Amanda's Musings

Recently Michael and Kezi went off to City Farmer’s to buy some chicken feed for our two unproductive hens and came back with two more little chooks. The two we have are large and black (Australorps) and these are small and brown (can’t remember the type). I’ve called these two Honey and Mocha, this is either Honey or Mocha;

Keziah loves the chickens. She loves to chase them around the back yard and when they were living in our laundry (for a few weeks) in a box she could be found sitting on her little stool peering into the container smiling. She kept telling me how soft they were, cute!

As it stands our chickens own half of our backyard. It was this way when we moved in but Michael has been working and mulling over a new setup in which they will lose about three quarters of their free space. In order to do this a little hen house was on the list so when I saw ‘free, chook shed’ on freecycle the other day I showed him and he asked for more information. According to the lady the shed was about 1m x 1m square and should fit easily onto a normal trailer.

NEVER BELIEVE SOMEONE UNLESS THEY MEASURE THE SHED FIRST.

Michael and Dad went off to the northern suburbs mid this week to collect the shed and after getting stuck on the Narrows Bridge for ages due to an accident they finally came back about 2 hours later. This is the 1m x 1m shed:

You guessed it, its not 1m x 1m at all. Its more like 2m x 2.5m and it is now sitting in our front yard. There is no way that will fit down the side of our house so we are going to get to know our neighbour a bit better and request that we put it into the chooks living quarters via his property.

Don’t get me wrong, we are quite grateful for the free chook shed but ALWAYS ask for a proper measurement and NEVER collect it in peak hour traffic. Lesson learnt.

When we bought this house we counted 11 types of fruit tree. Since then Michael has put in a few more as well as herbs and strawberries with plans for a vegie garden too. Just look at what is on its way;

Eaten already!

Passionfruit

Grapes

Mango

Peaches

Nectarine

Tomatoes

When Michael first found out he was going to the USA we both made shopping lists, mine consisting mainly of clay and his mainly of techie gadgets. Then the dollar value went sour and our lists became ‘we’ll see how things calculate on the day’ lists. Well, some things did turn out to still be cheaper so he came back with some nice things from his week in the US and his one day in Japan. My instructions for Japan were simply ‘paper and beads’ so he did well with what he bought us. Not wanting to go overboard he bought one item each. He got K a t-shirt in Sydney which I don’t have a photo of yet but also a cute feeding set for L (with baby chopsticks), a gorgeous teapot for himself (which I’ve claimed as ‘ours’) and a special door curtain. He did get me some clay and as a real treat, some Altoids (you can’t get them here and I’ve wanted the tin they come in for a while) and a pile of Big Red cinnamon gum. What a thoughtful hubby! xx
PS He did get himself a little techie gadget too!

My little organiser had to stack them in colour order right away!

So here I am, sitting here in my black swivel chair next to the window that looks out at our strange little Budgie while typing this, yes, we are back in Perth again! Our lives have been all over the place for the last three weeks with Michael travelling to the USA, Tokyo and Sydney and myself, the girls and my Mum off to Adelaide for the wedding I wrote about earlier.

We did a lot in Adelaide and enjoyed looking around at both chocolate factories (Melba’s and Haighs), the giant rocking horse, Rundle Mall, Glenelg, Handorf, The Cheese factory and more. A highlight would have to be the giant rocking horse which had a small (free) wildlife sanctuary as well as a toy factory and picnic area. K had a great time that day (and so did I) and managed pretty good considering she missed her afternoon sleep.

I also got to meet up with a few people while in Adelaide including Amy and Sal whom I’d met via the Christian Mum’s website. It was so nice to meet them in person. Amy’s baby C is one day younger than my L which is why we met in the first place.

So, here are some photos from our time in Adelaide, enjoy!

Me and K at the Silver Balls in Rundle Mall

Us sitting on the famous Rundle Mall pigs

Me and my girls with Amy and C

Sal and her boys

Scenes from the Giant Rocking Horse

Handorf

I’m glad to be home again and spent today sorting out all the bags and doing loads of washing. Our house is almost back to normal already so I’m glad. Now, where’s my to do list!

Yesterday we went to the show and it was a fun day out. Michael is about to take off overseas and interstate for three weeks so we wanted to have a great family day before he went. K had a really great time. She got to ride a pony, go on the spinning teacups (with me who also thought that was a lot of fun), pat lots and lots of different animals, see the cars in the main arena at lunch time and more! K even got to record herself singing Bananas in PJ’s in the ABC Kids caravan and we got it on CD for free. Its very cute watching her sing into the mike.

We didn’t buy many show bags, just the usual sample type ones and a Bertie Beetle one for K. I’m not much of a show bag person, they always look good till you get them home and realise that everything in them are cheap and nasty and that the lollies all got eaten on the way home. We were even clever this time and brought our lunch and snacks with us. It was a lot of fun as you can see from the photos, great memories!

These three photos were taken by my Dad, love that car one, what a great shot! You beauty Dad!

Awwwww, isn’t she cute up there on Daddy’s shoulder! Two weeks old at 9.46am tomorrow morning.

I finally changed my picture, well its only been 11 days since L was born so I suppose thats reasonably quick! I like this casual shot we took today. Here’s a colour version of it: