Update on the home front

I know the idea of having a blog is that you post regular entries, but hmmm… my life just ain’t that interesting! Pictures instead this time – firstly an update on my blobiness. I think I was about 7 months pregnant when Anthony took this pic of me at my startled best. I poke out a little more now. My Bowen therapist who has always been so kind and complimentary to me this week asked if my doctor had said anything about my size. ‘Are you planning to give birth naturally?’ I don’t like that associated look of concern people give me. Concern concerns me.
Other points of interest in this pic are my green feature wall and painted cupboard doors (never again!) and my giant fake cheque on the back shelf.

I’ve taken some other pics around the house: one of the house, Anthony testing out the new tank, and one of the chook shed. Tinsel around the chook shed is a sparrow deterrent rather than delinquent Christmas decoration. Tennis racket is sparrow and mouse deterrent (they get into the chook’s wheat), although we have discovered that chooks are surprisingly superior mousers themselves. Rooster mosaic came courtesy of my step-mum and keeps a proprietal eye over the ladies without making a huge racket at 5 in the morning.

Burn, baby burn

There's nothing us country people like more on a fine still Autumn day than to set fire to things.

Fire restrictions actually ended quite some time ago, but most people, like us, had been holding off to get a decent rainfall first so that our bonfires didn't end up razing our entire properties to the ground. We had around 50mm of rain over a three day period a couple of weeks ago, and within days there were little green things poking through the ground everywhere. Grass! Who'd have thought we'd ever see that again!

Anyway, the next weekend we had a slight easterly breeze blowing (this is important because it meant not in the direction of neighbours clotheslines) and it was time to get out the box of matches.

Chooks, ducks and cats all gathered around to watch - well, the chooks and ducks were really there for the opportunistic value of catching critters as they escaped the heat - and an uplifting time was had by all. There's something about a good fire. Even when you can feel your eyeballs drying out and your face starts glowing red... With a couple of top-ups of scavenged debris brom the front yard and an occasional rake of the coals we kept it going for a couple of days. And then it rained again. Fire and rain. What a good elemental week for the soul.