1 year old.....almost!

After all the beautiful weather we've had - including days where we have gotten sunburt from some unseasonally hot weather - party day (Saturday) came in terrible. In fact, worse than terrible. The wind completely changed direction and came at us from the south east which meant that the calf shed did little to shield us from the gale force gusts, seeing as it was built to contend with south west winds. But everyone stuck it out, despite complaints about how cold it was, and we had a great time celebrating Bridie's 1st birthday.

For those that have not caught onto the fact, Bridie is not technically 1 year old. In fact, she isn't even technically 11 months old. But the poor little bugger is always going to lose her birthday, so we moved it forward a whole month. And you know, there was no thoughts of her being a Christmas baby. It was simply her day and for all intents and purposes, she was 1 yo.


Me making a speech

The theme was butterflies, and whilst I didn't get any photos of all the decorations, trust me when I say that they looked fabbo. There were heaps of the little blighters stuck around the place, thanks to the Reject Shop and Lincraft!


birthday cake


opening her presents


Animal ark from Aunty Bernie & Uncle Bret


on Dora the Explorer....her present from her godmother Emma

Bridie got some wonderful presents as well, and already we are seeing some sibling rivalry when it comes to playing with them. Of course, in Tom's eyes, they are just a whole mass of new toys that he can play with. Up until now, the vast majority of the toys we have are his and he 'lets' his sister play with them. Particularly the ones he has grown out of. But it isn't sinking in that now Bridie has brand new toys of her own and she has first dibs on them.


My turn! No, it's my turn.

Ahhhh.......the fights over them are starting already!!

Can it get any busier?

This week is a nightmare. The calendar in the kitchen is bulging; I don't have much more room to write on it. I am reduced to writing so small on some days, that I can barely read it. The fact that I tend to write an essay about each event doesn't help either!

Indulge me by letting me start this week with last weekend. We took our cow to the Noorat show. She did really well. She came 2nd in her class again, and also came 7th out of about 17 for interbreed which I was extremely happy with. She was much more relaxed and walked around the arena like a pro. The only hiccup came when the ribbon she won fluttered in her face and she had a mild panic attack. This time, I led her and whilst my arms are still feeling the effects of holding her head up, she made me proud.

The big downside of the show was that she developed mastitis. It is one of the biggest risks you run with taking cows to a show. The problem lies in the fact that you are asking the cow to keep more milk in her udder than she normally would (24hrs against 12 - 14hrs). Even though she coped well at Colac, the extra milk that she made for us for Noorat just tipped the scales. We got onto it straight away and she'll be fine. In fact, she is looking good now.

Monday morning saw us being judged in the Hico Colac Otway On Farm Challenge. This happened at 5.45am and I can assure you, that I did NOT get up for it. I sorted the cows out for drafting; I left Mark to actually host the judges!

Today we had classifiers from Holstein Australia come and classify about 50 odd 2 year old and 10 or so 3 year old cows. I am very pleased to report that we ended up with the majority of them scoring Good Plus or Very Good. The Luckystrike cow that we took to the show classified at VG85. Wonderful stuff.

Swimming was also on this morning....Tom finally relaxed enough to lie on his back in the pool and trust that I was not going to let him go. His skills base in the water has improved dramatically and as a swimmer myself, it makes me very happy to see his confidence level in the pool rising almost on a lesson by lesson basis.

This afternoon, we had a group of Chinese delegates visit the farm. This group was made up mainly of industry reps - those that are involved in the processing side of milk and milk products in China, including the packaging. It is a challenge to host this group (which we do on a yearly basis) because almost none of them speak English, and seeing as we do not speak any dialects of Chinese, we rely 100% on a translater. I feel sorry for him sometimes.

Mark is in Sydney today and tomorrow....gets home at some ungodly hour tomorrow night. He is on the review panel for the Future Dairy programme which is run out of Camden, NSW.

Tomorrow I am off to Warrnambool with the kids to get some party decorations for Bridie's birthday which is on Saturday. Man, this has come around fast. I know that she is really only just coming up 11 months, not 1 year, but I feel this tugging at my heartstrings that the year has blown by too fast and she is now leaving babyhood and entering the mighty toddler phase. Tomorrow afternoon, I have to race back home as I need to finish the BAS for the ATO and get it submitted before we cop a fine. Gulp! Tomorrow night I am attending the presentation dinner for the On Farm Challenge. This time last year, we scooped a number of awards and I missed the whole thing. I was laid up in hospital, heavily pregnant with the beginnings of pre-eclampsia!

Bridie @ 10 months

Thursday is daycare (yay!) and Bridie has to go to the maternal health nurse for her monthly weigh. Fingers crossed she's packed on some pud these last 4 weeks. Keep in mind that at the previous weigh in, she had only put on 10 grams. Shopping later on for food for the party. Thursday night we have a dinner with our silage contractors.......

Phew...are you still with me??

Friday I have a friend coming for morning tea, a doctors visit for Tom as he in complaining about a painful ear (again) and then we have relatives coming to stay for the weekend. We received a phone call today from one of our semen companies asking whether we will submit some progeny test cows for classification.....I had to laugh, because if we had of known earlier, we could have done them this morning with the others. So they need to be pulled out of the herd and classified Friday afternoon.

Saturday is PARTY DAY! At this point I cannot foresee how it is all going to come together, but it will.....I have enough experience in hosting parties to know that it does all work out in the end, depsite me having a bit of a meltdown in the meantime.

And on Sunday, she looked around, saw that it was all good and decided to REST!

Another tooth!

Bridie cut another tooth - her third - today. It is the top left front one and I only found it because she has discovered the joy of grinding her teeth!! Yuk.

I am busy trying to get her 1st birthday invites finished and in the mail. Being a Christmas Day baby, she is always going to suffer with "loosing' her birthday. So to counter this, we have decided to bring her birthday party forward a whole month and this year, we will be celebrating her 1st birthday on November 22nd. I figured that I had oodles of time to prepare, but it has really snuck up on me and now that the show is over, I realised with horror that it is only 2 and a bit weeks away. Gotta get these invites out or no-one will be coming!

Done and dusted...for 2 weeks at least!

In what seems like the blink of an eye, the Colac show is over for another year and our cows have enjoyed yet another outing. I have to admit to feeling rather flat at our results....but coming off winning the Grand Champion, Best Udder (interbreed) and a mirade of other places and awards last year, I guess that unless you can match it, there will tend to be this deflated feeling.

Our battle to find a 'show' cow started way back last year when our big Luckystrike cow failed to get into calf depsite being joined numerous times. This was the cow that we flushed back in August (see previous posts on that). She really is a standout cow and it is such a shame that we couldn't get her back into calf in order to have her in peak milk to take to the show this year. As a 5 yo, she would really have hit her straps and have given many of the cows there a run for their money.

So a few months ago, the search really became frantic when we were short of a older cow for our team line up. We ended up settling on another Luckystrike cow - a junior 3yo - with fantastic udder texture, but still displaying similar faults that many Luckystrike cows have. But she halter broke well and whilst she didn't walk with her head up for me in practice, she performed pretty well for Carl on show day. Her udder truelly was a great sight, however we struck trouble even on Friday night when she stopped drinking for us. She didn't end up taking a drink until about 7am the following morning. The big problem with this, is that if cows don't drink, then they don't make milk, and if they don't make milk, then their udders don't fill out. If their udders don't fill out properly, then they are really in an uphill battle once they step into the show ring.

As the day wore on, she became more settled and ended up drinking well for us. But it came too late for her class. She came 2nd in her class and got 2nd best udder, but I really believe she had the capacity to come 1st. In the overall Holstein class, she improved dramatically and came 4th out of 14 for best udder, and got an honorable mention in the interbreed section for udders.

We will take her to Noorat show in 2 weeks time and hopefully, now she has got some experience under her belt, she will do a lot better. Plus, different judge, different day and a possible change of cows up against her may do something in our favour as well.

The calf and 2yo we took both came 'DFL' (dead ****** last!). I have made the decision that unless we get an absolute cracker of a calf, and one that is born as early as possible in the year, I am not going to bust my britches over getting calves ready. Although, that being said, the calves take less work than the cows and are really not that big an imposition. But still, the halter breaking, the leading, the washing, the clipping.....it does add up. And when our calves are lined up against others......they are just so small. I think you need to be calving in January/February to have something that is going to make the grade in November.

The 2yo we took - a Starsky cow - really only came along because she was already halter broken (she's been to the show every year we have been) and with the exception of washing and clipping, doesn't require any training. However, I am not the one who clips her and now she is becoming a big cow, the time it takes to clip her is rather wasted given that she doesn't really display 'dairyness'. She is a strong cow and is prone to putting too much fat on. On her own, she looks good, but up against the other cows, it is obvious that she is outclassed. She will be another that will probably not make the grade in future.

So some very mixed feelings for me. I guess I also feel guilty for not selecting better cows for Carl to work with. Carl travels a long way to help us out, gives of his time unselfishly, and I feel that in return, I should make sure that the expense of his time is worthwhile. This year, I feel I failed him.

With luck and good management, we might be able to bring our original Luckystrike girl back from the brink and put her back on the circut. But she is going to require a hell of a lot of work and TLC to do that. Time is already marching on for her and if she is still not pregnant, we may be close to missing the boat again next year for her.

But, the upside of the show was that the 3yo Luckystrike (3111) did display some great characteristics and quite possibly next year she will be more of a force to be reckoned with. For the meantime, we are going to take her to Noorat show on the 15th November. This is the first time we will enter a show other than Colac and it will also be the first show I will attend without Carl by my side (and leading the cows). I have to admit to being a tad apprehensive about it and a wee bit nervous. The show circut is a close knit community and I feel very much like a rank outsider. Despite living 4+ hours from here, Carl is very well known amongst the show people in Colac and surrounds and vice versa all due to being involved in it for many many years. When Carl and I step through the doors of the cow shed, people seem to literally descend on him, falling over themselves to talk to him and get his opinion on things. I feel very fortunate and privileged to have him in my corner!

Carl Moon & Craiglands Luckystrike 3111

During the interbreed judging for best udder

On the family front, there has been success and accidents with toilet training. Since starting TTing, Tom has been in undies all day except for arvo nap and nighttime sleep. Mostly he stays dry, but that is largely due to my prompting to go to the toilet. But the #2's have been the issue. On Saturday when I was at the show with the cows, mum was at home minding the kids. At one point in the morning, Tom appears with potty in hand proudly announcing to mum that he has done a poo and now he gets a present! (something I had promised him if he pooed in the toilet). Of course, he had to ring me on my phone, but I was busy so it went to message bank. As a reward, I took him back to the show with me and bought him a show bag and took him for a ride on the ferris wheel.

Mark is currently up in Queensland playing baseball in the Pan Pacific games (which also incorporates the Masters for baseball this year). The team he is playing in is badged "The Braves" (same as Colac), but it is made up of blokes from Colac, Geelong and Bacchus Marsh. From the latest update I have, they have played 2 games and so far won both. They are intending to update the Colac braves website with photos and other stuff from Queensland.