Among the Drop Bears

Hi everyone,

 

It's been another good day here.  I was up reasonably early and headed over to the TAFE College in Shepparton for Day Two of the Chainsaw Operator course.

 

We started off the day cutting up green wood at the TAFE premises.  It was good to work with Beck and Madison

 

As I've said elsewhere, you always find good friends in orange overalls.

 

 

After an hour and a half of this we breaked (broke?) for a late morning tea / early lunch and then drove over to Emerald Bank to work on cutting up dry fallen timber.  I should say that I was wearing a helmet to protect against drop bears, and not because of SES policies on using Personal Protective Equipment.

 

 

I'm not sure who had stripped the saw I was using down yesterday, but they might not have tightened the nuts holding the sideplate and bar in place too tightly: I'd just cut through one log and stepped back, when the bar and the chain fell slackly from the powerhead.  Yikes! Thank God I wasn't revving it when it let go - I might have been short a few fingers tonight!  Some repairs later ...

 

 

... I was back cutting away happily.  I think part of the reason for letting us just cut to our hearts' content was as much about attitude as about technique: about gaining the confidence to control and use that powerful, roaring power-tool.

 

We finished about 3:30pm and said our so-longs.  I went back to Kialla to pick up a few odds and ends from the supermarket at the shopping plaza.  I was a little surprised to think how unremarkable the sign for the shopping centre looked.

 

 

I found myself thinking that I could have been posting from "Anytown, Anglosphere". I'm not sure how I feel about that: it should have felt like home but ... not.  Anyway, I drove back to the farm.  I was thinking about going for a run or a cycle, but the dog was so happy to see me and really wanted me to take him for a walk, so off we went while the sun went down.

 

 

The old boy was still ploughing and will finish tomorrow.  Not sure what the week will hold; I guess it depends on the weather.

More tomorrow.

 

Saw the Light!

Hi everyone,

Hoping my home battery lasts long enough for me to post this.

It's been an SES day, which is as much as to say a rewarding day.  As I said yesterday, I've been off at the chainsaw operators' course.  Two other people from my unit are doing it as well, plus a couple of others from other units in the region.

The morning was theory-heavy; the afternoon focussed on how to strip down, clean and maintain chainsaws (my hands still smell of kerosene).  The day finished up with some actual wood cutting. Tomorrow will involve plenty of cutting actual timber out near Shepparton airfield.

After the course let out I decided to go to Vigil Mass at St Brendans.  I haven't been a fan of St Brendans in the past: the priest there is, I understand, a minor pop star, and when he celebrated Christmas Eve mass last year it felt less like a religious service and more like a concert designed to show off his vocal talents. Maybe I'm old and cranky but I don't think the faith that gave us Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli should need to resort to a knockoff of Justin Bieber. This is a shame, as the Saint it honours is St Brendan the Navigator, who I've always been fascinated by since I read Tim Severin's The Brendan Voyage at an impressionable age (in essence, a recreation of a posited trip by the Saint from Ireland to North America in the seventh century).

Anyway, be all that as it may, it was a visiting priest giving the service, which meant it was done 'straight' and reverently, which was what I most like.  A big congregation I should add - the church was pretty much full.  And the readings, all of which were in the theme of how the faith is open to everyone, were really striking a chord with me.

I was home by 7:30pm. Not much else to note: there's some rain about tonight but I'm not existing there to be a callout. Looking forward to sleep!

More tomorrow.

Evening catchup

Hi everyone,

Short wrap-up on the day after the linkup post earlier

I had some time to myself this morning so I transferred the child support to the ex and caught up on my emails.  Gave the dog a long walk.

Not an exciting afternoon. Fed out to the cattle and hooked up the discs of yesterday - think he's keen to finish this on his own.

Tired tonight: looking forward to sleep tonight!

A linkup? Why not!

I haven't been part of a linkup in years.  This, though, seems a good one to come back in on: a series of thoughts.

So, here goes: I think ...

1. ... that I may look weird being the only guy to be posting as part of this linkup.  Well, I'm not here to be obnoxious, so no matter.  It's an odd thing but I seem to talk to women more readily than men - I guess that's what comes of growing up in a house where the old man was away a lot, leaving me with my mother and three sisters.  Maybe this is why I like the blogosphere!

2. ... that this will be a fun weekend: I'm off on at the SES's chainsaw operator's course.  It's accredited training, so all being well it'll help me land work.  Being unemployed got old a long time ago!

3. ... that I may need to find a way to have a heart-to-heart with the old man about his health.  Like most old farmers, he has a stubborn streak a mile wide and deep.  That said, he really isn't taking care of his health.  Hmm.

4. ... that the UK general election is fascinating to watch.  My personal sympathies tend to lie with the more libertarian UKIP

but I find the European Union a fascinating political and philosophical project.

Let's be honest though, who hasn't wanted to paste this sign on their house after an election at some time?

5. ... that at some point I need to write something (blogpost ahoy?) on the subject of 'home'.  It's an idea that's had a hold of me ever since I first felt deracinated when I went to university.  There seemed to be a sense of having a home (or feeling notalgia for it) in Counting Crows' song "Omaha" and in Joel Sternberg's photo "Lady out shopping with her rabbit".

I thought that an ideal home would be a middling-size town, and people in a middling-size town the best of all possible friends. Having now had up-close-and-personal experience with such towns I think the jury is out on that assessment, and leaning towards a verdict of "not proven".

6. ... that when I'm employed again I may celebrate with a trip to the ballet in Melbourne.  Yes, it may be weird for a guy to say that; I don't care.  It seems to me to combine the athleticism of elite sport, the grace of sculpture and the drama of opera.  What's not to like?

And now, off to read other people's blogs!

To the land of Ironbarks

Hi everyone,

It's been a full day today.  I didn't sleep so well last night and slept a little later than usual this morning. Spent some quality time on the computer going through the "let's pretend I might get one of these jobs" exercise, and then went over to the property at Rushworth to pick up the sets of discs we were using over there to break the ground up for sowing: there's ground to be broken up here as well so it'll be more productive.

The blue devils were getting into me this morning and I was having trouble feeling good about anything much, so I just focussed on the job at hand and got the discs chained and strapped down.

The trip back was a bit of an adventure: we were trekking back through the timber in dirt and gravel roads. We wound up stuck behind a grader.  Now, seeing a grader out in the backblocks is usually a welcome thing because it means the roads will be smooth for a few weeks.  But, it had a drawback for a loaded truck: the road went from this -

... to this -

Anyway, after getting to the end of the roadworks we were shortly back on bitumen and crossed the Goulburn at Murchison.

After lunch we got the discs off and hitched one of them up to the Chamberlain tractor.

They cut well enough but the ground is very compacted.  It's going to be a long 40 acres.

Bluechip the Bull was looking on for a lot of this exercise.  In another age it might have been him needing to pull the discs!

SES road crash rescue training in the evening.

It was the first time we'd practiced extrication from a car on its roof. I was interested to know how to stabilise the rear of the vehicle: as it turns out, by hooking two stab-fast stabilisers together and winching them against each other.

Home late (about 11pm).  Cool night tonight: put another blanket on the bed. Think I'm getting soft!

Colder weather

Hi everyone,

Not an exciting day's activities today (and, I'm afraid, no photos to share).

In the morning I sent off applications for a couple of jobs which I suspect will go nowhere.  Into town in the late morning for an appointment with Centrelink to confirm I'm still diligently looking for work. While I was in town I tried calling Mooroopna Red Cross about volunteering; they said they're a pretty inactive branch so not much will come back of that. I also called their offices in Melbourne but they also seemed to have little real interest in new volunteers. Suspect this is a dead end.

The day chilled off a lot in the afternoon.  I chopped some firewood and we got a fire going.  Barry S stopped in to pass in details of a home-kill butcher we may have some work for. Not much else to report.

To Rushworth tomorrow to collect some machinery.  Photos to be posted!  

Under a full moon

Hi everyone,

Typing this on a phone that is quite a bit happier than usual: I transferred the 1000-odd photos I had on the phone to computer.

It hasn't been an easy day to be excited about: I think it's the full moon, but the blue devils had their hooks into me for a big whack of the day.

Anyway, the morning was spent at Violet Town stringing fencing wire at Michael's place so we can move the heifers into a better paddock.

As we were finishing up, the strong winds that SES had sent a warning about arrived.  This brought epic clouds of dust from recently turned fields - enough to blot out bits of the landscape.

In the afternoon I tried to get to jobseeking but couldn't focus my mind on the task, which was annoying. In order to do something I sent off my application to join the Australian Red Cross - partly because it offers the prospects of training, volunteering and networking, but mostly because if I learned anything in Lismore, it's how much I love volunteering and helping people and having a purpose. There's more I could say, but that'll do for the moment.

Took the dog on a good long walk in the afternoon. The wind was still blowing strongly - enough force a scrap of material from Lord-knows-where against our ringlock fence by pressure alone:

Wind notwithstanding, the recent rain has given us new grass that hopefully will grow enough to get us through winter.

Not much else to report. More tomorrow.