Two weeks news to update - all I have to do now is remember it!

Last week was spent at the station as Anne had a lot of organising secretary type stuff to do before the campdraft. I spent a couple of days at the beginning of the week helping Bev around the house, feeding calves, piglets, horses, cooking, washing, you get the idea. One day Anne and I had to go out to Morella, a neighbouring station to pick up 2 of our cattle that had escaped across the fence, and also we had to go to Rocky paddock where the mares and foals are to pick up Twinkle Toes and her foal and bring her back to the station. We'd seen the foal a few days before but had no idea who his mother was as he kept turning up with different mares each time. He's Twinks' first foal, and at 19 she's pretty old, and she wasn't producing any milk for him. The poor little thing was a bag of bones and we weren't sure he was going to make it. We spent ages trying to bottle feed him but he wasn't having any of it, he just wanted to suck his mum. Luckily by feeding her and giving her salt lick and water she came into some milk, and now the foal, also known as Tom Thumb, is eating some of the feed too, and he's looking pretty good on it. It's nice because we get to keep them in Anne's yard for a while, as it's secure and we can keep an eye on them (Anne's dog Harley is very protective over the little man), and it's great to see him progressing. He looks like a proper foal now, and he's cantering about and bucking and playing! You really wouldn't have thought he was the same foal.

After the almost disaster of Twinks' foal, Alan, Kev and I went out to muster Rocky the next day so we could bring in any mares heavy in foal to keep an eye on. I was truck driver, while the other two did the mustering, and I'm pleased to say that the truck remained in one piece this time! All of us, except Anne, spent a couple of days going out to Wire Yard to fix the windmill and push the cattle we'd trapped in the dam paddock out into the holding paddock ready for mustering when we got back from the campdraft. Friday Bev booked me to stay at home so we could get the cooking done for the draft, we had a busy day in the kitchen, not finishing until 6:30pm. Anne, Alan and Josh left for Gregory (where the draft is held) after lunch as they were camping over there with the horses, as they were competing, and PJ and Kev went over for the evening to the free BBQ. Bev and I stayed at home as we were very tired after the day's preparations, and we had a girls movie night watching "Walk the Line" - pretty good, but we were flat out trying to stay awake!

Saturday morning Bev, PJ and I were up bright and early as all the animals had to be fed and goats milked before we left for the draft. We managed to leave by 8am with the car full of food, and the piglet. We were going to leave her behind for Amanda to feed, but since she was eating so often we decided to take her. We took her box and she stayed in the truck/office with Anne and me all day and was a little angel. She didn't try to jump off the side or anything, and became a great favourite with everyone, especially the little kids. I was in the truck helping Anne with the timing, but I should probably explain the whole idea of camp drafting before I get any further. Basically there's a small pen about 10m x 15m with 8 heifers in it. The rider has to go in, and bring out one beast into the main arena. This is very tricky as once you've selected a beast, you have to stick with it, if you bring it out and lose it back into the mob, you have to bring the same one out again, not just pick another. When it's out, you call for the gate to be opened and push it out into the main arena. You get points for the skill shown in the cutting, and lose them for things like losing the beast back. Once you're out in the main arena you have to chase the beast around two pegs set in a line perpendicular to the exit from the little pen or "camp". The first peg is to the right and you have to go around that and the second one to make a kind of figure of eight shape, then you have to bend the beast back to the right between two pegs set up to make a kind of gateway which is at the opposite side of the arena to the exit of the camp, almost like the tip of the triangle to the two other pegs - it's hard to explain without diagrams! Here you get points out of 4 for how much of the course you complete and also a horsemanship score out of 70 or something, for how well you rode it. You lose points for the beast going the wrong way, and you have 40 secs in the arena to do what you can. There's no set time limit for the cutting in the camp, it's up to the judges discretion if he thinks you're not getting anywhere he'll "crack you off" (he's sat on a horse just outside the camp and uses his whip to signal when you're out. The cutting is marked out of 26 I think. The first day there was the maiden, novice and ladies events, which were interesting to watch, but not as good as the Sunday, when the open draft was held. Some of those riders are so impressive - especially one guy called Ben Hall, who's pretty well known around here, he's the man to beat. The other fantastic thing to watch on the Sunday was the mini mini draft (under 6s) which is just brilliant. Tiny little kids, some on huge horses, some on little shetland things trotting round with mum or dad and a few other people in the arena, discreetly pushing the cattle in the right direction. There was one little 5 year old who rode two big horses and she was just amazing, she almost put some of the grown ups to shame! They start so young here though, it's impossible for them not to take to riding. There was one little girl being led around who was 18months old, and she was sat up holding the reins and everything! It's just unreal.

It was a good weekend but tiring, and we all found it difficult to get motivated and packed up for camp at Wire Yard on Monday. Having said that we did have 700 cattle in the yard within a couple of hours of arriving there, which was pretty good. We yarded up from the cooler into the yards pretty smoothly, except for one crazy mad cow with BIG horns. She was a complete nutcase and would fair dinkum just charge you and chase you at a flat gallop most of the way down the cooler trying to horn you. She was pretty scary, as she could have done us and the horses a lot of damage with those horns. We ended up getting the Toyota to push her in, while I held the horses outside. I cunningly positioned myself by a climbable tree, as it's not unheard of for these mad things to charge straight through the metal fence round the cooler and break it, and I didn't want to end up anywhere near her! After that the week was busy but pretty uneventful. There were a lot of calves to brand (300ish from that first day!), and we spent most days picking up more cattle in the morning then processing them in the afternoon. Generally they weren't too crazy after that first cow, but the last mob yesterday had another very cranky cow, and a lot of big mad calves. I spent quite a lot of this week riding my grey mare, and she seems to have settled down a lot and got used to me, and I think with a bit more time together she could be pretty good. It's so nice to have a horse that moves off your leg sideways as well as forwards and has a pretty soft mouth. Not that I don't love the others, but she's a nice bit of variety. The very good news this week is that O'Reilly is better, so I should be able to take her to Mellish Park when we go up there for second round next week.

We've had an unexpected half day off today as we only had to pack up camp and come back from Wire Yard and do a killer, so I thought I'd make use of the computer while I could, especially as real day off is Tuesday but Anne and I are going to town for the day. I'm really looking forward to it actually as we're going to have a bit of a girls' day and go somewhere nice for lunch - if we get time! We're back at No3 tonight to muster the cattle in Rocky and process them tomorrow and Monday, so we've just had time to come home and do washing etc before going back out. I'll attempt an update next week, but no promises as I think we're going to Mellish for 10days on Friday, so I'll update when I can.

Better go - smoko time!