Another fairly quiet week at the station as we had quite a lot of rain Sunday and Monday 40ml, which is unheard of at this time of year, and rather brings things to a standstill (although I hear Sheffield's had a lot worse - it was even on the news over here briefly!). Most days have been spent helping Bev, making smokos and puddings (I'm not quite so accomplished at the main courses yet, with the exception of preparing vegetables! The only problem with not doing much and the weather being so cold is that all anyone wants to do is sit and eat, and I think everyone's gained a couple of kilos since we've been back here. Ah well, once we're back out at camp we'll burn them off again I'm sure.

Time not spent cooking has generally been spent feeding Nacho the calf, or worrying about him. He's not been very well this week and is totally out of sorts. Wednesday he stopped drinking (bear in mind this is the calf that can down 10litres a day!) and wouldn't stop grinding his teeth, like he was cudding, but far to fast and hard for that. We phoned the vet and she said we should give him painkillers, which did help and I managed to get a couple of litres into him, and although the teeth grinding stopped he's still not good. Yesterday (Friday) he was really bloated and very uncomfortable, so the vet said more painkiller and to give him paraffin oil, which we did. 3 doses later, in the middle of the night it had an effect at last, although Bev said he stunk the place out! He hasn't drunk anything since midnight Wed/Thur except for the litre Anne forcefed him yesterday morning. He did start drinking a bit of water though, which is good but he's going downhill, which is a huge shame. Fingers crossed he'll pick up soon, he's a bit of a favourite with everyone here.

Kathy the accountant was here this week with her husband and 2 girls, as the Australian financial year ends today (30th June) so she's been getting all the books in order. Her eldest daughter KateLynn is nearly 17 and they've been trying to persuade her to learn to drive, but she's been resisting, although she did have a couple of driving lessons with PJ around the station so at least she's got started now. Out here kids learn to drive by about the age of 8 as it's just necessary around the station - by the time Anne got her licence at 17 she'd been driving longer than the policeman who gave it to her!

Yesterday PJ and I went out to Wire Yard to see the big drilling rig that's been set up to drill the new bore (for water) there - it's huge! And the camp out there is like a little village. There are usually 4 or 5 men working at any one time, and split into 2 shifts they work 24hours a day. I found it very interesting to see how it all worked, and while we were there we even saw them add a new section to the drill so that they could go deeper. Apparently the rig that's there is just a small version of an oil rig, but at $4million it's still pretty impressive!

Better go pack - we're going out to camp tonight as we've got behind on the mustering and we need 6 decks of cattle to truck on Wednesday.