Holidays!!!!!

Been thinking that I hadn't done my blog for a while, and then I was thinking that we hadn't been doing much and I hadn't been out with my camera, so I wouldn't have anything to post... but I was wrong! We've actually been quite busy. 

There must be some water or dust particles in the stratosphere as the sunsets have lasted for ages and it seems to be well after the sun has gone down, that the sky will come aglow again and it lasts for ages, so I went and got a few photos while I had the chance. 

We had mini school, which was the second last week of term, it had been delayed because of covid, but it really messed with everyone's system because it was difficult to get the kids back into a rhythm at home for that last week. Not that we did, I'll explain why later. 

Never work with animals or kids they say! 

Hayley and her gorgeous little family, Mac, Darcy and Harriet. 

Bonni and her girls Ella and Lucy, although Lucy is not greatly compliant when it come to photos lol. 

The mums!

Mt Archer lookout. 

Ratbag! 

That was it from my good camera which made me think I didn't have much... but with school holidays half way over, we have been full bore. 

Went for a job and saw this which I thought was pretty cool! Looks like the all seeing eye! 

Found a couple of memes that amused me! The above is sooo true! I had to check the price on the fuel pump 3 times! It was under $1 not that long ago!! 

I don't think I could pronounce that, but the term shitlings is definitely appropriate sometimes! 

Helping dad wash the truck! 

My chauffeur 

Getting some family time in on the ponies! 

Busy dad! 

My wild child! 

Best dad ever, that makes humpty dumpties 

Kids wanted to help me make gingerbread men.... wasn't until sometime in that I realised that kaka was covered in cat hair.... fortunately I had already made a couple of lots before they came in to "help"... best feed those to the neighbours lol 

Madame has come sooooo far this month and I'm loving getting the kids out on their horses more. She learnt to canter and then it was on!!! Now she wants to chase cows everywhere and we were practising our pony club stuff yesterday. So good because now I can get out on some of my younger horses and give them some work without having to lead anyone. 

Dad was away so we had rice bubbles for dinner. 

I finally managed to steal this lady away for a morning to go and get our nails done and do a little bit of shopping. 

One evening of minischool we all ventured up Mt Archer to check out the lookout and eat some fish and chips! Lovely spot. 

Missy also got to do 3 days of mini school this term and the above representation is not an accurate picture, but it's the only one I took of when she smacked her head on the corner of the desk as we were leaving. She had an absolute ball and wants to do school every day!! 

The great western had an animal farm/ pet thing set up one night and the kids ate free, so we all went there which was such a hit, especially for Kaka, she just went from animal to animal.. she was in her element!

Harriet and Garrett... I love this pic! 

They had crazy sock day! 

Oh and someone decided to give his mother heart failure... or as my mother would probably say... karma!!! The week before minischool, Garrett went and had his tonsils out. I had originally arranged it to be 2 weeks after minischool but as they changed the date on it, there wasn't much I could do. 

Anyhow, I decided that it was pretty important for him to spend some time with his teacher and classmates, even if he only did half days. So I would give him some nurofen and see how he went. The first two days, I came and got him at lunch because his juice popper hurt his throat but by the third day, he stayed for the full day so I was thinking that he was getting better. Anyhow, on the 4th day, I had to get mum to take him because I had a Dr apt and he didn't want to stay at school, he wanted to go with grandma. Which was fine, but as I went to collect him from Grandma, he wanted to go back to school... so we had smoko and he was still keen to go back.... so I took him. He stayed the full day and seemed pretty perky when I saw him that arvo, teachers said he had a good day......

That night, as I had sent them to bed, he comes out of the bedroom with blood in his mouth, so as I'm guiding him to the toilet and yelling at mum that he's having a bleed... he's bringing up huge amounts of fresh red blood all over the toilet... racing to get some clothes on, find a bucket, trying to ring the hospital and let them know. Luckily I made the decision not to get an ambulance because I would have been there much quicker than they would have and I'm not going to mention the number of red lights I ran. 

We're driving across town at speed and he's going to me "are you in a big hurry mum?" in between hurling up chunks of blood, "I don't want to die mum".. this honestly has been be the most heart wrenching moment of my life, to be so helpless. 

I was so grateful that the Dr and the anaesthetist that performed the initial surgery made it there very quickly and by now, he had, had 3 big spews of big blood clots. They took him off to theatre and this is about the time when I fell apart. Luckily mum had called the hospital to let them know we were on our way and also called Justin, who rang me just as we were entering the hospital and asked me if he should come to town and I was like "yep"... so he was with me only about 15min after they had taken him to theatre. Honestly, I don't recall ever being so scared, and the feeling of guilt for making him go to minischool all week.  

Anyhow, after he came out of theatre he was great. He had a good night sleep (dad and I in our recliner chairs, not so much). In fact he even seemed better than he was before. The Dr reassured me that it just happens sometimes, it was from nothing that we had done and that he healing in all other areas had not been hindered, that he just had a burst blood vessel. So he went ahead in leaps and bounds and I actually think it probably did him better to get all that blood out of his system. 

He missed the last day of mini school, but they all sent him a card and some toys. Ange and Bonni came to visit me at the hospital to help calm my nerves with brownies and coffee. 

Back home again and missy has a serious over supply of stuffed toys!! Although I'm sure she would disagree with this assessment. 

I got home from town on the Wednesday, after spending a few extra days in town to make sure that G man was going to be alright. And then on the Thursday, I spent the whole day in the kitchen, preparing for all the troops that would be here over the weekend to muster, brand and process our cattle. 

Vege bags to freeze 

Vege stew and beetroot relish. 

Quiche and Polenta

Vegetarian lasagne.... my poor husband, he come in and is trying to calculate how many grams of protein and I'm going, "oh sorry honey, but it's vegetarian..." whoops... he was very gracious, he went straight out to the freezer and got a bag of mince to cook up and eat with it lol. 

Relish 

Toll house cookies 

Apple tea cake. 

The troops out to muster. 

We had a good muster of the wagyus although there were a couple of rat bags in them and once they got a bit hot we had to do a bit of riding to keep them all together. But we managed to get them all in. Aunty Bonni came and babysat for us for the day and Grandma arrived in the afternoon to take over for the weekend. 

The next morning, I was a bit superfluous, so I was sent to look for a couple that were missing off the count. But I didn't find them.  

Grandma had to leave at lunch on Sunday, so I had to employ these couple of little ringers to help me turn out. 

Love getting to work with these pair! 

Haley from "Team Chestnut", that apparently, according to Kaka that I'm not allowed to be part of because my horse is the wrong colour! 

Boy team... Tom, Justin and G man 

I think Haley has a couple of fans. 

Good to get to the end of a big muster and processing all the wagyus and their calves and we still love each other! 

Gosh I love this horse! I'm so damn grateful for Mel and that she was able to sell him to us! 

Both eating molasses. 

Just a girl and her horse! 

G man.. well and truely recovered and his snoring has completely stopped.... aaaand he is also dry at night, which I'm not 100% if it's related to the surgery or not, but seems to be a big coincidence! 

Miss was not at all impressed about me putting this shirt on her until she saw that Bobby was wearing the same colour! 

Miss had, had a couple of big days and so I pretty much had to carry her out of bed, dress her in her sleep and throw her on a horse, which meant that we ate breakfast down the paddock on a log while we were waiting for the others to bring the cattle in. Bobby... was trying to eat it! 

Girl team, although I'm still not in team chestnut. 

Flies were a bit sticky! 

Haley and Kaka, getting them in the yard. 

Dad and I branding the last of the brangus calves.... so quick to do compared to the lengthy process of branding the wagyus with their DNA testing and visual tag requirements. 

I gave G man the job of taking photos and he took this one which I really liked, bit abstract, just a shame that it wasn't more in focus.  

We also branded our pody Gemma. The kids were explaining to her that it was a necessary evil. 

Very tired little babies. Good tired though! 

I was suffering a terrible headache by the 4th day of work and I couldn't understand why. I went to bed that night with it and woke in the morning with it. Turns out that I hadn't had a coffee for a couple of days. So I had this baby with 4 shots of coffee, cream and sugar and I felt completely different! It was unreal! I could't believe how lousy I had felt from lack of caffeine.  

I was talking to one of my school mum friends about how she's a lot like my mum and very grounded. She goes, how did your mum have such a hippy daughter and I was like "I dunno". Anyhow I sent her the above and I said, see I'm an experienced witch... I think maybe you could be too! lol. 

Anyhow, that brings me to the end. Was a lot lengthier post that what I had thought that it was going to be. Sometimes you don't realise what you've been up to until you go back over all the photos. 

Hope you've all being well. Mandates are lifting soon which means that us heathens will be allowed out in public again which is cool. We have Paradise Lagoons draft this weekend, so that's exciting, not that I'm competing, but the big fella and I are doing the cattle work with Lou and a couple of others and I think it will be a lot of fun to have some kid free time to hang out together. 

Take care everyone. To you, with Love! I'll leave you with a few video snippets of what's been happening.