The Weekend Is All Over And It Was Fine, Really Good Actually

It’s all done, the weekend. It’s gone but not forgotten. And was it a great weekend? I loved it, though getting up quite so early was a little taxing. Way too early for me, but it’s worth it when it’s a great weekend like that.

I got up at around 5 am, really really early for me. It was way dark and it felt like the middle of the night. Wow was it hard to get myself out of bed, but I got out because I knew that I had a good weekend to look forward to, and it definitely was worth it.

But I got up, headed over to my friends place and picked him up and off we went to our weekend. There was quite a bit of stuff to load up and the car was packed to the gunnels and it took quite a while to get going, longer than I expected and as we were meeting other people we had a time limit, so we couldn’t hang around.

It was raining by the time we got there which we hadn’t expected. That was a shame as it has been such good weather lately, the one weekend I want good weather its raining. But that’s weather, you can’t do anything about it can you? You can’t order the weather you want.

We were camping (not great in the rain) and so we had to get there and put up the tent and so on. We were lucky that by the time we got there most of the rain had stopped and that made a big difference. There was still a little but nothing like the rain we had on the way. It’s not nice putting up a tent in the rain is it? And it was a long drive there as well.

And the speed limits were all reduced so in some places we had to go really slow which slowed up our arrival time.

But if you asked I’d have to say that it was a good weekend even though it rained quite a lot. I caught a fish which was a real bonus and I just love to eat fish. I’m not the greatest fisherman although I do like it. And eating fresh fish is so healthy too, and it tastes great.

« All about Chickens, Crows and My Chicken House

All about Chickens, Crows and My Chicken House

Crows are taking eggs from inside my chicken house

I just love chickens and my family loves chickens, but I have a big problem with crows stealing eggs from my chicken house.

We’ve raised chickens for years. Originally I bought some chooks for the kids and we found that we all loved keeping chooks. So I had to get to work, build a chicken house to keep them in and build a much bigger yard. Originally I only got two chickens but now we have about 15.

There’s something special about having your own chickens. Mine get out from the chicken yard every day because the fence isn’t very high and they just fly over when they want to. This isn’t a problem because at night to fly back over the fence and go back into the chicken coop to sleep.

I’ve been asked why I don’t lose my chickens to a fox, but I’m not silly. I put a wire with an electric current all around the bottom of the fence around the chicken yard and this works extremely well to keep foxes out. Foxes don’t like an electric fence.

And one of the best things about keeping chickens is the eggs. I just like fresh eggs and the ones that I get from my chickens taste much better than those you buy in the supermarket.

However I encountered a problem about a year ago when a whole bunch of crows moved into my garden. Initially it was nice seeing more birds in the garden however after a while my supply of eggs from my chickens seemed to stop. Eventually I worked out that a crow was taking the eggs from inside the chicken house. It was walking in the door picking up the eggs in its beak and flying away and eating them.

Initially I couldn’t work out how a crow could carry an egg until I actually saw one doing it. It seems that their beak is strong enough to hold an egg while they are flying.

Fortunately however it seems that they have stopped stealing my eggs. Now I am getting 8 or 10 eggs a day every day. This is more than we can eat so I can even sell some to my neighbours. I get $4 for a box of eggs. (more…)

The Weekend Is All Over And It Was Fine, Really Good Actually »« I’ve Just Had The Best Holiday I’ve Ever Had

I’ve Just Had The Best Holiday I’ve Ever Had

I’ve been away for a while on holidays. I don’t get to go on holidays a lot so a holiday is a real treat. It was just a weekend though.

The weekend is finished and it was great. It was so nice to get away. It was a little taxing starting so early though because I don’t normally like getting up early.

It was really early, but I had something to get up for so it wasn’t so bad. But even so getting up when it’s still dark doesn’t do it for me. At 5.30 in the morning it feels like it’s about midnight. There’s not even any birds and you know how much I like to see birds.

I picked up my friend and we got started early. He had a lot of gear to load into the car and we took longer to get going than I thought was a good idea, but he had so much stuff. Because we were meeting  some other cars there and the meeting was at 9am, so we had to get started and get there on time. You don’t need to be late when someone else is waiting for you.

It was raining by the time we got there. That was a shame as it has been such good weather lately, the one weekend I want good weather its raining. But that’s weather for you, you can’t do anything about it can you? You can’t direct the weather.

And when you’re camping in a tent the last thing you want is rain, even a little. Rain is the worst thing because when something gets wet it’s wet for the whole time unless it gets warm again. Luckily the rain was heavy but when we were putting up the tent it eased off a little. Some luck at least. (more…)

All about Chickens, Crows and My Chicken House »« If You’ve Got To Live Anywhere Choose The Country.

If You’ve Got To Live Anywhere Choose The Country.

The country is the best place to live by far and I’m happy to say it even if you live in the city.

I don’t want to be rude to anyone who lives in the city but that’s just how it is.

And I love birds too, and one of the best things about living in the country is the birds. There’s so many things that make living in the country so much better.

You just won’t believe how many birds there are out here in the country, millions. I get them sitting in the trees around my place. They have strong beaks and claws and they sit in the trees and pick off the seed pods with their claws and hold them with their claws and then break them open with their beaks to eat. That’s really nice, though it does make a mess of the trees a bit, well a lot actually.

I do like birds even though they do make a mess of my trees. When they break off a small branch to eat the pods they drop it on the ground and it looks like a battlefield under my trees, bits of branch everywhere. Just everywhere you can see.

They’re parrots, and parrots have strong beaks so they can do all this. But on the positive side they have great colors and they look great and I love to watch them. I get them sitting around the veranda that goes around my house, they sit on the railings and look at me inside.

And I love to see them there so I sit really still and watch them. If I sit still they don’t go away, but as soon as I move they’re gone.

There’s so many benefits of having parrots around the house that you just have to put up with the damage they do to your trees. I could just run out and shoo them away from the trees but I just put up with it. Why annoy them when I like them.

Its got to be so much better out here. Ill bet theres no birds like that in the city. Too many people to scare them off and no trees for them to wreck/eat from. If I was a bird I wouldn’t want to live in the city.

And it’s not just birds, there’s so many animals, and as I love animals I’m happy. I’m surrounded by animals and birds too. Cows, parrots, it’s great.

I think it’s good for you having animals and birds around. It’s nature and nature is important. It’s like life for everything else around us. So give me the birds and animals around me and I love being around nature. Ha. I’ve just had one of those parrots perch on the veranda right in front of me right now. I’m going to spend a few minutes watching him. (more…)

I’ve Just Had The Best Holiday I’ve Ever Had »« I Have A Small Boat But It Does The Job, I Love My Boat.

I Have A Small Boat But It Does The Job, I Love My Boat.

I have a pretty small boat. Just a simple aluminum boat, about 13 feet long. Its got its own trailer so I can tow it, I don’t need to put it on the roof of the car and that’s good because doing that is hard work.

Last week was school holidays to I took may family, including my kids, away for a few days.

4 days actually at a small resort about 4 hours drive away. Unfortunately there was a really strong wind and heavy rain when we left and I thought it was going to be a really rough drive but the wind dropped and the rain stopped after about a half hour, the sun came out and it turned into a pretty nice day. A great day actually.

And it was a really nice holiday resort and the kids loved it. So many things for kids to do. The killer of a good holiday is bored kids, if you’ve got bored kids then they aren’t happy, and if they aren’t happy you aren’t happy. But here there was so many things to do for the kids.

Nothing is worse than bored kids. They get in your face about it and so you’re irritated and they’re bored. I like to read a book while I’m away on holidays so having bored kids interferes with the reading.

But the kids were happy over the weekend, which was nice. There were so many things that they could do, including jumping up and down on this huge plastic blow up thing, and they just loved that. That alone kept them happy.

And in the games room there was something that the kids loved too, a massive television that had a kids movie showing every night so they just sat in there all the time in the evenings.

And there was also an outdoor swimming pool so they played in that for hours too. They both love swimming so that pool paid for the holiday.

But I mentioned my boat. I took the boat along because there was a river there and I could take them boating on the river. And it’s useful for taking stuff along too. The kids bikes wouldn’t fit in the car but no problem getting them in the boat. So the kids got to ride their bikes.

So it was really worth taking the boat along. We spent some time on the local river puttering up and down looking at the scenery and having a good time. We stopped and spent an hour or so having lunch while the kids ate and had a swim in the river. And we got to sit and read a book in the sun.

And the local lake was great too. Last summer I bought an tire tube and rope and towed the kids around with it so I brought it along this time too and they loved it just as much. In fact it was difficult to get them off it. They just wanted to spend the day there. (more…)

If You’ve Got To Live Anywhere Choose The Country. »« Cows Are The Very Best Animal You Can Find.

Cows Are The Very Best Animal You Can Find.

I like cows. They’re big yet they’re so gentle. In all the time Ive had cows Ive never had a bad moment with them. They aren’t aggressive really and they are even tame enough so that my kids can pat them a little, though they don’t like being patted too much, they tend to pull back when you pat them. Just pull back a little that’s all, they don’t do anything else.

The best time to pat them is when you feed them hay. They just love hay, and when the grass growth is getting slow because winter is coming you need to supplement their feed with hay or something else. I have hay so I can feed them lots of hay.

Now of course if you are feeding the cows hay you’re committed to feeding them every day, you’re stuck with that. Every day even if you’re not feeling like it, or maybe it’s raining. If you don’t feed the cows they starve which isn’t good. And if you are feeding them hay that’s the time to pat them. But when it’s raining you don’t stop to pat them.

I deal with that myself. I like my holidays so I’ve got to have a way of going away without leaving the cows to starve. So this is what I do. Read my plan.

I have a good plan. I keep a couple of my paddocks fenced off with the gate closed so that when one has good grass in it I can keep it that way. The cows eat my hay until I have to go away and then I can open the gate and let them all in there and they have plenty of food for a week or so and I can go away knowing my cows aren’t starving. I couldn’t go away if I knew my cows weren’t cared for.

And when I open the gate to the paddock with the grass they’re in there as fast as they can, because they’ve seen all that grass when they look through the gate. Cows aren’t silly.

And then I come back from the holiday and my cows are happy. And I take them out of the grass paddock and put them back in the main paddock. And then I can look out the window and watch them.

I feed them right after breakfast. They know exactly when I feed them and when I come out to feed they’re sitting right there in front of the shed with the hay in it waiting for their breakfast. I usually give them 2 bales of hay. Sometimes when I feel generous I give them 2 1/2 bales.

They got 2 bales this morning. But finally the weather is warming up and the grass is beginning to grow again. Good, because I don’t have much hay left. But now it doesn’t matter because they’ve got grass to eat. They’re happy. (more…)

I Have A Small Boat But It Does The Job, I Love My Boat. »« What Do I Do On The Weekends?

What Do I Do On The Weekends?

Here’s a real treat coming up, I get to go away this weekend. What a great treat, it will be really nice to get away, I love holidays.

I get to go with a friend because my family all have something to go to and they can’t come so I get to go with a friend. Last time I took my family, not this time though.

We are going to take a tent and camp in the tent, as I would normally do with my family. It’s a really good tent, about 10 foot square and canvas and really good quality so worth taking. Its heavy but I have a lighter tent that’s smaller but it’s forecast to rain and I want a good tent that will keep the rain out. At least I hope so!!!

I don’t like getting up early, I resist it when I can, but we have to go at 6 am Friday. It’s a 3 hour trip to where we are meeting up with some others, and we meet at 9. It will be good but will it be worth getting up early for?

As much as I hate to get up early if you’re looking forward to something you just get up and go anyway, so it’s not so much of a problem.

Unfortunately my car is pretty old and I’ve got all my fingers and toes crossed hoping it makes it up there ok. It’s done 540,000 miles so it’ done a lot of work, but it goes fine. It’s worth nothing but that doesn’t matter.

Saturday will be a day of doing nothing at all. It’s planned that way so that’s how it is. I want to go fishing, I really love fishing. So I’m intending to take the gear along, though it is forecast to rain. In fact I bought a new fishing rod today, because I broke my old one a while ago which was really sad.

I made that fishing rod when I was about 25. I bought the blank and I bought the whipping and the rod varnish and all the other bits and pieces that go into making a fishing rod.

I was pretty pleased with myself that I managed to make my own fishing rod.

It was a sad day the day I broke it, I’ve used that fishing rod a lot. And the silly thing is I still don’t know how I broke it, I was just walking through a patch of trees and I looked down at my rod and saw the tip hanging off. I have no idea how it happened but I was really annoyed. That’s life I suppose, though sad.

It wasnt worth a lot but it was to me. I mean I made that rod myself. And I broke it. So today I went back to the fishing shop and bought a rod, it’s nice to get a new rod.

Not that new fishing rods are all that expensive now. It was only $27 so I can’t complain. It was just that that fishing rod was my own rod, no one else had a rod like mine, I made it.

I suppose theyre all made in China now, thats why theyre so cheap. Hope it lasts. So thats my weekend coming up. I hope I get a few fish and it doesnt rain too much. Ill write about it soon, when I can. (more…)

Cows Are The Very Best Animal You Can Find. »« Cycling Gets You Outdoors And Getting Fit

Cycling Gets You Outdoors And Getting Fit

Everyone loves something, for me it’s cycling, maybe for you it’s hockey or ballet.

I found cycling not so long ago. I was getting unfit and I didn’t want to be unfit, and I was getting older. I knew I had to do something or I’d end up fat and unfit.

I tried swimming but it just never worked, I never took to it, in fact I hated it.  I just found it really boring and it was a real effort to get up in the morning and go swimming. You just go up and down and down and up and up and down and a minute feels like an hour. You can’t believe how boring swimming is.

Underneath you there’s a black line and you just watch that black line, there’s nothing else to do other than swim of course. It’s really boring and I just couldn’t keep at it. I got tired of the black line.

If you really want to get fit you  need to swim at least 4 times a week, probably more, and a lot more if you want to get really fit. And if you find something boring then you’re not going to do it 4 or 5 times a week and keep at it are you? I couldn’t do it twice a week.

And that’s doing at least a half hour. You need to swim for at least a half hour to get enough exercise and it just feels like such a waste of time. Half an hour is a lifetime.

So once I knew that I hated swimming I had to find something else. I also didn’t like running either, so that was out. But one day I thought about cycling.

I didn’t have a bike although I used to ride to work many years ago. My old bike was up at the shed  but its so rusted that its unusable. I knew I had to get another bike. And a new bike isn’t cheap. In fact bikes are really expensive now.

But I found out that there was a cycling club near me and they were starting up a new cycling recreation group. The ideal time to buy a bike and take up cycling. A club is a good way to start.

I found the pace of riding wasn’t right for me, but enjoyed the rides. They did longer and shorter rides and I enjoyed it. Short and slow, or long and fast, either way you get fit.

I’m not as young as I would like but even so I would have preferred that they rode a little faster, it was a bit too slow for me and so I began riding on my own to try and get a better workout. I got noticeably fitter over time.

So after a while riding on my own I discovered that it was nice to ride hard but a little lonely. I was getting a workout but on my own. So I made some enquiries and found out that there was a riding group that rode out of town a few days a week that used road bikes and rode hard. It went on Sundays and I decided to go along.

But the bike I had bought was a hybrid, half mountain bike and half road bike and they all rode a road bike so I would have no chance of keeping up riding my hybrid, it was too slow. So again I was stuck without a bike. But I knew I liked riding now so I bought a road bike and joined the. They’re good riders and sometimes I can’t keep up but mostly I can. More often than not.

But what I wanted was a hard workout and that’s what I get on the Sunday ride. Really hard sometimes. (more…)

What Do I Do On The Weekends? »« Tony, Tony and Tony

Tony, Tony and Tony

Great days like today are just wonderful. A real delight. It’s just perfect for what I like, warm, really warm but not hot which is great because I don’t like it hot, at all. And there’s no wind and it’s just, well, ideal. I’ve been for a drive and I’ve enjoyed the view as well. There’s cows that look at me as I drive past and I see happy people walking and talking.

But whilst I’ve decided that it’s a great day you may not like it so much. Maybe in fact you’ve decided that it’s a bad day. Perhaps you’ve had something nasty happen to you today, maybe something really terrible. Your day just isn’t working out so that’s how it’s going for you.

But it’s different for you than it is for me of course. It’s entirely in the eye of the beholder and that’s why it may be wonderful for me and terrible for you. My day is the best ever, yours is the worst.

My point is that everything is subjective. What is a great day to me seems obvious to me, but maybe not you. It couldn’t be anything but a good day, for me. But that’s only me. I love the day but if you don’t its a terrible day for you.

Maybe you see terrible things in the day, all bad, darkness. The best day for me is the worst day for you, that’s how it works.

Surely the only explanation is that it’s in our minds, what the day is like. We see the day through the filter of our minds. We don’t see the day, we see what our minds tell us the day is like. We filter the day through our minds and our experiences and decide what it’s like for us.

I even think it’s possible that if you and I have the exact same experience of the day we will see it totally differently the 2 of us. You come for a drive with me and we see different things. You see the same cows, the same sunshine, the same people, but maybe you don’t even see them. Maybe you see something completely different.

Your mind registers the same things as mine, and records it, but it filters it all through the experiences you’ve had in the past and mine does that too, and that makes our experience of the day different.

Even if you have the exact same experience as I do you may well see it totally differently, depending on how its filtered by your mind. You might drive through the same countryside as I do. You might see the sun, the cows, the kids and so on, but your mind may not even register them.

Your mind might just be looking at the downside to everything. And thats because your mind filters everything according to past experience. What has happened to you in the past is all recorded in your mind and it filters every future experience. So even though youre seeing the same sun, cows and kids as I am seeing your past experiences are different from mine and so your mind uses the  past to filter what youre seeing now. (more…)

Cycling Gets You Outdoors And Getting Fit »« Do You Live In The Country? I Do And I Wouldn’t Live Anywhere Else.

Do You Live In The Country? I Do And I Wouldn’t Live Anywhere Else.

I’m lucky enough to live the country life and I just love living here. I’ve lived out here for 10 years now, that’s more than I care to remember actually. And I grew up in the city but I wouldn’t really want to go back there any more, in fact you’d have to drag me back.

There’s lots of things in the country that you just can’t get in the city at all. For example I love to cycle. It keeps me fit and less fat, and I know I need to keep fit. It gets me outdoors and I love the outdoors, here out in the country.

Around me there’s so much to cycle past, the view is hot. Fields with cows, alpacas, sheep and goats. Horses too, though I don’t like horses so much which is a shame. But I love cows and sheep and I have my own cows, each with its own calf, and I love them dearly. Each is treasured.

There’s so many advantages to living out here and cows and calves at my place is just one of them. It’s nature and I love nature. You can’t live without nature.

Its summer now and its hot, really really hot. We’ve had some really stinking hot days lately. Now of course if I lived in the city it would still be hot. But here I see the cycle of the seasons so well I feel more intune with it. I feel more at one with the seasons and with nature now. I see the grass wilt and die when summer comes, I see the grass regrow and get green again for winter. It see snow, I see drought, I see rain. It’s all part of nature.

I see the leaves of the trees turn different colors, there’s so many wonderful colors. I see the new trees growing underneath the old ones when the seeds germinate. I see the old and the young, I see the new and the not so new. It’s the cycle of life.

Nature cycles just like me, and I love to watch it all happening right through the year. It’s the renewal of life over time.

If I lived in the city I mightn’t even have a garden.  AndI mightn’t have a tree at all. I might have a lot of concrete, I might have a balcony and a BBQ, but I mightn’t have a tree or a blade of grass or a cow or a sheep.

And unlike here I probably wouldn’t get to see the seasons change like I do now, and the seasons are a whole part of change.

The city is so sterile. I spent a lot of years there so I know what its like. Now of course that’s just a personal view, but that’s how I feel about it and I know not everone feels that way.

Even the rest of my own family live there. My brother loves it and he’s single so I suppose he needs more social life than me, and there’s probably more social life in the city. But I don’t like it.

I grew up in the city and spent most of my life there. Then it was fine but it really feels now as if I wasted a lot of time in the city, I wish I’d been born in the country instead. I feel a little like I wasted a lot of my life in the city, that’s sad isn’t it?

Well not wasted I suppose, but that’s how I feel. I  waste it at all of course. I should ask my brother if he’d like to live here but I doubt he would. He likes the city. That’s his prerogative. (more…)

Tony, Tony and Tony »