"We must achieve the character and acquire the skills to live much poorer than we do. We must waste less. We must do more for ourselves and for each other. It is either that or continue merely to think and talk about changes that we are inviting catastrophe to make. The great obstacle is simply this: the conviction that we cannot change because we are dependant on what is wrong. But that is the addict's excuse, and we know that it will not do."
—Wendell Berry

Friday 23 March 2012

I must be getting old.

Well I hurt in just about every muscle in my body. Hell I even hurt in muscles I have just discovered I have. I must be getting old.
Still have to put the wall and mesh on but you get the idea.
Yesterday I put the roof on the new chook shed. Today I cut the roof ends back to length and installed some bracing underneath. Now when I was a young feller I would not have even considered this a days work.
Seriously.
For example, one of the first jobs I had was working in a flour mill. I was nineteen and worked filling and shifting bags of millrun, pollard, bran and semolina. The big bags weighed fifty-five kilos (121 pounds for the metrically challenged) and the small bags were only forty kilos (88 pounds). Each man would manually lift and stack at least twenty five tonnes of these per day. If we had to load shipping containers, we would be shifting the flour in eighty kilo (176 pound) sacks. We considered these heavy.
When I buy stock feed these days I notice almost nothing is over twenty kilos. I suppose the nanny state has decided people just aren't as strong as they used to be. The young man serving me was aghast when I loaded the forty kilo sacks of millrun (the heaviest thing the sell these days) on my own. He was of the belief they took two men to lift. He says they will not be packing the millrun in the forty kilo bags for much longer because they are "too dangerous to lift".
See, I am definitely getting old. That was an old mans grizzle about young folks these days.
Anyway, It will be a good chook shed. Well worth the aches and pains.

We had a brilliant sunset to make me feel better. I took these shots when I was out doing the milking.




Now having a view like this as you quietly milk the cow is really something I value. The sounds of the day have almost ceased as the dusk settles. I can hear a few last calls from the big cockatoos in the rainforest and the chickens are making that soft sleepy clucking sound as they settle down. I can hear the pigs rustling in their hay as they make their beds for the evening and the gentle hiss of the milk hitting the bucket. Very Zen and a wonderful end to the day. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

2 comments:

  1. Idyllic! What beautiful sunsets you have. I'm so glad you are living such a happy life :D I think we are all aging! I'm a grandmother now, our "baby" is in his second last year of high school... where did the time go?

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    1. Your northern sunsets look so great Ulf! Hope the chooks like their new pen. And I am glad they are "chooks" and not chickens because chickens are just the baby version of chooks or hens and roosters.

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