Fifth and Final Season

As of yesterday Mum and I are back into the calf rearing. On Tuesday night after work on my way to Taylor's I stopped in at the calf shed to see how many pens of calves they had, knowing the next morning we'd be feeding them.
Five. Five pens, fifty calves, and Taylor and his boss are already over it! Once I got up to his house I was just like, are you serious? You guys can't cope with feeding five pens of calves?! I was joking of course, but it was still amusing!
We're starting a tad earlier than normal - usually we'd start once there was a group of 40 heifers in the outside barn, but they're bringing in about 10 calves a day now, so tomorrow or Saturday those older heifers will need to move on out to make some room. This year is going to be a lot easier on us, as they're calving only 350 - 100 less than normal. Also all of the calves are either keeper heifers or friesian bulls that go to the sale every Tuesday, there's already 20 bulls that will be ready for Tuesday but calves born tomorrow and Saturday will be going too. I daresay there will be at least 30 for the sales next week!
Oh how I love Wednesday mornings! The problem is that we're feeding them four litres per calf straight off the mark, so most of our time is currently spent waiting for them to drink. Once we've got a group outside we'll be able to spread our time better, filling the mobile calf feeder and feeding the big group while we leave a couple of pens to drink on their own. In a couple days our system will be down pat again, thankfully with our starting a few days early we're able to wean ourselves back into the job! Thinking ahead for the next 10 or 12 weeks of calf feeding, I told Tay that at least I'll get to see him every day again lol.

This is the fifth year Mum and I have reared the calves on this farm, it's also likely to be the final season we do it, if anything it's the last winter/spring we rear calves as the guy is changing to Autumn calving next year.

Last weekend I took my last "real" weekend off, where Mum and I ran away from home on Friday morning in the direction of my sister's place in Te Aroha. Saturday was her baby shower, so we took our time cruising down there. It was my first time driving all that way, apart from the rain it was a good trip. However I've decided I won't be staying there in winter again, as it was cold. Bitterly cold that first night especially, I might've been born in the Waikato but I'm not a Waikato-ian at heart!
The party went well, my blood sugar level must've skyrocketed over the weekend, with all of the sweet food that was on hand and the fact that everyone was munching on the leftovers Saturday night and Sunday morning. It was actually good to get home to have some decent meals again.

The baby will be pretty in pink for the first few months of her life outside the womb as almost everybody gave clothing as gifts - but they're all in that same sort of age bracket. So baby might only get to wear each item a few times before she's outgrown them, which is unfortunate but they're all good quality clothing items so any future daughters will be able to wear them too or she could give them to an opshop or similar if necessary.


Work is going OK at the moment, there's only another week or two until the bulls come out of the herd at the big farm I'm on. To think they went in mid June and my boss said they'd be pulled out around the 10th of August, I thought at the time that it was so far away! But time is ticking along and I think the bulls are so used to their routine now that they aren't too much of a problem with them being in the herd anymore. That, and I'd say most of the cows are in calf now so the bulls aren't too overly excited these days. I've only got five and a half months of milking to go until I'm finished - time is flying by now.
The weather isn't our friend at the moment, somedays I'd much rather it was bitterly cold with frosts. Instead it's just always very wet and windy, our lawn is a mess and whenever I'm outside hauling myself through the mud that used to be our lawn, I can hear all the water rushing through from the paddock above us. We really do need some better form of drainage to stop the water coming through from the neighbours, but there's not much to be done.

Nick and Dad are home a heck of a lot lately too, it's simply too wet for them to work which is terrible for the finances. Thankfully they've had a couple of residential fencing jobs that don't require the tractor that they could carry on with, and the last two days has been calm enough for them to spray on a farm, but it's still seriously wet and when it gets to this stage the water simply doesn't go anywhere.
So as you can imagine we're super excited about the weather bomb that's coming in tonight - not!

I've got a new laptop now - hence these posts being updated more frequently. It's rather amusing how my old laptop gets into a little bit of trouble a couple months prior to the end of the warranty - four rather important keys suddenly stopped working. They were all in the same area of the keyboard, so I would say that there was suddenly a fault through the system somehow (no, I didn't spill anything on it).
The repairers took it back and agreed there was an issue that they weren't prepared to bother fixing, so I either got a credit of around $1100, or I could take a direct swap of a new laptop with the same specs. Once the technology department special ended, their direct swap model was worth about $1400 so I agreed to that one. However our Harvey Norman didn't have that model in stock, so found me a similar, but even better laptop instead. It's an HP with two harddrives, really good graphics card and a disk drive (which is quite important to me as the last laptop didn't have one). It's pretty massive with the 17 inch screen, but hey it's a free laptop with Windows 10 which I'll have to get used to, and all the newly designed programs - like the ability to connect the laptop with my phone for ease of access when I don't have the laptop with me or vice versa. Pretty interesting, that.
So just like when I got my last laptop, we got a Product Care warranty with it for $200, so that gives three years of warranty and we've discovered that laptops only tend to last three years. So I wonder what will happen if this one randomly fails towards the end of the warranty - will I get the same deal again and get another new one?! Somehow I'd say it's unlikely, but it's a cool thought.


I thought I'd quickly mention a little bit of Tay's trip on here. The guys eventually left to go hunting on the Tuesday? Getting to the DOC hut that afternoon sometime. Taylor, his brother Jordan, and their friends Nate and Luke, went with Luke's two other friends Max and Kamble. From what I remember they split into two groups and went in opposite directions on Wednesday. Taylor and Nate went with Luke but they only made it half way and had to give up and go back Wednesday afternoon because the fog was too thick and they couldn't see much. On Thursday Tay and Nate swapped and went with Max leading them another way. They got to around 2200 feet, but it was all rock which eventually got seriously dangerous with the ice, Nate pulled out first and not long after that Taylor said he wasn't prepared to go any higher so they headed back.
Meanwhile Luke, Jordan and Kamble had gone somewhere else, getting to only 1700 feet where they came across big groups of Tahr - they shot four I think.
I got a text Thursday night to say they were heading out of the mountain - so much for their seven days up there! The weather up there and the conditions weren't the best, with a lot of snow and ice. I'm glad they decided to quit and leave early rather than stay up there and run into trouble.

A day or so later Tay, Luke, Max and Kamble decided to head to Queenstown for a few days where they went snowboarding and tiki-touring around a bit. I think it got to the stage where Taylor was over his holiday and just wanted to come home again, but had to wait it out a few days until their set day to fly home. Nate was the opposite though as he sorta found himself a girlfriend down there and probably wasn't wanting to come back! It was really good when they finally came back, I was like "you are never doing that again! No more holidays without me" which he's agreed with quite happily haha
Apparently we're going to Queenstown next winter so I can see the snow and so he can ski - snowboarding is deemed quite difficult. Apparently I have to learn how to ski too, but that might take a little bit of coercing for me to try!

Some pictures of Mt. Cook I stole from Tay, and this one I found on his facebook page. Twisty nose, sometimes you have calves born like this but you don't often notice until they're a lot older. I guess you can say she won't always want to follow her nose, as she'll just go in circles! But look at that tongue!!!

Kayaking in Puhoi

Hello, and welcome to November; the second to last month of the year that only seems to last a few days in honest reality and yet again, Christmas will soon be upon us. It's a scary thought and I say it every year - although this time it'll prove to be a little more chaotic due to the fact that we're expecting a fair few people during the Christmas/New Year week. A joy to behold, I assure you.

I'm not writing too much at present which makes me feel a little on the guilty side. I always thought to myself that I wouldn't become one of those people who suddenly became too 'busy' to write and update my blog. However, at the same time I don't particularly want to update too often due to potentially saying the same things, over and over. For example, my life is busy - very busy. But for the most of it, I do the same things most weeks. Milk, fence, eat, sleep, see Taylor, you know?

Taylor and I finally had a joint day off on Labour Day, so we actually went out for it. We went out for a brunch sort of meal at a really cute local restaurant, where they have some very interesting food options; a twist of French and Kiwi cuisine. For example, when you order hot drinks they arrive with funny little cake-like things. I've not a clue what they are, and it's exceptionally difficult to describe the taste. They're a little oily, somewhat hard on the outside and sort of doughy on the inside. They're not hot or cold, sweet or savoury. They're rather strange, but so yum.
I guess they may be deep-fried, I just can't imagine how they'd create that sort of shape either. I guess that's why they're chefs, and uh, I'm not...!

A few weeks earlier we'd been discussing some ideas of things to do, and discovered that we both wanted to go kayaking at a particular place. So we planned to go on Monday afternoon. There's a small village called Puhoi, a little off the main drag when you're heading south, in that ghastly direction of Auckland. There's a river that snakes its way back up towards State Highway 1, and eventually seems to flow somewhat parallel to the road. For years we've been driving that road on our way south and we've noticed the kayakers, however we've just never been and done it. It's a tourist trap, but something that us more local people try out too. Anyhow, we drove down there and hired a kayak each, taking off at a leisurely pace down the river. It was about an 8 kilometre stretch, that would take about two hours. They say you end up at this place called Wenderholm Regional Park, where they meet us with a van and trailer to drive us back to Puhoi.

It was a rather new experience for both of us, as we'd never been kayaking before. After 10 minutes of paddling around a short section of the river - to be sure we were all good to go before leaving Puhoi and the hire centre, I quickly realised how difficult it actually was. I had a new appreciation for rowers, kayakers and the like who sit at Olympian level, as it took a fair amount of time learning how to steer the silly thing! You've also got to be careful not to put the paddle too deep into the water, as we were told - when you lift it up and put the other side down, you will more than likely scoop up and pour water into your lap. I learned that pretty quickly! We were also warned how easy it was to flip a kayak. I assume that the person who had used my kayak previously had either flipped it, or poured heaps of water into it as my little seat thing was soaked. It made for a rather uncomfortable journey! haha

We eventually made it to Wenderholm in just under two hours, were rather sore by the end of it and a little wet. The bonus was that neither of us fell out! Some people were riding horses in the river at one section, and we were almost taken out by a speed-boat at another. The latter annoyed us a fair bit, as by the sound of it the guy operating that is causing a bit of trouble around kayakers - he's not particularly careful, and the thing I find when you're on water is that sounds mean nothing. We thought we heard something but then guessed it may have been a truck on the road. However, suddenly a boat was racing up behind and swerved around us, leaving massive waves in its wake. Honestly, not cool. Otherwise the trip was uneventful.

When we're sent off, we sort of leave in groups, I guess the hire place send you out at specific times so then everyone can be picked up and dropped off at each end at the correct times too. A few Asians left just before us and they came across a "decoy" duck trapped among the branches of a fallen tree in the river. They were pointing excitedly at it, as if they haven't seen anything like it before! What is the bet that they picked it up and took it home as a souvenir? Anyhow, we passed them and later came across some real Paradise ducks on the edge of the water, the Asian women quickly made their way to them, pulling out their cameras. It really made me laugh, I can imagine what they were thinking, - Kiwi's shoot all their ducks so that all there is left are plastic ones...

This Saturday was Guy Fawkes night, so a few of us went out to one of the local, rural displays. I go to it every few years but this year was the best by far. It was odd though, as usually if I went with Mum and Dad, we'd head down there in time for the fireworks and then we'd leave again with the masses of people exiting the paddock.

A fair few hundred people go to it, so it's rather packed. This time we took some dinner down and ate it an hour or so earlier - nice, apart from all the bugs who had also turned up for the event. I finally got to see Chantelle again, it's been a month or so since I last saw her. We're trying to plan on catching up more often...and there's some ladies night at her church this weekend, so finally we might actually be getting somewhere!



































I should also mention - from hanging out with Taylor, I've created myself the role of "stepmum". Thankfully I am no longer "evil stepmum", which I do believe I was at the beginning lol. This is the beautiful fleabag - Pawpaws. She's a rugrat, a crazy little critter and with a Dad like Taylor I'm not surprised, he stirs her up like nobody's business. Therefore I do believe she will be terrifying once she's bigger. When I first met her she would take a running leap and scale my legs to get up onto my shoulders, like no kidding, she's crazy. But she's so sweet too, her purr machine is permanently on 'max' volume!
He rescued her as a wild kitten off the farm his friend works at and she's ridiculously spoiled...I'm no help with that though, I've bought her some toys and treats to make her like me a bit more!

Tay has also been made guardian of Tilly, another foxy. She belonged the people who own the farm, however four years ago when we started rearing the calves there, Tilly decided that Mike, the new guy working there at the time, was a much better option to live with. And he spoiled her like crazy, he always told us how he cooked her eggs for breakfast - sunny side down...
Anyhow, Mike is a very good friend of Taylor's and has since moved onto a new career path with his fiancee, moving to a new town etc. His fiancee doesn't much like Tilly, so poor Tilly had to stay behind - much to Tay's dismay. I would guess that Mike is still providing all of her food and vet requirements, but the roof that she lives under is Taylor's house which is rather amusing to be quite honest! Until she walks herself inside with green feet, after being on the farm...

Oh yeah, and at some stage in October we finished feeding the calves there as they were getting weaned! This is me and number 5. The coolest calf on the farm - I do hope they keep her and don't sell her to China- although she's more of a cross than a full Friesian.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

That's a really old song, Green Day I believe. It was that song that was on the radio all the time when I was about...10? Yeah I'll repeat. That's a really old song. Although it is convenient as a title, so I'm not complaining!
So yet again we're at the end of the month and I duly apologise for my lack of communication during the past month - it's been crazy! But not in a bad way, except perhaps for this past week where I've been brutalised by some hideous form of stomach bug that is putting up a very good fight. It's been hanging around since Monday where it was just a really sharp pain in my side every so often, then on Tuesday the nausea and sinus headaches made their grand entrance and here I am on Friday still not 100%.
I spent most of Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday asleep on the couch, keeping myself dosed up on the Nurofen. This, perhaps wasn't the most smartest moves I've ever made as I haven't eaten much at all since Tuesday morning - and that pain relief possibly shouldn't be taken on an empty stomach...hence why I'm still not 100% now. Oops. Although I'm kinda hungry, and I've got a headache because I'm hungry, but I've gotta be careful not to eat too much too fast. See, this is why I don't get sick very often, because I know full well that I simply can't put up with it. It's so frustrating! Not only that, but I haven't really worked since Monday - as you can imagine, I am driving myself insane! I'm milking this afternoon, so I think it's going to be hard to get the energy level back up to normal...

So yes, my apologies for the late update. I was planning on writing this earlier in the week! But don't stop reading, because I've got a bucketful of things to say.

First things first: The boyfriend. Lol. Please don't laugh at me, over the past four to six weeks I have not somehow morphed into an easily swayed, soft and squishy sort of person! I am still very much my normal seriously sarcastic, and somewhat cynical self. Believe you me.

Anyway for those of you who don't know too much information yet. His name's Taylor, is 20 and works and lives on one of the local farms - about a 10 minute drive from my place. It's the farm where Mum and I do the calf rearing so, conveniently, I see him almost every day. Honestly, he's lovely, seems to get on with my family really well and Dad approves of him too (yay!). He's cooked for me a few times at his place, he's been here a couple times and I met his Mum on Sunday night when we went to her place for tea. It's good fun, for sure. Oh yeah, and he's bought me flowers....twice :D

Now don't panic, because he was also one of the crazy homeschooled kids like us (was sort of part of my homeschooling group as a kid). He is quite normal, to say the least. If there is such a thing. And if you're into hunting or 4WDing then you guys will be good buddies if you were to meet at any stage.

A few weeks back Mum and I caught a plane and flew down to Rotorua (flying was so much easier than driving all that way) for my Nana's 65th birthday. We stayed there from the Friday morning and left again on Sunday morning. It's good having a Nana who is so young still, well in comparison to a lot of my friends' grandparents. We get to have so much time with her and she can do absolutely anything really, if she wanted to. But she definitely deserves her retirement years now, and is now spending more time doing her voluntary work running an op shop. Doing what she does best :)

Last Thursday I did something that was rather impulsive...I bought myself a puppy. A Foxy I might add. I hope she's a full foxy, as her nose is a little shorter than you'd expect, however the lady I got her off (who had rescued the pups off the mother who wasn't feeding them) seemed to think that both parents were foxy's. It was a case of one neighbours' dog went wandering over to the other neighbour, definitely not a planned thing, that's for sure. And so this lady took them on and reared them. She's a nippy little thing, about 7 weeks old and absolute trouble. She gets on amazingly with Tessa and Jackson though, thank goodness. To the point where Tessa seems to think it's her own puppy - she runs to her every beckon and call!

I've called her Maggie, which I instantly changed to Maggles and Dad refers to her as Magpie. So. She's a little diva and is so small that she can squeeze through the extension on the baby gate that is meant to keep them confined in the kitchen area. No particularly helpful, that.



However, the other day Mum and Dad bought home another Shih Tzu puppy, a little girl this time. As Mum wants to have a pair for breeding, they've finally found a cute little girl. Do you know how much chaos it is, having two less than a year old dogs and two barely weaned puppies running around in our kitchen? Yeah, I need not say more. It is mental! Although Rose (Rosie) is kinda cute, and it's funny having a big Foxy and a baby Foxy and a big Shih Tzu and a baby Shih Tzu - especially when they look so similar! The good thing is that Maggie and Rosie can grow up and be little friends together, and we only go through the "puppy stage" once, this time round. They all seem to get along, although Jack and Tess are a little confused about Rose...I might also add, Mum didn't intentionally set out to have puppies called Jack (Jackson) and Rose, like on the Titanic. I had to mention it to her afterwards, hehe

 

Our calves are almost finished now. There are only three left to calve, I'm sure in the next week or so they (the farmers) might think about weaning some and then will send Mum and I on our way. Some pictures from a few weeks ago...

A New Chapter

We're at the time of the month where you look up at the calendar and still think the month has just started - only to find out it's almost ready to end. We're entering into Spring in a few days and it's exhausting trying to think about where time seems to be disappearing to.

I've had a busy few weeks, with a little bit of excitement and a little bit of, well, sadness if you can call it that.

I'll start off by saying that I had to take my good old Ali (my beloved BMW) north today, to the car doctors. She's been having issues for the past month or so that are just getting worse as the days go by - and a tad more on the dangerous side too, as there is an issue causing her to surge forward while I'm driving. As you can imagine, surging forward while I'm stopped for whatever reason is pretty freaky, especially if it was near a pedestrian crossing or there were cars quite close in front of me. Thankfully it has only happened in this form while I waited for some cows to cross the road, and I was a decent way back anyhow. But it's nerve-wracking. She's also stalled a couple times and the last time it happened was at an intersection on the edge of SH1 and she wouldn't restart. She's an automatic, so it's a little more tricky when things go haywire. Eventually I got her back on the road (after Mum and Dad had arrived to tow me) and got home safely. So yeah, I'm without my car until tomorrow night, and upon picking her up I'm expecting a hefty payment needing to be made. Somebody is going to need to work a few hours to make it up again!

I caught up with my friends, Sam and Chantelle on Thursday. We were (as usual) overdue on a catch up, so went out for dinner at one of the local pubs and had a good few hours of talking. It was nice. This was to be our last get together with Sam before she headed off on her big OE to California, to some sort of Bible College there. Little did Sam know that her family had planned her a surprise combined leaving and 21st birthday party and we were going to see her again on Saturday night! She will turn 21 in February, but as she will be gone for the next 10 months or so, she won't get to celebrate it with everyone back home.
It was hard really, as she asked what we were going to be doing on the weekend and Chantelle and I obviously couldn't say too much. So we just muttered a couple things, caught each others eye and smiled secretly. I felt quite mischievous about the whole thing. There was something else I was planning on doing on the weekend, but I decided not to steal Sam's thunder - as she told us of a similar thing happening for her, so I kept it quiet for a bit longer - even though I was burning to tell somebody! Hold on, don't read ahead, it's coming!

We stood out in the carpark just prior to leaving, Chantelle and I looking awkwardly at Sam, pretending to be sad because it was meant to be the last time we would see her in a long, long time. There was a cat out on the road edge attempting to cross the road - SH1 if I may add. We stared at it in horror as it ran out in front of a car, the noise was the worst thing I've heard in a long time and seeing the aftermath was hideous. Why it chose to run at that moment, I've no clue. Why we continued to watch even though we knew what was about to happen, I've also no clue. I sort of wanted to run down there and scare it away, or call it back - but I didn't want to do that in case it forced it across the road in front of a vehicle. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, don't you think? One of the next drivers stopped and moved the poor thing off to the grassy edge of the road, otherwise the three of us would've gone down and done it ourselves.
I hate thinking about it because two out of the four cats we've lost to our road over the years have been mine, although we found out quite quickly. I can imagine a little kid wandering their backyard, calling and calling for their little friend that always used to come eventually, knowing the kitty was never coming home. Hopefully somebody found it the next morning, as it's sad seeing an animal left and never claimed after becoming a victim to the road.

The card I made Sam - I thought it looks quite cute
if I do say so myself!

Ok moving on from that sad story, I'm fast forwarding to Saturday night; Sam's party. I never got there in time to see her arrive as I had to milk and got there about half an hour later - I hear she was stoked once she realised what was going on (her younger brother had hauled her off the the Auckland University open day, so she could do the tour with him that day).



I was happy to be there celebrating her birthday with her and the rest of her friends and family, but it was also sad knowing that this was going to be the last time I'd see her in a while. She was accepted into the course in February, and got her Visa in May - we thought D-day would be ages from then but it came so much sooner. This time saying goodbye for real was so, odd. I've never done that before, you try to be happy and excited for her, but at the same time it's sad. Chantelle and I were like, wow this is actually it. It's just us now. She will fly out on Sunday and isn't due to return until May or June next year - if she comes back at all, she may stay over there for longer yet...

Now, moving onto the cool thing that happened on Saturday - I went out for lunch with somebody. Or I should say more specifically that I was taken out for lunch, which was really nice and then we drove out to one of the many local beaches and wandered along that for a while. We're going out again but I'll tell you guys after the fact. Now I'm not saying anything in particular, but I'm sure you guys are clever enough to figure this one out for yourselves. :P I'm not naming any names either to prevent any ambitious Facebook profile stalking!
So yeah, there's a fair bit of changes happening in a very short space of time. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens anyway :)

I'm going to attempt to write a Haiku. It's an old type of Japanese poem that consists of three lines and is made up of a certain number of syllables. Just five syllables in lines 1 and 3, and seven syllables in line 2. It doesn't rhyme and is preferred to not have similes in it either - Yep, I googled it to find out what I was doing! I remember them using Haiku's a fair bit in Hunt For the Wilderpeople, but until recently I hadn't tried to do any. So here goes. Believe me, it is taking a decent amount of thinking!

Hungry calves, mooing
Sloppy, cold milk in tow
Contentment is joy.

Ok, so I'm not very good at it - it's harder than I thought. I guess that's why most of
them talk about nature rather than anything else. But that one basically says, it is music to my soul when those calves stop bellowing once they've been fed. Quiet calves are content :) Maybe for each of my future blogs I shall attempt to write a new one - see how I go anyway.

Wet Weather and Goat Issues...

Lots is going on here - what's new? I tried the other day to do a bit of a photo update, posting up some of the pictures I've taken lately, however blogspot wasn't being too friendly with that and wouldn't save any post that contained pictures. Frustrating, that. Anyhow, move on we shall.

As of today I've done more than 40 hours again for this week - after tomorrow I'll almost get to 50 -, I'm starting to get used to it. It's been almost a month since my last day off but again, I've gotten used to it.
I was doing a fill in job a few days a week feeding calves at one farm, that was for only two weeks and finished on Thursday but they've booked me in to carry on for the next two weeks. It was funny, I took the phone call and stared blankly at the white board while she rattled off the days she wanted me for. I said yes to them, hung up the phone and then had to actually think about what the date was. THEN I realised that I had just taken a booking for my booked afternoon off - that's been booked off for the last month. I was not impressed in the slightest, but it should work out. I'll just have to feed the calves a few hours early so that I can get where I'm headed in time. Should work okay,

Everything is going well in general though, apart from being dropped back down to just the family of four team again (no point in going into too much detail here). It means the workload has increased significantly with everyone trying to cover the bookings that were taken with the intention of five people working full time, but it's coming along OK.
The calves Mum and I are rearing are going great, with three groups of heifers outside now it's made our job somewhat easier. We don't have many newborn calves coming in anymore, so there aren't many to train anymore - thank goodness for that, my hands are covered in enough bruises for this season thank you very much! I'll still be training newbies at my fill in job, just not too many of them now that calving is slowing down again. However I'm bucketing more milk into the mobile feeder these days - which just means a good work out for me every morning so I'm not complaining about that!


Has anybody ever eaten goat? I've heard it's just like any other game meat and I'm keen to try it. Especially because of the recent experiences I've had with a particular goat called Darcy. He's on a piece of land that we're doing a lot of fencing on and is a complete menace. He's about the size of a miniature horse and has an attitude to boot. This afternoon I was carrying a heap of tools and wire up to the Ute, which meant attempting to pass by the goat - he was laying in front of the gate. I tried the "Darcy, Darcy, will you let me pass your stainless gate?" He didn't say, "Only if you are wearing...." He just said, "sure, go for it if you dare." He then proceeded to stand up, rear up on his hind legs and threatened me. As you might try to imagine a goat of his size standing on his back hooves is taller than me by a bit.
He sort of tips his head on the side, turns his shoulder and then lunges forward towards me (and Mum), trying to land against me, so it's pretty freaky. When you are backed up against the fence with your hands full it's not the best situation to be in! Today I kept hopping through a fence we're working on, and he would run back through a gateway back to the other side that I had just climbed through to. In the end I yelled out that he would end up on my dinner plate and he ran at me. So I kinda just ran for it and waited for Dad to walk me out, as the goat isn't quite as brave around him.

Wednesday was crazy with the weather, all of the rivers in the area flooded their banks with the intense rain storm we had. There is one main district, if you could call it that, which is like one massive basin with a river running through it - it all flooded over. There are three or four dairy farms which are mostly based on flat land that were covered in water - I don't honestly know how they cope in that sort of situation. Nick and I almost didn't make it out after our morning work, due to the road either side of a one lane bridge flooding too, but we got out in time and by about midday the worst of the weather had subsided - except the lower parts of town suffered the brunt of it with the river flow. It kinda feels like winter is coming to an end though, we've now gone through a blip of icy cold weather, a tankful of rain and now the days are getting longer which is great. It's nice to be able to sit outside after work and watch the dogs run around, it's after 5pm and it's still light. It's great. Bring on summer, I say!

A Juggling Act

When I was younger, I was part of a local community "circus" group. Basically an after school group that taught kids how to perform circus acts such as juggling and riding unicycles - that sort of stuff. I did that for a few years and to my complete astonishment, became quite good at it! For someone who grew up as the butter fingered youngster of the family, my learning how to juggle was a serious achievement.
I never completely got past the juggling balls, although I could do it in a variety of ways - forwards, backwards and then pairing with another person - where you continue to juggle normally but at the same time you are throwing a ball out to your partner and catching the one they throw to you. It's like artwork, in a way, that takes serious concentration and coordination with your partner, however once you get into the rhythm of it, it's quite easy.
I say I never got past juggling balls because there are a vast amount of different things you can juggle - such as pins (imagine pins like in ten pin bowling). With those you can't just juggle them, you also spin each one 360 degrees while you're juggling - so it is much harder, and I seemed to have a bad habit of hitting myself in the head. I could juggle two - just. But no more than that. I guess if I had tried a little harder I might've gotten there eventually, but I taught myself how to handle spinning plates, which was much more fun.

I guess that's how I'm relating to life right now - a juggling act. And life starting on Monday will be like my attempting to juggle those pins - except they're fire pins, so have flames at one end. You don't want to catch the wrong end, however you're standing on a bed of hay, so dropping one would be a serious offense too. The only way to pass the test is to juggle perfectly, confidently and not think about it.

Yesterday I had my final sleep in, without even realising it. Monday was my last full day off - without my realising it. I kinda don't like how it happened,  because if I had known it was happening, I mighta put in a bit more effort into that day off and the sleep in yesterday. But oh well, such is life. We've got another farm on the booking list now, which means a heck of a lot more work to be done, and more work was booked in last weekend - so we're going to be some busy beavers and tired cookies once this is over!

This week I'm milking twice each day, with some fencing in between milkings - a residential job in town, made up of square posts concreted in, with rails and pailings - it should look a treat once it is finished, but it takes a decent amount of time as you would expect. Yesterday most of the posts were concreted in, and today the rails are being started. I'll post some pictures once it is done, if I remember!
However we start our annual calf rearing job on Monday, and that will carry on until the end of September - hence the reason for no more sleep ins or days off in the near future for me. Unless I get sick and I'm basically dying, then I might get a bit of time off! For the next three weeks at least, I'll be milking every morning, catching up with Mum and feeding the calves on another farm, and then heading back to milk in the afternoon.
Although there are a few days where I'm filling in at another farm to feed their calves - which happens to be the farm where, two years ago, I reared all of their calves on my own for 9 weeks. The fact that they've called me back is absolutely brilliant. I was quite literally burning with pride for my good work, that they trust me to come back again. Rearing calves isn't something anybody takes lightly, and not something you hand over the reins to just anybody. So yes, I'm stoked. I said, "I get to feed my grand-calfies!" Because the calves I reared two years ago, are calving for the first time this year.

So the schedule is looking hectic, thankfully the milking jobs I'll be covering aren't that long, however the bulk of them are 5am starts, and I finish just after 7. We've come up with a more suitable plan for our calf rearing though, for this year. After three years of doing it on this particular farm, I don't know why we've never thought of it before! Starting later in the morning. We used to start at 6:30-7, so we were completely finished by the time the farmer needed his four wheeler back, which meant feeding calves in the dark, rushing, all that sort of drama that isn't necessary.

Why have we never thought of this earlier?!

There are sale days though, where the calves need feeding super early so they can be sent to the sales in time, but other than that - it's going to be easy. I'm sure of it. Once the calves are fed I can come home, have some lunch and then head back out in time for afternoon milkings.

So I don't believe it will be as much of a juggling act as I thought - it might be that scenario where you juggle in pairs, so you can't look away for a second. But I don't believe, at the moment anyway, that it will be as scary as juggling the pins!
Although I still think I will go hypothetically hysterical at one stage or another - but hey, my hours are going to be good, if that is a good point to mention. I can't wait to meet my grand-calfies on Tuesday! Oh, and my other grand-calfies and great grand-calfies on Monday lol. Can you keep up?!

Hard To Believe

It's hard to believe quite a few things lately. I can't believe that it was only a week ago that we finished up our calf feeding job. Hard to believe we're already in October (!). I can't believe that an old homeschooling friend turned 21 this weekend - it feels like not too long ago when we all met at just 7 and 8 - while it's also difficult to believe that hardly anyone recognised me! lol, time has flown!

And I thought that since I haven't actually given you guys any proof that we did, in fact, raise calves again this year, I took some photos and such:

This is our oldest group

It was super weird finishing them.. Then that week Mum and I went off for what we hoped would be a nice lunch out at a local cafe/chocolate shop. Although, sadly, because we had such high expectations from our previous visit a couple years ago - it wasn't all that nice. But it was still nice to go out! 

For hot drinks, you just get given hot milk, and a chocolate stirrer. Make it as strong as you want!

On Wednesday I had the joy of being charged by a somewhat friendly cow. A few circumstances lead to her being in a pen on her own, making her panic a bit and she got a bit stressed out. I don't think it helped that she'd recently calved - so her personality perhaps wasn't the same as normal! Anyway, that was certainly interesting - although I don't recommend it. It takes a while for realisation to kick in that you're being charged, and even after that occurs it takes a fair bit to get moving out of the way!

I think she might've been a little hungry, because it seemed as if she definitely wanted to eat me.

Stupidly though, it's kind of an awkward situation to be in. Because you see a cow madly running towards you, well I don't know about you guys but for me personally, I don't really want to be running away screaming until I know that it is a seriously dangerous situation? How do I explain this?

In my job, nobody would want you around if they get a slight inkling that you're scared of the animals you're working with. I'm not scared of cows, although I'm cautious around them in certain situations. So when this cow ran at me I just calmly stepped aside and somewhat scolded her for being so out of control. I tried to turn her around, and that's when she full out went for me. I had no choice, I yelled and jumped for the fence! I'd rather now look stupid rather than look dead haha. Sometimes you think a cow is running at you, but generally she just runs around or runs past you. It's not often that you get charged - it's only happened to me twice now. But if I was jumping for the fence every time a cow ran at me - I'd probably be the most unwanted person on the local farms!!

But, as it seems, after I was balancing on the top two rails, out of harms way, she started charging the guy I was working with - so perhaps my reason for jumping was, in fact, legitimate.

After that happened, and the farm worker and I laughed and said, gee that was exciting! I just kept on shaking my head, thinking, that was really out there. Did that just happen? I was sorta somewhat laughing, but also like, flippen heck, that was kinda freaky too...

Thursday came around, I was thankfully still alive after my friendly cow encounter (!), it was my first full day off since mid July, and Mum and I went north. Shopping. Just wondered around shops, had some lunch, wondered around some more shops, then did the groceries. It was quite nice to get out of town for a bit.

Friday I was back into work, Dad and Nick killed the pig and my sister came up to help butcher it that afternoon. Usually Dad just makes big chops and roasts out of it, with a little bit of mince from the scraps. But Alesha got in and showed Dad some new tricks (fancy butchery much!), cutting it all up into pork belly, steaks, schnitzel, a few rolled roasts, mince. I was pleasantly surprised that her and Dad seemed to get on really well, teaching and learning. The young dog teaching the old dog new tricks, is what the guy I was milking with said! hehe.

This time round, my assistance with the pig was hardly necessary. Except for weighing it - she was 65kg's on the hook - a good weight! Nick and Dad had the joys of bear hugging the pig, holding it up, while I hooked up the scales. In the end, I had to get my hands dirty, when push comes to shove I do what I need to do. Even if that includes sticking my fingers into the slits in the back legs, forcing the gamble through, grossing myself out - it's super weird working around ligaments and all that, but hey.

Saturday I carried on working, then went to the 21st party that night for a few hours. Caught up with heaps of people I haven't seen in so many years.  But I didn't stick around for too long, I got home at 10 then had to be back up at 4am for milking. I started at 5, needed some time to get there and actually wake up - not in that order!

We had our stock judging event during the day on Sunday. I went along between milkings, learned a fair bit in the beef module, didn't learn anything in the dairy section really - not because I already knew it, more so because the guy doing it wasn't very good with teaching. Sheep, umm, sorry Andrew but I tried to like them. They stunk, they looked really bad. Admittedly, the guy running it is an really old guy in his 80's, a well known across the country, Romney breeder. And he went to the sales and bought them randomly, just for the day and brought one of his own as a comparison.

Didn't learn much there either, apart from what it should look like in configuration and such. 

And today, I struggled out of bed just after 4am again, I've got to do the same thing tomorrow. The more often it is happening, the more tired I get!!

 Finally, some more photos to entertain you. This is another cowshed, the cows weren't quite there on time, so I took some pictures while I waited.

Good Things Come With Time

It's an absolutely gorgeous day today; the sun is shining, there's a very slight breeze. Birds are tweeting, the chickens are honking and hollering out in the backyard, and Pippa and I are home alone, basking in the sun. It's stunning. I really love this sort of weather at this time of year, it's just so perfect, not too hot, and not too cold, so I'm slowly starting to break out the summer clothing - "I'm lovin' it!"

Seriously though, it's great to have nice weather after weeks of seemingly constant rain. So having now two hot, sunny days in a row - bliss :)

Everything is plodding along as it should be, everything is looking exceptionally brighter this past week as we head from the busy season and into the silly season. Do you know shops like, The Warehouse, are already selling Christmas related items? It's crazy, they get earlier every year but in saying that, it's a good time of year coming up, so I'm not complaining too much over here!

But yeah, life is great these days, it's nice being able to see a light at the end of the tunnel. We've been told that we finish up the calves tomorrow (YAY!) so I'm trying not to sound too excited, (woohooo!!!) because it has been nice having a constant form of income these past around about 12 weeks (hehe). It will be sad, being the last day. You always feel a little bit sentimental driving down the road for the last time this season - until next year.  Sure, it's a hard slog. Yes, I've ended up with a nasty form of RSI in my wrist from all the bucketing and lifting of milk (although these last four days I haven't been there as I've been working elsewhere, thank goodness it's healing up). But at the same time it's generally quite enjoyable, teasing the worker, having private jokes with Mum about things, raising some adorable calves and in the biggest aspect - doing what I love doing overall. So it has been great.
However it is funny doing it, because once we stop, we don't see the calves again until they start milking two years later. It is seriously weird not keeping up with them, not getting them through the final weaning stages, not helping with all of the lepto vaccinations, drenching, B12 injections. Not seeing them as yearlings, and then as heifers, dancing into a new paddock. I guess I do miss that, and then having our calves from three years ago now, in the yard during milking staring at us as if they know us, but can't quite remember where from. Nonetheless, it's a good job, but I'm glad it's nearly over!! hehe

Mum and I are going to celebrate being finished, by going out to lunch tomorrow. We've sorta had it in the plans, so it's exciting we get to finally do it. Over to our local chocolate shop cafe, with their delicious Panini and home-made chips. And real chocolate drinks :) Can't wait!



They say that good things take time, and yeah in general, sure. But lately, it seems that good things have just suddenly happened. Mum and I always run by, "everything happens for a reason". So when all this good stuff just pops up, you know that things are going well and you must be doing things right in your life, otherwise why would you deserve it, sort of thing?
For instance, almost all of the farmers in the past few months have shut their chequebooks, we haven't had a look in for most of the work we do at this time of year. But, that was no problem because fencing jobs just won't stop coming. It seems that we're working on the final touches in our last job in line, and the phone will ring that day, usually a couple times. More people wanting us for this or that. You stop and think, heck, we had no working going forward and now we're fully booked for the next few weeks again. It happens over and over again, just a continuous circle of work rolling in. Which makes me think, gosh, this is just continuously proving itself to be the right place to be at the moment, it's great.

But in more exciting news, we're getting some more land. This is what has suddenly popped up, and it's really awesome. Basically, the dairy farm right next door is going to be sold to the guy who is leasing it. The family who own it now, knew we were hoping for the next little section whenever it was on offer, so they called last week.
It's only a tiny section of the paddock next door, where we've already got a small portion of the last "parcel". This one has it's own title, but it's too small to legally have any buildings on it because of the boundaries being so close, so it's not worth much at all.
The family of siblings (the parents both passed away about four years ago from cancer), have decided to offer it to us for a very cheap price, like, exceptionally cheap, so long as we pay for everything that goes with the change of ownership and whatnot. We thought it would be at least 50 thousand dollars - land is not cheap, especially with a title. But, because of it's size, it is going to be much less than half of that. So over the next few months Mum and Dad will be getting that all sorted out, it's awesome to think our place is slowly getting bigger.

The great part with this section is that it has another access-way, so we'll be able to put all the big equipment over there, and away from the house, which will be nice!! I did say since we'll get a little bit more area, could we have a sheep or two....Mum said maybe a goat? I kind of like that idea, at least then it wouldn't be eaten, and it'll be a lawnmower - apart from potential harm coming upon our many fruit trees. But...



So even after having an hour less sleep today, I'm feeling relatively bouncy - it must be the good weather! So a busy week is coming up, going out tomorrow with Mum. I've got all of Tuesday OFF, yippee!! Saturday night I'm going to an old friends' 21st party and Sunday I'm going to a stock judging skills day. Oh and I've got to plan a trip to Gizzy, as Dad has agreed to me going down....exciting times are ahead!!

Colouring In

Steptember is coming along nicely, the weather has turned nutty and life in general is pretty darn busy, but hey, things are well!

Steptember wise - I seem to manage my 10 thousand steps each day, I think there was one day where I didn't get it? But typically with feeding the calves, and/or milking every day, it's a pretty easy target to meet. Especially if I add in running up our flight of stairs in the house a good few times, or jumping on the treadmill which is really convenient - I gained an extra 2 thousand steps for 15 minutes walking.
It's also helpful that my third study course arrived in the mail yesterday - a week late, but it means walking and studying for a standard on pasture is pretty simple! The next stage of Steptember is beating Andrew at his 18 thousand that he did yesterday, I mean, come on! haha :D

We're half way through our eighth week feeding calves, and hopefully the end is in sight. There are still about 40 cows left to calve, some of them I'd bet aren't even pregnant or they're weeks away. Typically we're getting two or three newbies in each day, but I'd hazard a guess that we don't get any for tomorrow. And you do have to feel sorry for those cows who have dead calves, we drove past them this morning and the mother was looking at us, then at the calf, then back again, as if she's asking us to do something - I hate it when they do that. It puts you on a major guilt trip that for once you can't do anything for her.
Although I enjoy feeding them, I'll be glad to see the end of the job for this season. It's good being able to work with Mum every morning, both of us know what the other is doing, both of us reading each others' mind - "That makes 90 so two more tens" we both said in unison this morning, then, "get out of my head!" we both say again. It's great, that. However it's only so often that I enjoy getting myself showered in old, sour milk, because when one has a jug of milk, then drops it straight back into the drum by mistake - it does get a bit messy. But Mum's always saying - "it's good for the skin!" Ha ha ha.

Also these days I'm milking quite a lot - it's funny how the rush starts at the end of August/beginning of September time, calving is mostly finished, sharemilkers are beginning to want a little time off here and there because the work is getting slightly easier. You also have workers being made redundant, or staff getting sick or injured, it's getting pretty busy in that sector, but it's good to be able to do it.
It's also nice to be able to help people out, and even amongst all the stress of being over worked and under paid, the weather turning nasty from the first day of spring and life in general being a stressful place, everyone is stoked to see us. I think it's good for them to see different people for a change, tell us their calving stories and general issues - knowing that we won't pass it on but it's someone new to talk to. Which is good, as it keeps people level headed, the most important thing!
That does however mean that we are working, working and working. But for us, it's good. We're on the right side of the farming sector lately, and the more continuous flow of work we get, the better. We've never been busier!


The weekend was awesome as I milked at one of my favourite sheds, got delivered a nice hot drink by the farmer during milking - hot drinks in the morning during milking is typically the norm at this farm. It's awesome!
This time was a little different, he didn't take milk from the vat, or a jug in the fridge or however they normally do it - he handed me the mug and told me to choose a cow. hehe, it was a crack up, holding a hot mug under an udder, and hand milking the cow until there was enough milk in it. I've never done anything like it before, always joked that I wanted to, but never did. And I had a bit of a flash back to being a kid - about 3 or 4, one Christmas morning Dad had a bowl of cornflakes or Rice bubbles, can't remember, for Nick and I. Got the milk straight from the cow and sent us off to have our breakfast somewhere. As I think I mentioned to Andrew the other day, it was back in the good old days where little kids may as well have crawled amongst the cows without OSH calling a red card! Hot milk on cereal isn't great though, but for the hot drink it went all white and frothy!!


Currently, life is pleasant, a little on the wet side, but that's spring for you in Northland! This is the time of year we catch as much water as we can to prepare for the summer drought. Paddocks are jolly muddy, but that's OK as we don't often have to deal with them too much. Also I mentioned in my last post that I was wanting something to occupy my spare (ha!) time with. Usually I'd find myself a good book, get out my cross stitching or if I was exceedingly bored - have a play around on the keyboard (musical one, that is). But my mind is too far away to try reading lately, my hands are surprisingly coping quite well this winter and so far aren't coated in the usual eczema and split joints so I'm not risking the cross stitching cotton - sadly my hands will turn into a withered mess after handling it :(
SO, I discovered the new adult colouring in books! Sounds odd, right? My brother jumped to the conclusion that it would contain R18 images - really?! -_-  But it's just highly detailed pictures, that are quite nice to just DO. Sitting there, colouring, colouring, colouring. I loved it as a kid, so it's nice to do a bit here and there and just take some time. :)