Here’s my morning. Wake up at a normal time. Have a cuppa and toast. Dress. Forget to start the load of washing. Do today’s Wordle (four steps). Think, “I’ll go feed the chooks and the horses, then pot up some more orchids.”
I feed the chooks and the horses. It’s a nice morning. I take Yon Dog for a walk around the big paddock. She grins broadly, seeking out nice, smelly stuff, and comes to me when call.
Walking back through the horse paddock, I notice there’s a lot of manure. I haven’t picked it up for a few days. There’s a decent barrow load by the time I finish.
Notice the fresh water tub is empty. The horses have rainwater, and another tub of fresh water, but for some reason they like this particular tub. I fill it. Rowdy wanders over and proceeds to drink deeply, followed by Rosie who hunts him away, and has a drink. I don’t bother topping it up.
I wander around the back of the hay shed, checking trees I planted 18 months ago. Several are drooping. No rain forecast for another week, so I set two hoses running, and walk between them for the next little while, watering two at a time, before moving the hoses to others.
It’s a good way to clock up steps on my Samsung Health app. What’s more, these translate to Qantas points. 8,000 steps in a day gives me 1.5 points; 50k steps a week gives me a bonus of 8.5 points. A strange incentive, but it works for me.
Two wattle trees are growing inside tyres I’d placed around them when I’d planted them. If I leave the tyres in place, I won’t be able to remove them without damaging the trees. I drag one over and away from the tree, smashing off some leaves.
The other one tree is larger. This wattle is doing well. I hear my neighbour in his backyard, and call out, asking if he’d help me with just one little thing.
Paul is tall, strong and obliging, and a good neighbour. He lifts off the tyre with ease. Then we start chatting. Yon Dog, in the meantime, has taken the opportunity to race into Paul’s yard and scramble around with his dogs for a few minutes before heading for the far side of his property to scrap with the invisible dogs on the other side of the solid iron fence.
She is naughty, and a has worn a deep path along that fenceline from her previous escapes into Paul’s backyard.
Paul and I chat about the weather and the options for planting this year, as does every farmer with an acre to cultivate.
We say “cheerio” and after a while I turn off the two hoses and go to retrieve Yon Dog from her obsessive running along Paul’s far fence.
I wheel the manure-filled barrow into the back garden, noticing the timber handles are dry, and getting rough. Once it is emptied under a lemon tree, I sand the handles, and apply a decent coat of linseed oil.
The hay rake needs attention to a pinch point at the top of its handle. I glue that so it can’t pinch my hand again.
The chooks are yelling. I let them out of their pen, enabling them to scratch around the larger yard, where they are safe from Yon Dog.
By this time, I am feeling thirsty. I come inside and Yon Dog rushes over to her feeding station. I recall I hadn’t yet fed her breakfast. I oblige. One handful of dry food, and a Chicken Tender (for dogs). She won’t eat until she’s had her Tender. Not spoilt — much!
I turn on the load of washing.
Time for a mid-morning cuppa, plus a mini Easter bun. It’s only a mini. That shouldn’t have too many calories. I check social media, and answer the phone to book annual Pest Control inspection and treatment.
I must check if there are any council emails from the weekend. Deal with them as needed — reply, file, or delete.
I enjoy my cuppa and bun. Yon Dog has gone to sleep on her favourite chair.
It’s by now late morning and too warm for potting plants. The first load of washing has just finished. What’s more I’ve clocked up some points.
I pause my typing, glancing outside at the bright sunshine, the dry garden, the drooping plants. Shades of stoic green belie the dry soil. I should do some watering, but there is more washing to do and clothes to hang.
And writing, always writing, that must be done.
