Calf Club

On Wednesday we had the Ngatea Primary School Calf Club. Now Sub6 is quite keen to learn about calf's as he is having trouble with his! He's even got some compression socks. I should not jest though, as I might get some too!

So what's calf club?

This is a 1937 picture of a calf club in Morrinsille

It has been a tradition for many years in mostly rural schools, that children rear and tend to a young farm animal from (the animals) birth. This can be a kid (goat), lamb or calf.

This is a photo of Celine with Skipper in 2004. Skipper won lots of ribbons!

This animal is fed by the child (primary school age), lead with a halter, brushed and much loved.

The calf club events are held at schools in mid October, at this stage most of the animals are about 3 months old, so still manageable for most children.

Celine's 2007 lamb, Chippy.

At the local calf club children have four events to compete in. The first is the obstacle course. In this event the animal is lead in a ring about 20m by 20m. They walk with their animal through a wiggly track, over a small log, around a peg, over some corrugated iron, and then open and close a gate.

The second event is leading, which is much the same as the obstacle course, but without the obstacle. The children who have been the most dedicated at practicing will show up, as they have a great repore with their animal, and the animal leads without any prompting.

For the lambs and kids the most hilarious (but it's not meant to be) event is the calling. In this case the child undoes the lead and the steward (me in this case) holds on to the animal. The child then walks about 10 m and 'calls' their pet, I then let go. The best animals then bolt to their owner, who then walks a further 10 m with the lamb/kid in hot pursuit, they round another peg then run, again the lamb/kid should be in hot pursuit. at the end of the run, the child must then catch their lamb. If it hasn't happened earlier, this is when the stewards job becomes critical.

Fortunately the ring has material around it, unfortunately if the child has not practiced enough, or has some bad luck, the steward has to chase any escapees. With a multitude of parents and friends watching, this becomes a spectacle with the audience offering plenty of advice to the poor steward who is now chasing at high speed the uncatchable animal. I tend to find the most defiant lambs have even better artful dodger skills than Jonah Lomu!

Anyway, I guess you can imagine!

The next for the lamb/kids is rearing, where the judge determines (basically) which lamb would taste the best! Well seriously, how well grown the animal is, and how well the child has groomed it.

The calves don't do the 'calling' - now that would be interesting! Instead they have rearing - much the same as above, and Dairy or Beef type. This 'Type' class becomes very political to the watching parents/stock breeders on the sideline. Reputations are made and lost on which calf becomes the Type Champion! Actually one of the judges on Wednesday told me he was just about punched by an irate lady, for not choosing her child's calf!! (Yes it gets very serious)

I've finally found this photo, this little 5 year old's calf was bigger than she was. She had absolute control over it - just amazing......and very cute! This was from our local show two years ago.

Irate parents aside, calf club is a great event for the children. It teaches them responsibility (for looking after and animal), time management, and an important skill - if you want to succeed in something - you have to do the work!

Almost 1000

It's quite cool seeing how many people have checked my blog, and where in the world they live. It's up to 991 hits, so not long to 1000.

Because it's my birthday today, and it's fairly grotty outside, I'm not going to do any swimming, biking or running. I'm going out to dinner tonight with some friends, I've even managed to organise a mini-bus, isn't that thoughtful!

Should be a good night - let's hope I can stay awake past 8.30!

It's the Ngatea Garage Sale tomorrow - an annual event where everyone in Ngatea puts out their junk, and people come from miles around to buy it. I've sorted out a few bits and pieces to take into town, but the weather may put me off.

Cement Pills7

It seems we all need more cement pills.

I've come up with the answer - a cement mixer!

I need bucket loads at the moment. For some reason I'm working IN our business instead of ON it - the buzz words of business management!

This means 4 am starts to milk 95 cows (a really small number for us), then get back to get the girls ready for their day.

Then I need to get other business stuff done, feed 150 yearling heifers and 210 calves, and fit getting accounts and wages done.

Then I have some events to train for! Luckily I can get most of my training in during the day, but I HAVE to be in bed by 8.30pm! This means I also am not watching any TV, and missed the final of Outrageous Fortune (I had only just got hooked on it too!)

Things are going well though, I've got a really messy house, car, garage etc, but I'm feeling good. Oh and it's my birthday tomorrow!

Holidays!

It's the school holidays at the moment. It's making training a little difficult, so I'm just trying to stay as active as I can to retain my fitness.

I went shopping with my girls yesterday, the summer fashions are just fabulous for them. I didn't bother with anythingfor myself, other than some sandals.

Ella kept wanting to go to the toilet, as there was a mother and child toilet - a big and little one. Quite funny really, and at least there were no embarrassing accidents! Well, she did a real paddy at the end of the day when she didn't get what she wanted! Oooops! She fell asleep in the car on the way home, so she must have been very tired!

Emily Miazga

A photo just for Sub 6!

I'm going to order some powerbars for the half ironman's and for training. They're great!

Ems Power Cookies

Name Dropping!

Oh I forgot to mention. About half way up the mountain, I met Richard Ussher - he gave me some great words of encouragement. What a neat guy! His wife was racing in the 12 hour event. I also met Em from Em's powercookies - she was the female winner of this year's coast to coast (Richard won the men for those not in the know). Would I ever do coast to coast - I doubt it, I would rather drive a boat with a motor on it!

Spring Challenge 2008

The Spring Challenge this year was held in Kaikoura, on the East Coast of the South Island. Kaikoura is famous for whale watching, and Koura or Crayfish Kaikoura means to eat crayfish.
We left at 5 am on Friday morning, we were flying out of Auckland, direct to Christchurch. We only just made it on the plane, as we were detoured following a major car vs truck crash.
We had three bikes, all our gear, and lots of nervousness!

We arrived in Christchurch at 8.30, collected our bikes and found Tony, with our rental vehicle. We needed a four-wheel drive, with bike racks.
Our support person, Andria, has a sister in Christchurch, her brother-in-law collected our bikes and helped to put them back together. We grabbed some breakfast and headed north.

What an awesome day - the sun was out, and the scenery was amazing!

We arrived at registration. As we were warned, the course had been changed. Lots of hot weather (26 degrees C) had meant the snow was melting, and some of the rivers we were meant to cross were too dangerous.


We booked into our accomodation.

We had a quick look around Kaikoura, grabbed a bite to eat, then sorted out our gear. We had compulsory gear we needed to take, after such a hot day it seemed weird packing thermals, survival blankets and sleeping bags (little did we know!)

The teams starting at 6 am, left the place we were staying at 4.30 am. I slept well, and didn't hear them.

We were up around 5.30, got sorted and left for the start at 7.30. It was quite a drive to the Clarence river, where we started. As we got closer, we saw the leading 6 hour team - they were going for it along SH1 - they ended up winning with a margin of an hour!

We got into our wetsuits, and lined up at the start. Everyone else had purple number bibs, ours were pink. I had to explain ALL day why we were pink, no we didn't sleep in - this was our third event, and I'd asked the organiser whether we could keep our original number 11. I think it was his revenge to give it to us!

The event started with a 2.5 km run to the raft. I had a camelpack with water, good shoes and bike helmet on.

Once we got to the raft it was bibs off, lifejackets on, bibs back on, grab another team of three, and go! Only this time, we only had 5 paddles - the earlier teams must have lost some!

The river was reasonably high, and dirty from the snow melt. Our guide, Simon was great, we told him we weren't super competitive, but we wanted to finish somewhere in the middle. The other team had no rafting experience, so didn't have gloves or anything GRR!

Tammy is our strongest paddler, so we put her up front. I ended up having to tell her to slow down, as the others couldn't keep up with her!

The rapids were great - not as tame as Hanmer or Taupo. The raft went through one set of rapids, I must have closed my eyes, cause it ended up full of water, and Simon told us we almost flipped! We managed to stay clear of rocks, other rafts ended up stuck on them.

After about an hour - 11 km, we clambered out, over stones, up a steep bank to TA1. We were soaked. Tammy's only thermal top was saturated. I changed completely (no room for modesty).

It was quite a long TA, as Tammy was really cold, so we got warmed up and set off for what was meant to be a 48 km bike ride - my odo said 55 by the time we finished!

28 km was on SH1, along the georgous Kaikoura coast. Lots of seals and supporters, but no time for photos. One of my team members (informed me later) had never ridden on the road, I stayed at the back to make sure everyone was OK.

We had to wait for ages to cross the road to go through farmland. This ended up being an exercise of carrying bikes across streams, and pushing them up hills.

We arrived at a supportless TA, Em fromEm's powerbars gave us free samples - boy I needed that power cookie! We then got some questions we had to answer along the way. (We were still on our bikes)

We arrived at TA3 at about 1.30, absolutely starving. We stocked up on food and water, and took our bikes a further 2 km to the start of the Mt Fyffe walk.

I'm so pleased I'd invested in a good pair of hiking shoes. Mt Fyffe was STEEEEEEP. On map my run, it goes for 3 km, and gains 1000 m in altitude. I'm sure it was even steeper than that. The only way I made it was tell myself to walk to that tree/boulder/tussock, have a quick rest, then make another target.

To make matter worse, it started sleeting, I told my other team mates to go ahead to the hut, they were faster than me, and getting cold. I met up with Rachey and Fetish of sportzhub, and climbed with them for a while.

It was freezing at the hut. Tammy was in a bad way, but not as bad as another lady who was hyperthermic! I quickly got changed into warmer clothes, and charged down the mountain. I forgot to mention - I have never had problems with my knees, but had to take neurofen half way up as they were aching! We all needed it. Tammy and Janie's knees feared worse downhill. I think adrenaline kicked in for me, I loved going downhill! I lost my good biking glasses in the hut, I'd imagine they got smashed, it was so crowded up there.

It started snowing, which was actually warmer than the sleet! It was still snowing at 500m. The locals told us later it was the coldest afternoon they'd had all year! It had gone from sun to snow in a very short time!

We got down and back on our bikes. After 2 kms, Tammy stopped, and told us she couldn't go any further, the jarring of the gravel road was hurting her knees. We tried walking for another 2kms, then all got really cold. It was time to pull the plug. Janie and I would have loved to carry on, but it was 'all of us or none of us'.

We were only about 9 km from the finish, and it was all downhill!!!

We rang Nathan to say we were finished, and Andria to pick us up. We wrapped Tammy in a sleeping bag (part of the compulsory gear) and headed back for a hot shower.

Tammy took ages to warm up. I felt quite good, but tired.

We went out for dinner, had a few laughs, and too much wine, and went to bed.

The next morning we went for the lunch, but left before prizegiving. We wanted to get back to Christchurch and have a rest. I hope our number didn't get pulled out for any spot prizes, because there were heaps of them!

We flew back to Auckland on Monday afternoon. I was reluctant to sit down, as standing back up was not easy.

My muscles are feeling back to normal now, so back into training!!!

The next Spring Challenge is in Queenstown - I've already entered the Autumn Challenge - There's unfinished business!

We'd been going for 9 and a half hours by the time we pulled out. The winning time for our division was close to 8 hours.

EXCITED

Wow, I am so excited. Tomorrow at 5 am we leave for Auckland airport. We arrive at Christchurch, pick up our rental vehicle, assemble our bikes and head for Kaikoura.

The adventure race course may need to change. Due to hot sunny weather, the snow's melting. So the rivers are high, and too dangerous to cross. The poor organisers are having resort to a plan B, which they had a contingency for - they are well organised!!

They are disappointed as obviously Plan A was going to be a really great course (river crossings!!!!!)

Still, with high river levels the white water rafting will be fun!!!

I'm back Monday night, we'll hopefully have time to take some photos, so I'll post lots.

My bike is safely packed away in it's new travel bag, I got a real bargin on torpedo7.com.

The girls are safe at Nana's and Popa's and a friend's place, so it's all tickety boo!!

OH NO! Bloody Virus's

I've just come back from the doctor, I developed a sore throat on Saturday, and tried to brush it off with a good bike and run session. Sunday it was back with vengeance, so tried to sleep it off. Today it's just as bad, so went to the doctor. As I suspected a 'virus', and 'sorry' nothing we can do. Although she gave me a script for antibiotics just in case it turns bacterial - which I hope it doesn't, but saves me finding a doctor if I'm in Kaikoura at the time.

So a forced taper for the Kaikoura Adventure race. I'll go for some short walks but had planned to swim, so that won't happen!

Still, if I'm healthy by Friday, I'll be pleased, I'm feeling fit enough to do the adventure race.

In the meantime - where's that Echinacea?

Time for an update

Well, to say I've been busy would be an understatement! August is a busy time on a dairy farm, and this year has been no exception.

To add to the normal issues of calving cows, it has been extremely wet. Brian also did damage to his pelvis whilst trying to do the splits after falling off the motorbike. This put him in severe pain, and I had to step up to help out. To add insult to injury, he didn't make the olympic gymnastics team!

We bought a new farm in June, this is the one that flooded. Somehow, I have found myself managing it! Next week I will be milking a few cows there too! I must admit, I have really enjoyed the challenge. I decided not to renew a contract from DairyNZ to be a Consulting Officer, which was fortunate, as I would not have been able to do it!

This photo is at our runoff. These calves are hereford cross, and are being looked after by a 'nurse' cow.

Training took a back seat while all this was happening. Although, I think my endurance and strength as been improved as a result.

My training is back on track, suprisingly I have been able to put in some solid efforts, although a hill climb last week almost killed me!

Next weekend, I'm off to Christchurch then up to Kaikoura for the Spring Challenge. Can't wait!

This photo is of a 12 m pole being driven down into our cowshed site. We have had to preload

the site, and will need to drive around 700 poles in order to stabilse the site to build a 70 bale rotary.