Glasses, cows and chooks

When we were leaving South Africa for this remote island of ours, my wife finally put her foot down and I ended up going to an optometrist - Moffat optical in Pietermaritzburg. Now I'm not good with fragile things (dunno why, you'd have thought coping with my brain would have trained me. So we decided to spend quite a bit extra and get Titanium frames, because as I explained to them, it's a expensive flight to get new glasses, aside from the hassle of not having them, and the cost of them in Australia. They must be the rolls royce of eye-ware 'cause I can't have them go wrong.

So if anyone happens to pop in to Moffat Optical in Hayfields... tell them I am waiting for them to fly over fix the darn things. They keep (3rd time now) losing a screw (different sides) and dropping the lens. No damage done, except I have to find and replace the screw. And about all I really need glasses for is that darn screw (I still have - just, long enough arms to read with. Actually my glasses have VERY light duty, and live on the shelf above the computer and never travel further than 1 foot from my desk. Barbs glasses are always on her neck on their cord and go everywhere. She needs superstrong frames, I don't. And actually cheapest low magnification supermarket reading glasses are easier to read with than these too.

Anyway - cows and chooks... someone planning on leaving the island is trying to re-home his 2 cows and his chickens. We planned eventually on both, but have been kind of holding off because the initial capital input is quite steep - and by the sounds of it you can spend more on the creatures' dinners than they save on yours. We definitely want MILKING cows - and these I don't think have been, although they are quite people familiar. The chooks... well I've a feeling there is a big learning curve waiting for us... Matters under consideration.

Are we cannibals from Africa?

We've just had friends for dinner. They were very tough and had to be stewed for a while. Not that ALL South Africans are cannibals all of the time, it's just the price of meat here. And we've run out of enemies to cook :-). Heh. Which is why we served fish and calamari, and had a nice bottle of riesling. The cats were mightily certain we were cooking fish for them. The meal was fun -it's been a while since we entertained. Still, it is at times like this - after dinner, that you realise how nice having someone come in to do the dishes was. Anyway, we gradually piece together more of the island people - hear of people who make wind turbines and cut the blades with a chainsaw. Nothing like precision tools ;-). Sounds like my dad's Free State micrometer - a 4 pound hammer.

We got told of someone who has a cow and calf to sell - we want to do our own milk and our own chooks - but the time and cost might be too much right now - as the veg need a lot too.

I've decided - as I am going to be very busy writing for the next while, that I need to set up a project list or I will simply never get to any of these.
At the moment a crab-catching expedition,
a scallop scouting expedition - I still have to see them underwater and alive - have found a lot of fresh shells. Season is closed, but I would like to find them.
getting and hanging a mullet net. Got a reply and a price from Haverford.
A razor-clam expedition.
As sort of longer term projects prawns and eels need to be looked into, as does the big mincer. I want to get some wallaby, and turkey and do some sausage.