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!