Good morning, it’s Saturday and today Derek and Lesley go back home to the “real world” after two months here at the ranch with us. Two months ago they arrived as strangers, two months ago they arrived as Woofer Interns, knowing nothing about farming but dreaming of a farming future, working together laughing together and crying together. Two months ago we found two new very special friends and we are going to miss them. Good bye and good luck D and L.
It was HOT yesterday, too hot to work but we have a barn full of eating machines that just know it’s time for food and care little about the means of getting it to them. Early morning chores are a breeze with our Woofer intern team and people, like little worker ants scurry back and forth with brushes shovels, poo pickers, water hose and flakes of hay. Stalls clean enough to eat dinner and it’s time for coffee break/ business meeting before all our different projects are addressed. Derek and Lesley finished the hay racks on which will serve two purposes…..obviously one to eat hay out of and the second, to make it almost impossible for the sheep and lambs to add a sprinkling of poo to their feed tray. Greg and Derek set off to set up some guttering behind the chicken shack. This project has been on Gregs “must do” list for several years and he has been reminded of its importance after every heavy rainfall. Yesterday it was fixed. Greg faced his fears and he and Derek climbed onto the roof of the chicken shack ( which was I feel potentially suicidal anyway !!!) armed with everything he thought he might need and then remembered that he has a fear of hights…fine time to remember that !
The girl team took the tractor and a chain and set to work demolishing the front gate. Just leave it to the girls to do a great job of demolition and we didn’t let him down. Like two farming professionals Lesley and Wesley worked the big daddy John Deere tractor and the chain to remove the original aged cedar posts that support the farm gates.Staples rusty nails and barbed wire posed a little more of a problem….crowbar, hammer and nail puller all failed as Lesley turned herself upside down and inside out to get at the most resistant.” That post has to stay in” I was informed as we all scowled at the offending rotten, moss covered post. Instant executive decision….the post will stay in,..after we have taken it out ! It took seconds to get it out, it took less than that to remove the hardware that had been giving us the problem…but we couldn’t get the thing back in the hole it had come from!!! We wiggled it and we jiggled it, we thumped it with a lump hammer ( can you tell we were getting desperate?!) and still it perched above the hole. It may have been ancient, it may have been rotten but it had been the post that holds the fence that keeps Hol-ley the calf from taking a walk..out of the farm. Now we had a hole and an incarcerated Hol-ley who would have to stay incarcerated due to my executive call….and I’d have to own up to disobeying an order…do I look scared ? smile. We had a final attempt at wiggling jiggling and lump hammering and the post “sort of “ settled above the hole in the ground that was growing dramatically with all our efforts…enough to allow the fence to hold the post up ….as long as nothing breathed on it!!!
It’s Sunday morning now, yesterdays diary remained suspended in the ether as we lost Internet service. Because I write using two fingers.. actually one finger, the other takes over when the first is tired, I use Word and then copy and paste it into the website. Apparently our router box is broken. That means nothing to me except that when I log on I expect it to work…and it didn’t, so currently we are on emergency service…( can I blame that on Hurricane Irene too ??????) Normal service will be resumed soon, I hope!!
Time to go, Take care, keep safe M
It was HOT yesterday, too hot to work but we have a barn full of eating machines that just know it’s time for food and care little about the means of getting it to them. Early morning chores are a breeze with our Woofer intern team and people, like little worker ants scurry back and forth with brushes shovels, poo pickers, water hose and flakes of hay. Stalls clean enough to eat dinner and it’s time for coffee break/ business meeting before all our different projects are addressed. Derek and Lesley finished the hay racks on which will serve two purposes…..obviously one to eat hay out of and the second, to make it almost impossible for the sheep and lambs to add a sprinkling of poo to their feed tray. Greg and Derek set off to set up some guttering behind the chicken shack. This project has been on Gregs “must do” list for several years and he has been reminded of its importance after every heavy rainfall. Yesterday it was fixed. Greg faced his fears and he and Derek climbed onto the roof of the chicken shack ( which was I feel potentially suicidal anyway !!!) armed with everything he thought he might need and then remembered that he has a fear of hights…fine time to remember that !
The girl team took the tractor and a chain and set to work demolishing the front gate. Just leave it to the girls to do a great job of demolition and we didn’t let him down. Like two farming professionals Lesley and Wesley worked the big daddy John Deere tractor and the chain to remove the original aged cedar posts that support the farm gates.Staples rusty nails and barbed wire posed a little more of a problem….crowbar, hammer and nail puller all failed as Lesley turned herself upside down and inside out to get at the most resistant.” That post has to stay in” I was informed as we all scowled at the offending rotten, moss covered post. Instant executive decision….the post will stay in,..after we have taken it out ! It took seconds to get it out, it took less than that to remove the hardware that had been giving us the problem…but we couldn’t get the thing back in the hole it had come from!!! We wiggled it and we jiggled it, we thumped it with a lump hammer ( can you tell we were getting desperate?!) and still it perched above the hole. It may have been ancient, it may have been rotten but it had been the post that holds the fence that keeps Hol-ley the calf from taking a walk..out of the farm. Now we had a hole and an incarcerated Hol-ley who would have to stay incarcerated due to my executive call….and I’d have to own up to disobeying an order…do I look scared ? smile. We had a final attempt at wiggling jiggling and lump hammering and the post “sort of “ settled above the hole in the ground that was growing dramatically with all our efforts…enough to allow the fence to hold the post up ….as long as nothing breathed on it!!!
It’s Sunday morning now, yesterdays diary remained suspended in the ether as we lost Internet service. Because I write using two fingers.. actually one finger, the other takes over when the first is tired, I use Word and then copy and paste it into the website. Apparently our router box is broken. That means nothing to me except that when I log on I expect it to work…and it didn’t, so currently we are on emergency service…( can I blame that on Hurricane Irene too ??????) Normal service will be resumed soon, I hope!!
Time to go, Take care, keep safe M
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