Author: Snoskred

Building A Chook Fence

4 Comments Posted on November 28, 2016November 27, 2016 by Snoskred

The previous fence arrangement was Not Great. It worked for the most part AKA it kept the chooks on the lawn where they were meant to be and NOT on the concrete pooping up a storm. However as time went on, it began to biodegrade and holes began to appear.

It was originally meant to be temporary until we built our Queensland room onto the back of the house. Realistically that is a HUGE job and may even require getting council approval depending on what we want to build and how we want to build it.

Normally the chooks ignore the holes but sometimes one would find their way into the promised land. That was no big deal. But when all 5 of them scratched up my seedling bed – seen above with Grumpy before I planted the seedlings in it, it was time to get to work on something a bit more permanent.

I never question the how, what, why, where or when. The Other Half just creates a plan and implements it. I am purely there to assist and sometimes this causes problems when I do not understand his vision. But I must say I am usually very fashionably attired to assist. These are my Aldi $15 wellies which originally were gorgeously shiny, several months of doing chook jobs has dulled them a little. They are due for a good clean.

So his plan involved stardroppers, chicken wire, and wire to tie the chook wire to the stardroppers. That was the time consuming fiddly part of the job.

It did turn out very well indeed.

Here are the girls back out free ranging once it was finished. This photo was taken on the Sunday before Purple Comb became so unwell. You can see she seems perfectly fine, free ranging happily with her besties. However it is more likely she was starting to feel unwell and just very good at hiding it.

I had become very sick of our hose arrangements, and it was time to find a better solution. You know when you change something and it works so well, and you are left wondering why did I not change this thing before? That applies to this hose purchase. It is incredibly useful and has me out watering the plants way more often than ever before. Which can only be great for the plants in the long run.

Life goes on, for the girls. They do seem to be sticking together in their flock more, just recently. They are still being spoiled rotten with blueberries, baby spinach, corn on the cooler days, tuna, strawberries, and occasionally scrambled eggs as well.

If we make it through the summer with 4 chooks remaining, we will be very lucky. Rosie and Dark Comb are over 6 years old now. Lizzy and Kitty are expected by our vets to have shorter than expected lives due to the early vitamin deficiencies their previous owner inflicted upon them by feeding the wrong food. We will make their remaining days as great as they can be.

Chickens, country life, Home

Kitties On A Friday 1

5 Comments Posted on November 25, 2016November 24, 2016 by Snoskred

You can’t even tell this eye had surgery now.

For the next 6 weeks, we are going to enjoy a kitty photo on Fridays!

kitties

Sydney to Gold Coast

4 Comments Posted on November 23, 2016November 23, 2016 by Snoskred

Monday 23rd October was another absolutely gorgeous day for travelling.

Officially on the road just after 8am, we wanted to go via the Sydney Harbour Bridge which none of us had ever driven over. Of course we picked the worst possible time of day to do this, but it did not add too much to the trip time when we checked it vs the other possible route.

Once we got over the bridge, we set the next waypoint for Heatherbrae Pies near Newcastle, and we were there by 10:30am. All the way to Newcastle, there was this white Hyundai i30 which would slow down so we would overtake it, then they would speed up and overtake us, then they would slow down and we would overtake them again..

It is actually pretty rare for any one vehicle to be near our car for longer than 10-15 minutes. We were sure they would stop at Heatherbrae too, but they did not and drove off never to be seen again by us. Overall the Hyundai i30 was the most overtaken vehicle during our trip. There are a lot of these out on the roads.

The boys chose the Ned Kelly pie and I had the bacon quiche which was very yummy. There was a slice of tomato hidden in the bottom, FYI those who do not like tomato. The boys had ordered milkshakes which seemed to take forever to arrive and when they did arrive, they were not in takeaway cups, so this extended our stop slightly.

Back on the road we set the next waypoint of The Big Banana at Coffs Harbour. I wanted me that chocolate covered frozen banana! We did also have to stop for fuel on the way. The banana was everything I hoped it would be. One fellow traveller chose the frozen banana as well, the other chose the banana bread. The kitchen was closed as it was about 3:30pm by the time we arrived.

On the way we saw some of the motorsport trucks heading back down the coast after the Gold Coast 600. Sephyroth always has the camera ready, and he got a shot of the Erebus convoy.

I had packed plenty of car snacks so we were all set for snacks and the pie/quiche was an early lunch. The boys got hungry again near Grafton and we stopped at the Transit Centre which I am not sure we would return to. I had heard great things but the reality did not live up and at the time we were there the restaurant was not open.

If we were planning this trip a second time, I would plan an overnight stop on this drive. We’ve done it before as a day drive, but it is a long day and my other half loves driving and truly enjoys it, plus we have a Ford Focus X-R5 turbo which makes it awesome. I would not suggest doing this trip in one day to anyone else. Especially not overseas tourists. :)

As the sun was setting we saw a lot of kangaroos in fields near the roads and I began to worry somewhat about that. Where we live, I know where the roos hang out and where to avoid, I did not know that for where we were at dusk and I think that is somewhat vital info.

Luckily no wildlife jumped in front of us, and we made it safely to the Gold Coast around 8:30pm – having lost an hour at the border. So 9:30pm AEDT. I think our American friend did pretty well this day, he did not fall asleep very much along the way. Around 7pm he took a nap for about an hour.

Next week – I will tell you about our apartment at Peninsula Apartments. The view was pretty awesome. The other stuff, not quite so great.

(Apologies this is late, I meant to finish this yesterday afternoon but obviously plans did not go as planned)

Gold Coast, Snoskred Travels 2016, Sydney

Vale Purple Comb

4 Comments Posted on November 22, 2016November 22, 2016 by Snoskred

The first very hot day here always poses a bit of a danger for the older chooks we have and Purple Comb one of our much loved girls had to be euthanized today.

Yesterday the girls were perfectly fine though it was a hot day – I let them out around 10am and all 5 of them spent the day happily roaming the new grassy areas they had access to. Like the princesses they are, they received their blueberry treats gracefully. When a thunderstorm blew in The Other Half herded them all back into their enclosure.

First thing this morning when I took the girls their ice water she was hiding in their special nest spot – which apparently we have not managed to stop them getting into. I figured she was broody and there was probably eggs there, so I left her be. Broodies know when they need to get off the nest to eat, drink and poop.

Around 3pm I noticed Purple Comb standing at the back of the enclosure, near the special nest spot. I’ll take her some blueberries, the other girls had already had theirs. As I got closer I could see she did not look like a well chook, and when I gave her the blueberry she could not manage to eat it, though she did try. Then she pooped and I will not tell you more about that, but I knew from what I saw, this was not going to be a good outcome even if we did try the spa treatment.

The 3 English Game Hens together when we first got them.Purple Comb is on the right

Owning chooks is a big responsibility sometimes, and days where you have to make that big end of life decision are the worst days. When I know for sure it is time I get the chook to the vet as quick as possible.

The girls will usually hide their illness as long as they can, then they will tell you very clearly in various ways, how they are standing, the fact that they do not move away when you approach, not wanting their favourite treats and finally that they do not even try to run off when you go to pick them up. You can rarely pick up a healthy chook, they’ll be gone before you can blink. If we want to dose them with medicine or dust them with poultry dust we have to take them off the roost at night.

So into the house I went, collected a pet carrier, collected her and put her in it, then I took her inside to sit in the cool airconditioning while I called the vet and told them I was on my way.

The Other Half is usually the person who holds the chook but he was at work, so I had to do it today. Oh, I could have easily just handed the carrier to the vets and let them do the needful, but I want my girls to have someone in the room they know. She is now buried in the garden just under one of her favourite dust baths, near Red Comb.

The two remaining English Game Hens together after Red Comb went to Rainbow Bridge. Purple Comb is on the left. How can I tell, you ask? I just can. Dark Comb is on the right. Her comb used to be darker but over time it has become more purple and you really could have got confused if you did not know them like I do. :) It is more about the feathers on their breast plate and how they sit.

On Sunday after we completed the chicken fence, I let the girls out to free range. Purple Comb found a HUGE spider by the fence, she killed it quickly and then was trying to eat it while all the other girls tried to steal it. She clucked joyously as she did it and it took her a good 5 minutes to eat. Once she finished eating it, she trumpeted the story of how delicious it was to the other girls, who were not at all impressed by her story. That will be my strongest memory of her, though there are so many other great memories.

As I always post when this happens – there are 4 other chickens in the yard for whom life continues. They live minute by minute, sucking the most joy out of each and every moment, whether it is a dirt bath, finding a bug, eating a treat from the humans.. all we can do is love them while they’re here, protect them the best we can from predators, know when it is time to let them go, and remember them when they are gone.

May there be as many blueberries as you can eat at the Rainbow Bridge where you now rejoin your beloved sister Red Comb – she has been waiting for you! Plus White Sussex, Ancona, Mary, Twiggy and Big Kitty. You will be greatly missed here.

Vale Pets

Chooks Are Bad

5 Comments Posted on November 21, 2016November 20, 2016 by Snoskred

Thursday last week, I let the chooks out to free range. When they are out ranging, I tend to stand at the back door and watch them from time to time during the day. I checked on them about 3:30pm.

When I checked again at 5pm, they had somehow managed to knock the orange fence down that separates them from the potplant and concrete area, and one or several of them had got into my large plant pot.

I had planted some silverbeet and kale before we went on holidays, just to see how it did. We have not had a lot of luck recently with seedlings at all. Well now two of the new plants had been pulled out completely and dirt thrown everywhere by some very naughty girls. All of them were involved, we watched it on the CCTV cameras. I took some screenshots for you!

You can see Grumpy lying in the sun inside the door there, casually watching the carnage. It is not entirely their fault, as the orange fence had seemingly begun to biodegrade. They’d managed to put some holes in it and sneak through before, but usually we have spotted them before they had a chance to do anything bad, and they would quickly leave when we went out there.

Look at Rosie there, overseeing the goings on, like the grande dame she is.

I went out into the pen pretending like I had a treat to give them, they all followed me into the pen, and I locked them up for the day. Bad girls, I said! You should have seen their sad chook faces as they all stood by the door, hoping I would forgive *and* forget. I counted them, as I always do when I put them away. 12345, I thought. Yep, all in.

Game Hen 1

But worse news was to come for the girls – when I told The Other Half what they had done, we agreed that the orange netting which was serving as a fence had to come down and we had to come up with another solution. He went out and took down the fence, and swept the concrete as we have had a lot of leaves blow down recently.

Game Hen 2

The next morning, when the other half went to feed them, he only saw 4 chooks. He knocked on the back door and told me one of the game hens was missing. Impossible, I said. I remember counting them when I put them away. I went to get dressed, by the time I got back he had found the missing girl, who had made herself a lovely nest in an invisible spot, behind a gum tree in among some aloe vera at the very back of their enclosure.

When I went back out there around 10am to check on them, they did not get let out to free range, again. They could not quite believe it. I had gone out to get one of their water containers and bring it inside. It was a 38 degree day and they needed some ice water. When I went back out with the water, they did not get let out, again! They did not realise they now had no fence at all stopping them from pooping on the concrete or getting into the plant pots.

How did she even manage to squeeze in there?

The next day, perhaps in protest at not being let out, perhaps just out of spite or because it is fun, the game hens laid their eggs in the special hiding nest. We used some wire to bring the wire fence closer to the tree, so this spot is no longer accessible to the girls. Yesterday we built them a new fence, which is a story for another blog post, and I will tell you that story next Monday.

Chickens

The Space Needle

2 Comments Posted on November 18, 2016November 18, 2016 by Snoskred

family, photography

Our Trip Part 1 – Meriton Mascot

3 Comments Posted on November 16, 2016November 15, 2016 by Snoskred

We drove up to Sydney from the South Coast of NSW on an absolutely gorgeous day. We planned a stop at the new car wash at the airport – just near Krispy Kreme and the Maccas and KFC there, as the car had been camping the weekend before and was covered in possum footprints.

Yes, a member of the camping party who shall remain nameless left hotdog buns in their car with the window down. Consequently the possum decided to try and get into all the cars, in case other goodies lived there. Our car did not have a window down, but apparently the possum was unaware of this and kept trying to get in..

The car wash was excellent – and lucky I took a photo of the sign because now we know they have eftpos, which is handy as I have made a decision to go cash free. But that is a story for another post. :)

On arrival at the Meriton we drove into the carpark, which has some impressive gates that open automatically. We took a ticket and drove in, trying to work out where we could park. Many of the carparks had “SA” painted on them – it turned out these were the right parks to use, for serviced apartment.

We were staying in order to pick up Sephyroth who was flying in from the USA at the airport the next morning. We arrived around 12:30pm on Sunday and were surprised to be able to check in right away, thanks to the lovely Carmen who took excellent care of us.

We headed straight up to our room (610) to check it out and drop off some items. The room was excellent – very clean, the bed was comfortable, everything was exactly how it should be. Someone else here said they found the lounge furniture to be hard, we actually found it to be about perfect for us. I especially liked the single stand alone lounge chair.

The day before I had been checking our route on RTA live traffic and I discovered there was a Mascot food festival on the Sunday we arrived. We had been thinking of going to the night noodle markets as the train is so convenient to the Meriton, but we decided to check out the food fair instead. It was very busy and the food was excellent. For lunch we chose chicken teriyaki from Tsuru which was served on a bed of seasoned french fries.

What a fantastic location this Meriton is in. You have everything you could possibly want nearby, a supermarket albeit Woolworths who I broke up with as you may recall, cafes, pizza places, a charcoal chicken place.. There are a lot of eateries some of which do have menus in the hotel book in the room.

The one downside of this location is wind related. Being near the airport sometimes the winds can be quite strong here and the way the buildings have been placed can create a bit of a wind tunnel effect.

You will probably want to bring a jacket for those times you are running out to the local shops etc. I’m not sure how much use the balconies would get on those especially windy days but if it was a calm day we would have sat out there and enjoyed the planes flying by.

(Photo credit Meriton Mascot)

After the food fair we decided to use the pool and spa. We went by to check it out first and discovered there is also a steam room. The facilities here are great, and there is a gym as well with all the things you could want. The pool was a bit on the cold side, so we sat in the spa for a while and then tried the steam room which was brilliant. Soooo hot in there, we actually got back in the pool afterwards to cool off. There are towels supplied so you don’t have to use the ones in the room to go to the pool.

The one improvement I would suggest to Meriton Mascot is to put at least two hooks on the back of the bathroom doors. There just needs to be slightly more hanging space in the bathroom and two hooks would do the trick. These mirrors you see hide cupboards where you can store items if you like, the hairdryer is in there as well.

We had afternoon coffee from the in room coffee machine. It is a pod machine which uses pods you can get at Woolworths (Vittorio). We are coffee drinkers who travel with our own Nespresso but we figured it was not worth unpacking it from the car for just one coffee. On tasting the coffee, we changed our minds somewhat but it was too late.

I had seen pizzas from Tavolino at the food fair and that is what we chose for dinner. It was expensive for what we got, but very nice.

After an early dinner we headed to bed early because we had to be up at 5:30. We slept very well, the beds were comfortable and the pillows were fairly decent. We did not have enough space in the car to pack our own, which we would usually do. We loved the “bed pod” – the room has sliding doors which seem to add a soundproof element to the room.

At around 4am my other half jumped out of bed to run out of the room and turn off what he thought was my phone alarm. It was actually a toilet flush from upstairs. Luckily he was able to go back to sleep fairly quickly and our actual alarm went off at the correct time, so we showered and got in the car ready for our trip to the airport, as our friend had landed and was on his way through customs.

The airport pickup went as planned, we returned to the hotel for Sephyroth to have a quick shower before setting off for our drive. While he was showering, I ran down to Oliver Brown which opened at 7am to grab a couple of mochas and a latte to start the morning off right. I chose the Belgium dark mocha and it was amazing. So much flavour in a cup!

We had already packed everything in the car ready to go before our airport trip, so it was just a quick sweep of the room to make sure we did not forget anything, a quick check out – we had already validated the carparking ticket on check in, so we did not have to spend much time there.

Recent just ok experiences at another airport hotel had us looking for a new place to stay near Sydney and we think we have found it here. We liked that the carpark had a lot of single car spaces – not such a fan of the $25 fee but that is actually cheap for Sydney car parking and it allows you to enter and exit as many times as you like for 24 hours.

I imagine though, if we brought our car for another visit, we would likely park it in the carpark and not take it out until it was time to leave, because everything you could want or need is within walking distance and catching the train into Sydney is a much better option than trying to park in Sydney.

We were only here for one night at the start of our trip so we did not make use of the in room laundry facilities, but it is great to know they are there for future trips.

I suspect this hotel would be an excellent location for Sydney visitors to base themselves for all – or the the latter part if they have an early flight out – of any stay, due to the self catering aspect, the close transport links and the airport shuttle bus.

Overall we loved the Meriton Mascot and would absolutely return for another stay.

Wednesdays will be devoted to travel posts, for a little while. I have many things to share with you! ;)

Next week – our drive from Sydney to the Gold Coast. In one day. Because we are wacky like that. :)

Snoskred Travels 2016, Sydney

Not My Monkeys

3 Comments Posted on November 14, 2016November 13, 2016 by Snoskred

I saw someone on Facebook, saying that Australians had no right to comment on the US elections, because we cannot vote there.

You make an excellent point, random person. Yes, we cannot vote in the USA. It truly is a case of not my monkeys, not my circus.

But you know something? Though I do not live there, I still care about the people who have to work, live, sleep, eat, poop etc, in that country.

Perhaps I should not care, but I do.

I feel that neither of the choices were good. But I still cannot quite believe that a delusional orange combover got elected president.

It was a terribly depressing day especially as I was sitting here watching it with an actual American who was visiting my country. The day afterwards, we went to Canberra for a visit to Parliament House – we’d both never been – and the Doug Anthony Allstars concert. We needed a good laugh, and we certainly got one that night.

Our politicians are not much better, but at least if we get sick we will not go bankrupt, and we are protected with a safety net if we lose our jobs.

I wish better things for your people, America. I always have. So many of us have.

I will be back on Wednesday with part 1 of our trip report.

US Elections, US Politics

More Alaska

Posted on November 11, 2016October 6, 2016 by Snoskred

Remember, Snoskred is on holiday at the moment. Comments are turned off.

I will be back on board with new posts next Monday, YAY!

family, Snoskred On Holidays

Adelaide Botanic Gardens

Posted on November 9, 2016October 6, 2016 by Snoskred

In the old hot house they had a large pond which was full of livebearing tropical fish. This no longer exists, sadly. This pond was one of my favourite places in the world to visit.

Remember, Snoskred is on holiday at the moment. Comments are turned off.

adelaide, Snoskred On Holidays