A wilderness taming weekend.

So much of this holiday weekend has been spent in mowing and weeding and taming the wilderness around us...give her an inch and Mother Nature takes a mile!

Next on the agenda for Nickification....

Cooling off.

So...with all the hot weather recently we have pretty much been having a daily dip in the dam to cool off. Today we had just got in when a swamp wallaby appeared over the hill and cautiously came down to the waters edge for a drink. I don't know if he saw us in there trying to keep as still as possible but he had a good drink, I could hear him lapping away behind the reeds, before he hopped off and left us to enjoy our swim.

Fort Cocks!

So...the 'chooks' survived the night in The Pen of Doom and today I have added even more security measures to make it quoll proof. It will be an ingenious quoll that gets in there now.

The Spoils of War.

So... we are reaping the rewards of using chemical warfare in our battle with the vermin in the ceiling. Today the aroma of decay has pervaded the house...it won't be over until we have had to deal with a plague of flies. Oh joy!Last week as Will and I were in the kitchen cleaning our teeth two mice boldly bundled in across the floor, seemingly oblivious to us standing there, as they were fighting each other. They were very brazen and disappeared into the house. I went straight out and got some mouse traps. I set one and before I had a chance to set the second I caught one of the mice and five minutes later as I got into bed I caught the second. Since then we have caught one more and last night an unlucky rat.

A Diatomaceous Dusting.

So...tonight we finally got around to dusting the 'chooks' with the Diatomaceous Earth and have moved them from the old pen up to 'The Pen of Doom that Nick built'. I spent sometime yesterday trying to Quoll proof it even more. I have sewn the edges of the netting (where we think the Quoll got in last time) together with baling twine and all the gaps, that a miniature quoll could get in, have been netted too.They caused quite a fuss as we unceremoniously tipped them upside down and doused them with the Diatomaceous Earth and then carried them up to their new home for awhile.We will leave the old pen for awhile and hope that any mites that are there die without their food supply.Let's hope that a quoll doesn't discover it's own new food supply.