The alarm rouses us at 4:30 am in the pitch black and freezing cold. Fog adds to the atmosphere.
We are in bed by 7:30 pm. Neil appears briefly for morning tea at 9am and lunch sometime in the arvo. I roll back to sleep when Neil exits our one room house at 5am, sticking my ear plugs in to block out the constant noise of hungry animals and the big mummies... oh and poo and lots of it.....and walm white stuff... It is a bit different from our planned fruit picking (and much better from my point of view). Week one is down and Neil has worked 90hrs and is still at work meanwhile I am a kept women (no complaints) or perhaps I should say the chief cook, laundry lady and errand runner (things we used fit in around work like most of you). We just got in from checking calving cows and feeding calves.......mmm as I write my hands smell of milk.
We are at a dairy in Colac (West of Geelong in Victoria). Fruit picking never come up cause the fruit STILL isnt ripe so we branched out in our job searching and Neil has taken a job on a dairy (for 3 or more months).By Gods perfect timing and provision we started exactly when we had hoped to get working again after our relaxing Tassie stint. Its a fair sized dairy.They milk 600 plus cows twice a day and produce about 18,000 litres of milk daily. In between milking Neil helps with feeding calves, sorting our calving cows and new calves, fixing fences, feeding grain and helping the crop guy. I poke my head in occasionally and got a few hours work cleaning and changing milking lines on the rotary dairy.
I am enjoying pottering around. My biggest feat is I have learnt (or should I say relearnt (after 12yrs or more of laziness) how to drive a manual. Yay I have my wheels and hence my independance again. The rig is a bit bigger than my Magna so at this early stage I pick the easy parks- which isn't too hard in Colac- population 14,000. I love it! I can come and go :) AND I may have work starting in Geelong (about an hour away)in three weeks or so at the Victorian version of the pathology mob I have always worked for. For now I am enjoying having time and energy to be a good housewife to my very tired hard working hubby.
We are loving been parked on the farm and have a nice private area sheltered from the wind (which has a habit of causing everything to flap and make a racket at night without shelter).No bills- no rent or power or water- what a dream. There is a kitchen with oven which the caravan doesnt have so we have been enjoying all the things we haven't been able to eat for a while like lasagne and potato bake, baked fish and cakes. There is also a toilet and shower next to the kitchen and a washing machine all of which are next to the dairy. I was warned that the washing machine washed dirty dairy stuff but a quick clean between and it's saves me a trip to the laundry mat (who I am sure would not like the amount of cow crap Neil brings home daily :).
Mmmm Do I want a kiss at morning tea and lunch time- normally the answer is a resounding YES but now it is a let me
inspect whether some cow took a disliking to you and gave you a face full. Enough crap crap and more crap (which is pretty much all we can smell of a morning and evening if the wind is blowing our way:). I'm growing quite accustomed.Guess one could argue that pathology is just full of the human version of the same body fluids.
I am also continuing to make some handy craft to either sell on-line(later on when I get organised) or at local markets as time permits. Neil is great at helping me pick the fabrics and doesnt mind a trip to Spotlight. He's my Ebay buyer of the necessary tools too.... Earrings, hair clips and ties, bookmarks and soon to be bobby pins make up the funky covered button repetior. So if you have any pressies to buy for the girls or ladies in your family or just want to gift yourself with these little beauties let me know.....they mail well and cheaply too if you have friends afar.
We can't believe we have been on the road 5mths.....I can't imagine we will be finished in 12mths- but then again we didnt exactly set an endpoint and if we keep having this much fun who knows maybe we'll become gypsies :).
We get along to church most weeks- though I will be doing it on my own some weeks now- dairy cows need milking Sunday morning and night too. We have met some nice people though our visits are usually brief in any given town so we do miss church fellowship and community and bible study too. The two of us make a pretty small group :)
Love to all and thanks for keeping in contact. We love news from home. xoxo
