Winter Warm

It is hard to believe today, holed up inside while wind and rain beat the trees about outside, that yesterday sister Jen and I went to the beach.

We took Jen's two 'Yellows' as she calls them, Kelly and Pippa, and my Rosie.

 Poor Tuppy had to stay home with Daddy and her brother, Angus, because I didn't think it was fair either to her or the masses of dogs that go to the beach to take her along and let her brains get fried.  Some dogs, just like some people, don't do well in crowded social situations.

It was a wise choice, because as a result I was able to relax and enjoy the company of my very special and gentle ten year old girl, who got to be my only dog for the morning.

    
This cute and amazingly-marked dog was just one of the squintillion pooches we passed on our walk.

Blue eyes too!  Did you ever?

I love winter.  Stormy beaches.  Slanting light.  Bonfires...

Amazing dawns...

Those were taken from nearly the same place on two separate days.  Mind bogglingly inspiring!

And rainbows too.

The chickens are enjoying the green grass, guarded over by an almost fully mature Elvis.

In other news, I've been savaging this cheap new violin case to carry my lyre, because I am off east to go to the 17th OBOD Australian Assembly.

It has been kind of fun to hack apart something new.  :D  Let's hope I can get it back together!

At the Assembly, I am hopefully getting to be initiated into the Druid level, so it is very exciting for me!  I think it is been 13 years of study so far, through the Bardic and then Ovate grades, and now I begin the next stage of my journey.  Also, I get to meet heaps of lovely fellow Druidy people, some of whom I have been friends with online for years but never met IRL before!  Yay!

The live story readings are still going well and am now up to the fifth chapter.  I've made a playlist on youtube, so if you want to get the whole story in one place, here it is, or will be when I finish it.  There are maybe two more sessions to go, unless I decide to belt the story out all the way to the end next Sunday!  Beware, is not safe for work and contains some naughtiness and swearing.

Last week I finally took myself off to join in with a local ukulele group.  OMG, so much fun!  Do it!

And with all this winter busyness, what has Mr Kitty been doing, I hear you ask?  Did you really need to?  :D

See you next time I feel bloggy!

Whatcha Been Doin'?

I don't know about how the other folks live, but around here it's been socialising and chores all the way.

Yesterday we moved our shed...

With the help of some of our Firey mates, it was lifted, moved back and reslabbed before I even had a chance to put my shoes on!  Thanks guys!

Amazing how much extra space you get for such a small move.  Now to decide what to put where in front of it.  The dogs and I fancy a bit of cool grass to sit and roll on.   Haven't had grass in all of the nearly ten years since we've been back here.  I want to put in a deciduous tree of some kind too,  and have my vegies back in a 'zone one' area (for all you permaculture nuts out there).

It was my 52nd birthday just before christmas.  It coincided nicely with our beach meet up with the druids, and I can't think of any nicer way to end my special day than at the beach with lovely people and ukuleles.  :D  The sky was amazing, and yes we had a swim, though it was pretty late and a bit cold before we threw ourselves in.  When I travel that far to see the sea, I'm going to get in if it is at all possible!  I took this just after we got out.   Moon too.  Lovely!

   
On the morning of my birthday I went with my sis, Jen ,to see this pretty boy, and to bring him home too.  She still has Fionn, but he has some way to go yet to be fully healed from the accident she and he had a few months back.   She needed to ride to get her fitness and confidence back before she got back onto Fionn, and this cutie was irresistible!  I can't tell you what he is called yet, because she hasn't decided on a call name.   He's a Connemara Thoroughbred cross and likes to jump, just like Jen does!

She hasn't loved all my suggestions for names.  What's wrong with calling him Heimdall or Gimli?

My little chickies are doing great.  Growing well and beginning to run back and forth trying out their tiny wings and sorting out a pecking order.   I'd love to give them more space and to see mama take them out and about looking for worms, but they are safe in there.  Two ravens have been hanging around.  I was worried they were after the chicks and they would be if they could reach them, but actually they have been picking up all the high protein chick crumble that gets kicked out.  Never seen a raven and hen this close before...

Sorry Odin, Huginn and Muninn will have to be satisfied with the crumble!

At least two chickies are roosters, I think, including this guy with the mottled face.

Crap photo I know but you can see his patchy face.  He is by far the patchiest. See him here with another chick that I think is a hen, showing the difference in height and shape?

In other news, I managed to finish the latest afghan in time to hand it over to my Bro-in-law at the Christmas party.

It's snuggly.

And I like the pattern.   I went for all single rows of each colour.  It's different but I like the mellowness of it.  That's me behind there, at full stretch! 

  
Not sure what to crochet next.  Another afghan for sure, since I like to do them while I chat to people or watch DVDs in the evening, and I think I know who to make it for, but what colours and pattern?  Hmmmm...           
  

Wee chickens and wee guitars

So our babies are a few days old now and out of the nest with mama.

She is busily bokking away, showing them where to eat and drink.

Peck peck peck, bok bok bok, here babies, look!  Nom nom!

Heh heh, google surpassed itself again.  :D

They are still in their safe little pen in the chook dome but we have been fixing up the old baby chicken one ready to move them to give them more room.  We've safely raised a few sets in here, but the foxes have been so bad this year, taking out whole flocks of other people's chooks, so we are taking no chances with our babies.  We upturned the old cage and covered the floor with wire too, so now there is no way for a fox to burrow into it.  Good old Andyroo came to help me!

I quite enjoy this sort of job.  It always involves a lot of problem-solving and ingenuity and reminds me of the old colonials of this country and the way they made do with what they had on hand to resolve every requirement.   We used a set of old telescoping tent poles to reframe the base so the wire is more rigid without adding too much weight to it.

It's all set up now, and just waiting for me to decide when to move them.  It is forecast for some bad weather sunday and monday so was considering leaving them in the dome until then, but they really need a little more space.   Maybe tonight's the night!  If we move them by night, come morning they'll be more settled.

We've got shadecloth that we can put on or off depending on the heat of the day, and a tarp to throw over if it rains.  It's nice and close to the window so we can hear and see if any mischief is being got up to!

I don't hate foxes as some chook owners do. I appreciate that they do what they need to do for their own families, and I don't attribute malice to their actions.  However, even as a nature-loving druid, I draw the line at making it easy for them to make my pets part of their diet!

Me! Me! I'm your pet too!  Got anything to eat there?

We've also been keeping busy getting ready to move the closest shed back.  It's time to do some work on the west side of the cottage. I'm envisioning a verandah to replace the little blind, keep the rain off better, and make a fly screen door possible. Then, a shady tree, our vegie beds moved across, and maybe even a little lawn.  Yegods!   The luxury!

Why did we put it there?  Silly!

First, though, we had to level the area for the shed to move to, and to do that we needed to remove a long-dead peppermint tree, because we knew that, when it came down, whether on its own or with help,  it would come down right where the shed is going to go. 

Nice placement hun!

What seems like a simple project always ends up with so many steps to actually take before you can  get to the project itself.  :D

In other news, I got my Bday prezzie early!  Weee!

Want to learn a musical instrument and never have?  It's not too late.  Go get a ukulele, and hit the internet for all the cool tutorials, song chords and even local uke clubs you can find.  Before you  know it you'll be having a ball!  I only picked it up so I could get my youngest niece playing an instrument she could sing along to, and hey presto, another uke convert.  :D  Roo wanted his back so, hey, meet Cherry the Uke!  Maybe one day soon I'll record a song for you on it.

Art in all its forms inspires.  We had to go into Perth the other day and as I was walking along, I came across this sight out of the blue.

How cool is that block of flats?  Funky art and green balconies all the way, and only visible because some big building has been torn down and soon another one will be built and block this view again, maybe forever.

I'm feeling pretty chuffed today for another reason.  I finished the first draft of my latest book yesterday!  Yay!  73 715 words! 

It's my twelfth book, so I guess I am not as excited as I once would have been, but it is still an achievement, and it still feels pretty darned good!





  

   

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!)

 


     
         



            

Bonfires and Creative Fires

 Our bonfire on Saturday night was so much fun!

Our Firey friend, Fifi, fed us so well to thank us for burning her pile of garden refuse that we felt much over-rewarded and we had a very jolly evening!

It's a family brigade!

And some of us also got a tad silly!

You definitely had to be there!

I stayed home from Fireys this week.  I wanted to catch up on some housework and baking, and do some peaceful creative stuff.   It was nice.  Like stolen time always is!   

I did some more work on the painting that I'm working on for a niecey's birthday. (With chickens, since nearly anything I do outdoors these days involves chickens!)   

I also videoed another song for you.  This is one my sis and I wrote a long time back and we had so much fun with it.  I think the idea was that the character in the song would eventually learn a lesson, but they were just too irrepressible in the end.  :D

       

It's been a musical afternoon today too.  Niamh was over to do some art and writing, so we did some sketching of our favorite subject (Cyrano Fitty Kitty of course!)  and then we worked on a song we've been writing together.

It's fun having other creative person in the family! 

I have a couple of truck lessons this week, then my test on the weekend, so I might leave my Friday post till lunchtime Saturday, so I can tell you if I've passed or not.  Fingers and toes crossed please!  I'll be fine as long as I don't do something silly due to nerves.  Why do I do these things to myself?  Because challenge is good?  (Remind me of that on Saturday morning!)