Month: September 2017

Hello – this is pretty terrible!
Second time in a week with no photos of the days adventures!
And my goodness did it POUR down with a vengeance for a lot of the day!!

Jeff and I took several of those boxes of books to the dealer in Ulverstone, offloaded a lot and added $100 to our kitty!!

But I then had to buy a new day pack. Really – I am a bit excited about my new bag. I might even take a photo tomorrow! haha – no-one else will be quite that excited over it, but I am a bit chuffed to have something new for me!
My other day pack that I have used to death is a hand-me-down of Jeff’s anyway. It gets stuffed full of camera gear, food, drink, spare jackets etc every time we go hiking. One zip has died and one strap is torn from the base of the pack. Probably only a matter of time before the whole thing gives way.
This new bag has a spot for the camel-back drink pack, a bit more capacity than the old bag. Lots of pockets and places to tie things on the outside if need be.
And even better it has a hip strap to distribute weight better.

Now -just for the weather to get a teeny bit less feral so I can go use it properly for the first time!

Cheers from wild and woolly Tasmania!

Hello! It didn’t continuously pour today which was awesome in my books! Other parts of the country are pretty much in drought – would be great to swap some sunshine for the rain!

Our wood pile was almost non-existent. Cousin Jeff has run out of available wood so I went to the local nursery to buy some off them.
First I had to scrape the last of the mushroom compost out of the trailer and bag it up for later.

I did a bit of an experiment… I can’t really tell volumes of items (like wood)

They had these crates of bits and pieces of wood – the non-pretty stuff selling at (seemingly) a lesser price. I don’t care if wood is weird shaped so I thought I would buy a bin.

While there was a reasonable number of good sized pieces, a lot of it was splintery small chunks/rubbish.
I took it home and divided it up to store

My ugly wood pile cost $55. There was a lot of other stuff I chucked in my kindling box – while I will use it, to be honest, we really don’t need more kindling (esp we don’t need to buy it)
SO… to compare I thought I would buy a metre of the usual wood.

I wasn’t sure the little trailer could hack the weight so some of it went into the back of the vehicle too!

I really really really didn’t want to make a third trip. Each time I have to go out, I have to unhitch the trailer, move it, turn the car and rehitch the trailer back up!
This is because I cannot back the trailer up in a small space like our front yard and out onto the highway! Nup uh.
I was reasonably good backing it with our other car, but this one I haven’t had any practice bar going forward!

I think its a much better deal to buy the decent wood. I think there was more than twice the amount of usable sized logs for $95

I think if the ‘ugly wood’ had of been more about the bigger chunks and not the wood chips, the price still would have to come down considerably to make it worthwhile.

Kind of an expensive experiment to make at this point, but at least now we know. I couldn’t really take it all back and fill the box back up at the nursery!
Over summer I will be pouring my gardening money into Cousin Jeff’s pocket to get as much wood as we can stock!! Then come winter I don’t have to think about it!

And yup, I have sore muscles tonight! Thats a good thing! Feel like I have done some proper work today – with minimal amount of being rained on!

Cheers

So… here it is. Nearly 11pm and I haven’t gotten out of my nightie yet.
Its going to save a whole lot of time when I go to bed… won’t have to find my nightclothes. I can just tumble in.
Can you guess what kind of day it was?
My motivation levels bottomed out.
Happily, Fiona dropped around after work and we had a great couple of hours having a cuppa, cheese & bikkies (and sweet chilli sauce) and a general catch up. (And she never judges about my attire!!)

Roast lamb leftovers… so no dinner dramas.
Dishes are done and I pretty much achieved nothing today!

I now have a slight plan in place for tomorrow to get on with despite weather to avoid the whole grouchy attitude about the never ending rain.

There are a heap of things I can do… but somehow after a month of dark wet days, enthusiasm levels start to wane. I think a few lists might help me focus!

With luck, I will be able to blog with some actual photos and a real story!

I am going to end my day on quite a positive note by being a bit naughty… there is a fresh loaf of bread baked this afternoon and I am going to indulge in a slice and go to bed with a book!

Cheers!

Firstly – the most surprising thing was getting five of them today!
Honestly… this was how my blog was going to go:
“Weather, which has been dark, gloomy, wet & miserable has just spiraled into feral. Stayed in my nightie & dressing gown all day.” The End.
I was going along pretty well with my nightie wearing plan, when of course someone knocks on the door.
Friend of mine, Ellen has spotted a duck that has been killed on the highway and needed help as there were a bunch of ducklings in danger of also dying of squash.

So I hurriedly drag on clothes, get box and gumboots, yell for husband to come along and start trotting up the highway
I wish I had more photos from today!!
No sign of ducklings. We took the body of the mother duck off the road as we figured the babies would want to be where mum was. And we were too late for one duckling. (By the way these are not the photos I would have been talking about that I wanted)

Jeff is with us – in sandals and shorts??? Seriously?
Mad.
We located the ducklings eventually – which was hard as the area is so overgrown. Jeff got right into the scrub to shoo them back off the side of the highway…. which is straight into a paddock of blackberries.
My – that was fun!!

So – we have an undisclosed number of speeding peeping ducklings racing around in and under the blackberry canes and us with a box, enthusiasm and no idea how to catch them.
Lady on corner house comes out to see what the commotion is – happens to be work mate of Jeffs and as luck would have it – owns a net!

So – because I am the sensible one with boots & long pants, I am in the blackberry bushes trying to dissuade ducklings from returning to the highway while the others move to shoo them where Jeff can net them!
Eventually we got them all (oh I hope we got them all!!) and popped them peeping and squeaking into the box.

Jeff by this stage is covered in scratches and blood and we are both soaking wet as the rain was really coming down (naturally!)
Said “see you later” to Ellen and took our new pets home.

They were SO adorable!! I have always wanted ducks!
They are funny and naughty. Very keen to get out. Opening carrier door to put some food in was problematic… it was like juggling ducklings trying to toss them back from the opening to get the stuff in!! (They just boomerang back to the gap!)

Luckily with a post on facebook one of my local friends, Gudrun, offered some food and warm lamps or a home as they are used to raising feathery babies and have a bunch of goslings at the moment under lights.
I sadly decided they would be better with someone that knows what they are doing – plus since we are leaving soon for a month I thought it would be unfair on our young house sitter leaving him with five little Houdini’s!

So I take a little drive into the country. Gudrun was most amused to see the teddy bear. She thought it best to tell me up front that the ducklings were not going to be pampered and brought inside etc – survival of fittest and all that! haha Gave me the option to take them home with some gear.
I figured whatever happens they have a much better chance than on the highway overnight without their mother!
So we put them in with the goslings which were twice their size – but ran to the corner in terror of the invasion of the little fuzzy ducklings!

Of course – the ducklings eventually aimed for the gaps in the shelter, so we patched them up and I went to have a look at the shelters that they had for chicks. (Ideas for the future!)

This is where I REALLY wish I had photos.
Two Houdini-bat-ducklings got out and squeezed through the fence into a big paddock!
Hungry keen dogs on one side, hungry pig on the other!!!
If you have not had ducklings – you have NO idea how fast they can run!!!
Gudrun ran to get some netting while I headed them off from being first course on the pigs nightly buffet (heart stopping moments as I am bolting through the paddock in my gumboots waving my arms about)
Gudrun returns with netting… ducklings split up. So undignified running about trying to fling nets over them… and with all the rain – no traction whatsoever. Naturally I fell over

Gudrun got hers, mine went helter skelter into the adjoining paddock (no pig)
I thought it best to take the duckling and zip it up in my pocket while we got the next one.
Gudrun was the next to fall over ungracefully in the mud! (She is NEVER going to invite me back I am sure! haha)

We finally got it between us and she flung the net out and just caught it on the edge, then dived in before it could detangle!
Duckling unceremoniously dumped into my pocket with its sibling (My windcheater pockets are at the front so I am now feeling a bit kangaroo-like)

Plan B. They have quail with mouse-proof wire.
I said I was filthy already so I could crawl into the gosling shelter and fish out the remaining ducklings.

Gurdun set up the heat lamp and put fresh hay in and we poured in a few handfuls and a pocketful of ducklings.
They then spent the next five minutes flinging themselves at the wire to test for weaknesses:

I did get a message later saying that her husband had put a slightly warmer lamp in and the ‘Little Bats’ were all heaped together in a puddle of feathers trying to sleep!! Nawwww

So lucky to have good friends around! (And probably lucky ducklings in the end that Ellen spotted them and we somehow managed to catch them!!)

Hope you enjoyed the Duckling Tales!
Cheers!