I’m liking the words and definitely think “Overmorrow” is one I could adopt. I’ve been in shearing sheds many moons ago and know how hard that work is. Thank you for sharing aspects of life where you are right now!
I think old words convey so much more than words being ‘invented’ today. I say bring back many more!
Yes, hard work in the sheds. I use to do the rousabout work in the shed until one day the temp was about 34 in the shed and it took me 24 hours to get over the exhaustion. From then on, we employed a separate rousie and I was just the chief cook and bottle washer. I love cooking for the smokos as the shearers really appreciate it. I used to do a hot lunch too, but then health in the sheds changed. No smoking, no big lunches. They all come armed with boxes of salad rolls and sandwiches now. Times have changed. At least they don’t all travel with bottles of Mylanta in their kit. I used to wonder if it was my cooking and was told no, it was bending and crushing their tummies that gave them awful indigestion.
I can imagine it’s really satisfying for you, to provide some yummy eats for the shearers. Now I realize the work is even more challenging, when you add indigestion to the mix.
A lot of very wintry words in that Old English list, but no wonder, they didn’t have our mod cons and life must have been bitterly chilly. (Sub zero temps for us this morning. Brrrrrr…..)
Good luck with the shearing. Always such a big job. Stay warm and enjoy that gem of a cottage.
Thanks, Beth. The words are glorious and so descriptive.
Funnily, it’s not cold here. We’re yet to have a real winter and God knows we need rain badly. The nights are chilly but so far we’ve only had 3 frosts and no minus temps. The water is still at 15, so something odd is going on, that’s for sure. I doubt I’ll wear really thick sweaters this year.
The 'gem of a cottage' is sparkling today in the brilliant blue of another fine day. It just goes on and on. The weather that is… XXXX
I look forward to your posts each week, but I do believe this week is the best (so far). Love those old words and apricity is one of my absolute all time favourites.
Love snollygloster. We really need to push for these words to return to our language. "Would the snollyglostering Member for ****, please resume his/her/ it/their seat!” Snort!
I,too, love words and their origins. One of my favorites from etymology is the Greek word "ptuo" meaning to insult, to spit upon from which we get the slang "ptooey" and the receptacle "spitoon". I have saved many of your postings in which you have highlighted words. They have inspired my journaling. Many thanks, dear Prue!
Ohhh what fun old words! Loved how you incorporated them into your first few paragraphs to tease us.
I love the photos of the sheep shearing, as always, and the description of your lovely calm cottage. Sounds idyllic with exactly the right colours to maintain that calm and peace. No wonder it cocoons you.
It is always another delight to me that as we grow brighter and warmer in this hemisphere, you are hunkering down for the winter chill and inside coziness in. yours. There is something about our spinning around the globe on opposite sides that somehow gives me hope and comfort that our world is spinning around, just as it always has, just as it is supposed to do. No matter what silliness our governments are spewing out, the world keeps slowly turning round. Thanks for keeping me on keel that way. ❤️
I take comfort from your seasons and you from ours. Trouble is half of Australia is in dire drought and dry, a 1/4 borderline and the rest in the worst floods in memory. It’s truly a bitch of a year, climate-wise. But then we’ve been watching Clarkson’s Farm 4 and saw the floods from your winter 2024 and were in turns horrified and just a little bit envious of water. But they do say do they not, be careful what you wish for?
I gardened today, Sabrina. Just a bit of pottering and then made wreaths from my silver birch trimmings. A good day. Have a good weekend.
I feel that I should take notes! I love etymology and love learning new words and especially what's behind them. (Did you know that "Lunar" is the stem word for "Lunatic?" This explains sooo much lol!) My fav here has to be *crambazzled* and I intend to use as often as possible since there are plenty of opportunities, I feel! Really enjoyed seeing the sheep pictures - I have always been a huge fan of sheep, generally, I find their faces to be lovely (if silly) and I always think that they have a nose like a pink Dolly Mixture candy when they're small. Fascinating to see what is involved here and Merino is my favourite, warmest wool for socks :)
All of your neutral colours sound perfect to me even THEIR names are the best.
Such a calming, tranquil post, Prue! Yours in "twattling" on and so much more xo
Sheep do have nice faces but in truth, I think I like cattle’s faces more. Something about the long eyelashes. I just can’t deal with the whole meat thing. It’s why I mainly eat vegetarian.
Sheep require MASSES or work. There’s the annual shearing and then crutching and wigging twice a year, worming regularly (not like given a dog or cat a worm tablet. It’s like worming a horse. A drench gun and a long day in the sheepyards). There’s the need to backline before summer to keep the flies away, daily checking to make sure sheep in full wool aren’t cast or in summer that they’re not fly struck which can happen despite the backlining.
There’s feeding out in winter and in dry seasons or wet seasons. Daily checking at lambing to make sure lambs aren’t stuck and need to be pulled from their mums, to make sure mums haven’t had a prolapse. Then after lambing, when the lambs are old enough, there is neutering and tail removal under anaesthetic. The tails are removed to prevent flystrike. The neutering happens to ram lambs for obvious reasons. The ewes are left entire to breed. Think Handmaid’s Tale!
Anyway, all this to produce a beautiful fleece that can be woven into fine yarn for clothing manufacture.
😳🤯 My goodness, it’s hard to get my head around all the work involved—and am filled with admiration for all that you/your family, and all sheep farmers do!
"words are a writer’s paints and the thesaurus their paintbox." - Yes!! Loved this post, Prue. The sheep are so beautiful and the process of keeping them sounds grounding.
Mary, the best part about farming is being outside. Truly. One has the advantage of enjoying the wilds of nature plus the more domesticated beauty of farming.
Dear Prue, just when I think your wonderful posts couldn’t get any better, along comes this one!
Your use of the ancient English words was so fun and creative and absolutely hilarious! I’ve taken a screenshot of the glossary so I can use them myself 😊 I adore your Aussie idioms, and now I have additional interesting terms to adopt, lol. I totally agree—many of the multi-syllabic and somewhat goofy sounding words do roll around in one’s mouth like marbles!
I just loved your pics of the shearing process, and am in awe of what shearers do all day, bent way over to do their job. Does a sheep generally submit to the process, or struggle against it?
Have fun with your cake baking…I so enjoy stories of your farm, so I hope you’ll keep ‘em coming!
I could almost smell the wool in the shearing shed, childhood memories.
I’m liking the words and definitely think “Overmorrow” is one I could adopt. I’ve been in shearing sheds many moons ago and know how hard that work is. Thank you for sharing aspects of life where you are right now!
I think old words convey so much more than words being ‘invented’ today. I say bring back many more!
Yes, hard work in the sheds. I use to do the rousabout work in the shed until one day the temp was about 34 in the shed and it took me 24 hours to get over the exhaustion. From then on, we employed a separate rousie and I was just the chief cook and bottle washer. I love cooking for the smokos as the shearers really appreciate it. I used to do a hot lunch too, but then health in the sheds changed. No smoking, no big lunches. They all come armed with boxes of salad rolls and sandwiches now. Times have changed. At least they don’t all travel with bottles of Mylanta in their kit. I used to wonder if it was my cooking and was told no, it was bending and crushing their tummies that gave them awful indigestion.
Oh wow. Yes I can see that about their tummies for sure. Things have changed!
Thanks for sharing more of your stories!
Denyse x
I can imagine it’s really satisfying for you, to provide some yummy eats for the shearers. Now I realize the work is even more challenging, when you add indigestion to the mix.
A lot of very wintry words in that Old English list, but no wonder, they didn’t have our mod cons and life must have been bitterly chilly. (Sub zero temps for us this morning. Brrrrrr…..)
Good luck with the shearing. Always such a big job. Stay warm and enjoy that gem of a cottage.
Thanks, Beth. The words are glorious and so descriptive.
Funnily, it’s not cold here. We’re yet to have a real winter and God knows we need rain badly. The nights are chilly but so far we’ve only had 3 frosts and no minus temps. The water is still at 15, so something odd is going on, that’s for sure. I doubt I’ll wear really thick sweaters this year.
The 'gem of a cottage' is sparkling today in the brilliant blue of another fine day. It just goes on and on. The weather that is… XXXX
Our wattles are all out already! And we’re nowhere near the shortest day of the year.
Golly, really? Isn’t August when the wattles begin to bloom? So does my allergy reaction!
Yep. July / August usually. It’s a very weird year.
I look forward to your posts each week, but I do believe this week is the best (so far). Love those old words and apricity is one of my absolute all time favourites.
Thank you, so much, Jo.
The words are so wonderful. I just want someone to ask me what I had for dinner the other day so I can say ‘Oh, yesterfang…'
And next time someone asks me how I am, I truly am going to say ‘Utterly crambazzled!’ Ha!
Snollygoster is a great word for or current government, they do a lot fudgeling too 🤔😳 Some cracking words too. Yummy can smell the chutney bubbling
Love snollygloster. We really need to push for these words to return to our language. "Would the snollyglostering Member for ****, please resume his/her/ it/their seat!” Snort!
Hee hee
I was thinking that myself about Snollygoster and fudgeling!
I,too, love words and their origins. One of my favorites from etymology is the Greek word "ptuo" meaning to insult, to spit upon from which we get the slang "ptooey" and the receptacle "spitoon". I have saved many of your postings in which you have highlighted words. They have inspired my journaling. Many thanks, dear Prue!
Ohhh what fun old words! Loved how you incorporated them into your first few paragraphs to tease us.
I love the photos of the sheep shearing, as always, and the description of your lovely calm cottage. Sounds idyllic with exactly the right colours to maintain that calm and peace. No wonder it cocoons you.
It is always another delight to me that as we grow brighter and warmer in this hemisphere, you are hunkering down for the winter chill and inside coziness in. yours. There is something about our spinning around the globe on opposite sides that somehow gives me hope and comfort that our world is spinning around, just as it always has, just as it is supposed to do. No matter what silliness our governments are spewing out, the world keeps slowly turning round. Thanks for keeping me on keel that way. ❤️
It is weird, isn't it?
I take comfort from your seasons and you from ours. Trouble is half of Australia is in dire drought and dry, a 1/4 borderline and the rest in the worst floods in memory. It’s truly a bitch of a year, climate-wise. But then we’ve been watching Clarkson’s Farm 4 and saw the floods from your winter 2024 and were in turns horrified and just a little bit envious of water. But they do say do they not, be careful what you wish for?
I gardened today, Sabrina. Just a bit of pottering and then made wreaths from my silver birch trimmings. A good day. Have a good weekend.
I feel that I should take notes! I love etymology and love learning new words and especially what's behind them. (Did you know that "Lunar" is the stem word for "Lunatic?" This explains sooo much lol!) My fav here has to be *crambazzled* and I intend to use as often as possible since there are plenty of opportunities, I feel! Really enjoyed seeing the sheep pictures - I have always been a huge fan of sheep, generally, I find their faces to be lovely (if silly) and I always think that they have a nose like a pink Dolly Mixture candy when they're small. Fascinating to see what is involved here and Merino is my favourite, warmest wool for socks :)
All of your neutral colours sound perfect to me even THEIR names are the best.
Such a calming, tranquil post, Prue! Yours in "twattling" on and so much more xo
Sheep do have nice faces but in truth, I think I like cattle’s faces more. Something about the long eyelashes. I just can’t deal with the whole meat thing. It’s why I mainly eat vegetarian.
Sheep require MASSES or work. There’s the annual shearing and then crutching and wigging twice a year, worming regularly (not like given a dog or cat a worm tablet. It’s like worming a horse. A drench gun and a long day in the sheepyards). There’s the need to backline before summer to keep the flies away, daily checking to make sure sheep in full wool aren’t cast or in summer that they’re not fly struck which can happen despite the backlining.
There’s feeding out in winter and in dry seasons or wet seasons. Daily checking at lambing to make sure lambs aren’t stuck and need to be pulled from their mums, to make sure mums haven’t had a prolapse. Then after lambing, when the lambs are old enough, there is neutering and tail removal under anaesthetic. The tails are removed to prevent flystrike. The neutering happens to ram lambs for obvious reasons. The ewes are left entire to breed. Think Handmaid’s Tale!
Anyway, all this to produce a beautiful fleece that can be woven into fine yarn for clothing manufacture.
Who’d be a farmer?! Sorry, twattled on too long!
P.S. I am also mostly veggie but definitely don't eat lamb, not ever! Thanks for these woolly thoughts, loved hearing all this!
Me too! 😊
😳🤯 My goodness, it’s hard to get my head around all the work involved—and am filled with admiration for all that you/your family, and all sheep farmers do!
"words are a writer’s paints and the thesaurus their paintbox." - Yes!! Loved this post, Prue. The sheep are so beautiful and the process of keeping them sounds grounding.
Mary, the best part about farming is being outside. Truly. One has the advantage of enjoying the wilds of nature plus the more domesticated beauty of farming.
Loving the new words. Not sure I could use them often tho :)
We have a Hygge Bar in Perth that we visited, it was such a cosy little bar. Small and intimate, with great food.
I purchased The Little Book of Hygge. It’s such a pleasing book and so easy for us all to take little ideas and make our own hygge.
Dear Prue, just when I think your wonderful posts couldn’t get any better, along comes this one!
Your use of the ancient English words was so fun and creative and absolutely hilarious! I’ve taken a screenshot of the glossary so I can use them myself 😊 I adore your Aussie idioms, and now I have additional interesting terms to adopt, lol. I totally agree—many of the multi-syllabic and somewhat goofy sounding words do roll around in one’s mouth like marbles!
I just loved your pics of the shearing process, and am in awe of what shearers do all day, bent way over to do their job. Does a sheep generally submit to the process, or struggle against it?
Have fun with your cake baking…I so enjoy stories of your farm, so I hope you’ll keep ‘em coming!
Delightful!