Sunday morning and I'm tucked up in bed. The weather is so bizarre, tipping it down one minute and glorious sunshine the next. After a cup of tea, and whilst it was pouring down I went and got the pooter with the intention of sitting here and blogging. I checked emails and caught up on 3 weeks of Archers (bliss). For those of you who don't know Eric and I have been avid Archers fans forever and since being deprived of our daily radio fix by emigrating we have had the updates emailed to us. Yes I know we can listen online but we do suffer from a rural internet connection here and it keeps breaking up, reloading etc and so is not the pleasurable experience it should be. One day broadband will find us out here in the sticks. Not that I have any idea what broadband is but am reassured that when it does get here things will be better!
Anyway, I then checked comments and found Stans www.birthdayalarm.com link. What a simple, but brilliant idea! Thanks Stan. I had read your comment but not twigged it was a link (sorry, I have just acknowledged my techno-ignorance!). So spent awhile loading birthdays for June and July in. Yes I know you can send emails to everybody asking for their birthdays but isn't that so naff. Anyway, with the help of this computer wizzardary maybe I can get cards out on time now. I don't forget birthdays that often, I just don't remember them early enough!!
Now it's stopped raining but Chilli has not stopped moo-ing. She has been at it, averaging a moo every 15-20 seconds, for 3 days now. I've counted. She does occasionally stop for 2 minutes and I think she must have a quick catnap (cownap?) as she has had no sleep as such. I woke up 4 times last night and she was at it every time. We both feel so bad about it. Why? We sold her Mummy. It is a reality of this lifestyle but economics has to rule over sentimentality. I prefer to leave calves on mom until mom kicks them off of her own volition, but sometimes you have to enforce the separation, either because you need to sell, or because Mom is about to calve and you want the yearling off before the baby comes along. The latter is difficult to manage, the main requirement being good fencing. Mom and yearling will exert great force and determination to be re-united if they can locate each other. This way, ie removing Mom from the farm, does not need good fencing but is heartbreaking to listen to! The other 2 calves (Carol and No 3) have also moo-ed for periods but not as incessantly as Chilli. Chilli also has the pathetic moo of her mother, Pepper, not the deep proper moo of Twink or Ermie. Last year we tried to separate Twink from her calf Fly (so-named because she was born the day I flew to the UK) but Twink had other ideas. Eric put electric fencing up in the back paddock to confine the moms to one corner. He came back and said he didn't remember Twink being there. Oh she was I assured him, I saw her in there 10 minutes ago. Anyway about half an hour later Harri came in to say that Twink was on the drive down by the calves. She was moo-ing over the fence trying to work out how to get in to Fly. We shooed her up the drive but when she got by the house she jumped through the flower bed and over the fence down into the main front paddock to get back down to Fly. At that point Juliet and Kev arrived for the weekend so the 8 of us blocked weak points and shooed Twink back up the drive. We got by the pool and almost had her through the gate into the paddock when she shot sideways and run up the bank at the back of the pool. I had visions of her slipping down into the (then unfenced) pool. EVENTUALLY we got her in the paddock but as she had demonstrated more determination than we could match we gave up and reunited all the cows and calves!!
Back to the cow sale. We sent off 5 in the end (Freckles stayed). Chilli, a bag of bones, got a pittance but the other 4, including Mad Cow (who only missed finding her way into our freezer because 47 stoood closest to the barn on that fateful day), and Ermie got huge prices. In fact they all did really well but beef prices are very high at the moment. I don't think we could have picked a better week to sell. We plan to use this money to buy a Hereford or 2 in the spring so can move over to purebred cows rather than the hotch potch we currently have. We are down to 6 now, the calves Chilli, Carol abd Number 3, Freckles and Saddle the girls calves and Lance, the school steer.
(Long break at this point to go and stop the 3rd WW which was about to break out in the kitchen between Alice and Eric) I gave up on all attempts at a Sunday morning lie-in and got up)
It's now about 1pm and we have had hand made bread that Harri made (hand made as opposed to breadmaker made), and pikelets and home made butter both made by Alice. Where we are going to put the roast pork that I have just put in the oven I don't know!! Eric killed a pig yesterday and spent the morning scalding it etc. This morning he has butchered it. Just as well really as I had forgotten to get a joint out the freezer today to roast. This pig is going for bacon (except the joint I've just pinched). The cuts will have to be frozen and baconed in bits as bacon has to go in the fridge to cure and, although I have the biggest domestic fridge on the market, it would not accommodate a whole pig!
Yesterday it did the usual, tip down then sunshine. Being Saturday we had the usual 10 trips (or so it feels like) into Matamata running the girls to and from netball. Yesterday I was also popping up to Richard and Robyn's farm to help Eric get pig out the trailer onto the vat, then later the reverse. First time there was no-one else around but when I went to help get pig back in the trailer Richard and his dad Bryce were there so I was surplus to requirements really.
Harriette and Sarah are in different teams at Intermediate and were playing each other yesterday. Sarah's team won by about 6 goals but the possession was far more even than the score implies. Harriette and her goal shooting partner, Katie, missed a few goals they should have got in, and the other teams goal shooters were on top form. Having said that both Harriette and Katie got some difficult shots in. It was a good match to watch, and Richard and Robyn, a normally quiet and reserved couple, spent the whole 50 minutes shouting at the players. Robyn encouraging the 'blacks' (Sarahs team whom she intermittently coaches) and Richard heckling (tongue in cheek I must say) 'the greens', Harriette's team and doing a male version of encouragement to the 'blacks', 'Not that way', 'the goals that way' and 'that was a terrible pass' etc.
After netball and getting Harriette home and showered we went back to R and R's for tea and a look round the, newly acquired, farm. I also took up a birthday cake, card and pressie for Robyn. We met Bryce and Richards Mom, Sonia, there then all went over the road to the other farm. It is lovely, set in beautiful countryside (yes I know it's all beautiful around here) with wonderful views of the Kaimai mountain range. We explored the piggery which is overgrown but has about 50 pens and left Bryce and Eric dawdling there while we did the dairy and other buildings. Eric caught up a we found the chiller (which all 10 of us fitted in comfortably - it was off!) and looked into what needed doing to get it up and running again. We then went for a walk round the 125 (I think they said) acres. Harriette, who had complained that she'd tweeked her back at netball, and who had been told not to walk with us but who knew better (can't think who she reminds me of!), ended in tears as she was in so much pain. So after the tour it was straight home to get some pain killers (yes I did have some on me but we had nothing to drink) and get her settled down comfortably. She is much better this morning.
Yesterday evening we watched a film with pizzas on our lap. Well it was Saturday! On the subject of films, Katie what did you think of The Prisoner of Azkaban'? Has anybody else seen it? We have to wait until 10th June for it's release here. That would have been a great birthday present but I am running my first Vaccinator Training Course that day and will be working flat out in Hamilton all long day - and the next day as it's a 2 day course. In fact I have to go in so early in the morning that I am thinking a canceling pressie unwrapping until the Saturday when I can enjoy it. We are going to see it on Sunday, can't wait!!
Well I am going to peel potatoes and do some domestic stuff. The kitchen table is still covered with a pigs ribcage etc so I'll have to go and work elsewhere.
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