

Today was another gorgeous day in the Derwent Valley.
Ok, it was a bit cloudy. And a bit windy. But it was gorgeous. It hasn’t rained for quite a few days, maybe a whole week, and with the wind, the grass was dry enough to mow. And it needed mowing!
I’d been putting that job off for a while now. It was always too wet. I was always too busy. But today was the day. It was a write-off as far as being creative as I had errands to do in the morning and Montana had a vet appointment.
Update on Montana: she’s now on oestrogen pills. Fingers crossed that sorts it out cause Wayne looks ridiculous putting her undies on. All her tests are good (boring as the vet said) thankfully so hopefully she’ll respond well to these pills.
Anyway, I decided that it was a day to work outside for once cause I tend to neglect it at this time of year. I needed to check the fence lines as the other night Romeo managed to kill a pademelon (that’s a tiny wallaby) that got into the yard. I don’t like that happening so I went around and put things all across the bottom of the fence where there were gaps. Hopefully no more wallaby deaths in our yard…
I also hung a small bell by the gate for my grooming customers. 🙂
By the end of all that I was on a roll. I wasn’t ready to stop. I thought I’d clean up my workshop – I stood there and stared at it for a while before deciding that the best thing I could do to begin sorting it out, was to remove the huge sheet of MDF I had baring the entrance. I mean, it seemed the right place to start.
I measured out the length I needed to make the drying bench I planned to make and cut it using my circular saw. Then I thought, well, I started… may as well make the bench!
I looked around and found bits of this and that timber and basically made a bench for my dog drying area. It ain’t pretty. I’ll get photos tomorrow. Its rough and rustic and it needs a coat of paint and rubber matting on top to keep the MDF dry and the dogs from slipping. But it does the job. It fits in the corner, my show trolley sits underneath it for cage drying large dogs, it fits a smaller crate on top for cage drying small dogs and it has enough space to dry dogs on even without removing the smaller crate.
And its not even really wobbly!
Wow. I surprise myself with my talents.
(Its really badly made!)
z
Wayne likes to get me little presents now and then. Usually rusty old things. Like a couple of rusty old chests he brought home a few weeks ago. And then this toast rack, hand held steak grill thingy he found somewhere.
I love rusty things (in case you hadn’t realised), and old things, and things which just look interesting. This covered all bases.
So, what did I do with it? Well, first I drilled a hole in the handle so I could hang it in the kitchen to go with my ever so slowly growing and encroaching collection of old and rusty stuff…
Then I put one of my favourite photos of mom and her brother on it to display. I really love this photo. Aren’t they both so gorgeous?
I added a few bits and pieces to it to add interest…
Take a step back and have a look at the things around it. The beautiful black and white plate is something I bought at an auction. I think I paid $20 for a box of junk just for the plate. The sieve on the right is something I brought back from Greece. The Mickey and Mini I bought years ago when I lived in Melbourne. The Flintstone characters I’ve had since I was a kid. The black mammy notebook is so politically incorrect but so gorgeous. She was a gift. And the charging station is something I upcycled from an old drawer.
You can read about that adventure here and here.
Take another step back and you can see what I mean about encroaching stuff taking over the kitchen.
I started with the two vintage food covers. Then I found some vintage strainers… then I needed another wall…
I’m loving it.
So, where are we with the animal situation? Well, Montana seems fine. She ate another nappy last night (ok, don’t get your knickers in a knot, she didn’t eat it, she chewed a hole big enough to counter any pee soaking effect it might have had). I washed and dried her bedding so its ready for tonight.
This morning I fashioned a funnel out of aluminium foil and chased her when she went out to pee and collected a small plastic container full of pee which I took to the vet. I’m now waiting to hear from them and take her in when they ask me to.
But the adventures don’t end there.
Yesterday morning when feeding the poultry (we have a few chickens, a lot of geese and we feed a fluctuating flock of ducks which aren’t really ours but they live around or visit our dam) I noticed one of the hens was wobbly on her feet. She seemed to cross her feet over as she walked and she’d overbalance like she was drunk.
This morning she was falling all over the place and I know she hadn’t been drinking.
I picked her up and checked her over. I think her feet are a bit swollen, but I’m not really sure. I asked on a FB poultry group (as you do) and got suggestions, advice, sympathy and well wishes. I also asked Dr Google. I still have no idea what’s wrong with her but now I have a whole lot of things I can worry about.
I’ve got her in a dog crate for the night, in the shed where she’ll be warm. I’ll have another look at her tomorrow.
Ah the joys of owning animals. I swear, if this is a fatal infectious disease that kills our chickens I am NOT getting any more.
z
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Since the outside of the box had already been painted, I just gave it one coat of house paint to freshen it up. Then I decided the inside needed painting too.
ha.
Yes! I got new Blundstones!
I love my blunnies. They’re the Aussie country footwear of choice. And now they come in all kinds of new styles and colours.
I bought my first pair of blunnies the year I moved to Tasmania. I mean, if you’re gonna live in the country you gotta have the right footwear, right? I wore those things till they began to fall apart. Then I glued them back together and wore them some more. I repeated this process till I all I was wearing was bits of leather, rubber and glue.
Then I bought myself another pair. I seem to get somewhere between 8-9 years out of a pair of blunnies – that is, the ones which were made in Tasmania. Not sure how the new versions will hold out given they’ve moved production overseas. We can only hope.
It was time for another pair that I could wear out without embarassing Wayne.
They come in so many styles and colours now it was a hard decision but red seemed frivolous enough for me. Next time I’m getting another brown pair, with coloured elastic, or striped elastic… Ditto with the pair after that… which will be black…
Can you tell I like my blunnies? Or have I been too subtle?
Just call me Imelda Marcos of blunnies.
But enough about that. What’s been happening at the old homestead you may ask? Well, my dog grooming business is going well. I’m still working on new signage but should be finished by the end of the week. If I get cracking.
I’ve finally cleared out the casita workshop and am now selling things I don’t need on Facebook just to clear out room to move. Its a slow process but eventually I’ll only have projects I’m working on in there and not a pile of stuff I ‘plan to work on one day’…
I found my circular saw – and have used it! – since the last post. And I finally re-opened my Etsy shop which has been closed for years. I’m now selling my make-over dolls in there. Please visit and share. I’m a poor starving artist after all…
This is Abby from NCIS, new to the shop. I’ve also got characters from Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. More coming as I finish them.
So I’m getting there. The To Do list gets items crossed off all the time, but new ones are added daily. Now the hydrobath is clogged up so have to fix that… but all in all things are progressing slowly but well.
Its going to be a hot week which means no work in the garden. That’s good cause I was planning to put it off a little longer anyway. Any excuse will do!
z
I’ll be putting a bolt onto the gate at #1, put a hole into the aviary wall for the bolt to slide into.
#2 shows where the end board is cut short to accommodate the height of the concrete slab. I found I had to reinforce that spot as the wire could have been bent by a particularly insistent dog bent on escape. (haha)
#3 is where a sliver of wood was removed to allow the gate to swing without hitting the concrete on the casita side.
All in all, a job well done.
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Barney, “hole in the blanket? what hole in the blanket?” |
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Montana, “what? you woke me up to take a photo?” |
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Romeo looking guilty as his tassie devil Christmas present is already missing a nose. |
The other critters aren’t so lucky. They have to spend their time out in the blazing hot outdoors.
Here is little Chipmunk this morning, he always comes up to steal feed off the ducks.
Up close and personal with a miniature horse.
Dancer looking gorgeous as ever.
Our geese. The first batch that hatched this year, Jethro leads the way, the five babies (2 boys and three girls), then the siblings from our first ever goslings, Clarabelle and no-name boy (mainly cause we can’t tell him and Jethro apart any more). This is Clarabelle’s family.
Coming up behind is Annabelle (our original female goose) with her 4 babies and Hank. When Annabelle hatched out these babies she abandoned them for a while and Hank raised them on his own. What a guy!
Here they are, all together. Making a run to the feed Wayne is tossing out in the morning haze.
As far as presents go, this is my favourite. From my good friend Diane. I love it. Its so me!
So thats us for Christmas. I think I’ll go drink more punch and read a book. How great is that!
z
I actually had to remove them every couple of days. It took weeks for the birds who were nesting there to get tired of rebuilding and go elsewhere.
The story was not without casualties. One of the nests had two eggs in it.