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?

Eight

Eight. Hard to comprehend my squigy cuddly little baby boy is now a long lean lanky, callused palmed and boofy, eight year old boy. How the years have melted away.

The eight year old boy was lucky enough to score TWO cakes this go round, a pretty mean feat considering mum had spent the best part of the week prior away at Westech Field Days in Barcaldine. But seeing as his birthday fell on a Saturday, a second cake was required to share with the 6 little friends at school.

 

There was plenty of sisterly love going his way. Momentarily at least!

Lego and games, and a new hat, boots AND WHIP. All dogs in the district are cowering. Boy can crack a whip far better than his mother (who’s whip cracking skills are very lacking).

Cake One was a chocolate and freckles masterpiece that did not last past morning smoko.

Cake Two was a lot heavier on the sugar laden embellishments. Smarties and TV Snack biscuits surely do hide an absolute multitude of sins, do they not?!

Happy Birthday Angus. Now about that whip. Back corner of the back paddock is a brilliant place to practise your whip cracking, son.

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.

Ten

The pace of life seems to have picked up like a runaway truck hurtling down a highway, whilst brain speed and creativity levels correspondingly seemingly have slowed right down, and paradoxically, at the same time we are in a holding and making do pattern waiting for it to one day rain. During the midst of all of this, the kids keep on growing and Dodgy Birthday Cakes need to be made.

Ten whole years we’ve had this kid. Without argument she’s the loudest personality of our offspring, the one that lives life from one extreme to the other, sometimes in mere minutes. She’s the one that gets her name yelled at the loudest and most often, the one that’s in strife, but also the one that can suddenly decide to clean the bathroom just because she feels like it (she likes cleaning stuff!) She adores animals. She’s loud and opinionated – she came out that way, quite indignant about being born. Her mind is quick; her body is twitchy (dear lord is it ever) even in sleep. She’s a master debater and will go back again and again from a different tact to try and get her own way. She drives her brother bonkers but he adores her. She fights with her sister over clothes and yet they chatter well after bed time every night even thought Dad has threatened to send them separately to dog and chook pens to sleep if they don’t bloody well shut up and go to sleep.  

The request this year was just that the horse had to be on the cake. Of course when it comes to birthday cake baking, the never fail recipe turned out a little dodgy on the day, but nothing that a fair application of butter cream icing with the magical cake icing thingymemob didnt sort of fix. And really when you are TEN, there’s not much room for anything else on the cake other than candles which hides a lot of flaws!

Ten is a pretty good age. Double digits but not so cool and grown up that you cant be super excited about presents and a day being about you.

Most favoured gifts have been cool retro headphones; lego (of course) water coloured paints from grandma (the real deal) and BY FAR, a pocket knife complete with pink pouch from a little mate.

I look forward to seeing how long it is before injury occurs – or it gets left somewhere and becomes lost. The boy, reminded of his own small carabineer-style  knife with the pink arrival, was recently devastated to loose his when he thought tying it to his shoe via shoe lace would be a great place to keep it. And then run through some long grass. Of course the inevitable happened, given his poor shoe lace tying skills and the fact his shoe laces are pretty much always undone no matter who has done them up in a triple knot. Such a boy.

But this isn’t about him, its about Georgie!

Ten whole years huh. Holy smokes. We now have two kids in double digits.

Excuse me whilst I go have a bex and a good lie down. I am not mentally prepared for teenagehood.

Sally

Sally, daughter of the infamous Lena (a talented dog that could almost speak, and one that could be sent to get the milkers in solo each day, including any new calves) and Buddy, a determined kelpie collie cross that was equally happy about heading or heeling, came to live at our house in around October 2005. A black wriggly bundle of fur, as I went looking for photos evidencing her part in our family, I discovered there was very few.

That’s a little sad, for as part of our family for so long, she greeted numerous visitors at the front gate, saw many other dogs and cats and chooks and ducks come and go, but had been the one constant. One black loopy, from time to time tartish, happy dog that had no talent at rounding up bovines but was never happier when rounding up a cat or two. (and on one occasion, and only ever the once with one particular horse, worked that horse until it chased her, then repeat).

 

The reason for the walk down pictorial lane… our loyal old mate is no more. We knew her time was limited when, after a few (always unplanned) litters of puppies, in recent times she started to develop lumps in her udder. Her mother Lena also went the same way, with canine breast cancer.  But for the longest time she remained happy and shiny and healthy, seemingly unaffected, but clearly starting to feel her age (needing a boost up into the back of the ute). Always a skinny sort of dog, she became a little more portly in her advanced years but maintained a super shiny glossy black coat.

Sally loved nothing better than a ute or car or bike ride with anyone, but preferably the family. She used to bark at Trevor when he came home from work – would hear the truck or ute coming from around 500 metres up the road and would lie in wait to escort/chase him into the shed.  She barked at any visitors (occasionally  at an intrusive tourist who parked too close to my front gate). Became a little deaf in the past 18 months or so; having a run in with a big shiny truck one day when she just didn’t hear it.  (we thought she’d used up all of her lives on that occasion but she recovered). \

She never chased the chooks (that I can remember, although I may have applied early lessons as a pup) or poddies. She was extremely trainable (even though my dog training skills are somewhat lacking) and would sit but had great difficulty with the stay command especially if it was more than two or three metres away from me. She liked to be CLOSE, touching close. Georgie taught her to shake hands, which Sally thought was awesome as it meant MORE TOUCHING>MORE ATTENTION!

We knew the time had come one Monday of the school holidays when she was let go out of the dog run and just wasn’t herself. She’d had a little episode a few months earlier but had come good, but I knew this time that our time was nearly at an end.  Kate went and sat in a warm spot with her for awhile, just patting her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We made her some new sleeping quarters in an old pallet crate, with a windblock wall and comfortable bedding, so she could stay warm and stretch out. She got special extra just because rides in the buggy.  She rallied. Still not quite herself but brighter.  No one wanted to do the job, to take her on that last little walk down the paddock.

We had to go to Mareeba for the 90th celebrations so we shipped her off to my mums place whilst we were away.  Mum rang on the Sunday morning.  Sally regressed again on the Saturday, my dad was willing to take that walk with her and planned to do it the next day. She beat him to it, they found she’d passed away during the night.

She was a good dog, Sally. May you be rounding up cats and riding in the back of utes withe the wind in your face forever more old girl.

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.