25th May, 2024

Up really early to start at Woolies at 7.15am doing my second shift in the office. It went relatively smoothly, derailed in the last hour by a request from the manager for a list of current employees. You'd think a list of current employees would be a fairly simple report to run, the most basic of information. But no. 

Janice, my office teacher, spent the last 45 minutes of our shift pushing every button in the program, to no avail. We ended up doing the cash pickup from the registers late and knocked off 30 minutes later than our roster. I go again in two weeks, this time she'll stay home and just keep the phone nearby in case I get stuck.

When I came home fed the critters, watched an episode of Clarkson's Farm and had a bite to eat and then took a backpack of blackberry spray up to the far end. Now that Jaffa's gang have eaten it down I could see any rogue blackberry seedlings in the pasture and also sprayed wherever it was coming through the fence. I had enough spray to do the blackberry as far as my arm would reach outside the fence too. 

Each year I'll spray the infestation back a couple of metres, gradually gnawing the stuff back. Spraying happens in spring and autumn, when the plants are actively metabolising from the leaves to the roots. Thistles can be done all year round, but blackberry is seasonal. And it's actually illegal to spray once the plant flowers in case people come in and pick the berries later.

I had a brief nap and then brought the dogs in, because it's cracker night here. We didn't hear anything and the dogs didn't seem to hear anything, and Poppy is usually an early warning system for any kind of bang or rumble.

I've now watched all three seasons of Clarkson's Farm, and I love it. So many aspects of farming all rolled into each eight show season, a real eye opener for anyone who is unfamiliar with farming and resonating so much with anyone who lives it.

I came across this picture on the net. I think it would be a lovely house to live in... I'd like to incorporates some of the ideas into my one day new house.


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