A week or so ago, I helped farmer friends marshal their cows and heifers into a crush so a veterinarian could pregnancy test them.

I don’t think the cattle I’ve worked with over the years have ever been willing participants in an operation that forces them into a long race and then into the ultimate indignity of a 40cm probe with camera being inserted into their back ends. (For those who once watched All Creatures Great and Small, the probe was always a vet’s long arm).

The heifers on this day were maybe easier to handle because they were smaller and had not suffered such treatment before. But they all emitted voluminous streams of urine and faeces, to indicate their extreme nervousness, as we herded them up to the race. Strangely they seemed more settled once they were in the race and could see their colleagues moving along it and eventually exiting its confines.

Armed with a plastic paddle to prod the girls into place - the paddles are designed to emit much more noise than pain - my job was to extract about 10 cows or heifers from a yard of say 30, into three smaller pens and ideally reduce that number to four, closest to the start of the race. That was a number that gave me room to avoid aforesaid liquid projectiles and the odd kicking hoof. Strangely I nearly avoided all that as we jostled the best part of 200 cows and heifers up the race.

Towards the end of four hours I knew I was getting tired and attempted to be even more careful around vigorous back ends. However, I eventually copped a firmly planted hoof in my left calf and not much later, one cow strongly objected to my urging and simply bowled me over as she charged to the back of the yard.

The kick hardly hurt and being knocked over, thankfully, affected me little, apart from my clothes being considerably messier.

Shortly after the second incident, while questioning me about my health, the herd’s owner asked me if I had noticed that the cow that knocked me over, had also jumped over me.
​
On reflection, 'right here, right now', I'm most grateful for that, because if she hadn’t, it might have been more like a fairly gory moment from the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.
 
David Palmer
August 2020

​When on November 2, I realised I'd taken a step too far and broken my ankle, it became a right here, right now moment.   Two months ago I was casting around the subject for this month and suddenly it had caught me by the throat as it were.
 
I was chain sawing and removing a heavy limb that had fallen in sheep yards on a Lima South farm. I was aware that there was some Hingejoint fencing lying on the bottom of the yard part hidden in grass and that I might get my feet tangled in it.
 
But I let my guard slip and as I carried a heavy piece of wood out of the yard, my foot caught, I slipped sideways and as I fell I heard a bone crack. My “limb” was too heavy apparently.
 
I am an optimist and my immediate reaction was to sit there and convince myself it was just a sprained ankle. And because I wasn't in a lot of pain, I continued working for the next hour and a half.
 
That evening I continued to convince myself it was just a sprain and applied a washing soda bandage to get the swelling down.
 
But my ex wife in NZ, bless her, convinced me to see a doctor who the next day confirmed I had broken my right ankle.
 
A couple of hours later at the Benalla hospital he set it in plaster and from then on mobility became a major concern.
 
The hospital sold me a smart pair of adjustable crutches for $30 and in short order my sister set me up for meals on wheels every day and a wheelie stroller thing with a seat and a small freight compartment. Do these things have a proper name?
 
Life slowed right down. Now breakfast of toast and coffee consumed in bed, takes about half an hour to prepare and trundle back to the other end of the house. I quickly worked out that I had to put the toast in a container and the coffee in an old jam jar with lid, to prevent spillage.
 
In fact moving anything demands careful planning, particularly when on crutches; a long handled cotton bag I can loop around my neck has proved most useful.
 
While I have no argument with the design of the crutches - they are adjustable for different body types - the wheelie stroller thing has a flat, smooth liftable lid which doubles for a seat. But there is little grip when I sit on it and propel myself along with my good foot. Why does it not have a seat contoured to the average bottom, like those old steel seats that were common on tractors and farm implements years ago?
 
I’ve now discovered a sticker on the stroller which says it should not be propelled while sitting on it, even though it has a 100kg weight limit. Pretty weird really.
 
Well I'm nearly four weeks into a less mobile life and have almost come to grips with it. With any luck the polyester cast will come off on December 8 and I will have a moon boot substituted for another couple of weeks.
 
That will certainly be a right here right now moment too, as will the retirement of the moon boot, early in the new year. I think I'll now be able to deal with very few similar right here right now moments after that, or will it be easier?
 
 
David Palmer
November 2017