Painting of MFC

This piece features a slice of vanilla cheesecake, a favourite dish shared by myself and MFC. I get the cheesecake bit and she gets the biscuit base. Neither of us like the other's bit so we are a cheesecake-sharing perfect match.

The only trouble with our glorious friendship is that MFC now feels entitled to jump up on outside tables and help herself to other people's lunch, and is now often found wandering into the house.

Chicken-Related Newsflash

MFC DIVES INTO POND



Eye witness reports suggest that My Favourite Chicken, or MFC, ran at a high speed into the pond and became completely submerged, a highly unusual behaviour for non-aquatic poultry. 'It just ran and went straight under the water,' said Eco Luke, 84. 'At first, I thought it was a duck.' This would have been logical apart from the sinking. Co-witness Andy Gill later confirmed what were believed to be his wild claims. When questioned on the hen's reaction to the event, Luke said, 'It didn't like it very much.'

MFC, the alleged swimmer, declined to comment on the event.

 

Experts have, however, called into question the quality on the witnesses' reports. It has later come to light that MFC was not wet when identified from a line-up later that afternoon. A tip-off has been provided by someone known only as Lion, outlining the dubiousness of the witnesses' reliability. This includes a quote from Eco Luke saying 'Chickens all look the same to me,' and a theory that both Eco and Gill could be attempting to discredit MFC's reputation, to result in more cheesecake being shared with them and less with the hen.

Chikins

Osama Bin Chicken (OSB) and My Favourite Chicken (MFC.      ...sounds disturbingly like a fast food chain)

 

 

MFC's offspring looking outraged that Sapphire stole her corn cob

 

Small Grey Hen, OBC, a white cockerel, MFC

 

Big Grey Hen and chick

 

 

 





 

 

The Buriton Show

The Buriton show is basically a village fete which maintains its tradition of Driving The Sheep before it starts. The sheep were always driven down the High Street to a sort of ditch thing where they were expected to have a swim.

 

Bellingen Community Garden

Taylor told me about Bellingen's community garden on Snake Day so I went to check it out.

It really did feel like a properly lovely community space, apart from the fact it was totally deserted. Clearly, though, that is not normally the case, and I'm going to try and find a way into the gardening posse. I must be prepared to be inventive and patient, as a part of me suspects that these people were actually there all the time, that day, but were just hiding underground in their hippie burrows. Or maybe they only come and garden at night, by the light of the moon. In any case, I will do some investigating and report back.

Snake!!!

The other day I was round Suzy's house with her and Taylor, we were doing some gardening, when their neighbour gave us the heads up on a snake coming through the fence!

It was a big python, about 6 foot. Python's aren't poisonous. It had obviously eaten recently because it had a big bulge about two thirds of the way along it, which it got stuck in the fence for a while. It was then that we started to suspect it wasn't a very bright snake.

It slithered across the garden and started going up a tree beside the house. I touched it!

It went pretty high and we lost interest and started chatting away. I was mid-story when suddenly the snake fell out of the tree!!! It landed on the bottom branch and folded itself into a comforting knot, and sat there looking shaken for a while. We couldn't believe it. What kind of a snake falls out of a tree?! I can't believe it got that big, it clearly isn't very good at being a snake.

Then it composed itself and snaked along a branch, trying to get to the roof. This was its plan, snakes like living in people's rooves, and people don't tend to mind as they keep the rat population down. However, once again, the snake's IQ let it down, because the further it went along the branch, the lower the branch drooped.

When it had gotten all of its weight onto the branch, it realised it was headed for the ground, so decided to go along with that idea. It went round to the other side of the house and found a palm tree right next to the house to climb.

It was so crazy watching it go up the trunk, so clever and so weird!

Taylor called her friend's Dad out to come and get the snake as they were worried about their two chickens, two cats, mice and dog (quite reasonably). The snake managed to reach the roof just as he turned up, so onto the roof he went.

He took the snake off to the bush to release it.

Awesommme

Project Chicken

Quigley and Jean wanted us to build a chicken coop and run to keep the chooks from roosting in the trees, and laying eggs in bizarre places for them to turn into stinkbombs. We designed a setup that they liked and got building!

Foxes (and dogs) are a problem in the area so the fence needs to be dug in properly. As the total fence length will be 108 metres, we rented a trench digger (called Ground Hog).

Off Zappa went, unaware of the large pipe he was about to hit a couple of metres away...

Uh oh.....

Disasterously high sums of money for the total cost of this chicken home were suddenly invading our brains, remorse was wrapping its tentacles around our heads, and a nasty smell was wafting up from the hole. We didn't know what kind of a pipe it was, it was so big and in a funny direction, so Jean went to fetch the very Australian very handy neighbour. He gave us some wonderful news: the pipe was a run-off pipe from the septic tank! It already HAD holes in it to leak out lovely fertilising liquid into the ground (the solid stuff stays in the septic tank and that's the stuff that gets pumped out), so we didn't have to call out any expensive plumbers and replace it at all!

Zappa didn't think this news was all wonderful: 'So I just put my whole arm in sewage,' he said. 'Great.'

Baxter (above) thought the trench digger was amazing. 'I like wadching Zabba use the trench digger,' he said, 'becod it makes him shake aaalll overr.'

On the second side of the rectangle, Zappa and Ground Hog chomped through the phone line. Zappa then electrocuted himself on it whilst repairing it. No, no, that's not all. He electrocuted his FACE. Don't ask me how. And don't worry, it was only a small shock, like a mild electric fence, but he said he was suddenly standing up and didn't particularly remember getting there. We didn't know phone lines carried a little current, and if you didn't either, some useful trivia for you. Anyway, now the phone line sounds crackly so we're going to have to drive to Coff's Harbour to a proper electrician's shop to get a special underground connector box for it. Ughhh...

Since then, Zappa has been digging the trenches the old-fashioned way, with a spade.

The coop so far, and a mournful Dolphin who is in season and seems to have chosen me as a boyfriend. She just can't understand why her advances haven't paid off.

Stay tuned for project development. I'm dropping Zappa off in Byron for Bluesfest on Wednesday and coming back here for blissful alone time! It will give us a chance to miss each other (hopefully).We will recommence Project Chicken after I go and get him a week later.

A lovely sky at the end of a long day!

Quigley Housesitting 3

Zappa's homemade lemonade

Another Jeremy Kyle chicken situation

"Neither Tina nor Margery are budging on their claims for custody of the same unborn children"

Dophin joins us for a cool-down after working outside

Happy Monday!

Hello and a Happy Monday to YOU. We are in the most lurrvely cafe called the Vintage Nest, which has loads of vintage STUFF everywhere, and has a vintage clothes shop through a door. It is tres cool. What has been happening in the last week, hmm...

1. I searched for a suitable Easter egg for myself and was frustrated - here Easter seems to be run purely by Cadbury's, which is mystifying as Cadbury's chocolate is terrible here. 

Have I told you why yet? Ruth sorted this out on a trip to the Tasmanian Cadbury's factory. Now. I was told before I came here that Australian chocolate is rubbish, because they have to put something in it to stop it from melting at room temperature. Firstly most Australian chocolate is really yummy, bizarrely Nestle chocolate is much better than its European counterpart. The only one that is rubbish is Cadburys. And that is not because they add something weird, as Ruth found out, it is because they use evaporated milk from Australian cows for transportation reasons, then restore it with water when it gets to the factory, and this for some reason makes it taste different.

If I have told you that before I'm sorry, but it is important so it's best I say it twice than not at all.

What else.

2. We had barbequed roast chicken outside.

3. Whilst shopping for more yarn I came across mad knitting books and have decided to learn to knit.

This is my favourite, so buying it when I get home:

check out the Mr. T mohecan hat!!!!

And the Godzilla feet. Amazing!

4. I have got so far with my blanket:

And finally admitted that it is a bit long. So this morning I woke up and cut a foot off it. I wasn't sure if you're allowed to do this in crocheting so I didn't research it and although reconstructing the edge was a brain teaser, I am happy to report it is now done and very smart, and will save me lots of money and time. It's still long enough to cover a bed completely.

5. Zappa went surfing in 9 foot waves (from trough to peak) and got absolutely owned! Haha. It took him about an hour and a half to get out the back, and a guy went 'Mate! How on earth did you get out here on THAT?! Respect!' Everyone else was on tiny boards and could duck dive the waves.

Zap did amazingly well, although he started threatening to buy another smaller board, prompting an Excel budgeting spreadsheet.

6. I met a crab.

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.