Spring

Hello! Welcome to spring 2017!

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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!!

Colouring In

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

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

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

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


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


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