No writing today . . .
I read a blog last week (I wish I could remember who, because it was good) about how often real life interferes with best laid plans for adding a few thousand words to the WIP. Today was one of those days for me. 
Tomorrow at our farm, it’s lamb-marking day. Essentially that means all the lambs are vaccinated for deadly diseases and the ram lambs are neutered. So today my husband and I moved the ewes and lambs about a kilometre down the stocklane from where they were grazing.
It was warm and some of the lambs were only a week old, one indeed was born last night. So a kilometre was like walking a million miles. The recently birthed lamb struggled, his mum constantly shepherding him, with the remains of the afterbirth not fully expelled. So we walked them all terribly slowly.
It’s a noisy business, because the ewes and lambs loose each other. Some bounce ahead, some dawdle and some squeeze through the fences into other paddocks and we have to fetch them. But eventually, with the stragglers in the trailer, we have them all in the farmyard where they can mother-up again overnight, feed, the ewes can water and eat the fresh spring grass and all will be well for tomorrow when the lambs will be removed from their mums for a couple of hours. 
The noise at that point is excruciating but once all is done, the way those mums pick up their babies again amongst a couple of hundred other bubs is amazing.
Whilst my husband organised the shearing shed and set the gates in the yards, I took my horse to the barn and we spent quality time stripping out his winter coat. There’s still a lot to go and I’m waiting for a calm warm day to wash him which will be the finishing touch. 
But when I’d finished today, there was a carpet of hair on the straw and I just know it will be re-cycled by the birds who live in the barn as they make their nests. Already the swallows have fashioned horse-tail hair around the outside of their nest on the back porch.
So that’s what this writer does, amongst a million diverse other things, when she doesn’t write. But it’s all grist to the mill. Experiences stored, images remembered.
Oh my…. you just squeezed my heart. Farm? Lambs? Horse?… My childhood! My future dreams! Ha!
In my opinion, there could be no better reason to be ripped away from your WIP for a day. I’m officially jealous.
PS – What’s the horse’s name? I covet him…
Hi Aimee,
Husband and self have a woolgrowing and cropping property, hence lambs. Coming into summer, so very busy with animal husbandry. Horse is called Spot (not very original) and as you can see, is an Appaloosa. He’s 28 years old and has severe arthritis in the hips and rear spine and has navicular disease in the near fore, so he isn’t ridden anymore, but he and I have had some wonderful times and I owe him a good life.
We won lots of ribbons at shows and he was my endurance horse for a short while and did very well despite his unsuitability (Arabs are the best) but my best times have been hacking in the bush or on the beaches. He’s a good boy!
These photos are lovely. I suppose you are just coming upon spring and summer now?
It’s starting to get cold around here. 4 moths ago, I wondered how I’d never wanted to be cold again. But we had a tough summer. And how I’m craving a nice, crisp autumn.
Someday, I want to know what Christmas feels like in the summer.
Hi TFI, good to have you here. Yes, it’s spring. Very odd weather. Sunday it was 24 degrees, this Saturday they are forecasting snow down to 300metres which makes the whole lamb-marking thing quite traumatic. We had another set of twins born last night and here we were thinking lambing was over.
I don’t mind winter, it’s never freezing here in Australia and we are as far south as you can get before you hit Antarctic waters. But it is a delicious temperate climate with warm summers and believe it or not we are extremely dry.
Christmas in summer would be odd for those who have never had it, but to us it’s the norm. I should do a post about I suspect.
We eat a traditional Christmas Dinner at about 1.30-2 in the afternoon and then all sleep or walk on the beach. It can be very warm or merely mild. Gradually a lot of folk are changing from the traditional dinner to fresh seafoods and salads. What we find odd is the whole commercial thing of pretend snow on the Christmas tree or robins, snow and quaint old-fashioned English scenes that have no bearing on our contemporary lives. But like any tradition, it is entrenched and already the shops are displaying cards and wrapping. Those of us with friends and family overseas must get parcels in the post early to make sure they are delivered on time. I can’t bear to think of Christmas shopping yet!
And seeing as how you are so far south, you must get long days during the Christmas season too?
I had never thought about the idea of a traditional Christmas dinner in mid-summer, but that sounds awful. All that heavy greasy food is great when you need to fatten up for the cold, but in the heat??!!
We’ve had great luck with snow – well, a moderate amount of snow on Christmas day, at least – these last two years. And somehow the idea of winter jackets just brings in the festive atmosphere.
I didn’t get to live in a place with snow until I was in my twenties. But since then, I have learnt how important the idea of a midwinter festival must have been to ancient cultures of the north. However, all that also makes January terribly depressing. It’s still grey, cold and miserable. And there’s nothing to celebrate. Until red and pink hearts take over everything in February.