Love and Rockets

Today I attended a seminar at the AIS by John Kotter. He's a Harvard Business School Professor and is world reknowed for change management and what have you. He's also a very entertaining speaker so it was a very good day.

Some time ago Jacko mentioned in a comment about his project to build an arcade video cabinet. He did a great job and it still graces his games room with the pool table. I got wildly inspired and then at some early stage of the work then got distracted by something else. However, getting into the garden, building the chook house and seeing all the bits of my own arcade cabinet leaning in the corner in the shed, has once again inspired me to finish it off. But I'll leave that until I have finished the chook house. I did however, dig out the mock ups for the artwork for my cabinet. Its all taken from some comic art called 'Love and Rockets'. Enjoy (or mock as you see fit)

Here are the side panels




The control panel


The marquee (thats the bit at the top of the front with a light behind it


The coin door (thats the bit in front at the bottom (where you'd put your money in if you hadn't built it in your shed)


I really love the side panel art works. Only time will tell if I ever get around to doing all this of course, but it's an amusing thought that keeps me entertained when I think about it. Besides the important thing is getting the chook house finished...Jacko is very keen on seeing the chooks in January...

Homework

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.

Harry Potter and the Onion Garden

Well a big weekend in the garden again. I was a bit knackered after yesterday so I wasn't quite as productive today. I got plenty done however.

a quick pictorial post tonight.
back corner before

back corner after

chook shed post spray paint (note the inside isn't painted because the chooks might eat the paint apparently.

garden bed 2 complete with onions planted


I mulched another enormous pile of bits before the mulcher ran out of steam. I think I'll have to invest in new blades finally. These ones are badlt notched now and I fear they might be beyond my ability to resurect them with the diamond stones.

A final note. I just saw the new Harry Potter movie. Either I was quite tired or I'm losing tolerance for even vaguely decent movies. Was struggling to stay awak at some points. The effects were good but frankly not wildly inspiring. I prefered the yurt-dwelling mongolian sheep herders the other night. I'm not saying it was bad, quite the contrary. It just seemed...I guess the closest I can get is...'redundant'...perhaps the most fascinating aspect was seeing the actors a year older. A bit like time lapse photography.

Casually Buggered

I am completely worn out

I 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.

The Tomato Tsar

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!).

Cave of the Yellow Dog

Picked up a few books at the library today. Another couple of chook books to have a look at and a few organic gardening books. There seems to be quite a good lot of organic gardening books on offer. Very handy. The library is right next to work (about 30 yards away) so its very handy indeed.

I also watched a very interesting movie tonight called "Cave of the Yellow Dog". Its a Chinese film about this family of shepherds who live in a yurt and without pretending to have understood the point of film have to say it was very interesting. It was also very relaxing for the most part. Not a lot seems to happen and even the moments of drama had a strange relaxed quality about them. There was a loose reincarnation theme and a pretty interesting scene when they dismantle the yurt to move on to new grazing lands. There was also a nifty scene in which a wizened old woman slowly showers handful after handful of rice onto a needle and says something like "see how hard it is to balance a grain of rice on a needle point, that's how hard it is to be reborn as a human. That is why human life is so precious". I thought that was pretty cool frankly.

The heirloom seed I ordered last week should arrive tomorrow, just in the nick of time for the weekend (I hope) and I have enough newspaper to put in another garden bed. I'll bang some onions in tomorrow if the seed arrives.

Read another interesting poem. Its one you'll have to read twice to get the hang of it. There are two voices (and no quotation marks to make it easy...which is kind of the point). The first of the voices is a drill sergeant or something close to that and the second voice is the bored recruit listening to the lesson.

Hope you enjoy it. Comments have been a bit quiet lately. Is anyone reading this guff?


Naming of Parts (Henry Reed—From Lessons of War)

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.

Death Pledge

It was a lovely winter day in Canberra today with a top of 15 so i worked until a little after 2pm, then came home, played in the garden for an hour and a half and then logged on remotely to work and did another 3 1/2 hours in the evening. Was a fabulous idea. I was quite invigorated by when I started on the second lot of work.

I reinstalled the newly sharpened blades in the mulcher and also fixed the other bit that I broke when i knocked it over. I'm not sure how long my jury rigged repair will last but it is servicable so long as I take a little bit of care with it.

I also got into some of the saplings that had sprung up randomly in the back corner of the garden. So I have increased the mulching pile somewhat and cleaned out the sapling forest a bit. Still a few more of the saplings to dig out yet. Here is a picture of what it looked like before I started. I'll take another shot on the weekend when I have finished it all.



Looks like a rates rise in on the horizon which as any of you with mortgages know is something to be less than thrilled about. Rather tellingly the word mortgage is french in origin and means....you're gonna love this.....death (mort) pledge (gage). Death pledge....strangely appropriate.

I also finally got hold of Lyndal, Ossie and Ben's email address so hopefully they will be reading the blog soon!

Interestingly Jacko mentioned his arcade machine in a comment yesterday. Funnily enough I have also been thinking about that project again lately. I am planning on dragging that out of the shed this summer and doing some more owrk on it. I even printed out the plans again about a week ago.

I also looked up fruit tree pruning in the good old Yates garden guide so that little job will go on the weekend garden jobs list too. Neaten the fruit trees up a bit for summer. I might even get a usable crop of plums from them this summer.

Ok thats it for today.

dental preservation jobs

I had my eye on a Vacola preserving thingy with 66 bottles on ebay for a while. It sat on $49 for days and then in the last day rocketed to $255. Was rather less appealing at that price.

I had a crown fitted today (to a tooth not my head) so my mouth is a bit numb still. Unfortunately I missed lunch today so I am absolutely starving, but I have to wait another hour until 7pm!

As I got home before dark tonight (by virtue of the dentist appointment) I had a bit of a quick wander through the back yard to make a mental list of jobs for the weekend.

1. There is still the chook house to paint of course.
2. There are a number of straggly trees and shrubs to remove that were identified during 'the blitz'.
3. The paths to edge
4. 2 garden beds to prepare with newspaper, hay and straw (though I probably wont have enough newspaper to do them both)
   
5. a herb garden to get ready (Mum left a comment that she is sending me a herb book of some description.
   

I was chatting to another colleague at work yesterday and discovered he has chooks too. His run is a fully enclosed fortress. This got me thinking about making a frame out of some of the metal that is lying about the place which was clearly some sort of enclosure in the past. I might need to supplement it with so extra. I noticed that there is a short arc welding night course on at CIT but not until november (i just missed the start of the current one). I know some readers of this blog have some skill in welding but for the rest of you, arc welding seems simple but is a whole lot more complicated than you imagine. This same colleague mentioned that there is a sawmill in Queanbeyan from which you can dig up as much sawdust as you can be bothered to take away (He uses it for the chookhouse). This reminded me of filling up the kerosene tins with sawdust from the sawmill out the Lachlan with Pa. At least I think it was out the Lachlan, I'm not entirely sure now. Pa used to like the old stuff that was rotting a bit and would use it to cover his seeds once he'd dropped them in the drills. I might get some to put in the compost mix for the veggie patch too.

I have also been thinking a bit about making pelmets for all my windows. I am heating the southern half of Canberra at the moment and I have been steadfastly ignoring my massive heating bills every winter for several years now. Time to face the music and reduce my bills and my 'footprint'. Besides, it will give me an excuse to make some new heavier, thicker curtains should the mood take me.

When you think you're being stupid, you're probably right

Nothing truly remarkable today, except that in the wee hours of this morning before the sun came up i suddenly awoke wondering if I had put my cordless demolition saw away (which I was using to chop up the soon to be mulched bits into more managable pieces. Sure enough, when I got up and braved the morning chill there it was outside under a layer of frost. I defrosted it and sat it on the still warm gas heater to dry out. I tested it when I got home tonight and it is fine. This little story is of course completely banal. However, there is a little lesson to be had here. I was standing at the mulcher trying to decide where precisely to put down the saw where it wouldn't be in the way or get covered in mulch. I spied the springy looking bush and thought "I could easily just balance it there and I wouldn't even have to bend over to pick it up again". No sooner had I thought this than I thought "that's stupid because you'll forget its in there when you pack up". So the lesson is...if you think something's stupid, it probably is.

No pics tonight. Work was primarily concerned with an afternoon full of meetings and a morning spent preparing for an afternoon of meetings. Given this uninspiring line up of personal experiences with which to entertain you, I will resort to sharing another poem I read for the first time on the weekend.

Richard Corey (Edwin Arlington Robinson)

WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

I really like the way it hits you right between the eyes in the last line. In that way it reminds me of the Robert Browning poem Porphyria's Lover. This is a bit of a longer read but its so worth it. Stick it out, you wont regret it. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but the best way to read poetry is out loud. Go on...no-one is listening. In fact, go back and read Richard Corey again only out loud this time and you'll understand why its better that way.

My mate Andrew tells me that Simon and Garfunkel did a very good version of Richard Cory at some stage too.

Here is Porphyria's Lover (go on..out loud)

The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me — she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could tonight's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last l knew
Porphyria worshiped me: surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string l wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And l untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said aword!

One annoying thing about this blogging business is that it won't allow me to indent lines (I can use the bloke quote to indent the whole poem but within that I cannot indent individual lines). This means that you don't get to see the way the poems should really look on the page and don't get the benefit of seeing the indenting to aide in reading it. You can't see the groupings of lines that the poets intended. I guess you can't have everything.

Pea Factory

Another big day in the garden. Got some peas in. This is about 1/3 of the length of the bed. I'll put another 1/3 in in about 2 weeks. You can see the compost mix laid out on the straw in rows for planting. Only time will tell if this no dig garden business works for me.



I also nearly finished mulching the enourmous pile of garden waste that Rae and Ash produced in their backyard blitz effort last weekend. I used the diamond particle 'whetstones' that Dad cleverly gave me to sharpen up the blades on the Mulcher. When I was about to put them back in I manged to knock it over and break several bits of it. This required some ingenuity in repairs. I used some hoop iron to make a sort of reinforcing plate for the plastic plate that broke. This had a sort of pivot in it so needed to be fixed up. I pop riveted the reinforcing plate I made onto the plastic plate and that seemed servicable. The freshly sharpened blades made heaps of difference and for the first hour or so the mulcher was really chewing through the pile. The last three or so hours it slowly started getting harder and harder, so when it finally jammed about 15 mintues shy of having completed all the mulching (and about 30 mins shy of sun down) I decided to call it a day and removed the blades to sharpen up again for next time. You can see that the huge pile is gone and there's just a few bits to go in the foreground.



Here are the blades all sharpened up again for next time. Should make short shift of the last few bits to get through.


I should receive a pacakge of heirloom seed this week ready for planting over the next couple of months. I'm also hoping to hear from a retired colleague who is reknowned for his tomatoes this week.

Came across a cool poem today

Beautiful Woman (A.R.Ammons)

The spring
In

Her step
Has

Turned to
Fall

The Good Life

Quite a pictorial post tonight, but I'm rather proud of my handiwork so I thought you'd like to see it in all its glory.

I'm quite tired now. Got up nice and early and straight out into the garden after some breakfast. The days are gradually getting longer again but quite nippy in the morning. As you can see from this photo there was still a goodly amount of frost about when I headed out dressed in many, many layers of clothes.


I think as the day and I warmed up over the course of a number of hours I must have reconfigured my clothing at least 4 or 5 times. This first picture shows the lucerne hay, straw, lime and dynamic lifter that was delivered on friday...and the frost that was delivered overnight.

First job of the day was to finish off the stand on which i will build the chook nesting boxes. There's room here for 3 luxurious chook nests.

Here is a sequence of shots showing the Veggie Garden construction

Step 1: Build a big box with sleepers.


Step 2: Line it with Newspaper. I have collected a LOT of newspapers via a cunning DVA wide appeal. This was very successful to the point where I was convinced that I had more than enough papers. Boy was I wrong! If you plan on doing this I suggest thinking about how many papers you need, then multiplying that number by 4 or 5 and you will probably be in the ball park. It also turned out that its quite annoying with a bit of a breeze (you need a lot of paperweights) and that in many ways this turned out to be quite physically demanding for me given that I'm not precisely in the peak of physical fitness. Principally because this step required bending over for an extended preiod of time and I was quite sore by the end of it.


Step 3: Layer of Lucerne Hay. This was topped with some ag-lime and some dynamic lifter. I have no idea if the amount of lime and fertiliser I added was the correct amount but i did find that a small round garden pot (about the size of a small glass was very handy for spreading lime as I could dip it in the bucket and fill it and then wave it randomly about and the lime would fall out the drainage holes in the pot and spread most efficaciously about the place. I had 4 bales of lucerne and frankly I though I'd be forced to use most of them to fill this one bed. I'd planned for 1 bale of lucerne and 2 of straw per bed so I was thinking this was going to be a lot more expensive than anticipated (lucerne ~$25 a bale ). As it turned out 1 bale did the bed nicely.


Step 4: straw followed by more dynamic lifter. I was a bit closer on the estimates with the straw. 2 bales covered ok, but i think I'll try 3 on the next bed as it doesn't quite look enough with just 2.


Step 5: Admire handy work. As the sun was nearing the horizon I finished off the other 2 beds. Here is a shot of the 3 beds (one nearly ready to plant). Each bed is 16 feet by 8 feet (128 sq ft) for a grand total of 384 sq feet (thats about 34 sq metres for you metrical types) of vegie garden give or take a bit for the not quite square construction. I should point out I measured the width of the mower and added a bit to determine the size of the gap between the beds, it also means it doesn't feel like a balancing act walking between them.

Dinner Deliveries

Just a quick one tonight. Just had a nice dinner at the Irish Club (which was packed) for Lizzy's birthday. 'Chook and Hook' = Chicken Schnitzel with garlic prawns on top . fantastic!

When I got home all the hay, straw, etc had been delivered so I am all set for garden building tomorrow. I placed a call for newspapers on the 'community noticeboard' at work (on our intranet) and I have been overwhelmed with newspapers, should have plenty for quite some time.

Just watching a bit of the tour de france and I have to say the scenery is brilliant. Old French villages and the like, 1000 year old castles on the tips of mountains. brilliant.

ok thats your lot tonight.

More news tomorrow after the garden work. Oh and Rae, you'll be pleased to know I got 2 bags of garden rubbish out with the garbage this week. At that rate it will only take 5 weeks to get rid of all the weeds you pulled out last weekend.

Cogito Ergo Sum

Well I had the Daewoo in at the Auto Electricians today and they have brought the woo back from the dead once again. apparently the root cause of the misfiring was a faulty oxygen sensor. this was causing the engine to run rich and fouled the plugs. A new plug and a new sensor and all is well once again. It will even be running cheaper as it will run leaner now.

Today I also ordered some lucerne hay, straw, dynamic lifter and ag-lime for the weekends veggie garden activities. These are all being delivered tomorrow. I'd hate to be feeding a horse at the moment as the effects of the drought have been that hay and straw are exorbitantly priced at the moment.

I also picked up some 'greenfeast' pea seeds ready to plant this weekend.

I got a rude surprise on my email this week. Last week I cancelled a web hosting service that was surplus to requirements so that I wouldn't have to pay another year's fees. Tonight i found in my inbox an invoice stating I'd just paid 200 bucks for it. I called the service provider, got hung up on once and transferred about 4 times. They then gave me the run around a bit, but I guess my reputation for quickly losing my patience with anyone involved in a service industry that isn't on the ball started to show once again and some quick backflipping later I got another invoice through showing the 200 recredited to my account.

I don't mention this because I advocate for, or am proud of, the fact that I get impatient so quickly. In fact I consider it a personal character flaw but there is something about idiots in customer service that makes me crazy. Lets examine the case in point. Despite being assured last week by Jane that she had received my cancellation form and that it would be cancelled, today I was told by another lady that it wasn't cancelled because I had answered the security question incorrectly. The question? My mother's maiden name. After pronouncing it a few times and spelling it out for them, the 'customer service' lady informed me once again that I had it wrong and that they couldn't therefore cancel the service for which they were charging me $200. By this point I was perhaps over-emphatic in suggesting that I only had one mother, she only had one name and that given I knew her far better than they did that it was not inconceivable that they had it wrong, not I. Furthermore, that it was perhaps a little unreasonable to refuse to accept my identity but merrily accept my credit card in the same breath. Apparently this clever deductive reasoning convinced the customer service lady as to the legitimacy of my postulation. Descartes would have been very proud.

Besides being rude to people who irritate me, I'm also a bit of a poetry fan. Its ok, I've become comfortable with my own pretentiousness and grateful for those around me who put up with it. Anyway, knowing this, Ree gave me a book of Elizabethan poetry for my birthday. Sir Phillip Sidney. I think I mentioned it a few posts back...yes i did, but erroneouslt said it was 18th century when it is, in fact, 16th century. Anyway I thought I'd share a verse here for something a little different.

Since Nature's works be good, and death doth serve
As Nature's work, why should we fear to die?
Since fear is in vain but when it may preserve,
Why should we fear that which we cannot fly?

Until tomorrow.

Heirloom Felines

Those of you who follow the blog closesly and read the comments will know that my friend Adam is a regular reader and always ready to offer advice. But more than that, I like to make sure that the blog is not just mine but that everyone feels they are getting something out of it. Yesterday Jacko made some insightful references to how hilarious cats are, and specifically cats eating invisible sandwiches and cats riding invisible bicycles. I have to apologise Jacko, I looked high and low for pictures as you described but couldn't find any. Then by some wierd coincidence as I was sitting down to eat my dinner tonight I managed to grab this snap in my lounge room. Luckily I had my camera near to hand otherwise I may never have been quick enough to take this incredible action shot of an invisible cat riding a bicycle while eating a sandwich. Its not quite what you were after Jacko, but I hope it will do for the mean time.


On the garden front, today I ordered some heirloom vegetable seeds and some pink eye seed potatoes. Its impossible to find pink eye potatoes up here so I am looking forward to planting them in August. But this weekend is pea planting time. A mate at work also had a pretty good idea today. A colleague who retired about 6 months ago was an absolute whiz vegie gardener. Apparently he was very keen on the heirloom vegie movement, that is, maintaining the heirloom varieties of vegies that are now so hard to find. From time to time you hear someone complaining that vegies don't taste like they used to in the good old days. Well this is because they don't! Modern commercial vegetables are bred for characteristics like shelf life, robustness during transport, etc. They are not for bred for taste. Strawberries are a classic example. The extremely tasty varieties of yesteryear are nowhere to be seen in the supermarket because they are now bred to be resiliant in transport and on the shelf. The same goes for tomatoes. My old colleague was reknowned for his tomatoes, so I hope to be able to get some help and heirloom tomato seeds ready for the tomato season. I presage some serious sauce making in my future.

More news tomorrow.

chooks, books & canine looks

What a weekend. Sorry to have been so slack with the updates but it was a monster weekend. I hope I don't forget anything important.

first things first! My Sister and her boyfriend visited, arriving Friday night and leaving monday night. We had an absolute ball. Saturday we got right into the chook shed operation. building a chookshed turned into a full blown backyard blitz with a pile of cuttings and garden waste the size of a caravan. hours of shoving stuff through the mulcher later and it was still a huge pile. With the removal of a whole pile of shrubs and trees the yard looked twoce as big. The plan was starting to take shape, but the chook shed was still a worry. We hadn't really done much with it other than to drag it out and lie all the bits all over the back yard. Sunday however, changed all that. By just getting on with it we soon had a few pieces rivetted together and after a few hours work the whole thing was together, rivetted strongly. It was certianly handy having the very tall Ashley on hand to get the top rivets done!

Today I spent an hour slapping some paint on it so it didn't look quite so silver. Mist Green is what my girls will be living in. Hope they like it.

I also bought 20 sleepers to build no dig garden beds over the coming week. I have a heap of work to do this weekend. mountains of mulching, garden beds to build, more painting of chook shed, just to name a few.

Serendipitously, Dad sent me some diamond honers for my birthday which will get use very shortly in sharpening the blades on the mulcher. it was getting a bit tough going towards the end, though possibly the mulcher wasn't the only thing getting tired by that stage.

Sunday night however, it was all party. Firstly my boss, Jo, threw a party for Lizzy and me at her house. We were expecting a few nibbles and a quick drink before heading to the dogs and were surprised by a full blown soiree complete with 2 birthday cakes. It was a shame to be rushing off so quickly from there. But alas, we had to high tail it to the dog track to be in time for race 2 in order to place a bet on the portentiously named "miss joe". Unlike the other, this particular 'miss jo' let me down awfully and came in a lacklustre 4th. my second attempt went no better. My friends were greatly amused by the caller's words..."Rockabye can't possibly win from here..." good bye another 5 bucks, but 'son of norma' in race 4 saved the day and i had a handy $4.10 for the win netting me 20.50. I was back in front. Trusting in the australian public service commission's leadership capability framework i put $10 on 'modern strategy' (for its similarlity to 'shapes strategic thinking'). This turned out to be the night's most ironic bet, but another late win brought me back to dead even with one race to go. it was time for another punt. $10 on 'robbers' was the go...in time for another friend-amusing call...."and robbers can see them all....". thats right, stone cold last. down $10 for the night but way ahead on the fun stakes.

From the birhtday point of view, loot poured in from all over and was gratefully received. This included some very nice books such as a lovely book of sixteenth centruy poetry by phillip sidney from Ree, Dante's Divine Comedy from Mum and a lovely edition of George Orwell's 1984 from Nan. Lots of good reading ahead there.

Well must get back to the ironing...

until next time!

Good Advice & The Gimp

Got some good advice inthe comments section of the last post from two brothers (my cousins). This is first contact from Simon for the blog! Another milestone!

Andy B had some excellent advice about chooks, and in particular Australorps. When I looked into these I discovered that they are a derivative breed from the Orpington developed in Australia (hence Austral-Orp) pre federation. Apparently they won some sort of best layer in the world trial and ended up being exported back to England. So an Australorp could definitely be on the cards.

Simon B knows a thing or two about gaming so his advice on laptops re gaming is very useful. I think has swayed me towards getting a more functional less flashy laptop with limited ability to play the odd game. After all, its not like I'm getting much time to play games anyway lately. Acknowledging that my dodgy memory will almost certainly get virtually every detail wrong, I can reveal that Simon B has travelled overseas to compete in an international gaming tournament of some description so his opinion on gaming rigs is worth listening to. Salary sacrificing arrangements make buying a laptop quite attractive.

It has been a bit surreal at work this week. Firstly, on a sad note, a colleague collapsed and died while on a lunch time fun run a couple of days ago. I did not work closely with him but I had known him for several years. A couple years from retirement and a nicer guy you could never find. Another colleague that I worked very closely with for a couple of years is retiring. Its been great catching up with him over the last few days. Apparently his wife has quite a list together so he thinks the only change is that he has a different project director now. He is looking forward to buying a van and becoming a grey nomad.

I have also downloaded GIMP which is an open source graphics package similar to Photoshop (except its free instead of $1000). Hopefully I can figure out enough to turn photographs into web suitable files as the trial period of my photoshop trial wont last much longer.

That's your lot for tonight!

Here's my first attempt at web optimizing a photo using GIMP

Bear Necessities

Well well well...is what I am not. Despite not having recovered fully from bronchitis I have now come down with some other cold/flu thing. Frankly I am a little annoyed by this as I think I've done my duty apropos flu this winter. Very annoying. I hope I am not too crook for the weekend especially the dog track on sunday, or as I have been instructed to call them today, "the dish-lickers".

I have been thinking a bit about getting a laptop via salary sacrifice again. I know I have been down this path before and baulked at the hurdle. I've got bucket loads of work to do this year, probably a fair bit of travel, and besides....I just want one. Part of me wants a big shiny laptop with a 17 inch screen and a monster video card, but I'm thinking that a 15 inch version with a less spectacular video card will be far more sensible (especially for portability) even if it is a touch less 'fun'.

I've also been quite encouraged by the fact that my mate Jacko seems to have been checking in regularly and adding to the life of the blog (check out his youtube link in the comments from yesterday's blog). Kobayashi loses a hot dog eating competition...to an 800 pound bear...

Just as an afterthought I stumbled over a book on promoting good behaviour in the workplace. It's called "The No Asshole Rule". A serious book with an unusual approach.

I've also been re-reading the Fritz Leiber Lankhmar series lately. Half-way through the sixth book now. I bought the 7th book ages ago but somehow never got around to reading it. So I have that to look forward to as well.

more news tomorrow.

Kobayashi-san will 'go to the dogs' no more

Just a quick one tonight as its quite late and I want to hit the sack.

Firstly I'm getting very excited about the day at the dogs on Sunday. Tommorow Lizzy & I are off to buy a hat to wear to the dogs.

Secondly, I promised to explain what a turducken is for the vegetarians out there. Jacko will like this (he wasn't keen on the vegetables yesterday). A turducken is a Turkey stuffed with a duck that has been stuffed with a chicken.

I had never heard of these creations before discovering the International Federation of Competitive Eating. Big news recently is that hot dog eating world champion Takeru Kobayashi has strained his jaw and may need to retire from competative eating. Oh the humanity! He also holds the record for eating cow brains (57 cow brains—or 17.7 lbs—in 15 minutes...and the record for Krystal Hamburgers (97 in 8 minutes)...and lobster rolls (41 in 10 mins).....and rice balls (20 lbs in 30 mins). Will the international competitive eating community recover from this blow? Only time will tell.

Jainism and Mustard Sauce

Well I had a good day at work today. Finally made some good progress on one of my projects and I am feeling much more confident with the direction of it all.

I tried a new recipe tonight and it was absolutely brilliant. Roast chook as usual but I tried something new with the vegies.

• about 12 small spuds halved - by small i mean golf ball or smaller sized
• red, green & yellow capsicum each cut into about 8 strips
• couple of carrots cut into thumb sized bits and split lengthways (twice if really thick)
• 6 small onions quartered

lob all that in a bigish mixing bowl

now in a small bowl mix

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 tablespoons of sweet chilli sauce
• 2 big teaspoons of cracked pepper
• 2 rounded teaspoons of crushed garlic

give it a good mix and spoon that over the vegies and then toss until they are well covered.

Bang it all into some oven trays (try not to stack the vegies), pop it into the hot box and cook for 45-60 minutes and give em a stir once halfway through.

while that's cooking make the sauce to go over the top. In the food processor blend:

• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons cream
• 2 teaspoons hot english mustard
• couple of big tablespoons of basil 'paste' from the tube
• 2 teaspoons of crushed garlic.
• tablespoon of hot water
  

spoon that goop over the vegies when you serve them

Brilliant! So tasty I could have eaten it without the chook. Usually my response to vegetarians is to throw a handful of oats on the floor but this was incredibly tasty even if I do say so myself. I'll post a photo of the vegies sometime. Try it for yourself though and tell me what you thought via comments.

By the way, my general sniggering at vegetarians does not extend to proponents of Jainism. Jainism is a dharmic religion (like Buddism) which requires all its proponents to be vegetarians. As far as I know that is unique. Jains do not believe in a supreme being but rather in an eternal universe in which all souls are equal and compassion towards all living beings is paramount. Its hard to snigger at someone who believes all life is sacred and forms part of a glorious whole of existence.

Don't panic...I still ate the chook.

Speaking of which, I picked up 5 books on keeping chooks from the library today.

Ssshhh don't tell anyone, but I really don't have any antipathy towards vegetarians, they are just tremendous fun to tease. Which reminds me, next time I will try to remember to tell you all about 'terduckens'.

SHAZAM!

Bit of a slow day today. Did the laundry, vacuumed a bit and shazam! the day was gone. Which reminds me I heard something interesting recently regarding "shazam". It comes from the Captain Marvel comic which began in 1939. Shazam is an acronym for:

S Solomon Wisdom
H Hercules Strength
A Atlas Stamina
Z Zeus Power
A Achiles Courage
M Mercury Speed

There you go! More absolutely essential information.

After a call to Dad (who is an expert in all sorts of things) I went to the hardware store and bought some mortar mix and a sponge for the task of repointing the sill caps under my west facing window. A job for next weekend.

My voyage through the Great Ideas of Philosophy has progressed to Aristotle now.

I think I might invest in a brush cutter attachment for my whipper snipper. I have one of those ones that can take a variety of 'heads' by attaching different shafts. That might make it easier to clear the way for the chook house.

Ok thats all for today.

Oh and I took off the email notification thingy. It didn't work quite the way I thought it would.

Chook Gum

Mum (Roosty) left a message asking about "the girls". I'm not entirely sure how many girls I'll end up with but I'm thinking about 4-6 if I can find enough cute ones hehe. Here are a couple of example breeds that I fancy. The first one is a wyandotte and the second one is a Sussex. It will, of course, depend entirely on what i can get easily in Canberra.

I'd like a few different types so they all have there own unique personality and look which appeals to me greatly.

I also noticed (as i was wandering around this afternoon) that the cap stones that form one of my window sills had all come very loose. Have to go to the hardware shop to get some sort of mortar to repoint the joints and fix them back into place.

Now that its actually raining in Canberra again after 5 years I think I will have to invest in some gum boots for the garden.

As far as reading and listening, I am still reading Sabatini's The Sea Hawk and I am listening to a series of 50 lectures entitled Great Ideas in Philosophy.

Bye for now!

Promoting Dental Health in Dogs

Well the big news from the Foxy Cyclist post was the reply from Mel in England. Hi Mel! Here is another shot from the bike trip. It was pretty pleasant riding through the Victorian High Country and with the exception of the endless miles of climbing up to Beechworth it was very relaxing too. Just the ticket for a good long weekend.

Other big news for me this week was my promotion. Moving to Canberra has been a tremendous success career wise and this latest news has given me a real boost. I have been feeling really good about work since changing jobs in November last year. Maybe I can retire the clunky old Daewoo now. Incidentally, the 'woo' has been a little temperamental again the last few days. The last couple of years has seen a whole series of repairs required on the 'woo' and the last batch involved the electric bits that fire the engine (thats as technical as I get sorry). The mechanic said the thingy had a lot of carbon scoring but he cleaned it up and it should last a bit longer. I guess I know how long a "bit longer" is now.

I also had to go the dentist this morning. This was so he could break a cap (that cost me $1500 a few years back) off so that he could do some work and then replace it with another cap (that also cost $1500). frustratingly when i got to the insurance office I still had only 6 days to go until the waiting period for caps expired. If I'd left it until the fitting appointment to pay it would have been covered. Still, you can't help bad luck.

Preparations are going well for the Dave & Lizzy birthday extravaganza at the Narrabundah Dog Track hehe. A lot of people at work have commented on it but it remains to be seen how many people actually show up. It will, after all, be bloody cold! I'll make sure I take some photos of the event to post in the blog.

Don't forget you can leave a comment by clicking the link below.

More news tomorrow!

Dave

Foxy Cyclist

Back in March, Dad and I took off on a cycling adventure. Nestled in the Victorian highlands is the brilliant Murray to Mountains Rail Trail. It will take some time to diarise this adventure, but here is my first crack at posting a photo. This was taken in the lounge bar of the Myrtleford Pub, home to a surprisingly good chef. The carpet bag steak is worth the stop if you're hungry near Myrtleford. I love this photo because Dad is reading Australian Cyclist. Incidentally, the guy who took the booking forgot to write down Dad's name, so when we checked in, Dad was recorded as "Email Man" in the register.

Some news on the chook front too. I have now identified several colleagues who have chooks of their very own and learned a couple of interesting things about foxes which are infamously absent from Tasmania (and therefore my fox lore is limited). Firstly, they happily live in the city and suburbs - where my girls will soon be living. The second thing is that they will dig their way into the chook house unless you dig the wire down about a foot all the way around. Sounds disturbingly like hard work but nothing's too good for my girls!

Raechelle sent me the email addresses for a few more people. If anyone has email addresses for any of my friends or family, please drop me an email with the details so that I can keep reaching out. As before, take a moment to make a comment as it is quite encouraging (thanks for the comments on the last post).

First Whisper

Hello Everyone,

I have joined the great unwashed and leapt headlong into the blogosphere. Somewhat surprisingly to this luddite, it is disturbingly easy to create your own blog. "The Chook Whisperer" epithet may initially seem strange but the reasoning will shortly become apparent. Suffice it to say that in the process of blog creation a name must be chosen and unlike babies, there is no material downside to naming your blog after the first thing that pops into your head.

I make no claims of this being interesting to anyone except my family and possibly a few friends who put up with my ramblings from time to time. Mainly this is about me connecting with family and reflecting on life's happenstance in the hope that they will take the time to drop me an email from time to time.

I have been reflecting lately on the fun of watching & feeding chooks in Nan & Pa's backyard over many years. Grandma Binny had chooks too and in 37 years (nearly) I don't ever remember being unhappy in the presence of a chook. Ok, so perhaps I haven't put quite as much thought into the whole philosophy of happiness idea as Aristotle or John Stuart Mill but the "chooks make you smile" theory is pretty sound I reckon. This thought stream was triggered a few weeks ago when I was buggering around in the backyard and for the first time took a decent look at the stuff stacked behind my garden shed. I'd seen it there before of course, but had never really looked at it before. It turns out that the stuff appears to be the makings of some sort of big-arse aviary. In the millisecond journey from my eyes into the processing centre of my brain this was translated into "chook house".

I've checked out the ACT rules for keeping chooks and I think I have it covered. Anyway, Raechelle (my sister) and Ash (her boyfriend) are coming to Canberra to visit for my birthday in a couple of weeks and I thought that would be a great time to drag all that 'stuff' out, transform it into a chook house and get some chooks so I can devote some time to watching chooks. Rae likes watching chooks too :-)

Last weekend, for no particular reason, I listened to a series of 24 lectures on the Confessions of St. Augustine and was so taken by the whole thing that I am on the lookout for a copy of the book now. Speaking of reading I've also recently finished some more Rafael Sabatini (The Tavern Knight & The Trampling of the Lillies) and have begun The Sea Hawk. I just love the opening line of the Tavern Knight:

He whom they called the Tavern Knight laughed an evil laugh - such a laugh as might fall from the lips of Satan in a sardonic moment.

Great stuff! If you've never read Sabatini I highly recommend it. It's all duels at dawn and the like.

The other news is that in the last day or so I was asked to help with a body of work that will involve me travelling all over the country monitoring various things, so I might get a fleeting glance at a few parts of Australia I haven't seen before.

I will now attempt to post this thing onto the web and email the link to a few test subjects. If it works ok I will start the work of tracking down the email addresses of family and friends so i can send it out regularly.

Dave

P.S. I think you can click where it says "comments" just below and leave a response. I hope you do, cause thats the whole point here!