Deleted the first half of this post that talked about the past and how crappy life has treated me, and all the things I loved and lost in 2020.
Because I want to end this year with some good thoughts.
Skuggi gained two clear rounds this year, in the two championship agility trials we got to, which doubled the number of clear round certificates he had from 2018 and 2019. Combined. So perhaps 2021 will be the year we finally get to move into the next class. It does feel like we're getting it together more often now. Our next competition is the last weekend of January and I can't wait to be back out in the ring.
We brought six chooks in mid-November, ex-egg farm hens, saved from certain death because apparently, the farmer kills his chooks after one season, replacing them with the next generation of chooks. But anyway, our chooks are doing well. We're getting 4 or 5 eggs a day, which is pretty good. The fact they aren't all laying consistently is the reason why they were going to be culled. That, and the way some of their eggs weren't quite perfect, because a lot of their calcium is going into feather growing because they were finishing up a spring molt. They are getting better though. And they are very friendly. We let them out in the morning to free-range for the day and then put them away at night around 8pm. Which is still broad daylight, by the way, but they're ready to go to bed and run eagerly back into the coop when we go up there. We're getting more than 15 hours of daylight at the moment. But, my dad has to be up at 3am, or near enough, for work most mornings, so there's no time to appreciate the longer days. It's more of an annoyance than anything, trying to go to sleep when it's still so bright outside.
The weather has been far cooler lately than what we're used to. It reaches 25 and the locals start complaining about how hot it is. But having experienced weeks of 35+ back in Australia, this has been a lovely cool summer so far. This time last year it was regularly reaching more than 40 degrees. And we were living in a bus in the middle of nowhere, jobless, homeless, flat broke and majorly depressed. I'm still depressed, but a little less often than before. I'm not homeless. And I'm not quite jobless anymore either or broke, because I'm mowing lawns for the landlady and I still have money left over from selling so much of my life back in Australia. I still really miss working with cows though. Getting back into dairying has proven to be far more difficult than I'd hoped, and I don't have any experience in any other field so I don't know what else to do. If only a certain person in the past hadn't turned out to be such a scumbag. (If you know, you know. Otherwise, just look through some of my older posts.)
I keep tentatively making plans for 2021. More agility. Road trips. Finally getting off my learner driving license. But perhaps I'll achieve nothing but just surviving to the end of another year. And that would have to be good enough.
Anyway, here's a video recap of the year.
