Oops & Cringes #10 - work "accidents"

We had a 4 wheel motor bike (ATV) for the field trial I worked on. I loved scooting around on it, once I got used to it. One day, just before harvest we were busy and our boss came to 'help' - L often said it was like bringing and extra person and being 3 men down.

I was doing quad cuts on our crop paddocks, which meant cutting a set area of the crop right down at ground level, then taking that back to work to weigh, then thresh and measure the amount of seed. So I cut them and then put them in a labelled bag.

My boss had the ATV and came to give me a lift back to the shed for lunch. This was before OH&S was huge. So, I had my crop cuts tucked under my arm and I had to stand on the peg of the ATV, and hang onto the spray tank at the back. My boss rode a motorbike to work, and he was the ultimate absent-minded professor as well as being not terribly practical or useful, so I wasn't feeling real safe, but I had no success arguing I could walk back. So I was hanging on...for dear life!

My boss went whipping up along the track, and then went to change gears, which you just did - this bike had no clutch...but the boss's own bike had a clutch, so he grabbed what he thought was the clutch, except it was the brake. So the bike came to a screaming halt but not me, I went flying off...

And I hear the boss yelling, 'Don't drop the cuts, don't drop the cuts.'

Yep. He booted me off the bike, but gave not a thought to my safety.

Sprawled across the ground, I was trying to get my breath, and the boss came over all concerned. 'Oh, thank goodness,' he says, 'you hung onto them'. And I had. The crop cuts were fine. Me, well, no damage, but I don't think my boss would have noticed if I'd been hurt!

Oops & Cringes #9 - more horses

Pippa, my gorgeous first horse

After last week, you'd be forgiven if you thought I never rode again. But I did. I was given my very own horse - through Pony Club - and she brought me such joy for about a year, and I learned to ride...but I still wasn't all that flash!

I was between horses. My childhood dream of owning a horse was cut short when my first horse got cancer at aged 7, and had to be put down. My heart wasn't just broken it was shattered into a bazillion pieces and stomped all over.

My horsey friends rallied. They knew that horses died and broke your heart, but they also knew that it didn't break you, and there'd be another horse. Until then, they made me ride and be around horses.

Ed was a veteran cutting horse, over twenty, who had won more events than I would ever know. A quiet, unassuming little Appaloosa mare who was easily the best horse I'm ever likely to ride.

Ed was smooth. Her gait was so easy it was like she wasn't moving. Cantering usually terrified me, but Ed's canter was like being on a rocking horse...and those Western saddles sure helped!

I rode Ed a few times out on a trail ride after I'd had a few lessons in the paddock. We got along well. Ed knew more than I did, and she appreciated that I understood that. She wouldn't canter unless I was balanced and sitting deep in the saddle. I could ask her to canter all I liked but she'd only do so when I was doing the right thing. With Pippa, my first horse, I schooled her over and over until she got things right...well, Ed did that to me.

Ed was so good, I think if I was falling off, she would have sidestepped to catch me up again.

One day, B and V, Ed's owners, suggested I help out with some cattle work. They had a dozen new steers they wanted to move and thought it would be a different bit of riding for me. I was keen for anything they'd teach me.

B & V were doing the majority of the work on young horses they were training. I was bringing up the rear on Ed. It was pleasant, interesting to watch them push their horses. And then a steer broke for the mob and Ed fairly rippled beneath me. It was all the warning I had but I heeded it.

I hung on, while Ed did what she was trained to do. She spun, she sidestepped, she danced, she cantered, and she cornered this steer, spun him, and herded him back to the mob. It was the most exhilarating ride of my life. I did nothing but hang on and try to remain balanced, Ed did everything, including keeping me on her back.

I was almost whooping when we got back with that rogue steer. B and V were open mouthed. They couldn't believe how good we'd looked - and that I was still on! I wish I could take some credit but I can't. I know I was there only because Ed was happy to have me with her...and God was looking favourably on me that ride. It was a ride made in heaven!

Oops & Cringes #8 - horses

I was a horse mad kid but growing up in Sydney wasn't the place for a horse, or even much riding. But I did go riding on some trail rides as I grew up and I loved it. When I moved to Wagga Wagga, one of my aims was to own a horse and learn to ride and care for it. The first people I stayed with had horses, but they weren't keen to teach an adult to ride. And then I met a lady through work who not only was willing to teach me, but had a pony I could learn with.

So I met Shiralee. A beautiful buckskin pony who was close to twenty years old, and much smarter than me.

I had a few lessons at home, and then I went to Pony Club. I was worse than a kid. I was so excited to be at Pony Club, something I'd only ever dreamed of doing. So here I am, 23 years old, on a pony, in the beginner's class. And Trixie, Shiralee's best friend, was in the advanced class. They weren't happy. While I struggled to hang out and keep in the circle and do what I was told, Shiralee bellowed out to her friend, and Trixie made little calls back.

Shiralee wasn't happy. She was bored with whatever simple stuff I was struggling to learn. She wanted to be with her friend but we were separated and mothers blocked her from going to Trixie. So what's a girl to do?

When you're struggling to learn, you try so hard to do what you're told and you really aren't thinking of anything else. Shiralee was bored and cranky, and she wanted to go home.

So off she went.

Knowing I could barely handle anything above a walk, she did just that, a jig-jog walk, out of the circle, out the gate and down the road towards home (just two blocks). Mothers called out. Instructors called out. I had to kick her, turn her, dig in my heels, grab the reins. The list of shouts seemed endless. All I could do was hang on...and Shiralee knew it.

Before the end of the first block, two mothers caught me, and took hold of the bridle and led me back to Pony Club. To say I was mortified was an understatement. Most of the kids were under 8 and they could control their horses, me...not at all, and I was 3 times their age.

To add to my mortification, one of the kids came up to me after I returned and said, "Oh, you're so lucky your Mum's not here. I would have been grounded for a week if I did that."

I kept going to Pony Club, but they locked the gate after my escape!

Oops & cringes #7 - Truck licence

When I'd been at Wagga a few years, my job contract was ending and I needed to look for a new one. Most of the funding was for 3 year terms, and you had to apply and be successful to continue your employment, there was no staff pool, or rollover into a new job.

They guys I worked with were awesome and were always teaching me something new...and I was keen to learn, always, because I felt I was so far behind. So when they decided that I should get my truck licence, it seemed like a great idea.

I failed my Ls first go...I'd only been driving for 6 years or something and failed the stupid test! What a fool. I got the No Stopping and No Standing signs confused and it was a compulsory question. Not the best start. But next time was sweet - thank goodness!

Driving the truck was easy after the rules test. Well, once I got a pillow to prop me up on the seat so I could see, and reach the pedals!

The guys used to take me around the research station, driving in between trial plots, reversing in and out of sheds and gates, up and down the car parks - and all the while on the two-way, the farm manager would be saying, 'Get off the road, Cath's in the truck,' and the receptionist would be saying, 'You leave that girl alone, she's having a good go'.

When I went to get my licence, I drove into town and did my test, and passed. Driving back to the Ag station, I heard over the two-way, 'Congratulations to Cath, who got her truck licence, even if it doesn't count because the examiner was a girl.'

And I think that nearly broke those guys, a girl was driving a truck, and another girl had tested her - women were taking over the world.

Oops & Cringes #6 - Field Work

Oops and Cringes are some the silly things I've done over the last twenty years, which I attribute to my city upbringing making me unprepared for country life - but it could be just that I'm a klutz!

Field Work

I'd been at Wagga Wagga for almost a year, and working mostly in the laboratory, but they let me out occasionally to help with field work. So we went out this day to resurrect an old field trial. This is a measured out area in a paddock where an experiment was conducted. The area contained many same-sized plots, where different things had been done to each plot, to see if it changed the resultant plant growth.

Out experiments could be carried out in a lab, the glasshouse or in the field. Results weren't 'believable' to farmers unless they'd been proven to happen under the same conditions they had to work in (ie the field).

This field trial was an old one, but we hoped to get some new results from it, to look at effects over time, and maybe even lay a new experiment on top of the old one.

We knew the dimensions of the trial, which paddock it was in, and roughly where it was. What we needed to do was try to find the buried corner markers. The trial had been looking at rates of lime, which changes the soil pH. So by doing some quick in-field pH tests, we thought we could fairly quickly find the site.

The paddock belonged to a farmer about fifteen minutes’ drive from work. It was under pasture with a small mob of cattle grazing. So we went out in the morning and spent a few hours without a lot of success, so we decided to go back to work for lunch (because we were going to be so quick we hadn't brought it) and more supplies.

When we were getting ready to leave, I packed up all my jars, the pH meter and solution, and was loading it into the vehicle. I said to G, "Aren't you packing up your stuff?" He had posts, a mallet, and a couple of long tape measures. The tapes were out across the ground where we thought the site was. The rest was in a pile.

G looks at me with smug disdain and a laugh. "What are you expecting, a bloody stampede? Bloody city slicker." Properly chastised, I got in the vehicle, feeling like a dill that I'd packed up all my stuff.

We came back ninety minutes later with new supplies. The cattle were right where we were working. I didn't say a word, just got out, gathered my goodies and set to work again. G went out to do his measuring and all hell broke loose. There was swearing, hand waving, cattle scampering everywhere. And there's G walking along picking up about thirty pieces of tape measure! No stampede, but the cattle sure had gotten a taste for plastic tape measure!

I was right so rarely that I didn't gloat - much!