Another 2 weeks since the last update - I'm getting slack! But last Sunday was taken up with a last minute dash to Cloncurry (6hr round trip) for fax ink, but I'll get to that later.

The week before last week was taken up with bringing the weaners (number 6 steers) in from a paddock called Yam Poopi, processing them and putting them into the 20 mile, so they will become next year's bullocks to be sold. Sounds simple enough, but I think I know every blade of grass along the five miles of road between Yam Poopi and No3. We had trapped the steers in the cooler with the trough, so it was just a case of walking the coaches out to them and walking them all back, which for the first couple of days was fine. The problem was though, that the last ones to get trapped are the stubbornest, craziest ones who give you all the trouble. In order to save time before the last muster Anne and I spent the afternoon walking the 30 odd coaches out to YP while the others finished processing. It was all going pretty well, and we managed to pick up about 20 more steers on the way and got them to the trap paddock. Then of course, none of them would go in. The steers were obviously reluctant as they'd stayed away for this long, but the flipping coaches were no help at all! They wouldn't go in either, and worse than that, just stood in the gateway blocking all the others from going in! Luckily, Alan arrived with a horse and the truck to give us a hand, but it still didn't go well. These steers hadn't had a drink for about 4 days and when they're thirsty they act even sillier. They just started to take off, and Anne and Alan were galloping around madly chasing the ones that had broken while I was trying to block the rest of the mob. It got to the point where Alan said we should just take them all back to Broncos(4.5miles, 2h30 away, when it would be dark in 30mins!), it was that bad. Anne decided we should have one more go, and after another 20mins we finally got them in. We lost 6 steers but that couldn't be helped. The next day we all went out to bring them back to No3, and PJ was in the chopper to try and bring the last of the stragglers to us. He brought us a few and we set off picking up a few more on the way. We thought we had them all, but PJ picked Kev up to have one last look, and just as we reached the halfway point, they found another 15! 15 very stubborn ones who wouldn't walk away from the cooler, and so we had to turn around and go all the way back to pick them up and start again! Even then by the time we'd got back to No3 we realised there were a few we'd missed so this Tuesday we had to go back and get the last 8 that had been trapped and bought them back - but at least it's all done now. It was good though as none of these steers had horns it was a golden opportunity for me to learn to shoulder a beast. You do this when a beast has broken from the mob and won't go back but won't run much more. Two men ride at right angles to the beast, on the same side, and use the front of their horse's shoulder to push the beast back to the mob, one pushing on it's shoulder, the other on it's hip. Grumpy is a pro at it, and she's a very strong horse - only problem was, because I wasn't sure what I was doing we kept shouldering Kev out of the way, instead of riding beside him and holding our position on the hip! Ah well, we had a laugh about it, and it's all part of the learning curve - besides, we didn't lose the beast! I think I'm going to be losing Grumpy as one of my horses though, because we think she's pregnant! This is great news, and fingers crossed she'll have this foal, as she's had a bad run in the past, and has never actually had a foal yet, although she's been preganant 5 times I think.

Back to last Sunday now - the fax machine had run out of ink, and campdraft nominations were coming in thick and fast, so Anne and I had to go to Cloncurry to get some more. It was tipping it down with rain, and thunder and lightning - when we got there I got out of the car straight into the gutter which was over ankle deep in water! We took refuge at the Bio cafe and warmed up with pumpkin soup (very thick and yummy), before turning around and coming home again. In the hour and a half we'd been in town, all the creeks between there and Quamby (about 45mins away) that had been dry on the way in, were now running! By the time we got home the rain had started here and bucketed down for the next 2 days. It was so cold and rainy on Monday and Thursday that we just stayed at home, and as Alan said "tried to keep warm!" It's very annoying all this cold weather, as I have all these clothes back in England that would be perfect, but sadly I didn't bring them here. It's ok though, Anne's come to the rescue and kitted me out in woolly hat and tracksuit bottoms! Monday I went out with PJ in the chopper to turn over salt lick troughs as lick mixed with water can kill the cattle, while Kev and Josh turned over the rest using the quad bike - it was quite a mission as there are over 140 troughs in total.Tuesday we got the rest of those YP cattle as the rain had eased off, and Wednesday we mustered the top paddock at No3 as quickly as possible and got them all through the yard so we were home by 4pm as the weather had taken a turn for the worse again. Sadly this meant that the campdraft had to be cancelled for this weekend, but hopefully it'll be rescheduled for August. I'll explain more about what campdrafting is another time.

Thursday and Friday we were at home, I was chief smoko cook and am becoming very proficient at making various cakes and biscuits, as well as feeding Nacho, our little poddy calf. He is so adorable, although man can that calf wee! He causes proper floods every time - it's a nightmare, but we all love him anyway. He nearly died the other week, as we put him in the calf paddock, and the miniture shetland attacked him, so he's been majorly fussed over ever since, and is definitely back to his old cheeky self. He's blind in one eye, but it doesn't seem to bother him too much. He went on hunger strike on Friday as Bev put him back in the calf paddock, although the pony wasn't there, as she was sick of him weeing everywhere. The day before he'd drunk about 1.5l of milk every 2hours, but that day he wouldn't drink anything since his 6am feed until we finally gave in at 5pm and brought him back into the house yard! We did have another poddy calf brought into us on Wed night, who was in a bad way. I spent most of Thursday trying to persuade him to drink, and was delighted when he had 500ml about 11am. Sadly it was downhill from there, he refused to drink or stand or anything, he just gave up. He was a Brahman calf, and apparently they are the worst for sulking and giving up, and are therefore the most difficult to raise. He died Thursday night, which was very sad, but there was nothing else we could have done for him. But these things happen I suppose.

Yesterday we all went out to drop fence posts along the Morella/Mellish Park boundary, which is about 2hrs drive away across country. PJ, Uncle Kelly and I got rid of ours pretty quickly as our part of the fence line was so steep up and down it would have put a Big Dipper rollercoaster to shame! We spent 2hrs waiting for the others as the radios weren't working too well in the hills, before they finally got through about 5pm to say they'd be a while and we should go home. Which we did, and dinner has never tasted so good! We were all starving as we'd had lunch at 11:45 and got home at 7pm with nothing in between!

Anyway, time to go. This bad weather's set to continue this week, so don't know what we'll be doing, just have to wait and see...