Pretty short and sweet this month.... dunno what I've been doing but don't bother boiling the jug, you will be finished before it boils.
Above is "Glimpse of Green Valley" a project that I have been gradually working away at for a very long time. Has lots of bits and pieces. I do love it, although I daresay the longer I look at it, the more imperfections I will find. I have sent it in to a competition, which can sometimes ruin an image for me, if they pull it apart too much. For the time being I love it though. Every image is taken on Green Valley except for one bird.
Just after my last blog, Justin and I made the last minute decision to go and see some of his family that were visiting from down south. Was a lovely dinner at the Springsure pub and I was grateful to be able to spend some time chatting to Kaye, whom I've not spoken too for some time.
Planted some new plants in kaka's garden and I think the rain has almost drowned some of them. We had 9 inches for March, which has made the place look very beautiful and green with the grass starting to fill out a bit.
I also planted some herbs and tomatoes and I should go and take a photo now because they are going nuts.
Justin and I did a handful of branding after school one afternoon. When you have to wait for school to finish, it tends to run your day a bit late, plus we had cattle in the neighbours that Justin went with the chopper to get back and had to repair the fence... anyhow... as you can see is was getting a bit dark by the finish.
I also had a very near miss with the scalpel. As I was reaching in to grab the calf's leg, he kicked out and as I pulled my hand up out of the way, I went straight into my hat..... anyhow, didn't die so that's good and I still have both eyes. That's how easily things can happen though, in a bit of a rush to get it done because of the loss of light, so I wasn't waiting for Justin to come and hold that back legs for me and just like that...
I thought I did alright at suturing it though.
Been teaching myself to make halters. This is a mini one I did.
Oh and how to do an eight strand plait.
Morning walks. Days are starting to get a bit shorted again. It was actually pretty cool this morning.
Been trying to familiarize myself with the local flora. I'm not sure what this one is.
Nor this one.
Wagyu heifers are starting to look much better from the little whippets that we sent up there and they are very happy for some green feed.
Off to mini school and it was a fabulous week although over very quickly for us.
Poor little Harriet on the Thursday, feel from the playground and dislocated her elbow and fractured both bones. We waited for what felt like an eternity for the ambulance before eventually making the decision to take her in a private car. We happened to have some good pain relief to help, but the poor little possum, it would have been so excruciating. Above is where the kids were busting to go to the sushi train so we all went together. Was lovely to see G man having made some better connections with his school mates since his camp.
After Western Wednesday, the kids wanted to call in at the fountain. It's actually very pretty.
I had booked tickets for Justin for xmas to go and see Frenchie the comedian (probably not someone I would go and see again). So we left mini school on the Thursday and left the kids with Grandma for the weekend while we went to Mackay.
We got to go to the movies and watched Mickey 17 (probably wouldn't recommend that either)
We walked on the beach (compulsory isn't it?)
We went to the lookout
Caught up with friends at Frenchie show (which was the best part)
We tested the seafood platter
Even had octopus and soft shelled crab!
Someone was hangry and didn't want a photo!
Dunno what this is but it's pretty and tough so I think I need some.
Went to the botanical gardens there.
Aaaaand then the holiday was over and we ventured to Couti-Outi to pick up a load of posts that have been patiently waiting there for us to get organised and come and collect them.
The following day our northern breeders group had a conference, which was good to catch up with everyone and do some networking.
Priscilla, Andrew (from our group) & Josie
We had a talk from Josie Angus and she spoke about what their business had achieved and their new abattoir which was very cool! Even when we went to tour the JBS facility, some of the staff there seemed excited as they thought she might come out and see them which I think speaks pretty highly of what they have accomplished.
Sam, Matt and Kerri from our group.
I have planted my last two avocados. If these don't survive, I give up!!
I'm still making a plan for what to do with these rocks. I'm thinking a spiral garden with some roses and lavender. But I want to do my chook house and vege garden first.
We had some very welcome rain over the past month and I made the kids some alfoil boats to play with. This is a bit of tradition in my family as my grandma used to do it for mum and mum did it for me. We have the perfect creeks for it here.
You can eat these.... so funny the weeds over here in the west. Current bush, you can eat; wait a while bush, you can eat; harrisia cactus, you can eat... all the weeds on the coast are poisonous lol.
Kids made Blue muffins. They were actually delicious. Good to see them becoming indepedent.
Oh and I had a massive pantry clean out.... not by choice though. We had a massive weevil infestation. They were even in behind the floating shelves. We had to put everything in the freezer for 3 days to kill everything. They were even in the pull out tabs for the milk cartons and in up and around the seal of the lids. I had to screw the lid off every bottle to find them all and I've still been getting some off the floor every day. Oh well. First world problem.
I'm not really complaining. I've been looking at all those affected out west with the floods and wishing I could do more to help. Apart from donate some money and bake a few cakes, I feel rather helpless. My dear friend has also had a bad accident off her horse and fractured some ribs and some wings on her vertebrae. So I also feel rather helpless that I can't get away from here for a week to go and offer her an extra pair of hands.
We are meant to be beginning our big pipeline project in the next couple of weeks, plus branding some of our massive Wagyu calves. We have been delayed with the weather for our pipeline and we've just discovered that the dozer we were waiting on needs much more extensive repairs than originally thought. So I'm not sure what the outlook is currently. So frustrating being tied down unable to get the things done that you want to and I don't want to start any new projects before we get this one finished. My horse is getting rather fat and lazy though so perhaps I need to take him for a ride!! Two of my three brumbies went back to be rehomed, so I'm just down to Max now. This is the longest he has had a spell so that will be interesting. I've been rather sour on horse riding this year, I think being "forced" to ride ever chance I could when I was training those two brumbies, took some of the fun out of it for me.
Below is a short video of a couple of snippets this month.
I just finished reading "The Secret River", it is a historically based fiction about a convict and how he came to own some land along with the issues with the aborigines and other settlers. I recommend it.
With Love
