Back
Story
Well
I guess before I start I better tell you a few basic facts so that
you have a little perspective. I'm female, 25 and I live with my
mother who owns a lawn and garden business. The reason I still live
at home? Mum has more work than she can handle alone but not enough
to afford a full time employee. A lot of the day is spent travelling
from job to job and that would all be wasted money if she had to pay
someone to sit in the truck. That's where I come in. I literally get
paid only the hours I work which can sometimes be as little as 4 in
an 8 hour day but the incentive is that I live rent and bill free.
It's a win win for us both really as I get to keep my entire pay
cheque and she has to pay less to have a helper.
We
live in a little village called Fordell which is 14km out of the
nearest town called Wanganui which is in New Zealand. We have a
quarter acre but my Mother is very sociable and persuasive and has
managed to convince half the neighbours to allow us to use their land
for grazing which is how we are able to maintain a flock of 10 sheep.
We also have a pig pen which we rear porkers in. That means that
every 4months or so we get a new pair of pigs.
As
a side earner I do housesitting/petsitting. Which isn't always as fun
as it sounds but it's a nice money earner.
I
tend to spend a lot of time in town with my friends and boyfriend
because as much as I love my Mum when you work and live together you
need space.
I've
been toying around with the idea of starting a blog for awhile now
mainly because almost every time I write my diary I start with 'Today
was weird/odd/strange/interesting' and it got me thinking that maybe
other people might find my accounts of an 'average' day worth a read.
Of course my diary is out of bounds for all human eyes except my own
as all my dirty dark secrets are written there. Telling my stories to
people I know isn't an option as I seem to become a babbling idiot as
soon as I have to speak face to face with someone and besides, the
people I know are too old/young/cool/busy/judgemental and/or idiotic
to appreciate the subtleties of the things that fascinate me.
So
lets just jump right in and I'll tell you about today March 5th
2015
Today
was weird..... XD
My
alarm actually woke me this morning which was the first oddity as
usually I am awake before it and just pretend to be asleep until it
goes off and forces me into reality. I padded through to the bathroom
and Kit Kat the resident cat (the owner forgot to tell me her name so
I've christened her Kit Kat) must have heard me and she started up
her morning cry which is terrible racket for an old cat to make and
amazingly loud. I gave her breakfast and she was happy for all of
about 3 seconds but then she started her war cry again and paced by
the front door. Turns out she had brought me a present, a cute little
baby bunny nice and stiff on the doormat, dead. How the hell she
caught the thing I don't know. She's so old she's all skin and bone,
moves around slow and deliberate, can't seem to see or hear me unless
I move around in front of her face and yet the old biddy can still
catch rabbits. You can't trust cats aye?!
After
telling her what a girl she was and playing with her prize for a few
minutes I got myself organised and headed out to Fordell to pick up
Mum. She was booked in for a surgery today, I won't go into details
but it was a minor procedure and she's ok. It was expected to take
about 3 hours from arrival to departure so I decided I would do a
little work in my boyfriends garden while I waited for her.
Now
to say that Troy (my boyfriend) isn't interested in gardening is the
understatement of the century. The house he owns actually has a
pretty small backyard that is almost all brick with a few bushes and
a box hedge which should be pretty easy to maintain. That of course
would require someone to actually look at it every now and then. To
be honest I'm not one of those girls that try to better a person when
I'm with them and I wouldn't even care that his garden is a shit tip
if wasn't for Rush, his dog, who we share custody of. Sort of. It's
complicated. Anyway long story short is that anything I can do to
better that dogs life you can bet I'll have a crack at. Which is how
I found myself in his backyard at 9am avoiding the dog poo and trying
to shift a few years worth of weeds and debris.
I'm
not going to say that it was most pleasant experience of my life and
I'm also not going to say that I turned it into a perfect garden. I
was there for 3 hours and I got a truck load of weeds and tree
trimmings out of there but I'm far from happy. The down side to being
a gardener as your day job is that you have high standards, you have
to, people are paying you to take care of the details and do a good
job. The problem arises when you do a job like Troy's yard which is
all unpaid and has no clear objective. Where to start? How much to
remove at once? Do you focus on one area or do a bit of everything?
The
best part for me about doing Troy's yard though is that he literally
doesn't know and/or care what's out there. So for example, I hate
roses. Oh sure the flowers are pretty enough when they are safely in
a vase and dethorned and at a distance but working in a garden full
of rose bushes is a nightmare. The thorns grab your clothes, hair,
gloves and skin and any cuts or grazes sting for a day or more after.
The roses in Troy's yard haven't been tended for probably half a
decade and I swear the thorns are bigger than the flowers. Whenever I
have to work with roses I wish that I could just cut them at the base
and at Troy's I get to do what I like. So those poor ancient rose
bushes? I'm sorry but it's death row for you.
After
taking the green waste to the dump I went and collected Mum from the
hospital and took her home. She was pretty sore so I sent her off to
bed with some painkillers and told her I would be back around 5 to
check on her. I returned to the Waites (the places I'm housesitting)
and let the chooks out the pens then, mostly to entertain myself I
decided to do something fancy for lunch. It didn't quite go to plan
though as I had been shopping the day before and had a fridge full of
delicacies that were all asking to be eaten. I ended up with a
tasting plate which had a little of , well I can't say everything
because I really did go over board with my shopping, but it had a
good selection.
After
playing with my food the sunshine called to me so I wandered outside
to laze in the sun reading for a couple of hours until I got a txt
from Mum around 4.30 telling me to go to my cousins to collect a
fish. He had been out on a boat that day and caught a nice haul of
snapper and had one gutted and descaled for us. I've put it in the
freezer for when Dad arrives when we will bake it whole.
I
helped Mum to feed out to the sheep, saw her back to bed and arranged
a time to go back tomorrow before returning to the Waites again.
I
stopped on the drive to collect pine cones and then decided to give
some apples to Mother cow in the paddock. I picked a broccoli from
the garden and fed her all the leaves too. All the chooks were
hovering around trying to get in on the action but Mother cow wasn't
keen to share. At 6.30 on the dot the chooks decided they weren't
going to get much from the paddock and all made a mad dash for the
coop so I wandered over to feed them. The bloody cheeky rooster
though decided to have a go at me for some reason, he's been fine
with me all week. I was only wearing jandals though and had visions
of a toe massacre so when he came at me the second time I whacked him
with grain bucket and that seemed to cool him off a bit. I went into
the shed where the grain is kept and managed to spill half a can over
my toes and the floor which got the hens all excited and again my
poor toes were in danger of being pecked. Luckily for me the hens are
rather more friendly than the rooster and they were very polite about
clearing up the grain. This did mean though that I was stuck in the
shed for 5 minutes standing awkwardly whilst anxiously watching my
feet... I'm telling you my life is not normal.
After
all the excitement of the day I couldn't even be bothered to make
myself dinner so I sat in front of the tv watching Top Gear and ate
crisps, crackers, lollies and a small cheesecake. Not the healthiest
or most satisfying of dinner but it filled a hole.
The
last odd thing of the day? Finally making myself sit down and start
writing and pushing through to write this much. Although perhaps it
should have been shorter!
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