A Newsy Sort of Post.

Just because I haven't been newsy for a few posts.

Here are three of my babies.  They are getting more grown up but it takes a while.

The little little roosters already fight a lot.  They all like to sit on stuff for naps.  They are having an absolute ball being free range around the place.   Guinevere is prettiest.  King Pellinore is the biggest and bossiest.   I have yet to decide which rooster is staying. Actually apparently they should be called cockerels and pullets until they get used for breeding.  I've been watching a Wyandotte Fanciers' group on Facebook and learning a lot.  :)

Word back from my first readers is that they love my new book and it is better than the first one, which is good news since the first one was pretty popular too.   It's very encouraging for an author to hear such good news!  I am doing my final read through now, then it is time to do the formatting for kindle and print editions. 

The cover art is almost painted, but I won't show you that yet.  Only this sketch I did as part of my working out.   It's Grace O'Malley, a new character from the book.   She is going to drape herself across the back cover.

I took this pic of the Jimny the other day.  It amused me how tiny it looks amongst the tall trees of our home. 

The two new lyres are coming along.

It took quite a while to rout out the hollow for the deeper lyre, to be called Torc.  It got easier once I'd done the free hand stuff and could lock the router into the jig to do the bulk of the work. 

The second lyre, Fréowine,  is shallower, like my own Mondream.  It was faster to rout as only took one pass on each area instead of three, but I nearly had an accident when the router took off at the end of a bit I'd been working on.  I just managed to stop it from getting right through the wall of the lyre!  Yikes!

Anyway, both are now hollowed out and I have made the tops for them.  Next is glueing and clamping. 

  
I'm currently determined to make sure I get some quiet time in nature on Druid Wednesdays, as I call them, so this week we took our lunch sandwiches up to Lake Leschenaultia, which is quite near where we live.  We don't go there enough because dogs are banned.  Mainly because of all the tame birds.  The Australian Marsh Hens are stupidly tame and terrible raiders of people's bags! 

Dinosaur much?  :D

Who you calling a dinosaur?  And give me some of your lunch!

It was lovely, bird raids and all! 

Last sunday I went and watched my darling sis, Jenny, ride her new horse, Snow, in the her first riding club rally since her big accident five months ago.  She had fun and they looked gorgeous despite it being their first real chance to try jumping together.

I think they both enjoyed it! 

 
How cute is he?  Like a great big pretty pony! 

Jen, Molly and I have been going to a women's only Kung Fu class with these guys.  It is the same school that did the great self defence class some months back.  I love the instructor, Rachael, and the atmosphere is so nice being only ladies.  If you have ever wanted to have a go at a martial art but felt intimidated by the possible blokiness, this might be the class for you!  (And by the way, the men of the school are also lovely and not blokey either.) 

We had a pretty cool sunset last night.  I like how the clouds obligingly went light in the dark bit of the sky and dark in the light bit of the sky.  :D

The afghan is coming on slowly, but Mr Fitty Kitty keeps beating me to the punch and sitting on it, so it isn't coming as fast as I'd like.  Maybe he knows how well it matches his eyes?

I hope the week treats you well.  I have some interesting things afoot, but more on that anon!





 

             

Monster chickens!

Spotty's kids are getting big.

She decided the other day that it was weaning day, so every time one tried to poke their beak into the hole she was scratching, they'd get it pecked.  Poor kids, they had no idea what was happening and it took them a little while to twig that the hand-outs were over.  I can't blame her though. She is looking worn out.  Five at once is a lot of twerping, scurrying, tussling teenagers to keep track of. 

Yesterday we left the dogs and chooks to mum's care and did a 7 hour stint at the control point for a fire in a nearby shire.  It was my first turnout for my coms brigade, even though we did the shift for another comms unit that was running low on numbers. It was interesting, and much much cleaner than being actually on the fireground!  I really felt for the sooty, tired people who came in to pull their t-cards to go home, even while I wished I was out there too.  Still, there will be other days, of both sorts hopefully.

Kerrie is a whizz at the boards and T-cards and taught me a lot!  I always like to see her adorable face, and Tom's, when I show up somewhere. Volunteers really are generally lovely people!

We came home mentally tired but happy from a job well done and, since it was out of our area,  meeting and chatting to many new people was the icing on the cake. 

My sister, Jen, has started Fionn back in work in the last two weeks.  It is so lovely to see him back under saddle after his very bad leg injury that might have ended not only his soundness but his life. I never did show you the photos of that first day, but I assure it was very nasty.  It has been 5 months of dedication from Jen to get him healed.   It is equally lovely to see Jen healed enough to be out aboard Snow, her new boy, bush-riding with Fionn carrying her friend Fiona for his fifth ride.  My brave sis!  I'm not sure I'd have got back on any horse after that terrifying fall, but here she is, and smiling too!  

  

Way to go Jen and Fionn!

          

 

The Things You Find When You Declutter...

Like the cartoons you did for christmas cards 20 years ago...

1997, Isabeau the horse, Nermal the cat, Keech and Sam the dogs. 

1998, Isabeau the horse, Nermal and Massey the cats, Keech and Sam the dogs.

1999, Isabeau, Nermal and Massey, Sam and Tam.  

Yes I used to have very long hair.  And Roo had no beard and numerous piercings in those days too!



  

A gift For You.

Here is the Freya novelette I've been writing, just for fun.  At a bit over 10 000 words, it took about half an hour for Andrew to read.

Don't read it if you don't like reading things that are a teeny bit naughty! 

Freya and the Big Red Bloke. 

If you'd rather read it on your e-reader, email me at info@tlmerrybard.com 

and let me know what format you need.

 

    

Well, That Was Fun!

That was a busy weekend of interesting things!

Friday night we went to one of the local pubs, the Mountie, and had a dance to a band, The Heights.  Good value!  Haven't done that in years.  Luckily there are no photos of this because we were definitely dancing like no-one was watching!  It was a really friendly atmosphere.  Well done to the pub and the band. 

Had a bit of a crappy night afterwards with one of my good old reactions. That's twice now that I've reacted to very loud music.  Does it make defective mast cells activate?  Wouldn't be surprised.   It was worth it anyway and wasn't too bad compared to earlier in the year.  Haven't actually vomited since I had a polyp taken out at the gastroscopy a few months back so hopefully that bit at least is sorted. 

Saturday my darling sis, Jen, and I went off to the Gidgegannup show.  It is an agricultural show that still has a very country flavour.  Jen's two younger kids had friends to run around with, so they went off on their own, which they can safely do there, and Jen and I did the same thing.  Our faves were the animals of course, and being a small show we got to get up close and personal with quite a few.

This guy was so huge and prehistoric and snooty!

I think this is a Plymouth rock. Just adore those feathers!

This lovely lady is called Pythena.  I haven't had many chances to touch snakes so getting to stroke her and look at her up close was lovely.   She has beautiful eyes, like living mercury.

And here's my fave of the whole show, a nameless ( to me) but friendly and interactive Anglo-Nubian nanny goat, although my choice of fave was a close run thing with some of the young Saanens that were there.  I loved all the goats actually.  We had some really nice bonding moments. Goats are so intelligent and interested in people.   Think I need a couple!  Maybe one Anglo-Nubian and one Saanen?  Hmmm...

Niecey took a pic of me bonding with my favorite girl.

Sunday, we did some garden chores, I did some baking (GF raspberry, apple and white chocolate muffins and they are TOO good) and then I spent time meditating and making music in the paddock, where some ravens came to join in.  It's mostly black because I turned my phone over to get the sound better.   Rosie was panting over it at the start too, but I think you can hear the ravens and how it matched with my singing.   

And then Jen rang to say come and see a horse she is thinking of buying.  So I did, and I had a ride too!   Second ride in six years, if you don't count hopping on Mahlee bareback to go and shut the front gate before letting her go for Jen on Saturday.

He is a grey Australian Stockhorse, name of Bandit, and he is totally adorable.  Such a people-person and so kind.

I even jumped him over a few small jumps, which luckily Andrew did NOT capture on video!  I like  seeing my grin afterwards, though!

And no I didn't go and jump the bigger jump.   I decided that lumping an unfit me over the smaller ones was quite enough for Bandit to do, though he was very kind about it.  He likes to jump.

This cantering pic is a funny one.  It looks like we're floating, frozen in time and space.  (I guess that's what photos are, but you know what I mean.)

This one too.  Like everything is rotating around me and I am still.

I'm not sure if Jen will buy him or not, but he has my vote!

My niecey has forgotten the tune of this song we wrote a while back, so I uploaded the little bit of video Andrew got of us playing it as we worked it out, to help her remember.  I figured you'd like to see it too.  She took to song-writing like a duck to water.  I wasn't needed at all by this stage.

It's easy to forget a newly-written tune if you don't record it. I have a cool recording app on my phone so I can do just that while I work out stuff.  Otherwise the next time you go to play it, it's gone!  (Unless you are one of those clever people who can write and read music!)

 


     
         



            

Spring is Flower time!

The wild flowers are really coming out around here now.

I don't know all of their names, but these blue lovelies are Leschenaultia.

These pink ones might be a variety of Pimelia, but they are usually white.  Their leaves are rather Grevillea-like.  The trouble with native Oz plants is that the same class of plant can be a huge tree and a tiny ground cover, and there are very local variations in color and style just to complicate things!

These are some sort of orchid.  Maybe donkey, but they have more magenta on them than I am used to seeing.

These aren't native.  I think they are the last surviving bluebells. We used to have quite a few.

And this is the east side of mum's verandah, with Clivea flowering in the foreground and lovely deciduous trees beginning to leaf up in the background.

This Acacia Saligna is one I planted a few years ago.  It has particularly big flower balls.

And here is a flower of Arabian beauty, also known as Mahlee, as I led her up to dinner the other night.

Stop taking photos and get me to my dinner!    Ahh mares, I do love how opinionated they are!

Not flower related at all, but here is Andyroo doing a scary "Deliverance look".   I had to take the pic to show him how scary he looked, and you can't see his eyes glinting in there like I could!

    
We're off to another bonfire soon, with brigade friends again. The good people I have met there and become true friends with are some of the best things that have happened to me in a very long time!   Whatever else has happened there, and some of it has been really crappy, the friendships have made every bit of it worth while.  Love you guys!



       

Whoops!

See one lazy post and now I have lots to tell you!

Firstly here is my mad sis on her mad horse already. It was just a quickie, to ride him up from his paddock. and I'm sure she was partly doing it to to get that first remount over with, but still, mad.  Horses and horse people have this in common: Neither has any sense of self preservation!  :D

Fionn's leg is still not great but it is slowly healing.  It really was a very bad cut.

I saw these photos go by my facebook feed this week. Archie, my smart-arse young pony who went to be a trick horse, at his usual best, being a pain in the butt down at the beach.

 
And using a mattress for a head-rest in the gooseneck.

He was an odd horse to live with: He was truly afraid of nothing and if he saw something new, he would canter towards it.  Very unhorse-like!  He is having such an interesting life now with Louise Crosbie. It suits him far better than living here with me and one aged pony.

We had a lovely bonfire night at a Brigade friend's block on Friday night.

Although for a while it was more like Armageddon than a bonfire, because Gogs lit up all the Grass Trees.  Don't worry, it doesn't hurt them.  They quite like a bit of a tidy up of all the dead bits, and these hadn't been burned for a very long time.

This was an amazing scene:  Sun setting through a burning Grass Tree.

I was brave and played my guitar for a while while people chattered, then we ate an amazing dinner cooked by the young fellers.  I don't know, I've never met 20-year-olds like those two young blokes. They totally have their shit together, as I'm sure they would phrase it!

Saturday morning we had Fireys.  I haven't been to my bushfire brigade for a while. The joy is somewhat lacking lately due to the nasty politics, and there's been other stuff to do. It was ok, though. A lot of my fave people were there so that was nice.  I'm sure, come the season, I'll be ready to turn out to fires, but for now a bit of a holiday doesn't hurt.       

Saturday arvo we set off our own last bonfire.

It was the last day when our shire could burn bonfires without a permit.  It's good to have it all done.  (And let's not mention the three huge ones we have up the block. They can wait till next year!)

This was a weird photo of Andyroo.  Smoke, or his natural angelic radiance?  Maybe he had toothache?   :)

Sunday we had Incident Management Training with my other brigade, the Darling Range Coms brigade.  I got to do a new job for me; placing T-cards, which means you are welcoming in, and helping keep track of, every vehicle that arrives on the fire-ground at a big fire.  It was interesting and I got to see a lot more of the big picture than you do while working the radios.

Taken from my spot at the T-card entry desk.  It is not all serious at the training. There were a lot of jokes flying around!

This was my spot, but I was out of it to take the photo.  

Some Hazard Reduction burns have begun happening but I haven't put my hand up for one yet.  I've been feeling really tired and overstretched.

It's ok, don't think it is my lyme coming back, I just need to learn to pace myself better, and it would help if I could stay out of the chemicals more, because breathing perfumes, washing powder enzymes, outgassing plastic and all the rest just creams me.

Unfortunately, people equals chemicals these days, so if I want to not breathe lots of toxic stuff, I would have to be come a hermit again, but I really don't want to do that.  Just need to find a better balance, then take my knocks as they come.  That or start wearing my fire mask everywhere!  

I'll leave you with this pic of a mud-brick shack sitting abandoned on the block near Gogs's.  I wonder what tales it could tell?