Sometimes the post can make me quite grumpy. I had figured that finally I would be getting a cheque from Amazon UK (there has been a trickle going in there from sales since oh about October 2011. The US pays quite often, but sometimes has to accumulate as it a $100 limit on issuing cheques. Then of course the bank screws me on changing the cheque and the exchange rate, and the US government claims 30% of my income (which they take off before they send the check. Now in theory I should be able to claim tax treaty benefits and save some of that, but it would involve a trip to the US embassy or sending my passport (a no-no as a resident alien - imagine if I needed it, and had to try and get help from the SA embassy). I got my associates cheque (which is the 6% of the sale I get when someone clicks through to Amazon from one of these.)
I got my US Amazon cheque for the month. No sign of anything from Amazon UK. I was sure I had now well passed my $100. Added it all up. Did a conversion. Yes $126 - check the site. The other countries have payment when it reaches $100. Amazon UK 100 pounds. So I am still way short. We will not even talk about the rest, where I may get paid something in 10 years. And of course the post brings me dentist bill which exceeds the Amazon income for this month by 20 dollars before the bank takes its share. Being a writer is all roses, I tell you.

Oh well. onwards. We eat well, and have a new tow-hitch.

I fenced a new section off for the expanded potato patch, - not a brilliant fence -just knocked together with scrap wire and scrap star poles, but its only function is to let the dogs know there is a boundary, and to give me something to attach the wind-breaks to. Our wind can play havoc with the potatoes. I've got some more Zucchini up, nothing else. (I have squash, pumpkin, melon and watermelon, and capsicums and tomatoes planted indoors) Oddly wehave some tomato volunteers. We're eating artichokes, salsify, elderly carrots, lettuce, silverbeet, beetroot, leeks, and cape gooseberries. Garlic supplies will be reduced to 'dried' soon... thank heavens harvest is not that far off.

I should go out and shoot tonight - getting a bit low on Wallaby, and at about 6 cents a kg, it's a better deal than the Dentist or Amazon give me :-) but the wind is really still very strong. It has to abate soon, the seafood stocks are getting perilously low.