Vignette #1: Are You My Mother?

I am calling this a vignette - one of two I will post in the next few hours. You will see why when the second arrives - if I'd tried to jam it all into one, it'd cause some sensory overload. Trust me.

...

It's December - so that means it's hot, darned hot here and it also means that there is a serious influx of poddies and calving and babies around here.

...

We have a miraculous poddy calf-foster mother setup going on near the house;

my little sister is very VERY close to giving birth to a new Paradise baby;

And my sister-in-law Curly will present my brother with their FOURTH child any day now.

(Yes, now you mention it, some kind of strange race appears to be going on.)

Basically it's some kind of set-up designed to make me clucky.

*fingers in ears*

LA LA LA LA!

...

What? It's NOT all about me?

Oh...

Well, anyway, I promise to tweet any news I get from my dear sister (via a watchful Nana who is hovering nearby) but in the meantime...

I shall bring you cute.

...

We spent today vaccinating some of our calves.

Like humans, calves need protection from various diseases that can be deadly.

The vaccine they get needs two doses, so they get one now and one at branding in January.

We muster, we sort cows from calves, and we treat the youngsters.

It means a fair bit of bellowing (from the separated Mamas)

and lots and lots of bovine cuteness.

Like this little guy...

He is only about two days old, has just arrived in the yards after a long walk from the paddock with a mob of about 80 cows and their calves. He's a bit dazed and thirsty and probably looking for a milk break...

...but he seems to be just a tad confused.

He sidles up to Mr Incredible (and his steed Cherokee) as they head to the trough for a well-earned drink of water...

Apparently our calf is under the impression my husband is his Mum...

Are You My Mother?

'You walk a little like her...

and she was here in front of me just a second ago...

hang on...'

'Was Mum wearing blue today?'

'Aaaaaaggghhh!!!'

...

Kids... they never just pay enough attention!

Time

It's something I don't have much of at the moment. All my own fault of course... I like to pack things in, and I also like to soak things in. It's a recipe for poor time management, very ordinary packing efforts, exhaustion and also not enough sleep (and if I allowed myself enough of the latter, I wouldn't be producing sentences like that now, would I?).

.

I want to tell all about my wonderful weekend with friends. About my too-late-for-a-40-something-year-old nights, my horrified fascination with clubbing and my random Christmas shopping effort on four hours sleep. I wanted to share our experience attending my very first Stock Horse sale and confess to eating fairyfloss in the car with my kids. I'd also like to somehow show you the incredible clouds spilling soft showers onto faraway paddocks as we drove homeward.

.

But I cannot. Too damned tired.

Will a photo of an old tree trunk do you today?

Til the world steadies once more...

Clouds, Calendars and Gratitude

It's been just 5 days since I posted off a big batch of my BB calendars into the outside world.

I took over the local Post Office, drove the staff there all nuts because I wanted stamps instead of those awful grey printout prices on each envelope, had myself a minor conniption over the price of overseas postage, then sat back and had a quiet breakdown over whether people who had spent their hard-earned cash on my project would actually like their purchase.

It's what I do.

Despite there being a weekend jammed into those five days since The Great Post Office Visit, and despite the fact that the calendars all dove into the mail way out here in the sticks, at least two lots have already found their way to distant buyers. Go Australia Post!

In fact, by Monday one batch had arrived in MELBOURNE (at the other end of the country!) to the charming gentleman pictured below.

A photo of him holding the BB calendar arrived via email, with this message from his daughter:

Thankyou so much...

(and some other nice stuff that made me blush)...

Attached is a pic of Dad opening his first Xmess pressie for the season.

Aside from the smile I got from the "Xmess" reference, it really hit me that my little publication was actually going to be on walls - other people's walls. And they would very likely be actually looking at it regularly... Like wow!

What an honour...

Anyhow... I just wanted to say a big THANKS to those who have ordered their first edition BB calendar. And to those who have enquired but not yet placed an order, there are just a couple left. If this is you, please email me here: bushbabeaustralia at gmail dot com.
(Yes, Theresa I am talking to you here!)

And I also wanted to thank the NINETY NINE of you who 'follow' this blog, and the dozens of others who subscribe to me via RSS and other means. I think you are all just slightly crazy but love you for visiting me and encouraging my photo-heavy ramblings. It's really nice to know I'm not talking to myself out here!

And to all my real-life friends and family who stay (mostly) silent but visit this blog regularly - I love that you come, even if you think you are being sneaky!

I haff my ways of no-wink*taps nose*.

You all 'ride with me' in my adventures - and I do love a good 'mustering gang'!

To sign off, I leave you with some word imagery.

My twitter word imagery to be exact.

I am a sporadic twitterer but admit that it is fun when I get excited about something and want to share...

I think this TweetCloud says more about me (and possibly my air-headedness) than anything.

It also says I like Robbie Williams just a LITTLE too much.

And I have allowed the word 'dang' to enter my vocabularly.

And it also say that I kinda like clouds...

They are purty...

You want to know what ELSE I am thankful for?

The clouds outside my window.

The ones dropping fat, delicious, juicy drops of H2O as I type.

.

What's your weather doing?

Please share... I love a little weather.

(Oh, and THANKS for just being here. Did I say that already?)

Roads to Somewhere...

I have a weird kind of fascination...

well, I have a number really.

But the one I am talking about today is roads.

My love for them is reflected in my vast collection of snapshots of them.

I even have a whole blog category for them, for heaven's sake!

(I wonder if there is a name for such a strange fascination?)

Bitumen, dirt, straight, windy...

Smack bang dead-straight in the middle of Australia,

curling lazily around the cliffs of Italy,

creeping sleepily through English villages, or

etched into the openness of American grazing land, I love 'em.

I realise there are more aesthetically pleasing things in the world.

But roads... they promise. They tease.

It's pretty much guaranteed that something fascinating is waiting 'round the corner.

Through the mist.

Over the hill.

Beyond the crest.

Perhaps it's just a row of native gums forming a bush avenue.

Or an old shed guarding the sweep of black tar near a town.

Even roads buried under the weight of slow-moving rubber in a city somewhere, help form a complex web of mystery and sure delivery to somewhere important, exciting, necessary, even life-saving.

My very favourite view of a road, is seeing it disappear into a sky.

You may have noticed?

I don't know why, it just seems kind of magical to me.

The possibilities seem endless and exciting to me.

Almost like an about-to-do-the-rollercoaster-dip tummy churn.

.

Of course the most loved stretch of road holds no mystery to me at all.

It's the road home.

MY road.

...

What does your road say?

And where is your favourite stretch of highway or by-way?

The Beauty of our Bella (The Eye of the Beholder)

Something pretty special arrived here at Granite Glen this week. No, I am not referring to the calendars, which have mostly gone off in a cloud of dust to all sorts of amazing places. (More on that in a later post).
.

Something was delivered here in the last couple of days that is just so beautiful, I cannot even begin to share the blinding glory of it. Well, I could, I suppose. But there are some things that the camera struggles to fully capture and translate - some kinds of beauty that supercede mere pixels and hues. I know I won't even go close to being able to show this particular being in its honest embodiment of the divine.

.
But I guess I should try ...

.

Are you ready?

.

You may need sunglasses.

.

And please put down any hot beverages you may be likely to spit.

.

I am warning you - this particular femme fatale is unlike

ANYTHING you have ever experienced.

.

Meet... Bella.

Bella is a cow.

Not one of our sleek black beauties busily breeding beef babies out in the paddock, though...

She is a dairy cow.

She is a dairy cow with one eye.

She is a dairy cow with one eye and a HUGE bag of milk.

A dairy cow with one eye, a huge bag of milk, and the kindest sweetest gentlest nature EVER.

I pretty much kiss this cow every time I check on her.

Her and her newest admirer.

The poddy.

This little guy who has struggled with his grip on life ever since his Mama died soon after he was born.

The dude who REFUSED to suck a bottle and gave me backache and heartache as I force-fed formula to him three times a day. Who leaned against me as he submitted to my efforts to keep him alive before flopping his head down dejectedly after each feeding effort... making me feel very much like doing the same!

.

Well, this same little rascal decided that maybe...

just maybe,

a teat ...

a real one...

might be...

something he could...

maybe ...

get into.

(See that tail flick? That's a barometer of milk flow and belly happiness.)

Let me tell you,

The Poddy thinks Bella is the most divine thing ever placed on this earth.

And he has the swollen belly and contented naps to testify his devotion.

And one eye missing or not...

I have to agree with him.

I can trust her with the Poddy and with his Little Handlers.

Her one eye radiates her beauty -

it is so gentle and kind and sweet and giving.

I just heart this cow.

Can you see the tiniest little glimpse of the beauty I am talking about?

Or do I sound like a raving loony?

And while you are mulling that one over,

What's the most beautiful thing YOU have seen today?

The Mail Run - by BB and Violet

We get mail twice a week here at Granite Glen.

Our lovely mail lady (who travels hundreds of kilometres each run) pokes our bundle of bills and papers into this old red cream can about one kilometre from the house.

It sits beside a little green shed - a multipurpose venue for parking bikes in (ours when we attended primary school a couple of decades ago... OK three decades ago...) for larger parcels, for calves seeking shade while their mothers forage, and even resting the occasional resting snake (yuh-huh!).

(I wonder what on earth is Violet doing in this shot?)

.

Anway, yesterday the shed was housing something pretty exciting, discovered when Violet and I did our bi-weekly mail check.

No not the dog food - well, okay, Axel was probably excited about that delivery.

The boxes on the little bench.

Let's see what's in 'em...

Look familiar?

They ARRIVED!

The inaugural Beauty of the Bush calendars.

In boxes.

In the hot dusty old bike shed.

Near the calf poop.

Doesn't the ROMANCE of it all just knock you out?

Violet didn't care - here she poses delightedly with December.

I am pretty happy with the product - its printed on really heavy paper which means it shouldn't curl while hanging on your wall next year. I hate curly calendars, don't you?

.

So I am about to attack the posting out side of this project.

Why don't I let Violet take the last few photos of our parcel-pickup while I get organised?

.

Violet-view of the mailbox...

Oh dear...

Violet-view of Mummy picking up the boxes.

(Sorry bout that!)

And Violet-view of the well-stacked, half-opened calendar boxes.

Oh, and here is what Violet was doing beside the shed earlier:

You know your kid is a real BUSH kid when...

They do this kind of thing...

Unsure whether I should be impressed at the ability of these kids
to amuse themselves

without the need for electronic equipment...

or whether to be

just a little bit...

DISTURBED?