(Not the) Bees' Knees

I made an allusion recently (not to be confused with an illusion, which is what I have achieved if you think I have the slightest clue about anything website-related): an allusion to KNEES and CALVES. At the time I made the reference (written pre-branding) I thought I was being fabulously clever. 'Knee-deep in calves' I said. An orthopod's standard line, no doubt.

Har, har-de-har.

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Now before I dive headlong (another very bad pun, as you shall eventually see) into this story, I should briefly mention that I am quite lame. No, really, in a PHYSICAL sense. (You lot are so cruel sometimes). You see there was an 'incident' that involved a major collision when I was six months pregnant with Dash - an incident that left me with injuries to my right leg resembling (according to my surgeon) the outcome of a bad motorcycle accident. Yar.

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Three complete knee reconstructions later (and I'm not talking about wimpy anterior cruciate repairs, people - this was posterior cruciate with lateral corner reconstruction for those in the know. Times three.) I walk with a limp. Some days you can hardly notice it (at least that's what I tell myself) but mostly it's easy to spot. I cannot crouch, I cannot run. The blasted thing doesn't bend properly or hold steady under impact. And it would qualify as the ugliest knee in Australia quite easily - the scars criss-crossing it resembles Frankenstein's artwork. But you know, it holds me up (no mean feat) and many people endure much more than a bung knee, so I try not to whinge too much about it.

(OK, except for today. Today is a whinge-fest. Sorry.)

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Anyhoo. That's the background to this post.

(Need a coffee refill yet?)

Long-story-short: I have one crook knee.

Please note: this photo has nothing really to do with this story, except that was taken about 7 metres from the 'scene of the crime'. And it shows how babies are like narcotics, addictive and they briefly take the pain away.

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Day One of the branding went great guns - everyone took their posts in the production line and with barely a hiccup. One person bringing the calves into the race. One kid opening and shutting the race gate. A man on the branding cradle, with one operating the final race gate and undertaking castration and vaccination duties. One man on ear-tagging and marking duties. Me on tag scanning and data recording duties, with a young off-sider loading the ear-tag pliers and handing them on to the appropriate adult. One calf processed every three minutes (give or take) with little fuss. Smooth as silk, baby.

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Day Two was to be a little less smooth. Everyone was on the same jobs, but the kids were a bit distracted. They kept swapping jobs and we eventually sent them off to play nearby. Then a 10-week-old heifer came into the race. And while she was not huge, she had an attitude. Perhaps she woke up on the wrong side of the hill. Perhaps someone called her names on the walk from the paddock to the yards. We will never know. She was just cranky. Burr under the tail, cran-keeeeee.

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We (well, my brother) let this feisty little redhead out of the cradle after her treatment, and she burst forth with intent, looking for someone to take her pent-up adolescent fury out on. First in line: four working dogs tied up along the fence. Ram. Ram. Ram. Ram. She butted each til they hung back on their chains out of her reach with an 'are you kidding me, we chase YOU, you mad bitch' look on their faces. Dad looked up from his job and saw the dogs were causing a problem. So he went over to move them, not realising the degree of carnage this otherwise-sweet-looking girl-calf was wreaking. She spotted him, about-faced and ram-RAM. The little horror bowled him over, taking his legs right out from under him.

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Everything suddenly went into slow-motion. (I suspect the scene from this moment on would have taken out the final of Funniest Home Videos, had someone thought to roll the camera...). Dad has had a lot of injuries over the years, and while I (logically) realised that a calf wouldn't do enormous damage to a grown man, I couldn't watch him being hit. The other men nearby were looking the other way - watching the next calf come up the race into the branding cradle- and didn't realise what was happening just metres away.

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I think I yelled out for someone to do something as the heifer took aim over and over. No-one heard over the bellowing of the waiting calves. Then, by magic, I was out there, beside Dad, wielding my blue clipboard folder, yelling at the calf and belting it over the head to STOP. Even as I did it, I realised how ludicrous it was. Like a blue clipboard folder was the weapon of the century.

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The calf stopped her assault on Dad alright. (Can you feel what is about to happen next? I knew, but there was little I could do about it. Lord knows I couldn't move fast enough to avoid it.) She looked up, hesitated about 0.002 seconds, and them erupted. At me. And with everything she had, she let me have it. RAM! ... Apparently the blue folder went flying, pages flapping. I also flew sideways and hit the ground like a heavyweight sack of potatoes. Two prone bodies lying there in the dirt, grounded by a cranky calf.

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My brother and Mr Incredible apparently came to my rescue when they finally realised what was going on, and manhandled her off to the rest of the calves. (Where I hope she sorted out her issues with whoever called her names this morning, or at least had a decent counselling session with her sistahs.)

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I, however, did not move. I knew something was amiss. She had rammed me at knee-height. In my good leg. And it wasn't good anymore. My GOOD leg, people... as I tried to catch my breath and waved away those trying to make me stand up, I darned near cried. I moved it gingerly and the pain stabbed hotly radiating from the kneecap, down my shin and up my thigh. Single words floated through my numbed brain.

You. Are. Kidding. Me... Injured. Again. Bloody. Idiot.

(And yes. That is the edited version.)

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I hobbled pathetically back to the chair I had been working from. I iced the knee and tried to elevate it as we continued to work. I discovered I could stand but any sideways movement or pivoting was painful. (Over a week later it still is.) We managed to finish the jobs, that day and the following 5 days. I used a stick to walk as I scanned cows crush-side (the walkway towards the dip where they get treated for fly and ticks) and as we mothered the calves (matched the calf's newly allotted ear tag and brand numbers to their mum's identifying numbers).

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There was no way I was stopping to visit a doctor - who would not be able to do much anyway except tell me to keep off it. Which was not really possible. We don't have masses of people to help and this is the best and most important job I get to do here. If we don't record things right at this point, it makes it very hard to provide the detailed information needed (by buyers or for registration purposes) for our stud cattle. Plus I love it.

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However, I now walk like an old lady - lurching from side to side as my brain attempts to work out which side I should favour as I move. Stairs are a slow task as I haul myself side-to-side, the least-sore leg getting step-and-hauling duties. It's a gorgeous mental picture I know! And I know I need to organise a scan to see what kind of tear has happened to the inside of my kneecap. Gosh-darn-and-blast-it-all.

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So there you go.

Undeniable proof that Bush Babe is the lamest blogger you know.

(On OH so many levels!)

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Moral of the story: be very careful what puns you use in life.

They may come back to bite you in the knee-cap.

(Boom-boom).