Queen's Birthday Long Weekend

Hi everyone,

 

I’m typing this on the Monday evening of the Queen’s Birthday long weekend.  The weather has been good – the days are (kind of) warm and clear, but the nights are sharply frosty.  I took advantage of the weather on Sunday to go out for my first run in about 3 weeks.  It was a case of sweet relief: I only meant to go 8 kilometres, but I found that I was loving having some alone time – just me and my music – so I ignored my tired legs and pushed on, eventually knocking out 12 kilometres.  I’m still a little sore this evening, but it was so worth it.

 

Exercise notwithstanding, Saturday night continued my recent experience of not actually feeling rested even after a long sleep.  It didn’t help that my pager went off at 4am to advise of a tree on the road northwest of Tatura.  It’s probably just as well I wasn’t duty officer – I opened one bleary eye to see what it was but it still wasn’t easy to get back to sleep.  I’m blaming that for the headache I had for most of Sunday!

 

Second Oldest Sister and Bro-in-Law came up on Sunday for lunch and dinner and as usual it was great to see them (helpfully, it also reminded me that I need to rustle up a birthday present for her in a few weeks).  One of the other tasks I was attending to that day and since has been to take biscuits of hay and jerricans of water to a cow in the paddock below the house.  She was having trouble calving the other day and we had to pull her calf.  The calf didn’t survive (they rarely do) and the mother hasn’t been able to get up for a few days (also not unusual), which is why I’ve needed to carry feed and water to her by hand.  She’s very placid and will let you pat her while she’s eating.  She’s tried to get up a few times and my instinct is that she’ll be on her feet in a day or two.  To protect her from the cold we’ve cut down a bulker-bag and wrapped it around her with hayband – it’s the bovine equivalent of an overcoat!

 

Over the last two or three weeks we’ve had about 3 inches of rain which is a godsend.  It’s made the paddocks very soft – you wouldn’t want to move any sort of heavy vehicle over it if you could avoid it – but it’s put water in the dams again.  One of the smaller ones which was bone dry is now full to its banks and spilling into a seasonal watercourse.  The water is flowing into another dam – much larger and more reliable – which is also full to the brim.  This makes me happy.

 

 

Not long to go now at work – about 6 days I guess, although half of one of those days will be taken as leave to go to the doctor, dentist and blood bank.  I really hope I can find work.  I’ll go mental without having a job to go to.  Here’s hoping.