The Weekend

Well, I said I would try to do a blog entry, and because the weekend was so productive, it deserves one. Yesterday morning we brought the sheep up, and split the adult ewes off, and put them in with a neighbours ram "Biggles", who is a big black faced boy, so hopefully next year, they will all have twins, and grow fast...The other lambs went over to Jenny's paddock with our other lambs, hopefully they will finish off quite well, they certainly are growing well (almost ready to slaughter now). Devilspawn and Winston have been put in a small paddock together, we're hoping Winston does his "thing" before we get him turned into sauages. Before we did all that, Steph worked Markissa and has a small ride bare-back, and I chainsawed up a big pile of timber that has been waiting for chainsawing for 2 years!, now we have even more lawn to mow.
Speaking of mowing that lawn, Steph started mowing it yesterday but the lawn mower fell apart (the gas tank fell off!), so this morning since the tractor had the mower on, I cut our back lawn with the tractor, 3 passes and it was basically done!
Yesterday after all the stock were moved out of the paddocks, I went over them with the mower, and they now look really good, the grass should come away quite well.
In addition to all that we even moved the big tank off it's stand and onto a dolly so we could redo the stand.
Then today with the tank away from the wall we decided that we should decorate, we went into town, got some test pots (for the stand and the wall), and then proceeded to strip the wallpaper off, we got one wall done!

Also this weekend, I made rubharb chutney (very very yummy), Steph was two lots of devilspawn wool, I've carded four batts of devilspawn (so now just waiting for Steph to make something with it).

I think that's about all this weekend, plenty in my opinion...

Till later.

Shearing day...a few weeks ago

  

The decorating starts

  

A bit lax

Well, as Amy pointed out I've been a bit lax on the old blog, last
weekend Steph and I went to Tauaranga for a 80th birthday party which
was good. We got to catch up with both Steph's parents and mine.

This weekend we intend seperating our sheep for breeding, and starting
to goat proof some of our trees (hopefully it's not too late).

The turkey is still sitting on eggs in the driveway!

We'll see how I go this weekend on the blogging.

Previous few weekends

Well, I haven't posted anything for a while, things have been pretty busy around here. After getting back from Melbourne, that weekend we had to shear 23 lambs, plus help with our neighbour with his. Unfortunatly we discovered that we had a little bit of flystrike (this is where fly land on the poopy backsides and lay eggs hence maggots!). The shearer removed the maggots on the lambs, and I treated the area with flystrick powder, and that was that. We decided to check the rest of the flock (our old ewes and their lambs), once more there was a little bit of flystrike starting, but on our neighbours ewe whom we grazing here at the moment, there was heaps, and she is a VERY big ewe. We ended up we me sitting on her whilst she was laid out on her side, whilst Steph did the deed around her backend. This is one of the more unpleasant jobs.
Oh and on Saturday we also got the goats shorn. Once more they are funny looking things!

That basically wraps up all the stock work, but other things of note are that we currently have a turkey hen sitting on some eggs beside our driveway. We found her when Strider pounced on her!!! Thankfully she was a bit too big for him to kill with one bite like he does with chooks!

Hmm, what else is happening..The big tank is all empty, and I'm starting to get the bits together to create the dolly to move it (so we can decorate that end of the room).

Hm, thats about all at the moment. I'm considering getting broadband soon, if that happens, then expect to see more photos!.

Till Later

Matthew

Melbourne by night

 
 

Horses in Melbourne City Center

 
 

Sunday

Ah, Sunday, a day of rest - yeah right, actually it wasn't too bad. This morning I went to Queen Victoria Market, which was quite good, the market was quite large and very varied. After a long walk back, I was knackered, the humidity is a real killer! I spent the afternoon asleep. I ended going into work around 4pm and got back to the hotel nice and early at around 8:45.

Melbourne Aquarium Sea Tank filtration unit

 
 

Melbourne Aquarium

 
 

Melbourne Aquarium

 
 

Saturday

Woke to a splendid sunrise, but I was too lazy to drag my backside out of bed to go out to photograph it, maybe tomorrow morning! After another three course breakfast, I headed down to the Aquarium, but just as I was about to go in, I noticed the camera battery was flat...So I headed back to the hotel and then decided to go into town instead for some looking around.

Found a neat present for Fee. It was quite funny, I got several phone calls whilst in town and I would amble around whilst on the phone, and at the end of each call, I had no idea where I was! It was a great way to explore.

I got back to the hotel for around 11:30, and the camera battery had just finished charging, so then I had a drink and some yoghurt for lunch and headed back down to the aquarium.

The aquarium was quite a disappointment, it only took me around 30 minutes to go all the way around, Napier is much better. Oh well.

After wandering around Crown Casio Retail center and heading back to the hotel for a nap I met up with Tristan for coffee and lunch. Then it was off to work for another rehersal at 7pm. I was intended heading in for 4pm, but I had a chat with another
of our guys in Sydney, and he had already checked and fixed my previous days attempts.

This trip is actiually being enjoyable!

I trundled into work around 4, ended up getting lost!

Oh well..I got there in the end, and all went well again.

I'm here

 
 

Looking towards Federation Square across the Yarra river

 
 

Federation Square

 
 

The hotel entrance

 
 

Melbourne

Well, I arrived quite safely, didn't see any fires on the way in. The landing was quite bumpy with a fair bit of turbulance during descent. Unfortunatly the net access in the
hotel isn't cheap, so I'll probably only be online for an hour a day (and that's setting me back $10/hour), and probably in the evenings. Ive tried all the the wifi networks available in the hotel, and so far the only one
I've been able to connect to and even remotely do anything with was the "Victoria University" one, but I can't seem to get out yet!
Anyway, today, here it was Australia Day, consequently all the streets were dead and there was a party in Federation Square, which is a few minutes from the hotel. I wandered up and had a look, and then found a bite to eat,
and then came back for a shower and this (in bed by 8:30 local time)

Tomorrow morning I start doing what I'm here for, so somehow I have to work out how to get to Richmond.

Anyway, I'm off now to write an email to Steph, and then jump on the net, post this and hunt out transport, and hopefully some free WiFi around here.

Off to Melbourne

Well, I was supposed to be doing a post of the photos from the tank dismantlement (which went well), but instead this is about Melbourne. Yesterday afternoon I was asked to go to Melbourne for a few days (until Feb 1st). So this afternoon at around 3:45pm I'm flying out! Whilst I'm over there I will try to make reasonably regular posts to the blog with photos etc.
Obviously, if any one was going to ring me for my birthday, don't bother or ring my cell phone (if you want the number, ring Steph).
Anyway, must work.

Till Melbourne.

Last day of the big fish tank

Tomorrow I have the day off, and one of my main tasks, dismantling the 8ft tank, it will be quite a shame to see it all go, but the new one will be really good, hopefully.

Also tomorrow I need to take Hopper to the vets, she has a lump in her leg and is a little bit lame on it, hopefully all will be OK. Then in the afternoon I have Kiwispan (the company that made our barn) coming around to qoute on installing a mezziane floor in the workshop, which would then become the office/lab for my tinkering with electronics and computers, thus freeing up a room in the house.

Getting up to date

So, what has happened recently...Last week Steph and I were both off work so as to paint windows (well the frames anyway). We went with white frames and a nice blue for the sills. We haven't painted the blue yet, but now most of the windows are now painted (just 4 to go!). Also I fixed two broken hoses on the tractor, just two air hoses that had perished; whilst I was doing that I also adjusted the throttle so that it was a bit more accurate.
In between all that we played alot of a new game we bought (Civ4) on the projector.

We're also in the process now of renovating the 8ft fishtank, I've found buyers for all the fish we need to relocate, and set up another tank for the loaches (but I'm having second thoughts about putting them in there!).
We going to convert the tank into a fully planted environment, with CO2 injection, a water fall, very exicting...
I'll put photos up as I make progress, but I think it's going to be very cool when I finish.