Introducing Rumpelsteakskin

A week ago I approached the dairy farmer down the road to see if he had any bobby calves I could buy off him. He only had two cows left to go, this little guy had just been born and when the other one went we could have that too.

Unfortunately his herd mate is now part of the maternity mortality statistics and so we have only the one. He arrived today and is VERY cute. I know his eyes look devilish with the flash, but imagine liquid honey.....and so I named him Rumpelsteaksin to remind myself that I will be eating him eventually.

So tomorrow morning I have to teach this feisty little guy who will be missing his mummy, how to drink from a calfeteria (aka a sugar bucket with a humongous rubber teat in the side of it).

Wish me luck!

And now, to bed. Feeling a little fatigued after two 12 hour night shifts in a row.

Satisfaction is......

A bottled brew of gingerbeer.

A perfectly baked loaf of bread (admittedly from the breadmaker, but hey!)

A big pile of chopped down gorse.

Realising that this beautiful flowering flax used to be a small division just a couple of years ago, planted by me (or hubby or one of my dear friends!), and look at it now! We are making progress.

Building a calf shelter for the little bobby calves that I'm going to raise. Hot news: I have resigned so now I'll have the time (I hope) to do this sort of thing.

A beautiful Sunday spent with the family.

Chicken Love.

It's raining today. We managed a family walk (it's a public holiday, Labour Day) this morning in the drizzle. But now it's really set in. So to brighten my day, here are some pictures of my favourite creatures - my chooks! Hope it brightens your day too.

The rooster - he doesn't really have a name except for rooster. He is a Silver Laced Wyandotte.

This is one of the black twins. I have a few mongrels that I'm going to house seperately (once the dog's off heat) and use for raising babies when they go broody. This is one of them. She has a bit of Silky and Barred Rock in her, not that you can tell. She has an identical sister.

This is my Silver Grey Dorking. She is quite low-slung and has five toes, which is standard for her breed. Her feathers have the most beautiful subtle grey markings.

This is Speckles, another mongrel. Her Barred Rock is much more obvious.

This is Fidget, my flighty scaredy-cat Araucana. She lays wee little blue eggs.

And one of the Fluffy-butt sisters. This is the one without the missing patch of feathers. She is a Blue Orpington. Her skirt of fluff gets all bedraggled when walking in the wet grass and suddenly you can see her legs!

And Miss Floppy, my brown leghorn, with her big floppy comb. My daughter calls her Foppy.

And if I resigned, maybe I could convince my family to let me go on this permaculture design course! Two weeks, live in, at least seven hours drive from home........well, I guess I can dream.

Thoughts

It's our turn for the sickies. Blech. Little boy home from school with an exhausting cough. I've got it too and lots of snot. Took the night off work on Thursday but here I am on Friday night because there is pretty much no-one else to work! Only one woman in who has just had her seventh baby and doesn't need much help from me. I'm alcoholling my hands and holding my breath whenever I go near her room, just in case.

I'm in the throws of deciding whether to give up work or not. I went back to work almost a year ago because I was going a little crazy and financially we REALLY needed it. But now it's not so tough moneywise and I'm finding I'm going crazy in a different way.

My family has no routine and it's hard for the little ones who never know if Mummy is going to tuck them in at night, be there if they wake in the night or be home with them for breakfast. Darlin' Hubby is putting in the whinge too about us never being at home together - it's either him home with the kids and me working or vice versa. I put it to him that maybe HE should quit his job, but being self-employed that's not really a goer. And besides it's me who's not really enjoying my job.

And that's the big thing. When I studied Midwifery about eight years ago, I was passionate about it in a "I'm gunna change the world" kind of way. And now I'm not. I'm still interested in it, I still enjoy it and I still think it's important. But I'm just not PASSIONATE about it.

I went down to Auckland for a one-day workshop on Wednesday. It was an amazing workshop on Childbirth Education. Inspiring, informing, energetic. But it confirmed my thoughts, I've lost my real enthusiasm for it all.

It might be that it's because of the impact it has on my family. It might be because there is not as much time left over for the other things I want to do, namely quilting and, for a want of a better word, homesteading. But whatever the reason, it's getting mighty hard to look forward to another shift.

What do you do when you have a big decision to make? What helps you sort out your thoughts?