One extreme to another

Sunday night was the hottest August night on record – Monday night it snowed…. We had another day of winds above 85kmph but we also had about 10mm of rain - which was nice, the temperature got down to about 2-3 degrees which was warmer then we expected.

The Cook put new straw out for the pigs yesterday, but for some reason the Boars where all out sleeping in the rain. I’ll never figure these guys out, but as long as they are happy I don’t care how they decide to sleep - but you’d think they would take dry straw over cold wet mud.

There was a blanket of snow across the ranges this morning; it was getting really thick up towards Cooma. There was more snow falling after the sun came up so it’ll be interesting to see what it looks like when the cloud clears. The Cook is off skying with the boys today whilst I hold down the fort – I had a quick look at the snow cams a little while ago and it looked pretty cold up there. I hope she survives.

A note from the Cook

I finally have a day off and I am having a do not too much day. I am waiting for Ted the man who delivers the wood to arrive and then it will be back to work unloading and stacking. If he gets here late enough the boys will be home to help. The oven is roaring and biscuits are finally being made, with hopefully a cake or two. I'm sure that was a part of the order. It will probably be pizza to night (and not the bought one) as the wood oven is on. Bread rolls for the boys tomorrow also part of the order.

The boys start skiing again next term ‘my at least a month of hell’, getting them there. Ben does 4 days over 4 weeks and Harry is having 8 weeks - both on different days. Hopefully I can jig it all with work. We went to the high school ski sale on the weekend and stocked upon clothes because of 2 growing boys. Not too many toboggans, and they were nabbed pretty quickly. I'll have to try at the end of the season at the ski shops. I won a National Park pass for a year, so we will have to go to the snow this year and make good use of it. The boys are keen to show off their skiing prowess and really keen to toboggan down the hills wildly while I hold my breath. They are growing quickly.

The pigs are selling thick and fast and soon we wont have too many big ones which will likely cause problems on the selling side. It is either a flood or a drought. The first pigs went to slaughter on Monday and are off to Sydney to the Everleigh markets. We have negotiated with a lady who is taking our pigs to sell and we just have to get them to the abattoir - she does the rest. At least it will start moving them and we can gain a little more control over the stocking rates. Hopefully put up a few more fences and spread them out.

The temperature is looking abit low these days and we had some snow a week or so ago. As cold as it was it was also very pretty. First real snow for ‘Valley View’ since we have been here.
Life has just been too fast for me to catch up. Today has been a great day. Work is hell at the moment, incredibly busy, so many really sick kids not enough staff. The winter has really hit with a bang and we are in bronchilitis/RSV land. Last year wasn't this bad. Then there is always a swine flu scare to throw in some more chaos. All fun. I better go and pick the kids up.

So what doesn’t she say – The poor old Cook has been bitten twice by a pig in the last week, the second time right on the end of the thumb - drawing quite a lot of blood. I noticed the chain on the gate had blood all over it and took a walk around the pigs trying to find one with an injury. I eventually gave up and went inside, I mentioned the blood to the Cook and – well, you can guess the rest. She spends every evening wrapped around the column heater next to the fire and by 10pm is sound asleep.

Boy; I'm going to cop it this time!

Well below zero

A happy pig

We had a nice weekend; unfortunately I had to go into Cooma to do a couple of jobs on Saturday and the places I need to go where shut for the weekend, I don’t recall them shutting for previous long weekends. It was also the start of the snow season so the Police were every where. I was eventually pulled over twice for random breath tests. The first time was in Bredbo on the way home and the second time at Berridale – by the same Police officer.

On Sunday morning I was taking a shower, the window to the bathroom was open and I was looking out across the paddocks. I was amazed at how mild the winter had been. The first winter we had I would have frozen solid in ten minutes with the window open in June. Later I drove into Canberra to pick up the weekly pig feed. Unfortunately the feed guy took the day off also and I wasted a trip. I headed home and did some cleaning up instead – by 4:00pm it was dark and raining, cold and windy – winter had arrived.

Sunday Afternoon on the farm

Monday was the real highlight. The morning was bright and clear, I had to take a couple of pigs up to Jindabyne for a lady. I went out via East Cooma and through Dalgety to stay away from the snow traffic. Harry came with me and we had a nice time. Somewhere out on the plains we came across a drover pushing a mob of cattle across along the long paddock. He was ridding a stunning little buckskin mare which the Cook would have died for. I dropped of the pigs – there was no loading ramp so I backed the trailer up to a dirt mound, the pigs jumped off the trailer and we walked them up to their new home. It was surprisingly easy. They settled in very quickly and were reunited with a weaner the lady had taken from us when she came to look at the pigs earlier.

Some of you may remember an American magazine called “The Western Horseman” It was a magazine about life on the range land in the American West, full of Cowboys and Buckaroo’s and tails of hard horses and harder cattle. A lot of the magazine was made up of picture essays about the range lands. I remember as a kid I used to wait for the monthly magazine to arrive, and then wait until our father had read it so I could have a turn – it was probably the only thing I read for years apart from the required reading at school. I used to love the stories about the Rendezvous of Mountain Men that happened every autumn.

Anyway, Tuesday night I arrived home late. I needed to pick up the bread and had to get feed and straw as well. By the time we had unloaded the feed, fed the pigs and given them all straw for the cold evenings ahead it was 9:00pm. The Cook arrived home a little later after a long day shift and went strait for the heater. Just before we went off to bed it started to rain, just a little and only for a few minutes. The Cook had come in and cursed the cold but I was surprised it had rain because the sky was clear earlier.

Tuesday morning front the front gate looking back at the house

At about 3:30am the goat decided to seek shelter under the eaves of the house – right under our window. I put up with about an hour of her ringing her bell until I had to go outside and move her on. I jumped out of bed and the full moon was shining through the window so I ducked out the front door bare footed only in a t-shirt. I jumped down off the veranda ankle deep into fresh dry snow. That woke me up! I pushed the goat out of the yard and went straight back to bed, my feet freezing. I did wake the Cook and tell her it had snowed which I think she appreciated.
So After I had my shower this morning and while the moon was still up, I wandered around outside with my camera. I watched the sun come up, reminded me of many mornings in the Army freezing on the Pucka Range whilst on piquet duty. The snow was only an inch deep but the ground was frozen solid. As the sun rose and you could see more detail, it all reminded me of the photo’s I used to see in the Western Horseman Magazines all those years ago.

As a by the way, all the roads south and west of Cooma are still closed – it’s 2:00pm. We shouldn’t get anymore snow however – and all the piggies are fine.