The Tractor tried to Kill Me

The new sheds are up despite the inclement weather. Those three guys from E-d worked like heroes sticking to the quote. So now have five animal shelters, a four horse in the far right/west. The old three horse low ceiling in Cedar's paddock with the half a dam. The new two horse in the neighbouring two paddocks with the lane to the other half of the old low ceilinged horse shelter with the other half of the dam directly in front/south of the back of the house. And the new five horse shelter in the big/jump paddock with Gooba and Sunny to sniff around it. Five days later the horses are just starting to be compfortable to step inside for their midday siesta. But we havent had any major storms yet to test their real purpose. Oh and the old cow shelter with extremely low ceilings on the other side of pipeline (east) attached to the cattle yard and loading ramp.

So after repairing and installing new bits and pieces to the electric fencing, digging trenches and putting the cable into sealed plasting tubing underneath gates. I decided it was time to ride the tractor and slash some of those big old weeds that are coming up.

I rode around to the back lawn to the exit gate, but was NOT happy with all the fan belt squealing going on under the hood, so I stopped at the gate and lifted the hood. Ahah! The fan belt is turning but the fan is not. It is stopped solid and fan is smelling like rubber burning. At that point, with my head close studying the problem the gusty windy conditions catches the upraised hood, which hingers 1.5m up in the air from the front of the tractor and crash, comes crashing down towards me. I jerk back, but the sharp edge catches me on the side of the neck! It HURTS. I reel back in shock and alarm, catching the gash on the side of my neck and wondering if my jugular has been severed. I run shouting to O who is saddling up Cedar for an afternoon ride. Oh thank god, there is not much blood, but I get her check out the size of the cut and if there seems to be any subdural damage. No just a bad scratch and a terrible scare!

I spend the following day tearing apart the engine covers, battery compartment, hoses, fan and find the waterpump has a jammed bearing. I will attempt to replace the bearings myself after ordering the parts which will arrive on Friday. Just before Christmas.

Seasons Greetings!

Developments

Changed browswers and for a while there couldnt post, wouldnt accept changes. Ok now, settle.

New horse freaked out (understandably) in a massive thunderstorm and went through two fences. Injured legs, skin off, vet bills, care, antibiotics. Better now, might heal without scarring.

Same day I fell off my motorbike and was at home, injured when it happened. Hopping around with the vet in disbelief. I'm ok too now.

Repaired all the fences. New horse shelters go up today!

Cat in charge

O, M and myself were all out in various parts of the back garden when it happened. O had bought the dogs pigs ears as a treat. Winstone had finished his in a wolfish gulp and tried to coax Bandit into parting with some of his by tugging at it while eating. Bandit dont take kindly to big pup's stealing his food so a snarl and a bite turned into a nasty - savage even - barking and snapping occurence that had all of us there turning and shouting and running to break up the fight before there was any wounding done. Tinsel got there first. As a cat, even though large, she is smaller then Bandit by half and a quarter the size of the kelpie pup. Without blinking she jumped onto the beagle's back and hung there by the claws while she hissed and yelled and leapt onto the kelpie scratching and biting all the while. The dogs immedieately stopped in deep surprise - as did the rest of us - so she jumps between them, snarling and rushing at each in turn so that they run away - in opposite directions. Unnoticed in the true melee, Louise the poodle trots through calmly and makes off with the contested ear.

Flumoxxed with our cat.

New Horse

We drove to Denman, 130 kms up thee Hunter Valley, to pick up Goober a beautiful black gelding Thorough/Std cross on a 3 month trial to act as 2nd horse for O's eventing ambition in her contest year next year.

Took almost an hour to get him onto the float whcih wasnt a good start. But he's not that travelled.

Up to six horses now. Three of them ours.

Haiku

Yesterday morning over breakfast M and me were watching our four cows in two groups. There were two black on this side of the water supply pipeline and under the pipe you could see eight cows legs, four of them brown. A minute later we looked up to see Toffee, owner of the brown legs, bolting down the access road on this side of the pipeline to join the other two there. Bambi remained on her own on the other side.

What was she doing to get seperated from the (small) herd like that? Being creative we mused. Not that smart, however cows are great field aesthetes. She was making up poetry. Lost in the moment, she lost track of the others. Her work for Wednesday morning?

Field,
Oh field,
Dandelion,
Pipeline

Snapping back to reality at the sound of Toffees little black hooves on the *other* side of the pipeline. She bobbed up and down to see over the pipeline. Then she took off for the gate 300 metres along, and a minute later was bolting back down the access road to join her friends.

September rains

I've forgotten the dates now, but I've got some photos. Two weeks of September rains flooded the lower lying neighbouring paddocks worse than the August rains. Drought since then, then a couple of mild mms (and a wild gale) since then.

RIP Edwina

Edwina, our most perfect pet Siamese cat, died last Thursday at the Vets. She was 17 years old. She is buried in the garden she spent sunning herself looking at through the past winter. Sleep well sweet pet.

another horse

A new agistee, welcome Mac. Black Thoroughbred gelding. That's three guys and two gals.

We have finished the pergola roof and bar. Almost, have a few more screws to put in to hold it down in the rain.

And the frog pond now has a sail to keep the water cool in summer.

Pelting

We got about four inches of rain on Friday and Saturday. This morning broke fine but showers are still coming through. We now have a lake in the adjoining large paddock to the south. But our lowest points are still above that. (That's Mt Sugarloaf in the background of the photo).

Fixed a loose electric fence post, but not done so much this weekend. Tax. I've got to get under the house with the insecticide and kill fleas, cockroaches and maybe even prevent termites I dont know.

Did my first ever welding with the arc welder I got for Christmas. Scary, dangerous, frustrating and exciting - in that order. Thought I'd ruined my right eye when I lowered the mask while it was still sparking. But way cool when I got the knack of striking the rod correctly and getting the plasma sizzling. Molten steel splashing everywhere! I now have the tray for a tractor carry all. Though I now have to design the three 3 point hitch attachment and how it attaches to the tray, because the 3mm steel and the welds dont look strong enough to do other than bend. Fun to do.

Frog pond from above

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I fly over the house on the way back and the circle overhead while a 737 makes its approach over the river. I notice the frog pond for the first time from the air. It looks great!

The Cows have Names

I forgot to mention. They are three black and one brown Limosin weaners. The black are Lola, Curly and Bambi. The brown is Toffee. M named them.

Unicorn

Keisha is one of the agistees. I dont know what breed she is, but she is very white and kind of ethereal looking. She has the jump paddock all to herself. M refers to her as the unicorn. I can see the resemblence.

Jump Day

Cedar and O competed in a jump competition today. Their first for the year. They came 1st! At 95cms. They were delighted and looked terrific.

It was a beautiful sunny windless winter day. It made you smile when you were out in it.

Cattle Vaccs

We picked a very rainy Saturday to herd the heifers into the yard, onto the cattle trailer we borrowed from K, a neighbour, take them over to Raymond Terrace where we can use R's cattle crush. O bought a neat needle gun that made injecting so much easier. I'm getting good at using the crush, but sticking fingers in their noses to hold their heads still. Yuck. Got them back. Went to look for them at night to make sure they were ok. Couldnt find them in their shelter. THey were up at the road, looking at the cars I suppose, like they often do at night. They were fine the next day.

Tractor scare

I was slashing the road entrance to the far field when the soil collapsed into the pipeline culvert, where the pipeline goes under the road. The barbed wire fence saved me, as did the slasher itself, or I would have rolled over. The roll bar might have saved me but it was a bit of a plunge. I felt the sink and the stop. I was going nowhere. And I'd done such a nice job getting rid of the big weeds! I lifted the slasher a little and felt it sink further so dropped it again, shut down and got off. Stood hands on hips for a while, wathcing everyone driving by looking at me. Had to walk back, pick up tools for getting the slasher off, bring M and the 4WD and a chain plus the u-bolts off the float.

First attempt with the 4WD saw the wheels spin. Darn! Had to get the slasher off then. Even with it off it wouldnt budge. That's when a neighbour driving by - still didnt get his name - stopped and asked if he should get his tractor. One more push.

He pushing, M in the 4WD and I got back on the Kubota and started up. Jump up and out of the sink in one movement. Thanks for the push!

Spent another 30 minutes pulling the slasher out with the tractor backwards with the chain, then reattaching it to the tractor linkages and tightening it all up. Called home on the CB all ok and going to slash the far bottom paddock.

Jumping glee

Got home from work to find wife and daughter in the training paddock. Got to carry a heavy pole on my way down to say hello. The new jump cups were in and to try them out Cedar was given a work out. Daughter and horse looked as one in the bright winter afternoon sunshine. M later said that Cedar had a grin as she was led up for her wash down. Like it'd been ages since she'd had that much fun. O had a similar grin and cant wait for morning to do it all over again.

Wet in the air

It's been dry for so long. We're lucky to be as close to the coast as we are, but the rain shadow starts at about our distance. It's been like a desert back west.

So it's nice when it rains. Not when you're flying though. Showers are ok. You can see the beginning and end of them. But good soaking rain just goes on and on.

I didnt have my flying gear with me when S called. I'd ridden my motorbike in to work. Even though rain was forecast. Heard that before. So help me pick up an aeroplane from the LAME at Cessnock? Oh ok. I could borrow a chart and there are spare headsets at the flying club.

The radar picture was peculiar. A fast moving band of blue (light rain) moving in from the west. Extensively. Oh well, the met forecast was ok. Windy in two hours. Light rain. Sweet.

Fuel up first? Half a tank. Rain. Yeah, better. Just in case.

The delay put us closer to the winds, especially flying west, into it. Climbing to 1500 feet, the picture was pretty darn grey.

Press on? Looks iffy? Yeah.... Then Air Traffic hands us off into uncontrolled airspace, and oh what the heck. We can see Kurri, the highway below us. Greyness ahead. We're flying in full on rain.

Is that the cloud base? Going down to the ground? No. Veils of rain. More rain behind it. We'll be in it in a minute. The cloud base is up there. Somewhere...

...

I am flying over the farm. I like this trip because it takes me over the top. Not seeing much now though. Rain streaming all the way down to the rapidly filling swamps nearby. Nice to see rain going down...far below.

...

That's the worst VMC I've ever been in. And it was mad fun.

Louise the Fisher Dog

I spent the last two hours of the afternoon figuring out the new water pump. Half of the farm is cut in half by the Newcastle water supply pipeline. There are no dams on the far side. There are two on the house side, where the horse shed and all the good paddocks are.

But our hungry weaners have eaten the grass in the large paddock so quickly we had to get them over the other side. So we need water there.

A 1kW pump and some ag line into two bathtubs. We had one, but an observant neighbour offered us another when he saw us carrying it.

The pump took some adjusting. Like the inlet and outlets werent marked and two hours yesterday was wasted trying to pump water in the wrong direction. Anyway. It was a joy to see it finally flowing onto the baths.

I wandered back up to the dam where the pump was buzzing at 7500rpm. Shut it off to blessed silence. To notice Louise, our nine year old black Poodle miniature, staring intently into the dam. Not just staring but wet up to her knees ready to pounce. I packed up the pump and stood looking admiringly at the fence we had built, back down over the dam where Louise remained poised for the last half an hour. “Louie! C'mon!” Usually craving attention her name would send her a-leaping. Not tonight. Staring into the water, reflecting the sunset, she looked about as content as any poodle in touch with their hunting instincts could be.

The cows are in the new paddock

At sunset, we managed to herd our small herd of four across the pipeline gate into the far side of the farm. They kicked up their heels at all the fresh grass. With new water troughs full down below and even a cow shelter on the big flood mound overlooking the rest of it. The bottom paddock with the bathtubs seemed immense in the dissappearing daylight.

Cedars Fields

My wife and I both work demanding jobs. To get over that we have some rural acres on the southern floodplain of the Hunter River in New South Wales. Not far from the freeway to Newcastle and all points north and south.

Our kids are almost grown up students with their own cars. We all park our collection of utes, sedans, motorbike and tractor either in the garage or on the driveway nearby. A horsefloat is near the radio shack away from the house by the second dam and the frog pond. There are four horses, including our daughter's warmblood/stockhorse Cedar, who we named the farm after. After all it was her agistment needs that help pay for the place. The other is our miniature, Mickey, and two other agistees. Older, smart, horses.

We also have four weaner cows. I forget their breed! Part angus, part something starting with L. Limosin I think.

There is a new working dog joining our two house dogs (beagle and poodle). He is a red kelpie who still has that baby smell. So everyone wants him to sleep in their beds. Unheard of for the other dogs who sleep outside (in a nice sheltered kennel). They like to play with him too though.

We love the view. It's hard to tear ourselves away from. We are always late for work!