Paul Carter's Blog, page 4

The Walk of Shame by Paul Carter MD

by Paul Carter MD

 

Gilly and I are new to sorting out our rubbish and putting it out for collection. On the farm, it simply wasn’t possible. Firstly the collection point was over a kilometre away from the house, and secondly, every time we did put any bins out, they instantly got pinched. I have no idea whether it was different people doing the pinching or the same person over and over. If it was just the one, then by now they must have a pretty impressive collection. We did let the police know about it all, but I can’t say that they expressed a great deal of interest.

At our new house, with the road just a hop, skip and a jump away, it is now easy for us to be environmentally responsible citizens. Also, our new neighbours don’t seem to have any need for free feed bins for horses.  We have been quick learners with the rubbish sorting outside of things, but not so good with the timetable. Last month we forgot to put out the bottle bin, with the result that by the time we did finally remember to put it out yesterday, it was so full that the lid wouldn’t shut.

We looked at it all in amazement and agreed with one another that where all the bottles had come from was a mystery to us. Gilly and I certainly enjoy a snifter when we sit down at the end of the day. We often also have a glass of wine with dinner and occasionally even a nightcap, but all through COVID we have stayed as steady as a rock. We might have occasionally pretended that the sun was over the yardarm at 5 rather than 6, but that’s about as bad as we have been. Gilly suggested that maybe someone had been secretly putting their bottles in our bin, and maybe she is right.

Be that as it may, when I went to put out the bottle bin yesterday evening, thinking how it might look to others, I very quietly tip-toed up the driveway with a hand on the bottles to stop them clanking, and kept as close to the shady side of the hedge as possible. When I reached the road, I hastily swung the bin into position on the nature strip and was about to make a quick getaway when our next-door neighbour appeared with her bins and waved me hello. 

‘Been having a good COVID time, have we?’ she said as she made a knowing nod towards the open lid.

‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ I said. ‘I just forgot to put the glass bin out last month.’

‘Yea,’ she laughed. ‘That’s what they all say,’ and before I could protest my innocence, she was on her way back home and chuckling to herself. She stopped at her gateway and turned towards me. ‘But just you make sure I get an invitation to the next knees up,’ she said, and she laughed all the way back to her house.

Wanda by Writer Paul Carter MD

by writer Paul Carter MD

 

One of the many joys of our new house is a large and extremely deep well behind the kitchen which dates back to the time when it was used to water the horses on their way to the goldfields. And to our surprise, as we only found out after we moved in, it is full of fish. Most of them are the sort of things you would expect to see in a bowl on the side table in the living room, but there is also a single large black and white koi.

She swims amongst the others like a battleship through a flotilla of rowboats. ‘Wanda’ we call her, and we were delighted to make her acquaintance. 

The previous owners of our new house, however, took the view that Wanda wasn’t part of the fixtures and fittings we had bought from them, and they tried to take her with them. Having obviously failed in their previous attempts before we arrived, they returned, together with a ute-load of nets and rods, to have another go a couple of weeks after we moved in. But every time Wanda so much as glimpsed a head poking over the edge of the well, let alone saw a rod or a net, she disappeared into the inky depths like a supersonic torpedo.

After an hour or so of lunging and missing, our predecessors frustratedly threw their hands in the air, packed up all their gear, and trudged off empty-handed, leaving Wanda with us to this day.

Where they went wrong is that they didn’t call upon the services of Gilly, who is an award-winning fisherperson. And I’m glad that they didn’t for, if they had, I have no doubt that within a few minutes Wanda would have been scooped up and on her way to her new home. Gilly’s skills came to light during a cruise up the Kimberley coast some years ago where, on the spur of the moment, she joined a fishing expedition. The boat was full of dedicated enthusiasts who all had their own special equipment made out of fancy cutting-edge materials, and who constantly and excitedly talked to one another about past triumphs. Gilly was the only woman on board, and the only one without any fishing gear.

 Having reached the designated fishing ground,  the boys all cast their lines. There was an air of excitement about the anticipated frenzy of catching, but nothing happened.  There was not so much as a ripple on the surface of the water, and the boat just rocked gently and silently under the sun.

I think Gilly had intended to simply read a book during the trip, but in the disappointment of the moment, and with nothing else to do, someone handed her a hand line and someone else put a worm on a hook for her and showed her how to lower it over the side.

As the bait went into the water, Gilly felt a tug. ‘I think I’ve got something,’ she called out.

‘Probably just snagged the bottom, love,’ they all said without turning around, but then Gilly’s line jerked so violently that she almost went overboard, and just a minute or so later she was helped to land her very first fish. A giant Golden Bream, which fed everyone, including the entire crew of the mother ship, for two days.

And then Gilly couldn’t stop so that every time she dipped her hand line in the water, she pulled up yet another leviathan. Fifty of them in all over three days, by the end of which time the kitchen staff were all in love with her, the deckhands had given her an award, and none of her fishing companions would so much as speak to her.

Our breakfast table overlooks the well. Wanda has learned that Gilly is not a threat these days, so quite often they start the day by waving good morning to one another.

Rhino by Author Paul Carter MD

by Author Paul Carter MD

 

I am not sure how it first came about, but even from a very early age, my younger daughter has been a rhinophile. Perhaps we put a stuffed rhino in her cot for her to cuddle up to as a new-born, but I really can’t remember. What I do remember, however, is that by the age of three or four, when we went to tuck her up at night, we would find her squeezed into the very edge of her bed with an entire row of endangered horned animals peacefully settling down for the night across her pillow. She even had a copy of Albrecht Durer’s rhino on her bedroom wall.

One year, when she was about eight or so, we asked her what she would like for Christmas and she said she would like a rhino. A big one. One that she could sit on. 

She quite liked the rocking horse we got her instead, but she didn’t give up on her sitting-rhino idea and over the following few months she pestered me about it often. And the more she pestered, the more the idea took hold of me too, until I eventually went out and bought some wide planks of radiata, and glued and clamped them together as a block and put them at the back of the workshop to let them set.

‘That doesn’t look much like a rhino,’ she said when she saw what I had done, and I had to explain that I hadn’t started carving it yet.

Fortunately, the actual carving wasn’t as difficult as I imagined it would be. I studied lots of pictures of rhinos, decided exactly what I wanted to create, drew it carefully on all sides of the block, drilled guide holes to get the shapes and angles right, and then set to work with a set of chisels and a mallet.

And just for once, I didn’t tackle the project like my usual bull at a gate, instead of taking it nice and slowly and finding it all quite meditative. Apart from getting into trouble for constantly walking woodchips through from the workshop into the house, the job went really well. One of the back legs is a touch thinner than its opposite number, and I am not going to tell you which one, as perhaps I am the only one who can see it, but I’m glad to relate that I didn’t make any catastrophic blunders. I never had to glue any emergency pieces of pine into any accidental over carving either.

I put hundreds of hours into that rhino, which wasn’t easy, what with also having a farm and a surgery to look after, as well as a life to live. Thinking about the whole project could easily have overwhelmed me, so I steadily and carefully chipped away, just doing the journey one step at a time. I didn’t do it all in one hit, of course, and there were periods where very little happened at all, but I am pleased to announce that I did finally manage to get the job completed and that I am happy with the final result. 

But that was only last week, and my daughter is now forty-six. She did sit on the rhino when I showed it to her, but I think her professed thrill at doing so was probably more for my benefit than out of genuine personal excitement.

So there it is. The rhino has been thirty-eight years in the making, and I don’t feel in the slightest bit bad about that because it took Leonardo not far short of that to come up with the Mona Lisa.

Sleepout by writer Paul Carter MD

by writer Paul Carter MD

 

Recently writing in a blog about the painting which Gilly and I brought back as a souvenir from our holiday in Italy reminded me something I found a couple of years ago when clearing up the farm in readiness for putting it on the market. I had decided to sort through all the stuff which was piled from floor to ceiling in the old sleepout behind the shearing shed, where the shearers had once stayed over in days gone by. Over the years I had used the place as a dumping ground, but I wasn’t the first. The sleepout had housed an impressive collection of other people’s leftovers even before I came on the scene. By mid-morning I was making good progress and had made a huge pile of stuff on the grass outside. Then, to my surprise, under a bunk at the back of the sleepout, and covered by a very dusty sheet, I came across an old violin in a case and an oil painting of a pond with a bridge over it.  

I had never seen either of them in my life before and guessed that they must have already been here when I first arrived. Glad of the interruption,  I dusted them off and went in search of Gilly to show her my finds.

Gilly was just as impressed with my discoveries as I was, and also every bit as intrigued as to where they might have come from.

‘We should get someone who knows about these things to have a look at them,’ she said over a cup of tea, and I agreed with her. 

It just so happened that we were going down to Melbourne the following week to catch up with some friends for dinner, and we decided to take the opportunity of taking our sleepout finds down to town with us as well. I phoned a well-known antique place in the city who do appraisals and valuations and asked if they might be interested. They said that they would be very happy to help us out, so on our way to our friends we went via their showrooms and dropped the items off.

We didn’t hear anything back for nearly a month and, in the rush and swirl of work and tidying up the farm, I had pretty much forgotten the matter when I received a telephone call saying that the appraisal had been completed and would we like to call in.

When we were ushered into the office of the chief valuer, a few days later, the violin and the painting were already on his desk.

‘So what have you got for us?’ we smiled at him in anticipation.

‘What you have here,’ he smiled back at us, ‘are a Stradivarius and a Monet.’

 Gilly and I clutched at one another in our excitement. We had hoped for something exciting, but this was way beyond even our wildest dreams.

‘That’s fantastic,’ we said in an awed whisper and we stood up, intending to do a celebratory dance around the room.

‘But before you get too carried away,’ the valuer said, as he held up a hand and stopped us in our tracks, ‘there is just one small problem.’

“Which is?’ we asked. 

‘That Stradivarius wasn’t a very good painter and Monet made rotten violins.’

 

Recently writing in a blog about the painting which Gilly and I brought back as a souvenir from our holiday in Italy reminded me something I found a couple of years ago when clearing up the farm in readiness for putting it on the market. I had decided to sort through all the stuff which was piled from floor to ceiling in the old sleepout behind the shearing shed, where the shearers had once stayed over in days gone by.

Over the years I had used the place as a dumping ground, but I wasn’t the first. The sleepout had housed an impressive collection of other people’s leftovers even before I came on the scene. By mid-morning, I was making good progress and had made a huge pile of stuff on the grass outside.

Then, to my surprise, under a bunk at the back of the sleepout, and covered by a very dusty sheet, I came across an old violin in a case and an oil painting of a pond with a bridge over it.  

I had never seen either of them in my life before and guessed that they must have already been here when I first arrived. Glad of the interruption,  I dusted them off and went in search of Gilly to show her my finds.

Gilly was just as impressed with my discoveries as I was, and also every bit as intrigued as to where they might have come from.

‘We should get someone who knows about these things to have a look at them,’ she said over a cup of tea, and I agreed with her. 

It just so happened that we were going down to Melbourne the following week to catch up with some friends for dinner, and we decided to take the opportunity of taking our sleepout finds down to town with us as well. I phoned a well-known antique place in the city who do appraisals and valuations and asked if they might be interested. They said that they would be very happy to help us out, so on our way to our friends we went via their showrooms and dropped the items off.

We didn’t hear anything back for nearly a month and, in the rush and swirl of work and tidying up the farm, I had pretty much forgotten the matter when I received a telephone call saying that the appraisal had been completed and would we like to call in.

When we were ushered into the office of the chief valuer, a few days later, the violin and the painting were already on his desk.

‘So what have you got for us?’ we smiled at him in anticipation.

‘What you have here,’ he smiled back at us, ‘are a Stradivarius and a Monet.’

 Gilly and I clutched at one another in our excitement. We had hoped for something exciting, but this was way beyond even our wildest dreams.

‘That’s fantastic,’ we said in an awed whisper and we stood up, intending to do a celebratory dance around the room.

‘But before you get too carried away,’ the valuer said, as he held up a hand and stopped us in our tracks, ‘there is just one small problem.’

“Which is?’ we asked. 

‘That Stradivarius wasn’t a very good painter and Monet made rotten violins.’

The Naughty Black Sheep by Dr Paul Carter

by Dr Paul Carter

I have probably not mentioned anything about this relative of mine before, and that’s because, over the years, he has done some pretty embarrassing things, many of which I couldn’t even tell you about to this day. As a result of which, even though I’m fond of him despite all the very turbulent water he has caused to pass under the bridge over the years, I don’t talk about him much.

He first came into my life when I was a small child, and right from the start, he led me astray. He got me to do naughty things that I would never have thought of doing by myself. And because of this, I was always in trouble, invariably having to take the blame for whatever it was that he had made me do. 

And, as I grew up, I regret to say that he became an increasingly bad influence on me. He was a particular nuisance during my college years, for it was then that he started drinking and noticing girls. He would especially go out of his way to tempt me when I was studying for an exam, and he would want to drag me off to a pub somewhere, or to a party. 

But don’t get me wrong, if he did succeed in plucking me out of the library, once I got over my guilt, I invariably enjoyed myself. He was always very entertaining company and he certainly made me laugh a lot.

Being busy with the practice and the farm, and more recently with moving to a new house, I don’t see him nearly so often these days, but not that long ago I came across him at a party. I have no idea how he knew I would be there, but obviously, he found out somehow, for he turned up at much the same time that I did.

He looked like gawd knows what, and he had a new tat all up his left arm, but we gave one another a friendly hug and to start with we were all chummy. 

‘Just for once are you going to behave yourself tonight?’ I asked him as we were about to go in, and he swore on a pig’s eye that his behaviour would be exemplary.

As the evening wore on, however, it was the same old story, and the promise he had made when we first met flew straight out of the window. Yet again he embarrassed me with his behaviour. He started laughing loudly at his own jokes, knocking things over, drinking beer straight out of the bottle, and giving people hugs and pecks on their cheeks.

At one stage he was even dancing. And then, at the end of the night for some reason, it was me who had to take him home.

Every time I see him, I vow that it will be for the last time, but I do find him really very funny, even when I am often the only one who gets his jokes. So that, at the exact moment that I am pledging to never cross paths with him again, there is a secret  place deep down inside of me which is already looking forward to the reunion.

The Greater Wax Moth by Paul Carter

by Paul Carter

After my triumph with Gill’s ears, she shook her head like a water spaniel for a minute or two, and then looked at me in surprised pleasure, announcing that, yet again, she could hear, and not only that but hear like a Greater wax moth. 

‘Not a bat?’ I asked.

‘Oh, no,’ she replied, ‘much, much better than that.’ She then flitted about like a young thing for the rest of the day, and gave me a chocolate biscuit with my night-cap.

But yesterday I spoilt things by coming in from an afternoon’s work in a very wet and very muddy garden and forgetting to take my boots off when I went through to the kitchen to put the kettle on. I had been planting some hellebores and had decided to use my power auger to make the necessary holes. When we bought the house, we weren’t given any plans as to where the garden pipes and water lines run, so I am having to gradually find out the hard way.

I guess it will always be an exciting moment when an auger and a water line come in contact with one another.

 

 

This was no exception, and I now hold the world record for the largest number of expletives said in any given sixty-second period.

Apparently, the floor had just been washed, but how was I to know that? And really, what were the chances? I was ordered back outside and told to take off my boots and overalls, which apparently were amongst most disgusting items Gilly had seen in an extremely long time.

 

 

When I had shiveringly disrobed I was allowed back in, and then instructed to go immediately and have a hot shower, and to not even think about touching any towels until my hands were spotless. 

In the privacy of the bathroom, I railed over how someone could perform successful emergency surgery one day and then work themselves to a standstill the next in order to plant everything requested of them, after first having to bale out a muddy hole and then fix a water pipe, saving Lord knows how much in plumber’s fees, and still finish up in the poo. 

As the hot water sluiced over my neck and back, I quietly muttered to myself about the unfairness of it all, and a great wave of self-sympathy washed over me. For just a moment my lips started to pucker, but I caught myself in time and managed to pull myself together.

I found it surprisingly soothing to have vented my thoughts, and I was thinking of giving it a second go when the bathroom door suddenly flew open and Gilly poked her head around it.

‘I heard that,’ she said.

 

 

The Beautiful Brombo a “custom” tale by Paul Carter

by Paul Carter

We hung the Brombo the other day. It is a lovely piece, exactly what we were hoping for as a memento of our trip to Venice, and it looks great in the hallway. I had briefly flirted with the idea of acquiring a piece of renaissance artwork, but the idea was rejected on the grounds that the price tag was several times more than has ever been in the family coffers, and we had resigned ourselves to going home empty-handed.

We saw the painting on a stall in a crowded market on the very last day of our holiday, and it immediately caught our eye.  The man we needed to speak to was eventually located on the other side of the square, chatting with his girlfriend, but he was all ears the moment we told him we might be about to line his pockets with silver. The picture was stood in pride of place at the front of the stall, all the better for us to see it, and a lively and animated discussion ensued as to how much we should pay for it, eagerly watched over by the surprisingly large crowd which had formed out of seemingly nowhere.

I tried my best to beat him down, but Francesco wasn’t to be moved, the mob was on his side, and it wasn’t long before a deal was done at the original price and everyone was slapping one another’s backs and shaking hands

‘Itsa Brombo,’ Francesco said in explanation as to why he had stuck to his guns, and the crowd all nodded in agreement. I suggested that I hadn’t heard of Brombo before, but everyone expressed their complete surprise at my ignorance.

‘Da Vinci,’ they said. ‘Rembrandt, Picasso, Dali, Brombo. Ofa course you’ve aheard of him,’ they laughed.

I sighed in defeat, but as I was pulling my cheque book out of my pocket, Francesco put a hand on my arm.

‘Contanti,’ he smiled at me.

It had never occurred to me that a cheque wouldn’t cut the mustard and that we had been negotiating for folding stuff. I battled my way out of the assembled throng, found my way to the nearest ATM and dialled in the required amount. To my dismay, the computer said ‘No’, and then reminded me that, just in case I lost my card or had it pinched, I had put a very modest limit on withdrawals before setting out on our voyage of exploration across the world.

Most people come away from Venice knowing where all the churches, museums and art galleries are. I came away knowing where all the ATMs are, and I crisscrossed the city of canals back and forth to find them all and collect from each of them the modest amount that they were prepared to hand over.

‘Ere ‘Ere by Author Dr Paul Carter

 

by Author Dr Paul Carter

The other day I whispered some sweet nothings in Gilly’s ear. When she didn’t respond, I took it as encouragement, since she usually tells me to stop being so silly and to go off and find myself something sensible to do, so I cuddled up closer and this time I whispered something distinctly more anatomical.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she suddenly turned to me and said.

‘Well, yes,’ I replied, ‘but didn’t you hear what I was saying?’ 

‘I’m sorry,’ she smiled. ‘You’ll have to speak up a bit. I can’t hear you.’

I had noticed that Gilly had recently been turning her Spotify up a notch or three. I had also noticed that she had shouted at me a few times recently. I hadn’t put any special meaning on any of those events, but I suddenly realised that all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle now fitted together.

‘I think you need me to clean your ears out,’ I nodded wisely.

‘What?’ she replied, so I repeated my suggestion in sign language. Initially, Gilly thought I was being vulgar, but eventually, I got through. 

‘Are you any good at that?’ she eventually asked when she understood my offer, and I told her that I was brilliant.

It was at the point of getting ready to do the deed when I remembered that I am now retired, and have no equipment at my disposal. For just for a moment or two I was stumped, but then I decided to go for a scout around and see what I could find to get the job done. In only a few minutes I had everything I could possibly need.

The torch was in the laundry cupboard, the softening oil came from under the kitchen sink, there were bits and pieces from the bathroom, and the instruments all came from the workshop. I think the big break-through, however, was realising that there is no rule which says that electric water flossers can only be used for teeth.

Gilly looked at my collection of instruments for a long time.

‘What about a leather belt?’ she asked. ‘For me to bite on,’ she continued in answer to my puzzled expression. I assured her it would not be necessary,  but even so it was quite a while before she was prepared to sit in the chair which I got ready for her and have a towel placed over her shoulder

 I won’t say that helping the love of my life hear again was a simple process. In fact, the battle was hard-fought, and it was long. There were times when it would have been easy to despair, and at one point I did make her bleed a bit. In the end, however, the hooks and the oil and the water flosser won through, and the forces of good triumphed over those of evil.

When it was all over, I stood back in triumph as if I had just completed successful open-heart surgery. ‘Easy peasy,’ I said in self-congratulation. ‘Lemon squeezy.’

‘What on earth makes that happen?’ Gilly asked in disgust as she leant forward and used a cotton bud to poke at what I had just pulled out of her head. I was going to tell her that it’s the sort of thing you often find in people who are not sufficiently disciplined about their personal hygiene, but she had started to clear away, and she had quite a few pointy things in her hand, and I decided not to.

The Wild Carpet Ride by writer Paul Carter

by writer Paul Carter

Apart from a little stage fright before I begin each session, I have really enjoyed doing the live fireside readings from my latest book. Until last week that is when the sound went all wrong and, instead of entertaining the thousands of listeners with my usual dulcet tones, I produced fifteen minutes of unpleasant crackling. My brother, who was a TV producer for many years, always used to say that making pictures was the easy part, but that it was getting the sound right which divided the amateurs from the professionals. And I felt very amateur indeed. 

What caused the problem is still a mystery, which is why, for a few days, I was very nervous about the next reading. I mean, what if it goes wrong again and nobody loves me anymore. So I have spent a few days being a pain in the arse,  which is why Gilly went out and bought a scalp massager.

I had never come across one before and, to start with, I was a bit sceptical its healing powers. Then Gilly told me to sit down and stop acting like a child, and with the very first touch on my head, I was a convert. And a convert who went into a trance-like state and had tingles going all the way down their spine.

‘So what do you think now of that recording stuff up?’ Gilly asked after a few minutes.

‘What stuff up?’ I replied as I started flapping my arms like a chicken.

I have no idea whether the massager works as well on heads that are covered in hair, as I am not in a position to do a peer-reviewed study, but on bald, it feels like a cross between a display of the Northern Lights and a ride on a magic carpet. Not that I am in any position to make that judgement either really, never having seen the one and never having had a ride on the other.

The massager is not without its disappointments, however. Gilly went out shopping later in the day, and left to my own devices I decided to try the massager for myself only to find that it doesn’t work nearly so well when self-applied. There were no lights in the sky and my feet didn’t leave the ground, so I put it aside and simply waited for Gilly to get home again.

Gill has given me a few sessions now, so come tomorrow I will be as loose as a goose and completely stress-free. And if it all goes wrong again and everyone finishes up laughing at me, and withdrawing their affection, and going back to watching Netflix instead, then so be it. I will still be a happy chicken.

The Bombastic Bigs by Author Paul Carter

by author Paul Carter

Even before people started painting silos, there were many joys to driving round Australia, quite apart from the beauty of the place. There were crazy road signs, a national confusion on how best to portray koalas, motels where they poked your breakfast in through a hole in the wall, and, of course, all the Bigs. I am not sure if Bigs are a wholly Australian invention, but they sure didn’t have them back in the old country when I left, and I immediately fell in love with them.

And, as a bonus, when we came across a Big on one of our early explorations around our new home, momentarily distracted by the new marvel, the children would stop fighting in the back seat of the car, albeit for just for a few seconds. As a result of which, we planned our journeys from A to B as a zigzag from Big to Big. There were ones you could crawl along inside, ones you could go upstairs inside and ones where you could climb up the outsides. There were, and still are, of course, lots of fruit and vegetables and animals, and then there are also boots and stubbies.

My offspring have all moved on from such childish amusement these days of course, but I am still enchanted with Bigs, and on a recent errand of mercy across central Victoria Gilly and I came across a new one. And not just new to us but new to the world. The Big Spud. There are a surprising number of big spuds scattered around the countryside, but this one Is in Blampied and it patiently watches over the road through its many eyes from the back of an old farm truck.

Despite my enthusiasm, I must be clear, however, that I have not found all Bigs equally enthralling. The Big Murray Cod had, unfortunately, had a tree limb fall on it a week or so before our visit and was missing its nose, and the Big Penguin, whilst it might have been slightly larger than the kind that swims and catch fish, was quite frankly a bit of a disappointment. Likewise, the Big Rock, which compares poorly with much that is in plain view on the road to Tooborac.

It is hard to pick a favourite, but if I did it would be the big joint which has Let it Grow written down its side. It is housed in the museum at Nimbin, but then taken out and paraded around the town on an annual basis as part of their Mardi Gras

And my favourite story about a Big concerns the Big Merino in Goulburn. After it had been installed, the shire received a complaint from one the Merino’s new neighbours, who kicked up a fuss about the fact that she had gone from having a quiet and peaceful existence to now having to look at two of the world’s largest testicles every morning as she hung out the washing.  I understand that a number of councillors joined her by the clothesline one day, and clearly saw her problem, for now, the big ram is a big wether.