How The Story Unfolds

I remember very clearly the night we left our house in February of 2008, eight of us crammed in a Falcon wagon with just what stuff we could fit in. The rest of our belongings were in a storage shed. We had no destination and nowhere to sleep for the night. We drove into the closest town and found a 24 hour motel to stay in for a few nights, until we were able to get a wind-up Jayco caravan and begin our road trip. For eleven year old me, it was the greatest adventure. We went north and hit summer floods, stayed in an expensive caravan park and ate pancakes for breakfast and went swimming in the pool every day. Eventually we discovered "free camping" and then we went west and found freedom, open spaces, and a million stars. After a time we went south again and swam in creeks and played in the dirt and drove up into the mountains where the air was sharp and clean. It was around that time I got Sparkie for my twelfth birthday and I always think that if we hadn't made the choices we did, my perfect girl wouldn't have come into my life. And I needed her so badly. We brought a bus after a year of travelling, and my dad had some short-term jobs here and there but we couldn't seem to stay in one place long. So we kept going. Up and down, and around and around. We had some of our best times on the road. But as I grew older, times grew tougher. And so we started dairy farming again.

Everyone we met, everywhere we went, everything we experienced has led us to this moment. To this place. To who we are now. I wonder how different our life would be if we hadn't spent those years on the road. Everything that happened to us in the last eleven years has made us so much closer as a family and it makes absolute sense to me that after spending so much time living in such close quarters, we would end up working best as a whole team. A unit. We are so used to being together now that it just feels natural to all pitch in on the farm. 

Some days I feel like this is it, the end of the journey. The final result of all the struggles we've gone through. I can't tell if it's the truth or not. Some days it feels like it's just another stop along the way.  

Whatever this point is, I won't know until later. But I still feel the lure of the open road. The love of a long road trip is something that has never gone away despite our lifestyle changing, although it's always so nice to come back home to the farm afterward. How incredible would it be if next year, Skuggi and I went all the way over to Western Australia to compete in the national agility trial? The next twelve months will be the deciding factor. We need to get Skuggi consistently running clear in trials, get into a higher level, before I attempt such a big venture. I am so excited to start the 2019 trial season, beginning in just eight weeks.

But life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. Living in the moment is hard sometimes when it's not being good to me and the future I see in my mind looks so tempting. But that distant future may never become my reality, while this moment, right now, this is real. A quiet day, listening to music and catching up on social media, with Skuggi asleep in his crate of his own volition and Sparkie snoozing under the desk as always. Whatever tomorrow brings I know I won't be facing it alone.

Not Just Surviving

I've tried to write a new post several times this month but it's been hard. Too hard to put into words what's been going on, without implicating those involved. We're on the edge of another change, and I'm so sick of being taken for granted, taken advantage of. We trust and we love and we want so badly to believe what we're told, believe we've made it, but the world is against us. "You're safe here." They're just words. And words are meaningless these days.

But it's time to think of the good. There is always some good in life, although it can be hard to find. The evening sky on fire. A cool day after weeks of excessive heat. A once-terrified cow accepting human contact for the first time and returning your affection with a lick.

Skuggi went to an agility seminar with me earlier this month. We were one of the lucky few selected to train with the winner of the 2018 Agility World Championship, and we had a great time. He was so fun and patient and his instructions easy to follow.

One of my favourite cows had surprise twins. Unfortunately, the first one was stillborn, and I assumed the next one would be as well after it took a solid six hours for it to be born due to wrong positioning. But she was still alive, and with some TLC she got stronger, and nearly two weeks later she has grown heaps and full of energy. 

I brought my first car just before Christmas. Although my driver's license expired a while ago and I haven't had time to get it renewed yet, I am so happy I now own a car and it's beautiful. 

The future is so uncertain but sadly that's nothing unusual. It feels like no matter what choices we make, where we go, we always end up here. But, we keep fighting. Always keep fighting. Just carrying on, like we always do, until we get out of the darkness. Until we can start believing the words we're hearing. Until we feel like we're living and not just surviving. Because this, right now? This isn't living.

Turn The Page

Sorry this blog has been so quiet lately, and my posts always seem so negative. This year has been a struggle, just one after another. Optimism is hard to come by these days. Just every time I feel like we've landed on our feet, the rug gets pulled out again and we have to start over. 

The future is always so uncertain, and never more so than at this time of the year. What will 2019 bring? Each new year I dream of better days. But each new year has just brought further darkness. It's hard not to see only the bad, looking back. More fuel for nightmares. Pain and death and horrible surprises at every turn. 

Skuggi started competing in agility in April. It has been some good, some bad. We only got one clear round out of 42 tries. He is definitely improving. It's not easy to give him enough experience running a full length course of 15 or so obstacles outside of actually competing, with my limited equipment at home. Back in October, Skuggi misjudged his strides at a trial and hit the jump bar at top speed, doing a full flip and landing on his neck. We got lucky. He wasn't hurt. After some rest and careful training to get his confidence back, we returned to compete at a two day trial in December. Skuggi placed 2nd twice and 1st once, out of six classes. We returned home late on Sunday night on an emotional high. 24 hours later we were rushing Skuggi to the vet suspecting he'd been bitten by a tiger snake on our evening walk. In the dark, the snake had been easily in striking range and combining that with finding corresponding marks on Skuggi's chin brought the high I was riding plunge all the way back down. Thankfully, Skuggi's blood tests came back clear. We got lucky. Again.

Sparkie's going blind. I noticed when we up in Sydney in March that she was unsure of her footing. Striped floors. Shadows. Those checker board tiles in the malls. She doesn't go out much now, and definitely doesn't work. She gets around at home okay so long as I don't change any layouts. I left the door open on Skuggi's crate one time and she walked into it, looked confused, and then walked into it again. She is still her happy, playful self aside from that though. The warmer winter we had up here did good for her arthritis.

And speaking of eyes, Logan's eye got an irritation last month. He had several treatments but it still took some time to heal. My poor little guy's always been accident-prone. His ear never recovered properly from being infected at the ear tag as a calf, and it grew folded over and droopy. And a few months ago it got a rip in it as well. Last summer he somehow cut the back of both his front legs, and the flies kept tickling it so he kept licking the scabs off, leaving permanent scars. So now
added to his scars and damages is a white smudge in the corner of his right eye. I suppose we still got lucky with that too. Once we had a cow have her whole eye removed after an irritation turned to infection and progressed too far.

There's more bad going on but I can't talk about that right now. Some things just have to be kept in the shadows for now. But we are going to get through this. As always, I can't wait to turn the page on this crappy year. I am beyond ready for some brighter days.

Trials

It's been a while since I posted here. I actually forgot about this blog until a few days ago.

Things have been pretty average around here since my last post. 

Skuggi's done two more agility trials, winning another two thirds and a first place. Yesterday's trial was definitely his best, where he won first place after every other dog in his class got disqualified for going off course. 

 This weekend marked three months since we started working on this farm, which means we officially passed our "trial period." Always a tense few months knowing it could be a temporary home. I love it here and I love the cows. Calving season starts next month and I can't wait to see more adorable babies running around. 

Also last month we started "breaking in" our pet calves. Logan and Goldie have been great but Spartan needs a lot more work.

No Reason Why

Trigger warning - pet death

It seems the second things are going right, the second I find myself enjoying life again, something always goes horribly wrong. But it's been a long time since life has thrown a curveball as terrible as last weekend.

On Saturday my mum, me, and Chantel went to Melbourne, for the AHBL9 Supernatural convention. It all went really well and we were having a fantastic time, up until Sunday afternoon about 4pm when we got the message that things back at home had gone terribly wrong. 

One of our four pet calves (who are now two year olds) had gotten tangled up in the hay feeder sometime during the night and had a serious leg injury. Although the vet said she hadn't broken any bones, there was muscle damage and Stormfly couldn't stand up. With such a big animal the inability to stand is a death sentence. The vet gave her antibiotics and pain relief for the night but he said it would probably be best to put her down. 

I don't remember much of the convention after that. I got my photos signed by the actors and tried to smile. Sparkie behaved like a professional of course, doing her job and trying to keep me in the moment. We wanted to take a train back that night but there were none until the morning.

So we left the city just before dawn, exhausted and anxious. It was three hours to the farm. Stormfly had not been able to stand up during the night and was now unable to keep herself sitting upright either. We stayed with her for hours, keeping her calm and trying to keep her sitting up. We offered her food and water but she wouldn't really take any. She was tired. We were all tired. Over the next few hours it became clear that she would never be able to stand up again, and twenty-four hours after that first terrible message, Daddy was calling the vet to put her down. We couldn't allow her to suffer any more.

Our three remaining "calves" watched the tractor carry her body away to be buried. There was excessive affectionate grooming between the three of them. They haven't called for their missing friend. I think they understand that she's gone. 

It was a freak, tragic accident. There are maybe twenty other cows in that paddock and we've been using that exact hay feeder for over a month. Why did it have to be one of ours who got injured, and on the one weekend we were gone?? There is no reason why. Life is unpredictable and cruel.

Worth The Fight

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted here. Sorry I've been so slack at updating. We got ourselves a new dairy farm job a month ago, its practices so dramatically different from our last job it almost feels like a different industry. Animal welfare is held to such a high standard they don't even separate the calves from the cows until weaning time. The babies stay with their mothers all day, feeding and socializing and playing in the paddocks until milking time, where they are separated for just a few minutes while their mother goes through the milking shed, and then they go back together for the night. 

We had a little calf, "Dot," who got sick. About the same time, she somehow hurt her leg so bad it couldn't take any weight. And then shortly after that, the foxes got to her. She was a fighter and we did what we could, but in the end she couldn't do it anymore. We made the call that she wasn't ever going to recover, and the boss got a vet to come out and humanely euthanize her, ending her suffering. It was the kindest thing for her, but something that was never an option at the old farm.

We went to Geelong two weeks ago to compete in an agility trial, and Skuggi ran eight courses over the two days, managing to get placings in half of them. We got two seconds, a third, and a fourth. He really loves this sport!

In two weeks it's Sparkie's turn for another adventure, where we take on the city for the weekend, for AHBL9. It's always so much fun to hang out with other fans of Supernatural, meet some of the actors, and do a little bit of sightseeing. "Touristy" stuff. Hopefully the weather is nice to us.

Highlights

I don't know how many people still follow this blog. It hasn't been very interesting lately, I know.

But we made it. We made it off the farm and to our new property. It was exhausting and stressful and several 1am bedtimes and then getting up at 7-8am to get it all done, but we did it. Setup at our new property is an ongoing project. 

Skuggi competed in his first agility trial on April 8 and although we didn't win anything, we had a heap of fun. I can't wait for the next trial!

While we were at the trial, we also got to meet Chelsea Marriner in person. Long-time blog followers may remember her as the inspiration for The Superdogs and my interest in dog agility. Well she was over here with one of her dogs to compete in the Australian Agility Nationals the following weekend, and I was lucky enough to get to say hi briefly and watch them run some courses.