Monday 11 September 2017

Spring

Hello! Welcome to spring 2017!

Thinking back on those long, almost never ending months of winter, we didn't actually do too badly - if I'm honest.
Sure, there was plenty of rainy days to be had, it got cold enough to wear my woolen hats Nana so kindly knitted for me. However I don't recall any negative temperature days at all, we got down to the very low 0 or 1 degree, with perhaps five "official" frosts in total? But yeah, it wasn't too bad a winter when you think about it. We got rain but hey, there's always rain in winter. And everyone is always talking and suggesting it is possibly, "the wettest winter in quite a few years" but you never quite know - unless you keep a strict record of rainfall!
A fair few farmers try and pull that one, stating they've had so many mm of rain compared to last winter or the winter before, and "it definitely wasn't this wet last year, we're doing it pretty hard". But honestly? I can't even remember much of the weather from the autumn just been, let alone the last few winters. They're cold and wet, typically. That's all there is to it. How about we just not get too over dramatic, OK?

However, we've been thrown into spring in quite a brutal fashion. Currently, the rain only stops for a few brief periods in a day. We've had lightening, thunder and hail, winds that have been more icy than the coldest frost. You think you're in for a good day because the sky has cleared and the sun has come out, but not thirty minutes later everything has gone dark and you get under cover just in time for it to bucket down. It's not particularly fun, and the rest of this week is forecast to carry on like so, so the family and work morale is heading downhill quite substantially. I guess you just look forward to summer, right? Back into a drought when everyone complains about the lack of rain.


As per normal, life is ticking along. Where we feed calves, there is around 10 left to calve so we're on the home stretch now. It hasn't been very easy this year as Mum injured her back in the first week we started there. Upon initial doctor visits they thought it was a pinched nerve in her lower back/pelvis area - something like Sciatica perhaps. It's frustrating for us but even more frustrating for her, as it is a daily issue that she's having to deal with, she's determined to keep working and not being able to drives her crazy. But it drives us more crazy when she helps with something we've told her not to do, and then she hurts her back again.
She goes to physio sometimes, has tried acupuncture there and now they're saying she needs an x-ray on her hips/pelvis in case it is more of a bone injury rather than nerve damage. So I think that's happening this week.

So because I milk most days, and because I finish around 8:30 most mornings, Dad and Nick have taken over with the calves. If they're fencing during the day, they'll just get in there early so it doesn't affect their day too much. I'd love to do it more often, but they can't wait around for me to finish milking. It's frustrating because I really want to be there, and the days that I am there I notice that the calves aren't quite the same. Nothing against Dad and Nick of course, but they're just not getting as much human interaction that Mum and I would give them. You'd expect each mob to have two or three that are ultra friendly, but there aren't any. It's no major issue, but it is a little bit disappointing for me.

The fencing is going well but it's been quite wet so not as much has been done as we would like. Although Dad has taken up a new specialty line of work - house piles. A fair few builders and engineers have realised it is much cheaper to get us in there to bang the house piles in with our post rammer, than doing it any other way - however they'd normally do it, I don't know? But it's cheaper and faster so we're being recommended around the local building community. It's crazy, as most of the piles are 4.2 metres long, and they get pushed in almost all the way down, and often the floor is still concreted anyway. Confusing for me, as I've not a clue when it comes to house foundations, but it does seem rather extreme. The engineers measure the heights of the piles to the millimetre, so it takes a few days to get say, 30 piles in.
Once that side of it is all sorted, the house goes up in next to no time. All of these new buildings with all of the framing pre-built off site means everything just gets joined together and it's done. It's quite incredibly fast really, but of course it needs to be.


My sister will have her baby soon, she's actually due in early October however the baby is breeched and it isn't safe to turn her. So she's having a scan on Wednesday and she will hopefully know after that what day they'll book her in for a cesarean, it'll be pretty soon we think. She finishes up at work tomorrow, so it's not long to go! Can't wait to meet my niece!
A breech and a c-section is a little bit dramatic for a first born, but hey you get that I guess. Fingers crossed it all goes well.

A few weeks ago I decided to buy Hacksaw Ridge, a movie everyone has been telling me to see. So I ordered it online through The Warehouse. They took a little while to source the film, so they sent me an email telling me this. Eventually they found one, sent me an email with the order number and the tracking number and said that it was being sent out.
Around two hours later I got another email, again stating that they'd found what I was after and they were sending it out. This new email had the same order number, but a different tracking number. This time the order quantity was 2. So, in my confusion I replied to the email, telling them what had happened and that I'd only ordered the one DVD - was I going to get perhaps two or maybe three of the same movie sent out to me? Their reply - there was a glitch in the system and not to worry, I'd only get the one movie delivered.

Alas, a few days later I got the movie in the mail. The next day, the very same movie arrived the mail. However the amusing thing is that the second one that was sent out had a sticker on it saying "buy two, get the third free". So do I ring up and ask where the third one is?! It's a rather good system, you pay for one and you get two. I definitely recommend buying online!

If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend that too! I've seen it twice now, the first in short blips (as the movie is quite long, over two hours) and the second time I watched it in one stretch. If you watch it once, I'd say to watch it again as you can miss quite a few things the first time round. It's funny, sad and absolutely amazing at the same time.
I absolutely despise boring war or action movies, but this being based on a true story and being screened so well is particularly mesmerising. Often, many similar fiction movies will see the main characters walking through walls of fire and coming out completely unscathed. But this film shows no mercy on any major or minor character, everybody gets brutally injured, most get killed. It's awful and heartbreaking when you think that they're showing exactly what that part of the war was like. I've quite simply, never seen anything like it. So definitely watch it, if you can. Watch it twice.

The sun has finally come back out for a little while, little doggies have been evicted back outside to play while it's not raining. You wouldn't think dogs got too dirty until you own a small breed, a small breed that comes inside. Especially a small breed that is quite white like a foxy, but also a small breed that has a long-ish coat, that enjoys getting all muddy, who has very short legs, like a shih-tzu! It gets a bit tiring having to rub their legs and belly's down every time they come inside. And giving them a bath during the day so they have plenty of time to dry, but they've still gotta go back outside after that so winter is an endless battle with small dogs. We really can't wait until summer!

2 comments:

  1. Hacksaw Ridge is incredible. Those first few scenes in battle will a bit too realistic, but its good for anyone who thinks war is a nice friendly thing. Great film though aye.

    That's a pity about the calves! Our lamb pen is similar. L's really good at it, J not so much, apparently. L has told mum she'd be happier doing it herself without help, you sound about the same!!! ;P

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