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?!

Course: Completed. Next level unlocked!

What can I say? I'm finished my course! Yippee, level 4 Dairy/Ag all done and dusted, finally after this year long course it's nice to see myself getting a break for the next couple months. Yep, I probably could've gotten it finished sooner, but procrastination is my best friend - or frienemy? And leads by a bad example. Anyway. It sure was nice to put the last two assignments in the post box today, yep there might be a chance they might not quite pass, they were probably the most confusing assignments I've done but if they need modifying in a couple weeks when they come back, they do. I'm not too worried.

In the meantime, this is like recess! I'm giving myself a couple months of "me" time, no study just anything. My plans? Well Bee got me this really neat CakePop maker thing for my birthday that I've seriously been meaning to try out, but just haven't had any spare time, so next week sometime that is going to be on the list of "to do's"! That and those recipe books Mum and Dad got me for Christmas, all on baking and chocolate - Mum and I need to rally together and get into some baking and try out some new recipes. Should be fun :)

Mum's recently been down to Rotorua, Dad and I did the trip down there on the 15th, basically got down there at about 9:30pm and turned around and went back home again straight away after dropping Mum at Nana's. The idea was for her to be down there for Grandad's anniversary. So she was down there a few days until Dad picked her up again on Thursday.
The trip back was, interesting. Dad was super tired but obviously I couldn't drive - after not having driven a 6 speed manual before, let alone that ute, I wasn't too keen on taking over - not that he was going to let me, or ever will! But, we got lost in Auckland! At midnight! There was a detour as they'd shut the motorway, which was all well and good. They'd put out detour signs and saying what direction you wanted to go in for north, south, or west - until the signs just, stopped. Gee, thanks guys for assuming everyone passing through will know inner city Auckland like the back of their hand. -_-. So, around we went and somehow managed to get ourselves on the southern motorway again. Simply looking at google maps wasn't helpful, so Dad called up Siri - the iPhone assistant. "Take me home, Siri!" She's figured out our address, who knows how, I'd hate to think?! :/ and can direct you when you're lost, so that's helpful. Except that she doesn't factor in roadworks or detour signs. SHE was the one who got us onto the southern motorway.
Once we got back onto the detour, dearest Siri sounded pretty sarcastic with her directions as if she thought it was a marvelous joke, the detour signs had ended probably because there was writing in certain lanes, directing you to specific motorways. What's wrong with overhead signage or something?! Anyway, it took us a good half an hour to get back onto the motorway at the right place, and we must've gotten home about 1:30, quarter to two. Thank goodness I wasn't milking the next morning....

But things have been busy, work is coming out of our eyeballs, which is good. But it is a slightly uncomfortable situation, you know, posts have a bad habit of splintering and having them go through one's eyeballs isn't pleasant...Dad has recently redone/built/upstyled one of our trailers which took a good week worth of work between him and Nick. I have to say, it looks blimmen awesome! Much more useful than the previous one and much more user friendly too. To think, that originally my parents got an Auckland trailer building crowd to build this 4.5m trailer for them - but it was basically made of nothing, I've no clue how it has hauled as much as it has over these last 8 years or so...Only problem is, the first day using the upgraded one, Dad almost broke his leg!
The sides are framed up and half the height has ply, but the top half is open - a perfect size for a leg even. He and Nick were unloading posts, while Dad stood on some strainers that were also on the trailer, something happened, Nick dropped the post, Dad tried to catch it, the strainers rolled and then suddenly his leg was hanging out the side of the trailer. Oops, ouch, couple pulled muscles but thankfully nothing broken... o.O Better not be doing that again, I think he's gonna make a few amendments...


I'm getting plenty of milkings to keep me happy, all this week coming in fact, are only once a day milkings as many farmers have gone once a day, regrettably but I don't mind not having to milk in the heat and I'm sure the cows aren't too concerned either! Although that is good in itself now that I've finished my study I'll be back into helping with fencing, tomorrow I'm battening with Dad. Yay! Hopefully I'll be able to help speed them up a bit, even slightly. We've got so much fencing work it's not funny and get more phone calls every day...I think we're booked until mid April. Fun stuff!

In other news, I've decided to join the group of Young Farmers from our region and head on down to the Grand Final Young Farmer of the Year competition. This year it'll be in Timaru about mid July for three full on days, so I'm booking five days off to allow for the traveling down. From what I've heard of Grand Final, for the spectators it's pretty cool. There's lots of additional things, not just the typical competing of the competitors, there's a few other competitions too, like a photography competition that I'm entering a few photos in, and a tug of war competition, fencing competition, claybird competition etc etc etc, even Agri Kids and Teen Ags are competing too, the best teams from each region just like the Young Farmers. There's all sorts of stuff to do, Mystery bus trips, big black tie dinners, all sorts of cool stuff that you just need to go to if you wanna be a full on Young Farmer member. That, and they're also planning some major changes, so I want to experience the original experience before missing the boat...much like the flag debate. Hmm.

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.

Infestation

About this time every year we get a swarm. Originally we thought it was honey bees, but after discussing it with some people we'd decided it is more likely to be wasps, in our Willow trees. We've got one massive one on the edge of the road beside our driveway - AKA, right beside the house, since we're that close to the road and there's another one out in the back yard. There are a couple other smaller willow's, but these two seem to be the most affected by the wasps.
There are literally hundreds of them, creating this excessive buzzing noise right outside, and if you were to stand a few metres back from the tree and look into it you can see them all flying around inside the branches. It's not particularly nice, especially as Dad is severely allergic to them...

It's only been happening these last few years, but from memory I think a friend said it was essentially because of an aphid? Possibly an Australian one, of sorts, that are attacking willow trees by eating the leaves, leaving behind uh, remains, which the wasps then come and eat? I think. Don't quote me on that one! Anyway, the wasps are here and yet again they're here to stay until the poor willow tree loses its leaves again come late autumn. Lucky I'm not the tree climbing sort, huh? Otherwise I'd be seriously deprived of two good climbing trees! It certainly makes it uncomfortable being outside, you can never be too sure around wasps...



The sun was here two days ago, and we're stoked to see it again today after all the rain we've been having. It's amazing though, how one day of warm sun after a period of cold weather can make the grass bolt. You just see these shards of grass leaves, picking up their roots and running high speed for who knows where, but it's quite interesting ;) lol Nah, it is a good thing to see, especially as we've had a heck of a lot more rain this spring so far. One farmer reckoned last year they only got just over 100mm in September, but they've had well over that already and we're only half way through - it's no wonder their farm is so muddy. It's nice to see a growth spurt happening in some areas.

Steptember is still coming along OK, just a pity we can't manage to get any more sponsorship, but hey, you can only do so much, right? My personal best so far the other day was over 14 thousand steps - not bad for me really, but I'd done a fair bit of work and then I came home and walked two kilometres on the treadmill - gaining me a good three thousand steps in just over 25 minutes. Great how that works, but yesterday was a shocker and today will be similar as I'm just so tired! It's bad when you can barely keep your eyes open during milking lol.
35 hours of work this week, the most "work" for me in quite a long while as I haven't managed to get my hands on all that much until now. Which, perhaps in the scheme of things doesn't seem like much - but it's not bad when it's basically just relief work, huh?! Nick did 40 hours though, so I'm pretty much on par with him this week, for a change...

Will be glad to get a few full days off sometime soon though, although it proves to not work in too well with my steps...you can't get it both ways unfortunately!!