Scatterbrained

Creativeness

Look what I made yesterday!

Yes... I know a cow REALLY made him, but I participated. I called the dairy farmer across the road and had him come and pick up my cows and put them in a truck and take them over to the paddock his bull lives in where they had a nice holiday for a couple of months and lost their virginities.

That cow in the pictures with the little calf is not his mother. That is his Aunty Clover. Her calf is due any day now. In the next picture you can tell which one is his mother. Check out those udders!

I have been very creative lately. Karma and I crocheted a bag while we listened to Stephen King audio books in my chair in my bedroom.

I have felted this already and it is OK but the handle is a little bit wonky. I made it for my market stall but I don't think it is good enough to sell. I'll take a photo today. It is the right size for my wallet and keys, phone and a paper back novel though :)

I bought a bunch of natural wool and silk roving from the US which arrived this week and I plan on spinning some today. I have decided to start making scarves for my market stall. They might sell well on our cold Tasmanian weekends during winter.

I also plan on finishing off my third vampire today.

OH, I almost forgot. I did some work on 'The Secret project' for the other new baby which is due soon.

Bummer!

Scott left yesterday to go to Melbourne to do a job for Southern Cross Shipping, the company who owns the boat which took us to Flinders Island. When he got there this morning he discovered that the company went into liquidation and was advised not to do any work. Fortunately, due to the fact that the people who own the Southern Shipping Company have been in some financial distress, Scott requested payment for the trip in advance.

So Scott's work trip has turned into a leisure trip and it now looks like he will be taking his cousin and her friend who are visiting from Norway on the trip along the Great Ocean Road which they really wanted to do before they left Australia. We probably wont get paid for his time but at least Scott gets a mini break in Melbourne and at least he will have time to go to Ikea for me (he has a shopping list).

All the herbs in my herb garden need pruning. They have all gone to flower and are getting too big. Today I am going to chop the rest of them off and put them in vases around the house. I've already put a bunch in the bathroom.

A weekend

We had a pretty boring weekend at home. How was yours?

I thought we might have had calves as our two very pregnant freisans were getting around very slowly and well, mostly laying around. Scott called me to the window and Willow was walking down the hill to the water towards the house and he said, "Look! She looks like you when you where pregnant". Poor thing. She did too.

I also have a friend who is the same amount pregnant although she is doing much better than my cows. I am still working on The Secret Project for her.

I also began another smaller project for my market stall. A pocket for a vintage apron. I bought the apron from a thrift shop last week. It was cute but the pocket was ugly. It had a horrible Hobbytex painting on it so I unpicked it and am embroidering a vintage design on what will be the new pocket.

Flinders Island Day 5

The weather changed. Not a lot of photos because we moved camp and I was cranky as hell. I'd been bitten by mosquitoes and I was getting fed up with sand in my bed.

The weather cooled right down and we sat around the fire.

Our new camp was right on the beach and the sand was white instead of dirty grey/black like we had at our other campsite.

We had mangoes and ice-cream for dessert though.

Happy New Year

Our new years eve party just officially finished at lunch time today, January 2nd! The kids and Scott are laying on the couch eating fresh raspberries from our neighbours raspberry patch and watching cartoons. I just downloaded our pictures from the river party which was a huge success. I think it might become a tradition here at Willowdale.

Here is a photo of Dustin and I especially for Sandra. I had to alter it a bit because my face was really red, a little sunburnt with messy hair and no make up so I put us in sepia! I am afraid that is the best I can do until I am more decent (blow dried and fancied up).

Just after we lit the fire I heard on the radio they were talking a total fire ban. We had a fire pump though and we were on the river bank on our own property and there was no wind so we kept a close eye on the fire and it was all OK.

Scott had the great idea to take the trampoline down. It was a hit!

Ruby was so happy to have some girls to play with.

Men and boys hung around talking shit and drinking beer... and milk.

We had such a great time. Thanks for coming you guys!

 

It was really HOT!

The river came in handy :)

The dogs had a great time as well.

This was the view from my deck chair.

 

The potato have grown a lot since we've been away. We had to drive down through them on the little track and they are almost as tall as my car.

That's my car. Edward Cullen isn't the only one who drives a silver Volvo!

 

We had a bit of flying fox action!

A bit of contemplation.

A lot of great food. Our friends across the river brought over a couple of legs of lamb and our camping friends brought over their woodfired spit roasting thingie.

Mel caught a trout!

 

There was the usual marshmallow toasting.

 

There was a nice cool breeze down by the river.

Someone made a swing.

OK! One more thing! Remember my new years resolution was to do something creative everyday. Well the party went longer than we expected however I did remember a collaborative creative project I did with Nigel yesterday! We made a dampa! I mixed it up and kneaded it into a nice little ball and gave it to Nigel who put it in the camp oven and cooked it to perfection. So dampa is creative and that counts right?

Sold

I bought these two steers three years ago from a dairy farm for $10 each. They were only three days old. They came with Daisy, our house cow. The plan was to buy a female jersey I can raise as a house cow and two little bulls to keeps her company. The bulls were turned into steers and the plan was to raise them for our own meat.

I got up at 5.00am every morning and bottle fed them and raised them up on baby calf formula until they were able to be weaned. I didn't name them, I called them J1 and J2 (Jersey 1 & 2). I knew that one day we were going to eat them.

They were well looked after. They had plenty of food, more than enough. They had shelter in bad weather, something unheard of for beef cattle and they had medical attention when they needed it. I was really proud of how well I took care of them and the life they had.

This year the time came for us to call the butcher but I insisted that they both had to go together. They had always been together so I wanted their lives to end together, plus I didn't want to know which one I was eating.

The problem was they were growing so big. I couldn't find a freezer big enough to put them both in successfully. I wanted to keep all the bones for the dogs and any offal, and the skins I was going to give to the butcher (I didn't want to be reminded). I knew it was going to be hard but I wanted to do it.

I wanted to eat meat that I knew had a good life and didn't suffer. I wanted to take responsibility for the meat I ate and see the process through myself, knowing that the animals were well taken care of and that they lived well.

Finally I came to the conclusion we had too much meat for one family to successfully store and so with much hesitation, I decided to sell them.

A neighbour farmer came over and looked at them and said he could have them picked up on Tuesday. This was good. Beef prices were down but if they got too much older they would loose their value. That was not good. Still, he thought I could get $500 per animal. That was low but I really had no choice. He said they will be shipped to the meat place in Smithton. That was unacceptable. Smithton is on the other side of Tasmania and I wasn't having my animals travel such a long way in a truck to their deaths like that. I sent him away.

He said "You cant be like that". Why cant I be like that? I heard him on the phone to Scott a few days later and Scott was saying "I know... I know..."

I called the son of another neighbour who is a stock agent. The cattle sold through him goes to Longford, a little over an hour from here. Much better. I got my boys ready and put them in the stock yards for the day where they could enjoy all the long grass and have some quiet peaceful time together before the truck arrives.

I felt like crap all day knowing that these beautiful animals were going to die soon. The kids knew as well. They were sad.

So the truck arrives and I give the driver the paper work and he pulls out this electric cattle prod thing. So I went in and called the boys and they walked up the ramp and into the truck and I said goodbye. I didn't want him to use that on them. I pat them and tried not to cry. I don't usually show affection to the steers as I have always distanced myself to them but I thought I owed them that.

The arsehole truck driver says to the stock agent "Well they'll be on a dinner plate next week".

So the truck drives away with my boys and Ruby, Dustin and I stand there looking sad and I am feeling like shit. I don't think I could ever do that again. I even contemplated becoming a vegetarian. Still, every bit of meat we eat comes from a once beautiful animal. Just because cows are not cute and cuddly doesn't mean there lives are less important. If you eat beef, you may as well eat cat or dog. It really is the same thing.

I had to assure Ruby that no one would be eating Willow, Clover and Daisy, our pet house cows. Dustin waved goodbye saying "bye bye boy cows".

My steers fetched $600 each, $100 over the current average price so someone must have liked them. I am proud of how I cared for them but not so proud of my decision to sell them like that, but I don't regret doing it. I eat meat and if I cant take it I should give it up.

When you eat meat this week I want you to think about where your meat comes from. Generally, organic meat has been farmed in a less stressful way. Kosher meat is good and try to buy meat that has been farmed locally and don't buy meat that has been exported live. If you know a responsible hunter, that is a good way to buy meat for your pets.

This turned up on my Facebook page the other day

That is me in the red. I was eighteen. In the middle is my cousin and her friend and I think we were celebrating my cousin's 23rd ? birthday at 'Dracula's' on the Gold Coast. I laughed so much when I saw this photo. It was mid 80's I think. I look like Elaine from 'Seinfeld'. I had the essential 80's perm. My cousin's curls were natural. My daughter Ruby has those curls now.

I wish I still had those eyebrows!

Summer holidays are coming soon :)

In Australia we call 'vacation' our holidays. We don't go on vacation, we go on holidays. This year my family is going on holidays to Flinders Island. We are travelling with our friends Jesse and Lisa and their children. We leave in three weeks.

We have to take a boat. A barge which takes a LONG time to get there because we are camping so we need to take our camper trailers and all the camping stuff. The trip takes a long time. Six to eight hours.

When we get there we plan on adventuring and fishing for all our meals and bush walking, four wheel driving, swimming, taking lots of photos, relaxing in deck deck chairs (remind me to buy a deck chair). We are going to bake our own bread and try to live off the land as much as we can.

Scott was up last night doing work on the camper trailer while I was in bed with the kids watching TV and crocheting.

I am crocheting little face scrubbies at the moment

These are just small cotton crocheted cloths for washing your face with to replace the need to use disposable facial cleaning pads which are expensive and a waste of our resources. I am using 'Peaches and Cream' cotton yarn I am getting from online friends in the US. I haven't ever seen any in Australia.

My plan is to have a basket of these in the bathroom and to use them for washing faces, removing make up, cleansing and toning etc and then just throwing them into the dirty linen basket for daily washing. I might need a soaking bucket actually so they don't go mouldy over night.

My crocheting is getting better. I am teaching myself with a book. I still sometimes loose stitches though, or sometimes I gain one. I need to watch some more You Tube videos.

Scott went on a fishing competition thing a couple of weekends ago and caught this trout.

Pretty fish they are. He and Dustin caught a few last weekend down on our river and Dustin has been eating them. He loves them. They taste like the river. The one in the picture was let go because it was a tag and release competition.

The kids are enjoying the warm weather and have been playing outside most of the time.

I don't buy toys for my kids anymore. They like rocks and sticks and shells and leaves better.

Wet, hairy and happy.

Spring is here and it is obvious by the state of my clothes today. Unlike my post title suggests, I do not have an excess of testosterone, I am covered in horse hair. Jimmy is currently grazing in the fenced off part of the back yard where the miniature horses are locked up for most of the spring, unless Scott gets around to putting up their permanent paddock.

Since he was there visiting with the minis, I took the opportunity to give him a brush. Masses of long winter coat is coming out everywhere. I didn't think he even had that much winter growth. I'm going to be grooming him forever and I still have the excessively woolly miniatures to groom.

The sheep need shearing urgently too so I need to get the shearer around. I am hoping he'll say he can come right over. This weekend even!

I am wet because our kids project of the day was wet felting. We made a multicoloured sheet of felt which is drying off on the clothes line and a massive mess in the dining room. It was fun and now we have the base of another project for next week.

This weekend we have a BBQ to go to at our local golf club. We donated hay to the farmers who lost theirs in the Black Saturday bush fires and some of them have come over to meet us. Nice. I'm looking forward to meeting some of them and seeing how they are getting on. It was great to be able to help out.

Scott has a fishing competition to go to at Swansea tomorrow. I think he has to get up at 4.00am to head off so he'll be going to bed early tonight. What shall I stay up late and do? I am making some fabric textile brooches for my Etsy shop that need finishing off and I've also started a larger fabric collage project and there is a ball of wool here in front of me asking to be crocheted into something and felted... or I could just lay on the couch and watch a movie....