Chicken on the Barbie

My darling wife was persauded into bringing home someone's pet rooster. As the elderly former owner was all torn up about him becoming coq au vin, arroz con pollo or even just plain old roast, he was kept seperate and in the old hen-coop (now the garlic and onion plantation) while negotiations to find a new home continued. We'd just found him the place where all good chickens go (not the pot, his name was Annie, not Jonathan Segal Chicken) and all he had to do was overnight and behave himself. Alas this too much of challenge, and he flew the coop... to roost (not roast) on that last relic of my South African heritage, the stainless steel braai (aka Barbie, the things you throw chimps onto) just outside Barbs study window. He was just sitting there (the H is silent) and crowing about his vast cleverness when I got up about half five - still rather dark.

I was not impressed, by the crowing or about his... sitting spot. In haste I left the house. (in the interest of public decency... well actually because there is no public for 2km around, cold, I had a pair of jeans on, a polar fleece and my slippers.) I grabbed a landing net and a handful of grain. By the time I got half way there the stupidness of doing this in slippers had come home to me - the grass was wet with a heavy dew. Cocky fellow eyes my approach net behind my back with trepidation and half open wings. So I hold out the handful of grain. Huh. He takes a peck. This not his morning bread! and leaps off onto the woodpile and bounds away across the garden, me in hot (well, actually cold and wet) pursuit.

He led me a merry dance, much encouraged by the pig (where is my breakfast! If you have to disturb me WHERE IS MY BREAKFAST and the dogs (still in my office, snoring until the comotion passed by. I managed to net the fowl fiend with a lucky scoop, transfer him to a cat-cage (from whence he was released to spoiling and three lovely young hens) and go in to lament my sodden slippers and not too dry self, let loose the hounds - who felt very deprived and feed the dratted pig before it flew the pen too. That would take more than a mere landing net.

We had our Scottish dance instructress's 99th birthday dance on Thursday night. Not a lot of people are still dancing at 99. Quite a shindig. She made us all dance.

I went off to catch snapper yesterday morning - no snapper (although the cats got cat fish, and we got a flathead) and limped home with the outboard being funny... nervy stuff.

The frailty

I am a guy who likes to be doing stuff. I don't sit still well (so, logically I write) Maybe because as a kid I was just too sickly a lot of very early years to do much at all. I got better... and my body has never quite managed to be as tough as I'd like it, but life was for living, and yeah, skin and bone heal... roll on 50 and your body says ow! quite a lot, but I have lived, and done and experienced. And anyway this morning i got a pointed reminder that it doesn't help to live the cautious life. I'd been out since five, after wallaby, returned safe and sound from that, bounces, bounding over electric fences, bush and its obstacles and dangers, using dangerous tools... etc. and then I walked briskly to feed the pig - across the neatly trimmed lawn, and looking at the pig on her hind feet, had the most horrible fall I've had for ten years, putting my foot into a hole I knew was there and coming down really hard (and my helpful dogs rushed to my aid and started wolfing down pig-food while I lay there groaning. Pig was not pleased). I am now extremely sore, and my back, neck and forearm are cursing me. So is my head, and I feel really shaken up - from silly fall in my own garden.

Anyway, it just goes to show. You may as well go to sea, climb cliffs, go diving. At least when you break your neck in your own garden - or getting out of bed, you'll have lived a little first. Still, being sore does bring home just how much of the self-sufficiency stuff falls to my lot. Barbs does her bit, but it tends towards the less unusual. So I better try stay alive or who will get the tucker?

Going to take a pill and go to bed.

underwater resistance training

Hmm. Well one of the reasons I have been having sore throats and feeling distinctly lack-lustre and getting low grade temps is now clear. A back left molar, long crowned and in theory root canalled but neatly hidden by bone on most xrays wasn't quite done properly, has been leaking gunge, and will have to come out... next month. It doesn't hurt or anything, but I am sure it is not doing me any good either. Oh well, onward.

Yesterday's dive was no more crayfish successful, but I did try the new spear gun and shot three sea-sweep around the 1kg mark, and bring home some abalone.

I was utterly exhausted partly I think from the cold - it was 13.3 c on the surface, and at ten metres you hit a thermocline with the water dropping off suddenly to 12. My 'winter suit' is 7mm long-john and a seperate 7mm hooded top, and is one of the Ab diver's cast offs. it was suspiciously new as a cast off - I think because it is very very stiff, and just a tiny bit tight for me (and I think my shoulders are slightly smaller than his)so moving - and breathing - are just a a constant effort. When you add ? 12 kg of lead weights and the drag of the air hose in the current - and swimming or trying to pull off abs, and in the shallow water where I am slightly positively bouyant, trying to stay down, and about 4 hours in the water, it's not that surprising that the old man feels his age by the time he gets home. Still I am sure all that cold water is good for something. Impure thoughts or something.

We had our first bulb-fennel for the winter tonight. I am still frantically trying to find places to plant garlic (and garlic bulbils) although it should be in by now. What is in is growing well. We had another nibble of frost last night and it finally got to the sweet-potato. I dug it up, but no sweet potatoes. I think it was just too cool.

Well, here's hoping the dive tomorrow is more successful than yesterday. The end of the Spiny Lobster season looms and I would dearly like a few more of them. The shortest day is past for us, and now the cold starts. it doesn't make a lot of sense but that is the way the East Australian current affects us - our seasons are a few months late. The moon is huge tonight, BTW. If you get a chance have a look.

Yesterday's dive took out to Inner sister Island off the North end of Flinders. We went around the back (north side) but it was far too rough - we had a maybe 3 metre wave try and peak on us, where the current and swell ran counter. A bit too interesting. Then we went to other side - the water was turbid, even where we found shelter - so we ran across to Flinders, along the Palana shore, where it was quieter and marginally cleaner. Marginally. I did have some interesting moments collecting abalone at the tail end of an enormous ray, who was doing a 'you can't see me' in the sand. I would have gone elsewhere, but those where the only decent size abalone I'd found and no crayfish, bar one small one. I didn't want a Steve Irwin event. There were also a school of dolphin that came idling through - straight over my friend Norm. He didn't notice! I saw the tail-fin first out of the corner of my eye and it frightened me out of a year's growth because I thought it was a shark. I also saw a shoal of salmon coming past at speed - perhaps the result of the dolphin.

on bows and raffles

It's a crisp cold night out, and will be still in the morning. However it has been determined that the lemmings will only fling themselves into the sea on Saturday. So tomorrow, among the writing of words and the doing of various other chores, there will be a re-arranging of space so the snout of the blue ute (where it leaks) can get into the second carport, and Barb's car can get into the first one. This involves moving my gun-sighting table, so that had to be done today. I found the front mount was not as tight as it could be. It is now. If it has to come off it may be interesting. So: much hefting of stuff done today, and still more tomorrow. And then more later, because all of this is temporary measures. I like to put things and leave them be. If I enjoyed house moving I'd be a professional mover.

Oh, we on a raffle - Barbs takes tickets religiously (no not just on Sundays) and on the island winning is not merely very very improbable. We got some lovely lemons and honey out of it and some muttonbird oil ointment, and some nice cards, and a bottle of wine and other bits and bobs. Maybe I should buy a lotto ticket, only there are more than 700 people in those...

Barbs asked our local copper about hunting with bows - Only pigs and rabbits!(no rabbits here, TG) may be shot with a bow. Not even the other invasive animals and birds, or declared vermin. This comes under the 'nutty Tasmanian greenie rules' because maybe some other gung ho person wants to shoot something he may well not kill outright with a bow and prove themselves braver than thou, not me - wild pigs are dangerous and not easy to kill outright with an arrow (and I believe in that). Hell, Fairy would eat me if she had a chance. She took a nip at me this morning, and I feed her and scratch her. I am all for shooting the pigs, but at considerable range, with a decent calibre rifle. This is not a game (for me, anyway), its food, and they play havoc with the fairly fragile flora on Strzlecki.I'd say they'd be better for shooting the smaller animals which could not merely be wounded. Apparently you can get a licence to own a crossbow (which our friendly copper thought a great idea for her) - but seriously I think the arrows and quarrells would cost far more than bullets, aside from the legal issue and expense ofgetting it. So: While I thought it might be practical, if you could recover most of your arrows, it's not.

Rubber - speargun wishbones and other tyres.

Got new tyres ont Barbs's car - only justin if you ask me, and a great deal too late if you ask my friend Bill - still, it didn't burst, die, get her pulled up or leave her stuck at the roadside. In the process, I discovered the boot, which she seldom uses, leaks. There was a loch in the spare-tyre well, with several monsters. The medium term plan was for a car-port for the trailer and it, between the little house on the prairie, and our container to be. Now a shorter-term plan must be made. More moving stuff around... alas poor sinuses (I hate disturbing dust. It's not that I'm lazy).

I carefully took the speargun and rubber in to make my ingenious friends' days more trying - and forgot to take it out of the car while in town. Genius. Anyway, I sat down this evening and didit meself. I've tested it, and it works. Now I need to make a spare for the second speargun.

I went out at dusk last night to shoot a few wallaby for my friend who was helping me (well, I was ineptly helping him) with the tyres - he has two Irish wolfhound and they love bones. I must have bumped my sight slightly as the rifle was shooting dead straight, but a little low - so more re-sighting tomorrow :-( I like clean head shots. I think I must check the mounts themselves.

The new chooks are learning their trade, queue for the chookabago to move, and are laying - the eggs are little small still, but eggs are eggs. Bill said to me today that he has to prepare his garden for spring. I'm still trying to preare mine for autumn, and Norman is already getting Caulis out of his. I did get tomatoes about 3 days ago, but really, now they have to go. (I have actually got quite a lot in, but have let myself down with brocolli and cauliflowers).

checking in - archery

The snow is passing as rain. It's miserable enought to make me wonder what I did with my summer wages, if I'd had any. I'm sure the top Strzlecki is coated in white stuff, as is Tasmania, and I don't mean dandruff or soap-powder.

We had a go at archery yesterday. My wife is very keen on it. I think I will stick to the .22 as an efficient way of gathering dinner (and I hit the target more often).

One of the only advantages to having your kids in foreign countries is you get their father's day best wishes too. I've never had those from ought but sons, and it's rather neat having daughters now :-)

Other than that it's been a not very constructive day's writing. I'm battling with focus right now. Oddly A Mankind Witch is selling (to me anyway) quite well on Kindle - 59 copies so far this month.

The Forlorn - on the other hand - has sold one copy.



I wish I had the least idea why - what I have done wrong with the latter or right with the former. These mysteries are too deep for me.

I made kebabs (or sosaties?) with some lamb skirt this evening -not the best cut for the job, but I parcooked the onions and interspaced it with dried apricots. Discovery: dried apricots keep the heat in vey well - much more than lamb. Do you think I deserve the Nobel prize (so long as it isn't for politics...)?