Trouble in the henhouse... AKA You stupid #%@*^$! chook!

What a calamity has befooted our backyard this weekend! We have had our chook (named Cookie by my daughter who cannot yet say her CH's) a week now and felt, perhaps she was suitably comfortable enough to let her have a bit of a roam in the garden, stretch her bits and all that, which was all fine and dandy until we tried to put her away!

My partner was having a lovely old time watching me chase her around the garden, trying chook psychology and good old bribing! eventually he came out to help corner her which just made her head up. Onto the roof of the shed. Our shed which adjoins the neighbours house roof. So up the ladder he goes to chase her down, instead she flys into the only tree in our backyard and nothing was going to get her down from there!!! (and believe me we tried!)

10pm last night when we got home from dinner, still in the tree. Figured she was safe enough there and there's not much we can do about it.

Got up this morning for chook search and rescue. No sign, not dead or alive. I hunted around her hiding spots from the day before, still no sign. looked over the neighbours fence and what do I see... a confused chookie, looking back at me. There was no sign of anyone awake at the neighbours house and I don't know them well enough to go getting anyone out of bed. And me, home alone. So here I am, in my jammies, overcoat and the boys workboots, sneaking around the neighbours driveway area (probably looking incredibly suspicious) chook chasing. seems the chook is not as dumb as we had been assuming, could not be cornered or tricked into a box, even with the bribe of food.

So chasing it was, eventually into our (unfenced) front yard, up a tree (again) and me, who, despite growing up in the country wouldn't really have any clue about catching chooks trying to coax it down before it ends up back on the roof. I was eventually able to pull the branches down far enough to grab miss Cookie, which was straight back into the henhouse for her, and no stretching her bits for a very long time!!!

I have renamed her Roast.

We have two more chooks ariving (maybe) today which I have named Soup and Korma.

Anyone want to come over for dinner?

Jewellery fit for a Hot Rod Librarian!

I found this super cool necklace in the BUST Boobtique. And guess what... I have a birthday coming up!

Hint Hint!!

Go Go Gadget... Knitting Needles?

Could this possibly be the second-best knitting book ever???


I cant decide who I think is cutest... Postman Pat (complete with Black and White Cat of course!), Inspector Gadget... But I would have to say the winner is... Mr. Squiggle! Check out the stoned look eyes!!! too much puffing on Bill Steamshovel methinks!

Lovely Linda...

Ive not long finished Linda Jaivin's A most immoral woman. I love Linda, she's such a spunk, I fist discovered her about 10 years ago when she was doing a reading at an Express Media Spoken word event (same one that I discovered another favourite book, Even cowgirls get the blues, and my Ex-best friends duo performed at it too... man that was a big day!) I loved her on sight (at the time she had blue dreadlocked pigtails... who could not love her!!!) and I have to say Eat Me has got to be the most erotic book I have ever read (ohhh that supermarket scene!) I also love Rock and Roll babes from outerspace just coz it's such a cool concept!!!

A most immoral woman is a Historical romance and quite a departure from her previous work (Comedy/Erotica/non-fiction about China) though I guess it does still have that Chinese theme running through it, and I guess it could be considered erotic in places. I'd love to get her in to speak at the library... hmmm must look into that!

Warning! Blow my own trumpet moment... Last year I made to suggestions to add to the standing orders list of Authors at the library, Linda being one and Christos Tsiolkas being the other, and both have released books in the last 12 months which have been really popular... Jeez I'm great!!!

P.S. If you do nothing else, check out the chapter titles in a most immoral woman!

New addition to the family...

Eggplants!!!

I thought the veggie garden was pretty much dead and buried, I have totally neglected it since most of it died off during February's heatwave. I ripped up some of the Zucchini plants which had totally taken over the other day and look what I noticed the other day, my Eggplant plants must have finally been able to flourish!

This means I will have gotten to eat 2 Tomatoes, 1 Zucchini, a (small) handful of beans, 3 potatoes and hopefully now some Eggplants from my experimental Veggie garden.

I tell you what, it's all gonna happen this spring, now that I actually have some idea of what I'm doing!! Its all part of the plan to become a self sufficient hippie! Next stop... Chooks!

My New Wheels...

So it's not quite a Hot Rod... Maybe I should change the name of my Blog to UteDrivingLibrarian

Quiz Time!

I think It should be called The Little Red Truck but the boy thinks that The Uterus would be more appropriate! What do you think?

Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah.......

Ive discovered a new library blog by accident (well actually because I was googling myself in a complete act of narcissism...) The Miami Diaries: Dispatches and insights from the secret world of librarians... :)~ Lots of pictures of Sexy Librarians... but with one, major oversight...

Batgirl was a librarian! She's Barbara Gordon, the daughter of the Police Commissioner Gordon who works at the Gotham City Library. And she's about the only person on the show who looks good in a jumpsuit... except Catwoman of course... no one was sexier than Catwoman!!!!

Funniest street name in Scotland!

Walking on the Prom...

The Boy and I went for a 4 day/40km Hike on Wilson's Promontory...

We saw nice Beaches...

One day it was even warm enough for a quick Paddle...

The next day it was pouring!

We saw some Critters including Wallabies, Wombats, Emu's, Dolphins, Black Cockatoo's, three dead penguins and a snake!

Wombats may look cute but they will eat your food... apparently they really like muesli bars, two minute noodles, BBQ shapes and dried pineapple!

But we still had plenty of food left...

This is me cooking in the rain...

We saw some Boulders at Boulder Saddle... (This one looks like a bird)

And it was Windy at Windy Saddle...

We had a nice time. Boy does this sound like a grade 6 report or what!!!

Mummy!

I have always had a bit of a thing about Mothers day and how it really shouldn't be necessary blah, blah blah... I am very close to my mother and often buy her things I think she would like just because I saw them (this used to happen more when I worked in retail, now I just borrow stuff for her from the library!) In fact I gave her a present this Saturday night... wrapped in Merry Christmas paper... And said "Happy Birthday"! All to disguise the fact that I had actually bought her a Mothers Day present!!!

But of course my rants do often turn around to bite me on the bum, especially when the shoe is on the other foot and now that I am a Mum I gotta say I love a bit of acknowledgement (and that's all I would ever want... though I will admit I do love a good present from time to time!!!)

It was so cute... Coffee and Breakfast brought up to me in bed! (Breakfast consisting of a freaky looking smiley faced bickie that Little Miss had picked out at the bakery) along with a rehearsed "Happy Mothers Day Mummy, I Love You" which went out the window as we were so focused on this bickie which she immediately picked up and ate the Raspberry lolly nose off then spat out because she didn't like it!

She is a chip off the old block!

Ive actually got a Mummy week off this week! The Boy and I are off to Wilson's Promontory today for a 4 day hike. (yeah yeah, I know, I'm up the duff and I'm being careful and all that!) I am so looking forward to it as it's years since Ive done any major hiking and I've been so bored with life lately that I just want to get out and be somewhere different! Look out for photo's next week!

Thats 'Rat' Rod Hadfield to you...

Here's another Video for you...

Unsolicited advise from a novice knitter who really just makes it up as she goes along...

How did I turn this tangled mess...

Into this?

Via this...

See it turns out that learning maths in school really does help with the important things in life...

I am not very good at following instructions, recipes, directions, and as it turns out... knitting patterns, but somehow I usually manage to get there in the end!

I was getting a little bored with the repetitiveness of knitting my cardi (see recent post) and decided I needed to be knitting myself a super-cool laptop bag for my impending arrival (that being my new laptop which you will here more about later!) and have always wanted to try Picture knitting (Intarsia I think it's called). I decided I wanted to go for a bit of a pirate theme and had two different patterns, neither of which were really doing it for me, but I used them for the basis and with the help of my very useful Stitch N Bitch Journal decided to write my own pattern.

Check out the almost finished result which I also felted and with the cheating help of an old jumper turned into a pretty cool bag for a beginner. Hey it may look very unprofessional to some of you... and if anyone asks I was going for the rough homemade look! But I am pretty proud of it, I'm just going to give it another felting and add some zips, and then hope that my Laptop will actually fit into it when it arrives!

So here is some unsolicited knitting advice from a complete novice...

• Yes you can teach yourself to knit from a book.
• When I was teaching myself I just happened to buy this multicoloured yarn which turned out to be really good coz I could see where I was at with it as the colour would change with each row.
• Just get in there and experiment coz you can always undo it!
• Its easier working with medium sized, wooden needles.
• Those fancy yarns that are actually a couple of different things in together make it kind of tricky!
• If your gonna try some Picture Knitting, Knit a few rows of the main colour first so you get past that twisty up stage which is where I was getting all confused!
• I also found twisting the two colours together when changing colours helped keep it strong at the joins.
• If your doing stocking stitch and you cant remember if your up to a Knit or Purl row - if the 'tail' of your wool is at the pointy end then you Purl. if its down the blunt end then you Knit!
• Felting can help to disguise holes.
• You can also say you are a punk knitter and made the holes on purpose!

Don't forget... World Wide Knit in Public day is coming up in June!

Whatta man...

You wanna see how much of a man I have?...

Check out these pics from his latest Hunting trip to Lacola in the Victorian high country, that they posted on a bowhunters forum. No bleeding carcasses were dragged home for me this time but they had a great time... Yup that's right, my man goes hunting with a "traditional style" (AKA Robin Hood Style) Bow and Arrows. He's pretty good too, they didn't get any animals on this trip (they were hunting Deer this time but he also hunts for Goats, Fox and Rabbits) but that is secondary to them just enjoying being in the outdoors.

Next week the two of us are going hiking in Wilson's Promontory for 4 days, I am really looking forward to it, Ive been feeling very bored and stagnant in my life lately and think I need to get into the outdoors too!

You may here me having a bit of a winge and a rant about him from time to time, but he really is a lovely person and really comes through when the chips were down. When we lost the baby and we went to the hospital we figured he'd pretty much be dropping me off there, but we were given a double room and he pretty much literally didn't leave my side for the two days I was in there.

And he's hilarious! He's got this thing where he likes to make up new words to songs... usually involving Sex, drugs or violence! Here's a few choice numbers...

"She licked my knob and I liked it, the taste of my hairy chapstick" (Katy Perry's I kissed a girl)
"Sucking on my dickyballs" (Robert Palmer's Simply irrisistable)
"And the man at the back said I'm gonna crack a fat coz your playing with my balls and dick" (Sweet's Ballroom Blitz)

Do you see a theme forming?

It maybe my pregnancy hormones making me all gushy, or maybe it's that I actually got a bit of my own space this week, or maybe just that he's on holidays and not getting up at 4am everyday is agreeing with him... Just don't tell him I said all these nice things about him OK!

Shhhhhh....

So this crazy old lady came up to me in the library yesterday to tell me she felt I was speaking too loudly and to quote her "all ha ha ha like" and that she didn't feel it was appropriate conduct for working in the library... WTF!

I wish I had've made some comment along the lines of "well I'm sorry if my joyfull attitude to life offends you!" but of course I was too shocked to actually be able to say very much at all...

Library Jo reckons she will probably get a letter as this is the same lady who wrote to complain that storytime was too loud as well!!! Stay tuned, I will try to steal a copy of the letter for your reading pleasure!!

Why I think Bubba-chino's are ridiculous...

OK, off on a Rant now...

I remember the first time I heard of a Bubba-chino, I was working in a cafe and someone ordered one and I had to ask them what it was...

"An Espresso cup with some foam and chocolate on top so the child can feel involved."

I looked at them with a look that I hope said what I didn't actually say out loud;

"Are you serious?"

JA and I went out for a fancy pants Devonshire tea today... (oh posh!) and on the next table were a family with two small children. The two year old was not concentrating on his Bubba-chino (in fact I think he and Little Miss were having some kind of secret toddler language thing going on) and spilled it, on himself, Hot Milk. Who the hell gives a two year old a hot drink??? This is after Little Miss had spilled her (Cold) milk three times and this was after the waiter had had the good sense to put it in a paper take-away cup with a lid on!

Get it people... Kids don't need to drink substitute coffee to feel included!!! Give them a Kids drink and if you want them to feel included... Talk to them!!!

Mind you they were probably thinking I was a bad Mum when Little Miss got her hands on the Jam and Cream pots and started eating them straight...

P's and Q's... and M's

If anyone is wondering what to buy Little Miss... Here's a couple of book suggestions!

Hippie food...

I love the Blue Train Cafe's (at Southgate) Golden Dahl... Finally came by the recipe and made a big pot of it last night... Bloody Hippie Food...

50 grams Ghee
1 Onion, diced
2 Sticks Celery, diced
4 Garlic Cloves, diced
Teas. Ginger, ground
1 Tbls. Gram Marsala
1 Tbls. Cumin
1 Tbls. Coriander
1 teas. Chilli
2 Cups Red Lentils
1 Tin crushed Tomatoes
3-4 Cups Water
Salt and Pepper

Slowly cook Ghee, Onion, Celery,Garlic and Ginger approx. 10 mins.
Add Spices, Cook another 10 mins.
Add Lentils, Cook 2-3 mins.
Add Water and Tomatoes and leave to simmer for about an hour. add more water if you need.
I like it mushy so I blend it up when its all done.

Make sure you've got plenty of Air Freshener handy coz' you'll be farting like a trooper!!!