"What's The Worst That Could Happen?"

That is a question that Jo and I have been asking ourselves quite a lot this week. And not in that jovial, shrug of the shoulders kind of way; but in that serious, "I actually need to know what the worst thing that could happen is" kind of way. Why? Well, it all comes down to something a little prosaic, but nonetheless unprecedented for both of us. Please allow me to illuminate...

Cows love hay. That's not much of a bombshell right? But it turns out that our cows love hay so much that as you ride along on the motorbike, they will follow you and have a munch before you have a chance to unhook and distribute it. Even given that fact, things were going fine as I rode out into the paddock and was mobbed by the herd. As I got between them and the hay I took it off the bike, cut the string holding it together and began throwing slices around to disperse the animals. In my eagerness to get them away from the bale, I ended up accidentally tossing out some hay with a bit of the string still attached. A cow and I both saw the piece of hay land. As if in slow motion I tried to react, but because of having twice as many legs as me, the cow made it to the hay first. Like a long piece of stray spaghetti, the bloody thing sucked that bit of string right up into it's mouth before I could get it out.

Now, I'm no veterinarian, but I'm pretty sure that a cow eating some string isn't a great thing. So this is where the panic ensued. I decided to put in a call to my cousin Richard and after leaving a message, paced about waiting to hear back. Jo was comforting, asking the titular question in the former way, while I wanted the answer in the latter way. A little while later Richard called back and the conversation went a little something like this:

Me: Hello?

Richard: I heard you killed a cow.

Silence

Richard: I'm only kidding.

Me (in my head): Oh thank [expletive].

Richard: How much string did you feed it?

Me: It ate one of the bits of strings that ties around the bale.

Richard: Oh, that much (laughing). That makes it even funnier.

From there, Richard just advised us to keep an eye on the cow and an eye out for some irregular looking, you know, cow pats.

Now, Rachael and Kevin, if you're reading this, I just want to assure you that everything is okay. The cows are fine and I am much, much more careful about throwing out the hay. Promise. I really hope you've gotten this far before booking flights home.

So that was a fairly interesting start to the week. Nothing quite so dramatic has happened since. Unless you count having to chase a rooster that got out of its enclosure. Apart from some incredibly impressive swearing on my part, the only other thing that was impressive was how much of a fool the rooster made me look as I was chasing it. 100 f-words later I had it cornered and managed to place it back with the rest of the roosters. Jo found it pretty funny. Thankfully she wasn't taking photos.

In case you were thinking we didn't, we did actually take some photos this week though. Firstly we went out and did a bit of sight-seeing. This is what we found:

We also went to the Franklin Country Market in Pokeno. We found some pretty interesting things there. For beginners, there was this guy:

While I was distracted by the hypnotic power of double denim, Jo was off getting her sugar fix sorted;

It was hard to decide how many scoops to get. There was so much choice:

I've decided that before we leave the farm, I will go back to this market and get a seven scoop icecream cone. After all, what's the worst that could happen?