Awol*

GOING *absent without livestock Safe and secure

Sometimes I dream of a 9-5 job, four weeks annual holiday, and a city flat where I just lock the door and walk away. Not for long, but it does flash through my mind as I stock up on chicken food, draw up grazing plans and make long lists while trying to pack.

However, we have designed our block to allow us weekend freedom, and have implemented some other strategies which do make it easier to go away.

Cultivate neighbourly networks

It is about this time of year I put invites into my neighbour’s letterboxes.

“Bring a drink and a plate and come for a Christmas get-together.”

Some never respond, but the ones that have are now valuable friends and I highly recommend the practice. It is networking, rural-style.

Friendship and laughter aside, there is a totally pragmatic side to knowing your neighbours.

If you have swapped animal anecdotes over a bottle of wine, you know who to call when there is a strange kunekune in your vege garden. If your goats escape into their orchard, there is a much higher chance they will call you instead of shooting the plundering Houdinis.

If you know your neighbours have gone to Bali, you might think it’s weird when a moving van is uploading all their furniture. If you are going away, you can pay their teenage daughter to feed your cat and chickens.

It’s also peace of mind to know someone with sense who is somewhat familiar with your infrastructure, routines and animals, and is keeping an eye on your house, teenagers, staff and/or animals when you aren’t there.

We don’t have a lot worth stealing, but I’d like to keep what we have.

First off, we’ve made sure our yard is visible from the road. Privacy is all well and good but I didn’t want a high fence that would-be burglars could hide behind. Our yard actually contains over 100 dying Mercedes cars as stock for my husband’s parts business, so cameras and sensors alert us to anyone who tries to self-serve.

We decided a monitored security system would be useless as the response is at least 20 minutes away, so we installed

a really loud alarm that even It is a sad

the neighbours can hear. They state of affairs

phones us or friends if we are out when we have

to lock our of range. We have a network of paddocks but neighbours who we can ask to

there’s too respond, and we do the same for much rustling them. This system also has a fixed going on smoke alarm.

You also need to keep stock in. All our boundary gates are locked with combination locks, and even the smartest, bored and most spiteful cow still hasn’t worked out the number.

This, combined with a hot wire on top of the seven-wire boundary fence, may not stop would-be rustlers, but at least it will make their job more difficult.

It is a sad state of affairs when we have to lock our paddocks but we suffered too much rustling when I lived on the East