Beauty treatments - not mine

G'day!

I got leeched again today.  This time, though, the leech was still on me.  So I took a picture.  Aren't you lucky.  You only have to look at the leech.  You don't have to pluck it off your skin and see it strrreetcchh trying to stay on.  Or deal with the blood afterward.

Our wwoofer work schedule is that we start work at 9 am and work until 1 pm ish.  We get a water break sometime in between.  Then we have a hot lunch.  After dishes, we are free.  We usually have dinner sometime between 7 - 8 pm.  Most of the cooking is done by the brothers.  And, huge bonus!!  They are great cooks.  And they really like ethnic food.  We've had several very different curries because they have a cookbook with 600 curry recipes.  I am eating so well here!!!   Each wwoofer can cook dinner once during the week if it fits the schedule.  (The village market has limited supplies.  Woolworths, Coles, and Aldi are the grocery chains in Nowra, about 15 - 20 minutes away.)  We wwoofers usually clean up the kitchen.  So it's pretty decent around here.

Most of the work has been weeding.  Lots of wandering jew, chickweed, and some bindweed.  Then we lay newspaper down and then mulch.  Our host tells me what he wants done and I supervise the girls.  My nickname here is "Mama wwoofer".  I've also gone with my host to the Kangaroo Village Nursery and helped pick out a few plants, advised on various things including prolonging veggie leaf production (don't allow to flower) and using landscape fabric on hillsides.  Rocks don't work cuz they roll down the slope.  I found scrap heavy duty galvanized wire and made garden staples to reattach the fabric.  It will stay in place for a long time.  I also (properly) pruned a few Grevillea shrubs.

However, this place is very remote.  Can't walk to civilization.  Can walk to the creek or go pet the animals.  But last week, we got to watch Wally, the donkey, get a mani/pedicure and bang trim.  The farrier, a horse shoer, came and trimmed Wally's hooves.  You can see how long they are in the before pix.  The farrier was unable to trim them more because Wally walks funny and so his hooves grow weird.  He might have cut too close; Wally hasn't come up to the house since.  He stays in a lower paddock; I think his feet hurt.  One of the brothers thought Wally should have his bangs trimmed so that he could see better.  I don't know.  I thought maybe they helped keep flies off his face.  The farrier only worked on Wally the donkey.  The horses don't need new shoes.

Beauty and the Beast: The Beast, "I look stupid."

Today, the vet came to give the horses a checkup (Jarrah has a heart murmur), deworm them, and file down their teeth.  Apparently horses' back teeth grow a ridge which makes it hard for them to chew.

Since their teeth don't meet, a lot of the food sprays around and they don't get much of it down their throat.  Each horse got a sedative.   Then the vet pulls their tongue to one side and starts filing/brushing their teeth.  "Toothpaste" is a iodine solution.  The file actually takes the enamel off the teeth.  The vet puts their hand in to feel if the teeth are smooth enough.  Then more iodine wash and to the other side.  It was interesting.

That's Macka's tongue in the vet's hand

I'm working hard.  I've done very physical labor for 3 - 6 hours a day almost every day for the past month.   I've used more muscle than in any other month of my life.   My muscles do complain sometimes.  But not very much and not prolonged.  I am glad that I've been training for this during the time I worked at Sloat Garden Center.

I'm tired. Gotta take a nap!

Cyn