Counting your blessings on the farm
Alittle girl cuddling a plastic bottle enjoying playing mothers, like small girls do all round the world.
Children kicking a plastic bag full of rubbish, even a stone, around in the dust and laughing with the fun of their game of soccer.
These wonderful images from time spent in countries less ‘‘wealthy’’ than ours last in my memory. People who have so little materially and yet seem happy with what they do have.
Maybe that young girl would have loved a nice doll, and the soccer players a real ball, but they were making the most of what they did have and, for me, there is a challenge in that.
To be thankful and focus on good things doesn’t change circumstance but does alter outlook and impact on others.
So here goes with some positives. Last week we did two days of shearing and bales of beautiful clean white wool were carted to the wool store.
Payment received was disappointing, with low prices due to high dollar, uncertainties with Brexit, fashion and markets.
But our sheep are already growing the next crop of the most environmentally-friendly, sustainable natural fibre ever created. Winter and frosts are passed and spring is here.
With soil temperature now up to 12C the grass will be growing. The first lambs are born and my nursery has five healthy orphans already settled on the feeder.
One set of quads have arrived with all four lambs big and strong. Two of them are with their mum and two are fostered onto a ewe which lost her lamb.
I have the first calf in my herd of house cows. The mother, ‘‘Darling’’ , is 12 years old. Offspring are given names starting with same letter as the dam so we now have ‘‘Dorothy’’ as she came down in a storm. She has black hooves on green grass, not red shoes on a yellow brick road.
Our kayaker, Lyn, who almost became a local waiting for weather and water to become favourable, has finally got back to her ‘‘eat, sleep, paddle, repeat’’ routine and has not only left Kaihoka behind but has travelled around the Sounds and departed the South Island.
Her mission to paddle around NZ raising funds and awareness for families facing mental health issues is back on track.
A most important positive is that we are all fit and well, which is not something to be taken for granted. Good news of a clear result from my mammogram last month makes me very happy. Mammograms are no fun.
Two years ago a routine mammogram showed abnormalities, so I chose to have a mastectomy and am grateful we live in a country with a great breast screening programme and follow up treatment.
We have had a celebration in our family for our son, Johnie.
He had a goal to shear 200 a day before his 18th birthday and he achieved that big milestone in his career.
We are very proud of his effort and glad that he has found something which he loves and good people supporting him in it.
We have so much more than a plastic bottle ‘‘doll’’ or a rubbish bag ‘‘ball’’ and the words of the old hymn remind me to ‘‘count your many blessings, name them one by one, and you’ll be surprised at what the Lord has done’’.
It would be great to have a positive budget, to be dealing with positive people and processes but I can still choose a positive attitude.
Rather than focus on frustrations, irritations of increased costs, preoccupation with paperwork and politics, be satisfied with seasons and sunrises and above all for me to be grateful for family, faith, farm and friends and going down to the mudflat collecting fresh fish in my net.