North Stradbroke Island – Learning from Dogs

As topic changes go, this takes some beating!

I am referring, of course, to the contrast to yesterday’s post title: Wisdom, nature and philosophy.

The drought that this part of Oregon has been experiencing has had one obvious effect: the availability of good hay is rapidly diminishing. With four horses to feed and our own pasture just about eaten out, we need a few more tons before the rains arrive around the end of the year: fingers crossed! We have been frantically trying to find some.

What, you may ask, has this to do with Learning from Dogs? Only that by the time I sat down yesterday to write today’s post, I was squeezed in terms of writing a longer post, and had less than an hour to spare before driving up to Glendale to look at some second-cutting hay for sale.

Then a recent email from a long-term friend in Australia saved the day. It was from Amanda Smith and is reproduced just as she sent it to me; that in turn had been sent to Amanda from a friend of hers. It’s a delightful tale.

ooOOoo

Koalas Like the Beach As Well.

This occurred on a walk along Flinders Beach on North Stradbroke Island in Queensland a couple of days ago.

The Koalas seem fairly tame over here. We passed two sitting in she-oak trees each about two metres off the ground. They were not spooked at all by the attention we gave them.

Then, about half way along the beach, we saw this young fellow actually running up and down the beach and playing around the kids like a puppy.