Australian Talk.

[jilleroo]

Oh Ken meant to say I really like that bull too - what does he weigh? Couldnt see anywhere what paper the article is in....not the QCL?

[wbvs58]

Sorry Jilleroo, I forgot to answer your question. The paper was just the Bush Telegraph which goes inside the Border Post and a Warwick paper. There will be a full page add for the sale going in the QCL and I think The Land soon. My second bloke will be one of the bulls in the add. I have to pay about $180 for that, what the heck, it is only money. I am not sparing the expense getting them to this sale. I just want to get a sale. I can trim down next year if I decide to continue. His lot no. is 13 the other bloke is Lot 33, but I think it will be 13 in the QCL when the add goes in.
Bo got another reasonable size boar today. It was just behind the house, she was barking while I was feeding the bulls this morning. I thought I better get the rifle and check it out when I finished the feeding and there it was.
One of the calves born on Saturday I have noticed is a bit forward in the knees. The cow had a heifer 3 years ago that was contracted in the tendons. She is very good, knows it is not right and keeps it away from the others until it is ok.
Ken

[jilleroo]

Will look forward to seeing them in the QCL then Ken. We've had over an inch here and still raining....The Longreach and Blackall sales are still on for Wed and Thurs. Blackall already has 700 AA Co. pregtested heifers in the yards and Longreach also has cattle already there or en route. Also know of 200 baldy cows and calves on bogged trucks further west, as well as others.
So cold and wet all day - I fed the bucket calf a generous feed about 4pm. Hubby came in about 4.30 and announced he'd fed the calf for me....so calfy did well today.

[melking]

Great Looking bull Ken, good luck on the sale. Who determines tha amount of carbon? Some complicated government formula? Jilleroo, it was 113 degrees farenheit at our tiny ranch yesterday. Almost to hot to work but we did manage to get in a pretty full day. I am about 99% sure no one ever calls Jilleroo, Ken, or Suzie lazy. You guys make me tired just reading you exploits. LOL

[Suzie Q]

Healing Hmmmmmssss for the dad with the broken Shoulder and your Mum, Jilleroo.

Be careful with that bull Ken, I don't want to come on here and hear he has hurt you.

That happened with me with the satellite. It happened after rain. They came out a week later after a heat wave and he said he couldn't do anything because there was no water up there. I told him of course there was no water up there, in this heat you would not have any water left in a 44 gallon drum, let alone a bit up there. But anyway I told him while he was up there he could use a spray can I had that is for sealing pipes and I haven't had a problem since. I guess that spray won't last for ever so I will have to get up there some time and do it again.

I don't think I have updated for a while.

I went to the garden Show at Nambour with the Garden Club and I had an absolute blast. Better for me than Farm fest and because of working I did spend money.

I bought mum a 7 fruit Fruit salad tree and a water feature. I bought myself long ugh boots, the same water feature, water plants and carniverous plants and I bought bamboo for my friend. Plus a wisker for the kitchen that is easy to use and doesn't use electricity and a Clever Dick juicer for getting juice out of citrus.

Bamboo is more expensive than my friend wanted to pay and I know she doesn't have money to splash around, so at the first place I just took information as they were about 5 times what she wanted to pay. At the next place I managed to get 2 different kinds for $2.50 more than she wanted to pay so I will pay that for her. Then later I found Lucky Bamboo for 2 for $5.00 so I bought that. On the other side of the grounds an old lady asked about it and I told her how cheap it was and where to find it, then told her I would take her there. Then as she said she was too slow for me and I said I didn't mind as I had an hour before the bus I just said I would give her my 2 for $5.00 and I would go back and get another 2.

So I went back and gave the lady $5.00 and told her the story and while I was getting my 2 lucky bamboo she said grab another one while you are there for being so nice to the old lady. So now I have one for my Mum as well.

I do my Pilates now before I come on the computer in the morning. So I am doing it more days than not. As you know I sit at a desk for 9 hours a day and yesterday 4 hours on top of that. So 13 hours sitting, plus 8 sleeping!!! I don't do much before and after work other than feeding and I do it using machinery instead of muscle.

Well Sunday I got up and picked up a bag of cow manure for mum. Fed the heifers. Loaded the car with the stuff for mum. Loaded the boot with news paper. Shoved a bale of hay in. (Well most of it, it wouldn't fit!). Drove to Dalson Park and rode a horse called Jack, (I am much happier with my left hand), drove to Mum's where she had snaffled grass out of a dumpster and it was lying on top of rock and a weed mat.

I had brought a shovel and rake so using the shovel I removed the rock and just threw it on top of other rock. Mum said I couldn't do it as I would bugger myself, but I didn't want the grass to die and felt it didn't have a chance so I kept going. Once I had removed the rock, we cut the weed mat and transferred most of the grass to there so I feel it at least has a chance.

From there I took her to Bunnings and tried to take back the fake grass she had bought, but no. Because it has been cut they won't refund it. It doesn't matter that she bought it cut and didn't cut it herself. So I put that back in the car and sent Mum down to the garden section to get what she wanted.

I then went and bought her a can of worms and a watering can. We ended up with some pansies, a dianthus, a dahlia and a marigold.

We then went to Mums and picked up some bricks, an extension cord, some glue and several bags of horse manure.

Back to Mums and I put the coir block from the worm kit in water and removed more rock in two places, while Mum again raided the dumpster. She got top soil that must have been under the grass, heaps of greenery cut back from plants, gazanias, cushions, and a big red plant that I have no idea what it is. She said a lady also removed an orchid, so I told her she was too slow!!!!!

So I cut the weed mat in the two places. Put down newspaper, the bag of cow manure, greenery,the bag of leaves that Mum had brought earlier, horse manure, hay, greenery, horse manure and hay. I planted the fruit salad tree in one and the big red plant, the marigold and the dainthus in the other. Mum decided she would plant the pansies out the front and I told her to keep the dahlia inside until after winter.

I put down a $20.00 feed trough from FarmCraft. Put the bricks in, put the $39.90 water feature in and turned it on. A man turns a wheel that makes a water wheel move that drops water that lifts a lever and drops it in a bowl. Mum decided that he was milling Millet. On the other side water comes out and goes into a tube which when it is full it tips it out and then goes back into position with a clack. I saw that on Better Homes and Gardens and traditionally that is to keep the deer off your garden. It is made out of bamboo.

Mum loved it. So I have left her with the glue to put that together and got home just after dark.

..... And the reason I told you all that. The only thing I felt all day was a couple of twinges in my inner thigh after riding Jack - solely because I was doing Dressage in an All Purpose Saddle and not a dressage saddle and by a couple of twinges that is what I mean just a few and just enough to feel, not what I would call pain.

No aches, no pains, no nothing and that is a side effect of doing Pilates so I recommend it to everyone.

[jilleroo]

Holy smokes, I'm dizzy, in a whirl of water features, dressage saddles and cans of worms!!! Good on you Suzie!
We ended up with 43mm, amazing rain for winter. They say we'll get another dousing later in the week, wait and see.
We're due to truck to the feedlot again on Monday, we really are jammed up and need to get more cattle moving, as much as we love the rain.

[wbvs58]

Yeah Jilleroo, I get a bit dazzled following what Suzie gets up to.
That's a pretty usefull amount of rain Jilleroo. We are getting a bit of drizzle here which is usefull keeping things damp, hopefully will get the clover going. Rain predicted for later in week, we will keep our fingers crossed. With the El Nino predicted for spring, the more moisture we can put in the bank, the better.
I think it is a pretty good time to be selling cattle. The prices I hear of suggest things are holding up pretty well, best of luck with your prices Jilleroo.
Mel, I don't know how they work out the carbon quantities. By the sounds of the temp, I bet you are racking up the carbon with the aircon on. People here are too scared to use things like aircon now because of the inflated electricity charges.
I didn't get a lot done today, I had a visitor, Greg, who has just bought a new 2nd hand truck similiar to mine and we were talking trucks and things. This arvo I was trying to sort out my gas water heater. The other day I thought I would switch over to the bore instead of tank water as it is a bit warmer so the water heater gets it a bit warmer. I hadn't used it for about 3 years and the cast iron components had rusted and the water clogged up my filter and some got through and seemed to have affected the HWS and it is not performing too well. I got it going so that I could at least have a decent shower, but with the hot on full. I am going to pull it apart and try to get to another filter tomorrow and see if I can't get it humming tomorrow.
Ken

[Suzie Q]

Just a bit of drizzle for us, nowhere near 43mm Jilleroo, and I managed to get the clothes off the line in the dark. Overtime was cut short as we were thrown out of our Computer before the Parts Guy had finished printing what we had to do. So did 3 pages worth and put our doors back on and arrived home before hubby who is supposed to finish half an hour before I do!!!

I was late for work this morning. One of the weaners had its head caught in the side of the gate hubby made so had to get her out of it. He will have to put some more wood in that so as it doesn't happen again.

Aaaahhhh I am back in my office at work and just about have it all organised. They are now rendering the outside of the building.

That always amazes me. We have a 100 year old farm cottage and it is rendered. All the new houses around us are brick. Then those who want to be fashionable they render over the top of their bricks!!!

Brrrr Ken. I would hate to be having a shower in the mornings before work without hot water!!!

[melking]

No Ken, we were not using air conditioning, it is not yet installed. If you don't mind my asking, what do you guys pay for electricity. We pay about 10 or 11 cents per kilowatt hour. Hey Suzie, congrats on the pilates, if they are what I think they are, I would be dead after 1 minute. Jilleroo, 1 and a half inches of rain is pretty normal here but we live on a giant sand bed so our water soaks in quickly. Sometimes in our rainy season,(now) we will have 4 or 5 (127mm) inches in one rain.

[jilleroo]

Melking the falls we've had recently are big rain for our dry season. We can get those sort of falls in summer but not so often in winter, and certainly not with thunder and lightning! As Ken says, they're forecasting an El Nino coming which means a dry spring so every drop of moisture we get now may be useful then. Also, I'll leave it to him to enlighten you as regards our power costs, I'm sure he is much cleverer than me in finding that info for you.
We had another shower overnight, too wet for the tractor to get hay to the weaners in the hay so hubby has been ferrying small bales to them on the quad bike. That should keep him out of mischief for a while yet. Rain is usually expensive for us - hubby is in the house so gets on the telephone and buys stuff!
I stayed up last night and began drawing up my next painting, a large whole-body portrait of an old fella with his favourite kelpie so its virtually two paintings in one. A lot of work, it will take me months to do. The drawing up part is the worst, making sure everything is exactly right. Just like everything else we do, you have to get the basics correct. Well instead of just talking about it, I'd better get onto it (that is typical me, a lot of talk, not much action!)
I wonder how Diana is doing now.

[wbvs58]

Mel, on my last bill I paid 20.69 cents /kwh. Off peak hot water was about 8.5 cents. I think it will be going up about 20% with the carbon tax. Most of our power comes from coal fired power stations.
Haha Jilleroo, does he do ebay? He should. If I need anything now I always check ebay. Many things are a fraction of the price, service is very prompt, deliveries usually within a couple of days. They do not want any bad feedback against their business. An example was my neighbour bought two Anderson plugs from in town to wire up his truck to charge the battery in his caravan, they wanted $17.50 ea for them but did him a special deal of 2 for $25. Peter had to get some more and looked up ebay, got 10 for $20 inc delivery. they arrived in 2 days.
I got the catalogue for the sale today. The photos of both bulls look real good, especially the second bloke I posted. He is the one that will be in the add in the QCL.
I got another 2 calves today. I finished stacking the couple of fallen stringy barks down the back corner. As I was heading back for lunch, I thought I would give this big dead tree a nudge and it came down, so now I have to go back down and stack this one. This arvo I started tidying up along the back fenceline, made a good start on it, so that is where I will be heading now when I have a bit of spare time.
Ken

[Suzie Q]

Add to the rising electricity cost that if you signed up for solar by 2 days ago you received 44 cents back from the grid. Missed that like we did (if we ever get it) and we only get 8 cents back.

Heaps of healing hhhmmmmsssssss for Diana.

No Melking the Pilates are done lying on your back, and I swear that is true. You need a mat - preferably a 1cm thick camping foam mat. I can send you a disc if you pm me your address. There are two work outs on it. The first is 10 minutes and if you add the second it goes for an hour.

i haven't done the hour for a long time, but I have now done the 10 minutes most mornings and I swear it does make a difference. When I was doing the hour it made a difference very very quickly. Especially around your waist with clothes suddenly loose on you.

I have never ever in my whole life been able to touch my toes without bending my knees. The first time I did the work out I was terrible. She is very encouraging but she obviously can't see me. Flexible is not one word you would have used for me. Sitting and going forward I actually did not get much past my knees, and I used to do an aerobics video and the stretching exercises in that daily. I just believed I was not flexible and that was that.

She makes you promise that you will do it every day for 2 weeks, you will be taller, slimmer, etc. I made the promise and then was so awful at it it was laughable, but I had promised and did the hour the next day.

The day you could not believe the miracle. I touched my toes. OMG. I couldn't believe it. I had to keep doing it to make sure it was true. I was riding at the time and Day 5 my lower leg felt stronger in the saddle, Day 7 my seat felt stronger in the saddle and by day 9 even my upper body was stronger in the saddle and I had a great problem with leaning forward and curling.

If you do the hour one she exercises every single bit of you and it does include lying on your stomach and on your side. She exercise your lungs, your eyes, your finger tips, you toes - as well as your core muscles your arms and your legs. That is why you feel no pain when you go out and work, because every bit of you has some muscle so if you need to stretch a bit here or there like in playing polocrosse and reaching for a ball or whatever well those muscles are already exercised and it is not like using them for the first time.

If anyone wants a disc just pm me and I will send it to you.

Other side affects of Pilates - any breathing exercises are better for your lungs, so that is in it. As I mentioned no aches and pains. I found sleeping was better and as we are all adults here - if you google it - sex is also better.

Oh and that reminds me Ken. I have bought some LED solar lights off EBay for the very first time not in Australia, but the seller was recommended to me by a cyber friend and much cheaper than I can get elsewhere. They should arrive this month. I will put them on my and Mum's topiary frames.

[wbvs58]

Suzie, I googled sex like you suggested, but did not find anything about pilates there, although some of those positions, I had to stand on my head to figure out so could have been pilates but just going under a different name.
Jilleroo, I was just reading back and you asked what those bulls weighed, I forgot to answer. I do not have any current weights, they are getting a bit too long for my weigh box and I'm not game to push them up as with their head up in the air and the elevated weigh platform, I'm a bit worried about them going over the top. The last weights I got of them was about 6 weeks ago, the first bloke was 846kg and the second fellow 870kg. I would say he would be well over 900kg by now as even then he would have left a bit of weight on the sides of the box.
I found a dead calf today around at the other block. The cow was the next I expected to calve, I found her up on the hill but she was bellowing which is unusual if they have just calved, usually don't want to be found. The calf was there but dead, all cleaned up, so I don't know what happened, probably smothered by the sac before she got it away. It is very unusual for a mature cow to lose a calf. Actually I think it is the first loss I have had from a mature cow other than the second twin a cow had last year.
No serious rain yet. We have had 2.5, 1.5, and 1.5 so far. It is starting to shower now as I type, short sharp little ones so I hope it picks up the bit tonight.
Ken

[diana55]

I'm home. Thanks everyone for the best wishes. So far all is going well. I only need the sticks if walking outside. It's more of an effort doing my physio exercises here as I don't have the right equipment but I'm improvising. Still on warfarin for a few more weeks and have to have bi weekly blood tests but luckily can get same in local town (12 km away) at Doc's so don't have to drive an hour to Dubbo. Sorry about your father Krankieone-hope he adjusts to the nursing home.

Really like your bulls Ken. Good figures too. The sale catalogue is on the Angus website. I think your bulls should be very competitive. Good luck -hope the buyers are all cashed up.

Had 28 mm rain Tuesday and 9mm today. Should help the moisture profile for spring. Still full on feeding most livestock here- at least the DTD and niece are- I have to take it easy so I'm doing as instructed. May as well enjoy the enforced laziness. Put Internet access on this I Pad today (3G wireless )- works a treat in bedroom but not so good in kitchen-so I have access while waiting for installers to bring new satellite and associated gear.

Hope you can truck out the sale cattle Jilleroo. Take the money while it's Ok. The el niño rumors are a bit unsettling. Agree with you 100% on the dratted carbon tax Ken. I hate to turn on the heaters as I dread to think what next electricity bill will be. The price rise in last 12 months has been horrendous even though we've used marginally less power.

Our next door neighbor made a big batch of minestrone tomato soup and fresh bread for me so that's dinner sorted. Very thoughtful of her. My niece can have a night off cooking. Better go heat the soup.

[melking]

Good one Ken. Started my day off with a laugh (google sex). I think stuff must be more expensive in your part of the world. Electric at almost double the cost. I don't think I will complain about my bill anymore. At your rate, my last months bill would have been $1,000. Suzie, Pilates is what I thought and good for you for sticking to it. I appreciate the offer on the disc, but I am more certain than ever that the first 10 minutes would end me.