Continuing on our journey down south for Xmas & we're back with Karen & Steven on their beef cattle hobby farm near Newcastle.
We love coming here, it's so peaceful & Karen & Steven are such great hosts. They let us 'play' on the farm by helping to feed & work with the cows.
Their herd has increased since we were here last with about a dozen New babies born a few weeks prior. Two of the babies weren't doing very well &
struggling to feed. Steven put them & their mums in a seperate, small paddock to keep an eye on them & give them extra attention.
One calf was being ignored by its mum so wasn't getting fed enough. I had a go at hand feeding Him, it's not as easy as it looks! The other one must have fallen on its head as he seemed a bit 'special'. He couldn't find the mums teat & at one stage was sucking on the end of his mums tail! It was cute but sad all at once.
The Next Day we had a very special job to do....... It was time to castrate the male calves. It was a team effort & we all had our jobs to do. Gary was the gate keeper & tail lifter, he had to open & Close the gate holding the calf's head then hold the tail up out of the way while Steven put the rubber band round their goolies. I helped with the drenching of all of the cattle. Once they were secure in the gate thingy I sprayed a strip of the drenching liquid down the full length of their backs. This is to stop them getting worms & other nasties. It was quite a precision operation. We earned our cup of tea (or beer in Gary's case).
That night they cranked up their juke box while we played pool & pinball. We haven't laughed so much in such a long time. The jukebox was full of fantastic music from the 60's to the 80's. Gary loved competing against Steven on the pinball machine (even though Steven smashed him on every game) I also discovered a new yummy drink....Chambord & lemonade. Chambord is a black raspberry flavour liqueur. I think I had 3 or 4 glasses. That's a record for me!
We also did our now regular trip to the Sanitarium Shop to stock up on Weetbix. Gary has 2 Weetbix for breakfast every morning without fail & has done for pretty much his whole life. At around $1.50 a box at the Sanitarium Shop, why wouldn't you?
After a great weekend it was time to move on & get back to being city slickers.
Next stop ......... Lake Macquarie
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