10

My Mum taught me that innocent and wonderfully ungrammatical bit of doggerel. And it's true, there are birds on the wing just about everywhere, but do you think I can successfully capture them on camera. Not the ones I want to, at any rate!

We have a marvellous collection of native and imported birds at the Heavenly Hovel, aside from the ones we have brought into here.

New Holland honey eaters, magpies, crows, silvereyes, sparrows (and they are supposed to be an endangered species in England! I wish they were here!), lesser wattlebirds, willy wagtails, swallows, starlings, the list goes on...

Now here's something you may enjoy, a piece from the Herald Sun, a Melbourne newspaper, about answers to science-type questions given by children, supposedly, says the cynic writer, true.

Name the four seasons: salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.
Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink: flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists.
How is dew formed? The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire.
How can you delay milk turning sour? Keep it in the cow.
What happens to your body as you age? When you get old, so do your bowels and you intercontinental.
What happens to a boy when he reaches puberty? He says good-bye to his boyhood and looks forward to his adultery.
Name a major disease associated with cigarettes: premature death.
What is the fibula? A small lie.
What does caesarean section mean: The Cesearean Section is a district in Rome.
What does the word benign mean? Benign is what you will be after you be eight.

Now here's a handy hint:

Jo McRae, writing a letter to Grass Roots magazine, says that she "visited a magnificent garden at Scamander on the Tasmanian East Coast last year. The couple who have created it have wonderful fruit trees fed from greywater and rows and rows of berries, grapes, etc. They use a mixture of chilli powder and fat to smear on tree posts etc. It doesn't wash off as easily, and no more possums or rabbits."

Perhaps that might work with our Northern Hemisphere cousins and problems with deer, skunk and even Nita's dreaded locusts. Here's hoping.

Joseph from WA writes in to the same issue a really, really interesting hint:

"To wash greasy, dirty hands I make a mixture of sand, firewood ash and a small amount of caustic soda. All that I mix in a 20-litre drum with rainwater. I first scrub my hands in the mud and wash it off in another drum. By the time one drum is empty the other one is full. I add some more sand and so on, and make another mixture. The more time I re-use the mixture the better it seems to become. So, never does any of the mixture go into the ground, and once again I save lots of water and some money too. My hands feel a lot better than when I used to use the industrial hand cleaners and I do not need to use any hand creams any more."

We are awaiting further developments in the hatching areas, and we are sure one of the guinea pigs (cavies) is heavily pregnant.

Brian is an absolute darling and has promised to set aside the area between the cypress hedge and the house and make it a duck heaven that is escape proof. I came home the other day to the chore and agony of having to pick up two more ducks that had been run over on their way across busy Commercial Road. One of them was still alive and vomiting in my arms. I fed them to the pigs, as Brian wasn't home to kill her quickly. I still want to cry about it, but I don't like distressing Alice. She needs to be a bit tougher than the average city kid to live on a farm. If the animal is a pet, then yes, a good cry is the best thing, but I can't have her feeling sorry for what may end up on our table.

Next weekend I will be heading over to Port Augusta in South Australia for my Cultural Awareness Training for work. I am really looking forward to it, and will hopefully bring back plenty of photographs for you.

A quote from Lisa McInnes-Smith - "Husbands who have the courage to be tender, enjoy marriages that mellow through the years. B. Francis".

Restlessness

The sea is in my blood

I want to travel

I go down to the Breakwater

and lap up in my nostrils the smell of the ocean

As each spray cascades over the walls

I feel energy return

With each surge and swell

I want to dive in and fly

The blueness of the sky

is mirrored in the sea

The passion of the tide

is mirrored in me.