Horsepower of a different kind. On the weekend The Husband decreed we had to muster and wean a paddock of cows, and brand a handful of calves. Instead of running the horses in, tyres were pumped, fuel tanks topped up. Start your engines please! (do you think we had enough manpower?)
The mob was wild and unruly, and the staff terribly useful (ahem), but we managed to get them under control and brought back to the yards. (grandad came to make sure we had 'em rounded up, and then took off home for his siesta....half his luck)
Biggest kid as proud as punch to have her own bike, whilst 2IC was a bit scared to drive her bike at speed (ie over 10kms an hour, making the trip to the paddock so torturously slow) and was quite happy to take on buggy driving until the laneway.
And this one, well he just tagged along (and provided light entertainment, and did his best to avoid the lens. Is this a boy thing?!) . To wittle for bike riding solo....
....until the last little bit of smooth laneway were obstacles were at a minimum.
Dusty dusty dusty dusty at the yards, so all electronic equipment left safely at the house, whilst we drafted. You'll just have to imagine 2IC and offsider hanging off a tree like monkies in the weaner yards, making drafting weaners that way so easy (not to mention giving the snotty stranger cow from next door something to get more snotty about). Dispatched far away from the action, these two then made molasses "icecream" balls for the drafted cows to eat off the rail, bobbing up and down behind the trough to place each morsel on the rails for the cows.
Big girl, desperate to appear useful, got yelled at numerous times to not sit on the top rail at the head of the pound yard and then before mother really did her nana (mum being the one trying to get the cattle into the force and the pound), got roped in to help dad open drafting gates.
Handful of calves branded, very much filling the cradle despite the dryness abounding, we even made it home before dark. Fancy.
How else does one spend a Saturday?!
Regardless of all your adventures, I am completely jealous of your warm weather ... it is so cold down here it is ridiculous!
ReplyDeleteGeez, that boy of yours is getting big too Sharon.
ReplyDeleteIt all looks rather dry and hot and dusty ...
yes it must be nearly time to start laying poly.
Will be thinking of you.
Oh how I miss that busy part of life and the dust and the smells and even the impatient yelling ... in the end everyone feels mostly good (well maybe a little guilty about being the yeller) about a job well done a successful teamwork (well of cause except for the parts that caused the yelling). Haha love the ice cream balls ... I distinctly recall having a re-enactment of Titanic happening in the yards at some time, the useful things kids do.
ReplyDeleteYou know it is sometimes the hardest work those days when it is hot and dry and no choice but to do it...but look at the smiles on your children's faces! I am sure they will remember it as their "good old days" albeit rather dusty...
ReplyDeleteMy goodness, that looks like an energetic half a weekend! And it looks so hot and dry everywhere ... Never heard of the ice cream balls and trying to imagine!
ReplyDeleteJust think one day you will be a Grandad like me and Grandad and then you will get the good jobs.
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