This is getting ridiculous

His new record is 6 weeks. We gave him up for deceased about three weeks into that. Then, on the morning when I was seriously late for work, the phone rang and it was the local vet to say "We think we have your cat". The cat they named was asleep on the lounge at the time, so I asked what colour, was it a not-boy-cat anymore etc. and it turned out to be Garfunkel. Needless to say I was really late for work that morning. But he's home now, with a lovely new collar, and a tag with his name, address and phone number on it. Which he will probably manage to loose 5 minutes before buggering off again.

I have no idea where he was for those 6 weeks, but wherever it was he was bloody well fed.

Bookshelves

Finally we have somewhere to put most of the books. Pretty swish huh? And they only took a few hours work after all that. Himself not me, which was even better.



The shelves are now full, some with books behind and books in front. When I get the toys in the lounge/rumpus/kids make a huge mess in here room sorted we will put some bookshelves in there too.

It's cold out there

The heating doesn't seem to be working, and it's 2.5 degrees outside. Yesterday, it was even colder. It doesn't snow here often, but it was cold enough to on Sunday. The sound you can hear is the water running down the pipes and into the tank.


originally uploaded by Mindy

Reunited and it feels so good

Last week I forgot to lock Madge and Beryl up at night a couple of times and on the weekend I discovered that Beryl had gone AWOL. A quick wander around the paddock failed to find her, so I went out at dusk when all good chookies head for bed to see if she had come home. A check of the chook house revealed a lonely Madge fluffed up on her nest for warmth, but no Beryl. I had heard a loud "Buck" while walking over to the chook house, so I decided to check the neighbours windbreak/chook run to see if Beryl had somehow gotten in there. And there she was, so excited she was nearly jumping up and down on the spot. I tried to pull the wire of the fence up so she could squeeze under but she was too busy pecking my fingers to notice. I told her to go under the fence several times, and was up to 'go under the fence you silly bloody chook' before she took any notice of me. Once she saw that the fence was pulled up high enough for her to squeeze under she was out of there like greased lightning and running to her chook house as fast as her little drumsticks could carry her. I was very relieved to have found her, her being a special pet chook and all, and was a little teary when she stuck her head into the chook house, clucking quietly to see if Madge was there. Of course the next day they both acted as if nothing had ever happened. But I know they missed each other.

We have a new couch, not new children.

Note to self: just because we have a new couch, doesn't mean that the kids will automatically know not to climb on it with chocolatey hands, or spill drinks on it or draw on it with textas. Thank the gods for fabric protection.

Prodigal Son returns home...again

After an abscence of two and a half weeks this time, Garfunkel has returned home. We had of course given him up for dead, so were quite suprised to see him trotting up the paddock toward us last night. He hasn't been living it large with the neighbours this time and is quite skinny, but still in surprisingly good shape with a nice glossy coat. He took things slowly last night and only ate small amounts about every ten minutes. He then spent the night snoozing on G's bed, until she came in with us then curled up at my feet for the rest of the night. Today he is locked in so he can't leave again, at least for a couple of days. I am thinking of changing his name to Prodicles.

From the garden

Missing, one muse.

I thought the blog might be feeling a little dejected since it's been about two months since I last put finger to keyboard here. Just doesn't have the same cachet as pen to paper does it. Anyway, I suspect my muse may be down the back of the lounge somewhere and since it's a sofa bed, it's quite possible that it's slid down to the floor underneath the lounge by now. And what a magical mystical wonderland that is. In the past looking for various objects I have moved the lounge and found, in no particular order, marbles, dead lizards, small coins (where are the $50 when you need them?), various snack foods quickly vacuumed up by toddlers if I'm not quick enough to confiscate said foods, combs, puzzle pieces, sultanas, dried rice, and the list goes on. I even found a complete sausage under the armchair the other day when we were looking for the tv remote. I think we'd had sausages a week and a half before. Luckily I found and binned that one before any keen eyed toddlers noticed. It took us almost a week to find the remote. Someone had put it next to the tv in the tv cabinet, so a casual glance missed it. So we turned the tv on and off at the set, and changed channels, all week with the remote inches away. We assumed that one of the kids had taken it to regions unknown in the house so once we looked in what we thought were the obvious places we gave up.

Anyway, so what's been happening with the house. D has made the man hole in the ceiling all nice by lining it and putting up cornicing. We need to paint it, but are waiting for a cooler day because we need to take down the man hole cover which means that a lot of heat could chimney down from the roof. We need to re-oil the verandah but are too slack to do it. We are hoping to have some drainage in the backyard before the next lot of rain floods the backyard again. There are some plans to hire boy toys to do this. The vegie patch is full of flowering plants, but whether anything will eventuate remains to be seen. Oh, and we bought a new meat shrine which we hope to christen soon. It's a hooded one that we tell ourselves we will use for Sunday roasts. Possibly we are deluded, but it's best to live in hope.