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Wow time can really get away from you. I didn't think it had been so long since I'd added a post. The beans are pressing up against the top of the seedling try cover now. I'm going to take out the big ones (not all of them have sprouted yet), let them harden and then plant them out next weekend.The potatoes are going great guns. about 15 out of 25 have sprouted lovely green foliage and are growing well. Pink Eyes in the new year for me!Just got back from the movies - saw Death at a Funeral which was very funny. For those of you that know Rhys, he is turning 18 this Wednesday so that will be a big day for himThis week I am going to try to ride to work every day. Need to get myself organised though. SOmehow I always seem to forget something. belt, cuff links, etc.I also ordered a shiny new laptop for myself. I'll probably be doing a fair bit of travelling in the soming months and my desktop (this one I'm using right now) is getting quite long in the tooth. was time to update and a laptop can be salary packaged which makes it a bit cheaper. Anyway I hope that will arrive later in the week. I certainly have bucket loads of work I need to get done.
Today I went to the Kingston Markets with Ben and Trish. Sampled heaps of yummy stuff and had a very enjoyable day.
Best get back to the ironing, have to get 5 days clothes ready to cycle in tomorrow morning.
Brilliant! I thought it was a sad indictment of Australian broadcasting when the Shaun Micallef show was pulled from the air a few years back. There is something about his comedy that makes me laugh until i cry. There is an intellectual (and i think philosophical) slant to his comedy that takes it beyond simple parody. Anyway I just finished watching his return to glory on SBS ( a far better place for his kind) and it was brilliant. Admittedly, for every 1 person who thought the micallef show was brilliant, there were 20 who thought it was rubbish, so it may be just me (and the 2 other people i managed to find who loved it). But he is back with bells on. Don't miss Newstopia, 10pm wed nights on SBS.
Today was ride to work day and it all went off very nicely. Had a great gathering for DVA here in Canberra. About 35-40 at our breakfast and everyone having a great time. Ok bed time!
Beans are getting bigger too!
just a quick one cause its getting late and i have to get up early and ride to work. have to brief the Secretary at 8.30 tomorrow morning.so here is a picture of the beans growing.
here is one of the walnut looking particularly happy.
Well what a week. Been flat out with the AICD course, but its been brilliant. It could well be the best course I've ever been on. But its truly terrifying how exposed you are as a director. I'm not talking about the dodgy ones like HIH etc. I mean you can get yourself in trouble by doing nothing when you should have been doing something, even if you didn't realise you should be doing something, because you should have known, and so on.
Had a bit of a play in the garden again. The beans I planted a week or so ago are leaping up! Theres at least 10 of them up now and one is quite large. The $500 cabbage is still the only one from the first tray that has emerged. The second tray had nothing, so i took all the punnets out of the mini greenhouse thingy and replaced them with 4 punnets of peas and 4 punnets of sweet corn. I am hoping that these will come up quickly like the beans did with daily watering as the beans have enjoyed. Today was also 'seasol day'. watering with seaweed water mix rather than just water. I'll try to remember to take a photo of the beans tomorrow. I planted about 70 bean plants i think (5 different varieties-all 'bush' beans -- kidney beans, flageolet beans, cherokee beans, yin & yang beans, basmatti beans. If all of them grow i plan to dry the extra in the trusty dehydrator and have them in winter soups etc.
I unwound all my dripper tube today and lay it in the sun under some pavers to try to get it straightened out a bit. I also constructed a grid of dripper pipes for 'bed number 2' (which is assigned to legumes at this point in the crop rotation). Unfortunately i didn't quite have enough connectors/elbow etc to get it all together. Will have to grab some from bunnings tomorrow.
For those following the EQ2 front, I dinged lvl 49 this morning before it warmed up enough to be wandering around outside. Was a bit chilly overnight in Canberra. As the tomato growers here say, you don't plant your tomoatoes out until you know the winner of the Melbourne Cup. Late frosts don't you know! Have finished the quest line in the Steamfont Mountains and now moved to the Sinking Sands and finished a dozen or so quests there.
Did a heap of laundry, etc, and have been listening to a lecture series on archeology and the discovery of various civilisations.
Also made some little loops of 5mm dripper line to go around the lemon and the walnut in their pots. The walnut is going great guns by the look of things.
First day of the company directors course today. Was absolutely fascinating though very tiring. If I learned one thing today it was that you are absolutely mad if you are on a board. Even if its just the local cricket club or something. The courts have made it absolutely clear that if you are a director on a board of anything, you need to be away of your duties as a director (even if you are not called 'directors') otherwise you could end up sued for millions and wind up in jail. If you haven't read the Corporations Act and understand how to determine an entity's financial position, resign now!
But now for the headline story. Last night I cooked some curried sausages. Enjoyed them and went to bed. I have been getting up very early to ride to work (5.30 this morning) and so have been going to bed early. I was in bed and suddenly remembered that I hadn't put the leftover curried snags in the fridge. So i got up, went out to the kitchen, got a pyrex container (with lid) out of the cupboard, put the leftovers in and put it in the fridge. Tomight I got home and thought that some leftover curried snags would be just the ticket. nice and easy.....only i couldn't find them. Eventually I discovered them in the cupboard from which I had taken the container. In my sleepy haze I had taken out the container, filled it up and put it back....be honest, you thought the "hide the sausage" story was going to be rude, didn't you?
Not riding tomorrow as thunderstorms are expected. A perfect excuse to take the car tomorrow.
So today was the first day in the new office. Didn't get a working computer until midday but that was the only hitch. Got nearly all of my boxes unpacked.
I rode to work today as well. Got up a little before six and had a nice ride in now that the weather is warming up now. Its magpie season though so it can be a bit dicey in some spots. As you are riding along the magpies swoop in and attack you. The first thing you know is a thump to the back of the head or neck. The best thing you can do is just hunker down and ride out the follow up attacks. People have al sorts of bizarre ways of dissauding the maggies. Some people stick fake eyes on the top of their helmuts and swear by these. The funniest looking solution though is the people with a whole heap of plastic cable ties attached to their helmuts poking up like some bizarre echidna. I saw a lady this morning who must have been terrified of the maggies because she had at least 30 or 40 of these things poking up all over the shop.
I'm just about to log on to Dawn of War and play a few games with John, Russ and Greg for an hour or so.
Today seemed to flit by in an instant. I got up quite early (around 5.30). For those interested in this sort of thing, I played a couple of hours of EQ2, nearly finished the quests in the Steamfont Mountains and dinged level 47. Then around 9am I headed off on the bike to work where there was a bike maintenance workshop happening in preparation for ride to work day. 6 people showed up in the end which made for a pleasant 3 hours. I got my hands a bit dirty and helped someone clean and repack their hub bearings and crank bearings. good fun all round.Watered the seedlings, lemon and walnut but apart from that nothing in the garden today. Tonight was Rush Hour 3 at the movies. I actually quite enjoyed it, except for the teenagers who talked through the whole thing. I confess I had some non-Christian thoughts about them from time to time.
Got a big week coming up. New office and the AICD Course wed-fri. Also I am planning on riding to work all week if I can. Got to toughen up the 'contact point' before Dad shows up in November.
So the $500 cabbage's scond set of leaves (or leaf) is coming on nicely. Nothing else in the first two trays has sprouted yet but there is some movement on the beans i put in the thrid tray last weekend. I forgot to change the camera to macro mode so this photo is a bit blurry.
I also fixed the dripping tap. It was broken somehow. When turning it off, you could almost get it to stop dripping then it would 'slip' and suddenly be on full bore again. So I could never turn it off entirely. Anyway the tap seems to be braised on so i couldn't just change that. Anyway, I bought a new tap and used the new innards to fix the old one. So its half shiny. Here's a photo.
I also bought some more bits of 20mm bits that i use to make the manifold for my automatic wtering system. One of the T joints split in the frosts over winter. Anyway I expanded that out to 6 solenoid capacity (mind you I only have 4 solenoids at the moment). It only took about 800 yards of teflon tape but that all seems to be sealed up nicely with no drips now.
I also tied up the lemon tree at last (i ended up using garden twine as I couldn't find the errant stockings). Anyway I am a little worried about the damage caused by the winds knocking it over. I hope its roots are ok. I put some water on it through the course of the day to give it a bit of a boost.
Speaking of 'the day' it was quite warm here today. Tomorrow I am riding into work to keep Ben (not regular Ben another Ben) company while he runs his bike maintenance workshop for new ride-to-workers (seeing how I am ride-to-work king) Actually 'regular' Ben will be there too.
Well it was moving day at work. packed up the office and hopefully it will all be in my new office on monday. its a lot bigger (and i have my own electronic whiteboard in there hehe) but alas no windows. Oh well you can't have everything i guess.rode to work today a touch over 20 km round trip. felt pretty good about it too. Was supposed to meet Ben on the way but a miscommunication had me waiting for him by the path while he was merrily riding to work. Still we rode home together which was nice. We had an info session for new ride to workers this afternoon and had a good turnout.Got a couple hundred pages of reading to get done this weekend in preparation for the Australian Institute of COmpany Directors course next week. should keep me busy over the weekend.This morning I noticed that the $500 cabbage had another set of leaves coming out too. But still no other seedlings up as of this morning.Played EQ2 for a few hours tonight after a break of about 9 months. Wasvery good fun.
The time has come, tomorrow I am riding to work for the first time this spring. The weather is warming up nicely. I just have to make sure I have everything I need. Its quite a logistical issue getting everything ready to ride to work!
Tomorrow is also the day of office moving. I go from the 16th floor down to the 2nd. Bigger office but no windows. my own electronic white board too which is cool. I will be back in with my resources/finance branch colleagues once again instead of squatting in a spare office.
Also tomorrow we have the first of our pre-ride to work day info sessions. Sunday we are running a bike maintenance workshop for a few hours. Don't worry, there will be someone who knows what they are doing!
On the garden front, still only one seedling up (the $500 cabbage as I call it). The lemon tree has a severe list from the high winds. I secured a could of stakes in the windward side of the planter box, but cannot find the remains of the stockings I bought that i intend to use to tie it to the stakes. Before you get any wild thoughts i use the stockings to buff my work shoes to a high sheen when i clean them.
As a final note, great to hear from Andy B again. I was very pleased to see that he hadn't lost faith in me even after such a long break between posts.
Well its 10pm and I've just gotten home from a lovely dinner and evening with Ben and Trish over at their place. So just a short one tonight.Jacko correctly pointed out, that the layout that looked fine on my widescreen monitor actually looks terrible on a regular monitor (like the one I checked it on at work). So no more pictures beside the text. Strictly linear from here on in.
Moving into the new office on the 2nd floor this weekend so have to get things packed up at work over the next couple of days.
Starting to ramp up activities for 'ride to work day' with a session on friday and a maintenance session on sunday.
ok, thats your lot for today.
Not a bad day for a day after a long weekend. Started off with a course on the Financial Management & Accountability Regulations (and specifically Reg 10). Run by Dept of Finance and Admin but held in the new Dept of Prime Minister and Cabinet digs over in Barton. It was actually a lot more interesting than it sounded. I learned a heap of things, got a few questions answered and aired a few gripes about the whole thing. The Regulation itself is about 3 lines long and if we were to explain it to a ten year old we would say "don't promise to give anyone money if you haven't got enough pocket money left to cover it". However, the machinery of government being on the slightly more complicated side the total explanation runs to many hundred pages, much of it incomprehensible to mortal man.
Remembered to give the seedlings a squirt of water this morning before I went to work. Still only the one cabbage happening. Ben is keen to put in another garden bed over at his place so that might be another weekend project. I'm having dinner with his family tomorrow night which will be very nice.
Last night was a bit of fun. Greg popped around on Sunday after the movies and managed to fix the problems I had trying to log into the online servers for a game called Dawn of War. Not a great game by any means but fun by virtue of the fact that I was playing a cooperative game with 3 friends (Johnno, Russ & Greg). Jacko is frustrated by his troubles getting onto the servers. Frankly I never would have managed it without Greg's help, so that was very handy.
I am continuing my Franz Schubert odyssey. I have a whole pile of audio files that I am laboriously splitting into tracks (so that there isn't 3 symphonies in one long track for instance). I am listening to one right now and it is incredibly uplifting.
Apart from being very breezy at the moment, the weather is getting to such a stage that I should get back on the bike and start riding to work every day. National Ride to Work day is on the 17th of October and as these things tend to happen I am DVA's national coordinator. go figure.
Finished the lecture series on 'Famous Greeks'.
Next week I start the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) 'Company Directors Course'. There's a 4 kg box of reading material to digest for it this weekend. If I pass the exam and the assignment I can use the post-nominals AICD which is quite cool I thought. It should be absolutely fascinating (and tiring). Will fit in nicely with other governance work I am doing.
Ok thats enough for today.
Well its been a long time between drinks! I'll not try to catch everyone up on the last month, just try to get things going again with the blog.
First off, a water saving measure. The running loo. Being a veteran of the leaking loo now, I correctly diagnosed the problem (worn inlet valve rubber grommetty thing) and, after a certain amount of colourful language aimed at a stubborm split pin, managed to dismantle the works, replace the rubber thingy, reassemble and bask in the glory of my toilet maintenance skills. While I was there I popped in a toilet cleaner thingy too.
Yesterday I bought a lemon tree. It came with 2 lemons in situ and a heap of blooms. The trouble was that I had no idea what to do with it. The wind was blowing a glae and I had no clue where to put it. I eventually decided to build a planter box for it out of a few sleepers I had kicking around. Here is the result.
I am pretty pleased with the result. I will put some herbs around the outside once the lemon is settled in. The wind has given it a bit of list at the moment so I think I will pop some stakes in and give it a bit of support against the gales.
A few sleepers and some hoop iron (and a crap load of nails) and there you have it. Not a bad looking planter box. A few bits of random (and warped) timber to make the bottom and 4 of the chook house pavers to lift it off the ground. A layer of newspaper in the bottoms, a barrow load of lawn clippings, a barrow load of dirt, and a bag of compost completes the package.
Yesterday I also visited the worm farm (it was in Pialigo where the nurseries are in Canberra). Actually to be mosre precise I wsa going to the worm farm and dropped in to the nursery and bought the lemon tree on a whim. I'd like a lime to go with it, but they only had 'tahitian' limes. According to the tag though they are susceptible to frost. I'll have to do some research and figure out what lime trees are the most frost resistant.
Anyway back to the worms. I bought 1000 worms and a bag of 'worm topper' from a very helpful lady at the worm farm. I'm not entirely sure what the worm topper is but you basically toss a cupful on top of a heap of food when you feed them. Anyway, I have the worm farm situated now beneath the big red-ish tree. Here is a photo.
I've been listening to more of the lecture series on my ipod. I've finished the Shakespeare lecture series and the Classical Mythology lectures. Now I have moved on to 'Famous Greeks'.
I just got back from a brilliant movie. 'Stardust'. It was very enjoyable indeed. I recommend you all run out and see it straight away. A brilliantly executed fairy tale (not that there were any fairies you understand). But a real feel good movie and tremendously fun and entertaining too.
For those of you who have been following the drama, Greg popped in after the movie and after an hour and a half of battling with the PC managed to solve the problems I had trying to log into the Dawn of War online servers so that I should be able to join the other guys in playing cooperative online games of Dawn of War with my mates.
The big news of the week is, however, is that the curse may be broken. Up until now, I have been great at building infrastructure, but terrible at getting anything to actually grow. So today I was overjoyed to spot a seedling growing in my seedling trays. Ok so 1 out of 144 might not be a great strike rate but at least its not 0% anymore! I am calling it my $500 cabbage. I'm not entirely sure how much I've spent so far on the veggie garden stuff but it sure makes that one cabbage seedling a pretty expensive cabbage hehe. Ben has a couple of trays full of seedlings an inch high and a careful comparison of our two techniques has revealed that the secret may just be in watering them. Who would have thought that right?
Anyway this has inspired me to plant out a third propagating tray of seeds. This time 5 different types of bean from the 'magic bean mix' packet.
The last thing I did in the garden today was to make the lid for the chook nest box. I made this out of a small sheet of plywood I bought for the occasion, some bendy timber I had, some random screws from the salsa jars in the shed, and some old door hinges (complete with old paint) I have carried from residence to residence in a takeout container along with other sundries such as a door lock and an old drawer handle. This will end up as the handle to lift the lid of the nest box shortly. Ok the odds and ends battens, that I used to join the lid pieces together, look a bit odd but they are functional.
I've also got a lead on some chooks. One of the consultants we use at work , and with whom I've become friends over the last few years, learned of my chook house adventures. She has a friend who breeds orpingtons (the Queen Mother's favourite breed) and Isa Brown-Barnevelder crosses. So big-bottomed egg-layers all. The only proviso is that I must call one of them 'Val' after the consultant. Which just makes it funnier really.
Finally, its worth mentioning that the walnut tree that was given to me by Raechelle (one of a pair she brought from the old walnut at New Norfolk) is starting to shoot with spring green bits. Here is a photo of the walnut (the tree is healtheir than my photography skills).
The last thing I will mention is the flurry of lamb roasts that seemed to happen today. I bought a roast lamb to cook tomorrow. I was talking to Rae on the phone and she mentioned that Nan was at Mum and Dad's place today and that they had roast lamb for lunch today. Ash went out to get a roast lamb while Rae and I were chatting. So it seemed like everyone was up for roast lamb today.
Ok I think thats enough news for a prodigal blogger return post.
Well the weekend was too short but a beautiful one and the start of Spring. I went for a ride both days. Faffed around in the backyard a bit and didn't get enough of the housework done.
Yesterday I 'paved' the chook house. I just need to get a diamond cutting disc so i can cut a bit out of the corner of four pavers to fit in the corners around the star pickets. Next weekend I hope to be able to pick up some sawdust from the sawmill for the floor. With a bit of luck Ben and I can pick up some when we go to grab some sleepers for Ben's garden beds. I say 'paved' because its pretty uneven. I didn't bother smoothing it out too much, but as Dad said "the chooks wont mind". One step closer to chook house completion.
As I mentioned I went for a ride yesterday. Just a short one though (about 10km) instead of verdoing it like I did last weekend. Ben had a BBQ today and I rode to his place and back again. It was a great day (actually too hot in the sun for a while). Plenty of food and good company. I made some chicken burgers.
- 500gm chicken mince—stick it in a big ol' mixing bowl
- a 'block' of noodles—these are the asian cooking noodles. crush them into small pieces and soak them in hot water until they are done. drain them and toss them in the bowl
- a big bunch of coriander—chop it into tiny bits (think the consistency of the parsely for tabouleh, though you don't have to be as fastidious as for tabouleh)
- mix it all up and form it into patties—use plenty of flour as the mix is pretty sticky
- cook them (or even better, sit in a camp chair with a drink and watch Ben cook them)
- Into a nice round white roll, bang a pineapple ring on top and a good slug of sweet chilli sauce (you can put some greenage on the bottom too)
I've been looking for a decent lunar calendar on the internet so I can do my planting the Druid Circle way.
I had a great heap of things I was planning to do in the back yard and got barely any of them done. Compost bins, worm farms, more veggie beds, digging out stumps, finishing the chook nesting box, etc. Oh well, there is always next weekend. Got some great books out of the library though. Organic gardening, solar greenhouses, backyard poultry and a book on composting. The last composting book I got out of the library was a bit too complicated frankly. I really don't need to know what all the bugs and microorganisms that help in composting are called. This book is much better, it just says how to get them happening. A much better approach. I had a worm farm at one stage which I've somehow misplaced in the move to Canberra. I've also mysteriously lost my camping backpack. I think I loaned it to someone at some stage. Actually I have a vague feeling I loaned it to someone so they could lend it to someone else. Whatever actually happened I haven't seen either since I moved to Canberra.
Broadly speaking, the next few weeks I'd like to build a compost set up and get a worm farm happening. I've started popping my food scraps in a bucket ready to compost/worm. Its actually very hard to get in the habit. I keep throwing things in the bin and then remembering I should have put it in the composting bucket. Just goes to show how much we (society I mean not necessarily my erudite readers) are ready to send everything to the land fill. Very humbling. I also want to get some more beds ready for the veggies and get some pink eyes in the ground and start up a few more beds of veggies now that the weather is starting to look a bit more promising. I've also got to get some beds ready for the tomatoes that will be coming in November after Melbourne Cup day (assuming that the cup will be run this year). When the propogation supplies arrive I can get a heap of herb and veggie seedlings in.
Ok thats your lot.
On tuesday night Ben and I attended a meeting of the Canberra Organic Gardeners Society. It was a pretty interesting night. Lots of elderly people, some very stern looking young folk with that air of social conscience about them, some farmer looking types and the odd hippy or two. Having come straight from work I was in a serious looking black suit. Ok so I didn't exactly blend into the background. This interesting mix of people were a very nice bunch and they had a little library of books their members could borrow. The speaker was a lady who was clearly a world expert on biodynamic gardening (she teaches all over the world). I found some of it I had to really force myself to let go of the conservative in me in order to take it on properly. Some of it was easy..."we must work in harmony with nature"...yep that sounds pretty reasonable..."plant your seedlings in the afternoon and they will do better than if you plant them in the morning"...fair enough, sounds reasonable...."prune your fruit trees during the new moon rather than the full moon, the wounds will produce less sap and heal faster"...okaaaay, I don't really understand why but if you say so I can go along with that..."fill a cow horn with manure and bury it for 3 months over winter, dig it up, scoop out the goop and make some liquid fertiliser with it and spray it over your land"....I must admit my first reaction was okay, the druid lady is scaring me now....but i got to thinking...
ok so i probably wont go out looking for a cow horn to fill with manure to bury over winter, but if someone else had done so and said "spray this druid juice around your garden and it will be bonza," you know what? I probably would. What the hell do I know after all? Luckily, Ben is keen as mustard to collect some cow horns over Christmas at his father-in-laws cattle property to get the process started. So I guess I am quite interested in the learnings of the Druids so long as I don't spend too much time wondering "why?"
After we got back from the druid circle we had a butcher's at the lunar exclipse with their telescope. great stuff.
Ben and I ordered some more seeds and bits and pieces today. A veritable heap of vegies and 8 different types of herbs. We also ordered some propogation trays so we can get them all started.
Had chicken soup for dinner and succumbed to the sample tray at bakers delight...sun-dried tomato scones...yum.
Ben and Trish loaned me a book on home farms on tuesday. Its brilliant. how to set up if you have say 3 acres, or 5, or 10. great stuff, I love those wee Pop Larkin type farms that have a little bit of everything. chooks, vegies, fruit, bees, a bit of everything. Of course if you have a couple of hundred with plenty of trees, some cleared land and river frontage you can have wind power generators, wood fires etc. brilliant!
I just watched a cool movie, "ten canoes". its this great movie set in tribal war times about a man who fancies his brother's youngest wife and the story his brother tells him from the old times about another pair of brothers in a similar position. Its a be-careful-what-you-wish-for job, but very funny. Also there are some nifty scenes to do with building canoes out of bark.
Now I am watching the first episode of 'californication' which appears to be about exactly what it sounds like...
Had a long day at work today (8 to 7). I seem to have tons of work on at the moment.
Tomorrow Ben and I are going to the Canberra Organic Gardeners Society meeting. There is a lady talking about biodynamic gardening (whatever that is). It should be an interesting night anyway and it will be handy to meet some locals who understand the seasons better. I have a bit of a plan in mind regarding polytunnel material and the raised garden beds to help get the growing kickstarted a bit. Now I just have to find someone who sells the polytunnel material.
Bit of a quiet day today. Did some washing and a bit of cleaning around the house. But otherwise a very lazy day. Watched some DVDs and generally spent the day recovering from the big ride yesterday.
Looks like Dad and I will be tackling the gippsland rail trail in November which is something to look forward to. Have to make sure I get plenty of riding in to build up the stamina and fitness again a bit before then. Last time bu the time we were climbing up to Beechworth Dad spent the whole time waiting for me. The only time I left him beihnd was when he stopped to take a phone call!
My forearms are very sore today from the ride, as are the palms of my hands (bruised) and my neck (stiff). Not to mention the..well..unmentionable bits i mentioned yesterday. I an unnatural enjoyment from that last sentance by the way.
Did absolutely nothing in the garden, so I will have to make sure do something next weekend.
Sorry I've been so slack posting lately, I've been very tired of late. Going to bed early and sleeping more than usual. I will definitely sleep well tonight too as I went for the first ride of (almost) spring after a very long break (about 4 months). I was feeling very ordinary. At about 1.5km i was wondering if it was every going to end and I'd only just started. I was very slow. I perked up a bit on the Monaro Highway and rode into the fruit markets where I bought a coffee and some oranges and mandarins.
I knew that I was going to far but being an idiot I did it anyway. I ended up riding 49km. When I say ride, I really walked at least half the last 20km and the old posterier is very tender. It took about 5 hours too, which gives you an idea of how slow and sorry I was. Sure the legs were spent but it was the rear end that just couldn't take any more saddle time. My mates will all be pleased to read that its only bruising though as I had my spandex leggings on :-) Got that mental picture now? good...my work here is almost done.
Still its good to know that I'm not starting from as low a base as I started last year (in late November). I could only do about 6 km to start with. Should be a good spring/summer. I should be able to get the weight down to double digits with a bit of luck and some persistent riding!
My hands were numb and twitchy by the end too. They have been suffering a bit with work lately as well (if I had any brains I wouldn't be typing this now).
But I just watched the triumphant return of Buckley in a magpie win over sydney to get a spot in the 4 (i think). Speaking of magpies, I got attacked by one twice as i rode along the Monaro this morning at about 9.30. All you notice is a sort of thump on the back as you a treadling along and then again a few moments later. Which reminds me I stopped along the Monaro for a few minutes at the model areoplane club that was in full swing. that was quite cool. Funnily enough the model sail boat club was out in force too as i rode along the front of lake burley griffen at about 10.30. must have been the day for it.
bed time now, good night everyone.
Spent a bit of time getting organised for Ride to Work Day. Somehow I've managed to become the world's most underqualified ride to work day co-ordinator. Still the weather is starting (slowly) to get a little better and the old pins are getting itchy for a bit of treadly action. Anyway, I am assembling a crack team (or perhaps I should say peleton) of ride to workers. Not PE though (whose identity I will protect). He was quite a regular ride to worker. He would ride from Belconnen to Woden (probably 20km or so) every day until a few months ago he suffered a series of breakdowns in the same trip and snapped. Jumping off his bike he picked it up and threw it off the bike path into some bushes and never rode to work again. I think we've all felt like that from time to time (though not necessarily about riding of course).
I have sent out the invite to all the EL2s with whom I was training in Bowral. So the dishlickers are on again for the 2nd of September. I have a couple of takers already, so I hope to get a few more to make it a right cracker night.
I saw Black Sheep (the movie) on Sunday. It was absolutely hilarious. As most of you will know I really don't like gory horror films. This however, was brilliantly funny in its goriness. If you just imagine 90 minutes of "baaaaa" followed by a merino mauling someone, you pretty much have it figured. Throw in a bit of werewolf movie type transformations from human to weresheep form and you have the rest of the movie right there. baaaa-maul...it just didn't get old....
Ben and I are going to attend the August meeting of the Canberra Organic Gardeners Society (COGS) next tuesday. They have a guest speaker and we hope to meet some knowledgable and interesting people who can give us some hints on the organic gardening lark. I am thinking about rigging up some poly tunnel action on a small scale to help the garden get started during the frosty winter months. I think I can devise a sort of slot in frame arrangement for the garden beds that I could stick polyethelene over to form a sort of low poly tunnel to generate some heat during the day and keep the frost off overnight. I could then just remove them after melbourne cup day when the risk of frost is no more. As someone said to me last week. You don't pant tomatoes in Canberra until you know the winner of the Melbourne Cup. Of course, in Hobart, its Hobart Show day as everyone knows!
I must remember to take some snaps of the progress on the weekend. The Nest box is looking very close to finished now. I think this weekend I should be able to report finishing the paving of Palace Poulet. I keep telling myself I will order some propagating trays and some herb seed to get a good head start on the herb garden but I seem to have been quite busy at work the last few days. Too many irons in the fire today.
Last night though I woke up at 3am and could not sleep. I ended up reading a bit more George Orwell until I finally managed to doze off again.
I should also mention that the trip to the Goulburn Poultry Fancier's Society Spring Show and Breed Sale was a real hoot. No chicks for sale unfortunately, but that's ok, I wont have to worry about how to keep them warm enough during the bitter winter months. And I'll have plenty of time to finish off the chook run now. The chook show was a real eye opener and there were some frightening looking chooks i can tell you. It spurred me to create a new rule. I'm not getting any chook that looks like it could best me in a fight. Ben managed to upset a 'fancier' by making jokes about the name of his breed of pheasant....you had to be there but trust me when I say it was very funny. Lunch at the Goulburn Brewery was decent afterwards. nothing remarkable just a nice lunch. I can recommend the bakery on the way into town though. Very nice. I have a deja vu feeling about it though. I have a vague feeling I have been there before but I can't imagine when.
I've had a very long week. Four days at a residential training course on Executive Leadership Dimensions on Bowral. I got lucky on checkin and scored one of the Executive Suites. Huge! Rooms were a bit cold though and I got a touch of a cold. The days were very, very long. in the 12-14 hour range. (except for the 16 hour one but I'm not sure I can count the last 2 hours in in front of the raging fire in the DFIS HQ—don't ask—getting rowdy with the other naughty executives). Met some really interesting people and got some quite astounding insights into politics and power-broking. Also I have quite a few of the EL2 cohort that I met there interested in a catchup at the Narabundah Dog Track-the dishlickers again!
Was also nice to carpool up with the other DVA guys. I can also highly recommend the 'hearty meals' at Truckstop 31 if you are ever heading that way.
Had a bit of a run around day today, looking for various bits and pieces. I bought
- some star pickets to batten down the corners of the chook shed
- somme plywood for the nesting box roof
- some dowel for the roosting bit
- some chicken raising feed
- a wee feeder thingy that i can hang from the roof of the chook house
- a bale of wood shavings to tide things over until I can get some free stuff
I lugged all the new sleepers into the back yard. and about half of the pavers. I did quite a lot of work on the nesting boxes (which are nearly ready for action). I also got the chook house positioned (with the assistance of my mate Ken) and got the star pickets banged in a bit to hold it all in place.
Got an early start in the morning. Got to be around at Ben's place nice and early for an early start to Goulburn for the Goulburn Poultry Fanciers Society Spring Show and Breed Show. So exciting!
Bit of a odds and ends day today. Getting organised for a 4 day training course at Bowral. Leadership Dimensions. I am really looking forward to it. Lots of introspection, self awareness, analysing strengths and weaknesses, that sort of thing. The preliminary workbook on conflict management was pretty spot on for me I think. My default position was nurturing-assertive but when things go bad I move to a position where I try to make sure everyone is happy. I give ground and make concessions to avoid upsetting anyone, even to the point where I am way beyond my own tolerable position....right up to the point where I snap and brutalise everyone left standing. There is, of course, the wierd aberation in which someone working in retail or a service industry can get me there almost instantly but those of you who don't work with me will just have to take my word on it, that it takes quite a lot to wind me up at work. But we've discussed this particular character flaw before....
I am strugling to get everything in my small suitcase. Somehow I've managed to to end up with a giant suitcase (very very handy for the lengthy Christmas pilgrimage to Tassie) and a tiny suitcase (very hand for the short business trips here and there) but nothing in between (which I imagine would be quite handy for the current problem in hand). Never mind, the itty bitty suitcase will encourage me to efficiency in packing. besides, I can get some books into my briefcase and as everyone knows, you can't travel without a good supply of books!
Speaking of books, I received an amazon order today. Some lovely hard-cover editions of the Iliad and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.
Anger be now your song, immortal one,
Akhilleus' anger, doomed and ruinous,
that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss
and crowded brave souls into the undergloom,
leaving so many dead—carrion
for dogs and birds; and the will of Zeus was done.
Brilliant! I think before I am crowded into the undergloom I would like to read classics at Oxford or Cambridge and read the Iliad in the original greek. Dactylic hexameter doesn't really work in English, but in the greek the sound of it courses through your mind like the drums of a thousand galleys and the march of the greeks going to war. Here's an interesting thing I learned recently. Originally for a poem to be an 'epic' it had to be written in dactylic hexameter. As, I mentioned dactyls are a tough poetic foot in English and are usually done as:
- stressed syllable ---- non-stressed syllable ---- non-stressed syllable
sort of arrangement rather than:
- long syllable ---- short syllable ---- short syllable
arrangement, which is how they are in greek. I tell you it sounds like an incantation being intoned in greek, but of course you lose some of the effect because...well..its all greek to me.... Most of you would know Tennyson's crack at dactylic dimeter with the Charge of the Light Brigade. You can really hear the dum-da-da dum-da-da rhythm of the syllables reminding you of the drum of the hooves.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
I also took the wildly outrageous step of getting a hair cut today. That is, rather than just shaving it all off again as soon as it annoyed me, I went to the hair dresser to get it 'styled'. Don't worry, its nothing too outrageous, but its freaking me out a little. I had to buy gel too. How there can be 6 shelves of different types of gel stuff is beyond me. I was very close to phone-a-friend time to help figure out what I was supposed to get. So no more 'bother boy' hair cuts.
The pavers for the floor of the Chook House arrive tomorrow. As do 20 small sleepers for more garden beds. The timing sucks as they will sit in the driveway for 4 days shile I am in Bowral. Maybe I'll ring them and get them to pop them inside the gate.
The Goulburn Poultry Fanciers Society Spring Show and Breed Sale Road Trip is this Sunday. I think I have 9 takers now. Lunch is booked at the Goulburn Brewery which is conveniently (and totally luckily) located over the road from the show grounds. Should be a fun day. Also I have the concept for the next road trip ready too. September 30th.....The Running of the Sheep at Booroowa. Its like Pamplona only funnier :-)
As some of you will be aware its been a bit breezy here the last couple of days. The chook house has taken a pounding. Currently its blown up against the fence with a nasty bend where no bend should be. I hope a bit of attention with the persauder will get it back into shape though. I ordered 6 square metres of pavers to do the floor of the chook house and they should arrive on tuesday. While I was there I also got them the throw in another 20 sleepers for more garden beds. Though this time they were smaller ones (on special).
Had quite a relaxing day besides that. Did a heap of laundry, bit of cooking and watched some DVDs (Cold Feet).
I'll be away tues-fri next week at training in Bowral.
I've been a having a good read of the herbs book mum sent. Its pretty interesting reading all the old medicinal uses of herbs.
Got the heating bills recently....before next winter I'm putting more insulation in the roof and making pelmets for all the windows.
Still no sign of vegies emerging. Must still be way too cold for them (even though it has been pretty mild for august). I think I'll get some propogation tray s so I can start some seedlings off in trays and get a head start for when spring takes proper hold. There is a meeting of the Canberra Organic Gardeners Society in a coupld of weeks, I might go along (Ben too might be interested).
Well the pop corn is ready, back for some more lazy viewing...just need a nice cup of tea now....
Well the end of a very long week is in sight. Longest day was tuesday at about 14 hours. I presented my project in a meeting today and it went very well so I can finally relax a bit. However, things took an interesting turn this morning (I'm not sure if it is a good tur or a bad turn yet). If I was some sort of sports star (stop sniggering everyone) then this morning I got traded. We have a new CFO and I've been promised to him to help him settle in and get his projects happening. Unfortunately I don't get 14 million pounds for the season.
Also received a book on herbs from mum. Ben and I were having a bit of a butcher's at it this arvo over a coffee and noted with delight that it has all sorts of information on companion planting with vegetables. brilliant! Thanks Mum :-)
For those of you who know my Sister Raechelle, she and Ashley are off to Tonga for a holiday tomorrow.
I am reading 1984 at the moment. I'm not sure how I managed to get through school without reading it but I am correcting that mistake now, thanks to Nan who sent it to me for my birthday. A really nice edition too, hardback with a red buckram cover.
The 'planning' for the Goulburn Poultry Fancier's Society Show and Breed Sale is going very well. I have two cars full for the road trip now and a few more giving it 'active consideration'. A friend has dubbed it "chicken run" which seems to be sticking as a moniker. Its funny have no vision when it comes to having fun. Everyone thought I was a bit mad—ok I am a bit mad—a bit weird then, when I suggested the greyhounds, but they all had a ball once they were there. A chook show and a brewery, I mean what else could they want? Some people just don't know how to have fun...
Sorry to have kept you all in suspense regarding the weekend. It went something like this. I woke up and went to give Ben a hand moving house. It was quite satisfying as any big job is but I have to say after nearly 8 hours I was absolutely stuffed. Then of course I popped home for an hour (quick shower etc) and off to the 18th birthday party. Oh. My. God. About 150 drunk teenagers. It was also bloody cold. ANyway that went from about 8 to 2 in the morning.
Sunday...spent day in haze...consumed vsat quantities of caffiene and managed to coax myself into a suffieciently high enough state of mind to be able to go to the cinema. Saw 'snowcake' at the dendy cinema. great movie I thought. The dendy cinema is cool too. The snack bar sells hot wedges with various types of sauce. much better than popcorn.
today was a long day, i just got home having worked until 10.15pm. I did however, make a bit of a breakthrough on the suite of 'think papers' I have been working on. I finally (after reading 500 pages of statistics text book) have gotten the hang of...wait for it...hypergeometric probability distributions as they relate to financial controls attribute testing. I have to be nice and early for the operations committee tomorrow.
Its very cold out at this time of night so I am just having some chicken soup to warm up. I have become a bit addicted to it over the past few weeks. I have made several batches and I eat it all week. Its a very simple recipe (based on a far more complicated one):
- get some water on the go in a stock pot
- get a big ol' double chicken breast and trim the icky bits off, cut it into big-ish strips andthrow it in the pot
- get 4 chicken sotck cubes and 2 beef cubes - throw them in too
- get some frozen vegies (i'm currently using a carrot, pea, corn and something white mix) put them in too
- after a while come back and shred the chicken
- top it up with some more boiling water if you like (I like it nice an watery like a broth)
- eat it all week
all right, thats enough for today. keep dropping the comments
I need to devote some time to freeing up disk space on my PC in the very near future. I was down to a few hundred meg on C drive. Had to reshuffle some stuff to other drives to keep my ageing PC ticking over. Time to rationalise the old audio file directory. I probably don't need 9500 songs and lectures on my PC at the same time. I will consign the less used items to backup.
Got a big day tomorrow. Ben is moving house and then tomorrow night I'm off to an 18th birthday party.
My campaign to tempt people into coming to Goulburn for the Goulburn Poultry Fanciers' Society Show and Breed Sale on the 19th hasn't been wildly successful. I only have one taker so far. Some people just don't know how to have fun...
Anyway, I hope to be ready to pick up some chicks by that weekend. The dilema I face is that if I get really young chicks they need to be fed regularly throughout the day (3-4 times per day from what I can tell). If i get them a but older its easier but they wont 'bond' with me as much. Also I might not have the same number of options breeds wise.
Sorry I missed yesterday. I meant to post as usual but got distracted by other things.
Today I continued my journey into the world of smart casual and (with the assistance of my personal shopper, Lizzy) bought a vest and a pair of shoes that both go with my new trousers. We were also rather taken with a chocolate brown suit that could double duty as a coat for the casual trousers...and as everyone knows, you can never have too many suits...
It was good to hear from Andy B again though it seemed to disturb Jacko that so many of you were happy to read some poetry. I notice that Jacko tried to claim that he only knew poetry involving musical beans, but he is really obfuscating. I know for a fact that he knows a poem about a lady from Nantucket too. I learned an interesting thing about Wordsworth on the weekend (and I have quite enjoyed reading Wordsworth again recently). Wordsworth wrote and entire history of the Church of England in sonnet form. You'd have to really like poetry to stick that one out I think.
Beno is moving house this weekend so I will head around to help him out. He was telling me about his time living in Switzerland this week. Renting your house is the norm in Switzerland apparently and so the unwritten rule is that you always help people you know move house because its a dead cert that you'll be moving sometime in the next 12 months too. He said when he had to move house people were almost demanding to be allowed to help. Anyway, he also had a pretty good idea about having a series of roving vegie garden festivals over summer (when the vegies are in full flight). The basic idea is to have a bit of a bbq and check out how we each manage things in our vegie gardens, pick up tips and new ideas from each other, eat some of our produce and generally have a nice day in the garden.
More good news is that there is a chook show at the Goulburn Show Grounds on the 19th of August so I will head to Goulburn for a bit of a visit. Check out the cute breeds and hopefully meet some local (to Canberra) breeders from whom I can get chicks. The Canberra and Quenbeyan Poultry Club guy snubbed me because I wasn't interested in keeping a rooster and breeding pure bred chooks.Politics aside (try to remain calm AK) I was pleased to hear about the Mersey Hospital. When we think of poverty in Australia the electorate of Braddon is not what immediately springs to mind I suspect. I think many of you would be surprised to know that Braddon has the highest incidence of poverty of any electorate in Australia....and the electorate of Lyons next door is second highest. This parliamentary research paper on electorate poverty rates is a couple of years old now, but I am assuming its still about right. I don't care if its electioneering, let them have their hospital I say. AK has been reading the blog quite regularly and has complained that there aren't any flame wars he can get his teeth into. This is his big chance.
Spent the day hard at work at home today. I've got a lot of work to get through in the next couple of weeks and working from home has the benefit of better equipment and less distractions. Took time out tonight to watch a couple of episodes of Cracker (with robbie coltrane) good stuff.Tomorrow I have an all day seminar to attend at the institute of sport.
I am completely worn outI was in out in the garden by 7.30 this morning and enjoyed what was a perfect Canberra winter day.I prepared the second vegie bed using 3 bales of straw this time instead of 2 and I think this looks a bit better. I went on a blitz cleaning out the back corner of the garden and ended up with a pile of stuff to mulch almost as large as the one Raechelle and Ash generated a few weeks ago. So I spent several hours mulching up that lot. Didn't get it all done though. I got the compressor out and spray painted the chook shed all round so thats now finished. Mist Green accomodation for my girls. I dug up some small stumps and pruned the fruit trees. I finally called it a day shortly before 4 and now its only 7.30 and I was falling asleep on the lounge. I usually like to watch New Tricks on ABC saturday night. Its about the only TV show I get to watch these days. I hope I can stay awake.I've also been forced to take a few reluctant steps into the world of 'smart casual'. I have a sort of executive training retreat to attend in a few weeks and its smart casual. I have plenty of suits and I can do extremely casual but unfortunately never bothered with smart casual. Its quite irritating frankly, I have no idea what business casual means. Surely its either business or its casual. Anyway...I bought a nice pair of trousers and a couple of shirts today as a starting point but I'm drawing the line at a navy blazer hehe. I might try to get a light jumper or cardigan instead. Actually the trousers were woolen and very comfortable, so it may not be so bad after all hehe.
Talked to Rae on the phone for nearly an hour and she suggested a vest too. Could be a goer. Regular blog readers who have become sick of all the poetry will be pleased to know I have finished the last of the 24 lectures on poetry and have now loaded the trusty ipod with 24 lectures on 'the age of pericles'.
Tomorrow I will look for a seedling propogating tray. The things with the clear lids to keep it all nice and tropical for the seedlings as they strike a bit. Mum is sending me a herb book so I want to kick start the herb garden by striking a whole heap of seedlings. I have a few odd herbs around the garden but I think that if you have 1 rosemary plant you may as well have a dozen and then never have to worry about taking too much again.
Very soon I may need to get some more sleepers to put some more veggie beds in. Next weekend, however, Ben is moving house so I will be helping him rather than all gardening. He is very keen on some railt trails too Dad. There might be three of us on the next one.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend.
Well the seeds arrived today just in time for the weekend. Got quite a good mix of things I can plant over the next few months.
- 'creamgold' onion - a variety that has been around for a long time. These will be going in this weekend
- Chioggia Beetroot - concentric circles of pink and white flesh characterise this variety. John the tomato afficianado told me today that Chioggia is a town in Italy on the Adriatic. Yummy beetroots Rae :-)
- 'ruby' brussel sprouts - this is just for Rae. As some of you will be aware, despite not liking tomatoes or beetroots I have started eating and enjoying them over the last few years. I'm going to give brussel sprouts another go and these are a reddish coloured variety. October planting.
- 'Magic bean' mix - a mix of 5 different bean varieties. All suitable for drying and storing for winter soups and the like. varieties all very different colours. Just goes to show, if you make it look like a peacock I'll buy it. beans go in the ground in October.
- 'honey and cream' corn - this is one of those old varieties with the yellow and white kernals on the same cob. supposed to be very sweet. (october planting)
- stringless celery (september planting)
- carrot heirloom mix - this is a mix of several different heirloom carrot strains including white, yellow and purple carrot varieties. should be a bit of fun too. purple carrots is a little freaky hehe. (september planting)
- mini cabbages (august planting)
- French Breakfast Radish - they are sort of longish white radishes (september planting)
- Some strawberry seeds
- Pink Eye seed potatoes - we all know what they are (well most of you do). potatoes can go in the ground in august so I'll keep them in a nice warm place until they start to sprout a bit and then in they go! ooo lovely pink eye new potatoes - I can barely wait!
Back to John the Tomato Tsar. I called John today to talk to him about tomatoes. He told me not to buy any seeds because he has the seeds of 350 varieties of tomatoes. Yep that's not a typo 3-5-0. He has a whole network of people for whom he raises tomato seedlings and then distributes them when the weather is right for them to plant out. Thats right, he raises the plants and the gives them to you after the last frost. All he asks is that you save some seeds for him from the plants you grow to go back into his seed store. He was very keen to give me 50 or 60 plants! I am keen on tomatoes suited to making sauce and pasta sauces for preserving and also for drying and storing in oil. He seemed quite pleased about this because most people only want the eating varieties, so I can help him by planting out a whole lot of the sort of varieties that other people don't want. I have to keep them labelled though (he gives you the labels too) so that you can correctly label the seeds to save. He also gives you the seed saving instructions! Looking forward to a huge bed of different types of tomatoes (I'm expecting custodial duties over about 30+ varieties!).
