Wednesday 7 March 2012

Quigley and Jean's House II

Helleo! How marvelous to have the internet. Have you noticed that old people often call it 'the Web'? I wonder why it's only them. Hands up all those I have made to feel old? Sorry.

We are in our final day of our 4 days housesitting for Quigley and Jean for the second time. It's great! This time they gave us loads of jobs to do, and unlike last time it hasn't been constantly raining so hard if you stepped outside and looked up you would drown. So we have been busy bees. Zappa has been powerhosing like a maniac and today he is cleaning windows. I started out cleaning windows, got too tired and cleaned cupboards and replanted plants, which was good fun. What?! Both tasks are immensely satisfying.

And guuuuess who we saw again?


Little tick paralysis chicken!!


Looking very normal chickeny.
7 out of 9 of the latest batch of chicks (of which paralysis chicken is one) have turned out to be cockerels, so I kindly offered to make them into roast chickens. The family didn't want to eat any but they said I could. So I selected a stonkingly obvious yellow-legged young cockerel and took it round the front of the house away from the others. 'What are you doing?' asked Zappa.
'I'm killing a chicken,' I said proudly.
He looked uncertain. 'Are you sure it's a cockerel?' he said.
'Yeah, look at it, it's enormous, and check out these long green tailfeathers!'
'......hmm.....I'd wait until I'd definitely heard it crow,' he said.
I suddenly felt unsure. But still sure. But unsure.
'If you're sure it's a cockerel, go for it,' Zappa said, 'ignore me.'
So I carried on and found a quiet spot and held the chicken in position.
'Bwaaaaaark?' said the chicken softly.
'Awww.....' I said, 'I feel so sorry for you!'
I'd lost my momentum. It wasn't going to happen. I put him back.

A happy addition this time is Dolphin the Dog, who was in kennels last time:

She loves going round with me, trying to eat the chicken food/horse food/compost, and is ecstatic when I dig holes for plants, wanting to see what's in the holes, or trying to be beheaded, I haven't quite worked it out. She does however have quite early breakfast times, which she lets us know about by barking a lot, and can't understand why we're not as excited as her when we come out and it's still dark.

Sometime I found really weird was what the next door farmer has done to his fields:

Apparently he has sprayed herbicide all over them (great for Quigley et famille who are religiously organic, instead of jif and windolene they have eucalyptus oil mixed with water), not only killing the weeds but also the grass??? I have never heard of it before. He then puts enormous amounts of fertiliser all over it and the grass grows back at breakneck speed. We don't do this in the UK do we? Have I just never noticed? I don't understand why you'd need to.
Haha Zappa has just said from the other room, 'If I'm ever looking for career ideas and I come up with being a window cleaner, shoot me.' He's finding it tiring as well! That makes me feel a lot better. It knackered me yesterday, I was really disappointed.

The day before we came here, Zappa and I went to the Bellingen craft shop which is so gorgeous, I should sneak a picture of it sometime. I got some really nice purple yarn and we both loved a hand spun, hand dyed merino yarn made by a local lady, all different blues, sooo nice. So Zappa bought it and whipped me up a pair of wrist warmers that afternoon!

Such beautiful yarn!

I felt the need for chocolate muffins but we had no muffin tins or cases...

Not a big enough obstacle, group crocheting needs cake.

Ta da!! Aren't they gorrrgeous? He's so clever.

Anyway it is a beautiful sunny day today, absolutely gorgeous, with a nice cool breeze, and I am going to go and enjoy it. And maybe do another cupboard.

1 comment:

  1. I think we do unfortunately do the whole 'blast it with herbicide' thing in the uk. I'm sure there is a field like it just up the road. Failed at cockerel murder then! I would too.
    Hope your broken arm gets better soon - the NHS really ought to do those amazingly colourful casts over here in uk!!!!!

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