The Empire Strikes Backlog

Today is now the 10^th and I had a very long evening and an even longer morning today. I helped out last night sorting and branding cattle at the Delny yards which are a few kilos away from the homestead and this morning it was at some closer ones. I had such a great time working with the cattle and hopefully I will be going out again soon. Last night consisted of herding the cattle into long single file holding chambers at the end of which is a big contraption that holds down the cow and flips it on its side so that it can be branded, have its ear tagged and if it is a male castrated. To say that Don is cavalier about cutting the testicles off of his cattle would be an understatement. There should be signs on all of his yards saying “CAUTION FLYING TESTICLES” More than once I nearly was hit in the face with them as he chucked them about as if he were taking socks off the cows.

The shirt I’m wearing today is caked with cow blood, human blood (I wore it when I crashed the ATV) manure, diesel fuel, swatted flies, motor oil, sweat, cow slobber, lemonade (from lunch) and the thin veil of red outback dust that covers everything here.

I’m going to have an AWESOME time getting back through customs.

While most of the cattle are only about 2 years old and are the size you might expect cows to be, last night we loaded a bull the size of an elephant into the truck. I’ve seen a lot of cattle in the month I’ve been out here and that was definitely the biggest cow I have ever seen. But it was the smaller ones that ended up almost taking me out. One of the females was giving birth, which apparently for cows is a much longer process than for humans, and was just walking around the whole time with a calf leg and foot just sticking out of it’s back end. And while most of the cows just move out of the way when you call them this one was defensive and charged at me a few times. There was also a young one that was going crazy and I had to block it from going back out through the gate so I had to grab it and flip it around as it charged me. I’m sure that this is just another day in the life as far as a rancher goes but for someone who has never worked away from a desk or retail getting charged by a 600 pound animal while you’re on the clock is pretty exciting. Oh! Also I got kicked in the shin by a cow. Im sure this does not need to be explained, but THEY KICK REALLY HARD. My leg is ok, I’ve got a bit of a bump but its definitely not broken or anything. Now I guess I know to push them from behind and not to smack them. Ha ha.

This morning we were up at 0 dark thirty as they say, then it was off to more yards 6 hours of work before lunch.

Today or maybe tomorrow will be my one month mark of being in Delmore Downs. I would say that we would have a party or something but there are only 6 of us here and there is almost no food. Canned corn and SPAM doesn’t make much of a celebration. Hopefully there will be a shipment of food soon. Although I’ve written that here a lot. . .

Last night I found one of those bulldog ants in my room and a scorpion just out side. God help me if I find either in my bed. Those things are legitimately scary. Having lots of big weird bugs in your room I can handle, but those ants not only have jaws a quarter of their body length, AND venom stingers, but also they seem . . . aware. They aren’t like regular ants which just go about their business and will bite you if they get on you. They seem like they know you are there. And they HATE YOU. These monsters don’t go around looking for anything so dainty as sugar or crumbs left out on the kitchen counter. No, they want to look into the dilated eyes of their helpless victims and soak in their shrieks of terror as they feast on them alive and screaming. No mercy.

The scorpion wasn’t so bad though, it was pretty small and I think mostly dead. But it did look cool. I have a picture I can upload when the internet starts going again.

Well it turns out we have some flour butter AND powdered milk, so I think we are going to make biscuits and SPAM for dinner.