Thursday 17 November 2011

Cup Weekend - Birthday Parties and Sheep

It's been a few weeks since my last post, but it's not just because I'm being lazy, I swear. I've been flat out with exams, a new job, bootcamp, birthdays, and everything else that seems to come up this time of year. 

Despite how busy the last few weeks have been, they have been really good. One of the highlights was Cup weekend. Long weekends are supposed to be a time to relax and take a break from everything. Some people get away for a few days, other catch up with friends, other take the chance to not much at all.

But not me. No, what did I do on the weekend? I spent Saturday and Sunday preparing a kids party, and Monday and Tuesday drenching, ringing, ear tagging and giving B12 injections to 300 sheep.As painful as that sounds, it wasn't that bad!

In my family, birthdays are a BIG deal. I spent all of Saturday cooking pizzas, cupcakes and cookie. Alana's birthday was on the Sunday, so I  stayed at my parents house for the night so that I could be there in the morning to make pancakes for breakfast, and watch the presents be opened.  The rest of the afternoon was a frantic rush to get all the cupcakes iced, the topping on the pizza's, the birthday cake make, the table decorated and all the other things that have to be done for kids birthday parties. 

Excuse the mess. It was all the kids, I swear. 

Halloween shaped cookies!

The final product. 
Her Birthday was the day before Halloween, so we made the party Halloween themed! All the little kids (and the big ones too) dressed up, and we decorated the house with pumpkins, spiders, ghosts, and anything else halloweeny that we found. The Birthday girl dressed up as a witch, and I thought that crimped hair would go well with her costume. She thought it was a great idea until she had to sit still for 45 minutes while a used mums ancient crimper on all her thick hair! It did look cute though :)

Birthday Girl! 

Decorations


Who would win, witch or vampire?


Unfortunately I didn't spend my Cup day trackside with a glass of Moscato in hand. I spend it paddock side, with an ear tagger in hand. My parents own a couple hundred acres of land in east Gippsland. They farm a few hundred Dorper sheep, as well as some cattle. 

Each year, all of the new lambies need to be ringed, ear tagged, drenched and given B12 injections. Being the amazing people we are, my boyfriend and I went down to help. One of my good friends for Uni has her heart set on marrying a farmer and living on a farm. She is obsessed with anything to do with the county. So, I decided it was a good opportunity to show her how a farm operates. She stuck around for a few hours on the first day, and was actually a good help for a city girl ;).  Although, it was quite amusing when she nearly got trampled by a heard of sheep running from the yard. 


We started the sheep on the Monday, but didn't managed to get them all done. I waved good bye to my cup day plans in exchanged for another day of sheep. Only it was worse this time because it was raining and they where WET! We finished just in time to watch the Cup. Even through we where huddled around a 30 year old TV with rabbit ear attenas that only just had reception, I was happy! 

After we finished the sheep I decided that the kids needed to be done to, so I chucked them up in the cradle. (The cradle is the thing that you put the sheep in when you doing what ever your doing to them.)


Note: I didn't really. Not children where harmed in the making of this blog.