I saw a meme on Facebook the other day, it was funny - as most are. Anyhow this one said, "I'm not an early bird or a night owl - I'm some form of permanently exhausted pigeon!" I can seriously relate this week!
I'll make 50 hours this week - I've milked every day and helped with fencing for five. Why? Because apparently people don't like working for us - especially when the week prior to them randomly not coming back, we give them a pay rise. Maybe he got sick of us giving him eggs and veges from our garden that were surplus to our requirements. Who knows? It's even more degrading when they throw your tools into a swamp area of the paddock before leaving early on the afternoon when they're needed to work on their own for a while. It's just, I dunno. You really do have to wonder some days. All I know is that I'm sick of my family being walked all over and treated like door mats when we do absolutely nothing wrong, it's ridiculous.
Nonetheless, I've been working all week and I'm so tired - hence the title. I start my day to my alarm going off at 4:20am, work starts at 5am. I open the door to the chilly blast of cold, winter air; most mornings as of late it has averaged 5 degrees. It's not warm - thank goodness for heated seats in my car! And when I get to milking I almost freeze to death, okay so that is a figure of speech but it's close to legitimate. Just over four hours later I get home, scoff something down for breakfast and then Mum and I leave to go fencing, we're only there for a few hours before needing to get home again in time for my afternoon milking, but we still get some things done. For me, dragging out wires down quite a steep hill, and stapling on my way back up - it takes a little while.
Milking starts again at 2:30 so I'm driving out the gate at 2:10pm. It's almost 6pm when I get home. It's been a long week, even longer when you add in the cold mornings and some cows that just aren't all that interested in being milked. Seriously, if they were my cows, two of them would have a one way ticket off the farm by now. They're driving me insane with their behaviour, where consoling them or yelling at them does nothing. Honestly, if we could just get them fully milked out then they might not be so uncomfortable for the next milking. But we can't keep the cups on, they're never fully milked out, you almost lose the plot at them and the cycle continues; twice a day. I get tomorrow off, I can't wait.
Our netball games have now started for the season, we're playing right up until September sometime. The first game was Friday just gone, it was an eye opener. Warmup started at 5:30pm, thankfully I finished milking early that night and managed to arrive at the courts just on 5:30. I then hand to hunt down my team to get my uniform, as I hadn't made it to training last week to get said uniform, so even though I arrived there on time, I still missed the bulk of the warm up session. Not great.
Mum said I managed to somehow get the right team, with the dark green uniform colours. We've got a dress to play in, a t-shirt to wear overtop for warmups and then a jacket to wear too. There are also hoodies, but they haven't arrived yet. So guess who didn't take something warm to wear, because she thought she would get her hoodie? Hmm...
The games are 20 minutes long, with two halves. My team had enough players with me as a sub, so I didn't play the first half. I was put in as WD in the second half, and I felt like I had been thrown to the wolves with no idea how to play! I was just like, hold on, what am I meant to do? Where am I meant to be?! Panic attack alert, lol. I got there though, figured it out rather fast, found my WA from the other team and did my best to stick to her for most of it, trying to stop her catching or passing on the ball. I got a whistle blow for one obstruction - I got too close. Which, as Mum said, is good because it means I'm doing my job.
The ten minutes pass rather quickly on court, we won the game 22:11. It's odd playing on the outside courts - it's smaller than where we've been training so it doesn't take much to get the ball from one end to the other. It's also concrete, so suddenly I was feeling my landings harder than normal, my ankles and knees are going to have to toughen up. The cold didn't help either - concrete is hard but cold concrete is worse.
But suddenly the game is over and we're finished. Shaking hands with the other team, saying "good game" and off we go. We're told not to leave, I'm not sure why. As it turns out, you don't just play one game of netball, you play two or three. I am seriously lacking in my netball information - why has nobody told me this yet?
There are three, maybe even four "rounds". We played in round 1. Then later on in round 3, once all of the score cards had been tallied and the teams were allocated the right sort of team to play against. There are also rankings, I'm not too sure on the specifics, other than knowing we are ranked a "B" team which is quite low. A "Prem" team is higher up, so we won't be playing against them for quite a while from what I've gathered.
In round 3, because our first game score was so high it meant we were playing against a team with a slightly higher ranking than us. I'm not surprised, they were good. I stood out again for the first half, then they thought it was best I didn't play at all - simply because that team were very good and we needed to get a good score in the game. Basically, my being in there probably wouldn't have been a very good idea, and watching from the sidelines I knew I wouldn't stand a chance in - so I wasn't too worried. I was just freezing, because when you don't play you get pretty cold in a light dress! It is a little awkward though, being the only sub.
The game was going well, there was lots of fighting for the ball at one end of the court, with almost all of the players at that end. The ball was getting thrown back and forth, when something happened. Ebony who I think was playing a goal shoot or goal defense (I can't really remember) jumped up and then fell, landing harshly on the concrete. It happened rather quickly, and she's curled up on the ground crying in pain and everyone is trying to help somehow. I thought it was her shoulder that she'd injured because that's what she had seemed to land on. As it turns out, it was her ankle. She jumped, fell, twisted badly on her ankle, carried on falling hitting her shoulder then her head on the ground.
A few of the volunteer firefighters were hanging around the courts, so they came over and carried her off. I had to jump back into WD and we quickly finished the game - there was all of about 15 seconds left to play once we all got back into position. We lost 5:8.
Poor Ebony was a mess and an ambulance was called, it was awful standing and watching everyone trying to help her. She's vomiting from pain or shock or maybe even concussion - I'm not sure, no one was allowed near her ankle though apart from keeping the ice pack on it. I hung around and waited because we're a team and you'd think that when something like that happens, the team sticks together. But I was surprised when three of them just said "cya" and left...It was a while before the ambulance turned up, and then a second one came after that. She was given some sort of thing to breath through while they took her shoes off and played around with her foot - I think it had some sort of liquid pain relief in it, but I've never seen it used before. Then eventually she was wheeled off on the gurney and we got to go home. Someone else must've gotten injured in another game that we hadn't noticed, because the first ambo went back with a stretcher to another girl down there.
Ebony didn't have a broken ankle, but she instead tore a ligament - and she's out for the rest of the season, it's something you can't come back from very easily. I know, because Mum tore two at the same time (there are only three), her ankle has never been the same. Poor Ebony! First game of the season and she's injured, she's a good player too so it's a big loss for us. Thankfully we found another player last week so we've still got one sub at least. Fingers crossed for no more injuries, I'm actually quite terrified of injuring myself - especially after seeing Eb in so much pain. That, and I can't afford to get injured and not be able to work. Netball is a dangerous game!
I worked out that I was there for three and a half hours and I only played for 10 minutes. It's painful when you think about it, especially as I came straight from work which is a physical enough job as it is. I got home about 9:15pm for dinner, then was back at work, zombie eyed at five the next morning. Phew. It's going to be a long season.
Showing posts with label Milking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milking. Show all posts
Sunday, 7 May 2017
Friday, 21 April 2017
Chilling Out
It was only 7 degrees this morning when I arrived at work just prior to 6am; it was freezing! Okay maybe it wasn't freezing, but it was blimmen cold! I had goosebumps on my arms all milking, by the time I left at 8am it was sitting around 14 degrees. Mum and I are home with the heat pump going, and I'm wearing socks and sweatshirt - a very uncommon sight.
This morning I've made hot chocolate muffins, so although it is cold life is still good!
A week or so ago I toddled off to the dentist with serious toothache that I'd put up with for a week before it was getting to be too much. It was odd and seemed to happen overnight, with pain you'd expect if a filling simply fell out. I know there is a filling up there somewhere in the same area, so I didn't rule it out. Typical for me, the dentist couldn't find anything wrong, he couldn't even tell which tooth it was until they used the tool that blows air along my teeth...until I basically jumped through the roof.
He decided to polish down the tip of that tooth (with no numbing!) and then put some filler on top, saying that it should help. Well it hasn't. I can't eat or drink on that side. If anything cold hits it I'm almost doubled over in pain, and I've resorted to no hot drinks either which is rather unfortunate in this chilly weather.
We got to try on our uniforms for netball on Wednesday, they're all green - quite a nice green if I must say. They consist of a dress, that is quite on the short side. As was the discussion, it's netball, where you stretch upwards and jump. What happens to a short dress in that situation?! So I know I'm off to find some shorts of some sort to wear too. Then we also have a t-shirt to wear overtop during warmup, and we've also got a jacket. They say we're not allowed to wear the hoodie's we've bought as extras on game nights because it doesn't have the uniform sponsorship on it. We could wear them, so long as the jacket is over it, however the hoodies are quite thick and the jackets are small, there's no chance you could wear the hoodie underneath!
It's hard to believe the games start in two weeks, May 5th. With only two training nights before then, we still don't have all of the team members showing up and there are only nine people in my team. Our club has two teams and we're never able to practice a full game with 14 players because there are always people missing! The training last week we used two bystanders to fill the court, they both know how to play, one I think is possibly going to be a coach or an umpire. Oh yeah, we have no coach - brilliant, huh?
However the other lady fell and rolled her ankle, so we had to drop the wing defenses on both teams. I had been WD on my actual team prior to the lady getting hurt. Then I swapped to wing attack on the other team.
WD is probably not the best position to play as I hardly get a chance to touch the ball, I'm simply running around trying to stop the opposing WA from getting it. However she is tall and very good at the game so I may as well not be on the court at all! Once I moved over to WA there was no WD trying to stop me, so although I was able to play and catch the ball, it wasn't experiencing the position properly which is quite frustrating.
Also because players aren't always showing up to training we aren't able to train as a proper team so we can't get to know each other properly. How can you work in a team situation if you've never played as a team? It's ridiculous, I know I can't really talk because I've missed two training nights - once I was too sick to leave the house and the other excuse was a flooded road during the cyclone...
I still don't know what position I'm most likely to play, our main Centre player has come back now and I see what they were talking about - she's good, very good. I don't see me ever getting to try C again unless she has to sub out, which is unlikely. Thankfully they don't put me in the goal circle anymore - I'm too short to defend the goal and I'm no good at getting the ball in the net either, so I'll always be WA or WD, unless I'm a permanent sub so I could get any position really.
Wednesday morning I had an argument with a can lid and ended up with a slashed thumb, so during netball I had a big thick plaster on it to prevent any further damage - but it made catching the ball difficult - I feel so small when they throw the ball, anticipating me to catch it. And I drop it. Plasters provide no grip apparently, so the entire game or warmup routine has to stop until I manage to get the ball in the air again...I think I'm doing pretty good, sticking around and staying in the team, even though I'll probably be the one they rely on to pass the ball in a major game. I'll be the one who almost literally hands it to the other team in time for them to win. It takes a lot of trying to stay on the team and keep learning as best I can, without holding my team back too much with my being there either.
Work is going OK, nothing has really changed. Working with Cam and Hamish is taking less time now as I no longer need to help with any calves - calving is almost finished there. However, my other farm is taking longer and longer. Yesterday morning almost took four hours to milk! We're only milking about 430 cows there (12 rows), but there's still another 120 or so left to calve, calving has slowed right down and they'll still be plodding along well into May! Milking 550 cows is going to take a fair while through June when they're all milking at peak production...
We've had a heck of a lot of rain, my boss Cam who's a few minutes down the road recorded 570mm from the 9th March - 16 April. That's almost half a year's worth of rain in 6 weeks...
This morning I've made hot chocolate muffins, so although it is cold life is still good!
A week or so ago I toddled off to the dentist with serious toothache that I'd put up with for a week before it was getting to be too much. It was odd and seemed to happen overnight, with pain you'd expect if a filling simply fell out. I know there is a filling up there somewhere in the same area, so I didn't rule it out. Typical for me, the dentist couldn't find anything wrong, he couldn't even tell which tooth it was until they used the tool that blows air along my teeth...until I basically jumped through the roof.
He decided to polish down the tip of that tooth (with no numbing!) and then put some filler on top, saying that it should help. Well it hasn't. I can't eat or drink on that side. If anything cold hits it I'm almost doubled over in pain, and I've resorted to no hot drinks either which is rather unfortunate in this chilly weather.
We got to try on our uniforms for netball on Wednesday, they're all green - quite a nice green if I must say. They consist of a dress, that is quite on the short side. As was the discussion, it's netball, where you stretch upwards and jump. What happens to a short dress in that situation?! So I know I'm off to find some shorts of some sort to wear too. Then we also have a t-shirt to wear overtop during warmup, and we've also got a jacket. They say we're not allowed to wear the hoodie's we've bought as extras on game nights because it doesn't have the uniform sponsorship on it. We could wear them, so long as the jacket is over it, however the hoodies are quite thick and the jackets are small, there's no chance you could wear the hoodie underneath!
It's hard to believe the games start in two weeks, May 5th. With only two training nights before then, we still don't have all of the team members showing up and there are only nine people in my team. Our club has two teams and we're never able to practice a full game with 14 players because there are always people missing! The training last week we used two bystanders to fill the court, they both know how to play, one I think is possibly going to be a coach or an umpire. Oh yeah, we have no coach - brilliant, huh?
However the other lady fell and rolled her ankle, so we had to drop the wing defenses on both teams. I had been WD on my actual team prior to the lady getting hurt. Then I swapped to wing attack on the other team.
WD is probably not the best position to play as I hardly get a chance to touch the ball, I'm simply running around trying to stop the opposing WA from getting it. However she is tall and very good at the game so I may as well not be on the court at all! Once I moved over to WA there was no WD trying to stop me, so although I was able to play and catch the ball, it wasn't experiencing the position properly which is quite frustrating.
Also because players aren't always showing up to training we aren't able to train as a proper team so we can't get to know each other properly. How can you work in a team situation if you've never played as a team? It's ridiculous, I know I can't really talk because I've missed two training nights - once I was too sick to leave the house and the other excuse was a flooded road during the cyclone...
I still don't know what position I'm most likely to play, our main Centre player has come back now and I see what they were talking about - she's good, very good. I don't see me ever getting to try C again unless she has to sub out, which is unlikely. Thankfully they don't put me in the goal circle anymore - I'm too short to defend the goal and I'm no good at getting the ball in the net either, so I'll always be WA or WD, unless I'm a permanent sub so I could get any position really.
Wednesday morning I had an argument with a can lid and ended up with a slashed thumb, so during netball I had a big thick plaster on it to prevent any further damage - but it made catching the ball difficult - I feel so small when they throw the ball, anticipating me to catch it. And I drop it. Plasters provide no grip apparently, so the entire game or warmup routine has to stop until I manage to get the ball in the air again...I think I'm doing pretty good, sticking around and staying in the team, even though I'll probably be the one they rely on to pass the ball in a major game. I'll be the one who almost literally hands it to the other team in time for them to win. It takes a lot of trying to stay on the team and keep learning as best I can, without holding my team back too much with my being there either.
Work is going OK, nothing has really changed. Working with Cam and Hamish is taking less time now as I no longer need to help with any calves - calving is almost finished there. However, my other farm is taking longer and longer. Yesterday morning almost took four hours to milk! We're only milking about 430 cows there (12 rows), but there's still another 120 or so left to calve, calving has slowed right down and they'll still be plodding along well into May! Milking 550 cows is going to take a fair while through June when they're all milking at peak production...
We've had a heck of a lot of rain, my boss Cam who's a few minutes down the road recorded 570mm from the 9th March - 16 April. That's almost half a year's worth of rain in 6 weeks...
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| Maggie's new jersey :) |
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| Puppy snuggles :D |
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| A friendly Monarch butterfly :) |
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| Maggie and Rose, collage as they got older |
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| I got flowers for Easter! |
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| Tay's kitten, Charlie - grease kitty (not monkey lol) |
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| More of Rosie because when she's clean she's so gorgeous! |
Thursday, 30 March 2017
Netball in full swing
Finding the time to write here (or anywhere if I'm honest) is so difficult lately! If I'm not working, I'm running around doing something, somewhere.
Netball was cancelled last night due to the rain which was rather unfortunate as I was really looking forward to going again. We're into proper "training" sessions now, not everyone makes it there each week so you're never really doing the same things, as we have to work with the number of people who show up. Take last week for example - we had nine players come and a young girl who was hanging around put us up to 10. We spent the bulk of our session going over different warm ups and exercises that have been taken from the NZ netball website - exercises that are specifically good for netball. It was really good but my gosh, the muscles that I apparently have, that I have never met before in my life showed up the next day and they hurt! It was rather painful to say the least.
Some were seemingly simple when the woman running it demonstrated them, but when you have to do a form of "plank" for 30 seconds, the idea in your head seems OK...until you're about 10 seconds through and the targeted muscles in your sides start to burn like wildfire. We had to do that three times. Then we did sideways planks for 15 seconds on each side. We're all looking at eachother, wondering who's going to give in and drop first! Everything else was good, all focusing on landings mostly which is rather important as I'm finding that catching the ball in midair is quite common so landing properly is essential.
We then spent about half an hour playing a game with five players on each side, I managed to get the role of Centre which was great! I always thought centre would be quite difficult because you've got to be on the ball the whole time, but at the same time you don't really have a many boundaries - you're allowed on the entire court except for in the goal circles. The only issue is having to be everywhere at once, especially if there are only five players on your team; two of which have to stay in a circle at each end, the other two are limited to their areas so I have to fill the void, it's not easy but I did it. While there was only a small number of us it meant they had time to give me pointers too, everyone would stop and say - "Ok, so in this situation you should do this or go here" etc., etc.
So of course I was really keen to get back into it last night but as we are currently limited to an outdoor court, the weather is playing an important role in the situation.
Sadly Chantelle isn't able to join now, there are a few reasons behind it but I get why it would be better for her to sit it out this year. It just means our set, no excuses, weekly catch up has gone out the window - but oh well.
Work is going OK at the moment, I'd be lying if I said I am loving it, but it'll get better. Just with the autumn calving, we're having to deal with a fair few not too pleasant members of the herd which doesn't make life particularly enjoyable at present. Working with Cam and Hamish again is great, I'm really happy being back there again, back in the saddle working in my favourite place. There are a few difficult cows there, but in general it's fine. I'm also helping get the new cows and calves in at the moment, and feeding the calves there too, so I'm a little bit more involved than just being the typical relief milker. They're breeding to some interesting bulls this year - not only Simmental's and Angus but Belgium Blue's too - they're beautiful calves.
My other farm though, as I say it'll get better in time, they've calved about 350 cows out of 520 odd, so there's still a few to get through but thankfully the first time calving heifers are almost finished. Those young ones are a little too spontaneous with their kicking and I can never quite trust them, they also all look the same too so it's hard looking out for those few who are a little too feisty for me to try cupping on. They're coming along nicely though, given a few weeks of milking and they should feel more at home in the herd.
They all need to find their spot in the pecking order too, so when you add a mob of heifers to a herd of cows who have worked together a couple of years, they're gonna fight a tad. Although in saying that, some of the older cows are driving me insane! Believe you me, if you have to cup on a cow for the seventh or eighth time in one milking - you're gonna get rather annoyed. They don't even have an excuse really, they just stomp their feet and knock the cups off, it's really exhausting milking two or three cows, then having to go back to that specific cow and re-cup her again as she's knocked them off.
It sometimes gets to the point where I just say to whoever I'm milking with, "I'm done trying" and then they can give her a go.
Yesterday afternoon was utterly brilliant (note the sarcasm!!) Where the herd was running late when I arrived, and they're meant to go on the feedpad before milking. As they were running late they'd get their feed after milking instead. Have you ever seen somebody - perhaps a toddler - who normally has their afternoon snack, get told that they have to wait an hour or so longer before they get it? It's not cool aye? I would imagine said toddler would have a bit of a tantrum over that, which is basically what the cows did!
So I waited out on the race and brought up a large group of the herd and pushed them into the shed so I could start milking. I encouraged them into the bails, walked out and pressed the button to start the machines and when I came back the cows were gone. They'd all turned around and run out, back to the feedpad where somebody must've been pushed into the single wire tape and snapped it, allowing them in there. So of course, cows will be cows and they all ran in there, stuffing their faces full of the powdery goodness of palm kernel and whatever else they're being fed.
Funnily enough you know when cows have broken into something, and cows also know they shouldn't be in there which is why they make a big deal out of it. They moo, a LOT and rather loud too. Basically a bit of an "omgosh! Look where I am, I'm eating something I shouldn't be!" and the rest of them moo too, so they all know to run to the place and suddenly half of the herd is on the feed pad eating out of the bins and I just stand there watching in disbelief, all of my hard work is out the window and now I have to work even harder to get them out of there. Thanks cows! They're the best...
Milking them after that was joyful, we were all running rather late so we were annoyed, the cows were angry - even more so having lost their food for a while and the milking was seriously messy. With the lush grass from all the rain we've had, you've gotta keep your eyes peeled for cows that are gonna crap everywhere - because at the moment it goes for miles and comes very suddenly, you've gotta dive outta the way otherwise get a free, green shower. Not fun.
Taylor is finally going in for his surgery to fix his hernia tomorrow, his Mum's dropping him in in the morning and then I have to get over there a few hours later to pick him up before I go back to work. It'll be good once it's fixed and sorted, it's been a long time coming!
Netball was cancelled last night due to the rain which was rather unfortunate as I was really looking forward to going again. We're into proper "training" sessions now, not everyone makes it there each week so you're never really doing the same things, as we have to work with the number of people who show up. Take last week for example - we had nine players come and a young girl who was hanging around put us up to 10. We spent the bulk of our session going over different warm ups and exercises that have been taken from the NZ netball website - exercises that are specifically good for netball. It was really good but my gosh, the muscles that I apparently have, that I have never met before in my life showed up the next day and they hurt! It was rather painful to say the least.
Some were seemingly simple when the woman running it demonstrated them, but when you have to do a form of "plank" for 30 seconds, the idea in your head seems OK...until you're about 10 seconds through and the targeted muscles in your sides start to burn like wildfire. We had to do that three times. Then we did sideways planks for 15 seconds on each side. We're all looking at eachother, wondering who's going to give in and drop first! Everything else was good, all focusing on landings mostly which is rather important as I'm finding that catching the ball in midair is quite common so landing properly is essential.
We then spent about half an hour playing a game with five players on each side, I managed to get the role of Centre which was great! I always thought centre would be quite difficult because you've got to be on the ball the whole time, but at the same time you don't really have a many boundaries - you're allowed on the entire court except for in the goal circles. The only issue is having to be everywhere at once, especially if there are only five players on your team; two of which have to stay in a circle at each end, the other two are limited to their areas so I have to fill the void, it's not easy but I did it. While there was only a small number of us it meant they had time to give me pointers too, everyone would stop and say - "Ok, so in this situation you should do this or go here" etc., etc.
So of course I was really keen to get back into it last night but as we are currently limited to an outdoor court, the weather is playing an important role in the situation.
Sadly Chantelle isn't able to join now, there are a few reasons behind it but I get why it would be better for her to sit it out this year. It just means our set, no excuses, weekly catch up has gone out the window - but oh well.
Work is going OK at the moment, I'd be lying if I said I am loving it, but it'll get better. Just with the autumn calving, we're having to deal with a fair few not too pleasant members of the herd which doesn't make life particularly enjoyable at present. Working with Cam and Hamish again is great, I'm really happy being back there again, back in the saddle working in my favourite place. There are a few difficult cows there, but in general it's fine. I'm also helping get the new cows and calves in at the moment, and feeding the calves there too, so I'm a little bit more involved than just being the typical relief milker. They're breeding to some interesting bulls this year - not only Simmental's and Angus but Belgium Blue's too - they're beautiful calves.
My other farm though, as I say it'll get better in time, they've calved about 350 cows out of 520 odd, so there's still a few to get through but thankfully the first time calving heifers are almost finished. Those young ones are a little too spontaneous with their kicking and I can never quite trust them, they also all look the same too so it's hard looking out for those few who are a little too feisty for me to try cupping on. They're coming along nicely though, given a few weeks of milking and they should feel more at home in the herd.
They all need to find their spot in the pecking order too, so when you add a mob of heifers to a herd of cows who have worked together a couple of years, they're gonna fight a tad. Although in saying that, some of the older cows are driving me insane! Believe you me, if you have to cup on a cow for the seventh or eighth time in one milking - you're gonna get rather annoyed. They don't even have an excuse really, they just stomp their feet and knock the cups off, it's really exhausting milking two or three cows, then having to go back to that specific cow and re-cup her again as she's knocked them off.
It sometimes gets to the point where I just say to whoever I'm milking with, "I'm done trying" and then they can give her a go.
Yesterday afternoon was utterly brilliant (note the sarcasm!!) Where the herd was running late when I arrived, and they're meant to go on the feedpad before milking. As they were running late they'd get their feed after milking instead. Have you ever seen somebody - perhaps a toddler - who normally has their afternoon snack, get told that they have to wait an hour or so longer before they get it? It's not cool aye? I would imagine said toddler would have a bit of a tantrum over that, which is basically what the cows did!
So I waited out on the race and brought up a large group of the herd and pushed them into the shed so I could start milking. I encouraged them into the bails, walked out and pressed the button to start the machines and when I came back the cows were gone. They'd all turned around and run out, back to the feedpad where somebody must've been pushed into the single wire tape and snapped it, allowing them in there. So of course, cows will be cows and they all ran in there, stuffing their faces full of the powdery goodness of palm kernel and whatever else they're being fed.
Funnily enough you know when cows have broken into something, and cows also know they shouldn't be in there which is why they make a big deal out of it. They moo, a LOT and rather loud too. Basically a bit of an "omgosh! Look where I am, I'm eating something I shouldn't be!" and the rest of them moo too, so they all know to run to the place and suddenly half of the herd is on the feed pad eating out of the bins and I just stand there watching in disbelief, all of my hard work is out the window and now I have to work even harder to get them out of there. Thanks cows! They're the best...
Milking them after that was joyful, we were all running rather late so we were annoyed, the cows were angry - even more so having lost their food for a while and the milking was seriously messy. With the lush grass from all the rain we've had, you've gotta keep your eyes peeled for cows that are gonna crap everywhere - because at the moment it goes for miles and comes very suddenly, you've gotta dive outta the way otherwise get a free, green shower. Not fun.
Taylor is finally going in for his surgery to fix his hernia tomorrow, his Mum's dropping him in in the morning and then I have to get over there a few hours later to pick him up before I go back to work. It'll be good once it's fixed and sorted, it's been a long time coming!
Wednesday, 1 March 2017
Welcoming Autumn
Monday last week I had my first netball trial, the second one is this Thursday night and after then I should have a better idea of what's going to be happening. We started off with a warm up, after which I almost could have died. I'm fit, but I'm not that fit! They had us doing all sorts of maneuvers across the length of the court; jogging, sprinting, fast walk, lunges, squats, running with knees high, running with feet high, and she was constantly changing the movement.
We'd just get used to jogging then suddenly we're sprinting, or fast walking or something! It was mental, I think we spent about ten minutes doing a warm up, I was surprised that they didn't get us to do the typical stretches and whatnot before the warm up (I've always thought you were meant to) but we did them afterwards. I'm glad I wasn't the slowest in the group, I thought if I could almost keep up with Chantelle, I'd be doing well - and I did, most of the time!
Unfortunately I'm one of those people who's face goes nice and red when I get hot from silly exercise...it doesn't matter if I'm quite fit, which I usually am, when heat can't escape through my feet, it goes to my face instead, rather annoying if I'm honest!!
After the warm up we got into corners and moved onto another warm up/game thing where we were catching, throwing, running, catching then throwing the ball to different people from different corners as we ran through to the opposite corner. It was, straight out, confusing. It didn't help that the first time the ball was thrown to me it hit me square on the face, quite hard. Everyone seemed to get the idea rather quickly (most of the women there had been playing in the team for quite a few years...) but typically I didn't. It's rather awkward being the one who had to be guided through each pass, meaning it had to be slowed down a tad when I went through. I'm rather nervous about the trial on Thursday because they'll likely do it again and I really can't quite remember exactly how it goes...
Once that was finished they put people into places and teams, four of us including myself were stood out for the first game. At first I was thinking, aw man I must be bad! But I've actually never seen a game of netball played before - so I got to watch it and got a bit of an idea instead of being thrown into the deep end!
The second game I was called in for Wing attack (Wing Defense and Attack I had put myself down for), and once my opponent Wing Defense knew I didn't know how to play she was helping me out, as well as one of the umpires. They were telling me where I should be and what I could do which was helpful.
The third game I went into wing defense, which I found not as good as my previous attack role. The girl I was paired with was a really good player, who was flying around the court at high speeds. I had to be blocking her but I just couldn't keep up and kept losing sight of her. So if I get one of those places I really hope to get Attack, it's much easier!
It was good once Chantelle and I left, because one of the coaches came up to us and thanked us for coming and giving it a good go, and asked us to definitely come back for the next trial. We'll get places, for sure. They don't have enough players to turn people away. Last week they only had enough for two teams and two subs each. Where I've read online that in most netball games, players are only allowed on for no more than half the game, so surely that should mean they need 14 players to a team to account for that common rule? It was fun, nonetheless and I'm looking forward to trying it again tomorrow night - if only for a slight physical hiccup that I have at the moment! Will come to this soon...
I had the weekend off, which was great. Tay also had the weekend off so I got to spend it with him - even better. I went out there Friday night after work, then basically stayed til last night when I came home again. We didn't do too much Saturday, apart from stopping in at home for me to grab a few things and going into town for him to get his hair cut - it was weird being in a proper "barber" rather than the usual hairdressing salon that I'm used to being in!
He was going to get his beard trimmed down but didn't. He's said to me, "I'll keep it cut down over summer but I'll be growing it back for winter" - especially for the hunting trip he's going on in June to the South Island. However he hasn't particularly stuck to his word and hasn't really cut it since Christmas! Argh, now it's turning a bit red, obviously he's stoked and is determined to keep growing it to see what happens. Argh, males! lol
That afternoon Nate His Mate came over and we went out to one of the paddocks to test out Taylor's new rifle on some cans and clay birds. He had bought a new one on Friday for when he goes Tahr hunting in June and it needed the scope setting up - what better excuse to go do some shooting? Not really my cup of tea, but I don't mind watching. I was going to have a go, we were lining up the sights for me (he has a bipod, so got to just lay on the ground and aim it). But when I realised the kickback it had I decided to flag the idea. Having a gun kick back into my bad shoulder would leave me somewhat crippled for a few days with that arm. Even Tay and Nate His Mate were saying it was quite sore - and they're quite used to it, it needs a rubber padding on the butt to fix it.
Nate stayed for dinner and then came back the next morning with another friend of his and our friend Luke, did I mention this weekend was Paradise Duck Shooting weekend?! Yeah, it was. I was going to tag along but I was super tired and managed to get out of it! That and I didn't have any dark, camo clothing which was apparently necessary for the job. So the four guys went out shooting that morning and I got to sleep in til - wait for it - 9am. Them arriving back woke me up, then they did the dishes and made breakfast while I just cruised, it made a nice change!
Taylor and I went out after that as we had an appointment - for a professional thai massage. Yeah, crazy right?! Tay's Dad is a trained massage therapist so he's always wanted to try a Thai massage to see what it's like.
Hmm. They were Thai women, it was difficult figuring what they were saying and the room was heavily perfumed with a very peaceful music playing. They cleaned our feet first (ever had someone else clean your feet!?!?) then got to work. Just as a heads up, if anyone reading this wants to try it. When you book in a full body massage, it is pretty much exactly that...I thought it'd be like, back, shoulders and feet lol
I've got a bad habit of laughing in situations where I probably shouldn't. I was giggling away about the whole thing before she started, laying face down on a table with my face sticking through the hole in the table, staring at a flower of some sorts in a bowl. I do believe it was fake, so it got me wondering if they could possibly have a camera in there watching the expression on my face. From times when her pushing muscles around on my back hurt quite a bit, to when my feet were feeling a bit ticklish! At some stage Tay started snoring! Really!?
Taylors' boss was happy to have Monday off work, so he paid me to stick around and milk for him Monday morning and help Taylor do things during the day, I was already booked in to work there Tuesday anyway so it wasn't a big deal hanging around for an extra day. Working with Tay is pretty cool, doing proper farm work and that makes a nice change in my routine. :)
Today though I got back to normal work, fencing for our neighbour, getting soaked when the rain suddenly arrived. Autumn has definitely arrived - I thought since our summer started late that it would last a fair bit longer but apparently not. It's still hot, don't get me wrong. But a couple weeks ago we had about 50+mm of rain and ever since then we get random bursts of rain whenever the weather man feels to deliver. It's incredible how things have greened up!
One thing that's on our minds at the moment is the new motorway that is being built - connecting Auckland to Northland. Our house isn't effected by the developments, however a big interchange is going to be about 200-250 metres up the road from us, and it means that we'll get all of the through-traffic going past us again. As we're right next to the road - it's not good. The motorway is set to be up and go by 2025, but all the years prior we're going to have to deal with the noise disturbance from the developing. And then the traffic noise from the road itself - I can't imagine long weekends! So what to do? Sound proof the property, planting thick trees to grow around the entire boundary. Installing double glazing etc. And just deal with it. Or set up the place to sell? It'll be worth a fair bit to the right buyer, being right next to the motorway. I dunno it's a scary thought to consider what will happen as this is home to us, what to do? At least we don't have the issue of the house needing to be removed because it sits on the developing land - like many a house around here. Then our decision would be made for us - but the council will only buy for a cheap price. We'll see, we have few years up our sleeves here.
Oh that's right - my slight physical quandary I have....so on Monday my legs basically collapsed from underneath me. I ran to open a gate for Taylor so he could get through with the tractor before the herd blocked the gateway, I was walking up the hill ok and thought I'd better get up there quick smart so started running. Next thing I knew I was bent over in pain, all the muscles in the front of both thighs were on fire! They were hurting so much I could barely move. I did manage to get up there in the end but it was slow going, for the rest of the day I was somewhat stumbling along trying to get everywhere I needed to go. They haven't done it again thank goodness, but silly movements hurt, like today I went to run to grab some tools when it was raining and I still felt it. I think it was simply severe cramp, it just seemed odd that both legs did it but all we could think was that the massage must've pulled some muscles, which makes me a little dubious to go back again. It's never happened before, hopefully doesn't happen again and all I can think is I hope like heck they cope with netball tomorrow! It's going to be a tad difficult, but at least I know what to expect.
We'd just get used to jogging then suddenly we're sprinting, or fast walking or something! It was mental, I think we spent about ten minutes doing a warm up, I was surprised that they didn't get us to do the typical stretches and whatnot before the warm up (I've always thought you were meant to) but we did them afterwards. I'm glad I wasn't the slowest in the group, I thought if I could almost keep up with Chantelle, I'd be doing well - and I did, most of the time!
Unfortunately I'm one of those people who's face goes nice and red when I get hot from silly exercise...it doesn't matter if I'm quite fit, which I usually am, when heat can't escape through my feet, it goes to my face instead, rather annoying if I'm honest!!
After the warm up we got into corners and moved onto another warm up/game thing where we were catching, throwing, running, catching then throwing the ball to different people from different corners as we ran through to the opposite corner. It was, straight out, confusing. It didn't help that the first time the ball was thrown to me it hit me square on the face, quite hard. Everyone seemed to get the idea rather quickly (most of the women there had been playing in the team for quite a few years...) but typically I didn't. It's rather awkward being the one who had to be guided through each pass, meaning it had to be slowed down a tad when I went through. I'm rather nervous about the trial on Thursday because they'll likely do it again and I really can't quite remember exactly how it goes...
Once that was finished they put people into places and teams, four of us including myself were stood out for the first game. At first I was thinking, aw man I must be bad! But I've actually never seen a game of netball played before - so I got to watch it and got a bit of an idea instead of being thrown into the deep end!
The second game I was called in for Wing attack (Wing Defense and Attack I had put myself down for), and once my opponent Wing Defense knew I didn't know how to play she was helping me out, as well as one of the umpires. They were telling me where I should be and what I could do which was helpful.
The third game I went into wing defense, which I found not as good as my previous attack role. The girl I was paired with was a really good player, who was flying around the court at high speeds. I had to be blocking her but I just couldn't keep up and kept losing sight of her. So if I get one of those places I really hope to get Attack, it's much easier!
It was good once Chantelle and I left, because one of the coaches came up to us and thanked us for coming and giving it a good go, and asked us to definitely come back for the next trial. We'll get places, for sure. They don't have enough players to turn people away. Last week they only had enough for two teams and two subs each. Where I've read online that in most netball games, players are only allowed on for no more than half the game, so surely that should mean they need 14 players to a team to account for that common rule? It was fun, nonetheless and I'm looking forward to trying it again tomorrow night - if only for a slight physical hiccup that I have at the moment! Will come to this soon...
I had the weekend off, which was great. Tay also had the weekend off so I got to spend it with him - even better. I went out there Friday night after work, then basically stayed til last night when I came home again. We didn't do too much Saturday, apart from stopping in at home for me to grab a few things and going into town for him to get his hair cut - it was weird being in a proper "barber" rather than the usual hairdressing salon that I'm used to being in!
He was going to get his beard trimmed down but didn't. He's said to me, "I'll keep it cut down over summer but I'll be growing it back for winter" - especially for the hunting trip he's going on in June to the South Island. However he hasn't particularly stuck to his word and hasn't really cut it since Christmas! Argh, now it's turning a bit red, obviously he's stoked and is determined to keep growing it to see what happens. Argh, males! lol
That afternoon Nate His Mate came over and we went out to one of the paddocks to test out Taylor's new rifle on some cans and clay birds. He had bought a new one on Friday for when he goes Tahr hunting in June and it needed the scope setting up - what better excuse to go do some shooting? Not really my cup of tea, but I don't mind watching. I was going to have a go, we were lining up the sights for me (he has a bipod, so got to just lay on the ground and aim it). But when I realised the kickback it had I decided to flag the idea. Having a gun kick back into my bad shoulder would leave me somewhat crippled for a few days with that arm. Even Tay and Nate His Mate were saying it was quite sore - and they're quite used to it, it needs a rubber padding on the butt to fix it.
Nate stayed for dinner and then came back the next morning with another friend of his and our friend Luke, did I mention this weekend was Paradise Duck Shooting weekend?! Yeah, it was. I was going to tag along but I was super tired and managed to get out of it! That and I didn't have any dark, camo clothing which was apparently necessary for the job. So the four guys went out shooting that morning and I got to sleep in til - wait for it - 9am. Them arriving back woke me up, then they did the dishes and made breakfast while I just cruised, it made a nice change!
Taylor and I went out after that as we had an appointment - for a professional thai massage. Yeah, crazy right?! Tay's Dad is a trained massage therapist so he's always wanted to try a Thai massage to see what it's like.
Hmm. They were Thai women, it was difficult figuring what they were saying and the room was heavily perfumed with a very peaceful music playing. They cleaned our feet first (ever had someone else clean your feet!?!?) then got to work. Just as a heads up, if anyone reading this wants to try it. When you book in a full body massage, it is pretty much exactly that...I thought it'd be like, back, shoulders and feet lol
I've got a bad habit of laughing in situations where I probably shouldn't. I was giggling away about the whole thing before she started, laying face down on a table with my face sticking through the hole in the table, staring at a flower of some sorts in a bowl. I do believe it was fake, so it got me wondering if they could possibly have a camera in there watching the expression on my face. From times when her pushing muscles around on my back hurt quite a bit, to when my feet were feeling a bit ticklish! At some stage Tay started snoring! Really!?
Taylors' boss was happy to have Monday off work, so he paid me to stick around and milk for him Monday morning and help Taylor do things during the day, I was already booked in to work there Tuesday anyway so it wasn't a big deal hanging around for an extra day. Working with Tay is pretty cool, doing proper farm work and that makes a nice change in my routine. :)
Today though I got back to normal work, fencing for our neighbour, getting soaked when the rain suddenly arrived. Autumn has definitely arrived - I thought since our summer started late that it would last a fair bit longer but apparently not. It's still hot, don't get me wrong. But a couple weeks ago we had about 50+mm of rain and ever since then we get random bursts of rain whenever the weather man feels to deliver. It's incredible how things have greened up!
One thing that's on our minds at the moment is the new motorway that is being built - connecting Auckland to Northland. Our house isn't effected by the developments, however a big interchange is going to be about 200-250 metres up the road from us, and it means that we'll get all of the through-traffic going past us again. As we're right next to the road - it's not good. The motorway is set to be up and go by 2025, but all the years prior we're going to have to deal with the noise disturbance from the developing. And then the traffic noise from the road itself - I can't imagine long weekends! So what to do? Sound proof the property, planting thick trees to grow around the entire boundary. Installing double glazing etc. And just deal with it. Or set up the place to sell? It'll be worth a fair bit to the right buyer, being right next to the motorway. I dunno it's a scary thought to consider what will happen as this is home to us, what to do? At least we don't have the issue of the house needing to be removed because it sits on the developing land - like many a house around here. Then our decision would be made for us - but the council will only buy for a cheap price. We'll see, we have few years up our sleeves here.
Oh that's right - my slight physical quandary I have....so on Monday my legs basically collapsed from underneath me. I ran to open a gate for Taylor so he could get through with the tractor before the herd blocked the gateway, I was walking up the hill ok and thought I'd better get up there quick smart so started running. Next thing I knew I was bent over in pain, all the muscles in the front of both thighs were on fire! They were hurting so much I could barely move. I did manage to get up there in the end but it was slow going, for the rest of the day I was somewhat stumbling along trying to get everywhere I needed to go. They haven't done it again thank goodness, but silly movements hurt, like today I went to run to grab some tools when it was raining and I still felt it. I think it was simply severe cramp, it just seemed odd that both legs did it but all we could think was that the massage must've pulled some muscles, which makes me a little dubious to go back again. It's never happened before, hopefully doesn't happen again and all I can think is I hope like heck they cope with netball tomorrow! It's going to be a tad difficult, but at least I know what to expect.
Wednesday, 20 July 2016
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?!
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?!
Monday, 5 October 2015
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:
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.
Tuesday, 22 September 2015
Herd Testing
Every cow shed I milk in is different. Everything from the general size, the cows, how it's set up in general, the rubberware and claw-bases, the pit depth and the people. Some farms have what you call, "'zig-zag' bum rails", where the cows can, I guess you could say, slot into position at the correct angle. Other sheds have straight rails, and in this case depending on the size of the cows, they don't always line up correctly and often too many will squeeze in - especially if the cows are small and you need to do a few double ups.
Most of the "milk parlours" I'm working in lately are either 30 to 40 aside herringbones, one is high-tech, where you simply press a button to turn everything on and it has those awesome automatic cup removers that I've previously mentioned before. These three common sheds for me have the most ideal pit depth for milking as they're big cows, except it's difficult for me to reach up and push the cows along.
However yesterday and this morning I had the pleasure of working on a farm where I just help out with herd testing, it's small, a 20 aside with little jerseys and the pit is excessively shallow. I'm between 5 foot 2 and 5 foot 3, and here, I can quite happily reach up and touch the cows backs to push them forward while trying to physically milk the girls requires a bit of effort! I find I need to somewhat crouch down, and later on my shoulders and neck hurt like heck. So I don't know how the main guy does it every day, he's well over 6 foot!
Anyway, I arrived a few minutes early so I took a couple of pictures. It was my first herd test of the season - fingers crossed this year not many people bother with them - they're quite a pain to put up with!! You get filthy because the cows get a little bit stressed, and hosing down too often is pointless as the cows then just add to the mess! You sorta walk out of there absolutely filthy...
Herd testing in this shed is quite higgelty piggelty, there are three of us in there, and as you can see it's quite small. Once the cups are on one side, there's only enough room for one person to walk past. You keep having to dodge each other, which can get quite tedious when there are so many people. But, it wasn't too bad.
They get in a herd test assistant, who changes all the samples and sets and removes all the gear before and after the test finished. She knows how to run everything, and this time we got to use the EZ-link system, where you simply put in each cow number through the row, and scan the barcode afterwards - rather than having to write numbers individually on the flasks.
Usually though, in a herd test it's quite straight forward. Once the cows are finished someone will remove the flasks and then others such as myself, swap the cups over to the opposite side. No worries at all. Although at this place, the guy does all the scanning and numbers, I walk along hanging up cups when they're finished, and then the assistant changes the flasks. Once I've hung up enough sets to keep her busy, I have to go back to the beginning and start cupping the other side. It's ridiculous trying to work around so many people in such a small area. Trying to keep moving to stop any cows from over milking, going back and forth to fix slipping cups. Back and forth, back and forth. And the disappointing thing is that my pedometer didn't register many steps - probably because I was only doing slight steps, that it didn't notice I was moving. Sad....
The interesting thing was that I didn't actually find getting up at 4:30 all that difficult. Funny how that works, when it's the first morning starting at an earlier time my body clock is pretty on to it. I wake up every few hours, check the time and when 4:29am comes along I'm wide awake, watching the time click over...
Finally, here's a little something for Xj and Andrew - isn't this great?! Credit to NZ Farming on Facebook :P
Most of the "milk parlours" I'm working in lately are either 30 to 40 aside herringbones, one is high-tech, where you simply press a button to turn everything on and it has those awesome automatic cup removers that I've previously mentioned before. These three common sheds for me have the most ideal pit depth for milking as they're big cows, except it's difficult for me to reach up and push the cows along.
However yesterday and this morning I had the pleasure of working on a farm where I just help out with herd testing, it's small, a 20 aside with little jerseys and the pit is excessively shallow. I'm between 5 foot 2 and 5 foot 3, and here, I can quite happily reach up and touch the cows backs to push them forward while trying to physically milk the girls requires a bit of effort! I find I need to somewhat crouch down, and later on my shoulders and neck hurt like heck. So I don't know how the main guy does it every day, he's well over 6 foot!
Anyway, I arrived a few minutes early so I took a couple of pictures. It was my first herd test of the season - fingers crossed this year not many people bother with them - they're quite a pain to put up with!! You get filthy because the cows get a little bit stressed, and hosing down too often is pointless as the cows then just add to the mess! You sorta walk out of there absolutely filthy...
Herd testing in this shed is quite higgelty piggelty, there are three of us in there, and as you can see it's quite small. Once the cups are on one side, there's only enough room for one person to walk past. You keep having to dodge each other, which can get quite tedious when there are so many people. But, it wasn't too bad.
They get in a herd test assistant, who changes all the samples and sets and removes all the gear before and after the test finished. She knows how to run everything, and this time we got to use the EZ-link system, where you simply put in each cow number through the row, and scan the barcode afterwards - rather than having to write numbers individually on the flasks.
Usually though, in a herd test it's quite straight forward. Once the cows are finished someone will remove the flasks and then others such as myself, swap the cups over to the opposite side. No worries at all. Although at this place, the guy does all the scanning and numbers, I walk along hanging up cups when they're finished, and then the assistant changes the flasks. Once I've hung up enough sets to keep her busy, I have to go back to the beginning and start cupping the other side. It's ridiculous trying to work around so many people in such a small area. Trying to keep moving to stop any cows from over milking, going back and forth to fix slipping cups. Back and forth, back and forth. And the disappointing thing is that my pedometer didn't register many steps - probably because I was only doing slight steps, that it didn't notice I was moving. Sad....
The interesting thing was that I didn't actually find getting up at 4:30 all that difficult. Funny how that works, when it's the first morning starting at an earlier time my body clock is pretty on to it. I wake up every few hours, check the time and when 4:29am comes along I'm wide awake, watching the time click over...
Finally, here's a little something for Xj and Andrew - isn't this great?! Credit to NZ Farming on Facebook :P
Tuesday, 8 September 2015
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. :)
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. :)
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