Quick update …..

Okay, first of all I wish everyone a very happy and safe festive season.

Tomorrow we leave for South Australia as my younger daughter is to be married on Saturday. I live here in Tasmania and it has been hard dealing with the fact that I haven’t been able to help her with the wedding arrangements these last few months. Luckily she has a wonderful older sister who has been married before and she has been there for her. There has been trouble with dresses (all sorted now), flowers (they were going to charge $120 delivery) but big sister is now going to collect them, photography (the charges are only for one site and that is the garden setting – charging more to do a “pretend” cutting of the cake), weather (it’s changed from sunny and 32 degrees to rain and 25 – eek) and the piece de resistance – the bridegroom was carted off to hospital at 4am this morning with terrible pains in his belly!

This is the groom who had a serious bike accident earlier this year and lost his spleen. He is now on medication for the rest of his life and has been taking it carefully. He lay in “emergency” for five hours before he was seen by a doctor. All I know so far is that they are waiting for the results of a cat scan. I’ll try and let you know what happens next……

But on a happier note, Thelma the chook is fine. Last week I noticed that there wasn’t the reticence to come outside as it has been for a while and after bolting outside she “took up the position” quite willingly with Ron the rooster. Sure enough, I had a lovely brown egg to join Eddie’s white ones. However, Thelma has decided not to wait for Eddie to finish on the nest and has chosen another spot on the floor of the chook shed – good for her! They’re probably going to sulk until new year when we return!

We leave tomorrow at midday and will drive up to Devonport to catch the ferry. That should take us about five hours in the car. We have a cabin on the boat so we should sleep – a little -  we arrive in Melbourne around 6am, phew. Then we have the drive from Melbourne to Adelaide which we will break up as I can’t sit for that long in a car. We’ll probably stop at Bordertown for the night. If everything goes according to plan we’ll be in Adelaide by Friday lunch. A quick trip to the wonderful market there and then down to my friend Sally’s house.

The wedding is on the Saturday and M’s birthday is the next day, Sunday, hmmmmm. We plan to stay for Christmas, the first one with my family for a number of years, and then on the 27th December we will leave for the Great Ocean Road trip back to Melbourne. We will catch the boat on the 30th December, it’s a day trip, and will arrive back in good old Tassie at 6pm that night. We will then drive to Launceston to visit M’s parents and finish the drive home the following day!

Needless to say the New Year’s Eve party is NOT at our house!

So, that’s the plan.  I hope it works out. I just have to worry about “shaving legs, stockings or not, new shoes and not dropping the ring in the grass when I hand it over to the groom. My daughter wanted me to be part of the ceremony so that’s my job.

Best wishes to all and I’ll see you next year.

Cheers

 

Jan

Assistance Required!

It’s a chook problem.

I have a rooster called Ron, and two hens. Eddie is the white leghorn and Thelma is a brown Hampshire. Thelma is the smallest of the trio.

Now Thelma hasn’t laid any legs eggs for over a month now and I haven’t been bothered as I thought she must be on a moult. She has been laying fairly consistently throughout the year. Eddie has kept going so I still haven’t had to buy any eggs.

But recently I’ve noticed that when I let them out of the chook shed during the day to free range, Thelma has held back and only followed the other two out if I’ve gone in to change water/food/clean etc.

Now we all know what roosters are like and Ron is no exception. He holds himself in check in the chook shed but once he’s outside any hen is fair game for his amorous advances. (I think it looks more like rape but we won’t go there!) Eddie accepts his advances, begrudgingly I think, but Thelma acts as if he’s Jack the ripper and runs around the garden with wings flapping and squawking all the way. She tries to hide in such a position that it would be impossible for Ron to have his wicked way with her. And she looks distressed, panting and beak open.

So, could she be hurt and Ron is exacerbating the problem; how can I tell if she is egg-bound; or is she just playing hard to get? I felt so sorry for her today. Ron chased her and chased her and then Eddie started picking on her too. Talk about hen pecked!

So I welcome any suggestions, please. For Thelma.             

Thanks

 

Jan

Showing Off!

Here it is on November 9th 2011 – my first tomato in the grow house this year.

This version is called Wild Currant and is smaller than cherry tomatoes (well mine are) but so incredibly sweet the kids eat them like lollies.

I left two of these plants in the grow house over winter, just chopped them right back and lo and behold they grew up again and flowered. It was all an experiment to see what I could do under cover in Tasmania.

Here is the first capsicum too. Very small but hopeful of bigger things to come.

And the Tahitian Limes are coming on strong too.

So I’m feeling quite hopeful for this year……

Jan

Multiplication

or hoophouse overload!

Nice one M – parked right in front of the verandah.

Oh look – there’s another two on the other side!

So altogether Now

Yep – that’s three hoophouses in the front garden, sigh…..

I suppose they counterbalance the boat on the other side of the house………

On a good note, two of the hoophouses have already been sold and will probably be going after our local agricultural show this coming Saturday.

Anyone for a boat – not quite finished??????

Jan

Hoophouse in the garden

This is M’s latest project. He aims to take one to the local Huon Show in November to generate sales. Currently this is in our front garden and already we have two families interested in buying one.

Today, I filled it with all my tomato seedlings with a scattering of lettuces with a hope to sell some. They’ll be called “Lucky Dip Heritage Tomatoes” and we’ll see what happens. Some of them already have flowers on them so that’s encouraging.

It has a lock up screen door so I don’t have to keep moving the tomatoes inside. It will fit on the back of a truck and wheels can be attached to move it around the garden. This one obviously is covered in plastic, but one enquiry was about making it into a chook house, so different coverings will be used for that. But we could also use shade cloth if it’s just protection from the possums etc. that is required.

Possibilities are endless.

I’ll let you know.

Jan

In a bit of a spin

I asked a friend to visit last week with her Mum. They’re Scottish and full of fun.

My friend brought her spinning wheel with her – and one for me to borrow. A neighbour has given me about three large bags of alpaca fleeces and two large bags of woollen fleeces as she has a shed full of the stuff.

It’s always fascinated me, spinning I mean, and now after a couple of hours of learning I think I might keep going. My friend can spin fleece into the finest of thread and yet it’s so strong. My efforts are well, um, kind of rustic and textured. Yes, textured is a good way to describe it, with lots of lumps and bumps etc.

You have to start by sorting the fleece. You don’t want the scraggy bits from around the bum area. That’s good for compost if you can persuade the local birds to leave it on the pile and not steal it for their nests! Then, prior to spinning, you have to comb it. I think that there is a different word to describe that action but I can’t remember it.

Once it’s all soft and combed it’s time to spin. My friend started me with hands only and she span the wheel with her hand. I’m right-handed so I held the new piece of fleece in my left hand, along with the thread on the wheel and using an up and down motion with the right hand along the spinning thread, proceeded to join both together. I tried that for a couple of hours and then we had a break for lunch. After lunch it was time to add the feet to the picture. I used to watch my mother with her old treadle sewing machine so I had a faint idea what I was supposed to do. Ahem, I’ve come to the realisation that it’s pretty tricky coordinating hands and feet and producing wool at the same time. A bit like Tai Chi really.

But it was fun and again the sense of “I made that” (never mind the lumps and bumps) was extremely pleasurable. So I aim to continue my practising, whenever I have the time, and hopefully produce enough wool to make something. I’ve been told that a “beanie” is usually the first item to knit after spinning – we’ll see.

I still don’t understand how Sleeping Beauty” pricked her finger on a spinning wheel and fell asleep for one hundred years until her handsome prince happened to pop in. There aren’t any needles involved with spinning wheels. Perhaps it really was a fairy story…….

Jan

‘Occupy Wall Street’ Issues First Official Declaration

 

• Since the occupation of Wall Street first began on September 17th, the mainstream media has criticized the general assembly for its lack of a cohesive list of complaints or demands.

Not to be rushed by expectations of corporations and the elite they serve, the Occupy Wall Street action took its time fulfilling this demand.

On Thursday night, Occupy Wall Street participants voted on and approved the first official “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City.”

It it reprinted in its entirety below.

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

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