Merry Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas 2010
Short version: All members still alive, healthy, married, living at “Verniew” and had heaps of rain. Always wear your seat belt!
Dedicated family supporter version: Season’s greetings- and what a fantastic season/year it has been for cattle producers. This time last year we were desperately looking for rain. Well we found about 40 inches for the year and it doesn’t look like letting up yet! 2010 saw us working on water features in the house paddock. So far we have a mud swamp section, gushing 6m Maranoa river that we can hear running from the house and the kids favourite, gully waterfall complete with tadpoles, yabbies and crabs. Naturally the cattle are all doing well…well we think so as it’s a tad hard to keep track of them in the wet and a few fences are down. The steers that we did manage to get a hold of and get a truck out were the heaviest they have ever been for their age. Mum claims the genetics, Joff claims the soil/pastures at Dougdale and Kylie is ecstatic as this further ensures that she will never have to go back to full time work! So with all dams overflowing, creeks a runnin’ and grass and cattle a growin’ life at “Verniew” is pretty amazing at the moment. This is a time we must savour after such a long dry spell since we came here 11 years ago. Ok enough bragging- hope your season is going well too.
Joff has had a year off with all of the rain and claims he has done nothing but sit on his rear end all year. Kylie knows for a fact that he/family members have been bogged countless times but the record for 1 day is 4. Most impressive was last week with the tractor. It took 3 x 4wd and a truck to get it out. Apart from keeping the whole show going; as Kylie does nothing but sit in the school room; f*&%ing art sh#@; and go on school camps; Joff has been doing lots of yard building due to Sniff’s (beloved Jack Russel) inquisitive nature when feeding about 400 (lucky it wasn’t all of them) weaners one Sunday morning. Short version: Dog barked, weaners rushed, yards flattened, weaners escaped. Douglas family just saddled their horses, rode out and brought them home! Amazing but true and Joff was the only believer that it could be done without any extra help. Sniff (or as Joff affectionately calls him ‘The F&%$ing Rat Dog’) regained his place in of pride in his masters heart when he ran in the dog races in Mitchell this year. After winning his heat, he came 3rd in the final with a very wet, dark track. Not only did Joff buy him in the Calcutta at great expense, he showed no disappointment when Sniff’s 3rd prize of a bag of dog nuts did not eventuate as the Pony club president’s horse ate them from the back of a ute. Speaking of utes, the ‘dead horse’ (work ute) cleaned up at the local camel races ute comp in the feral section. Joff was very proud of this, and hopes someone will enter against him next year so he has some real competition. Joff’s greatest disappointment this year was not being able to climb Uluru when we were there in August. We had a fantastic camping trip to the centre of Australia of just over 2 weeks which is the longest we have ever been away from the farm since we moved here. The abundance of wildlife and plants was incredible to the point where the kids kept asking if we were in the desert yet as we drove over yet another sand dune! The photo is of buffel grass (great cattle pasture) growing on a sand dune…no wonder we can grow it well here!
Kylie spent the year in the schoolroom teaching Darcy (7) and Sam (6) through distance ed in Charleville. This was Sam’s first year of school and she really loved it. Darcy continues to love smoko the most out of all school day activities. When Kylie goes to other schools supply teaching the kids go to school with her which is great for everyone. Among other things Kylie has turned into a wanna be art groupie this year. (I think she only goes to the workshops for child free time and gallery exhibitions/openings for the wine.) She has made some stuff and even produced a painting that she liked enough to hang on the wall but I don’t think anyone needs to invest in her early works yet in case she becomes famous. Beads are still cluttering up the kitchen when she should be cooking and many creations are sold both through the local boutique in Mitchell and distance ed camps. Kylie briefly flirted with the idea of becoming a stunt car driver in October when she and Sam rolled the hilux on the way home from town. However, she thought the bruises might interfere with her bikini model aspirations and Sam complained about being left hanging upside down too long. Thankfully they came out much better than the car did. Darcy also had a brief encounter with the hospital after attempting to be a dare devil on his horse. It’s not such a good idea to sit backwards in your saddle, even if you are only walking, and go under a pine tree. If you do, don’t put your hand out to cushion the fall as it may break. If you do, ensure it’s the one that you write with as it’s a complete waste of time breaking your other one because then you are still not allowed to do anything but write and that is just pointless! Cast is off now and all is good. Darcy is learning how to drive (we like to get an early start on that log book) and so far he hasn’t hit anything except lots of washouts. We always knew ‘Gran’s Suzuki’ (some of you may have heard Joff call it by another word starting with s…box) would come out of retirement one day and be useful again. Darcy did manage to pass year 2 despite his lack of enthusiasm and he really enjoyed playing football this year too. He has become the handiest ‘ringer’ (cattle muster) we have and is now requested more often to help on his horse than his mother (much to her disgust). Sam found the love of her life in April this year with the most expensive purchase of a cheeky, naughty pony appropriately named “Princess”. She is riding by herself but still finds her quite challenging but it doesn’t matter as long as she has her pink joddies and work shirt on. Needless to say this year we have become really dedicated pony clubbers (nothing like a highly valued horse to make you get out there and ride it!) and Kylie and the kids have really enjoyed it. Joff tolerates pony club when he does attend and always supports (the bar) really well. Sam totally in her element as a flower girl for the local deb ball and Kylie even managed to curl her hair by herself with hot rollers and only burt her neck once! Sam is starting to find her inner tom-boy (thank goodness) and says wearing shorts is ‘quite handy’ for running in. She still takes longer to get ready to go out than Kylie does and has a very extensive wardrobe. Lucky for the budget she thinks ‘vintage’ clothes from the opp shop and hand me downs are cool. She loves to write stories and read so hopefully in a couple of years she can take over teaching Darcy and Kylie can go back to the veranda again to drink tea and eat scones; as all ‘cockies wives’ do. Well you made it to the bottom of the page! Well done! (lack of words have never been a strong point of Kylie’s) Thanks for your friendship and support during 2010. Here’s to 2011. I think it may involve a lot of flood fencing and finding cattle! I I thinke