Jaz and Bridget come to stay

Jaz and I organised ourselves so we both arrived at Moolarben at the same time. I got big hugs all round and then we checked out the puppies. Bridget LOVES the puppies. So do I, so we got along well.

Bridget's pretty cute. See proof:

Bridget (Jaz's daughter) being holding two of Lace's puppies

Yeah, cute as the puppies. Unfortunately most of the Bridget photos are all portrait photos so I can't upload them onto here.

I made some pasta (from scratch) for dinner - it was pretty yum. Minkey's pups are on the front verandah now so it's pretty easy so duck out and play with them. Bridget kept sneaking out. She wasn't allowed to (because they're only a week old so they're pretty fragile). I caught her playing with the little girl and she almost crapped her pants. She wouldn't come inside so I locked her out (for like 30seconds) and she didn't like that much. I didn't think she'd ever talk to me again but she did.

Which was lucky because the next day dad took us around some sheep and cows. Bridget hadn't been on the back of a ute before so it was pretty fun. For all of us!

We played with more puppies, had pancakes for breakfast, played with more puppies, had a look at a cut up cow in the cool room and then it was time to go. Boo. It was SO nice to see them though.



Lace and pups



Dad, Bridget and Jaz watching the sheep

Bridget and Dad cleaning out the feeder

Yesterday was another busy day. Mum and I had lunch at Fairview - it was delicious! Ploughmans lunch plus a tasting board of olive oil and dukkah. My favourite. We did a bunch of jobs in town. I saw Katrina - Nikki's boyfriend Brad's sister who is a hairdresser. She diagnosed my crappy hair as having excess silicon built up from using cheap shampoo thREE times. Bloody hell. I used to use that stuff all the time and now I don't earn money, I can't afford the good stuff! So it built up and my hair was totally gross and I had to wash it with bicard soda and now it's all fixed. Thank goodness!

I went up to Pop and Marg's to say hi and to setup Skype and Hotmail and show Marg how to use them (and see my blog). She was a very good learner but we had to start from the basics, which kind of tested my (lacklustre) knowledge. I was very bossy but I think between us, we got some good instructions down and she's practicing today. Hopefully it means we can Skype while I'm in Mongolia.

Dinner at the Thai restaurant with Ebony, Nikki, Steven, Brad and Washy (Brad's friend). Food was okay, company was great and my verdehlo was also pretty good.

This morning mum and I de-flea-ed the puppies. We never have fleas on anything - but we looked after a dog that managed to bring them in. And now everything has them. We used a special spray for the pups; it worked a treat - the fleas literally died and dropped off before we even finished spraying them. Sucked in fleas, you do not belong on our puppies!!!!

I am currently repacking. It's heart breaking. To go from 30 dresses down to 5 'favourites' is horrible. I love them all. I love the ones I made, I love my Cue dresses, I love my winter ones and summer ones. My cocktail ones and my cotton day dresses. I've managed to only pack 5 pairs of earrings - that's what long hair is for. But dresses. And clothes in general. Maybe living in Mongolia will teach me to live with less clothes. I doubt it; I've tried before and it's never worked.

As a matter of general interest, so far it's taken 4 hours to upload the video on this blog. I hope you like it!

Saturday came around.....

Saturday was a big day. I can't even remember what I did in the morning; played with puppies, helped dad a bit maybe. And then drove to Orange.

I got me some new sneakers that hopefully will last the duration in Mongolia. I got some new weight lifting gloves because mine shrunk when mum told me it was okay to put leather in the washing machine and then dry them in the sun. And then I went to Philli's.

one corner of Nyrang - so pretty!

Philli's house is so beautiful. She was still working when I arrived but we chatted and then packed and got on the road to Yass. It's a 2.25hour drive to Yass from Nyrang and we did it in the dark, in the rain, at 6pm. It was totally worth it. We surprised Ben and Anna and then got to spend the night playing with friends and watching the Addams Family Values.

I subconsiously categorise people. I'm sure most people do. I met a guy on Saturday night that I placed in my 'marriage material' category. Which is always weird, especially when you hardly know them. But weird in a nice way. It's so nice meeting new people that you just click with. Or not even click with; just feel so comfortable around.

After warming Ben and Anna's house in Yass (which is great and they even have a 'study' room dedicated to writing essays and learning portfolios and uploading squillions of photos), Philli and I drove north to Orange, albeit without my one coat I was going to take to Mongolia and Philli's tupperware container. NEVERFEAR, that's what the post is for. Even though it lost my jewellery that I was going to take to Mongolia.

Philli and I were feeling pretty stinky. She'd had a big night and I hadn't slept, so we were both due for a nap and a shower. NO REST FOR THE WICKED. We showered and felt a bazillion times better and headed into town to meet the one and only Kate Bills and go to the food and wine festival.

We drank a few glasses of local wine. I ate a venison pie. Yum. Yum. Yum. I got a few different phone calls and Philli and Kate rested on the lawn while I found out that Darmo's engaged. It was approaching sundown and an ambulance officer approached us and woke Philli and Kate thinking they'd passed out on the lawn from intoxication. Pretty funny. We packed up and left to have a proper nap.

Post-nap we headed to the pub for dinner, had a lovely time and drove home for an early night - we were all pooped from our respective big nights. Sleep was sooooooooo good.

Monday - our day of rest. Amazing. We took our time, headed into town to the park and had a little picnic (see previous blog for photos). Tiny little melting moments and cupcakes that were bloody fantastic.

THEN it was the drive to Wirrinya to see Ashleigh Webb. 2 hours later and one dead emu, I arrived. Ashleigh lives in the bumfuck of no where. But it's awesome. She's got dogs and birds and a puppy and a lot of mice. So many mice that within the space of 10minutes, hundreds of filty maggots had flooded the floor of the kitchen, obviously born in a dead mouse - that were trying to move on to greener pastures. They didn't; they got drowned. Dirty little things. Mouse plagues are so gross. They just get everywhere and no matter what you do, they're always STILL there. Like at breakfast, I spotted this fatty mouse trying to sneak around Ashleigh. I donned a teatowel and caught the squirmy thing in the towel. I definitely hadn't thought about it as once I'd caught it, I had a live bloody squirmy mouse in my hands.

We tried drowning it to no avail (it just swam and squeaked). The solution was simple. We both put boots on our feet and hands. I slowly poured the water out and as soon as the mouse hit the lawn we were to bong it on the head. And I did. But it was still moving (nerves I'd say; I banged pretty hard). So I banged again. And it still was moving. So Ashleigh jumped on it and it popped and we freaked out and ran away. But then the dog was going to eat it so I had to pick it up and bin it. GROSS.

I hate mouse plagues.

Ash and I drank wine and ate chips and talked and talked and then took lots of photos with my camera.

She's most proud of this one. I am not. But it's kind of funny. I am so lucky. I have so many friends from all over the place. I never imagined it because at school I was liked I guess, but I was different (have a cry...) and I never had any super close friends. It was probably my fault for prioritising everything else over maintaining friendships - but it takes a while to learn these things, right!
So I guess I slowly learnt, and now I have so many beautiful groups of friends from boarding school, hockey, college, uni, Maitland, Brisbane, work and all the cool peeps you meet overseas. Driving home after an epic extended weekend of visiting friends I was just a bit overwhelmed by how much I love them all and how much they mean to me - and how lucky I am to have friends that I actually like, as opposed to having to like them.

I still haven't cried though, which is weird. I know in my head I'm ready to go, but I usually cry occasionally before I leave to go somewhere. Perhaps it's the vitamin B I so vigilantly take now (mmmmmmm anti stress tablets), perhaps I've just grown up a bit. Perhaps I'm just saving it ALL for the airport on Sunday.

Are you a big chip eater or a small chip eater? I much prefer little chips because they last longer. I'm eating my final packet of Smith's chicken chips right now (I hardly ever eat them but I miss them when I don't have them).



My long weekend

Ryan feeding Peri, his little dog - while we made dumplings

The view of Ashleigh Webb's house paddock

Ashleigh learning the fisheye - me playing with Bear the puppy

The hills hoist

Sunset at Greenslopes

At the Orange food and wine festival (mmmmmm Venison Pie)

The view from Nyrang, at Orange

Bear, the pup

Picnic in the park in Orange with Imogen and crew. YUM

The Cooyal Pub

I packed yesterday. I originally had two bags out with the intention of half filling both, so I have two different practical bags whilst in Mongolia. After I weighed myself/weighed the bag/weighed myself/weighed the other bag, I decided to scrap that idea and shove as much as I could into one - thereby reducing my suitcase weight by half.

It worked. I now have a 30kg pink hard cased suitcase with three vacuum sucky bags and lots of pills and toothpaste in it. The only problem is some things wouldn't fit. Two pairs of shoes, PJ's, track pants, assorted things I can't pack until the day I go and everything else I forget. But the main suitcase is done up. It's not coming undone either. Mainly because I packed my white leather clogs and I know mum will make me take them out if she sees them. YES, mum - they ARE practical. I wear them everywhere and it's SUMMER in UB (p.s. UB = UlaanBaatar which is the coldest city in the world and where I'm going to be living, hence the title of my blog).

Apart from packing, I played with Minkey's pups although she doesn't like you touching them so you have to pick them up and put them straight back down. But it's worth it. I got some chicken out for dinner to no avail. Mum and Dad had a rough day in town and rough day = Cooyal Pub. They were gracious enough to call before I started cooking. I drove the 15mins to the pub.

The Cooyal pub is a bit rough. It used to be a local hub when I was in preschool and kindergarten. There was a general store and the pub was always busy. It was perhaps not as busy as I thought as I was probably blinded by the amazing chicken twisties that older girls on the bus used to buy me because I liked them, I was cute and my mum wouldn't give me money to buy anything at the shop (the bus used to stop at the shop on the way home so we could all go in and buy lollies etc).

It kind of went downhill until about 2002-ish when a new publican took over. It's again a hive of activity (sans the general store; plus dongas for the miners). Especially on Thursday night when you get a schooner of beer for $2 and a raffle ticket for the meat tray.

Dad couldn't handle my order for wine (not wooded chardonnay or anything sweet), so I went up to order with him. I asked what wine they had (specifically would like a verdelho or would drink sav blanc if necessary). Answer:
Barmaid: do you want cask or bottle?
Sally: Glass
Barmaid: do you want cask or bottle?
Sally: (upon realising she meant did I want the cask wine or a glass of wine from a glass bottle) bottle
Sally: what do you have?
Barmaid: (brings over a bottle of chardonnay)
Sally: what else do you have?
Barmaid: (goes to fridge, goes to kitchen, goes to fridge)
Sally: chardonnay is fine, thank you
Barmaid: (pours)
Sally: (sips and is pleasantly surprised! An unwooded, local chardonnay that is actually delicious!)

Whilst sipping my unwooded Farmers Daughter chardonnay and eating my rather chewy rump steak (just a little gristly, tis all), mum had visitors pop by our table. The standard introductions ensue: "this is Sally, my eldest daughter, she's going to Mongolia next week. And you remember Ebony? She's almost finished school so she's pretty happy".

Response: after looking at my ring finger asks me how old I am, why I'm not married and that I should hurry up or I'll be too old.

I arose this morning to a typical day at home. Galahs woke me; roosters made sure I was awake and then dad started pottering about and I got up. Ben, the guy that's helping dad out at the moment, took the dogs for a run and forgot to get Lace from her puppy pen. I ran up to let her out, she got all excited and then wouldn't go for a run. Turns out she just got super excited I was going to feed her. Nevermind.

I photocopied and organised all my paperwork today, and organised my budget (pretty easy, as we get the same amount every month).
It goes something like this:
$1120/month allowance
= $280/week

I still can't believe I'm getting paid (albeit an allowance) to do something I've wanted to do my whole life. It's extraordinary. And means I can actually do it. Without it, there'd be no Mongolia. So, woohoo to the Australian government for supporting AusAid who support AYAD who chose me to recommend to the World Bank who accepted me and are about to receive a thoroughly inexperienced pastural manager.

This afternoon I went in to town and bought me some PJ's and track pants; ginger for the curry and went to the gym. The gym is a perfect size for two people. Which suited me perfectly until another 5 big blokes walked in and started hogging all the equipment. I generally try to be good with the boy/girl fairness thing - but at the gym it seems to go out the window. It just feels like I'm a girl so I don't need that bench or those weights or that machine. I'm glad I plucked up the courage to stand my ground in the gym though - I totally love it (LIE. I love the results).

I dropped into Westfund, our health fund to drop in a receipt. Westfund share their office with Country Energy (just bought out by Origin, might I add. Go Origin!). I was chatting to the lady at the counter (who does a remarkable job of remembering my name - usually people just go with 'which Mayberry are you?' because apparently 4 completely different sisters are hard to tell apart). Chatting, chatting, chatting away.

Garry walked in, to pay $40 off his energy bill. The lady at the counter was trying to locate his bill in the system. She asked Garry if it's 'Garry with one r or two r's?'.
Garry replied 'I dunno, it says two r's on me birth certificate but I dunno, but I don't know why and I dunno'.

Fortunately the Country Energy lady could find him despite him not knowing how he prefers to spell his first name.

After an eventful trip to town I got home, lit the stove and started chopping and cooking. Nikki sneaked inside and asked me in a doey voice 'this might sound like a really stupid question, but could you please chop me some wood?'.
Nikki's 21weeks pregnant and lives down the road in nan and fa's house (nan moved to town a bit after fa died). They've got a rip roaring wood heater but it needs wood to feed it. She had none cut and she can't chop wood. I'd usually get really angry and I guess I was a little bit. But you're not allowed to be because she's pregnant so I went and chopped wood (which, by the way, I SUCK at) and loaded her ute while she chopped and cooked my chicken curry.

All's fair and Nikki got to light her fire to keep her warm, and I just ate a really delicious chicken curry (with a buttload of sweet potato and not much chicken). Yum.

David's stew

  I was planning on starting my packing yesterday after lunch, until Minkey had to go to the vets. She still hadn't had any more puppies and was starting to get sick. So I took her and her little puppy in to the vets and she had a caesarean. One pup died but we got the other two. They're outside back in the carport with Minkey. They're real fatties. There's a boy and a girl. The boy's name is Caesar.

So no packing got done yesterday but I managed to con Sarah and Ryan into staying another night and they came and had stew. Ebony and her boyfriend + friends were camping up the back so they didn't come. But we had delicious stew without them.

David's stew is usually a concoction we eat while we're camping. They were burning off a fence so they made use of the fire and cooked a stew. It was beef and vegetable with hot sauce. And damper rolls with burned bums. Just the way I like it!

Please note I haven't figured out how to put portrait photos onto this blog yet; they all come up as landscape so I'll stick to the landscape. I had another couple of cool photos but alas, they were portrait.

Two bags out; one for clothes, one for shoes + drugs/toothpaste/other random necessities. The clothes are going in my new pink bag.

Tuesday

I beeped in Pop's front yard for two hours trying to find his wedding ring. I dreamt about the beeps last night. To no avail. There was no ring to be found.
Thai for lunch with mum at work, was quite yummy but EG was pretty poo-ey which was annoying.
Lunch followed by dUMPLING MAKING at nan's. We bought all the stuff and made about 60 dumplings with pork, lemongrass, ginger, soy sauce, egg and shallots. They were safely the best dumplings I've made thus far. Nan has some in the freezer now and we had them for dinner to.
YUM.
Minkey was starting to get a bit shaky last night. This morning she had one pup. It's a tiny little girl. She won't let us touch it yet. There are more to come. EG and I are hanging out for them. We check on her every 10 minutes. She's having them in the carport. Better than under the house like Lace did.
TJ and Bron would be in the UK by now, at their house probably sleeping a LOT.
We just got a phone call from David Stokes. They're burning off at the moment so he's making a stew today for dinner (on the fire) and we'll head over tonight and have some stew by the fire before they head off to the bushfire brigade meeting. Shit has hiteth the fan at Cooks Gap BFB. Well, people aren't being friendly and that's what it's all about! So there's an emergency meeting to try and poke some sense into some people and maybe come to a resolution. I can safely say I will be at home watching TV and checking on the puppies.

Monday

Monday was a big day.

Not only because I spent 45minutes whisking home made hollandaise sauce for Tegan's last breakfast, but because we drove to Sydney and back in a car that we used to fit into 10 years ago. It's a bit squishier now.

Eggs benedict was surprisingly yummy. I wasn't expecting the hollandaise to work out as it kept separating and I yelled at Tegan while she was watching tv "HEAR THIS WHISKING; YEAH, THAT'S ME - NO MATTER WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY THAT IT'S DELICIOUS".
And she did. So I had to try it, and it actually was. Good one, Sally.

Post - breakfast we had the obligatory family photo. Mum was in charge, with my good camera. Her task was to continuously click. So click she did, and now I have 250 photos to go through of the SAME thing. Nevermind, she did what she was told.

We drove the 3.5hours to Sydney and dropped TJ off. Bron, her best friend was there waiting - she's SO nice. They laughed a lot and the lady at the counter was super nice. We sat and drank a coffee and eventually said our goodbyes. There were lots of tears, but it wasn't REALLY sad. We'll see her lots and it's so easy to keep in touch. It was more exciting I guess, knowing she's going to have the bestest time EVER.

TJ and Bron checking in

After waving goodbye we went to the suitcase shop and got me a much more practical suitcase (not just because it's pink) than my free Origin waterproof bag. Then we headed home via Blaxland McDonalds.

Sunday

Sunday, the day of rest.

No rest for the wicked.

Not really. After I told Pop I'd bring round a metal detector on Tuesday, TJ and I headed down the street and she had breakfast with Lizzie and he adorable son Blake. I bought the paper and headed to the Butcher Shop Cafe. I couldn't eat all my breakfast as there was too much. My chai latte wasn't much chop; I don't think anything will ever live up to Comfort Cafe in Milton's chai tea. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm So delicious.

Breakfast over, we headed home - picked EG up on the way (she was staying at her boyfriend's place at the old Farmer's Daughter vineyard - but we picked her up at Abercorn Vineyard. Turns out Farmer's Daughter is still in operation and Abercorn is old). Got home and I had a good rest.

Tegan decided she wanted pavolva for dessert and EG decided that's what we were going to make. So we got the ingredients in town, and post-nap, we started whipping. Mum's 27yo mix master is a bit worse for wear. She's actually going to replace it with a kitchenaid because dad's getting a new John Deere tractor and this other forklift-y thing. So it's only fair that in retaliation, she spends money on the most ridiculously priced mixmaster available.

Anyway, so we whipped and whipped. We wanted mini pavlovas for 12. We debated re: the instructions. What is a 'moderate' and what is a 'cool' oven. We learnt the hard way.
Pav1 turned out like mini cow shits. They were burnt on top and flat like a pancake. We'd followed the 'easy' recipe.
Pav2 turned out very similar. We lowered the temps and they still looked like mini cow shits.
Pav3 turned out half okay. The front ones obviously didn't get as hot so maintained some kind of shape.
Pav4 turned out AMAZING. We used the 'classic' recipe with extra cornflour, vinegar, lemon juice and no water. The secret: 'Moderate' means 120degrees. 'Slow' means 90 degrees.

Man, they were freaking amazing.

Mum doesn't even like pavlova and I generally hate it. But these were amazing! We had a lovely, lovely night. Pop and Margaret came out. Nan came out with Ryan and Sarah. And we ate roast pork and chicken (thanks Nikki) and mini pavs. We laughed and drank and had a great time. We love you Tegan!



Saturday

I posted early on Saturday morning. A lot more happened on Saturday so I feel I should update. I don't really remember what happened on early Saturday; I went and visited Nikki and played with the puppies a bit more. I went for a pretend-bike ride to the bus stop (I told Nikki I'd pick up her ute from the neighbours but I was too lazy to ride in the end so I got dad to drop me {it's a 7km ride}).

Brad helping out in a tackle

We got dressed and headed into town to watch Brad (Nikki's boyfriend) play rugby. League that is. He was playing for Gulgong and we expected to lose by a lot, which would have been sad because I hate watching people get flogged. But they didn't! They played really well and only lost by a couple!

Nikki bought me some crinkle cut chicken chips (my favourite) because I won't get to eat them for a year. We sat at the grandstand and I took some sneaky photos before I ran into Toby; haven't seen him for ages and promptly lost him - but not unlike the usual. I haven't seen Toby since the field days last year, and that was only for about one minute, so we had a bit of catching up. Nikki and Tegan totally cashed in and stole my chicken chips. I only caught them trying to replace them so they looked like they hadn't been eaten. Bitchez!!! Then sat and chatted to Haley Rhodes. She's so cool. She inconveniently (for me) left for the States yesterday for a couple of weeks so that was the extent of our catching up. Nevermind, it was still great.

Haley dropped me at Pop's and Tegan, Nikki and Brad were getting ready for tapas. I wasn't allowed to do my hair because we didn't have time. We got to tapas after a row about who's car we were going to take (one or two; ute or car). Tapas was delicious. We ordered one of everything and before everything even came out, we'd ordered a second round of everything as it wasn't enough to fill our bellies. Ryan (cousin from Sydney) and Sarah (Ryan's girlfriend) came too, which was awesome.

Post - tapas, (and extra olives for Nikki) we headed to Roth's Wine Bar. I'd previously heard great things about Roth's but had honestly never gone because I thought it looked too small. Turns out it opens up to massive outside/inside enclouse out back. THAT's where everyone sits. Mudgee's at the very bum end of the Hunter Valley and as such has wineries to boot. Roth's promotes them, I guess, by selling just about every winery's vintages by the glass or bottle. Delicious. I had Thistle Hill Sparkling Rose. YUM!

Roth's was a little pretentious for what we were seeking - TJ's last Saturday in town deserved a bit of non-pretentious dancing. Plus we didn't know one person there, which was weird for Mudgee (I lie; I knew two people but they actively snobbed me).

So we headed to the 'tah (Waratah Hotel). They had a pretty loud cover band on that played everything standard from AC/DC to Lady Gaga. We danced and drank and went upstairs to the back-to-the-early-00's music pumping very loudly on the restaurant floor-cum-dance floor. Dance dance, drink drink and the occasional (but much more rarely than usual) 'OMG HOW ARE YOU, I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU FOR AGEEEEEEEZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz'.

Ryan is a musician and didn't go much on the Mudgee dance club scene music

Tegan, Sarah and Lizzie (Tegan's best friend) on the <very busy> dance floor

At 1am Tegan said that she wanted to stay and cry, just because she could. That would generally be okay I guess, but I was getting sleepy and I didn't really understand why she needed to stay and cry. Turns out, there were about two tears and they were mosly happy ones.

The crowd started petering off (is that how you spell petering, as in getting smaller and smaller?) and the band played their last song. We shuffled outside to the taxi rank which conveniently has a line a LOT smaller than any other large town's taxi line. AND they have two ladies in charge of making sure everyone stays in line. AND there are seats to wait on.
We got home at 2:30am and Tegan told me three times that there was a girl who she remembers that was in year 1 when she was in year 6. 'IT'S WEIRD' and 'SHE SHOULDN'T be allowed out'. Nevermind the fact that she's 18 and it's just us getting older and older.

Tegan was up before me in the morning (we stayed at Pop's; taxi's aren't an option back to our place!) which is actually a lifetime first. She was in a hurry to get to breakfast with Lizzie and told me I had to stay and search on my hands and knees for Pop's wedding ring in the garden. Fair trade... (?!?!?!) After consulting Poppy re: the location of the ring I immediately decided hand searching wasn't going to cut it. Instead I opted for the 'leave it til later' strategy and offered my services with a gold detector on Tuesday.

At the Gunshop Cafe for lunch; Sally being 'edgy'

Outside the Gunshop cafe; Lai being 'edgy'

Triple exposure; Lai x 3

Ebony Grace - double exposure

Farm times - pretty sure it's a quadruple exposure

Rig 67 - double exposure/splitzer photo

Holding hands by the Cudgegong River; Mudgee






Moolarben mailbox

Mudgee P.O.

Getting the heifers ready to film for Neville's dog sale

Neville and his dog trailer

On the way north - Mudgee to Brisbane

Clare's tea party

close up