Winter hands

The thing about living on a farm is there is a lot of dirt. The thing about a lot of dirt is you wash your hands a lot. The thing about washing your hands a lot in winter is that they are always cold and rarely fully dry. This leads to little shallow cracks on the sides of my forefingers and thumbs which occasionally deepen so that they bleed and hurt. These cracks also get filled with the previously mentioned dirt and sometimes blue food dye so they show up more easily.

I have asked around and the only way to get rid of these little cracks is heaps of moisturizer so I sit at night rubbing huge quantities into my hands, waiting for it to soak in, then rubbing more in. This helps prevent the deeper, painful cracks but I still have not yet gotten rid of the shallow, dirty ones.

weather

I live in a weather bubble. Weather bubbles are a strange phenomenon and don't only happen on mountains. Newcastle Uni is in a weather bubble and it is built on a swamp.

A weather bubble is a small area that indulges in it's own weather patterns without reference to nearby towns or weather predictions. In Warwick it can be sunny and slightly windy, while here it can be rain and howling gale. Even Killarney, which is just down the road, gets different weather to us most of the time.

Contrary cats

I am a dog person. I like cats well enough, but I am a dog person. Romeo, the indoor cat, is a contrary beast who sits on my lap over anybody elses. I respond by moving my hands away from him and telling him to go away and sit on somebody else's lap. He takes this as an invitation to lie down and generally make himself comfortable then purrs a funny squeaky purr and, if he is really happy, he dribbles on me.

My theory that cats go to the one who doesn't want them was confirmed the other night when he came stalking into the room where about 5 of us were watching tv. I called him and coaxed him to get onto my lap and he looked away from me in disdain and began to look for someone else to sit on. I said "YES!! fooled you cat." and he turned back and jumped onto my lap and proceeded to go through the lie-down squeak dribble routine.

Cats are Contrary

Social/Loner

I am alone here for the next 5 days and I am a little worried about how I will fill my time and not become too lonely or depressed. I am a person who thrives on social interaction, this means that beach/inland missions and camps and things are wonderful to me. However, there is something special, and occasionally novel, about spending time entirely alone.

Good bits about being alone:

1) you can do things at your own pace and your own way. 2) you can cook food you like and if it is no good, nobody else needs to know. 3) you can read in peace or watch the movies you like without others interrupting. 4) I have noticed I am more productive when left alone.

Unfortunately, this only lasts till the novelty wears off, then I become lethargic, lonely and uninspired and generally useless.

I am a social person, but I like the novelty of alone time.

Dressing the cat

The other day, after the younger kids had gone to bed, the eldest and I dressed up their incredibly patient and long suffering cat. I will now see if I can add photo's to this post and show you the result.

Then there was this one

No animals were harmed during this entertaining passtime. Not even a scratch.

Cleaning teeth

My mum taught us all to clean our teeth regularly. A common conversation in our house when we were little ran like this:

Mum "time to clean teeth"

Me " No I don't want to" (teeth cleaning leads instantly to bedtime, that is worth putting off where possible)

Mum "You can come and clean your teeth or you can go to bed now with furry teeth"

I would then run to clean my teeth. This was a double threat to me, firstly cleaning teeth put off bedtime for a few more minutes so it was worth it, but secondly, the idea of teeth growing fur was horrifying to me and obviously a toothbrush prevented this.

Now, as I sit here post breakfast and pre teeth cleaning, I feel utterly revolting and unclean because my mouth isn't done. For some people it is showers to feel ready, for me it is cleaning teeth.

helpful animals

Yesterday I had to wash Bluey, the old grey plodder pony. We have lovely red dirt that shows up beautifully on white ponies so I washed his legs and neck and tail, the bits that stick out from his rug. This morning He had another bath because he spent last night pooping then lying in it (he only does this when we need him to stay clean) so he had big green patches on his legs and tummy. Then when we went to load him up on the float he had red patches on his legs where he lay down in the mud again.

Like children, horses know the opportune moment.

Music

I have CD's to listen to while I am working in the house. Happily there is a 3 disk CD player so it takes a while for the songs to repeat themselves. I have recently begun to notice though that I can't get into "work-mode" until the music is on. If I don't turn it on, I wander around knowing what I need to do but lacking the motivation to get it done.

This is not a bad thing, music you can sing along to makes most things more enjoyable, plus I know I am tired or depressed if I don't sing along. Also turning on music now acts as an on button for functioning.

Work that is fun

Some jobs are fun in a satisfying way, I like these and I call them Novelty Jobs. Now for some people tidying up and sweeping are novelty jobs, for others these are everyday depressing jobs, they are different for every person. I define an Novelty Job as one not done very often, usually time consuming, and extremely satisfying at the difference made. Cleaning windows is one of these jobs.

Today, I spent 2 hours with a pressure hose cleaning the green slimy mossy stuff off the house. When I say house, I mean carport because that is all I managed to get done. This job has all the elements of a fun Novelty Job that I like including water, tiring and immediately clear what has been achieved. Apparently the green shade cloth was actually creamy white and it was a lot like colouring in to get it like that. Then, while doing the guttering, I was standing in the artificial drizzle caused by the rebound and got quite damp, then there was a squirt coming out of a random point in the hose and was slowly soaking my jeans while I was not watching.

Extremely satisfying, wet and tiring and I had to have a shower to get the green stuff out of my hair and clothes.

I wanted to take before and after shots Jess but I couldn't find my camera.

Ironing tv

We have pay tv here, the point of which I can't tell, and the remote control thing I can't drive. When I first got here I tried to use that pay tv thingy to watch while ironing, but I found I spent half my time trying to find a show I wanted to watch.

I soon gave up and began trying dvd's, this was heaps better but I found that if I had not seen it before or if it was an interesting one I would cease my work and stare at it.

Then I discovered musicals, these are best because you can sing along without needing to actually watch it, you can skip to the good bits and songs you like if there is not much washing, and if you miss a bit you can skip back.

My favourite and most watched musicals at the moment are Oliver, Annie and embarrassingly enough, High School Musical. I have watched Annie countless times but couldn't tell you the plot, and same with HSM. Oliver I saw when I was little so I know the story.

Cats again

Romeo is a big, gorgeous inside cat. His view of people, as I discovered today though I have suspected for a while, is that they are here purely for his convenience and entertainment. Yesterday I was lying on a lounge chair reading James Herriot and was completely absorbed so that when Romeo jumped up onto my stomach I nearly fell off the chair in shock.

After completing his usual poking and prodding of my stomach he finally fell asleep with his head up against my chin. I continued reading until I was tired and I put down my book and began to doze off only to be woken up minutes later by Romeo whacking my face twice with his paw in a bungled attempt at catching a fly. We settled back down and he went back to sleep and we were comfortable until, once again the fly interrupted his slumbers and he hit me on the face again.

Today, in the afternoon, he came out from wherever he had been sleeping and walked around my ankles and lay down just where I wanted to walk in a clear indication he wanted something. Since he already had food, I concluded that he wanted his human cushion to lay down obediently on a chair so he could once more sleep in comfort.

Puppies and mops

We have a new puppy where I live, she is about 14 weeks old now and a is Chocolate Labrador. Because of the almost constant rain, the mud comes into the house, and especially the laundry, with a constancy that is irritating. I decided to quickly mop out the muddy dog and people prints from the laundry where is shows up on the white tiles and Friday the puppy joined in. As I mopped back and forth, Friday raced about trying to catch the mop as it swooshed past trying to mop up the never ending puppy prints being created as I mopped and she chased.

House Work is Ecclesiastical

Anyone who has a house to look after will already know this. Mark Driscoll, in his Ecclesiastes sermon series, mentioned that housework is circular and never ending, just like the writer of Ecclesiastes says life is.

This truth, while in theory true, is not really grasped until you sweep the same floor every day and the only change is the size of the pile, wash the dishes every day and the only difference is the amount. The list goes on but it is depressing.

Housework is Ecclesiastical.

Horse and rain

Where I live there are horses. These horses need to stay warmish and dry and things or they will grow winter hair and be shaggy looking for competitions and things. One day, it was about 3 o clock so a not unreasonable time for them to go to bed anyway and it began to rain those big, singular blops that promise a lot of wetness in the near future. I deemed it prudent to go and bring in the horses out of the rain before they got wet.

I got the two white ones in while they were still dry enough to not need change of rugs. I went to catch Choice and usually she is pretty good except for the occasional need to try to assert authority. All horses and children do this and I am fine with it and I know how to deal with it. What was irritating was that she chose the day it was pouring down so hard I could barely see and I was soaked in seconds while she trotted cheerfully about, cantering gaily past when I got too close.

It was enjoyable in a twisted, walking in the rain, kind of way.

Fixing the internet

Yay. So I had difficulties accessing my blog to post things from my computer. I could do it from other peoples computers but that is annoying. I waited a long time then tried today and it worked (don't know why) turns out that time and sticky tape really does fix all things :)

No I did NOT use sticky tape on the problem since I could not see where to apply it.