Monday 12 August 2013

The Day The Rage Came

The day started as usual. Reluctance to leave the electric blanket, the sound of K lighting the fire for the day, the bleating of goats and the sounds of an angry Scotsman swearing at his dogs from the far end of the farm. Alex is a very nice chap but my goodness me does he lose his temper and sadly his mood rather dictates the days mood. K and I decided we were going to have an upbeat and happy day so we left German Alex (who ate the biggest breakfast I've ever seen...boys really don't get communal living) with angry Alex building a 'wing' (some sort of fence we'll be using for the drenching. No one tells me anything so I can't be more specific). We fed the kids (all 9 of them), went to check the front fence and then to find Noel who was trying to round up the goats.  Now given that we spend the majority of our time trying to keep the goats in today sounded pretty easy: get the goats out to the other field.  Rose the dog is still over at Farmer Chris' house so Noel was attempting to herd them with the ute. K and I saw the opportunity to hop in the trailer and took it pronto. We had a big herd of goats but would they go through the open gate? No.  We abandoned them an got on with another couple of farm tasks that needed doing (finding barrels to cut in half for water for the goats - one had had molasses in it and was complete with a dead, sticky rat) and went to get the last of the wood from Geoffrey's to bring over. Then we tried to do the goats again. K and I were running and hutting and hoying and yodeling at them and Noel was honking and bashing and revving but they would not go through the blinking gate! We went back to get the boys who were cutting wood to see if Alex and his stockdog, Maggie could help do the job rose would do in 10 minutes. Well. This is where the day turned a tad sour. Maggie did not do what she was told. At all. Maggie even succeeded in splitting up the group by doing all the things a stock dog shouldn't and then ran away as I assume she knew what was coming her way. German Alex wasn't much help. He hasn't grasped the concept of herding an his 'voice was hurting' from the shouting (his arms were hurting from the wood yesterday too...!!). Anyhoo we abandoned the plan to get all the goats out and went to find Alex and Maggie. We spotted them, Maggie was thrown into the trailer with a colossal slam an the angry Scott marched into the distance with a face like thunder. We said nothing and suppressed a giggle (and gave the dog a bit of love).

K, Noel and I  went to go and get a couple of dead goats we'd found earlier in the day (Noel drove me Into Murrabit for some new boots earlier in the day but we u turned when they were $95. In our way back we saw a nanny birth twins so K and I walked to check on them and found two dead ones...they smelled god awful).  One of them clearly died whilst giving birth, the other looked like she'd died from inflation. I found out the hard way that a goats horns can fall off when dead. I squealed. Loudly. Instead of putting these two on the trailer Noel tied string to their heads and we dragged them to the burning pile. Nice. The burning pile still smelled awful - charred, rancid goat still on the wind. We did our best to keep our distance from the angry Scot and the unenthusiastic German Alexs.

The day went on with K and I choosing to spend the afternoon with Noel avoiding Alex who set about loudly cutting firewood. Earlier in the day Alex had spoken to Chris and told us to write him a shopping list which we did - it was 7 items long as we didn't want to appear demanding. Items such as tomato pasta sauce (we had a jar), frozen peas (no one likes a can), honey (for poorly kids), sugar (for Chris' tea), veg (e.g broccoli), bananas and meat for the boys (because heaven forbid we give them a meat free dinner). Well Chris turned up early evening to speak to Alex about the dog (Alex had told him to take her or he'd shoot her - mature) and this is when my rage started to bubble up. I had started getting dinner ready (yes, I have been cooking every blooming night since I got here) and was cutting up potatoes. Chris asked who the list writer was. We had a jar of tomato sauce. We had canned peas. We had chicken wings etc etc.  He then asked what I was doing with the potatoes. Why was the skin on? Did all poms leave skin on? All very disapproving. He left and came back 2 mins later. I was peeling the bloody potatoes. What are you doing to the potatoes? Are you peeling the potatoes? AAAAARGH. I nearly threw a potato at his head. The boys are a bit squalid and we spend most of the time cleaning up after them. We were planning on cleaning after dinner (water shortage means washing up isn't a free and easy activity) but obviously Chris came round first and had the audacity to say it was the worst it's ever been. He was there on my first night! It was horrendous...and the potatoes had the skin on. Well, Chris, you can't polish a turd. I bit my tongue, put food in the oven and rang mum for a rant. I then instructed her to ring me 10minutes later so I could leave the table. Worked a charm.

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