Merry Second Xmas!

So if you hadn't already realised that I'm a bit odd it may come as a surprise that my family is rather odd too. My father and sister live in England while my Mum and I live in New Zealand so every so often we visit each other and this year is Dad's turn to visit us here in NZ. Since the post is so expensive we don't really send gifts to each other very often and if we do they are usually small. When we travel however all bets are off and we carry whatever will fit in a suitcase to give to each other. This meant that we knew Dad would be arriving with quite a few gifts for us which are always labeled as 'belated bday/christmas' presents so we decided why not have a little christmas to celebrate his arrival and enjoy our gifts.
We set the date for the Saturday after Dad arrived so that he could have a few days to settle in and wrap gifts before the big day! We had bought a few little things and put them under the tree ready and when Saturday rolled around we had quite a haul to open.

I got books! 9 Terry Pratchetts and a recipe book written by Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall and 4 dvds of his too. My sister drew me an A4 picture which I love and also gave me a new duvet set which has deer on it. I haven't set it up yet but when I do I'll be sure to include a photo. I got a few other little bits and bobs too but I won't bore you.
After all our present opening we went into town to check out the market where I bought a cornish pasty for breakfast. I've been eyeing them up for the last 3 years but since they never advertise the price I've never actually bought one. I decided though that since it was xmas I could treat myself but cripes I got a shock when she told me the price. $6! For a pasty! It was nice but I didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped, the price was a bit of a sting. Oh well at least now I have tried one and won't need to try one again.

While we were in town we thought it'd be nice to pop along to one of the local schools as it was having a gala that had promised to be quite big. They had advertised a spinning Jenny which I had never heard of and since we share a name I wanted to see what it was and how it worked. As it turns out you 'buy' a paddle with a number on it and then the guy spins the wheel and if your number wins then you get the prize pack. I bought a paddle just to say that I've given it a go and of course I lost. I never seem to do very well with anything that involves luck but I don't have high expectations so it's never much of a let down.

For dinner I had planned a rather ridiculous fancy menu but eventually cut it down to just fish dinner and cake. The cake I made myself, vanilla cake with lemon butter icing and decorated with malteasers and chocolate fingers. It was pretty good if I do say so myself.
The fish was the snapper that my cousin gave me a while ago, baked whole with lemon, butter and herbs. It was a rather simple dinner but nice none the less and a good way to round out the day.

Not Your Normal Work Day

Tuesday was take the dog to work day! I had decided over the weekend that there was little else I could do in Troy's garden to improve matters without first weed spraying all the bricks and paths. I always figure that it doesn't matter how good the flowers look if the path to them is a mess. So first thing Tuesday morning I went round, loaded Rush onto the ute so that he was out the way and soaked that place with a good strong solution of weed killer. 

 

Now anyone with any sense should realise that poison and pets aren't a great mix but the general consensus around here is that so long as pets are away from the area for two hours or so and don't eat the plant material they should be fine. Hence why Rush came to work for the day! I had to have him tied up for most of the day but he was attached to a 3 metre long rope which meant he still had a bit of freedom and I let him off when I could.

It's really quite liberating having a job that is so flexible and although it wouldn't be ideal taking Rush to work with us everyday it seemed to go better than I hoped. He got a bit of exercise, got to meet a few people and sniff his way around the lawns we were doing so I think he enjoyed himself and I even took him to the river for a swim at lunchtime.

Before we dropped him home I bought him a huge bone from the local pet shop as a blatant distraction in the hopes that he won't feel the need to chew the foliage in his garden and it also counted as his wages for his first honest days work!

 

When we got home there was a message to say that our home kill sausages and pork joints were ready so we jumped back in the truck to collect it. Along the way a bumblebee managed to kamikaze it's way into the ute and onto Mum's lap which wouldn't be a big deal apart from the fact that she is deathly afraid of them and was operating a 2 tonne vehicle at the time. Luckily it didn't sting her on impact or I think we would have ended up in the ditch. I froze in horror for a moment trying to decide whether to rid mum of the bee or make a grab for the steering wheel but Mum seemed to be staying on course so I grabbed a cloth, scooped up the bee and shook it clear outside the window. Terror over (or so we thought) we continued on our way.

Just as we turned into the village where the butcher lives Mum gave a squeal and stopped the truck in the middle of the road. Again, luckily, we were on a quiet country lane. Turns out the stinger from the bee had been on her neck and as we turned it stung her. I dived out and ran around to her side of the ute and on the door where she had flicked it was the bum end of the bee (which is disgusting, just so you know) I searched her shoulder and top to make sure there wasn't a second bee and then made her get out so I could check the seat and floor and get rid of the bum end. Mum was in half panic at this point because as a kid she somehow got a bumble bee trapped in her armpit and it stung her repeatedly so she was waiting for the extra stings.

Once back in the truck I delved into our first aid kit (the glove box) and used the witch hazel spray on her neck. It doesn't really do much but it's cooling and it helps mentally.

After that we were finally able to go see the butcher and collect our small order of 80 kgs of meat! We now have two chest freezers full to the brim with sausages, pork patties, pork roasts and various other cuts. It's all amazing for the first month or so but soon enough I'll be desperate for some beef or chicken or lamb or anything that's not pork!

By the time I got back to the Waites and sorted all the animals I could hardly be bothered to feed myself. As I wandered through the garden I picked an asparagus shoot for my starter followed by a cob of corn for my main and then I grabbed an apple off the tree for dessert. This really is my favourite time of year and there's something special about being able to forage your dinner, even if it is only from a well tended veg bed. 

 

Introduction To My Life

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 5^th 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!