COLD? IT WAS BLOODY NEAR FRIESAN!!

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Two big bulls have been moved to the house paddock. They are looking forlorn…actually they’re looking ‘for lawn’ but it’s all frozen over. Maybe they are forlorn, it’s 5 degrees below zero and the ground is white to the horizon. But more depressing for these big guys is the disappearance of 95% of their job satisfaction. Nowadays everyone wants artificial insemination.

These bulls are very placid, laid-back (or comatose?) occasionally picking at bits of grass and then just gazing, more gazing than grazing, blissed out or spaced out? They are big, reddy/brown and curiously furry, with low ears and a ragged topknot.
Not your sleek, Aberdeen-Angus-Naugahide-look-a-likes, much furrier and no horns, which is always nice when they are up in the house paddock, a few metres from the veranda.

Borne on a cold dawn. By 6.30 there’s a glow behind the eastern hills and the birds start up. As the frogs shut down. The horses try it on. At last the cows have shut up. They were mooing all night, great, sorrowful moans, it’s heart rending, especially since I found it’s the cows, freshly separated from their calves.
And the poor little calves, what sort of weather to be born into. If they could communicate I’m sure they’d be asking their mums to hold on until the sun gets up.

Then they get their ear-tags. It’s all relative. On the big cows they are spots of colour you hardly notice, but on the little calves they look huge, weighing down their little heads sideways.

In the paddock by the dairy the cows are stretching as far as they can through the fence wire to get the grass just out of reach (always greener?) One cow has got out but she is reaching back in to get the grass she had left!

8.30am and I get sprung in the uggs…..putting out the garbage! And it’s the school bus!
The twin embarrassments of garbage: 1/ getting sprung in the Uggs and 2/ the sound of several dozen empty bottles crashing into the back of the truck, echoing up the valley!

The big frost this morning has burnt the top of the passionfruit vine and the chilli plants are fried. I pull the chillis out and get a needle and thread. Sitting in the sun I start threading them, alternating yellow and red. I get to a metre length and bite off the cotton. Mouth on fire! I forgot.
After 4 strings I’ve had enough. I had to discard the needle, no way it could be cleaned. My hands were stained and fingers dangerously potent. I washed them several times, did the dishes, applied cream, but for the next 12 hours, every brush of sensitive areas…ayayay. But the strings look pretty cool.
It’s the old problem of growing chillis, they look good and they’re prolific, but one year’s crop would last any kitchen 5 years!

I’m already getting tired of the relentless slope of the land up in the KoB.
Constant reminders. Like yesterday, I opened the sliding door on the moon buggy and the gas bottle rolled out and bounced right on my big toe. Now it’s blue.
And it’s so steep, if I dropped a brick it would roll away. I’ve had to dig small trenches on the upside just so I can set out a couple of deck chairs.

Stringybark makes pretty good firewood. Not a patch on your redgum but the bark is great starter material and the wood splits easily. And I’m sitting on 25 acres of it.
Down at the treeline an old dry one is lying over. I have the new chainsaw and start cutting thru the main trunk. It’s about 450mm thick and I’m after a 400mm length, nice bit of firewood. I cut thru and the log drops to the ground. I’m chuffed, first bit of chainsaw action for 20 years. My joy quickly turns to sorrow as the roll of wood hits the ground and starts off down the hill. By the time I drop the saw and leap over the trunk she’s off, crashing and bouncing thru the bush, kangaroos and wombats flushed and dashing for cover. Before long its well out of sight but I can hear it thundering off, right to the gully at the bottom. One thing’s for sure, I’m not going after that one!

Then it’s another day!

Pretty utterly, not totally utterly, was how I would describe it.

A big full moon night and so bright I could wear the sunnies. Standing out on the veranda, after midnight, the sound of the TV cricket wafting out with the smoke. The moronic banality of the commentators lessens the experience. Where’s the old radio crew?

Morning. It’s soo quiet at first, silent, then you start to hear the little sounds. Birds, everywhere. So many different birds. The lovely, liquid, gurgling, burbling of magpies starts before dawn. Somewhere I can hear a tinny rattling, someone up the valley is pumping water.
Sun peeps over the hill. Cockies and galahs, the raucous members of the bunch, squawking and arguing uselessly. Little willy wagtails, mechanical clickety-clacking, harassing the robber magpies, then sitting astern the giant bulls, lurching like city tram commuters as the bulls stumblingly lumber across the pasture.
Crimson lorikeets, parrots and rosellas, guiltily escaping the vege garden when their raids are disturbed. A dozen swallows swoop and dive endlessly, picking bugs out of the air, searching for nesting spots under the eaves. I saw two ducks desperately trying to get it together, but high up in a dead tree! Webbed feet are not designed for grasping branches.
Long legged herons heading for the river and the stationery, hovering chicken hawks, riding the breeze, absolutely still, waiting for field mice and lizards.
Especially at dawn, this feathered chorus is deafening.

Going out in the yard for firewood in the dawn. (Why not cut a bit more the night before!) It’s cold. Stiff fingers. Toes in the Ugg boots are curling back, cringing in apprehension. Big splitter swings down. A glancing blow, it’s too early for accuracy. Chips and bark splinter off and the splitter flies out of my frozen fingers, fark. Thoughts of putting on proper boots cross my mind.

Ah, and then one flu over the cuckoo’s nest. Or did it? I’d been to the doctor on another matter and the waiting room was full of people coughing, spitting, sneezing and farting. No wonder, a few hours later, I could feel the sinus sleaze starting.

I woke at 4am with throat on fire, nose flowing and I was sweating. And the razor kissed lips, a thousand tiny slashes opening up when I moved my lips. From time to time a bout of blinding, near orgasmic sneezes. And the aches and pains.

Was it the porcine variety? Did it matter? I was able to easily self quarantine, One of the benefits of farm life. A couple of days and the worst was over, must have been the 2 bottles of Jamesons.

Internet intimacy. Grappling with the technology again. Slow connections, useless information. Total inability to get the information I want. Constant incorrect connections. And all the while these sites crow about all the awards they’ve won for fantastic websites! Ha. And who gives those awards? Only more of the same dickheads. Why don’t they get a doofus like me to test their new sites?
As the frustration mounts I’m getting more aggressive. Pounding the keyboard, rattling the desk, screaming obscenities. The dog is cowering, the mice back under the floorboards, outside, the cattle are looking nervous, backing away from the house, the horses are doing that thing with their ears that horses do when they are nervous….and so it goes…


Let’s face it, these bulls are a bit strange. My two huge neighbours. And I just heard their names are Casanova and Hotspur!! This morning they’re eating grass, flat out, like it’s the last chance for food for a month, and also making noises, a pretty lame, faux moo, but the first time they’ve made a noise at all. Is it Spring in the air?…can they see all those gorgeous young heifers over the way?
They have a perfectly good drinking trough, fresh water on demand, but they shuffle down to the bog hole, the overflow, outflow, through flow from the house…its really boggy but they nose down and suck up what they can….an odd noise…like sucking the last of the milkshake with your straw…that fabulous sound that inevitably got you a clip over the ears from Mother!!


But then it all came together. Permission granted to start excavating! I had emailed a couple of local earthmovers, a somewhat incongruous concept, rural excavator and internet, but with kids and wives and such…I thought.
So one got back to me, his wife sent me his mobile number, we met on site

I could hear the float starting up the hill. After 10 minutes the cab came into view as he inched up my road. We cut the fence to let him in. I was a little disappointed in not seeing a bulldozer but within minutes I was sure this was the machine. And this was the man. An artist, a surgeon. I reckon he could thread a needle with fine cotton with this huge digger.

The kookaburras suddenly appear. They seem to know what’s going to happen. As the excavator carves up the surface the kookas jump in, pulling big worms and bugs. Sometimes their careless hunger overrides commonsense and Barry has to nudge them out of the way with the bucket. Another is trying to perch on the boom to get the best lookout.

He gets free rein, or is that free reign, being the KoB? And does an absolutely amazing job, widened driveway, cut around the contour, the slightest grade for drainage, off and up to the new, top exit, and the trickiest job of all, the water tank site. It had to be 9.5m diameter minimum and he did it. It’s hard to describe just how difficult this was but he did it and the tank is now tucked in below the house.

And, fortuitously, tankman had to cancel another job and assembled mine on Thursday, another piece of magic. Waterman put in 25,000 litres to hold it down and 50,000 the next day. We’re in!

The bitumen road has been severely flattened and widened after the float and 3 water loads and the container each in the order of 30 tonnes weight.

And the container, start of my building dreams, it is fantastic. One day I will build with a few of them.

So, water tank in and filled, container in, caravan in final resting place, house site set-out, fire zone established……all I’d hoped for by this stage. Probably late October before I will start actual building and I am considering postponing until winter as this is going to be a very long, hot, dangerous summer with serious bushfires expected

I was down in Melbourne last weekend for a few days. It was just fantastic to catch up with friends and my wonderful Son. But I can’t tell you how good it was to be back home.

There’s a rise on Highway One at Woolumla, just a few kms shy of Bega, and as you crest it you get the first, and most fabulous, view up the valley and you know you’re home.

Now I’m off to Bairnsdale for the next dog-sit contract but I’ll leave you with some pix.

chau.....and it's the 9th of the 9th of the 9th...well, Boy Howdy!!

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Photos

Casanova and Hotspur resting
My Big neighbours