Blue sky teasing
Our days are dawning fine and glorious here at the moment.
Which is just wonderful, because we have two months work to get done in just one. Seriously, I cannot think straight I have so much to do.
It’s partly because I have imposed a deadline on my family that I cannot yet speak about here. But it’s a serious deadline and we must have done quite a little checklist of chores before this date.
- all the branding
- fixed the fences (and when I say ‘we’ when I talk about fencing, you know I mean NOT ME if I can help it)
- paid the bills
- done the taxes (anyone else dread BAS time?)
- the never-ending avalanche of laundry
- cleaned the mildew/mould from the bathrooms
- and mowed the lawn 17 more times.
I love rain, but honestly, ENOUGH with the couch-growing and the mould… I had quite forgotten these spin-offs to a wet season! (It has been so long since we really experienced a ‘proper’ one – probably about 30 years. When I was but a pup. No cheekiness from the peanut gallery here, please).
Anyway, as I was saying, each day dawns blue and beautiful. And we go mustering and branding… and every day it gets HOT as Hades.
Some days we just cannot WAIT to fall into this little Granite Glen facility…
(And yes, I WOULD like a round of applause for being able to transform it from Shrek swamp status to BLUE! *bows*)
So some days we make it through with blue skies.
And some days… like yesterday…
well…
The heavens just open.
This was my husband, as we frantically packed up our gear at the yards before high-tailing it out of there as a storm hit. The roads are still so wet here that the fear of getting thoroughly bogged is real and present. (And the novelty is wearing off THAT practice real fast).
If you could please ignore the torn shirt (I would ask someone to sack the resident seamstress, but she quit some years ago. Ahem)… then please feel sorry for my husband got absolutely drenched in the downpour. He got wetter than wet while we sat in the relative safety (if somewhat cramped confines) of the ute cab. So his clothes are not only torn, they are calf-poo and mud-covered and saturated. (You can feel sorry for the laundry lady at any stage here – she keeps trying to quit too, but relents when the stench of the washing pile and the prospect of a naked family gets too much).
So that’s it. The yards are too wet to brand today, which is why I have time to blog. Well, I don’t really, but all these photos are screaming to be put somewhere! Off to attack the other chores on the mega list (including supervising kids swimming and the MOWING!).
-00000-
Have you ever been wet? Soaked to the bone, bracing against the pelting raindrops kinda wet?
17 Comments
Fleur McDonald
Love these photos
Fleur McDonald´s last blog post ..Raising money for Queensland
Jayne
We’re starting to get those tantilising blue patches here, too, although sans your energy-sapping heat.
I’ll let you keep the heat along with the dreadfully-slack laundry lady 😛
Jayne´s last blog post ..Yes- we have no bananasweve got a lover-ley bunch of coconutsave a banana-
Bush Babe
Just to clarify: the Dreadfully Slack Laundry Lady takes a lot more pride in her work than the Long-Retired Seamstress. I push buttons with the best of them.
🙂
BB
PS Yes. Steaming Hot. Again.
Elizabeth (ejay)
I sure have been soaked to the bone Bush Babe – on many occasions tending calving cows, some that conveniently lodged themselves in ditches, some that were having trouble calving or ones that came down with milk fever…always in the middle of a freezing cold winter (Victoria) and more often than not during the middle of the night. Being soaked to the bone is one thing but to leave one’s snug cosy bed for the sheer ‘pleasure’ of being soaked is another…Oh, the feeling of bending over tending a cow with the rain belting down on one’s back and channelling down into their undies…….of course not to mention being covered in poo and blood and guts…..It was a great life and I wouldn’t change it but…….
Ahhhh retirement is wonderful…..
Lynda M O
Wet to the bone? Yes, often when we lived offshore Key West (where it’s almost always warm) and had to row out to our houseboat. The heavens could fill a dinghy in a short while; we learned to row and bail at the same time. I wouldn’t have traded that experience for anything–we learned so much.
Sal
Being soaked through usually means one of two things for me… horse or cattle inflicted or from the demands of sport! On all occassions though, it comes with the territory and unless it happens in the middle of winter… not so bad after all! Hot and steamy here too…clouds brewing…
jeanie
Just today, when the distance from the office to the car was apparently too far to go without the deluge getting right through and mussing up my hair.
jeanie´s last blog post ..High and dry
Bragger
My most miserable experiences of being wet have involved being on a bicycle. No matter what season, being wet on a bicycle usually equates with being cold. We once rode through a terrible thunderstorm because we were too ignorant to know to stop and seek shelter. (I feel guilty that my only experiences with being bone-soaking wet involved play and not work…..)
Bragger´s last blog post ..The Readers Digest Version
debby
Yep. When I was doing mosquito work. Wading in swamps, walking in the rain. I remember once loping through an open field through the pouring rain and as I reached up to remove the trap from the tree it was hanging in, there was a bright flash and a boooooom of thunder and the arms on my arms prickled up. I also realized that the tree I was standing other was the one tree in the area. The high spot. The place where lightning would strike if it were going to…so I loped right back to the truck with my stuff. Yeah. I’ve been soaked to the skin for days at a time. I remember at one point wondering if my boots were ever going to completely dry out. I enjoyed that job very much though.
debby´s last blog post ..Happy Birthday Cara!
Bush Babe
Am loving everyone’s ‘getting soaked’ stories… whether work or play-related!! I’m still not hating it – but I reckon if it was cold, it’d test my stamina… I don’t like cold and wet. Unless there is a hot bath in the very near future…
🙂
BB
Tara
In January 2008, the 9th, to be precise (you’ll see why I remember the date so well in a min…) John and I got drenched by a combination of a huge thunderstorm and airborne river water.
We went bungee jumping at Victoria Falls. It was an overcast morning and after we’d jumped, screamed out lungs out (me not him) and declined to pay US$25 for a photo of the event; we had to walk back across the bridge to the customs office and the car park. We’d just left the jump spot when not only did the heavens open in a genuine deluge, but the winds conspired to swirl all the spray off the Falls over the bridge. So not only did we have vertical rain, we had horizontal spray as well!
We didn’t care. We were both so buzzed after freefalling 111m thankfully to be stopped by a giant rubber band!
The certificates we did get that day are all wrinkled from the water damage. Only adds to the charm!
Tara´s last blog post ..KornKurls
Leenie
The transformation from Shrek Swamp to Blue Lagoon deserves many rounds of applause. The laundry lady deserves a raise and a vacation. Sympathy and understanding to the seamstress. And the ventilations in Mr. I’s shirt make him look rugged and Hugh Jackman-ish. Best of luck mustering those cheeky bulls. (Gonna have to watch that “Australia” movie again.
As for getting soaked. Wet is not bad, but around here wet always comes with cold. I didn’t know one could be wet and warm until my parents took me for a week to Hawaii.
Kelly
Even before I read the caption to the photo I was admiring the beautiful blue of your pool! I’m sad to say we filled ours in this past fall. Mixed emotions.
Kelly´s last blog post ..Being Dead Is No Excuse by Metcalfe and Hays
Audrey
Oh that dreaded pile of ‘working’ clothes in the laundry! Sometimes I’m just temped to throw the clothes away rather than try to get them clean again. Where we are, wet is always associated with cold. So I was feeling very sorry for the Mr. until you mentioned that it was warm rain. I suspect that being soaked with rain, poo, etc. and warm is only a slightly less miserable feeling than being soaked and cold.
One question. Please, would you tell me what a ‘ute’ is? 🙂
Pencil Writer
I don’t remember all the times/places I’ve been soaked to the bone, but I do remember one. I was in Japan, on a date and with friends when the heavens opened and before very long we were wading in mid-calf deep water. My nice patten flats were some of my favorite shoes at the time and, quite frankly, ruined.
However, I remember we were all laughing and not complaining so much. Fortunately, I don’t remember it being a cold rain.
Best to you in all your monstrous chores. Good thing ya’ll are all super heroes, being lead forward by the invincible Mr. Incredible–damaged super-suit not withstanding.
Constance
Soaked? Yes? And COLD? Ohhhh yessss. Whilst hunting range cattle during round up time in the high Cascades in autumn, we were on horseback about 15 miles from the cabin on sloppy trails when the “inclement weather” began. It was snowing at the top of the evergreens and raining at the bottom. Saddles were drenched, as were our chaps. Our coats were soaked with snow falling down the necks of our coats blowing and finding it’s wet way beneath our hats somehow … I have never been that wet or that cold again since. We certainly were not looking for a lovely pool at the end of that day, but the cabin’s big rock fireplace was a welcome sight. Or at least it was when the fire finally got going enough to thaw us.
Your blog is a delight …
Buttons
I have come across your blog. I love your pics and your sense of humour. I like you am a cattle farmer. Cow calf beef so I understand the work thing.
I also have a very long list but am not doing so well on it as we unfortunately are in calving time. Yes it runs -24c here some days and we are calving. Great timing but all is well so far.
I must go as I have to get taxes ready too, thanks for reminding me. B