I just need a hand, he said

Ah the infamous words…I just need a hand. We all know how that goes. So I packed lunch and smoko, and the kids and headed off to the prickle farm to help The Husband put up a fence around a tank.  Well, not so much put up, but pull down the old one so a new improved model could be installed.

This may sound a simple task, but much machinery and equipment was required. Firstly we had to wait for Dad to arrive with the bulldozer.  Dad (I should have known better) vastly over estimated the speed of his machine and so we had a bit of a wait. This allowed me to catch up on some reading, and the kids to catch up on some sword stick fighting and generally do their best to maim each other before smoko.

(is this a case of I HAVE ALL OF THESE BOYS TOYS SO I’M GOING TO USE ALL OF THEM TODAY?!)

First job of the day, after feeding the troops, was to roll up the barbed wire fence that was sort of still standing.

Clearly my gloves have seen better days and this little chore did not do them any favours. Whilst I was rolling the bulldozer did its thing VERY closely behind me, removing trees that could drop limbs on the new solar panels that are to be installed beside this tank. Speaking of Boys Toys, there were two boys in that bulldozer with big dusty smiles on their faces as they inhaled dieseline fumes and did lots of brooooming as they made an unholy dusty mess.

I also discovered – well I had a fair inkling – that I lack the skills to create anything more artistic than this out of barbed wire.

Then came the super fun part (please read that in sarcasm font). Digging holes with the post hole digger on the tractor. There’s about 3 feet of super fine sand and then a big old flat hard rock after that. A three foot deep hole isn’t ideal however is not so bad if one has to bale out the super fine sand by hand after the post hole digger has finished.

(I wasn’t just taking photos! sheesh. That’s my shovel sticking out of a hole there in front of me).

Once holes were close enough is good enough, in went the frame for the solar panels and cement to hold it in place.

At this point in time, after putting the frame in place and putting in two strainer posts for the fence that was to go around this structure, it was discovered that we were out of both vital materials and day. So all toys were parked up or packed up and homewards we went. The kids were delighted that I managed to get sand bogged in the ute (however nothing that the application of hubs in and 4WD didn’t fix…which reminds me, I always forget the HUBS OUT part. Wonder how many kilometres before The Husband realises and takes the hubs out again….)

Anyhow. I digress. We got home just on dark – and in time for some golden light that enabled me to take this photo.

Great end to a good days work.

Grubby faced,  bare footed children and sharp toothed pups make the best photos do they not?

Fun Times

Ah, fun times indeed. As I mentioned in my last post, I lost my voice somewhere between Barenya and home that afternoon. It certainly did not improve that evening (nor did the man flu/sinus problems) but fortunately for me but possibly not so much the children and husband, I posses a pretty strident whistle and can say an awful lot with a certain look and pointed finger.

However just because the vocal chords had man flu didn’t mean that lolling around in bed was an option (actually, I’d stopped feeling blah by this point) as the next day the good times were continuing. Such is the way, events tend to cluster and collide and this was no different, with a Yoga Day being held at school the morning after our paddle boarding adventure. Now, you’d be pretty assured in knowing that Yoga is not something that I have done regularly but in the name of supporting local events and Frontier Services (host, another one of their community resilience drought functions) I donned my stretchy pants. I took them off again as I really didn’t feel MY stretchy pants had any place in public, not when around my butt that is for sure.

Yoga, I have found, is not a lot different to the stretching exercises one might do in other exercise sessions. I am sure the mentality and the deeper meaning behind it is totally different, however I am also pretty sure we never reached that level as we were far too busy giggling at our ability or lack thereof to complete the moved required.

Cath, our instructor had no such difficulty but enjoyed trying to put us through our paces. Some of us were far more flexible than others, and some of us really found the stretching and using a few forgotten muscles really loosened up a few sore spots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cath is also a pretty flash cook/foodie type and provided morning tea and lunch with her sister Rachel’s help.

We then REALLY enjoyed the “breathing/relaxation” session that Cath led us through which involved laying down and breathing deeply in varying ways. The use of a straw to control stress, control breathing and to calm was introduced and it was suggested that the straw might come in very handy to hand to ones husband in the cattle yards when he might be getting a little overwrought. “Here dear, breath through this, in through the nose and out through the straw”. The thought was highly entertaining for all present. (all husbands clearly must be the same in the cattle yards)

Lunch was a treat of tastes, with platters of flavours and dips to spread on crusty bread.  Lots of laughter and conversation accompanied. Even more so after we allowed the food to settle and we tried a new version of yoga – with a partner.

Let me say we got to know our friends a whole lot more intimately after this session.

I think it also helped if you had longer legs and were a bit flexible for this exercise. Oh how we did laugh.

But soon it was time to pack up (there is only so much contortion one body can withstand!) and head home. Cath also sent home with us a precooked cryo-vaced meal for dinner that night.

You know, I didn’t think I needed yoga at all. Especially not with little to no voice (it improved on and off throughout the day). But I did have THE best day, and laughed more than I had for such a long time. So perhaps I did need yoga.

On arrival home I found the men folk undertaking their own version of yoga (the one that bends the elbow frequently) on my front steps.

They seemed to be doing a fair bit of giggling themselves, for grown tough middle aged men. They were not keen to participate in the downward facing dog even though the kids offered to show them how and help them do it. Spoilt sports.

And that night, as our bellies were full and we were all sleepy in our jarmies – kids and parents alike – it was declared a Very Good Day indeed.

Yoga huh. Who knew.

Coldest Morning of The Year

Or it certainly felt like it. After running around for quite some time the afternoon before, packing up saddles and bridles and directing child traffic from odd places where they were avoiding work, bright and early and before a very COLD daylight, we headed off. Destination, “helping” the neighbour walk home some cows for weaning time.

Fortunately, horses had been transported earlier but needed saddling and persuading that the cold weather was no excuse for bad behaviour.

Finally we moved ‘em out… after the obligatory rollcall photo

I think there was enough man and kid  power there!

The spare kid was still in residence, yet to be handed back to her parents, so she was having a lovely time with our lot. Was nice to have her, it had been a long time since she’d visited. So she got to ride Chester, meaning Angus was without a mount. This did not bother him at all, his riding skills minimal and his desire to really improve them not great either. The apple did not fall far from the paternal tree with this child and his love of mechanical horsepower over the four legged version.

As you can clearly tell, I was at the back end of the mob. Angus and I followed along in the buggy, he found ways to keep himself entertained (mostly involving feed the starving beast – he has NOT stopped eating since his tonsils were removed)

(new favoured driving spot, not overly OHS compliant but highly entertaining for small boys and handy for jumping off to chase slooooow cows out of bushes and logs).

We need to work on this kids foot and weight placement when riding…suspect the legs are just there for ornament at the moment and all of the weight is on her bum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weather was quite lovely after the freezing start, and the couple of hours it took to get to the laneway were not a hardship to withstand. Really, there could be worser ways to spend a morning.

Snacks, a little spell and some buckjumping antics were enjoyed at the laneway. Disappointingly the buck jump rider did not perform close enough to the camera to capture the action, although suspect the pony in question did not really have his heart in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Angus scored a ride with his new mate, when one of the other kids was seconded to wrassle with a baby calf in the back of my buggy (calf having decided he’d had enough of this walking caper). The end of the laneway was but a short walk to the yards. Yarding was done without incident.

However once yarded bulls had to be cut out from the main mob as they were already shaping up to cause strife and needed to be locked up in small yards away from each other. (testosterone ridden males typically chest beating and scrapping for a fight!) I am not sure any of the smaller kids were in any way shape of form useful in this process but they certainly thought it was fun. My kids have never cut out on horses before, nor probably even seen the process although this was something that I grew up doing.

And that ended that! a leisurely lunch and then the repacking of all saddles,jumpers, buggies and children…and home again with the hope to get there before dark. We made it by the skin of our teeth.

And geez, didnt they sleep well that night!

Ponies

Its no secret, you’ve seen more of the ponies this year than any other year. Normally they reside at my parents property, where there is space and grass for them. But for the last 6 months of last year, mum was feeding the horses molasses and hay and other goodies to keep them going. Normally the horses come in to my place, with its limited space, during the wet season and time of abundant feed in a small space, over the long school holidays. Of course the limited wet and ongoing dry conditions put paid to normal plans. So in January, with some rain having fallen and the horses condition somewhat improved we brought them in. And in they have stayed. This this means the kids have been riding them far more often, rounding up the poddies and generally just goofing around with them.

We taped out a new space for them recently, in the tick free buffer zone that exists around our village. Political machinations by a a couple of residents (some people are never happy?) meant that our usual little paddock was no longer available but where there is a will there is a way, and while there is dry grass to be eaten in front of full on hand feeding we will make use of that.  The routine of feeding and watering the animals has become just that, and each day we poke on down with their daily ration and fill up their water trough.

In between, the ponies sometimes get ridden. Somewhat of a shock to their system, and taking an extra hour out of mum’s afternoon for the pleasure!

Joined by another horse loving little girl, and with the spare kid visiting after a long hiatus, the chatter of the girls was like a little mob of budgies on horseback.

Angus chose, wisely I suspect, to take up the offer of a truck ride delivering weaners with Dad and the local truck driver. Fortuitously for Angus, they pulled up in front of the house just as we were heading off.

I drove ahead in my buggy to supervise the ride (not quite confident in their abilities to go alone, especially with two kids not of my own tagging along!)   and watched and listen to them come towards me. Let It Go was a popular song choice as they rode along…..

And then, all too soon, the sun was getting low in the sky and the chill of evening was encroaching on the warm winter afternoon, so trot back to the paddock they did, unsaddle and feed their valiant steeds.

Hopefully, given their advanced age, steeds are also partially deaf, to put up with the renditions of Let It Go…over and over and over…

(another afternoon in paradise, who’d want to live anywhere else?!)

the show must go on

We might be still drought declared, along with around 80% of Queensland, who knows how much of New South Wales, and South Australia too (but they apparently don’t believe in drought in SA, leaving their farmers high and very dry!) but the show, as they say, must still go on. What rain we did get over the “wet season” did amazing things all things considered, and finally a break in the market allowed us to move on anything that was of marketable weight.

Plucked from navel gazing, knee deep in never ending laundry (how does that happen, I am sure they are dumping their clean clothes straight back into the dirty laundry basket) and book work I ignore for as long as possible,I was pressed into service to help muster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Such a contrast to previous years. The skies are still blue and the country is still big…just a lot dryer and grass is a lot shorter. But still, these little fellas didn’t do so badly, having reasonable feed back in the hills, and the last storms running some water meaning their distance to water was substantially less for a little while.

And then we moved on; another day, another place, another paddock, another mob, moving on what we can. In the lingo, its called “lightning off”. We had an offsider, who was quite happy to combine her patterns – florals and camo are just the thing for paddock wear didn’t you know!!

In this case it wasn’t steers we were sending to south, but empty (non-pregnant) heifers. These heifers are the replacement heifers that normally would go into the main breeding herd, having been nursed along and looked after like royalty in the past 12 months. However the decision had to be made to reduce numbers any way possibly, and these were in a marketable state. Sadly they aren’t sold on to someone else needing breeders – very few people in the state are in that position – so will grace your supermarket shelf in the very near future.

Such is life, and as they say…the show must go on.

Easter Holiday mini adventure

thThe Easter Holidays weren’t terribly exciting, with work to be done and all parties relishing in the lack of school and no lunches to be made (mum in particular enjoying that one). But when the cattle work was finally done and the weaners finally delivered to Yaraka, we made time for a day off.

We thought, that, with some of the storms about, that the Secret Special Fishin’ Hole might have a decent amount of water. So armed with smoko and lunch delicacies, and fishing lines (I always pack food as my faith in fisher persons is not high) and accompanied by friends, we set off.

The kids were excited to be heading in the wild yonder.

We did find water, far less than we had hoped for. Obviously rains upstream was short and sweet and it was no longer running, other than the tiniest of trickles through the sand. Casualty of the drought that does continue.

Lines were thrown in with great enthusiasm.

But the water was murky looking and whilst we could see the little tiny fish swimming around the edges, there was no big fish sighted no any nibbles received.

Rachel and I decided that fishing was not for us, and retired for smoko. Could have been far worser ways to be spending the day. We wore off the excesses of smoko with a stroll down river exploring….

Kids may have tried to catch little tiny fish with their hands in the rockpools, but those fish were too fast for them

The biggest fishing expedition of the day happened when we discovered that Pete’s shoe,knocked off a rock by one of the kids (or a bird) had to be found….fortunately shoes float, and aided by a northerly breeze was found nestled into the bank some 200 metres downstream .

The lack of fish did not deter us; we found some shade and greeness, the kids explored and we may have lazed away a few good hours talking and eating and righting the wrongs of the world…

(The Husband was wishing the chair had one of those foot rest thingys so he could have a quiet 40 winks)

Despite the lack of fish,the day was still declared a success by the kids and they weren’t the only ones who was a wee bit weary from doing very little that evening.

Nothing like a bit of fresh air and zero electronic entertainment for the day!