cooking dinner

On Tuesday I needed to make dinner since people would not get back till 6 at the earliest. There were what looked like beef strips thawing to go in the slow cooker and when it came to the time to put them in it turned out to be mince meat. I deliberated what to do and decided to make a lasagne because I could.

I fully intended to check that all the ingredients for the layers were there BEFORE I started but forgot until the mince was cooked. I looked and there were only 3 sheets of lasagne pasta stuff left so I decided to try my hand at pasta making (which I have done before) and spent a happy half hour making a mess and some pasta successfully (approx. 1/2 a cup of plain flour to 1 egg makes a hard ball which you roll out) This is easier with a pasta roller but I didn't have one of those so I used a glass as a rolling pin. It worked and lasagne succesfully completed in spite of a slight drama with the white sauce.

Red Light Green Light

I reckon that whoever it was who invented the little kids game red light green light must have lived on a farm. I think this because the other day I was walking up the paddock and encountered a group of about 50 cattle. I turned and headed home and 50 cows followed some 30 metres behind coughing and grunting and thundering through the grass. I turned around and stopped and then group of bovine stalkers came to a halt and stared at me until I continued my walk. This scene repeated itself several times before reaching the house and I had time to reflect that a) cows are not subtle, though they do have an air of "who me? I don't know what you mean by following you, I was just heading this way anyway" and b) whoever invented red light green light must have been stalked by cows at some point.

Skipping

I am an energetic, generally cheerful person. This shows itself in a tendancy to laugh in a lot of circumstances and to skip and run places when I feel walking is slow or boring. This in turn brings out more energy and cheerfulness and the cycle continues.

So far this has never been cause for comment by my friends and acquaintances but now, living in a small town and working for a well known family, this has become a cause for discussion among people I have never met. My boss said to me that someone she works with and who I wouldn't know from Adam, told her he had seen her "skipping nanny". I then decided to pretend to be a grown up and stop skipping and running everywhere. This lasted 4 days.

I walked places, I tried to not laugh ALL the time, I generally tried t be sensible, to see if being a grown up was worth it. I think that in some situations, pretending to be a grown up is called for but I will still run and skip when I am happy, however silly it looks.

going out

I live on a farm right now and usually this has little to do with me except for the huge quantities of mud and cows. Sometimes, when going out though, this does effect me. If the blokes are doing something blokey to the cows, like branding them, then they shut them in the narrow driveway paddock to get them into the cattle yards. This means that, because it is at the bottom of the driveway, you can't see this obstacle as you cheerfully get into your car having left sufficient time to travel and arrive at your destination.

I got into my car, knowing it took 15 minutes to get to where I was going and headed off down the hill. as I approached the bottom of the driveway, there loomed out of the fog a double gate that was closed and about 20 cows on the other side, clearly waiting for an opportunity to escape. I was now faced with a question. Do I really want to go out?(yes) Can I turn my car around anyway? (not really).

Opening the gates is easy, you just undo the chain and let gravity do its thing. Unfortunately from that point onwards, time, gravity and cows work against you. The cows know that after opening the gate, there is a fair period of time in which you must get into your car and drive through, get out and shut the gate. However quickly you do this, there is ample time for one or more cows to leave the muddy driveway and run free in the green pastures beyond.

I got out of the car and, after considering my position and planning my procedures, I went running down the hill at the cows, waving my arms and yelling. This had the desired effect of scaring the cows and they ran away some 50 metres. I ran back up the hill, opened the gate, drove through and then jumped out of the car to close the gate. Because it is a double gate, it is a much easier process with two people because you go and get one gate, then you let it go to get the other gate and it swings happily open again. The only way to get them shut is to grab one gate, push as hard as you can up the hill then run through 6 inch deep mud, (pre-churned by 200 upset cows) hoping you don't slip over, grab the other gate and get back in time to catch the first gate as it comes back past.

Success in the end, no cows escaped, and I got to my destination 15 minutes late.

Cats

I have never had a blog before so I am just going to launch in.

I have never lived with an inside cat before, but I am noticing, now that I am, that they make jobs and activities... if not easier, then certainly more interesting.

Who knew that folding washing would be made challenging by a cat chewing, chasing and lying on whatever you are folding. Who knew that a cats favourite place to lie down is on a computer keyboard, but only when it is in use. Who knew that, while a cat won't walk over dirty washing with her dirty feet, she will find the ONE white shirt in the basket of clean wet washing to cover in footprints.

I am a dog person but right now I have a cat helping me with my typing by sticking his head under my hand every few seconds. I think I will remain a dog person.