Typical day at the farm

I've been reading Bill Bryson's "At home" recently, and was awed by how little we really know about how people used to live on a day to day basis. It also occurred to me that, while I write a whole lot of interesting (or otherwise) things in my blog, no one knows what a typical day at the farm is really like. So, here goes. A description of a typical day at the farm ... from my perspective. (And just to be clear - this is a typical day now, post chemo. Before the whole cancer thing, life was a whole different kettle of fish.)

I wake up. Must be day, because there is daylight coming in through the ensuite window - one of the few windows where we don't draw the shutter at night. For exactly this purpose - so that when you wake up you can tell whether it's day or night. I jump out of bed, get a drink, take my homeopathic remedies, and jump back into bed. It's 7:30am. I lie in bed, thinking that maybe I still need more rest, but after 20 minutes I decide I am wrong.

I get up, get dressed and have breakfast. Very quietly of course, because the rest of the household, that is husband and Sabina, is asleep. If luck has it, they are still asleep at 9am, when I finally sneak out to ride my horse. I am back in the house (having ridden said horse), at 11am. By this stage, husband has had enough time playing with Sabina, and is absolutely busting to be set free. So off he goes, outside, engaging in farm maintenance and innovation tasks.

Sabina and I have a snack, and then I survey the situation I have been left with. Sometimes the guinea pigs need to be taken out, other times I might engage in a few small tasks such as throwing out a dead mouse and resetting the rat zapper, or cleaning a shelf in the pantry (yes, from mouse droppings).

At 12:30pm I start preparing lunch, which is usually ready at 1pm or so. Lately, husband has become pretty good with his timing, and is usually milling around the house by this time. On a good day he even comes in and sets the table. On a bad day, I have to get out the front door and ring the big fire bell.

By 2pm lunch is eaten. Sabina and I go for a 20 minute lie down, and husband cleans up after lunch. Then husband heads back to his farm tasks. When the alarm bell rings that our 20 minutes is up, Sabina and I usually have giggle and tickle time. Then we head out to ride Sabina's pony. Hopefully, I get to ride my pony at the same time. After riding, we feed the horses.

By this stage it's about 4:30pm at best. I gaze longingly at the garden, and see it screaming at me. I grab the required tools and dig in. Or slice in. Or saw in. At 5pm I realise that I should be heading inside to make dinner. Oh, but maybe I will just trim a little bit more. At 5:30pm I must finish. But of course I can't leave a mess in the garden, so I quickly clean up and put away my tools. By 6pm I rush inside. Dinner is now officially late, and I haven't even started yet.

I create a tornado in the kitchen, making salad, providing Sabina with a snack, slicing meat and preparing dessert simultaneously. We eat at around 7pm, then blissfully relax around dessert. Husband and Sabina head off to the bathroom while I clean up. At 9:30pm I dash off to the bathroom for my own shower, hoping that I can be in bed by 10pm. Quite often, however, I get caught up in some conversation with my husband, or some blog writing, and I end up in bed at 11pm.

I read a book for about half an hour, before turning the lights off.

Easter walk

It is our family tradition to do an Easter Walk on Easter Sunday, with the whole idea being that children find Easter eggs along the way.

Us adults? Well, we take our chocolate dark, melted and mixed with pure spirits (95% proof, yes). We drink it together with brunch, which is the first meal of the day, after an obligatory visit to church. Usually, we start our brunch with a solid swig of the said chocolate vodka, then proceed onto other delicacies such as hard boiled eggs, cold meats and salads. The brunch is finished off with a traditional Polish Easter cake called "Mazurek". (Think thin layer of short bread, covered with creamed caramel, mixed fruit and nuts. Rich.) After such a serving of food and alcohol every adult falls in a heap on a bed, any bed, and is rendered helpless, and often asleep, for about an hour. Maybe two.

When the adults finally stir, we go for an Easter walk. At last the kids get a chance to get their dose of chocolate. (Don't get me wrong. The kids do get a dose of chocolate at brunch. But this is very modest by modern standards.)

We head out on our walk with pockets full of chocolate eggs, while Sabina sports an empty backpack. At the very entrance to the walk, on a fence post, she finds a golden chocolate egg. With huge excitement, she puts it into the backpack, and slows the entire walk down to a crawl as she scans the ground for more eggs.

We walk along patiently behind her, and as I am last, I drop an egg here and there. Fingers crossed that they will still be here on our way back.

The walk takes us into a rain forest with tall trees, and shady ferns. As Papa points out the trees to Sabina, a couple of eggs roll onto the footpath. Sabina squeals with joy, and adds them to her collection. Deer tracks, ferns, and the creek provide another useful distraction. Sometimes we just throw the eggs while walking along behind her. Every egg is greeted with unparalleled excitement, and a commanding "stop! Everyone stop!".

There is an added level of difficulty when throwing eggs at random. The track we are following has been recently visited by a couple of horses. So it's important that the eggs don't land in a pile of reasonably fresh horse droppings.

Eventually we turn back and while the egg hunt is now officially over, we still manage to find a few eggs. We even manage to find a chocolate bunny. Amazing.

Baw Baw Classic

So, my husband has decided to do the Baw Baw Classic, cycling race, for the third time in a row.

Last year we actively supported him, and drove to the top of Mt Baw Baw amid falling snow. It was very exciting, but the journey is long and winding. So this year, we piked. Well, we half piked. We asked for permission to not be at the finish line, and permission we got.

This morning we drove my husband to Warragul for the start of the race. Of course, as luck would have it, the week was full of sunny autumn weather, but last night it poured with rain, and turned nasty cold. So we braced in our coats and waved him good luck at the start.

The race went well and he managed to climb to the top of the mountain and finish. He even got a medal. Just like last year, it snowed.

Then he caught the bus back down. But the bus doesn't come past our place. They dropped him off in Neerim Junction, and he rode the rest of the way home. That's right. As though cycling 100km from Warragul to Mt Baw Baw, doing the toughest climb in Australia (correct me if I am wrong) wasn't enough. He then got out of the warm bus, into the freezing cold, and with his spare clothes bag waltzing like a matilda off his bike, he rode the 11km home in the dusk. The last 2km being on a gravel road. And it's not flat.

He deserves his medal.

Nails

It's now over 2 months since my last chemo, and some of the side effects are still with me.

Every time you have chemo, it leaves a mark on your nails.  So my nails are striped and indented (and in a couple of cases bruised), each stripe showing the depletion of vitamins and minerals.  Some people lose a nail or two during chemo.

I haven't lost a nail, and the stripes are now progressively growing out.  The nails are weak and brittle and need attention.  They need attention every hour!  Sound rediculous?  It is!  I can't touch fine fabrics because these endlessly braking nails are just so full of sharp edges that I would quickly ruin any fine fabric.  I'm in danger of ruining my more sturdy fabrics - that's how bad the problem is.

Now, you would think that if a nail broke off at 8am, and then again at 9am, that by 10am there really wouldn't be any more nail to break off.  Oh, but there is!  Heaps to break off.  Apparently.  And even if there is no more to break off, the nails still break off and splinter and split.  And sometimes I have to put a band aid on because the nail has broken off too much and the finger underneath is bleeding.

They are not pretty to look at, either.