Back To Blogging - The Story Of My Sore Neck

For the past week I have been resting up with a sore neck which is a result of a car accident.

Last weekend on my way into town I managed to crash my car, writing it off completely.  I was only doing about 60km per hour but as I came around a bend in the road my car slid on the wet surface.  First I slid to the right then to the left before spinning around so I was travelling backwards.  I slid backwards for a bit and slammed into a tree right in the middle of my rear bumper.

I knew I was ok and not badly hurt but I also knew I had been slammed back into my drivers seat pretty hard.  I called my Hubby who was still at home and he was there within about 10 minutes.  We organised a tow truck, collected all my personal belongings from the car and, after meeting the tow truck, headed off to the Dr to get me checked out.

As expected I had whip lash but thankfully no broken bones.  I found that I was ok while I was vertical but as soon as I tried to lie down I discovered that my neck muscles were so fatigued they could not support my head.  So every night this week I have had to support my head with my hands when I lie down.

I will be going to see a physiotherapist later this week once all the muscle pain has gone and hopefully I will be back to normal in no time at all.

My car is a goner but I am ok and at the end of the day that is what matters.  So hopefully I will be back to blogging all this week.

Stop The Sale Of Cage Eggs At Aldi

Last week I just signed the petition "ALDI; Stop the sale of Caged Eggs in your stores." on Change.org.

This is something I feel quite strongly about.

Do you think it's important. Will you sign it too? Here's the link:

http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/aldi-stop-the-sale-of-caged-eggs-in-your-stores?recruiter=112264745&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

Thanks!

Fiona

See You Soon

I will be taking a short break from blogging.  I am not sure exactly how long maybe a few days, maybe a week.  Hopefully not much longer.  I have hurt my neck and am taking it easy.  I will tell you the story on my return.
See you soon.

Freezer 2 Is Not In The Freezer - Cow Dramas

Just a quick update on the butchering of our cow 'Freezer 2'.  As the title of this post points out she is still very much alive and kicking.

It would have been easy to just pretend that everything had gone as planned and not mention anything but for me that is not what this blog is about.  Life is not all roses and sometimes things happen that are not what you wanted or intended. I think it is important to paint a full picture here not just the good bits because that's how life is when you raise your own animals.

So what happened you might wonder?

Well we had the butcher all booked in for last Thursday.  We waited and waited.  Then we called and called and left messages.
Nothing.
Meanwhile 'Freezer 2' had jumped the fence to get back to her friend.  We had separated them so that she was in the right paddock to be processed.
Friday came and we were on the phone again.  Nothing.  Friday night we got hold of his wife and she took our details and said she would get him to call us back as he was outside.
Nothing.
On Saturday morning we were getting ready to take our friend and his kids camping when I went out to check the animals and I noticed 'freezer 2' was limping and not wanting to put weight on one of her back legs.
Oh Bugger!
Now when it comes to animals I am a stress head.  I really worry when they are sick or injured and I knew this meant I was not going to have a very relaxing weekend while I worried about 'Freezer 2'.  At the same time I was aware there was nothing I could do.
I figured that she had hurt he leg some how when she jumped the fence and broke the top wire.  In future I will not separate them at all before the event even if this means the other cow is in the paddock watching the event take place.

Since she was up and walking around and she could put a little weight on it I knew I would just have to wait and see how she was the next day when we returned from camping.  Well this is what my logical mind knew.

My emotional mind on the other hand was conjuring up all sorts of worst case scenarios and had me jumping online to see if there were any precautions I could take to help her.
Logical mind kicks back in again at this point and points out that she weighs about 400kg and "Really what are you going to do?  Put a bandaid on it?"

So off we went on our camping trip.  She was still limping the next day but she seemed to be a bit better.
And every day this week she has seemed to get better bit by bit day by day.

But now we have another issue. We are out of grass and we still cannot get hold of the butcher.

You see it was always the plan to get rid of her at this time of year before she lost condition over winter due to the lack of grass.  Our paddocks are a mix of blue couch and kikuyu and we knew that as soon as we got a good frost most of the blue couch grass would get burnt off and there would be hardly anything for them to eat.  The kikuyu does not get burnt off but it doesn't grow much either.  This week we have had two mornings with negative 2 degrees and heavy frosts, so much of the grass has been burnt off.
So now we have to find something else to top up their feed.  We have been harvesting feed from the garden for them in the form of banana leaves which they love, Queensland arrowroot and comfrey.  We have purchased a bale of hay but we do not want to spend a lot of money when we are just going to put her in the freezer and at this time of year feed is expensive.
I am really glad that we put a plan in place to grow things as a back up plan for feeding the animals.  We are almost out of the arrowroot foliage but there are still plenty of banana leaves left (although I might be up the ladder cutting them down) and hopefully we do not have to keep feeding her much longer.

We are now going to try and get a different butcher to come and do the job so I will let you know how things go.

Have you ever planned things out only to have it go a bit pear shaped through no fault of your own?  How did you resolve the situation?

Plastic Free July 2014

This year I (and a more so reluctant husband) will be participating in plastic free July.  We first took part in 2012 and it was quite eye opening.  It really made us aware of the plastic that sneaks into your life when you are not looking.  Even though we are really aware of recycling, reusing and try to bring plastic into the house as little as possible the challenge made us really aware that we really need to try harder to find ways to reduce our plastic further. 

Here are the details of Plastic Free July.

The Challenge

The challenge is quite simple. Attempt to refuse single-use plastic during July.
"Single-use" includes plastic shopping bags, plastic cups, straws, plastic packaging...basically anything that's intended only to be used once and then discarded. If refusing ALL single-use plastic sounds too daunting this time, try the TOP 4 challenge (straws, plastic bags, plastic bottles &coffee cup lids).

The rules

1. Attempt to refuse single-use plastic during July.
2. Remember it's not going to be easy! It is a challenge, not a competition so don't worry about being perfect.
3. Collect any unavoidable single-use plastic you buy. Keep in a dilemma bag and share it with us at the end of the challenge.
4. It's up to you regarding how long you participate. You might decide to go plastic-free for a day, a week, a month or longer! However long you choose will still make a contribution.

Why you should participate

• Apart from the small amount of plastic which has been incinerated EVERY piece of plastic which was ever produced still exists on earth somewhere. In the first 10 years of this century MORE plastic was produced than the entire last century!
• Australians send 1 million tonnes of plastic waste to landfill each year. Do your part to make a change.
• Why use something for a few seconds that is going to spend the rest of your life trying to break down in landfill? We really need to change our habits.

I really encourage you to try this.  Even if you end up with a heap of plastic in your dilemma bag at the end of the month I guarantee you will learn a lot.

Check out the website for more details or to register.  I will keep you updated during the month and at the end of the month I will be posting photos of my dilemma bag.

So are you up for the challenge?