Hello! Welcome to spring 2017!
Thinking back on those long, almost never ending months of winter, we didn't actually do too badly - if I'm honest.
Sure, there was plenty of rainy days to be had, it got cold enough to wear my woolen hats Nana so kindly knitted for me. However I don't recall any negative temperature days at all, we got down to the very low 0 or 1 degree, with perhaps five "official" frosts in total? But yeah, it wasn't too bad a winter when you think about it. We got rain but hey, there's always rain in winter. And everyone is always talking and suggesting it is possibly, "the wettest winter in quite a few years" but you never quite know - unless you keep a strict record of rainfall!
A fair few farmers try and pull that one, stating they've had so many mm of rain compared to last winter or the winter before, and "it definitely wasn't this wet last year, we're doing it pretty hard". But honestly? I can't even remember much of the weather from the autumn just been, let alone the last few winters. They're cold and wet, typically. That's all there is to it. How about we just not get too over dramatic, OK?
However, we've been thrown into spring in quite a brutal fashion. Currently, the rain only stops for a few brief periods in a day. We've had lightening, thunder and hail, winds that have been more icy than the coldest frost. You think you're in for a good day because the sky has cleared and the sun has come out, but not thirty minutes later everything has gone dark and you get under cover just in time for it to bucket down. It's not particularly fun, and the rest of this week is forecast to carry on like so, so the family and work morale is heading downhill quite substantially. I guess you just look forward to summer, right? Back into a drought when everyone complains about the lack of rain.
As per normal, life is ticking along. Where we feed calves, there is around 10 left to calve so we're on the home stretch now. It hasn't been very easy this year as Mum injured her back in the first week we started there. Upon initial doctor visits they thought it was a pinched nerve in her lower back/pelvis area - something like Sciatica perhaps. It's frustrating for us but even more frustrating for her, as it is a daily issue that she's having to deal with, she's determined to keep working and not being able to drives her crazy. But it drives us more crazy when she helps with something we've told her not to do, and then she hurts her back again.
She goes to physio sometimes, has tried acupuncture there and now they're saying she needs an x-ray on her hips/pelvis in case it is more of a bone injury rather than nerve damage. So I think that's happening this week.
So because I milk most days, and because I finish around 8:30 most mornings, Dad and Nick have taken over with the calves. If they're fencing during the day, they'll just get in there early so it doesn't affect their day too much. I'd love to do it more often, but they can't wait around for me to finish milking. It's frustrating because I really want to be there, and the days that I am there I notice that the calves aren't quite the same. Nothing against Dad and Nick of course, but they're just not getting as much human interaction that Mum and I would give them. You'd expect each mob to have two or three that are ultra friendly, but there aren't any. It's no major issue, but it is a little bit disappointing for me.
The fencing is going well but it's been quite wet so not as much has been done as we would like. Although Dad has taken up a new specialty line of work - house piles. A fair few builders and engineers have realised it is much cheaper to get us in there to bang the house piles in with our post rammer, than doing it any other way - however they'd normally do it, I don't know? But it's cheaper and faster so we're being recommended around the local building community. It's crazy, as most of the piles are 4.2 metres long, and they get pushed in almost all the way down, and often the floor is still concreted anyway. Confusing for me, as I've not a clue when it comes to house foundations, but it does seem rather extreme. The engineers measure the heights of the piles to the millimetre, so it takes a few days to get say, 30 piles in.
Once that side of it is all sorted, the house goes up in next to no time. All of these new buildings with all of the framing pre-built off site means everything just gets joined together and it's done. It's quite incredibly fast really, but of course it needs to be.
My sister will have her baby soon, she's actually due in early October however the baby is breeched and it isn't safe to turn her. So she's having a scan on Wednesday and she will hopefully know after that what day they'll book her in for a cesarean, it'll be pretty soon we think. She finishes up at work tomorrow, so it's not long to go! Can't wait to meet my niece!
A breech and a c-section is a little bit dramatic for a first born, but hey you get that I guess. Fingers crossed it all goes well.
A few weeks ago I decided to buy Hacksaw Ridge, a movie everyone has been telling me to see. So I ordered it online through The Warehouse. They took a little while to source the film, so they sent me an email telling me this. Eventually they found one, sent me an email with the order number and the tracking number and said that it was being sent out.
Around two hours later I got another email, again stating that they'd found what I was after and they were sending it out. This new email had the same order number, but a different tracking number. This time the order quantity was 2. So, in my confusion I replied to the email, telling them what had happened and that I'd only ordered the one DVD - was I going to get perhaps two or maybe three of the same movie sent out to me? Their reply - there was a glitch in the system and not to worry, I'd only get the one movie delivered.
Alas, a few days later I got the movie in the mail. The next day, the very same movie arrived the mail. However the amusing thing is that the second one that was sent out had a sticker on it saying "buy two, get the third free". So do I ring up and ask where the third one is?! It's a rather good system, you pay for one and you get two. I definitely recommend buying online!
If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend that too! I've seen it twice now, the first in short blips (as the movie is quite long, over two hours) and the second time I watched it in one stretch. If you watch it once, I'd say to watch it again as you can miss quite a few things the first time round. It's funny, sad and absolutely amazing at the same time.
I absolutely despise boring war or action movies, but this being based on a true story and being screened so well is particularly mesmerising. Often, many similar fiction movies will see the main characters walking through walls of fire and coming out completely unscathed. But this film shows no mercy on any major or minor character, everybody gets brutally injured, most get killed. It's awful and heartbreaking when you think that they're showing exactly what that part of the war was like. I've quite simply, never seen anything like it. So definitely watch it, if you can. Watch it twice.
The sun has finally come back out for a little while, little doggies have been evicted back outside to play while it's not raining. You wouldn't think dogs got too dirty until you own a small breed, a small breed that comes inside. Especially a small breed that is quite white like a foxy, but also a small breed that has a long-ish coat, that enjoys getting all muddy, who has very short legs, like a shih-tzu! It gets a bit tiring having to rub their legs and belly's down every time they come inside. And giving them a bath during the day so they have plenty of time to dry, but they've still gotta go back outside after that so winter is an endless battle with small dogs. We really can't wait until summer!
Showing posts with label rain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rain. Show all posts
Monday, 11 September 2017
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!
Saturday, 13 August 2016
Wet Weather and Goat Issues...
Lots is going on here - what's new? I tried the other day to do a bit of a photo update, posting up some of the pictures I've taken lately, however blogspot wasn't being too friendly with that and wouldn't save any post that contained pictures. Frustrating, that. Anyhow, move on we shall.
As of today I've done more than 40 hours again for this week - after tomorrow I'll almost get to 50 -, I'm starting to get used to it. It's been almost a month since my last day off but again, I've gotten used to it.
I was doing a fill in job a few days a week feeding calves at one farm, that was for only two weeks and finished on Thursday but they've booked me in to carry on for the next two weeks. It was funny, I took the phone call and stared blankly at the white board while she rattled off the days she wanted me for. I said yes to them, hung up the phone and then had to actually think about what the date was. THEN I realised that I had just taken a booking for my booked afternoon off - that's been booked off for the last month. I was not impressed in the slightest, but it should work out. I'll just have to feed the calves a few hours early so that I can get where I'm headed in time. Should work okay,
Everything is going well in general though, apart from being dropped back down to just the family of four team again (no point in going into too much detail here). It means the workload has increased significantly with everyone trying to cover the bookings that were taken with the intention of five people working full time, but it's coming along OK.
The calves Mum and I are rearing are going great, with three groups of heifers outside now it's made our job somewhat easier. We don't have many newborn calves coming in anymore, so there aren't many to train anymore - thank goodness for that, my hands are covered in enough bruises for this season thank you very much! I'll still be training newbies at my fill in job, just not too many of them now that calving is slowing down again. However I'm bucketing more milk into the mobile feeder these days - which just means a good work out for me every morning so I'm not complaining about that!
Has anybody ever eaten goat? I've heard it's just like any other game meat and I'm keen to try it. Especially because of the recent experiences I've had with a particular goat called Darcy. He's on a piece of land that we're doing a lot of fencing on and is a complete menace. He's about the size of a miniature horse and has an attitude to boot. This afternoon I was carrying a heap of tools and wire up to the Ute, which meant attempting to pass by the goat - he was laying in front of the gate. I tried the "Darcy, Darcy, will you let me pass your stainless gate?" He didn't say, "Only if you are wearing...." He just said, "sure, go for it if you dare." He then proceeded to stand up, rear up on his hind legs and threatened me. As you might try to imagine a goat of his size standing on his back hooves is taller than me by a bit.
He sort of tips his head on the side, turns his shoulder and then lunges forward towards me (and Mum), trying to land against me, so it's pretty freaky. When you are backed up against the fence with your hands full it's not the best situation to be in! Today I kept hopping through a fence we're working on, and he would run back through a gateway back to the other side that I had just climbed through to. In the end I yelled out that he would end up on my dinner plate and he ran at me. So I kinda just ran for it and waited for Dad to walk me out, as the goat isn't quite as brave around him.
Wednesday was crazy with the weather, all of the rivers in the area flooded their banks with the intense rain storm we had. There is one main district, if you could call it that, which is like one massive basin with a river running through it - it all flooded over. There are three or four dairy farms which are mostly based on flat land that were covered in water - I don't honestly know how they cope in that sort of situation. Nick and I almost didn't make it out after our morning work, due to the road either side of a one lane bridge flooding too, but we got out in time and by about midday the worst of the weather had subsided - except the lower parts of town suffered the brunt of it with the river flow. It kinda feels like winter is coming to an end though, we've now gone through a blip of icy cold weather, a tankful of rain and now the days are getting longer which is great. It's nice to be able to sit outside after work and watch the dogs run around, it's after 5pm and it's still light. It's great. Bring on summer, I say!
As of today I've done more than 40 hours again for this week - after tomorrow I'll almost get to 50 -, I'm starting to get used to it. It's been almost a month since my last day off but again, I've gotten used to it.
I was doing a fill in job a few days a week feeding calves at one farm, that was for only two weeks and finished on Thursday but they've booked me in to carry on for the next two weeks. It was funny, I took the phone call and stared blankly at the white board while she rattled off the days she wanted me for. I said yes to them, hung up the phone and then had to actually think about what the date was. THEN I realised that I had just taken a booking for my booked afternoon off - that's been booked off for the last month. I was not impressed in the slightest, but it should work out. I'll just have to feed the calves a few hours early so that I can get where I'm headed in time. Should work okay,
Everything is going well in general though, apart from being dropped back down to just the family of four team again (no point in going into too much detail here). It means the workload has increased significantly with everyone trying to cover the bookings that were taken with the intention of five people working full time, but it's coming along OK.
The calves Mum and I are rearing are going great, with three groups of heifers outside now it's made our job somewhat easier. We don't have many newborn calves coming in anymore, so there aren't many to train anymore - thank goodness for that, my hands are covered in enough bruises for this season thank you very much! I'll still be training newbies at my fill in job, just not too many of them now that calving is slowing down again. However I'm bucketing more milk into the mobile feeder these days - which just means a good work out for me every morning so I'm not complaining about that!
Has anybody ever eaten goat? I've heard it's just like any other game meat and I'm keen to try it. Especially because of the recent experiences I've had with a particular goat called Darcy. He's on a piece of land that we're doing a lot of fencing on and is a complete menace. He's about the size of a miniature horse and has an attitude to boot. This afternoon I was carrying a heap of tools and wire up to the Ute, which meant attempting to pass by the goat - he was laying in front of the gate. I tried the "Darcy, Darcy, will you let me pass your stainless gate?" He didn't say, "Only if you are wearing...." He just said, "sure, go for it if you dare." He then proceeded to stand up, rear up on his hind legs and threatened me. As you might try to imagine a goat of his size standing on his back hooves is taller than me by a bit.
He sort of tips his head on the side, turns his shoulder and then lunges forward towards me (and Mum), trying to land against me, so it's pretty freaky. When you are backed up against the fence with your hands full it's not the best situation to be in! Today I kept hopping through a fence we're working on, and he would run back through a gateway back to the other side that I had just climbed through to. In the end I yelled out that he would end up on my dinner plate and he ran at me. So I kinda just ran for it and waited for Dad to walk me out, as the goat isn't quite as brave around him.
Wednesday was crazy with the weather, all of the rivers in the area flooded their banks with the intense rain storm we had. There is one main district, if you could call it that, which is like one massive basin with a river running through it - it all flooded over. There are three or four dairy farms which are mostly based on flat land that were covered in water - I don't honestly know how they cope in that sort of situation. Nick and I almost didn't make it out after our morning work, due to the road either side of a one lane bridge flooding too, but we got out in time and by about midday the worst of the weather had subsided - except the lower parts of town suffered the brunt of it with the river flow. It kinda feels like winter is coming to an end though, we've now gone through a blip of icy cold weather, a tankful of rain and now the days are getting longer which is great. It's nice to be able to sit outside after work and watch the dogs run around, it's after 5pm and it's still light. It's great. Bring on summer, I say!
Wednesday, 22 June 2016
Shortest Day
Winter has "technically" arrived, as yesterday was the shortest day of the year, bringing with it a heap of rain that, believe it or not, is quite pleasant. It's not cold, well not icy cold like it has been and there hasn't been any frosts lately. A good thing, that.
Although this rain that has been booked in for the last week has meant that a whole heap of work has been in a rush. We've had this one fencing job where the posts needed to all be in before the rain hit last night, as the tractor was working on a large lawn area that had a couple of nasty hills. We wouldn't have gotten the tractor out again once the lawn was slick from the rain, thankfully Dad and Nikolai (our newest employee) got all the posts in yesterday afternoon, making life today a little less stressful for Dad.
Monday was, for Nick, Nikolai and I, spent dismantling a couple fences. One made up of old concrete posts and wires that is being completely replaced. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, pulling the wires off the posts. However the Kikuya was as high as the fence at some points, so pulling rusty barbed wire through that was rather joyful. But it's all pulled out now thank goodness! Then Nikolai and I went on to the next job and rolled up all the wires on another fence which was much easier, so then yesterday they could pull all the posts up and sort the new fenceline. Perfect timing for this rain. But it was so, so nice to get out of the house for almost 6 hours on Monday doing all that work - it made a nice change rather than sticking around home doing next to nothing. I wouldn't say getting scratched to shreds from gorse, blackberry and rusty barb wire is high on the "most exciting job ever" list, but it was something different for once.
I'm doing the odd milking here and there but life isn't too busy these days. I can't believe June is almost over, as in a few weeks time we'll be flat stick!
We all somehow got jinxed over the last couple weeks and somehow caught colds (already!) however Nick has since progressed into the Flu which is verging on pneumonia - doctors' verdict from this morning anyway. We've gotta haul him back to the doc's tonight if all the drugs haven't made a difference by then. So fingers crossed he gets better, it's not something that you want to have around...
Everyone is staying mostly out of trouble these days. I keep putting off going to the dentist - I know I need to go but you know how it is...avoidance and procrastination won't keep my teeth looking amazing but yeah I've been avoiding them for over a year now....he he he ooops.
Although this rain that has been booked in for the last week has meant that a whole heap of work has been in a rush. We've had this one fencing job where the posts needed to all be in before the rain hit last night, as the tractor was working on a large lawn area that had a couple of nasty hills. We wouldn't have gotten the tractor out again once the lawn was slick from the rain, thankfully Dad and Nikolai (our newest employee) got all the posts in yesterday afternoon, making life today a little less stressful for Dad.
Monday was, for Nick, Nikolai and I, spent dismantling a couple fences. One made up of old concrete posts and wires that is being completely replaced. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, pulling the wires off the posts. However the Kikuya was as high as the fence at some points, so pulling rusty barbed wire through that was rather joyful. But it's all pulled out now thank goodness! Then Nikolai and I went on to the next job and rolled up all the wires on another fence which was much easier, so then yesterday they could pull all the posts up and sort the new fenceline. Perfect timing for this rain. But it was so, so nice to get out of the house for almost 6 hours on Monday doing all that work - it made a nice change rather than sticking around home doing next to nothing. I wouldn't say getting scratched to shreds from gorse, blackberry and rusty barb wire is high on the "most exciting job ever" list, but it was something different for once.
I'm doing the odd milking here and there but life isn't too busy these days. I can't believe June is almost over, as in a few weeks time we'll be flat stick!
We all somehow got jinxed over the last couple weeks and somehow caught colds (already!) however Nick has since progressed into the Flu which is verging on pneumonia - doctors' verdict from this morning anyway. We've gotta haul him back to the doc's tonight if all the drugs haven't made a difference by then. So fingers crossed he gets better, it's not something that you want to have around...
Everyone is staying mostly out of trouble these days. I keep putting off going to the dentist - I know I need to go but you know how it is...avoidance and procrastination won't keep my teeth looking amazing but yeah I've been avoiding them for over a year now....he he he ooops.
Sunday, 22 May 2016
Feijoa
It's been a funny week, one filled with so many feijoa's that it's difficult to get my head around them. I made five, yes five feijoa cakes in two days. The first day I made one, simply for something to do in between my milkings. A bit of an experiment, if that's the best description for it. Just to see what would happen, and yeah, with the intention of killing off a couple of those green fruit! Ok, so maybe just three feijoa's were needed in the making of that cake, but it was so yum!
I went to work telling Cam that I'd spent a part of my day making this cake and he replied, jokingly - "did you leave it in your car?" AKA, he kinda wanted some, now that I'd mentioned it. Honestly, lol.
I'd done a whole seven day stretch on this farm for a change, and finished up on Thursday. So that afternoon I took along a feijoa cake for Cam and Hamish to enjoy before I came back today, Saturday. I had spent quite a decent part of my day making four of these cakes, freezing two of them for winter (we've been freezing quite a few sponge cakes as well, just to use up the eggs we're getting), leaving one for us and taking one to work. But I sliced them in half and filled them with cream and sliced feijoa this time round - apparently it was really good, so that's some good feedback. Actually, they ate the whole thing in one day, so. lol
*Edit, fast forward to Sunday :)
Yesterday I made a good effort and did some feijoa preserving, only seven bottles as we didn't have enough seals. Today I got in another 12 bottles. however now I look at those evil little green things (or not so little, in some cases) and squirm. Almost 20 bottles later and I'm sick of the idea of them! There's still a fair few on the tree and on the ground, but I reckon they can just stay there and go back into the cycle of nature, or something!
I'll tell you what though, I'm sick of this cold weather, and it isn't even winter yet! We're getting the southerly winds now so it's pretty icy. One minute the sun is out - take Friday for instance, we were scorching in the heat building some stock yards for a client. Now, the wind and rain comes with random bursts of enthusiasm, and the likelihood that it will suddenly start raining when you decide to pop outside (when previously it was quite sunny), is very high. It's annoying. Autumn has been quite chilly this year, but I'm still in the summer clothing - save for wearing a jersey every now and again. I'm kinda thinking that pulling out the old trackies for future use might just be the way to go in the next couple days!
Tessa the Terrier is always feeling the cold, constantly in her little doggy jumper or snuggled up on our lap, trying to soak in some extra heat. I'm telling you, these dogs of ours are fire and ice, one can't handle cold weather (my gosh, if she lived in the south island!) and one can't handle the heat. They freaked out with their first thunderstorm on Friday night, so winter/spring with the little rascals is definitely going to be interesting.
Last Monday was fun, I took the afternoon off work and went to Rainbow's End with Chantelle, Sam and Bee. A real girls day out for Chantelle's 21st birthday. It was fun! The last time I went there, I was only a little kid, probably in the region of about 3 or 4 years old. I can hardly remember it, but this time was really cool.
Chantelle, Bee and I all went on the "Fear Fall", which isn't actually that high, but in saying that I won't be going on it again. That moment of - holey moley we're falling, was a little too, yeah. See if I jumped off something - say skydiving or bungee jumping, at least I would know when I would start trying to defy gravity. But just sitting there, up in the air, looking around and omgosh we're falling! For about a second. Then you're back on the ground again. It wasn't exciting, wasn't terrifying, was just one of those things I probably wouldn't bother with again!
But it was super fun over all, I had two favourite rides, Invader and the Stratosfear. The latter of which is like a pendulum, that swings 360 degrees, so you're hanging upside down for a little while which is pretty awesome. I just couldn't stop laughing on that one, you expect people to be screaming - a few did, but I'm hanging upside down in hysterics because it's so blimmen stupidly weird. It was funny.
The Bumper Boats were cool, apart from getting soaked. They sure are a ride for the more warmer months. We went out for dinner afterwards to Nando's then trekked our ways home again, leaving poor Bee in Auckland (I really couldn't live there!) and Sam drove Chantelle and I home back to a more northern part of the country. Sam got her Visa to go to California that morning, so it won't be long until she leaves us in September for her big study trip to the USA. It's gonna be sad to see her go.
But alas it is almost milking time again. I get to go out for an hour and a half and annoy Hamish with my sarcastic comments and jokes. I'm getting really fast in my aging youth, that I quite often spit out a funny remark without even really thinking about it. It's pretty funny. Then I've got days off again on Monday and Tuesday - a trip to town is in order on Tuesday with Mum, to get some things done and get my car repairs done at the same time.
Thinking forward, I've got Kurtis' 21st birthday party to go to in two weeks, then the wedding I'm going to a week after that on the 11th. As I'm sitting here with a shivering puppy on my knee, I'm getting more and more conscious of the fact that winter weddings aren't too clever. It's okay for guys, they'll all be wearing their suits or nice jeans and jackets. Girls with our nice dresses and shoes are going to freeze our toes off - I will hazard a guess that I'll come home with blimmen frostbitten toes. Ok, hehe, maybe not that bad, but it's gonna be cold!
I went to work telling Cam that I'd spent a part of my day making this cake and he replied, jokingly - "did you leave it in your car?" AKA, he kinda wanted some, now that I'd mentioned it. Honestly, lol.
I'd done a whole seven day stretch on this farm for a change, and finished up on Thursday. So that afternoon I took along a feijoa cake for Cam and Hamish to enjoy before I came back today, Saturday. I had spent quite a decent part of my day making four of these cakes, freezing two of them for winter (we've been freezing quite a few sponge cakes as well, just to use up the eggs we're getting), leaving one for us and taking one to work. But I sliced them in half and filled them with cream and sliced feijoa this time round - apparently it was really good, so that's some good feedback. Actually, they ate the whole thing in one day, so. lol
*Edit, fast forward to Sunday :)
Yesterday I made a good effort and did some feijoa preserving, only seven bottles as we didn't have enough seals. Today I got in another 12 bottles. however now I look at those evil little green things (or not so little, in some cases) and squirm. Almost 20 bottles later and I'm sick of the idea of them! There's still a fair few on the tree and on the ground, but I reckon they can just stay there and go back into the cycle of nature, or something!
I'll tell you what though, I'm sick of this cold weather, and it isn't even winter yet! We're getting the southerly winds now so it's pretty icy. One minute the sun is out - take Friday for instance, we were scorching in the heat building some stock yards for a client. Now, the wind and rain comes with random bursts of enthusiasm, and the likelihood that it will suddenly start raining when you decide to pop outside (when previously it was quite sunny), is very high. It's annoying. Autumn has been quite chilly this year, but I'm still in the summer clothing - save for wearing a jersey every now and again. I'm kinda thinking that pulling out the old trackies for future use might just be the way to go in the next couple days!
Tessa the Terrier is always feeling the cold, constantly in her little doggy jumper or snuggled up on our lap, trying to soak in some extra heat. I'm telling you, these dogs of ours are fire and ice, one can't handle cold weather (my gosh, if she lived in the south island!) and one can't handle the heat. They freaked out with their first thunderstorm on Friday night, so winter/spring with the little rascals is definitely going to be interesting.
Last Monday was fun, I took the afternoon off work and went to Rainbow's End with Chantelle, Sam and Bee. A real girls day out for Chantelle's 21st birthday. It was fun! The last time I went there, I was only a little kid, probably in the region of about 3 or 4 years old. I can hardly remember it, but this time was really cool.
Chantelle, Bee and I all went on the "Fear Fall", which isn't actually that high, but in saying that I won't be going on it again. That moment of - holey moley we're falling, was a little too, yeah. See if I jumped off something - say skydiving or bungee jumping, at least I would know when I would start trying to defy gravity. But just sitting there, up in the air, looking around and omgosh we're falling! For about a second. Then you're back on the ground again. It wasn't exciting, wasn't terrifying, was just one of those things I probably wouldn't bother with again!
But it was super fun over all, I had two favourite rides, Invader and the Stratosfear. The latter of which is like a pendulum, that swings 360 degrees, so you're hanging upside down for a little while which is pretty awesome. I just couldn't stop laughing on that one, you expect people to be screaming - a few did, but I'm hanging upside down in hysterics because it's so blimmen stupidly weird. It was funny.
The Bumper Boats were cool, apart from getting soaked. They sure are a ride for the more warmer months. We went out for dinner afterwards to Nando's then trekked our ways home again, leaving poor Bee in Auckland (I really couldn't live there!) and Sam drove Chantelle and I home back to a more northern part of the country. Sam got her Visa to go to California that morning, so it won't be long until she leaves us in September for her big study trip to the USA. It's gonna be sad to see her go.
But alas it is almost milking time again. I get to go out for an hour and a half and annoy Hamish with my sarcastic comments and jokes. I'm getting really fast in my aging youth, that I quite often spit out a funny remark without even really thinking about it. It's pretty funny. Then I've got days off again on Monday and Tuesday - a trip to town is in order on Tuesday with Mum, to get some things done and get my car repairs done at the same time.
Thinking forward, I've got Kurtis' 21st birthday party to go to in two weeks, then the wedding I'm going to a week after that on the 11th. As I'm sitting here with a shivering puppy on my knee, I'm getting more and more conscious of the fact that winter weddings aren't too clever. It's okay for guys, they'll all be wearing their suits or nice jeans and jackets. Girls with our nice dresses and shoes are going to freeze our toes off - I will hazard a guess that I'll come home with blimmen frostbitten toes. Ok, hehe, maybe not that bad, but it's gonna be cold!
Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Be Au Ti - ful
It rained yesterday, so, jolly, much! 33 whole millimetres of rain! It wasn't just drizzling, the rain came over the whole day, seemed to rain for most of the daylight hours, nice and constantly heavy. It was fantastic. I got home from milking that night, said, "I'm off for a shower..." was then told, well, enjoy your shower, take as long as you like, perhaps give us a gold coin donation for the use of the gas (perhaps have a cold shower even?) whatever you do, use the water! The tank was just about to overflow. Ridiculous!
We have filled the tank, well not completely but we've had two truckloads of water in about 3 weeks, now the tank was close to overflowing and washing itself down the drain. You just wanna like, I dunno? Scream? So I stood in the shower for as long as I could tolerate, when you get bored and have to resort to (not singing!) but reading the backs of the shampoo and conditioner bottles, you've been in there too long...lol But I do have to owe it to studying chemistry, which taught me the language of seriously overextended chemical names for ingredients in shampoo and conditioners....Where would I be without that knowledge? I wouldn't like to hazard a guess.
Anyway, so I said the rain must be filled with Beryllium, gold and titanium - see the title ;)
So yeah, we've been busy and not busy, but busy all the same. As I quite often talk about. I'm relief milking 7 days a week now, twice a day. This week I'm covering 5 different farms, but I'm not complaining and neither is my bank balance. Let me just say, being considered a "full timer" for a change at this time of year - more than 30 hours of work a week, is brilliant. To think that last week I did 35 hours of just pure milking, is pretty jolly good! Keep it coming I say, usually I'd expect no more than 20 hours.
But, in saying that I am covering for Dad and Nick. They don't really have time for milking anymore, save for the odd milking here and there that Nick will do. Why? Because this is our silly season for spraying gorse for lifestylers and building fences, it'll be like this all summer long - well into about March at least. So it's mainly just our other relief milker and myself doing all the milkings, again, not that I'm complaining.
However we still have that issue of needing extra helpers - do you know how difficult it is to find someone who fits this description: Drug free. Fit and able. Team Player. Committed to the job. Enthusiastic. Does what they're told.
Quite literally, there is no-one who fits that description, even after Mum called WINZ to see who we could give a job to, even offering if they lived in the area and had no transport that we would cart them to and fro. But, nothing. All they need to do is help with fencing, pulling wires, holding battens, doing basic work that needs little to no experience for. In saying that, Mum and Dad are on their way back from Auckland airport, having since picked up my cousin George. He's after work, so he'll stay with us for the next month or so, help us out by finishing the jobs faster and getting paid more money than he would with more hours than anything offered in Wellington. A win-win situation. :)
Monday last week we did something spontaneous, jumped in Nick's ute and went fishing on the beach after I got home from work. It was stinking hot, and our beaches are amazing, they're everywhere around here (great thing about living in the sort of area of Twin Coast Discovery!) basically we can go in any direction and find a beach. Everyone local knows about most of them, typically you need to drive down hard metal roads through bushland to get to them. This time was a new place to us, the only place around here you can drive right onto the beach. So that we did, drove out onto the sand (mum and I a little stressed about sinking in the sand lol), backed the ute up to the ocean and set the lines.
Two proper surf-casting lines (they're longer, seriously longer - 10 foot?), a basic shorter fishing rod and Nick's reel and kite set up (similar to a Contiki, except you use the wind to blow the kite out, thus pulling out the line and hooks). Sadly, there wasn't too much wind so we mostly just used the rods.
DID YOU KNOW that when something is biting on your line, you're not actually supposed to pull it in? Did you think we were there to fish? Gosh no, try feeding the fish, poor little beggars they might've died from starvation you know..... -_-
So anyway, I'm holding a rod and I can feel it tugging. Give it a few quick, sharp yanks on the line. Wait a minute, yep I can feel something on there. Start reeling it in, the odd big pull of the whole rod every so often. Nick comes over, "what are you doing? Stop pulling it in!" "There's something on it!" *Nick grabs hold* "oh, there's something on it!" *Quickly reels it in* Meanwhile, I'm just standing there dumbstruck, what the heck just happened? He stole my line, that's MY FISH! Don't you dare try taking the credit.
It wasn't too exciting, here was me thinking it was something massive, it was just a baitfish quite a decent size but not edible for us. I unhooked it, it looked at bn me, mouthing "save me!" Nick grabbed it, cut the head off and forever those eyes stared at me in the bait bucket..."I trusted you..." The shame. I murdered a flippen fish, man I felt guilty.
Apart from a few bait fish eventually caught on the kite line, and a few crabs caught on the rods, the fish weren't biting. I was mortified though, pulled something in, saw a small body waving around in the sand, I absolutely freaked and thought I'd pulled in a baby turtle (do we even have turtles in the water around here? I dunno), ran up to it expecting to grab hold and put it back in the water. Then realised it was a MASSIVE crab, on it's back, pincers flying around snap snappity snap. There's a possibility I squealed, and ran in the opposite direction. Crabs are flippen evil, scary things. Eeek.
Yesterday I donated blood again, very well behaved little Miss O Negative. I'm quite excited to know that the rescue helicopters are now carrying O- on board, so it keeps inspiring me to keep on donating as often as I can (Every 3 months). I've done 5 donations now, in about two and half years? Got a gift yesterday for it being my 5th donation, a NZ Blood water bottle. It's actually my second water bottle, as I randomly got given one as it was only a couple days after my birthday when I donated (lol). At 25 donations, you get an umbrella.
Although I get a really good buzz out of donating for a blimmen good cause, I feel really gutted because I looked around yesterday, among all the people there to donate, I was the only one in my generation. Everyone else was, I dunno, 30's and older. It's such a shame, it's not as if you really lose anything out of it, just 20 minutes of your day, blood is replenished anyway. Yeah I just really wish more people I knew could just give it a go, at least once.
But, who am I to talk? I was happy, my hemoglobin levels were pretty much perfect, meaning I'm obviously eating enough red meat to have good iron levels. What I was curious about though, is that none of them wear gloves - seems a bit odd, wouldn't you think? They're all like, what medication have you taken recently? What are the chances of you having this disease or that disease? Have you been to the doctors lately, why? Any chance of having HIV or anything like that? No? Good (lots of detailed questions about that, by the way...). But I'm just like, what if people lie? What if people don't realise? You're pricking their fingers, then you're touching me. Sure, they are careful to not touch any blood and all that, but I'm just like, seriously? You're putting so many lives at risk here, when we are here to help others. I dunno...
Anyway, it only took 4 minutes to fill a blood bag, what 500mls? 750mls? The fastest it's ever been for me, first time took almost 10 minutes. Mum made a valid comment, "don't slit your wrist accidentally..." AKA, I'll bleed out pretty jolly quick. As she said that, I went to pick up Pippa....who grabbed me around the wrist with both front paws and her teeth and bit down hard. Evil kitty.
We have filled the tank, well not completely but we've had two truckloads of water in about 3 weeks, now the tank was close to overflowing and washing itself down the drain. You just wanna like, I dunno? Scream? So I stood in the shower for as long as I could tolerate, when you get bored and have to resort to (not singing!) but reading the backs of the shampoo and conditioner bottles, you've been in there too long...lol But I do have to owe it to studying chemistry, which taught me the language of seriously overextended chemical names for ingredients in shampoo and conditioners....Where would I be without that knowledge? I wouldn't like to hazard a guess.
Anyway, so I said the rain must be filled with Beryllium, gold and titanium - see the title ;)
So yeah, we've been busy and not busy, but busy all the same. As I quite often talk about. I'm relief milking 7 days a week now, twice a day. This week I'm covering 5 different farms, but I'm not complaining and neither is my bank balance. Let me just say, being considered a "full timer" for a change at this time of year - more than 30 hours of work a week, is brilliant. To think that last week I did 35 hours of just pure milking, is pretty jolly good! Keep it coming I say, usually I'd expect no more than 20 hours.
But, in saying that I am covering for Dad and Nick. They don't really have time for milking anymore, save for the odd milking here and there that Nick will do. Why? Because this is our silly season for spraying gorse for lifestylers and building fences, it'll be like this all summer long - well into about March at least. So it's mainly just our other relief milker and myself doing all the milkings, again, not that I'm complaining.
However we still have that issue of needing extra helpers - do you know how difficult it is to find someone who fits this description: Drug free. Fit and able. Team Player. Committed to the job. Enthusiastic. Does what they're told.
Quite literally, there is no-one who fits that description, even after Mum called WINZ to see who we could give a job to, even offering if they lived in the area and had no transport that we would cart them to and fro. But, nothing. All they need to do is help with fencing, pulling wires, holding battens, doing basic work that needs little to no experience for. In saying that, Mum and Dad are on their way back from Auckland airport, having since picked up my cousin George. He's after work, so he'll stay with us for the next month or so, help us out by finishing the jobs faster and getting paid more money than he would with more hours than anything offered in Wellington. A win-win situation. :)
Monday last week we did something spontaneous, jumped in Nick's ute and went fishing on the beach after I got home from work. It was stinking hot, and our beaches are amazing, they're everywhere around here (great thing about living in the sort of area of Twin Coast Discovery!) basically we can go in any direction and find a beach. Everyone local knows about most of them, typically you need to drive down hard metal roads through bushland to get to them. This time was a new place to us, the only place around here you can drive right onto the beach. So that we did, drove out onto the sand (mum and I a little stressed about sinking in the sand lol), backed the ute up to the ocean and set the lines.
Two proper surf-casting lines (they're longer, seriously longer - 10 foot?), a basic shorter fishing rod and Nick's reel and kite set up (similar to a Contiki, except you use the wind to blow the kite out, thus pulling out the line and hooks). Sadly, there wasn't too much wind so we mostly just used the rods.
DID YOU KNOW that when something is biting on your line, you're not actually supposed to pull it in? Did you think we were there to fish? Gosh no, try feeding the fish, poor little beggars they might've died from starvation you know..... -_-
So anyway, I'm holding a rod and I can feel it tugging. Give it a few quick, sharp yanks on the line. Wait a minute, yep I can feel something on there. Start reeling it in, the odd big pull of the whole rod every so often. Nick comes over, "what are you doing? Stop pulling it in!" "There's something on it!" *Nick grabs hold* "oh, there's something on it!" *Quickly reels it in* Meanwhile, I'm just standing there dumbstruck, what the heck just happened? He stole my line, that's MY FISH! Don't you dare try taking the credit.
It wasn't too exciting, here was me thinking it was something massive, it was just a baitfish quite a decent size but not edible for us. I unhooked it, it looked at bn me, mouthing "save me!" Nick grabbed it, cut the head off and forever those eyes stared at me in the bait bucket..."I trusted you..." The shame. I murdered a flippen fish, man I felt guilty.
Apart from a few bait fish eventually caught on the kite line, and a few crabs caught on the rods, the fish weren't biting. I was mortified though, pulled something in, saw a small body waving around in the sand, I absolutely freaked and thought I'd pulled in a baby turtle (do we even have turtles in the water around here? I dunno), ran up to it expecting to grab hold and put it back in the water. Then realised it was a MASSIVE crab, on it's back, pincers flying around snap snappity snap. There's a possibility I squealed, and ran in the opposite direction. Crabs are flippen evil, scary things. Eeek.
Yesterday I donated blood again, very well behaved little Miss O Negative. I'm quite excited to know that the rescue helicopters are now carrying O- on board, so it keeps inspiring me to keep on donating as often as I can (Every 3 months). I've done 5 donations now, in about two and half years? Got a gift yesterday for it being my 5th donation, a NZ Blood water bottle. It's actually my second water bottle, as I randomly got given one as it was only a couple days after my birthday when I donated (lol). At 25 donations, you get an umbrella.
Although I get a really good buzz out of donating for a blimmen good cause, I feel really gutted because I looked around yesterday, among all the people there to donate, I was the only one in my generation. Everyone else was, I dunno, 30's and older. It's such a shame, it's not as if you really lose anything out of it, just 20 minutes of your day, blood is replenished anyway. Yeah I just really wish more people I knew could just give it a go, at least once.
But, who am I to talk? I was happy, my hemoglobin levels were pretty much perfect, meaning I'm obviously eating enough red meat to have good iron levels. What I was curious about though, is that none of them wear gloves - seems a bit odd, wouldn't you think? They're all like, what medication have you taken recently? What are the chances of you having this disease or that disease? Have you been to the doctors lately, why? Any chance of having HIV or anything like that? No? Good (lots of detailed questions about that, by the way...). But I'm just like, what if people lie? What if people don't realise? You're pricking their fingers, then you're touching me. Sure, they are careful to not touch any blood and all that, but I'm just like, seriously? You're putting so many lives at risk here, when we are here to help others. I dunno...
Anyway, it only took 4 minutes to fill a blood bag, what 500mls? 750mls? The fastest it's ever been for me, first time took almost 10 minutes. Mum made a valid comment, "don't slit your wrist accidentally..." AKA, I'll bleed out pretty jolly quick. As she said that, I went to pick up Pippa....who grabbed me around the wrist with both front paws and her teeth and bit down hard. Evil kitty.
Thursday, 29 October 2015
Trials of Being Owned by Cats
Keepin' busy. Lots has been happening but I've little to say. So, what's been happening? Hmmm. Well, first on the agenda - my Magnolia. A few of you may remember last Christmas Mum and Dad bought me a Magnolia tree - my childhood dream. Well, it's flowered for the first time under my care, and I'm stoked. It's gorgeous! I can't wait until it gets bigger, reaching it's 6 metre height and covers itself with that lovely colour. Mum's plan is to eventually buy more of them to put on that small new section of land when we eventually get it - it'll be great to see so many of the different colours we could get.Our vege garden is now well underway. The glass house is filled with miniature pots with all the seedlings growing, the seed potatoes and beetroot seeds are in their bed, the strawberries are spread in among straw and marigolds are around the perimeter of each individual garden. The garden is separated out into three sections - four if you include the strawberry patch - to make it a bit more easier and distinct where everything should be. And I'm not too much of a fan of Marigolds, but heck the bees like them and that's the important thing, right? Mum's growing all sorts of other flowers as well, so the potted colour around the place should look pretty neat too :)
It's quite nice to see everything growing, flowering, fruiting. It definitely is that feeling of spring/summer when you start getting fruit on the trees. The Loquat is delicious, the grapes have taken off in growth and we have minuscule grapes growing on them for the first time, and more importantly the Peach tree is fruiting.
This Peach tree, it's a pretty special tree. See, when we first moved here there were two heritage peach trees in the backyard - they were absolutely delicious! But, we thought they were so good and well, so did our Husky, Chy-Anne. She would stand on her back feet, reach up and pluck fruit from the trees, leaving the stones everywhere, so we had to pull them out and move them to a new location so she wouldn't destroy them. However, they didn't survive the move and died - gutting. We moved north, Chy-Anne died a few years later, then we came back here one day to find a Peach tree growing in between the fence and pigsty - Chy-Anne's legacy. We transplanted it, crossed all our fingers it would be OK. It has since grown massive and is now fruiting for the first time, absolutely stoked about this, where would we be without that dog? Man she was awesome.
Labour Day traffic was mental, there was one non-fatal accident on one of the local busy roads around here, meaning poor old SH1 was exploding with traffic at every entrance to it, due to the diversion. Meaning I had to take a slight back route to work, not the most ideal road, part of it is like a one lane driveway so coming across others like me who are skipping the main road was a little interesting - especially when some of them appeared to not know how to drive a gravel road! (Aucklanders, why you come north?! Where did you even go?!) Monday was a good work day, I got to take back control of one of my favourite sheds, where I haven't been able to work at much this season due to my other commitments at other farms. I have hopeful thinking that they appreciated having me back for a change, and Tuesday night I got to go there too - where, on this occasion I somewhat said it straight to the farmer. You. Need. To. Take. Some. Time. Off! He's a stubborn person, we're all a bit like that though, I guess, and came up with every excuse in the book as to why he couldn't have just one sleep in for a change (he hasn't taken any time off this season yet, and it's showing). This is the one farm I work on that I'm covering for the staff and not the boss. Ridiculous
Frodo has made her mark recently, quite literally. Rewind the clock to Wednesday: Pippa is sitting in the scullery, staring in the corner where we keep things such as bags of potatoes, onions and kumera. She has quite a perplexed look on her face, keeps looking at me saying, "Mum, there's something in there." Me, well, I'm not the biggest fan of rodents so I just tried to ignore her looks. My mum, however carefully lifted the bags out of the way and then yelled, "There's a mouse!" Me, freaking out, laughing, hiding in the kitchen so I wouldn't have to try catch it. Darling Pippa is also like, omgosh, it moved, I'm outta here! The guys were outside working, so we couldn't have gotten their help, Mum eventually caught it and we let it go outside, while trying to convince Pippa that she was a cat and needed to kill it. I think she was just amazed that her new toy moved all on it's own. Frodo, not all that concerned either to be quite honest.
Last Thursday was my day off, Mum and Dad were out working and Nick had just gotten home. I crawled out of bed, discovered a pile of feathers at the bottom of the stairs (thanks Frodo, I'll clean them up soon) and found Pippa sprawled out on the floor, staring underneath the couch. I'll have you know, I avoided the couch for a while, Nick had gone back to his house. Eventually I got the courage to pull the couch apart, and here is a mouse with the spotlight on it, sort of thinking, 'oh crap, uh, hi?' Now I'm seriously freaking out, grabbed my cellphone, messaged mum "there's a mouse!" Help! (what on earth was she going to do? Other than yell via messenger to not let it escape?!)
Pippa is absolutely starstruck, staring at this mouse. It runs, I yell. You can probably imagine it about now. It took probably half an hour, until I managed to trap it. How? Stuff a plastic bag down one end of the metal vacuum cleaner pipe and force the mouse in the other end, spin pipe around and mouse is in the base. Release mouse outside just as Frodo arrives, where she looks pitifully down at the poor creature who's had quite an eventful morning and appears to ask if it's quite OK? Later on I see the mouse flying through the air as Frodo plays with it, she's so sweet would never hurt a fly, that cat! ;)
By now you're probably thinking, gosh, they have mice in their house? Wouldn't want to go there! No, quite honestly, we don't. I'll explain.
Saturday night, I'm 'asleep' in bed, it's about 10pm and I've got an early start. Mum and Dad start yelling, why? Because Frodo has just arrived through the cat door, battle cry and all, and released yet another mouse in our house. She's quite pleased with herself! I'm in hysterics, laying in bed above the lounge, where below me Mum and Dad are going ballistic at the cat, because said mouse has run here, there and everywhere in a mad panic. Hehe. Our house is pretty open plan, there's no doors downstairs except into the bathrooms, so you can imagine having a mouse on the loose, who knows where it could go? Eventually, it was discovered in the bathroom, Mum biffed the cat in there shut the door, told Dad it was his issue (his cat) and went to bed. lol. The mouse was caught, released and gone. One wonders whether each time it was the same mouse? What a happy thought.
Now, I get to the main part. I got up for work at 5am, nothing seems amiss apart from the couch still being in pieces from the night before. Off I go to work. A few hours later I come home again, to hear that after I left for work Mum and Dad came downstairs to discover a. RABBIT at the bottom of the stairs. Quite dead, but in quite a state, potentially looking like a murder had occurred there (thank goodness I was working) and to think that our carpet is a very light, tanned sort of colour. Hmm, we're still trying to figure out what will get the stain out, it's pretty awful. Flippen cat, left her mark alright.
And to think, I'm pretty sure it's the Chinese Year of the Rabbit....thank goodness it's not the year of the blimmen Horse. o.O
But anyway. Sunday I get to see Sam and Chantelle again - first time since August, you wouldn't believe the trials of trying to sort one date where we can catch up, if only for a few hours for dinner somewhere. Going to Chantelles for a while on Sunday night, having dinner and watching a movie. Should be nice :)
Today is Mum and Dad's 21st wedding anniversary and we've got our YF meeting on tonight (how exciting, to be honest the only part I enjoy about going to these meetings nowadays is being able to eat the lemongrass crumbed chicken....mmmm).
We have had 10mm of rain so far in October, over last weekend. Now it's drizzling out there again - a fantastic sight as the ground is all cracked up.
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
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