New job, new life.

Friday, June 4th, 2010

First of June, 2010. That was the day I started my new job. Phaw what a freaken few days it’s been.

I know a lot of my “readers”1 don’t know what dairy farming involves, and I do intent to build a glossery on this website at some stage so I can explain the words I use on a page, and link to it in my posts.. without explaining every little bloody detail. Anyhow..

I jumped in the deep in! We started drying off on the 1st. Drying off entails sticking 2 tubes per teat into the cow, tube one kills all bacteria that is currently IN the “quarter” and the second is called “Teat seal”. It litterly seals the teat so no new infection can get into the quarter. So a cow has 4 quarters.. That’s 8 tubes per cow, times 5000 cows… You get the picture? Lets just say it was a HUGE operation and for the first couple of hours I inhaled a lot of teat spray2.

We did that for 3 days. No fucking shit. 3 days.

So today was the first day of no-milking at ALL. And Marg3 and I dealt with silage. Well, we opened the tapes for the tractor driver. Srs bizns.

We then put some “breaks” up for the cows,4. Try doing that in sweeds. Sweads, as I found today, grow above ground. Yep. Lovely massive arse bulbs I have to trawl through and put up fences. And the power is on both ends of the fence. So.. Interesting electric shock filled day.

Everyone I work with seems pretty cool, the big bosses actually muck in! Which is awesome to see. Spesh on a big operation like this one! There are a lot of foreigners, some of them their English isn’t so great. But neither is mine, so I really shouldn’t complain. Well.. written English.

The dinners? They’re GREAT! We’ve had roast, fish and potato, and last night we had bacon and egg  pie. I’m not a big fan, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I ate it anyway… and it wasn’t half bad!

So all in all, I’m enjoying it. The hours are short5, the people are good to work with, and it’s all about team effort. I like that. I think, and hope, I’m going to like it here.

  1. all 3 of you [↩]
  2. Consisting of Iodine and other crap not to be inhaled by any living thing. [↩]
  3. My new flat mate [↩]
  4. Splitting the paddock up so they don’t eat it ALL in one go [↩]
  5. Compared to last season!! [↩]
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One year later

Friday, May 28th, 2010

OK it’s not quiet one year later.. But I’ve been living at this address for one year on the 1st on June.

What can I say about this place? At first I was all clean and tidy, did my dishes and shit straight away, and now I tend to leave them… If I eat.

The job itself.. Well I love the job. There are some aspects that I don’t like1, but someone has to do it right? XD

As much as I say that I haven’t learnt anything here, compared to what I knew about dairy farming before now.. well I’ve learnt a lot, I just wish my bosses kept teaching me. Which is where my depression steamed from, because of my age and the fact I’m not in some Uni or Tech or furthering my education / skills in some way.

I’ve learnt that no matter how much effort I put in, my bosses wouldn’t give me a holiday, even when I deserved. Even though I’m underpaid, over worked etc. Another reason for my depression. I had days owing to me, but my bosses wouldn’t let me take them off. So I sunk into a blacker whole, feeling sorry for myself, based on the fact that I’d worked my arse off, never complained or threatened to sue or anything, and I couldn’t even take a few days off to see my mum.

I’ve learnt that if your bosses don’t appreciate you at the start, they most likely won’t change their ways. If everything always gets dumped on your while they get to go home > It’s not going to change.

I’ve learnt how to cry on the phone. OK not really, I still blubber and can’t breath etc, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.

All in all, I enjoyed working here. Just not who I worked for.

This is my last post for awhile, I’m not sure when the net will be stuck on out at my new job. I hope my new job goes well, the thing with working on this current farm is that I’m not sure if other farms run like this. Perhaps I don’t like dairy at all? I guess this new job will tell me that. I’m hoping I’m good at it all.

  1. Like picking up BRANCHES [↩]
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Weight loss and savings.

Monday, May 24th, 2010

SurroundedByFood, new website!

In the past few months, due to my depression, I have “Piled on the pounds”.. or gained a fuck load of weight.

Now I was never a skinny person, but in the past 2 years I had lost a lot of weight. I was standing at 91kg at my heaviest, and after joining Weight Watchers I had gotten down to 78kg1. When I started dairy farming, during calving and for the most part of the year I didn’t lose weight, but I “toned up”. So I dropped a couple of dress sizes. Then, thanks to falling into a black whole of feeling sorry for myself, stress, and laziness,2 I started to eat a fuck load of fast foods, chocolate, ice cream. Anything to make me feel better.

With me moving onto a new job, a new house, further away from any fast foods, and hopefully away from my depression, I hope to lose all the weight I’ve gained. I think I may join Weight Watchers again, but do it online as I’m not driving an hour into town once a week to go to a half hour meeting, I’m just hoping it works the same!

I don’t have a goal weight as of yet, I’m hoping to just get back down to 78kg. That seemed to be my “Finial weight”. Because even though I worked out etc a lot, I didn’t really lose any more weight.

I am giving myself an intensive aside from being able to fit into nice clothes again3. I’m going to

  1. Buy a PC because I’m sick of my lap top over heating etc
  2. Go away to Hamner Springs and get the “Pamper package”

Now after everything I’ve been through, I deserve the second one now. But why not make it something worth celebrating instead of  saying good bye.

Onto the second part of this post. Savings. While I will obviously need to save to buy a PC4 or go away to Hanmer Springs5, I also want to start a savings for “rainy days”. With the income I will be on now, I think it’s going to be possible to do this, because we get feed most days6, then my food bill will be considerably cut. We also get a $70 power allowance. So if I don’t use much power, I don’t have to pay for it.7.

My Grandma suggested starting a Term Deposit. I’m not sure how they work except for the fact you can’t call up the bank and say “HEY! I need some cash quick, pls unlock my “normal” savings account for me?” And they’ll say “OK done”. This money will gain interest, and I cannot touch it. So I’ll look into it. ^.^

I have a few questions for anyone reading. :L

  1. Are you struggling with your weight after losing it? Or just struggling with the way your weight has always been?
  2. Are you a emotional eater? Comfort eater? Bored eater? Or does your life not effect your eating habits?
  3. Do you have a savings account? If so, are you prone to take money from it when you see something you want?
  4. Do you set yourself an “End of goal” prize when you set goals? Does it help to finish what you are trying to accomplish? Or do you lose track?

Wish me luck with my moving! :XX: I’m scared!

  1. It would fluctuate between 78-79kg [↩]
  2. All due to depression [↩]
  3. And not feeling so fat.. [↩]
  4. I’m going to buy a proper, good running, expensive PC, not a cheap $1000 one [↩]
  5. $250, I could just stick it on my CC [↩]
  6. Everyday throughout calving!! [↩]
  7. So if my power bill is $70 or under, I pay nothing. [↩]
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