Friday 13 and a non-romantic valentines day

Indi sets off to look for the stray lambs.

January 15 2015

Friday was a classic 13th type Friday. It was scorching hot all day and thoroughly uncomfortable. Edd decided to ignore the conditions and continued working on the stockyards because we were expecting the shearer to come on Saturday. He struggled all day until we had a nearly usable space. There was not a lot I could do to help so I began work on the bathroom walls scraping off excess cement at the block joints. (This is the first step to do before tiling.)

All went to plan until the evening when it began to thunder and we spotted a fire in the hills close by. A look at the Internet confirmed that lightening had caused the bush fire but fire engines had arrived and were doing their best to deal with it.  Edd drove off to Yarra Glen for more information.  (It turned out to be on a friend’s property where we have hay bales). I picked up a call from the shearer to inquire if we had got the sheep in before the rain. There was no rain, but another look at the Internet showed that a storm was bearing down on us fast and would probably arrive sooner than the fire.

The sheep have to be dry for shearing so I dragged the gates across the remaining missing parts of the stock yards and fixed them in place with baler twine. (How on earth did people manage before baler twine?). The sheep came willingly into the yards with the offer of food but the next job was to get them into the shed. I drove my car to block one escape route, shut the goats out of the way in the paddock and was just about to call the sheep across when Edd fortuitously arrived home. With me in front, and Edd behind, they all went in fairly easily, even Zulu, the alpaca.

Then we had to drag extra gates across the space so that the goats could get in to a separate part of the space after milking. It was all pretty hard work but by the time the main storm hit all the animals were under shelter apart from four lambs that could not be found. (Indi, on the horse and I, on foot had unsuccessfully searched the hill). We really needed the rain but it seemed most unfair that after so long a time of total dryness it should arrive on the one day we did not want it.

All our efforts paid off next day when the rain was still pouring down. The shearer was able to shear the sheep in the relative comfort of the milking shed and we could put them back in the shed afterwards so that they could be deloused and sorted. Luckily the Indi and her boy friend were there to help walk the sheep in and the shearer knew how to deal with an alpaca. Zulu was made to lie down on his side and his feet were roped to the milking bale and the doorpost so he was stretched out and immobile. Indi held his head back and talked nicely to him and the shearer did his toe nails, his fleece removal, and gave him the injections of vit D and worm medicine we had collected from the vet.

I do not think all this made a very romantic valentines day for any of us, but the weather cleared up and by nightfall we had returned all the stock to their rightful paddocks and sorted out selling from keeping sheep. The problem lambs that keep crawling under the fence into our neighbour’s property are now secured in the yard around the donga. Needless to say we are sore, tired and need a quiet few days to recover. Some hope!

January 12  2015

It is cooler than yesterday but there has still been no rain even with the thunderstorm that set off the fire in Toolangi. Thank goodness that was sorted out fast, I was worried for Beni.  Thinking about the fires brings it all back into my conscious mind. We spend every day, all day trying to sort out the mess our lives were left in after the fires 6 years ago, but by focussing on the job that needs doing we avoid confronting the big picture. The reality is that before we were looking forward to a comfortable life style but that is not possible at the moment.

I would love to do the things I did before for hobbies. I did art and crafts and got a lot of pleasure from that sort of thing. There is no physical barrier to me doing the same now but I don’t feel engaged that way. Maybe I am wrong to blame the fires. I gave up my hobbies years before we were burnt out so that I could work full time to get my business up and running well. There were plenty of challenges in that and once the host farm was running we met an endless stream of interesting people. Life was very full and very satisfying and we earned enough to pay others to deal with problems if they arose.