Alice got up this morning, climbed into our bed after making us tea (Sunday is supposed to be Harri's tea-making morning!) and said could she feed her calf. I said only if she got to it before me! She got up, mixed the milk and we both went down. She was away this evening so Eric and I did them both. Harriette has shown no interest! Thank you all for the support and encouragement on this. I will keep you abreast of any developments, needless to say!
Have had a good day. After feeding calves this am Alice and I did some weeding in the veg plot. It is looking very sad but the brassicas (broccolli, cauliflower and cabbage are just taking off and the leeks are coming along) then I did a quick bake (date and cardamon muffins and lemon muffins) as we were going up to R+R's. Eric wanted to borrow Richards dads shearing unit. It runs off a car battery and we wanted it to dag the sheep. It took a bit of getting used to but I think Eric has the hang of it now. We got there to find that it was Matts 18th birthday! We had no idea. Matt being R+R's son. Richard said they had been discussing what he could legally do now he had come of age and did not appreciate me saying that he could legally be gay!!!! Actually we then decided that we did not know what the legal age for gay sex was here. All I know is that it was changed about a year ago. Sonja and Bryce (Richards parents) then came in having just returned from 3 weeks in the South Island. They seemed to have had a great time. They did a 4 days boat tour in Dusty Sound which sounded fabulous. We bought Sarah back with us and left Alice there. They were all going out for a meal in the evening to celebrate Matts birthday so would return Alice and collect Sarah on their way to Hamilton.
On return we did my least favourite farm job 'the sheep'. This meant rounding them up, docking lambs tails and other 'boy bits', dagging (ie trimming the hard poo-ey stuff round their backsides, called dags) worming (squirting stuff in their mouth), vaccinating the babies and doing their feet ie trimming hooves, detecting and treating footrot and looking for abscesses etc. Next to treating fly strike it is the yukkiest job. Cyril the older ram is looking seriously past it and will find himself in the offal hole after Novembers shearing. Lila will also follow I think. Eric is talking about getting Wiltshire horns as they are non sheared hardy sheep. We did not get the job finished so I guess, weather pending this will be ongoing through the week.
Gave this up when I started to get chilly (I'm the first to admit I'm a fair-weather farmer) and came in to cook the lamb. Leg of the hogget Eric did a week or so ago. It was GORGEOUS. R+R called in to collect Sarah just before we served. Robyn said it smelt so nice she would rather eat here! Alice came in looking very glum. She'd had 2 nose bleeds (or blood noses as they call them here) and had hyper-extended her back whilst on the trampoline and hurt it quite badly. Poor thing. She's had a Nurofen and a hot bath and is much better now.
Whilst I have been typing Ben has gone missing. Eric has searched for ages and I have told him to give up, he'll come back in his own good time. He's (ie Ben) under threat of death at the moment and, as you can imagine Eric is livid. I'll let you know the outcome on next blog!
Something I forgot to mention yesterday. I think I wrote a few months ago about 'Baby Charlotte'. She is an 8 month old who contracted Meningococcal B disease and survived but became a quadruple amputee. Well her father, Perry Bisman, gave the opening speech at the Conference. Perry spoke for 50 minutes and had us all in tears. I have never heard such a moving account of a family's suffering in all my life. He showed us tens of photo's on the screen of Charlottes tiny body through all the phases of her battle. Not only has she has 4 limbs removed but on her left arm and right leg they had to go back and take more away more which meant that those stumps will now never grow so limb prosthesis fitting will be almost impossible. Perry was eloquent, brave, questioning and just amazing. You can imagine how angry it makes me when the anti-immunisation lobby, which is quite strong in NZ, then says we don't need to vaccinate against this disease, a healthy diet and good housing will irradicate it. Charlotte was breast fed and from a 'nice, middle class, professional' home but that didn't help her. Well on that thought I will say 'Night night world'.
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