Well, I did.

But I have never had much luck with my rescued girls and seem to spend my dollars feeding them good food, great scraps and allowing them free range of my yard as they finish out their retirement years in comfort without contributing to the egg department – one of the key reasons I have hens in the first place.

Pie became egg bound. We breathed the chookiness of life back into her 4 times before she went to meet her maker. Noodles stopped laying immediately following Pie’s demise and went to sleep in the back yard under her favourite bush.

Curry and Rice came to live with us after the big floods last year. They were so traumatised, every time it rained they would lose their feathers. Which meant they were constantly partially bald. Curry was first to go, with Rice following shortly after. Vet says they had the poultry equivalent of PTSD.

Of course, only I would have non egg laying traumatised hens.

Through this time, Stew and Dumpling, the Araucanas, remained healthy, robust eating machines. Araucanas are highly strung and can be aggressive to other birds, so they were great at keeping the crows, magpies and other birds away. I even watched Stew take on an ibis in the back yard – and win. They were also great at desecrating the vegetable garden, stripping bare the lemon tree and digging up every single plant we owned.

But they were, at least, alive – if not  reliable egg producers.

Araucanas are erratic layers – and one of the reasons we wanted chooks?

Eggs-ackly.

So after months and months of only the occasional bum nut, the skipper decided that Stew and Dumpling needed to go.  Several weeks back we shipped them off to acreage with friends, where, we have been told, they are happily traumatising the duck population. And still not laying eggs.

It is my opinion that my egg farming history is pretty stuffed.

Stuffed.

Which is why this time, we have gone  for 18 week old pullets.

Meet Parsley and Sage.

Apologies, Diana Ross.

But I do love it.

Because, like most things old, or shabby, or a little well-loved, it has a story.

This upright came from the school where I teach. It was the first piano used by the first teacher in the single class pre-school in the early 1940s. Back then, the classes were still being held in a council hall. In the early 1950′s the piano was moved to the new school building, where it remained until a few weeks ago.

It was a teaching piano, and this is still so clearly evident by years of little coloured dots, (and in later years, stickers) placed on certain keys.

The top opens, the front lifts off and the keyboard hinged cover (which probably has a name!?) also comes off, opening the piano face to the world.

I would use this to show the children how, when a key is pressed, the hammer hit string.

How many countless teachers before me also taught this?

In the 11 years I have taught in my present school, this piano has been used only for play. It’s a little out of tune and has one sticky key.

And no one wanted it anymore. So it’s come to live at my house.

I have vacuumed about a kilogram of dust from the old wood, gently scraped away paint spills and glitter and blu tac. I have polished coffee cup rings and taken, very gently, to the keys.

Then, I will French polish it.

Tomorrow, a tuner/restorer is coming to tune up the piano and give me some history on what he thinks is part of the original series of Education Department issue pianos during the depression.

Stay tuned.

I know. Ho hum.

The painting in this room is finished, with just doors and glosswork to go.

We have had plantation shutters installed. Click to view slideshow.

It’s a long way from the mission brown 80′s pelmets and feature wall we used to have.

Next room!

Finally, got into them this week. The ground underneath looks so dry and the palms have completely stripped all nutrition from the soil. I have no idea if we have to remove stumps of golden canes, or if they will just rot away (anyone know?). But now we can start to plan out the garden we want.

Just a little gardening….

What is it? I hear you ask.

Well, if you are older than 21 you will recognise the turntable element. What you cannot see is the cassette tape element on the side.  Which means it can turn these:

and these:

into these:

It also has an SD slot on the front for an SD card (doh), a slot for a USB port, an auxiliary input, an auxiliary output, and an AM/FM radio. Which means  recordings can be made from just about anything including sound grabs.

And the price of this wonderful little gadget?

$49.95.

Yep. Under fifty buckeroos.

It has built in speakers and connects, powers up and runs simply by plugging into a power supply. Whack on your old vinyl (33, 45 and even 78s!), your old cassette tape or tune in a radio broadcast and record straight to MP3.You can then tweak the quality or format using whatever audio software you like, burn it into CDs – or just play it as it is.

Guess what we will be doing over the Christmas break :)

Phinnie, the beautiful purple Siamese fish who tried to see if life was greener on the other side of the tank, was found crispy beside the breakfast bar at 2.30 yesterday afternoon. When deposited in water, he made a miraculous flip flop and fought a hard battle, however succumbed late into the night.

A flushing has taken place in his honour.

A little tradition that TFM and I have is that during the first week of the holidays, we hit the clothing stores and I update his wardrobe with a few essential items for the summer. Usually new jeans, shorts and a few good T’s.

When he was smaller and younger, Big W and Target would cut it, these days it’s JayJays and surf shops.

And I don’t mind surfing (haha, see what I did there?) through the sizes, shapes and colours to help him choose appropriate clothes that meet the mother stamp of approval, but I have to ask the designers of kid’s clothing:

WTF is with skulls?  Why???  WHY???

What is it that compels designers to think that people want to wear dead people on clothing? And why are they so popular?

Why not add some rotting corpses to the mix? Or some amputated limbs? Not for you? Perhaps I can interest you in a print of a gleamingly polished clavicle to go with your skull?

The whole skull thing has just gotten out of control. It was much easier to avoid when he was younger. There were cutsie options, or funny little comics.As he grew older  there were stripes, plain colours and other choices. But at 14… very limited options.

These days, even classy looking jeans have a dead man’s head on the button.

And it’s not just limited to teen clothes, I know. I saw this in my google search:

Oh yes. Nothing says ‘take me home and romance me‘ quite like wearing dead people’s heads on your sexy bits.  I love looking at empty eye sockets and fantasising about George Clooney. Oh yes.

What’s your opinion on wearing dead people? Fan? Or no?

Filed under: Blathering, Christmas, TFM ]]> http://rhubarbwhine.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/wearing-dead-people/feed/ 6 Rhu http://rhubarbwhine.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/bupa-finding-a-better-you/ http://rhubarbwhine.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/bupa-finding-a-better-you/#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 22:03:03 +0000 rhubarb whine http://rhubarbwhine.wordpress.com/?p=4499 ]]> There’s an ad on TV here in QLD that really affects me. You may have seen it – the BUPA ad known as “Finding a Healthier You”.

The marketing strategy in this ad hits me right where it’s supposed to. I WANT to be the other me.

I WANT to find that girl.

It makes me want to hug the seekers, hold their hand and join them on their quest.

If it was a movie, I’d watch it.

In fact, I want to see chapters 2, 3 and 4 so I can follow their life stories.

So successful is this ad for me, that I even tear up and have a wee sniffle.

If you haven’t seen the ad, here it is.

Does it affect you?