Wild Weather

Well it's not so wild here. Other parts of the state have been hammered by Cyclone Marcia and parts of the NT are dealing with the fallout of Cyclone Lam. That's summer in Australia.

We've had 32mm over the last two days; it's fallen well, not too hard. It's been windy, but not severe.

Last weekend I filled the skinny gardens with hay; I love the look of freshly mulched gardens while the hay still looks golden before it loses it's colour and turns grey.

More rain to come.

Today we were supposed to go to Tenterfield for cricket but it was rained out. That means G won't have had hardly any match practice by the time we head to SA. He played in a 6-a-side comp last weekend and performed badly (his words).  Just over two weeks and we head off.

We went to CQ during the week for a couple of meetings to announce a restructure in the group. 12 hours of driving in a 36 hour trip. It's what we do. G has taken on another responsibility, a big one, which meant that some of what he does now had to be delegated. We really need to have this holiday because once we get back we'll be living in a cyclone of our own. 

Cat in the Box

Obviously an empty box is much more interesting to a cat than it is to a dog. Coco walked up, looked inside, looked at me then walked away again. Chloe scrabbled and scratched and flicked her tail then curled up and went to sleep.

Weekly Wrap

After the thermo and cattle delivery on Tuesday we left very early for Bris on Wednesday and spent the rest of the week in Brisbane, crunching numbers and kilos. We caught up with some of the northern guys and G spent a day with them drafting bulls in CQ. We were glad to get home again late Friday night.

Went to town yesterday and finally bought the new travel bag I've been deliberating over for a couple of months. I used my Christmas money and gift card which brought the price down to a number that I was comfortable with. Ahem.

The Cricket World Cup has started. Oh joy. Games are being played in NZ and Aus - first game here was in Melbourne yesterday, between Aus v England. My brother, Peter, came over last night to watch the second innings and to have dinner and a few beers.

It was hilarious listening to him and G discuss the boring interesting finer points of the game blah blah. Cricket's a funny game blah blah. Remember when insert batsman's name got out in insert year to the insert one of the following: inswinger/outswinger/googly/full toss/short ball bowled by insert bowler's name. It's amazing how they can remember a ball bowled 15 years ago that won/lost a match but can't remember what they did last weekend…….

Anyway, it turns out that the tournament goes for SIX WEEKS!!! SIX WEEKS OF THIS!!! It also turns out that quarter final 4 and the 2 semis will be played during the week that we're in Capetown at the Golden Oldies World Cup; G is hoping that the organisers will have something planned for when those games are on and he wants an Australian world cup t-shirt now. The good/bad news (depending on how you view your cricket) is that the final will be played on the day we leave to fly home. G was devastated to learn that and asked if we could change our flights. Ha.

Anyway, moving on, back to last night. I served the boys some garlic prawns while they sat in front of the tv. Then we moved to the table, briefly, for wagyu rib fillet, potato bake and wombok salad then back to the lounge chairs to watch England crumble under the Australian bowling attack. I made mango sorbet in the thermo. It was delicious but I made an absolute mess all over the bench and the machine itself!!! Wow, need to work on my technique a little but it was fun. Gave the boys brain freeze but they really liked it and there was lots left over for the freezer.

Right now I'm sitting in a rocking chair in the back room of our little local cafe. Im enjoying the moment. We have another busy week ahead of us including a couple of days in CQ. Gibbo is at a six-a-side cricket competition getting as much practice in before we head to Capetown - only 3 weeks away!

More Girls

After the excitement of the Thermo arriving I went to work for a few hours then came home to unload 40 cows and heifers we bought last week; a mixture of wagyu/wagyu x and angus/angus x. The truck made it's way slowly up our narrow driveway and we unloaded the cows to one of the paddocks at the back of the yards and the heifers into the yard pens. We needed to keep them separate as the cows are in calf and the heifers had to go up to the wagyu bull. G was in Brisbane at meetings; by the time he made it home dusk wasn't far away so we hooked in and got their tags read and moved them to their paddocks.

The heifers.

The cows.

The heifers went up first to their paddock; Gibbo followed them up. I gave him a few minutes to get them sorted and to open the gate for the cows; I let them out and off they went.

You're actually not allowed to run out of the yards and up the laneway but they're new and they haven't learnt that yet!

I followed along behind, hoping that G had had time to get the gate set up. I don't like getting yelled at.

He was ready, waiting for them. I hoped they weren't going to get spooked when they saw him and turn around to come barrelling back down the laneway towards me. I don't think I could have stopped 24 frisky cows just by waving my arms. All good. They were very well behaved and dutifully turned right into their paddock.

So Woodlawn is home for these girls for the next little while. They won't be permanent fixtures; we'll turn them over when the time is right and buy in some fb wagyu heifers or cows to replace the ones we sold in December due to the dry and as replacements for some of the older girls in the original herd.

She's Here!

She arrived last Tuesday in a very large box. The consultant showed me how to use it and we cooked what I understand is the usual demo recipe of vegetable stock. That night I cooked butter chicken, following the recipe from the touch screen display. I liked using it but don't think I quite had my spice ratio correct. I was a bit light on with the spices because G can't handle anything that has a bit of kick in it; I think I could have added more.

Anyway, I'm glad she's here and I'm looking forward to getting to know her better. As usual, whenever there's a bit of action Coco is there. The cat enjoyed playing in the empty box. Rather expensive cat toy that box.

Open Again

Our favourite local coffee shop opened again Tuesday after a 5 week break; they've rearranged the furniture and painted the back room. We went in for breakfast with some friends. It's nice to be back.

We spent the afternoon between the office and doing a few more home jobs - some more spraying, sprinklers for the mock orange line, mixing feed and setting up the yards for some cows and heifers we bought on Friday that are due to turn up Tuesday.