Too many cocks improve the broth!

So...it has been on the cards for awhile...all the chicks that have survived from last year have all been males and following the various quoll and fox attacks we were down to eight 'chooks' four hens and four cockerels.Odin, always second fiddle to Yudhisthira, was sent to a harem of his own on the farm of one of Will's work colleagues and is very happy there. That left three cockerels Yudhisthira, Wang-Mu (son of Mu) and the Devil's cock who we hadn't named but who was most unfriendly, very noisy and lately a bully. His days have been numbered for awhile now but the other day when he and Wang-Mu had a terrible fight which left Wang-Mu bloodied and sulking for two days, the Devil's cock time was up.We caught him and separated him from the others while he was roosting the other night ready and popped him in a crate for the chop but when Will went the next morning to give it some water the evil thing flew at Will and escaped to survive another day. I went and caught him again last night and returned him to Solitary Confinement.I was working this afternoon at the Book Cave (Holy Novellas Book Man!) and came home to find a large pot bubbling away on the stove...the deed had been done and the Devil's cock was no more.It was kind of Will to despatch it while I was away ...except I found it's head still lying on the chopping block out at the back looking very sorry for itself.Still, it lived all it's short life here at Frogknot and despite the terror of the quoll in the night and being carried off in the jaws of a fox until rescued by Will it had a pretty happy and comfortable life.Coq au vin for us tonight...it smells delicious!

Extreme roofing!

So...today we (mostly Will) pretty much got the top roof up!

Here be Dragons!

So...today I spotted two Bearded Dragons crossing the garden. The first one just laid low and pretended to be a statue but the second one tried to be a bit more scary...

Deadly Australians.

So...today there was a visitor at school who came to talk to the children about 'Deadly Australians'...the myriad of 'bitey' and 'stingy' creatures this country is home to. There are 400 hundred animals here that either bite or sting and 20 of the top 23 most venomous snakes in the World live here. The most venomous being the Taipan found further north but the second deadliest is the Eastern Brown Snake and they can be found here around Frogknot.It was an interesting talk which would have been better with less digression from the subject by the presenter who loved the sound of his own voice.I was alarmed to discover that snakes do not have great eyesight, can only see black and white and generally cannot sense your approach until you are only about a metre away. I thought their heightened senses caused them to flee long before you got near but apparently not so.As if that was not enough to get me worrying about the arrival of 'snake season' (Spring and Summer) I come home to find this...

...A Red Bellied Black Snake curled up in the chook pen waiting to catch mice.No one has yet died from being bitten by a Red Bellied Black Snake though it's venom is more potent than the American Rattlesnake. The silver lining is that they prey upon the more deadly Brown Snakes...so it is a neighbour we have to put up with for now.

Scary loos!

So...I have not been having much luck with toilets recently.Flying back from the UK I found myself trapped by the window at 38,000 feet above the Indian Ocean as the people sat between me and the aisle were both asleep. Bursting for the loo I  roused them from their slumbers, apologised profusely and dashed to the loo. I don't know how I did it but whilst sat there I somehow tripped the flushing mechanism and the toilet flushed beneath me. The noise of an aeroplane flush is bad enough with the lid down but when it is directly under you it's terrifying and I almost died of shock! I thought I was being sucked out over the Seychelles and cried out in horror.Today, I was back at work doing four days at the local school covering for the Prep teacher who is taking a weeks long service leave. It was all pretty straight forward and with a final teaching practice student in there I am really getting paid for doing very little. I nipped to the loo at break and lifting the lid found a fairly large frog clinging to the rim staring back at me! I, again, cried out in shock and it dropped into the bowl and I promptly flushed it away noting another being dislodged from under the rim and it too disappeared down the drain. This kind of thing would never happen in England! I can tell I am definitely back Down Under!