Bredbo Valley View farm - providing quality education in Permaculture and sustainable living practices.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

It's Wednesday already


Back to the weekend; a quick trip into Cooma for some tattoo ink and I was home in time to make up the evening feeds. About lunch time the local farm contractor arrived unannounced, in his brand new second hand Range Rover, to have a look at a fence line we are putting in along the gully. The Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC) has given us a grant to complete the job. Whilst we were out in the paddock the DECC people rang to let us know the fencing was ready to pick up as well.

By the time we got back to the house it was getting into the late afternoon. Some people from closer into Canberra had arranged to come out and have a look at some pigs. They arrived at about 3pm and stayed for a while; they liked the pigs and arranged to pick some up in a couple of weeks.

The Cook was working Saturday night so things were a little rushed in the afternoon but she managed to leave on time.

The next morning at about 8am I was in the shower. The phone rang, the people who had been out on Saturday had decided they wanted to pickup their pigs that afternoon – keen. I had to go into town and pick up feed and drop in at the local hardware store. I needed a tarp for Monday morning and the wheel barrow needed a new tyre. I should have learnt, the feed bloke was a couple of hours late and I spent a couple of hours sitting on the side of the road. Once we had loaded up I was gone, I still had to catch some pigs and the Cook had called to say someone else was coming out to look at a pig.

By the time I arrived home people were everywhere and things started getting out of hand. We managed to load a sow onto the blokes ute, but we still had two weaners to catch. Harrison managed to catch the first one easy enough – but we were miles away from the ute. I ended up having to carry the pig across the paddocks, trailed by grunting mums, all the way to the house. The second one was heavier and even further away from the vehicle and by the end of it all I was knackered.

Anyway, they were happy and left a little before the sun went down. We then had the second person arrive, he was an old Italian, and was looking for a pig to turn into salami. He needed a 100kg dressed male pig – nothing else would do. Now I have a great 100kg pig but 100kg of pork is worth over $600 and these guy’s only wanted to pay $100. This is after he’s told me how he had run pigs in crates and sheds out at Braidwood in the past – they left without a pig and I wasn’t at all upset.

Sunday night came and we still needed to get the two pigs on the trailer before dark, did I say before dark? That didn’t happen did it, and we were all trying to load the pigs well after dark. IN the end I’d forgotten to tattoo the two that were going and had to end up doing it on the way to Sydney the next morning.

2 comments:

The Duck Herder said...

goodness! what a day. What a weekend. Those naughty old Italian men - always wanting a bargain. Well done for standing your ground.

Valley View said...

And it just keeps getting worse....!!!!!