Life at Home

This post is for Jonny and Ming Ming, and also for Joanne Noragon ... they have missed reading about what happens around this place.

....We have drunk lots of tea..white tea, green tea, ginger tea....we love them all.



George had a mountain of ash logs delivered, we then had the great fun of wheel barrowing them around the fruit garden, up round the house, through the vegetable garden and up to the log store.

Our cheeks were glowing rosy by the time we finished that little job.

If the predictions of an arctic winter should come to pass, then at least we have plenty of logs to feed the Rayburn and the fires. The log man didn't come alone, he had two wonderful canine friends with him...



One was very shy and stayed out of sight, however, this little chap was determined to have some attention, he is called Monty.

The shy one is a rescue dog. He spent the first nine months of his life confined to a kennel, no walks, no interaction. The log man rescued him and he now has a wonderful life with Monty.

Show-off Sparky

Bennie plays hide and seek behind the books

The cats are having such a lot of fun - days are spent hunting mice and rats, running up trees, chasing Toby-dog, stalking the hens.

Then they spend cosy evenings indoors...Ben likes to find new and interesting places to hide from Sparky.

Here she is tucked between the wall and the books in our bedroom.

Toby watching the hens

Toby continues to plod along - here he is focused on the hens as they ramble around the woodland, he finds them fascinating...so do the cats.

Frankie, Boadicea, Xiao Ji and Isadora

Here are the girls. Their new feathers are coming through thick and fast now, their combs are pinking up and they are happy and healthy.

They roam around the woodland from dawn to dusk scratting in the soil and doing chickeny things.

Today we left the woodland gate open and allowed them the freedom of the garden. It didn't take them long to make their way across the gardens to the kitchen door. It was almost like old times with the other hens. Their characters are developing and they come running when we call or whistle for them.

Harry is settling well into school, he still gets tired at the end of the day, but then he is only four and a half years old! He has a small speaking part in the school nativity play - he is to be the inn keeper. George and I will be at his school a week on Monday when he makes his debut.

This little poppet is doing well, she is on the brink of walking by herself...just not quite ready to relinquish her hold on someone's finger or the furniture, even though they are scarcely needed.

I have also been having a major sort through my books and clothes. Five huge sacks of clothes have gone to a charity shop in Louth, I have also thinned out some of the books from the Dressing Room. If I could repeat this exercise many times over I could finally begin to live clutter-free...it won't happen, but I keep trying.

xx

PS I am so excited about seeing you both in the summer. Three whole weeks, wonderful!

North Loop of Yellowstone

Early start this morning - touring the North loop of Yellowstone National Park. Temperature was 41 deg when I left West Yellowstone.

Walked some at one of the pools and another walk at Gibbons Falls. Legs and knee were doing pretty good. (Not 100%, but pretty good). I took it easy as I had a long day ahead yet.

At Norris Geyser Basin - the walk was almost too much for me. Wanted to get some good photos. Did NOT walk down to the bottom of the basin. But it was an effort to get back to the car. Didn't help that I left my walking stick in the car.

By the time I arrived Mammoth Hot Springs, I was getting hungry. Stopped at the Terrace Grill (fast food). Needed some nourishment and coffee. Back up to the Springs. Drove the upper loop and did a short walk.

There was road construction in the Tower Falls area. Almost passed on stopping there because the lot was full. But, someone left, and I parked. Started leaving the parking lot when remembered I forgot my walking stick. Grabbed that and headed the path to the falls. Only walked to the upper viewing deck. That was enough by the time I got the the gift shop. Did a little shopping and headed back on the road towards W. Yellowstone.

Drove the one-way road past Virginia Cascades -- not a good view angle form the road (without walking down the road a bit). My legs would not handle that.

Back in West Yellowstone, I did some more shopping, early dinner at the Outpost Restaurant. From there, Gas up the car and stop in the grocery store for sports drinks. Finally, back in my motel. Body is exhausted and my legs are sore.

Got my photos processed. Today's photo is of a moose (or were they elk?) family in Madison River. Now off to bed!

Compliments of Cass

This Photo spree is thanx to Cass Gilbert. A man with a fantastic eye for photos and an enormous love for riding bikes in remote places.

These were all taken on our first week cycling south from Huaraz Peru-

Strange cat sleeping positions #142

On top of another cat.
(Visit the Friday Ark for more critters.)

In search of surf

As winter approaches, we get more Canadian air in Chicago. When the winds are out of the northeast, Chicago gets the big waves; when they're out of the northwest, Lower Michigan gets pounded. And in either case, some of them bend south toward Indiana.

Friday's Force 7 winds subsided considerably overnight. By Saturday morning, Indiana was the beneficiary of lovely, well-formed waves. Even though the air temperature was around freezing and the water temperature was in the mid-40s, the combination of sunshine and light winds made for perfect paddling conditions near Portage, a nice midway point for paddlers from Illinois and Michigan.

Keith Wikle, representing Michigan, dons his neoprene, dreaming of the Santa Cruz Surf Kayak Festival.

Hauling the boats down the hill.

There were icicles on the railings along the pier, but as long as we kept moving, we stayed pretty warm.

Warming up before heading out onto the lake.

After about two hours, everybody was ready for some hot tea and dry clothes. We loaded our boats and gear, emptied our thermoses, and drove off to the east and the west, grateful for another good day on the water.

The parking lot, post-paddling.

Going west

This post is actually two weeks old, but at the time I was getting desperate. I'd had mechanical failures on four consecutive weekends, and I REALLY wanted to finish a long ride, ANY long ride. Consequently, I decided on a change of scenery, and headed west through Canungra, bypassing Beaudesert on the Mundoolun road (new territory) to end up at Jimboomba. I picked a reasonably pleasant day, and spent most of the day riding through rolling hills in surprising greenery (surprising, because that isn't always the case west of Canungra). There were even a couple of unseasonal flowers out on the Mundoolun road.

The arrival at Jimboomba on 72km turned into a mess, as there was nowhere in town to refill water bottles as all the faucets have been removed from the taps in the park, perhaps a relic of the drought of the mid 2000's. I then realised I'd left my money at home, so buying bottled water was going to be a problem. Fortunately I had enough change lying around in my rack bag to get something -- who said cleaning out these things was a good suggestion? Now I had to be careful. I knew there would be water available at the top of Mt Tamborine, but I had to get there without running out.

I was somewhat fortunate in that the temperature only reached 30 degrees C, an unusually cool day for this summer. I rode out of town on to the Mt Lindesay highway for a short distance (this was the busiest I've ever seen it), before turning off to Camp Cable Road, then on to Tamborine Road, again pushing up and down over rolling hills, before starting the 7km climb to the top of Mt Tamborine. The first 2-3km of this climb are pretty tough, before it levels out into a very pleasant switchback road. The higher parts of this road in the rainforest used to offer a great view of Curtis falls, but this is now pretty overgrown, so there is no waterfall shot in this post.
Tamborine itself was busy as usual for a Sunday, but fortunately there was only one moron who decided to stop dead in the middle of the road for no readily apparent reason, so all was well. Astonishingly, the water tank where I normally refill had run dry, so I ended up swiping some water from a tap at the Eagle Heights pub. I suppose all's well that ends well. I then set off on the steep descent, pausing at Welches Road at the bottom for another layer of sunscreen. I saw a couple of mountain bikers coming back from a rendezvous toward the end of that road, but didn't think to ask them where they'd been. Looks like I'll be forced to explore that one for myself later on.
After this it was a fairly straight forward ride home, with one more climb of note at Wongawallan. Wongawallan is an interesting climb in that it MUST be attacked. Riding defensively will not suffice (as a friend of mine found out when he snapped a chain there). If you just try to survive that climb, you won't. With this in mind, I found enough for an attack, and enjoyed the screaming descent into Oxenford. You learn something new everyday, and on this day I learned that Kevin Rudd will be calling an early election in Australia in the near future. How do I know this? Because the people responsible for the perpetual road construction at Hope Island (road work for six consecutive years and counting) have actually moved all their junk off the road.
Someone has obviously received orders from above on this matter, which suggests an election is not far off. After this is was simply a matter of cruising home with a tailwind, a result of yet another unseasonal northerly wind on a day I chose to ride a century, but this time I outsmarted it by taking a different route. The final tally was around 164km, but I can't give an exact measure because my computer stopped working somewhere around Oxenford. I am REALLY running out of patience with wireless cycle computers, but that's a rant for another post.

A Tea Olive, An Autumn Bouquet, and Pink Damask

I bought this lovely bouquet at Wal-Mart last week. It was forgotten in the car until the next day when it was discovered with no lasting damage. A quick cutting off of the stems and a little packet of miracle reviver added to the water, and it is good as new.
I treated myself to a slow walk-through of a favorite thrift store yesterday, and I found this mint condition pink damask tablecloth with ten matching napkins. The reason it isn't on the table is because of the 4-H mini-booth you see in the background. I hope to reclaim the table for Sunday dinner as the project has to be turned in to the fair this Saturday.
And the scent of the tea olive is divine this time of year. I can smell it from every room. It grows about fifteen feet high at the bottom of the back porch steps and reaches all the way to the roof of the second-storey balcony attached to our bedroom. I just love the way the blossoms fall like rain and look so lovely on the steps.