Ferocious Fanciers

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.