Burnt leg, twisted knee, broken crutch...

First of all, happy birthday, äiti. Muutaman paivan myohassa, mutta koska toivotin hyvaa syntymapaivaa myos muutaman paivan etuajassa, nama kaksi toivotusta varmaan tasapainottavat toisensa ja keskiarvo on hyva.

I will not get injured. I have decided. It seems like everyone working around here injure themselves somehow. Of course, the boss still has his foot in a plaster due to his Achilles tendon. The herd manager hit himself on the thumb with a screwdriver and had to have four stiches put in. The boss' son damaged his finger while driving in posts for a new fence. His hand is bandaged up to the elbow. Another farm hand twisted his knee. The mother-in-law's "tag-along" burnt himself while docking lambs. And what's going to happen to me? Nothing too serious, I've decided (and that's all it takes to keep me healthy, right?).

Oh, and a ewe broke one of my boss' crutches. Vicious animals, those sheep. It raced past him to get to the other ewes. Good thing it didn't break his leg! I started laughing when he showed me the crutch and tag-along said, "It's not funny, you know", and that just cracked me up. I suppose it was safe enough to laugh, since nothing worse happened...

Christmas. Everyone's talking about it. I have no idea what I'll do at Christmas, or where I'll be. It won't be a white Christmas; it's going to be summer. What on earth...? I'm very confused about Christmas at the moment.

Huge, beautiful rainbow out the back door today. I got it all on camera, but the colours were already fading, so the full picture doesn't look as good. The weather hasn't decided what it wants to be today. We've had alternating sunshine, warmth, rain, cold, wind, stronger wind... They had snowfall and hail on South Island. I cheated a bit and didn't bike home today, another farm hand gave me a ride (he was going in the same direction anyway).

Bird pictures from Hamilton

I don't know what this bird is called, but there are loads of them. Some of them got aggressive when I was taking pictures.

This bird is also very common, but I couldn't name this one either.

This is a very common bird, I'm sure you all know its name. Captain Jack.