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!
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!
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!
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)
Baby ducklings jump REALLY high!! (And bounce pretty well when hitting the ground)
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!!
Time to put the jumping ducklings into the cat carrier (and yes thats a teddy bear in the back… hot water bottle underneath haha)
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!
Um… ducklings seem to have little hooks for climbing like bats!! Surprising!!
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!!)
I went down the street.
I managed to talk to a LOT of people while in town.
It rained a fair bit.
I fed the chickens and watered the seedlings.
I cut up 46 days worth of meat for Pip’s dinners.
I am over cutting up meat and now want to go to bed.
The End.
haha – sorry. Nothing of note to report! Have a lovely week everyone!
Wow – spring has gotten off to a very icy start! Its snowing not far from here (like up at Fiona’s place!!) and we have had more rain and hail than sun.
A brief moment of sun lights up the plum blossoms beautifully…
Then it immediately clouds over and pours!
The Chooks are doing a stellar job despite the cold! FOUR eggs today!
This afternoon we went into the garage and car port to deal with some of those fence palings… to be honest I would have happily slothed by the fire in front of end to end movies… but its too easy to get veeeerrrry comfortable.
Jeff had dragged a number of palings into the shed which saved a few from being continually soaked.
Out with the power tools!
When we do jobs like this I am always grateful that we somehow ended up being given the saw horses that my clever mother made!
Anyway… I de-nailed the planks and Jeff cut them up. (I was using the saw at first but he was quicker)
Then we sat around for a couple of hours splitting them. We didn’t get them all split, but enough to fill the kindling box at the back door & the rest went into the big kindling box in the BBQ area
There is a nice big pile inside next to the fire drying out and a whole lot more palings in a pile waiting for the next time we get enthusiastic (or run out of kindling!)
I confess I am a little over the icy cold and dreariness and almost continual rain. I’d love another weather break so I can go spend a day in the garden. I really don’t have the motivation to get out and do things in this weather! (Such a sook!)
I did contact a book seller as we want to offload a number of books that we don’t want anymore. Figured it would be less painful to sell in one go rather than trying to get to a market at this time of year selling them one by one. So while we are locked inside, I have started culling the unwanted books in the library! By the sound of the weather out there now I suspect that inside job may continue tomorrow!
Not much to add to the story of the journey through the Petrified Forest by Wendy and myself.
Just a few more images to enjoy!
As the weather has eroded the landscape, this fabulous chunk of petrified wood has been left its own pedestal!
Lucky it was too big for my backpack… I really liked this piece! 😀
We stopped briefly at the Agate Bridge… I think we were both a little underwhelmed! haha – not saying that its not an amazing tree of petrified wood… Again I was imagining an actual bridge made out of agate! 😀 I suppose after all the other coloured and spectacular views this one didn’t hold our interest quite as much!
At the end of the drive there is a museum and walk around the desert plants & giant logs…
I really loved all the spiky plants!!
Look at the size of that dandelion!! Is that normal?
I think we could have spent hours more here… however there was the Grand Canyon to get to!
I have to write this post early as I don’t think I can bear to come back later tonight to relive it.
We lost Squirt today. We are devastated – not because she had a relapse, but such a stupid pointless thing.
She was so happy to be out. I stepped out down the street for a short while. Jeff was doing yard work. She wanted to be on the other side of the fence where the other chickens were. Jeff let her in, made sure she was doing ok, then went to get a rake.
Thats all it took. The other chickens killed her! (Or so close to it that poor Jeff had to finish the job). We feel sad and angry at ourselves that we let her down. Not that we could have known. She had been with them before in her weak as a kitten stage with no trouble.
Jeff feels so guilty, like it was his fault – but its not like he threw her in there and left her for hours. It was minutes!! I feel guilty because I left the place and wasn’t here to… I don’t know what!!?? Mostly not being here and Jeff being by himself discovering the poor little girl & blaming himself.
Needless to say there have been a lot of tears and ‘what if’s’ this afternoon
After all that we did to get her well – we were so proud of that and she was having such a happy morning outside! It’s hard to believe she is gone just like that.
Apparently with chickens after they have been separated for more than three days you need to re introduce them as you would a new chicken. I hate crappy lessons you learn too late and the heart wrenchingly hard way.
I know she was ‘only a chicken’ but you know how we feel about them.
She is buried deep in the hothouse with a little stone and plum blossom on the sad, fresh turned earth.
I can’t make up my mind whether Pip is off to a poetry review or plotting to kill me.
Hello! I dipped into the archive Pip photos because I had no other new photos or news to share today! Plus these make me smile. Cats do ‘relaxed’ so well!
I spent a lot of hours today in front of the computer with the wedding photos.
You know… when they say wedding photos are forever I didn’t think that applied to the photographer!!
I got most of the formal ones sorted out. I was hoping to get further today but I was slowed down by a fair bit of retouching work (and I am not so great at it so that eats up a lot of time)
Things like creating grass instead of a grubby unkempt ground, removing ugly signs and in a number of cases – swapping heads!! Seriously! There were some wedding party members who were terrible blinkers!!
With a party of 11 its hard to get everybody doing the right thing at the same time.
My biggest advice? Elope! Just kidding.
It was dark, cold and gloomy today so really it was the perfect day to work indoors on this.
I just feel like I am going a little stir crazy right now!
Time for me to follow Pip’s fabulous example and put myself to bed.
