Two Thousand Kilometres

Right before we left our job as caretaker of the Goomeri Showground, after nearly eight weeks, we got a call from Tom, our former boss from Victoria. The guy who came in after we left was making a mess of the place and Tom was wondering if we’d be keen on coming back. Tom had sold the farm we worked on previously, and sent the guy to Tom’s son’s farm, because Tom’s son is now working on the third farm, where we stayed before and after our work at the main farm. Apparently this guy’s got a mind of his own and won’t listen to Tom anymore, and his girlfriend has no clue what she’s doing around stock, so the place is getting out of control. Just like last time. With no other plans, we said yes.

Eleven long days and two thousand stressful kilometres later, the journey is over. The grass is green here. We’ve had 20-25*C for the past three days, since we arrived, but it’s dropping down to 14 the day we start work.

 

We start work on Tuesday. They’re Friesian cows, not the brown Jerseys like the last farm. There’s 40-50 cows left to calve, and about 290 cows in total. I know Sparkie will be super excited to start work again. Although she may need a warm coat for getting the cows in at 5am, when it’s below freezing. My poor dog is sensitive to the cold.

Dust

I think I’ve mentioned before how difficult it is to stay in one place for a long time. Seven weeks is too long. The dogs have been appreciating the routines we’ve gotten into while staying at the same camp for so long, especially the team walks at 5pm every evening. Although, it took us a few weeks to discover a route where we avoided the town’s loose aggressive dogs. We’ve been able to give the dogs several games of fetch or free-time in the field every day, but I’m getting frustrated with how dry everything is out here now. The dust gets everywhere. We haven’t seen good rain for months.

Today, we had a severe storm warning out. We even had a storm-chasing group pass through our town earlier, on a storm chase. But, nope, no storms today. Just unrelenting humidity and hot enough that it feels like winter is nearly over for another year. I guess it is, really.

 

We spent five days last week sorting through our storage shed – five years worth of stuff, layered by year. Right at the back was stuff we hadn’t seen since the end of 2010, when we first put it back there. We ended up taking three loads of stuff to the secondhand shop, and four loads to the dump. It was intense work, stirring up more dust, and memories. As always I’m thankful I had my beautiful dog to keep me company when I eventually had to just walk away from it all for a while.

(Photos are of the clean-out in progress – I forgot to get any at the end of day five, my poor brain was done!)

 

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on Sparkie’s fitness, and building up some muscle. She’s nearly seven now but aside from the greying around her muzzle, nobody can tell. I’ve seen too many fat old dogs, and I don’t want that to happen to Sparkie. She appreciates the extra exercise, too.

Keep On Keeping On

Since the highpoint of the ABHL convention, things haven’t been easy. We’ve applied for a bunch of jobs, but never got any replies.

 

Our generator broke down at the beginning of June. We survived the next month on solar power, but with the constant bad weather there was barely enough sun to keep the batteries charged.

On the occasional sunny day, we were able to stop in at a beach. After being inland for so long it was beautiful. The beach is my favourite place, and I think Sparkie’s too.

We didn’t get any snow last week, but the temperature last night was –0.2*C at 11pm. I’m thankful we have power to run our heater this week.

All Hell Breaks Loose 6 2015

It was amazing. We arrived at Central Station at 1pm. The crowd getting off the train was huge. Mummy and Jessica got split up from me, so I just grabbed Sparkie's harness and said, "get me out of here." Brilliant little dog pulled me through the people, down the stairs, and off to the side, where we met up with the others again. Then we got totally lost trying to find a toilet, couldn't find the exit, found a map that we couldn't even READ... Ended up having to walk all the way to the Y and checking in before we got to a toilet. The Supernatural finale was awesome. Our room was beautiful, but right next to a busy intersection so there was tooting and yelling and sirens all night. I got maybe five hours sleep.

I heard my alarm go off at 6:30 and thought, just a little more sleep... I woke with a start at 7:15 and panicked. Turns out the convention was delayed a bit because flights were late and one of the guests requested the times be pushed back so he could get more sleep. Fair enough. But we didn't find that out until later. So we quickly walked to the Mercure, grabbed coffee from Michel's outside and gave Sparkie her breakfast. The maxi taxi a fellow fan booked to pick us up never showed, so we took a couple that were waiting outside. Sparkie was great, just tucked in by my feet in the front seat and the taxi driver had no issues with her at all. The lines outside the convention were massive. Luckily we had arrived early enough that we ended up pretty close to the start, and they issued our tickets and we got our tokens. I had Sparkie attached to my belt so my hands were free to get my tokens. There was a lot of waiting around. I took off Sparkie's harness and let some people pat her. Sparkie was a bit of goofball, playing with a stick and digging holes in the garden. Then the doors opened for day ticket holders, so I harnessed her up again and we went in. Our seat had a pretty good view.

When our row was called for photos with Jensen Ackles I was shaking. And I kept shaking the whole time I was standing in line. Then I heard a deep voice saying "hi," and I'm just thinking "is that Jensen????!!!!" I come around the corner and he's right there. There's a guy standing to my left as I approach, and he takes my token and guides me closer. There's red tape on the floor. My legs are shaking. Somehow I remembered to swap Sparkie over to my right side, so she won't get between Jensen and me. And then suddenly it's my turn and the guy is trying to move me forward again. Jensen turns to me and he's smiling and saying hi. I think I said hi. I meant to. I reach out my left arm so he can give me a one armed hug, because as much as I really want a full one my right hand isn't free to give it. So he pulls me close and all my focus is on the camera, because this is my one shot to get it right. The flash goes off. The photographer waves me on. I let go of Jensen. And then Jensen spots Sparkie and leans down. "Who's this?" he asks, in his deep voice, and starts patting her. "Sparkie," I say, and I'm so surprised by how confident I sound. Sparkie's wagging her tail and she licks him, freakin' KISSES Jensen Ackles on the hand, and he straightens up and says "aww, I miss my dogs." I'm grinning like an idiot, I know. But my anxiety is gone. For the first time all day, I'm relaxed. I walk off, and say to Mummy and Jessica who are waiting on the other side, "Sparkie kissed him, and he misses his dogs!!" I was so happy, I couldn't so grinning for ages. When we got back to our seats, I texted the story to Chantel and then posted on FB. There was more waiting.

I was the only one in my group getting photo with Osric Chau, but there was still ZERO anxiety so I told them they could just wait for me and I'd be fine. And I was. No shaking, no nausea, no sweating and panicking. Osric was short compared to Jensen and I seriously cannot believe he's ten years older than me. He's like a big kid and it was wonderful! As I got into position for another side hug, Sparkie swivelled around and sat in front of Osric. "Ready, set..." said the photoraphy, and the flash went off. Osric laughed excitedly, like he was surprised by Sparkie's behaviour, and to be honest so was I. The photography waved me on so I let go and tried to move off, but Osric kept his arm around me while he asked "Is the dog in the photo? Did you get the dog in the photo?" until he was sure Sparkie was in it. And she was, and it's the cutest photo ever. Thumbs up to the photographer for that.

After that there was another long wait, in which we saw a couple of episodes on the big screen. Also we saw the Supernatural parody by the Hillywood Show, which some people sung along too, and I saw some get up to dance. Then a lunch break. We'd left our water bottle at the Mercure that morning. Big thanks to the people who shared their delicious apple pie and coke with us! The first panel was Osric and Tim Omundson's. It was hilarious. Most of the panel time was taken up by Tim singing a lullaby to Osric, who was curled up on his knee. Best thing ever!! Richard Speight Jr and Matt Cohen walked all over, barely ever on the stage. I'm still laughing about "oh, that Pared." Mark Sheppard's panel was a bit disappointing. I think he only really answered one question, and the rest of the time he was yelling "what a STUPID question!" and just being really rude to the fans. He made a little baby cry too by yelling in its face. Not cool. >:( He did give a nice speech about how important the fans are to the show, and at one point joked that he was going to be on Pengu (?) and did a really funny penguin walk.

Jensen's panel was the highlight though. Absolutely brilliant. All his answers were long and thoughtful. He talked about not liking fake blood because it was sticky, and acted out Jared Padalecki walking in for his scene in the season 9 finale, saying "Oh wow, that's a lot of fake blood," and then leaving Jensen lying on the dirty floor for 20 minutes while he went to the bathroom. Someone asked about season 11, and Jensen asked who had seen the finale. Half the room said they had, the other half hadn't. Everyone was yelling. "I don't know what you're saying!" Jensen yelled back, and everyone laughed, "Do you want me to stop talking?" We all yelled no. "Should I keep talking?" YES!! He kept details about the finale as vague as possible, out of respect for those who hadn't seen it I guess. A fan thanked him for his part in the AKF campaign, and said she was not ashamed to say that it had saved her life. When Jensen was told we were up to the last question, he teased us about getting pizza and pie and staying for longer. I think the last question was "what life lessons have you learned from Supernatural?" and Jensen pulled up the chair and sat down and said, "I'm glad you asked that." And then he stood up again and said he couldn't sit down. He drew out the answer for a long time, saying he'd learned keep fighting, don't give up, etc. It was beautiful. When he stopped talking, everyone clapped and cheered and I saw I couple of people in the front rows stand up. And then Mummy stood up and so did Jessica and me and so did everybody. Jensen got a standing ovation. As the noise started to die down he pulled out his phone and said he wanted to video it for Jared. The cheering reached a new level. :D

Throughout the day people kept coming up to me to say hi, that they recognized me, that my dog was so cute and well-behaved, and half the time I had no clue who they were! Haha! I kind of felt like a celebrity or something. We picked up our photos, and they are wonderful. Somehow standing next to Jensen makes everyone seem so beautiful. Jessica described it as Jensen has this "bubble" of beautiful around him, and when you step into it to hug him you look beautiful too. :D We caught a taxi to the karaoke venue with another fan. There was an amazing Charlie cosplayer we sat near while we were waiting in the foyer. She even had the hairstyle right! Karaoke was so loud and Sparkie didn't enjoy it much, but she stuck it out with me and we were able to join the crowd at the end to sing Wayward Son. Best feeling ever. We were exhausted by the time we got back to our hotel though. I dropped into bed at 12:30am and slept for eight hours. It was a wonderful experience and something I definitely want to do again. Bring on next year!

Also, the whole weekend, NOBODY ASKED TO SEE SPARKIE'S ID - not the hotel staff at the Y or the Mercure, not the taxi drivers, not the convention staff. Thank you, Sydney, for making me feel welcome!!

All Hell Breaks Loose 6 2015 (without photos)

Sorry about how late this post is. I'm having issues with Windows Live Writer, which means I'm unable to post any photos. :( ***to see the photos check out THIS post***


Anyway, the convention was amazing. We arrived at Central Station at 1pm on Saturday. The crowd getting off the train was huge. Mummy and Jessica got split up from me, so I just grabbed Sparkie's harness and said, "get me out of here." Brilliant little dog pulled me through the people, down the stairs, and off to the side, where we met up with the others again. Then we got totally lost trying to find a toilet, couldn't find the exit, found a map that we couldn't even READ... Ended up having to walk all the way to the Y and checking in before we got to a toilet. The Supernatural finale was awesome. Our room was beautiful, but right next to a busy intersection so there was tooting and yelling and sirens all night. I got maybe five hours sleep.

 

I heard my alarm go off at 6:30 and thought, just a little more sleep... I woke with a start at 7:15 and panicked. Turns out the convention was delayed a bit because flights were late and one of the guests requested the times be pushed back so he could get more sleep. Fair enough. But we didn't find that out until later. So we quickly walked to the Mercure, grabbed coffee from Michel's outside and gave Sparkie her breakfast. The maxi taxi a fellow fan booked to pick us up never showed, so we took a couple that were waiting outside. Sparkie was great, just tucked in by my feet in the front seat and the taxi driver had no issues with her at all. The lines outside the convention were massive. Luckily we had arrived early enough that we ended up pretty close to the start, and they issued our tickets and we got our tokens. I had Sparkie attached to my belt so my hands were free to get my tokens. There was a lot of waiting around. I took off Sparkie's harness and let some people pat her. Sparkie was a bit of goofball, playing with a stick and digging holes in the garden. Then the doors opened for day ticket holders, so I harnessed her up again and we went in. Our seat had a pretty good view.
 

When our row was called for photos with Jensen Ackles I was shaking. And I kept shaking the whole time I was standing in line. Then I heard a deep voice saying "hi," and I'm just thinking "is that Jensen????!!!!" I come around the corner and he's right there. There's a guy standing to my left as I approach, and he takes my token and guides me closer. There's red tape on the floor. My legs are shaking. Somehow I remembered to swap Sparkie over to my right side, so she won't get between Jensen and me. And then suddenly it's my turn and the guy is trying to move me forward again. Jensen turns to me and he's smiling and saying hi. I think I said hi. I meant to. I reach out my left arm so he can give me a one armed hug, because as much as I really want a full one my right hand isn't free to give it. So he pulls me close and all my focus is on the camera, because this is my one shot to get it right. The flash goes off. The photographer waves me on. I let go of Jensen. And then Jensen spots Sparkie and leans down. "Who's this?" he asks, in his deep voice, and starts patting her. "Sparkie," I say, and I'm so surprised by how confident I sound. Sparkie's wagging her tail and she licks him, freakin' KISSES Jensen Ackles on the hand, and he straightens up and says "aww, I miss my dogs." I'm grinning like an idiot, I know. But my anxiety is gone. For the first time all day, I'm relaxed. I walk off, and say to Mummy and Jessica who are waiting on the other side, "Sparkie kissed him, and he misses his dogs!!" I was so happy, I couldn't so grinning for ages. When we got back to our seats, I texted the story to Chantel and then posted on FB. There was more waiting.

 

I was the only one in my group getting photo with Osric Chau, but there was still ZERO anxiety so I told them they could just wait for me and I'd be fine. And I was. No shaking, no nausea, no sweating and panicking. Osric was short compared to Jensen and I seriously cannot believe he's ten years older than me. He's like a big kid and it was wonderful! As I got into position for another side hug, Sparkie swivelled around and sat in front of Osric. "Ready, set..." said the photoraphy, and the flash went off. Osric laughed excitedly, like he was surprised by Sparkie's behaviour, and to be honest so was I. The photography waved me on so I let go and tried to move off, but Osric kept his arm around me while he asked "Is the dog in the photo? Did you get the dog in the photo?" until he was sure Sparkie was in it. And she was, and it's the cutest photo ever. Thumbs up to the photographer for that.

After that there was another long wait, in which we saw a couple of episodes on the big screen. Also we saw the Supernatural parody by the Hillywood Show, which some people sung along too, and I saw some get up to dance. Then a lunch break. We'd left our water bottle at the Mercure that morning. Big thanks to the people who shared their delicious apple pie and coke with us! The first panel was Osric and Tim Omundson's. It was hilarious. Most of the panel time was taken up by Tim singing a lullaby to Osric, who was curled up on his knee. Best thing ever!! Richard Speight Jr and Matt Cohen walked all over, barely ever on the stage. I'm still laughing about "oh, that Pared." Mark Sheppard's panel was a bit disappointing. I think he only really answered one question, and the rest of the time he was yelling "what a STUPID question!" and just being really rude to the fans. He made a little baby cry too by yelling in its face. Not cool. >:( He did give a nice speech about how important the fans are to the show, and at one point joked that he was going to be on Pengu (?) and did a really funny penguin walk.

Jensen's panel was the highlight though. Absolutely brilliant. All his answers were long and thoughtful. He talked about not liking fake blood because it was sticky, and acted out Jared Padalecki walking in for his scene in the season 9 finale, saying "Oh wow, that's a lot of fake blood," and then leaving Jensen lying on the dirty floor for 20 minutes while he went to the bathroom. Someone asked about season 11, and Jensen asked who had seen the finale. Half the room said they had, the other half hadn't. Everyone was yelling. "I don't know what you're saying!" Jensen yelled back, and everyone laughed, "Do you want me to stop talking?" We all yelled no. "Should I keep talking?" YES!! He kept details about the finale as vague as possible, out of respect for those who hadn't seen it I guess. A fan thanked him for his part in the AKF campaign, and said she was not ashamed to say that it had saved her life. When Jensen was told we were up to the last question, he teased us about getting pizza and pie and staying for longer. I think the last question was "what life lessons have you learned from Supernatural?" and Jensen pulled up the chair and sat down and said, "I'm glad you asked that." And then he stood up again and said he couldn't sit down. He drew out the answer for a long time, saying he'd learned keep fighting, don't give up, etc. It was beautiful. When he stopped talking, everyone clapped and cheered and I saw I couple of people in the front rows stand up. And then Mummy stood up and so did Jessica and me and so did everybody. Jensen got a standing ovation. As the noise started to die down he pulled out his phone and said he wanted to video it for Jared. The cheering reached a new level. :D

Throughout the day people kept coming up to me to say hi, that they recognized me, that my dog was so cute and well-behaved, and half the time I had no clue who they were! Haha! I kind of felt like a celebrity or something. We picked up our photos, and they are wonderful. Somehow standing next to Jensen makes everyone seem so beautiful. Jessica described it as Jensen has this "bubble" of beautiful around him, and when you step into it to hug him you look beautiful too. :D We caught a taxi to the karaoke venue with another fan. There was an amazing Charlie cosplayer we sat near while we were waiting in the foyer. She even had the hairstyle right! Karaoke was so loud and Sparkie didn't enjoy it much, but she stuck it out with me and we were able to join the crowd at the end to sing Wayward Son. Best feeling ever. We were exhausted by the time we got back to our hotel though. I dropped into bed at 12:30am and slept for eight hours. It was a wonderful experience and something I definitely want to do again. Bring on next year!

Also, the whole weekend, NOBODY ASKED TO SEE SPARKIE'S ID - not the hotel staff at the Y or the Mercure, not the taxi drivers, not the convention staff. Thank you, Sydney, for making me feel welcome!!

Upward And Onward

Our first night back on the road, at 11pm on Thursday driving the Ring Road by Melbourne, the bus blew its left rear inside tire. We were 300 metres from the next exit so we crawled along in the emergency stopping lane with our hazard lights on. Just off the exit was a side road where we found a truck repair shop. In the morning they gave us directions to Beaurepairs and we crawled down there. Two new tires (on a special!) later, we were back on the road.

^^ Popped tire.

After a week of rain at Weerite, we finally found the sun on our second day of travelling. Sparkie loves to lie in the sun, like a cat. She’s doing it right now, actually. It was 15 degrees yesterday and we were all down to a single layer for the first time in weeks. That’s how used to the cold we are now, that 15 feels beautifully warm.

Obviously we missed out on the Walgett Show. The solar wasn’t ready in time. But it’s four days until the big convention in Sydney and we’re pretty excited. We’ve started packing our bags for the two nights we’ll be away from the bus, and it all seems suddenly real now.

 

There’ll be a blogpost about our experience at the convention, of course, and also there will be a video of our trip, hopefully up next week.

Working Through It

The weeks are going by so fast. We’re less than five weeks out from the Walgett Show and we still haven’t hit the road. Despite the fact we’ve technically finished with our job here, doing work in exchange for staying at the second farm is keeping us busy. It’s been “let go” for months because nobody has had the time to fix it up. When we got here a month ago there was nearly no electricity in the fences, and the stock were free-running all over the place. The “empty” (not pregnant) stock were mixed up with “springers” (close to calving). Fence posts are leaning so far out of position it’s nearly impossible to unlatch the gate attached to it. The grass around the house was close to knee high. So it’s been a whirlwind four weeks of stock work and repairs, and there’s still more work to be done. But it’s still better than milking cows! I stuck it out, because I had to because it was my job, but I don’t miss it.

We’ve finally, after six months, got most of the bus repairs done. New alternator, new fuel injector line, fuel and air filters, etc. We’ve also put stickers on the back window and a name on the front. Daddy’s building storage boxes around the back bed.

On the Superdog front, things aren’t as good. I sent out emails (twice) to five show societies over a month ago, like I always do, and only got a response from one of them and it was “no.” Maybe that’s a good thing, because several of them would have clashed with the Supernatural convention, but it’s still not easy to deal with.