Some 'heart stopping' news (pardon the pun)

That really is a poor choice of a post title. But it is very apt. Over the past couple of weeks, Mark's dad (Alan) has suffered a number of heart attacks or heart issues. It all stemmed from a bit of a blockage in one of the arteries, but after having a couple of stents put in, he developed a clot which put him back into hospital again. Since, he has found out that there is another clot and the doctors are madly working to dissolve it so he is 'fit for duty' (so to speak). In reality, I think both Mark and Judy will be keeping him wrapped up in cotton wool for a while (much to his horror no doubt!!).

So he has spent the better part of the past 2 weeks in either Shepparton, Royal Melbourne, Colac or Geelong hospitals. And for a man that rarely admits to being unwell, I'm sure that this has been an arduous experience for him.

Mark has been to see him today and reports that he is in better spirits than he had been, and was looking more like his old self. Most welcomed news!

Ok...farmwise, what else has been going on?

We are well into calving now with almost a full calf shed. I am doing none of the rearing this year as Mark felt he could manage it. And so he has. I miss it though. As of yesterday, we have had all our recip cows calve (the ones that were impregnated with embryos from the flush last year) and we ended up with 4 bulls and 3 heifers. One of the heifers is huge and is a potential show cow herself.

We welcomed a new staff member to our business in the past 2 weeks. Terry Baulch is a 16yo student who is going to be doing some weekend milkings and the occasional week day milking. He is also doing his work experience with us and possibly in the future will complete a school based certificate II traineeship. We hope that Terry enjoys his work with us.

We have just reviewed some text for an article that is being written on us for a breeder profile for the Holstein Australia magazine. I have to admit to being a bit embarassed about it as we have not been in the registering game for very long and there are heaps of breeders out there that also deserve recognition. But we agreed and we took some photos last night to accompany the article. Surprisingly, Tom was very accomodating and took some lovely pictures. We got a few rippers of him with one of the ET heifers who's name he informs us is 'Kelly". So Craiglands Megaman Kelly it is!! This is one of the shots of him holding on to her. Maybe he will be interested in the show circut after all????? (me smiling to myself here!) .

In a couple of weeks we will welcome the Azzopardi family to our farm as part of the Farm Day activities. They hail from one of the western Melbourne suburbs and I'm not sure how much they've been on farms before, but an email from them the other day tells me they are looking forward to coming. They also have a 4yo boy named Thomas!!! LOL. It may get confusing over the weekend!!!