ve got an apprentice vet staying with us.’ He smiles and nods at me. ‘If you show her what to do Juliet can help. She knows what she’s doing. She just saved a carpet snake in the hay shed from death by dinosaurs.’

  Of course, then I have to tell everyone about the guinea fowl and the snake. They are very impressed, although Chelsea pulls her legs up on her chair and keeps glancing nervously at the floor.

  After we’ve finished the delicious homemade biscuits and pikelets with fresh cream, Mrs Brown shows us how to sterilise the feeding bottles and mix and warm the special formula for the lamb.

  We then head over to the shed with Mrs Brown to give the smallest lamb her first bottle. The boys have disappeared, but the ewe and her three little lambs are settled in the corner surrounded by a barricade of hay to keep them safe. Mrs Brown hands the smallest lamb to me. Her tiny pink tongue wraps around the teat of the bottle and she happily sits on my lap, butting eagerly against me. She is incredibly strong and noisy once she gets going and we all laugh as I struggle to hold onto the bottle. Chelsea has a turn too and we are all laughing as the tiny lamb sucks greedily and the bottle is soon empty.

  ‘Well, she should be fine by the looks of the way she guzzled that!’ laughs Mrs Brown. ‘Are you sure you want to take this on, Juliet? I’ll give her the night bottles, but if you were able to do the first feed at six a.m. and a bottle every four hours during the day, I can catch up on a bit of sleep!’

  I hug her in excitement. ‘Oh, Mrs Brown, I’d love to!’

  ‘Why don’t we time it so that we ride the horses while you feed the lamb?’ suggests Maisy. ‘Then you won’t have to wait around for us to finish.’

  ‘And we won’t have to come into this hay shed,’ says Chelsea, shuddering. She is sitting on top of a large drum with her legs pulled up to her chest as she nervous
ly looks around.

  ‘Perhaps you’d be interested in doing a few other “animal” jobs around the farm while you’re here,’ suggests Mrs Brown.

  ‘Oh, I’d love to, Mrs Brown!’ I whip out my Vet Diary and pencil from the back pocket of my jeans. ‘I’m nearly a vet, you know, so I need to practise my skills with lots of different animals.’

  I write furiously as she gives me a list.

  ‘Those fish are breeding like flies,’ says Mrs Brown, almost to herself. ‘I only started with twelve and the other day I looked in the pond and there must have been about a hundred in there.’

  Chelsea, Maisy and I giggle.

  ‘I can’t find one of my red chooks and one of the ducks. I hope they haven’t been eaten by a fox.’

  ‘You have foxes as well as snakes?’ says Chelsea. She looks like she’s about to faint.

  ‘Well, I can help with that one already,’ I laugh. ‘They’re nesting together behind the big barrel at the back of the hay shed.’

  ‘Really?’ says Mrs Brown excitedly. ‘I’ve been looking for them for ages. Will you show me where they are?’

  ‘We did tell you she was nearly a vet, Mum,’ says Maisy.

  Mrs Brown smiles and continues with her list.

  ‘I think I should warn you about something, Juliet.’ Chelsea is looking at me very seriously. ‘We rode past the pig pen this morning and it absolutely stinks. It’s revolting. I still can’t get the smell of it out of my nostrils and my hair.’ She dabs a tissue at her nose as if she is remembering the smell.

  ‘I’m sure I’ve smelt worse things in Mum’s surgery,’ I laugh. ‘That comes with being a vet, you know.’

  ‘Well, I think I’ll stick to training animals after they are clean,’ says Chelsea.

  ‘And, of course, you’ll need to feed the lamb,’ says Mrs Brown.