Australian diaries (Farm life part 3)

Hellooo! 😊

I’m back with a new post as I promised! Even though I had to post it a week later coz we had no Wi-Fi till today...

But here I am so let‘s begin!

A little fact/curiosity to start with: Did you know that the farm where I am now is the same size as Singapore? Crazy! Australia is so vast that it never stops to amaze me, but when we drove here it literally felt like I was just arriving at a different planet, coz all I saw was just endless plains...just a huge areas with mainly animals living here…so different. 

Anyway last time I’ve finished with our weekend trip to a Dirt and Dust event (Sunday 21st of April), so now I’m continuing with the following week from Monday 22nd of April till about now (26th of May) a big jump, but not that many things happened, so I picked only the more interesting pieces.

From the end of the week of 22nd of April the Mustering started, I don’t remember the exact day, but for me, it changed that we would start to eat smoko and lunch outside, because of the guys being dirty from the yards and not being allowed to the house. 

🐄And what’s actually mustering? 

Shortly explained since we are on a cattle farm we are mustering cows. Which means to move cattle to different areas in order to for example brand them, pair them (moms and babies), split them in different groups, send them away and much more things, but these I don’t really want to share and about some of them I don’t even know, because I don’t do the actual mustering, only the boys do, but if they are having a day off and a hand is needed I can be there too, but it only happened once so far. This process in only connected with me that if they find an orphan calf it goes directly to me and I have to take care of them.

End of April we also switched to the winter mode haha still with about 30 degrees during the day, but at night it can get to about 12 degrees Celsius. My days now starts the same with feeding the animals and cooking later, but then it switches with watering between the smoko (breakfast) and lunch, and then after lunch break at 3pm I start with cleaning or weeding the paths or whatever is needed. Other than that things are mostly similar...since I’m cooking every day and I can’t really repeat myself, I‘m running out of ideas, because as I probably didn’t say there is a plan what type of meals to cook. So smoko is supposed to be something sweet (cupcakes, cakes,etc…) or savoury (pizza wheels, sausage rolls, savoury muffins,...), lunch is supposed to be high carb (so like pasta bake, potatoes, rice) and diner is the main meal of the day and should include meat. Since I’m not really used to eat like this it was a bit of a shock for me not gonna lie hahaa…

Nothing new happened till:

🐃The 7th of May

Meet Benji

Since the mustering started I’ve got a baby calf, my first one that I had to teach how to drink from the bottle and of course give him some cuddles (not a problem for me), mainly because these calves lost their mom, so that is why I have to take care of them, till they are going to be capable enough to go back. His name is Benjamin (Benji), and I am in love with him, he is the cutest thing ever, but obviously I’ve got a warning that I’m gonna get more calves and not all of them will survive, so I shouldn’t get emotionally attached…but it’s so hard…so now a bit to the future, it‘s 20th of may and Benji is doing great! So hoping for the best that it will stay like this. I also got other new calves but these I could already feed with the dry food.

🐂10th of may

Got a new calf, he wasn’t doing good, but I put all my hopes for him, we gave him a name Finn, and suddenly I realised that it wasn’t a good idea…he died about one or two days later...well that was a hard pill to swallow. I couldn’t really emotionally handle it, so it was a bit tough…but immediately after I found him, I’ve got a new baby calf, so I didn’t really have time to process it…I’ve got told that this calf won’t survive either ‘‘perfect‘‘ I’ve said to myself…still tried to feed him, but he didn’t make it neither. It’s obvious I won’t be able to save all the animals but damn, it‘s hard! I was writing this post a bit in advance and I said that I’m still having some hopes to save him, but it wasn’t possible in the end…

🐎Now about 22nd of may onwards 

Today it is exactly 44/88 here at the farm, which means I’m halfway through! Seems like time is running so fast but in the same time I feel like I’ve been living here for so long already ahah. I’m getting more and more busy still coz the mustering is still happening, which means I’m getting more and more calves to safe.., the actual number of new calves is 20 now plus 3 of them are milk fed and the ones that I had since I came here Freya (horse) and Spot (calf) are still milk fed too. If you wonder how is Benji? He is doing great so far (26/5), yesterday I’ve got a new calf that seems to be doing good to so fingers crossed! And then there is one more that is having a sick stomach so it‘s really hard to feed, but I’m having my hopes for all of them.

🐗23rd of May

Woke up, started to feed the animals as usual and what do I see? A wild pig sleeping in one of the paddock next to the calves...sure? Always some surprises 😅

Finishing with one last thing. Some of you were telling me that having a one-day in week off is not enough but, I’m actually glad that we have only one, because there aren't really many things to do…, but the days are going pretty fast…I normally do the things for which I don’t have time during the working days such as doing the laundry, cleaning my room or writing this blog haha.

What a long post for today haha, but this is it for now with my farm life! Since I actually explained everything till today the 26th of May, so I will give it for about a few weeks to tell you something new again, BUT till then, I’m gonna start writing about my actual Australian journey and everything that I find interesting to share with you, so stay tuned for that!

Sunset over the lake

Till then hope you are all doing okay,

Yours Suzy💙