Friday 27 February 2009

Anal Retentive?

Is my child anally retentive?



Do real people cut round pieces of ham so it fits snugly onto a square piece of bread?
I love this email, I always laugh each time I read it. So, for those of you that haven't seen it before (and I doubt there'd be many), here it is:


These were posted on an Australian Tourism Website and the answers are the actual responses by the website officials, who obviously have a great sense of humour.

Q:
Does it ever get windy in Australia ? I have never seen it rain on TV, how do the plants grow? ( UK ).

A:
We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.

__________________________________________________

Q:
Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? ( USA )

A:
Depends how much you've been drinking.

__________________________________________________

Q:
I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad tracks? ( Sweden )

A:
Sure, it's only three thousand miles, take lots of water.

__________________________________________________

Q:
Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Australia ? Can you send me a list of them in Brisbane , Cairns ,Townsville and HerveyBay ? ( UK )

A:
What did your last slave die of?

__________________________________________________

Q
:
Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Australia ? ( USA )

A:
A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe ..
Aus-tra-lia is that big island in the middle of the Pacific which does not
... oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Kings Cross. Come naked.


__________________________________________________

Q:
Which direction is North in Australia ? ( USA )

A:
Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.

_________________________________________________

Q:
Can I bring cutlery into Australia ? ( UK )

A:
Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

__________________________________________________

Q:
Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? ( USA )

A:
Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is ....
oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Kings Cross, straight after the hippo races. Come naked.

__________________________________________________

Q:
Can I wear high heels in Australia ? ( UK )

A:
You are a British politician, right?

____________________________ ______________________

Q:
Are there supermarkets in Sydney and is milk available all year round? ( Germany )

A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of vegan hunter/gatherers.
Milk is illegal
.

__________________________________________________

Q:
Please send a list of all doctors in Australia who can Dispense rattlesnake serum. ( USA )

A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca which is where YOU come from.
All Australian snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled and make good pets.

__________________________________________________

Q:
I have a question about a famous animal in Australia , but I forget its name. It's a kind of bear and lives in trees. ( USA )

A: It's called a Drop Bear. They are so called because they drop out of Gum trees and eat the brains of anyone walking underneath them.
You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.

__________________________________________________

Q:
I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in Australia ? ( USA )

A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.

__________________________________________________

Q:
Can you tell me the regions in Tasmania where the female population is smaller than the male population? ( Italy )

A: Yes, gay night clubs.

__________________________________________________

Q:
Do you celebrate Christmas in Australia ? ( France )

A: Only at Christmas.

__________________________________________________

Q:
I was in Australia in 1969 on R+R, and I want to contact the Girl I dated while I was staying in Kings Cross*. Can you help? ( USA )

A: Yes, and you will still have to pay her by the hour..

__________________________________________________

Q:
Will I be able to speak English most places I go? ( USA )

A: Yes, but you'll have to learn it first

Monday 23 February 2009

Faces of Mim


Revenge on the Sheep


Yesterday, the sheep were denuded. In revenge for the bruise on my bum.

It took Tim less than half an hour to set up his equipment, help Michael create a 'holding pen', catch the little buggers and shear them, one by one.

Lulu and Ethel were beside themselves with the shock of it, it was their first shear. They had no idea what was happening to them. And they look ridiculous now. But they'd make good eating, they have enough fat on them.

I've kept the fleeces aside, and will spin them (when I get the time of course).

Sunday 22 February 2009

Outsmarted, by a chook!

Despite locating the chook's house away from the fence, despite clipping their wings, the damn chooks keep flying out.

So, I thought I'd get smart.

Whilst the fence itself is only about 1m high, I put two strands of wire above the fenceline, bringing it to almost my height.

Michael and I were watching this morning as the two chooks flew to the top of their chookhouse. One of the chooks looked, and squatted down in preparation, then stood and looked again, and squatted, and did another check.

Michael and I started humming the theme of Indiana Jones whilst we watched. I felt gleeful, thinking, "Go on, you little f..... eathered friend, just try it". I was looking forward to the chook hitting the wire and bouncing back into the pen.

The chook looked, took the appropriate measurements of wind speed, takeoff lift.... and flew up and over the wire!!!!!! BASTARD!!!

Back to the drawing board.

I think I'll design a range of ball and chain weights for chooks and sheep.

Sunday morning workout

As per usual, I was up early and walked the dogs. Michael started the washing and then went out to repair some fences before it got too hot.

He called me out not long after, we had a visitor.



I wanted to keep it. She wasn't very old and was very cute. Took some photos of her and hoped that she'd jump the fence back to the neighbour's paddock, as she was fretting about being on her own.



She did jump the fence... onto the driveway and then out onto the service road. The one next to the main highway!

Michael and I took off after her. She crossed the highway three times in our attempts to get her into the neighbour's paddock. She was almost a kilometre down the road when Michael went back for his car. He managed to keep her on our side of the highway and pushed her towards a gate, but I couldn't get the gate open. I was running beside the road, to ensure she didn't run across the road again.

Luckily the other neighbour, Craig (the one that lost his hayshed in the fire) pulled up. Turns out, it was his heifer. He was able to walk her back to his driveway, whilst I drove his car back. We had a lovely chat about the fire and tractors and schools before heading home again - and al before 10am.

The heifer is friendly with little Isabelle's pony, Sandwich. They were very pleased to be together again.

And this afternoon will be shearing, should get a workout from that as well. Will appoint Michael as official photographer.

Home Rodeo

The sheep have discovered chook food. Basically, it's almost exactly the same as lamb pellets - a grain based pellet. So, the latest trick by Ethel and Lulu is to push their way into the chook pen.



Yesterday morning, as I was checking on the egg situation, the sheep decided they were hungry. I managed to plant my body in the gateway of the chook pen to stop them from coming in. Ethel was disconcerted by me swearing at them, but Lulu decided to go for it anyway.

Next thing I know, she's pushing between my legs and I'm riding a sheep backwards into the chook pen. The ride lasted about 10 seconds before I fell off and onto the side of a brick.

Got a lovely bruise on my butt to show for it.

I was up pretty quickly and gave both sheep a big kick up the bum and threw them out of the pen. I'll get my revenge tomorrow, they will become naked sheep!

Saturday 21 February 2009

Miscellaneous

A few miscellaneous photos taken over the past few weeks:

watching the cake rise

a beautiful sunrise, made red by the smoke from 400kms away
smoke haze from north eastern Victoria

Mim, getting ready for ballet

relaxing in the morning, with all the dogs

strange markings on an egg

It's Pathetic

Gomez won't stop humping Jess.

She pays no attention to his amorous overtunes. And let's face it, it's like Mini-Me trying to get it on with Julia Roberts!



Spinning

I've been taught how to spin properly, now just have to practise.

A lovely lady named Isabel taught me the basics, when I have two bobbins full I am to go back for another lesson on the next step. She sent me to buy some nicer spinning wool from a lady in Strathdownie.

The results so far with the crap wool

Lesley had a shed full of wool. And I mean full!! I chose 2kg of a beautiful fawn coloured fleece, next time I'll get some of the beautiful silvery black stuff. Oh, and I also arranged to buy 6 of her Corriedale/English Leceister sheep - for $20 per sheep. This'll happen in March, when our water situation has been sorted.

The good stuff!

Wednesday 18 February 2009

Some things are still growing



Despite the heat and the lack of rain, the tomatoes are thriving!

The beans, well, they haven't produced anything yet.

Community togetherness

It's heartening to see how communities help one another.

A number of properties near us were affected by the fire. They had paddocks burnt and fences destroyed. By last Wednesday, a group of 80 volunteers amassed to help refence paddocks, especially those abutting the highway. They used large machinery donated by a local company (whose employee was burnt whilst helping neighbours) and by now, 10 days after the fire, there are new fences along these paddocks and one paddock is full of haybales donated by surrounding farmers.

At the hospital I work at, a woman gave birth on that terrible Saturday. She's from the north east of Melbourne and she and her partner lost everything - house, possessions, fencing and most of their stock. They only had the clothes they were in, and her maternity bag. By the Monday morning, there was a stream of Red Cross volunteers visiting her, bringing donations of clothing and accessories for her and the baby. Her partner spent his time driving between our hospital and another hospital 2hrs away, where his father was after suffering a heart attack. And he was also busy organising accommodation for his family, someone to feed his remaining stock - not once did he break down or was anything other than positive. He was very matter of fact and capable, and always had compliments for the nurses looking after his partner. It's wonderful to see such positivity after all the horror stories that are displayed on the news night after night. And the baby's name - Mackenzie Hope.

Thursday 12 February 2009

Ballet Classes

Jemima started ballet classes on Tuesday afternoon.

She had a ball!! Loved it and can't wait until the next class. Of course, Mummy has to organise a tutu for her, because all ballet girls wear tutus! (Not) I've organised the standard uniform (leotard, tights, georgette skirt, crossover top for winter and slippers).

She's been practising her good toes, bad toes (I remember doing that same thing when I was little), standing straight with knees turned out and little leaps with straight legs.

She wore joggers to her first class - and tied her own shoelaces!!

Tuesday 10 February 2009

It's been an interesting few days

First, on Thursday, we had the Monivae bus crash, where a young driver did a U-turn in front of a bus full of Yr 7 students on their way to camp. The driver was seriously injured and flown to Melbourne but luckily, mostly thanks to the excellent defensive driving of Bob, the bus driver, none of the students were hurt. Police have praised him with actually keeping the bus upright.

Because the garage tank was empty, and that's what's connected to the taps in the yard, we bought 10,000 litres of water which was pumped into the tank on Thursday. It was very fortuitous, as it happens.

Next came Black Saturday with the fires. Hot as Hades and windy, it was a disaster waiting to happen. One man received 50% burns to his body whilst trying to help neighbours save their stock. Apparently the wind changed suddenly and he got trapped. No further news on how he's progressing.

Sunday was a quiet day, with much attention being paid to the news and the increasing death toll in north eastern Victorian. It started at about 25 confirmed dead but has quickly risen to over 170!

Yesterday (Monday), I spent the day in trackies, uggies and a jumper! It was cold! Two days after a heatwave, it was freezing! Of course, the pump in the grey water system decided to pack it in, so we had to get the plumber out, yet again. It'll take a few days to fix, so until then the toilet is being filled by lovely drinkable rainwater!!

This morning, taking the dogs for their morning ablutions, I witnessed a beautiful "moon set", just before the sun rose for the day.

Where the fire went

looking east towards the neighbours

looking north east over the back fence

where the fire jumped the highway

Sunday 8 February 2009

End of an Era

We received, and accepted, an offer on our Kedron property. Hopefully, providing pest/building and finance are okay, we will settle in early March.

Caitlin is traumatised by this. She wanted us to buy a lotto ticket before signing the contract, just in case we won a million dollars and didn't have to sell.

A huge thank you to Mum, Dad and Margaret who spent weekends over at the place, cleaning walls, windows, lights, blinds, shampooing carpets, fixing holes and painting them, installing new laundry tub, cleaning up the yard and even spraypainting the pots green! The place sparkled!

Still, it's a relief that we won't be paying two mortgages and we'll have some spare change available to do things ... like replace the electric hot water system with a solar or gas one, replace the "how burnt do you want your food" oven and "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can boil water" cooktop, and repair some fencing so the sheep don't wander across the highway again!

A Lucky Escape

To all the people that have texted or tried to contact us, we are all safe. But only just! The fire missed us by under a kilometre.

The day started off as normal, the dogs were exercised before it got too hot and I checked the water tanks to see how much extra water we'd gotten from the shower the night before and was pleasantly surprised. We were prepared for a hot day.



Michael went into town to get something for lunch, he got home about 12.15pm and all was normal. As it was a hot, windy day, we made lunch and retired to the lounge room where we closed the doors, windows, curtains and put on the air conditioner and The Blues Brothers.

Half an hour later, we heard a pounding on the lounge room door. It was our neighbour across the road, Cathy, telling us that a fire was going through her paddocks to the east. Her husband was busy moving stock but she wanted to let us know in case we didn't. Because the winds were strong northwesterly, we couldn't hear or smell it. And with the curtains closed, we didn't see the large plumes of smoke.

Michael and I went out to investigate immediately. It had come over the hill in the neighbour's property and taken out their hayshed and $50,000 worth of hay. Their house was spared. It had moved east, very quickly and burnt out the hills between here and Balmoral Rd. Just as it got to Balmoral road, the winds changed to southwesterly, which saved the town! The CFA (country fire authority) contained the fire quickly and cannot be praised highly enough for their work yesterday and last night.
view from our garage
view of the highway from our property

We had 10 minutes of panic - the house insurance was due yesterday and I couldn't remember if I'd paid it or not. After a mad scrabble through the bills, I discovered that I had actually paid it - we could burn down now :)

Luckily, the only house that was lost was an empty house up on a hill. One man was allegedly taken to hospital with burns and some stock was lost, and about 700 hectares burnt, but no human lives lost. We were all very lucky! The Premier, John Brumby, was a bit frantic... he couldn't contact his parents who live in Coleraine. They were okay, the fire stopped 500m short of their house.

The fire jumped the highway just down the road, and a power pole fell across the highway, closing it off for the rest of the day.

This meant we were without power, or phone for the rest of the day. No power meant no water (tanks need water pumped into the house). We felt reasonably safe from bushfire as the CFA were on high alert and planes were doing spotting sweeps, but we couldn't flush toilets, refill water bottles or have showers. Dinner at the pub was a must!

As the highway was closed, we had to go down Huggins Lane, across the dry creek bed and into town through the back street. Came home before it was dark and pretty much went straight to bed. Power came on around midnight but the phones didn't come back on until this afternoon.

Considering the disasters happening in other areas of hte state, we were very lucky! It has been touted that yesterday was worse than Ash Wednesday; so far 49 people have been confirmed dead and the toll is set to rise.

Bring on the rain.


This was the neighbour's hayshed


Only part of the devastation


Heroes of the day


The shed flares up again


Still working throughout the night


A beautiful sunset to end an horrific day

Ready for School

Caitlin returned to school this week.

Mim was extremely jealous of her. On Monday afternoon, I discovered Mim had prepared her outfit to pick up Caitlin - school uniform, school shoes (thanks to Mumma) and white socks.


She looked a treat.

It's a pity the uniform is so thin you can see the pink undies underneath!

On Thursday, she got to return to Kindy, she was soooo excited to be back there. She packed her own lunchbox and drink bottle.