I head back to work tomorrow and a heatwave beckons with temperatures heading into the high 30s and 40s for most of the week. This may prove to be a challenging week for me on the farm with this kind of forecast. I joke a lot about the farm being dark and full of terrors, but I do find it challenging to live in an environment when I am forced to confront things that are scary - like spiders, snakes and the ever present threat of fire. I'm totally paranoid about fire and know that living anywhere, let alone 10ks out of town on a property like ours, that we are under threat from fire. I've downloaded and filled out the fire ready planning template from the CFA, I have a bag of emergency clothing and those documents and things we might not be able to live without stashed in a cupboard closest to the front door and ready to go, should fire come near our place. Getting out isn't really the thing that worries me, just the fact of having to start again, should our house be destroyed in a summer blaze - particularly when we are just making it ours! Still, this is the nature of life in Australia I guess, and if I want to be able to gaze at Jupiter and the outline of Mount Warrenheip from my bedroom at night as I sleep with no curtain, I need to live with the challenges that also come from country life. We've done much slashing, moving of rubbish, clearing of leaf litter and as we head into the heat wave of the week ahead and the first serious fire threat of our time on the farm, we're as prepared as we can be and ready to go should the need arise. So while I stress about the week ahead we've been busy getting prepared and I've been flat out getting astonishing hay fever!
Friday morning began with going to collect Annemaree from the train station, as she'd caught the bus from Warrnambool to Ballarat and was coming to spend a couple of days on the farm. After a quick stop in town for coffee, she was up for her first lesson on how to drive the mower and then we sent her down near the hayshed to mow the grass down there as it was starting to get a bit longer.
Annemaree getting a lesson where to mow!
After an hour or so she returned claiming she'd broken the mower - an investigation showed that she'd somehow munched the rubber mat your feet are meant to sit on, better than munching your feet I guess. She then moved into the studio room (as we are now calling it) and began unpacking boxes of books and trying to get some sort of categorisation system happening. This was a job I hadn't been able, nor had time to face yet, so I was happy to let her at it! After a while the bookshelves began to take shape and we had a way forward for the rest of the unpacking.
The organised library begins to take shape (thanks Annemaree!)
While this was happening we discovered that Michael had been up early and had done all the baling, and we knew from his estimates we'd have about 300 bales to move from the paddock to the machinery shed (now the hay shed, due to our lack of machinery).
So much hay...
Rohan and I took the ute into the paddock in the late afternoon to get an idea of how many bales we could fit in - I, foolishly, approached this task without a hay fever tablet in my system and 20 bales later we had filled the ute and I was a sneezing, itching, sore throated mess. With only 280 bales to go the following day, I figured it was going to be a very long and very sneezy day!
Saturday morning and I was doubling up on hay fever tablets and getting ready for a day of bale moving. Dave and Woody arrived in the land cruiser so we could attach the trailer, we all donned long pants and shirts and headed down to the paddock to begin the move.
Woody in his hay moving overalls
After a couple of loads, it seemed like we weren't making a dint at all- it looked like it was the magic pudding of hay bales and as soon as you moved some, more appeared in their place. Then Michael rang with the good/bad news that there were in fact more than 300 bales, there were in fact, 570. Oh lord, we were going to be here for quite some time to come. By 10.30 we were all getting tired and the bales seemed to be getting heavier or I was getting weaker. Annemaree had spent the week before coming to Australia at a health farm in the Phillipines - I think she was rapidly discovering that this was a very different type of farm experience - and I think she may have been yearning for the health farm, instead of Innisfree.
Break time!
A couple of hours after lunch and we were done - all 570 bales moved and into the hay shed where they can stay dry and safe from the elements, and ready for sale or for feeding hungry animals! I, meanwhile, was covered with the most amazing rash from the hay and was basically a body made up of a red itchy rash. When I went to the chemist to get cream for it, she told me to use it sparingly, but I don't think she realised how much of my flesh was covered in this hay rash! Today most of it is gone but I have some amazing bruises in the places were the rash was most severe. Surely there is something not wise about living on a farm and moving hay when you get ridiculous hay fever and rash like this? There must be, but I guess I'm not paying attention to that!
Sunday was a slow start, unfolding our creaky limbs and claw like hands from bed and getting ready to face the day. Annemaree headed back to Hong Kong and onto London, while Rohan and I took to the paddocks with the mower and the whipper snipper in our continued clean up.
I am continually impressed by how beautiful this place is. At times, I catch myself in a moment of happiness- times that seem small and insignificant but which are those moments when I think 'yep, this is pretty good'. Today as I zoomed around the paddock on the mower and Rohan rode along beside me on the dirt bike, I was reminded again of how lucky we are. Let's hope our luck keeps up in this hot week ahead!
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