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reprimand, they are beginning to properly sit, heel, and even bring back a treat to play some more.

I went to GermanShepherds.com in the hope that I could get some advice. Only one lady was at all constructive, the others saying I should give away one of the brothers, one person even of the belief that I was being cruel keeping them together. I should think with my head not my heart, another maintained.

I've just revisted the site - after leaving a note to say that the dogs are beginning to behave, and there is a little more encouragement posted, even from a lady who trains cats! So, as I said at my last visit, I will persevere. The dogs are worth it.

Porgy is off on boar-duty today. A gentleman up the road from us will be paying us $50 for Porgy's stud abilities.

We are also really blessed in that a lady who has given us two silkie roosters telephoned earlier this week and has offered us a female Muppet for only $400, and that divided into two payments. She is the same age as Muppet, so wonderful things will happen there. We should be getting her tomorrow. Apparently she is a pet, and gets hand-fed, the same as that overgrown rug-with-four-legs-and-horns, Muppet.

We are definitely having a mouse problem at the moment. Little festers are everywhere. And inside, which I do not like. I bought four more mouse traps last night, and will be baiting them with peanut butter. I have put out poison, but I think they are enjoying it. Also, Mowgli has taken to munching a bit on the bodies (yes, we do feed him, every night, and sometimes during the day), so I really don't want to put out poison.

I have just heard that we will now allow New Zealand apples into Australia, after years of debate. NZ has a big problem with Fire Blight, a nasty apple tree virus, and we have had some scares over here. Trouble also is that Fire Blight does not just occur in apple trees, but also in grape vines and other plants. One of the more recent scares supposedly had its origin in a bit of mischief from a New Zealander.

We also seem to have had a bit of a leak in GM material imported and sown by an overseas firm. It was not the Government that picked up the mistake, but the Company. What will happen after the supposedly stringent watchdog bureaucracies are taken down, as they will be soon, on the basis that the trials have proved we don't need them?

I look at Canada and its dwindling markets, I remember what I have read about unknown genes in common vegetables and the problem someone might have with allergies, ofttimes fatal, and I wonder whether we are doing the right thing.

Well, it's night-time here, after a Coober Pedy grey sunset (grey opal has, as its name suggests, a grey background, often with broad vivid red-orange streaks and flashes). Major excitement not half-an-hour ago. Aaron and Nathan (Brian's two adult boys) are here working on our van that Aaron drives. Someone left the gate to our backyard open and I was with the German Shepherds. I am so grateful it happened tonight and not a few nights ago. The daschies decided to pay me a visit, most particularly because they are jealous little fiends and they also knew that I had taken the dog food (some rather yummy - at least to them - chicken frames) to the Others. They were a couple of metres into the paddock, and thankfully I saw them before the juvenile delinquents did. Just.

The training paid off! As the German Shepherds raced towards the watch midgets, I screamed at both Rojan and Lochie "NO!" "LEAVE IT!" Thoroughly confused by Mum not letting them at the intruders, they both stopped in their tracks. Meanwhile, Caution, hearing Mummy yell, thought it must be for her, and promptly lay down and stayed put. Wonderful.

"GET BACK INSIDE!" I screamed at the daschies, who promptly turned tail and ran. Maybe visiting Mum wasn't such a good idea, after all. I then had to re-scream at the GS, who thought they could now go after the daschies. The daschies froze again. Hoo, boy.

Eventually, after a long minute or so, the daschies headed back to the relative safety of the driveway, there to be screamed at again by me to get back inside. Aaron helped. Perhaps Nathan did, too, or he may still have been, poor man, under the van, wondering what was going on. A gentle word in their ear and the gate was shut and bolted home, while the daschies decided to cower some more and look pitiful on the other side of the gate.

I told the GS what good dogs they were, and they thought so too. I don't think the daschies will be returning to the paddock in the near future.

Rojan and Lochie both did a couple of automatic sits, which is a wonderful leap forward. Mostly they still don't come when called, but that will happen in the next week. A dog, from my point of view, is not civilised until it can obey the basic commands of sit, stay, come, drop (as in whatever is in its mouth), down and hup. Sit, stay and come are the bare minimums. I read a book a long time ago that said that dogs, taught correctly, really enjoy being trained. The reasons being that the dog gets close contact with its human (be it alpha male or alpha female), it gets lots of positive reinforcement, which makes it feel important, it stretches the dog mentally, so the boredom factor is not always there, and the dog has keen anticipation for the next visit of its human. Obedience School also stretches a dog even more, what with contact with other dogs and their humans, lots of distractions, noises and smells. How wonderful!

I will not be taking the dogs to Obedience School for a few reasons. One is that we cannot afford it. Another is that I am familiar enough with training methods to do it myself. Another is that I would still be the only adult available to train the dogs, which would be interesting, given that I presume they would be almost impossible to train together and could not tolerate the enforced time away from each other if one was trained at one time, and the other at a later class. I already have a jam-packed life, and taking time out once a week to reinforce what I already know is the proverbial coals to Newcastle.

So I will persevere and be richly rewarded with well-behaved dogs. Besides, it takes, for some reason, far less time to train a dog to behave than a human child!

February in the Southern Hemisphere is time for the second pruning of roses. Cut them back by around one third and feed with poultry manure (preferably your own, so you know what is going into the ground), and follow up in three weeks by a handful of rose food, or some nice seaweed mix.

Check out what your local seed savers network has to offer for autumn. Some nice bulb catalogues should be circulating soon, and don't forget to put in your sweet pea seeds before St Patrick's Day, which is the 17th of March.

Aussie Translations:

"Coals to Newcastle" refers to a city of ours surrounded by hills full of coal, so there is no need to take coal there. It is a redundancy. I believe the same is true in England!"

Now, next Tuesday is Pancake or Shrove Tuesday, so here is my favourite recipe from my Nanna's old cookbook, and it is a no-fail:

LIGHT PANCAKES

Sift 6oz. of flour into a bowl, and add a good pinch of salt (I don't bother). Make a well in the flour, drop in the yolks of 2 eggs. Add gradually 1 1/2 cups of milk, beating well until smooth with a wooden spoon (shame on me, I use a food processor some times, no noticeable difference!). Stand aside covered for one hour. When ready to cook whip the egg whites to a stiff froth, and fold in lightly. It is brilliant! So much better than packet mixes.

For toppings, I have a savoury course where I open a can of braised steak and veg., heat, add to pancakes with a touch of lemon juice. I also do a Canadian breakfast job of bacon, butter and maple syrup, which goes over well.

Dessert involves choices like the traditional lemon and sugar, jam and cream, maple syrup and butter. Or I might go the whole hog and do a special one of gently fried in butter over-ripe bananas, mixed with maple syrup, crushed nuts or flaked almonds, butter and cream, and perhaps even a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg. Plays havoc with the waistline and the cholesterol. But yummy, very yummy.

Nita is very polite and says she misses my poems. I call it being slack, personally, so here is one for all of you:

Another day

I don't need or want

an alarm clock

I have five roosters

who don't often roost

they are insomniacs

and I am glad I live

at the other end of the house

One, in particular,

puts so much feeling

into his crow that

it burrs at the end

and gives me an insulted look

when I laugh.

But I'm awake! I really am!

And what a way to see the sunrise!