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!