Photo for the day for Monday

Here is a photo of the fog in the morning's here, this is about 8.00am the fog

finally clears away about 9.30

Photo of the day for Sunday

Murray and 2 of his boys (Nathan and Ben) working in the yards.

Murray that is the boys were overseeing!

Photo of the day for Saturday

Shannon having a break!

Photo of the day for Thursday

Here is the boy's after they completed their fire extinguisher course.

Photo of the day for Wednesday

Early morning the men are waiting for the rest of the horses to be brought in
so they can saddle up and go mustering.

Photo of the day for Sunday

Here is another photo of Darcy branding, I just love the fish eye effect.

Photo of the day for Saturday

Here we have Jay after a few long hours in the yard.

Photo of the day for Friday

Well 2 actually! The above photo is the number brand about to branded onto
the hide. It is a 0 brand - meaning the calves that are branded with a 0 are
born and branded in 2010. The below photo is the brand as it hits the hide.
The brand is only placed on the hide for a matter of seconds, but lasts on
the hide for the rest of their lives.

Photo of the day for Thursday

This is Darcy Hockey, who is being taught by John how to brand.
Jay is holding the calfs leg so it doesn't kick around.
This shot was using my fish eye lens.

Photo of the day for Tuesday

Todays photo is of the finches that nest in my office roof. You hear them
out there all day but you have to be so quick to catch them. They are so
cute. I have another pair that are nesting in my satellite dish as well, well
under my dish were the post bolts onto it. Should not be far off for some little
chicks soon.

Photo of the day...

Sunday I said I was thinking of doing a photo a day, sorta a photo journey
of bits and pieces on the station or elsewhere that I have seen or done.
So here is Monday's shot.

This is Mary our cook's offsider, Mary is studying hospitality with us this
year and it is her second year with us here at the station. Mary loves
showing her grandchildren off to me every chance she gets, so she bought
Alex over to say gidday. He is certainly in a good paddock this one.

Storm clouds moving in.

This is what the sky looked at early in the week, this is standing on the
verandah of my office looking across at the men's quarters.

This is off to the left of the top shot overlooking Kelvins cabin.

This one is off to the right looking across the training centre and kitchen,

that's Judy walking across in front, trying to pretend I'm actually not

getting her in the shot.....sorry definatly there Judy. It all looks pretty

wicked, it actually poured for a couple of hours then drizzled all night.

I think we got a couple of inches that night.

The school room.

I promised my sister that I would post a picture of the curtains and
cushions for the school room. When they were here in December
we gave it a big clean out, before the new governess started.
We pulled absolutly everything out of the room. You wouldn't believe
the things we found behind stuff in there. Dead frog's, spiders
and lots and lots of dust.
We scrubbed the walls and the floors, I actually mopped the floor
6 times and the water was still coming up dirty. The stainless
steel sinks in there were disgusting and with a bit of elbow
grease over 2 days I got them up sparkling, they actually
looked brand new. It goes to show if your willing to put a
bit of work in and have a bit of pride in your home/work
place how great you can have it looking.
We pulled the 2 long trellis tables out that were in there
and put together 3 trapezium tables, 2 for the 3 kids and
one for the tutor. We shifted the computer (we have 2 now)
onto the high bench and put some old stools in there.
I grabbed some really colourful fabric to brighten the room up
and made some curtains and some cushions for the stools.
The difference in this room is unbelievable and I am so
dissapointed we didn't take some before and after shots.



This is not the biggest room, it is actually an ex laundry/ablution block
for a caravan park. I think it's about 3 x 3. I finally talked John into
puttting the school room into here as the only other option was our house
and I really didn't want everyone traipsing in and out of the house,
especially if there was a chance of other kids being taught in the school
room (which happened this year) so I really didn'twant it in the house.
So with 3 kids and 1 teacher it is a tight fit, but everyone makes it work
which when you live on a station is part of life - making it work with
what you've got!

Do you like the red tin on the table. It's great I got it from Spotlight
and I think it's actually for bbq's to put your cutlery etc in. Pencils fit
in a couple, felts in a couple, then one holds pens, pencils etc, one holds
rulers, scissors and glue stick and the last one I bent a cardboard piece
and put in so it's raised and the rubbers are in there where they can
easily get to them. I think next trip to Darwin I need to grab a couple
for my craft room.....
Anyway enough of my dribbling on, hope everyone has a great day!
Soon to be a wet one here.

History in the making......

Had to take a photo of this as it is Hodgson History in the making. We had
the first lot of cattle through the new yards a couple of weeks ago, so when
the chopper finished yarding up I thought I'd grab the oppurtunity to go up
and get some shots.
John spent hours designing this yard and drawing it all up. We had Taylor's
contracting come in and build it and it was all finished about October last
year, all we had left to do was run the water from the station across.
Well I gotta say all were rapt in it, the cattle yarded really well and
everyone said that the cattle ran through the yards without a problem.

Here is a close up.

Here's Levi on top of the 5 way draft. Takes a bit of getting used to but

it makes things so much quicker when you haven't got cows chasing you

up the fence all the time.

So that's the new Hodgson yard full of cattle, I think back in my blog I

posted a shot from the air when they were just finished (I'll have to go

back and look) but the difference in the country between then and now

is so different, it is great what a bit of rain does.

Mornin at the trough!

I saw the horses standing at the trough early one morning and the light over
them was fantastic, so I wanted to take a photo, so of course my camera was
at the office. I grabbed Johns and it was going spasticl, look at what
it did with the 2 photo's I took above.

I ended up cropping them to make 2 different shots, but looking at the 2
shots you wouldn't think they were minutes apart, goes to show how
quick the sun moves. I love the colour in the one below, it was the first I
took.

Look at this for a Toad

This toad is not dead we just rolled him on his back to get a photo!
The kids cleaned the garden shed out on the holidays and he was inside.
He would have to be the fattest toad we have ever seen!

I tried to put this Rid bottle beside him so you could get an idea of how
big he was..............

Afternoon at Bella Glen

I had a friend come out and visit for a few days on the holidays and
so did Jay, so I thought we would do a run out to Bellla Glen so I
could show Margaret and take the boys for a swim. The weather
had already cooled up so Margaret and I gave it a miss, and I
got the camera out to get a few shots. which was great, of course
the boys did a bit of hamming up for the camera.
This is the tree thy all climb up to either swing off or jump off.

Mmmm is that a flying fox, oh wait a minute that's Jay.

Is that 3 Monkey's in a tree?
Yah know what? I think it is..........

Going....................

Gone!

This one is Lane Hockey

watching on.....

There is no way he

was going in after

he saw the crocs in

the water when we arrived!

Luckily they were only little

freshies, I wasn't quite sick

of my boys at this stage

that I would feed

them to the crocs!

This is Margaret Hyndman

watching on.

Todd with his fluro yellow singlet and cowboy hat.

Why so worried Jay?

This photo so reminds me of his father........

Give us a smile Jay!

Todd contemplating.

The Boys Hamming It Up

Jay deep in thought......

Todd deep in thought............

Todd and Jayden deep in thought......

(nice photo Todd)

and my favourite....

They say Todd that a picture tells a

1000 words.........................

Another week done and dusted...

Wow what a week!

Thank god it's finally over. We have been full on mustering this week.
We had 42 decks of cattle arrive that we purchased, and because of the
rest of the staff doing training, John, Murray, Jay, myself and 2 other
fellas were the only ones left to unload, read and crossbrand. What a
day. Usually this is done by about 12 fella's so it was a long and tedious
one. I was on the NLIS (National Livestock Identification Services ?I think
it's services) reader, reading their ear tags, on the slide gate and pushing
them up the crush. But I gotta admit most days I do in the yards now
are usually 1/2 days when we are branding.
We were in the yard from 5.30 in the morning until 6 at night, and I
was exhausted! I found muscles I didn't know I had. And when those
cows charge, I just can't get up those rails like I used to. LOL

Here's a couple of pics from the week.

Lancen Joshua in the lead while we turn out.

This is the next day, we mustered a couple of paddocks of cows and heifers
that we sold for an export ship going to Indonesia. This is the chopper at work.

This is the chopper landing to fuel up.

I just had to put this photo in. Lyn and I were watching them bring the cows through the gate along the road and this calf got through the wire onto the wrong side of the fence. The men didn't realise and kept trying to chase the cow back into the mob, and she was having none of it, there was no way she was leaving without her calf. The calf finally scrambled through the fence and off they trotted back to the rest of the mob.

It was a real Ohhhh moment! What a great mum.

So anyway the trucks finally headed off with the sale cattle a couple of hours ago. John's headed off to check on some weaners, Jay's practising his guitar and I thought I should catch up on my blog. I've had no time to stamp, but do have a couple of cards I made a week or so ago that I am yet to post, so will get them up over the next few days.

Have had to cook for heaps of people over the last couple of weeks, don't you just get tired of it, especially when you work all day then have to come home and cook for strangers. All lovely people and no trouble, just sometimes you like to come home and just be able to veg, have a shower and put your jarmies on if you feel like it, or just cook something really simple.

Tonight will be the first time we will have the house to ourselves in a long time and I'm thinking.....Suimin! No I couldn't do that to my family LOL, I have some yummy jew fish defrosted. Mmmmmm, anyway better head off and try to do something with it.

TFL

luv, Kristy

Oh Nuts!

Well I've been following a blog called The Pioneer Woman for
some time now, and it's really worth checking out, Ree who's blog it is has
the most wicked sense of humour and takes the most beautiful photos
and also has some fabulous recipes on there, so go and have a look.

Anyway back to the story, I was checking out one of her posts where she
is talking about calf nuts, lovely thing to be talking about, but a fact of life
on the land, that if you don't want all of your boy calves to grow up to be
bulls the calves have to be ....you know!......castrated.

Looking at Ree's photo's all of her balls are hairy, so I'm not sure how
it's done over there, they must cut the whole thing out, hair and all.

Here most of the time the dogs are sitting next to the cradle with their
mouths open hoping to catch a morsel, but the last
couple of times the men have saved them for tea....
Mmmm Bush Oysters they call them in Australia, and I have to admit
as kids we quite often cooked them in the fire or on the branding
furnace, but these days I can think of better things to eat. With
the last lot of branding I think they saved about 200. We do it a bit
different to Ree's family as we don't count the balls at the end to see
how many we did, we usually have someone marking as they go
through as we have both heifers and bulls going through the calf
cradle at the same time, as we also vaccinate, earmark and brand
and dehorn and tag and if they are bulls cut as they are going
through the cradle.

We had a visit from our Adelaide training team when the branding
was finished and Angela who is a real city girl was facinated to see
our bush oysters. Of course John had to hand her a couple of big ones.
I should have taken a photo of the big dish full.

Now Angela can blame this one on me. I just had to do a pretend like you
are eating them shot. What a sport, hey!

Mmmmmm yummy.

Anyway check back tomorrow I've got another card to share.

Cheers,

Kristy

April Fools!

Well here is the crew ready to head out mustering, this is the first on and
we will start another 5 after Easter.

I gotta tell you about April Fools day, it was so funny. John told all of the
fellas that Adelaide office had organised a busload of female Uni students
to drop in and camp the night and see how an aboriginal station is run.

Well you should have seen them. First thing they asked was how old would
they be? I said that they'd probably mostly be under 30. So off they went
talking and laughing and giggling between each other.
Next thing we look around and they are washing down the verandahs and
wiping tables and mowing lawns and all getting their best clothes on.
It was so funny....
John let them go all day until about 5 pm before he told them all it was
an April Fools joke. I think in some ways they were relieved as they
were all worrying about what they were going to tell their wives and
girlfriends. LOL!