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  • On the dirt

    We went driving in the truck this morning, up Shaws Pocket Road, which I had read a bit about online. If you look at the road on maps, you can see that it narrows down and continues through past a quarry to somewhere in Ormeau. After reading various forums online, I’m still not sure whether access to the road is entirely legal. It’s on maps, and there’s no signs forbidding access, but I have a feeling that if you follow it all the way to Ormeau it might go through some private land, particularly the bit near the quarry.

    It was the first time we’d actually driven the truck in four wheel drive, so we locked the hubs in and headed up the steep dirt track. I wouldn’t want to go up there if it was raining, not unless we were much more experienced – it feels very steep, and there’s lots of dips in the track that would fill up with water. We only followed it for a little while, coming across one trail rider who saw us, swung around and rode away again (which somewhat confirms my feelings about the legality of access). I think it takes you up a ridge and then along the top of a range of hills – we could glimpse views down into the surrounding valleys through the trees.

    I would be tempted to try out heading into the Logan Village pine forest, which is literally at the end of our street, but there’s plenty of signs around there forbidding access to cars and bikes. Despite that, it’s constantly full of trail bikes, judging by the noise on weekends, but it would be rather difficult to pretend you weren’t supposed to be in there – and I think the police do occasionally do some patrolling through there. I have this strange desire not to get arrested for trespassing. I think we’ll just stick to unsigned tracks and hope for the best.

  • Snippets

    ♠ The instructor moved me up to a 12kg kettlebell at bootcamp this morning before we did about thirty thousand squats. My legs are killing me, in an enjoyable sort of way.

    ♠ The husband and I are almost two weeks into a six week diet of no wheat, dairy, sugar, alcohol and caffeine. I feel incredibly energetic, and am thinking about making certain aspects of it a permanent dietary change, at least during the week – despite the fact that I seem to be spending a fair bit of time thinking about cheese. And chocolate.

    ♠ My latest mild addiction to an iPhone game – Mastermind.

    ♠ Our woodheater might serve as a home for possums for most of the year, but for about two months in winter I am grateful for its help in heating our airy wooden house. The possums are probably less thankful.

    ♠ After an unfortunate incident with a fox a few weeks ago, I had to go and buy some new chooks for residency in Chickendome. They were older than the first group of chooks, and have started laying already. They haven’t had the run of the garden yet – I’m being much more cautious with letting them out, given that I know there’s hungry foxes around. “The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night” is off the list of songs to play for a while.

  • Long weekends

    We stayed in Stanthorpe over the long weekend, and did a walk in Girraween National Park to Castle Rock – it’s about a 5k return walk, with the most fantastic views up at the top of the rock. It was overcast and freezing, as we were trying to fit our walk before the forecast rain, which helpfully arrived later in the evening. Despite the temperature we got hot while walking and took off our jumpers – we were amused when descending (in our shorts and t-shirts) to see other people beginning the climb in long pants, jumpers, beanies, gloves – it wasn’t that cold. And I was pleased I actually had removed the jumper I’d borrowed from the husband, as it has a pair of mating unicorns on it and I feel a bit self conscious when people give it sideways glances.

    “What was James Bond’s number again? Zeros… it has zeros in it. Nine zero zero?”
    “Are you kidding?”
    “Oh! Double oh seven. I remember now. Well, it does have two zeros in it.”
    “Nine zero zero? [in evil Bond villain voice] ‘Come come, Nine Zero Zero – you enjoy killing as much as I do.’”
    “If double oh seven is a license to kill, what is nine zero zero’s license? To severely bruise?”
    “It’s a license to carry a hammer.”
    “Is it a license to carry a concealed hammer?”
    “No, not concealed – just out in the open, in a hip holster.”

    Apart from walking, we also occupied ourselves visiting wineries and gardens, playing tennis on the derelict grass tennis court where we were staying, and eating enormous amounts of cheese and wheat and sugar. We planned to do a six week cleanse when we returned home, and frankly I think there is no healthier way to start a cleanse than by filling yourself full of crap.

    [The husband is in the kitchen of our cabin as the football comes on.]
    “I’ll commentate for you, shall I? That was a tackle. That was another tackle. They’ve kicked the ball. Oooh, it just hit someone in the head. Now a Titan has grabbed the ball and fallen out of the field.”
    [The TV commentators scream, “What a magnificent try!”]
    “Yes, thanks all the same, I think I’ll just come and watch it myself.”

    Bee IV

    The sun burned through the clouds on our last morning, and I found a bee and played around with my macro lens. I feel I am finally getting the hang of this lens, particularly when there’s plenty of sunshine – it either needs flash or a lot of light if you’re getting really close to something. I love getting so close to a bee, and being able to see all the little tiny hairs on its legs – bees don’t seem particularly bothered by an camera lens following them around. They’re focussed on the task at hand.

  • Scritch, scratch

    Last night I was sitting at my laptop, while ostensibly supervising some spaghetti cooking on the stove (my last two attempts at cooking gluten free spaghetti had resulted in nasty sludgey texture, so I was trying to take more care with the cooking process this time) when I heard the possum that lives in the chimney rattling around, as it does most evenings when it heads up to the roof and out to rampage around. Yes, I know it’s odd that it lives in the chimney, but I suppose it’s dark and protected, and for most of the year it’s unused. Given that we live in a semi-tropical area. But whenever it gets chilly and we light fires, it doesn’t seem to bother the possum. Maybe it’s addicted to wood smoke.

    Anyway, I began to half listen to an irritating sort of scratching noise, which I ignored while nurturing a simmering annoyance at the cats, who seem to spend their time either sleeping or destroying something. I presumed they were busily destroying something and ignored the noise, but it persisted. I looked up to find a rather fat possum wedged behind the glass door of the wood heater, sitting on a partially charred log, and scratching hopefully at the glass. Horace was standing in front of the heater with his head to one side, looking slightly bemused.

    We had seen the possum in the wood heater once before, so I presumed it would make its way up the chimney again. I went and stirred the spaghetti and sat down at the laptop again. The possum stared at me, unmoving. I felt a bit self conscious. I went and flapped my hand at it through the glass, hoping to frighten it up into the chimney again, but it continued to gaze mournfully at me. I drained the spaghetti, which had cooked perfectly for a change. I think it depends on the batch you get – well, that sounds better than blaming my slapdash cooking method, anyway.

    Eventually the husband returned to the house, and I showed him with the wood heater, now with all new possum resident. We looked at the possum. The possum looked at us. We wondered what the possum would do if we let it out into the house, and decided it probably wouldn’t get on with the cats.

    We ended up forming a little tunnel out of a sheet we held up between the heater and the back door, and then we slowly opened the door to the wood heater. The possum hopped down, and slowly waddled off out the door, its dignity somewhat bruised, its fur covered in soot. Hopefully it will go and find itself a slightly more suitable new home. We ate our spaghetti. The cats went to sleep. And all was right with the world.

  • Stuff we’ve tried recently

    ♠ Some (fairly) locally grown coffee – the Espresso Blend from Zeta’s Coffee, which is grown in the Tweed Valley. We bought it through Food Connect. I really liked this coffee, but I don’t think I know enough about coffee to describe why. It was warm and round and mellow? I don’t know. It was good, and we definitely prefer it to the packets of Vittoria that we get from the supermarket. Next time we’re going to try a bag of their Single Origin.

    ♠ We got a copy of Dominion, which is a hugely popular card based game – you have a set of cards, and you play around exchanging and buying things, and the aim is to build up your dominion, buying cards that represent estates and duchys and provinces. It’s a lot of fun, can be played by two people, and the variety of the cards means that the game changes a fair bit depending on how you decide to set it up. In fact, the set up and the re-sorting of the cards after each game is the only painful factor. It’s the first card based game I’ve played, and I think I’m a fan.

    ♠ We also bought Pandemic, which is a board game played co-operatively with between 2 to 4 people – you have to work together to prevent the spread of several diseases over the world, and try and make cures and eradicate disease. We’ve only played it once so far, and we were thrashed by the game. It’s depressing, being thrashed by a game. But I’m looking forward to playing again.

    ♠ Another board game from my board game buying SPREE – Castle Panic! has the best name of the games I bought. It has a similar vibe to Pandemic, in that you’re working in a team against the monsters who are trying to overrun your castle. It says “Ages 10+” on the box, and it’s appropriately easier and more child friendly than Pandemic. In the interests of full disclosure, we also would have been beaten by the game if we hadn’t blatantly cheated – we’d just been beaten by Pandemic and by god, we weren’t letting it happen again. In our defence – it was late at night? We don’t play many board games? Oh, ok, there’s no defence. But we felt better having beaten the monsters back. Even if we hadn’t done so with honour.

    ♠ We went to a house concert by some folk artists that we really enjoyed – Jonny Dyer and Vicki Swan – and we’ve been listening to their CD, Gleowien. It’s full on British folk – pipes and whistles – with a bit of a twist, because Vicki Swan plays a Swedish instrument called a nyckelharpa. If you like folk, you’d enjoy it – but even the husband, who’s not such a folk fan, enjoys it for the musicianship. Musicianship? You know – excellent playing of the instruments.

    ♠ Kenilworth probiotic honey yoghurt, which we bought when driving through on the Easter weekend (although I think it’s also stocked at Woolworths, but that’s not as fun as buying it direct). Amazing stuff. All honey-ish and creamy and generally delicious.

  • Bubbles

    I have learnt several lessons this weekend. Never introduce a three and a half year old child to whoopee cushions. Never give her stickers and glitter and crayons and tell her to play on the floor. Never open up a “Make Your Own Ballerina Doll” kit that cost $5 and has been in the back of the cupboard for years – there’s a reason it cost $5, and it involves sewing. I sewed the most misshapen Frankenstein-like ballerina doll ever, apparently designed to strike fear into the hearts of all around it, and the three and half year old politely declined to take it with her. “I think it won’t fit in my bag,” she said awkwardly, holding her empty backpack.

    We played Dominion for the first time, which is (once we got the hang of it) a really fun and fast card based game. And incredibly popular, I see from the internet. I won twice. I am victorious. I also mastered the art of flopping the baby over my shoulder until he fell asleep, and then performing an elaborately silent ritual of slowly lowering him into the couch without waking him up. A skill for the CV, that one. He twitched and murmured in his sleep while we noisily played Dominion next to him, probably dreaming milky dreams.

  • Produce

    The chooks thought long and hard about the best way to begin the Easter weekend, and thought it was an appropriate time to start laying eggs. They’re very witty, our chooks. And aren’t they the most beautiful eggs you’ve ever seen? Speaking objectively?

    We ate some of them for breakfast, and they were delicious, with vivid orange yolks. And the largest egg was a double-yolker – proof of chooky happiness, I think. They’re pretty easy creatures to content – some feed and water, some vegie scraps, some straw to hurl around and space to explore – and the occasional handful of sunflower seeds to completely blow their minds with delight.

  • Stuck in the mud

    On the Easter weekend, we went rural. Well, a little more rural than usual. We first headed to Mapleton, where we stayed with some friends, and took a little walk to visit the spot in the bush where they got married. I detoured from the path and got stuck in some mud. My walking shoes will never look the same. The husband peered at me as I flailed around with one foot lodged in the ground, and said “What are you doing?” in a disapproving tone, like it was a new and eccentric hobby I was experimenting with. First the ukulele, now getting stuck in mud. Will it never end?

    I got to have a little browse in the local secondhand bookstore (if we’re visiting somewere and there’s an open secondhand bookstore, there’s always time for a browse – one of the lessor known laws of physics), and found an old copy of a collection of James Tiptree Jr short stories (a generally out of print sci fi author). I took it back and the baby (currently nicknamed The Rodent) decided to have a nibble. Mmm, tasty science fiction.

    While driving:
    “Do you think motorbike riders like each other?”
    “No. They shoot each other.”
    “No, I don’t mean gangs. I mean, when they’re out on their bike and they see another bike rider – do you think it gives them a warm comforting feeling?”
    “Like they’ve peed themselves?”

    We drove further north, to hang out with Andrew, Esther and family, including their new baby. He vomited on me several times during the weekend, which I think was either a sign of favour, or his way of saying, “Could you stop whirring me around in the air like a toy, madam?” I am fond of the astounded, gleeful expression babies get when you fly them round like little fat wingless birds. I could do without the curdled milk landing on me afterwards though. And the horrified howling when you try and wipe said curdled milk from the baby’s face. Oh, the torture of having one’s face wiped.

    We spent an afternoon together on the lawn drinking wine, sketching and playing music. Unfortunately my talents at sketching and music are not improved by the consumption of wine. I have brought home a terrible pencil sketch of the garden, and a much more impressive drawing of a rocket done by the toddler. We played and sang our way through my unwieldy songbook folder that I drag everywhere. Esther has one of those gorgeous bluesy voices that I envy terribly, knowing that I will never sound like that. But I am content to harmonise (or attempt to do so). “Not everyone has to have a lead singer’s voice,” says the husband philisophically. “Think of John Lennon.”

    We’re going to do some recording before they leave the state again – Wade in the Water, and Why Worry, a mellow Dire Straits song that we’re plotting to turn into a power ballad. I have harmonies in mind.

  • But no pyramids

    Sometimes the daughter of one of my friends says jokingly, in the tone of a much put-upon teenager, “Oh, why can’t I come and move in with you?” I generally respond with something like, “You’d hate it. We’re too messy. And yesterday I found a mummified rat in the couch.”

    I accidentally sucked the mummified rat up with the vacuum, and when it lodged in the hose I had to remove it by the little string of bones that was all that remained of its tail. Then I shrieked a bit and went and washed my hands 20 times.

    The couch is in our granny flat, which is a shed and not exactly rat-proof (in case that piece of information makes the existence of a mummified rat less horrifying). We were cleaning it out prior to visitors coming to stay. Nothing gives a warm welcome like the absence of mummified rat, that’s what I always say. It’s something people always comment on. “What a beautiful view from the verandah,” they say, “and what a lovely absence of mummified rat. It’s very striking.”

    Some friends came to stay the night, with their chatty toddler (who criticised my bird drawing skills – “I think both the wings are ‘sposed to look the same“), and their four month old baby, who is in the ‘rolls of fat and enormous head’ stage of development. He is terribly cute, and spent this morning sitting on my lap gazing with serious frowning concentration at the cats, the bacon on the breakfast table, and a moth. They all headed further north today, where we’ll join them next weekend, and we promptly collapsed in exhaustion from being in the mere vicinity of children. Well, it’s more the staying up late to talk to their parents and then waking up at the same time as the children which tends to exhaust, rather than their mere presence. I need to get the hang of going to bed earlier if there’s a baby-alarm-clock the next morning.

  • Chooks at large

    After 4 weeks of the chooks living in Chickendome, I thought they were ready to be let out for the day. I wanted them to be familiar enough with their Chickendome that they didn’t wander too far away from it, and weren’t reluctant to be locked back in at night. It all went very well – they were delighted to be given free reign of the garden, but mostly did circuits of the house, grubbing around in the gardens and looking very much like their jungle fowl ancestors (particularly when they were wading through some very tall weeds). Towards the end of each day they gravitated back to Chickendome, either heading inside themselves or hanging around next to it waiting for me to tempt them with sunflower seeds (which they adore).

    It’s lovely heading out to hang out the washing, and suddenly having an audience of four chooks who have wandered over to see what you’re doing. I really like hearing their rustlings and scratchings outside, and their burring murmerings to each other. They haven’t started laying yet, but I think they were a little young when we got them. We’re happily anticipating our first eggs. We’ll have some friends spending a few nights with us in a couple of weeks, and I am secretly hoping to feed them some home grown eggs. Hear that, chookies? You’re eating plenty of laying mash – put some of it to use, there’s my good girls.