As I'm about to enter my 6th week living and working in town, I am still wondering what the hell made me decide to do this. I've had the worst day at work so far on Friday and I topped it off by backing the truck into a concrete block while reversing it up under the hopper. I got belted with a magazine by a friend who co-manages a station as she was disappointed that due to taking on my new job, I wasn't able to work for her for the last three weeks and she had to deal with backpackers and a friend who has alot of trouble concentrating on the job at hand. And to be honest I was disappointed myself in being too impatient waiting for more station work. Three weeks work doing something I love and I missed out because I went and got myself a town job.
But on the plus side, yesterday I headed out to the station where my cattle are agisted and worked there for the day processing cattle. The cattle there are being trapped, not choppered. So far only 11 of my heifers have come in. There's another four out there wandering around the paddock somewhere and it might be another week before they come in. But the 11 that have come in, 8 of those are pregnant which makes me happy and excited at the same time. Of the three that aren't pregnant, only one I'm not disappointed about because she's already a proven breeder and she would have still been recovering from the calf she has already provided with me when the bulls were in their paddock. As for the other two though, their futures are uncertain. The owner of the station is trying to push for me to sell them and purchase as replacements two of another agisters heifers that have been pregnancy tested in calf. As it took me five years to acheive my goal of my own breeder herd, I am reluctant to let go of the two unpregnant heifers and wish give them a second chance (or third, or fourth, or fifth...). In other words, I'm not about to let go of them in a hurry BUT that's not to say that I wouldn't buy the other heifers available to me to make up for it.
Leaving the station at the end of the day I felt happy that I was able to come out and help and sticky beak at my cattle. I was exhausted from beginning my day at 3:30am, driving an hour and a half to get to the station, running around up and down the race and in the back yards all day, helping out with other little odd jobs and eventually driving all the way back to town again. The drive back to town was made easier by the rain. Before I left the station it suddenly came in cool and windy and 15km down the road was evidence of a good dumping. I love the rain and it topped off a good day. And might I add it was an early rain being only the beginning of October.
When I got back I took my boots off at the door leaving little piles of yard dirt on the front verandah and the same when I exchanged jeans for shorts inside my room! I was head to toe in dust and felt satiatingly heavy from the work and the grime. When I looked at my face in the mirror I couldn't believe I left the station without having a bit of a scrub first! All you could see was the whites of my eyes!
And my day didn't end there, before I knew I was invited to a 21st party next door of a guy I had never even seen, let alone met before. I managed to hold enough energy to drink half a beer and thankfully the woman I live with said "When I finish my wine we'll go home ay?" though at the same time I was looking at the pool and how inviting it was. When she finished her wine we went home after she said goodbye to all these people who, for herself, had been strangers only hours before.
Even though falling asleep as I was was very appealing, I dragged my butt to the shower and washed off the remnants of the cattle yards and finally I hit the sack at 9:30pm. An 18hr day? I was out like a light!
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