Saturday, January 29, 2011

A reluctant dairy farmer


The deadly routine on a dairy farmer is only broken by a crisis of one or other. For the rest there is certain tasks that need to be carried out at every milking time, seven days a week for 52 weeks and a day every year. One can do it just for so long! I was involved in our dairy for 8 years on a daily basis with no one to release me from this deadly routine- my husband want the dairy cows but not the deadly routine. He say because he is the boss, he can delegate!

I am now unwillingly involved again after a year of freedom. It took me a long time to shake of the depression that these years left me in. My husband do not understand this- because he fill his day with things he love.

Patrick Badi
Luckily I can also do some quilting- not nearly as much as I would like, though. The dairy is not all bad. I do have wonderfull people that help me. People I can trust and depend on when I am not there. We also have a Computerized system from Alpro  where the milk flow and amount of milk every cow is producing at every milking, is recorded. In this way I can pick up any cow that might be ill at a very early stage.

Well I guess no one has a perfect life and one do appreciate things more if you have to fight for it than when it is just there.
I bought an industrial Bernina machine to be able to quilt at a higher speed. (I was moving my hands to quickly and the machine's speed could not follow. It result in to big stitches which the judges frowned upon). I made this log cabin quilt out of my scrap bags (only partly- in the end I needed to much fabric for the outer rings and had to cut from my stash). I use an old mohair blanket as a batting and it quilted beautiful. I now sleep under this. In South Africa quilts is not part of our heritage. As a child we had down comforters for warmth on top of our standard sheets and blankets. So many households now has duvets as standard bedding. Although I make quilts since 1983 I only start sleeping under a quilt 2 years ago. I love the quilting on this quilt and enjoy it every evening in the soft light of the bed lamp.



2 comments:

  1. I am the wife of a dairy farmer too. I understand how tying a dairy can be. I wish you well in finding a way to get some freedom from the constant tie. You have a beautiful quilt. God bless.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I guess things must be different in South Africa. For me, if my husband wanted a dairy, he would damn well run the thing himself. None of this delegation sh*t! Love the log cabin quilt!

    Liri

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...