Mrs Adam.

So...I was back, for the first time this school year, at the local school for the day to take the Prep/Year 1 class.I knew most of the Year 1's as I taught then every Thursday last year for three terms. It was a bit of a shock to find that there were 15 new preppies...it is just not what I have been used to in these village schools. It turns out that one of these new prep boys and I quote the class teacher..."is dynamite!"I am going to call him Dynamite but here is a word of advice, never call your son, or allow your grandson to be called, Callum, Ethan, Seth, Riley or Zeke because you are asking for trouble. In my 30 years of teaching I have never met an amenable or amiable child with any of those names and naming them thus curses them to become spawn of the Devil!I introduced my self to the new faces,"My name is Mr Allen, not Mrs Allen...there is a difference which I won't go into now, but I am Mr Allen and I am here for the day because your teacher Mrs W is busy with something else and they rang me and asked me if I would take you instead and I said 'Oh go on then' so here I am."Dynamite was sat at my feet, blonde hair, blue eyes and as cute as a button but I knew this tiny blob was not all he seemed and lurking beneath the pleasant packaging was a little demon.I fixed him with a stare and said "Today I am looking for those people who help me by making the right choices, who listen and sit well and try their best with their work. Are you going to help me?" I asked him.He nodded his little head and beamed but he wasn't fooling me. I had heard this little angel could scream and shout 'NO! YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" and stamp his feet and run off when he felt like it.Sigh, I do wish this was the kind of information you were given before you make your mind up whether to accept a booking or not. Maybe I should just flat out ask "Are there any Seths, Callums, Rileys, Ethans or Zekes in the class" next time when they ring up to ask me to cover for them.On the whole the day went well. Yes he did show some of his evil capabilities and I did see some stamping of feet and some shouting...not at me...but mostly he did as I asked with some jollying along and a fair bit of positive 'sticker bribery'.Before they went home he came up to me and said,"Thank you for coming today."  Tut, those demon children can be so charming.I caught up with the marking after they had gone and tidied up and then got out of there as soon as I could. Walking to the car another of the Prep boys, who was waiting for a bus and who had nipped back from the gate for a quick drink, waved as he passed me"Bye Mrs Adam!" 

Goodbye Iris.

So...Iris has left the coop and gone to the great Chook Pen in the sky. It is so very sad to lose her. We also lost one of the 'Hecate chick' roosters and one that we thought might be a hen. though we have not found their bodies.Iris still has a chance to help us and her fellow hens because we have decided to use her body as bait in the fox trap for the next few days.We did hear a strange couple of calls in the night which we have discovered sound very much like the call of a quoll so who knows what we might catch in the trap. It is not a lethal trap, and once caught it will allow us to release the prisoner in a land far, far away.

More 'chook' woes.

So...we have not been very lucky in the 'chook' department recently, with the fox attacks last year, the mite infestation and the failure of the guinea fowl and Polish White Crested eggs in hatching.The 'Pen of Doom' (so named after the quoll attack) that I built has been, once more, home to our flock but vastly fortified against intruders.The whole point of it was that they could be free range and come and go as they please rather than be cooped up in, a generous sized but denuded pen.A big part of the new safety regime means that the birds are shut up at night and have to be let out in the morning by Will or I.They are visibly happier roaming free about the place and have acres to scratch in though they often try to get into the fenced off garden and have to be chased out.Of our original flock we only have Yudhisthira, Arke, Pacha, and my favourite Iris. We bought Yudhisthira, Arke and Iris together, after getting our first three Odin, Hecate and Isis. We gave Odin away as he was bullied by Yudhisthira but also chased Ros and Phoebe when they were here. The people we gave gim too eventually gave himhaway again as he started chasing them. Isis fell ill and died shortly after we got her and Hecate died just last year. After raising 11 chicks in October she was dragged off by a fox and we found her injured a short distance away. She lived for a few weeks after that attack but was probably the first one to succumb to the mites.Of her 11 chicks 7 survived, the others disappearing shortly before we caught the swamp harrier in the pen.More than half of the seven surviving chicks have turned out to be roosters but we think there may be three hens. It is still early days. We have only named one of these 'chicks' so far...the one we are sure is a hen....Sheng-Mu. She is a granddaughter of the Mu sisters, fathered by Wang-Mu, son of Mu. He is our only surviving second generation bird.Sheng-Mu is the only one of our 12 who can negotiate the ramp out of the pen in the morning but not the ramp back in at night. As I go to shut them in after dark she is always roosting on the coop roof, thankfully, always within reaching distance and I have to grab her and throw her in where she will be safe."I'm off to chuck the chicken," I now say every night as I head out into the dark.When we went to Melbourne we considered keeping them locked up for the duration of our trip but in the end decided to leave their fate to Fate and for three nights the pen was left open and Sheng-Mu spent three nights on the roof alone.This weekend our friend Maree happened to be staying with her little dog Lolly while we went away. I showed her the morning and evening routines, re shutting and opening the pen and told her not to worry about Sheng-Mu on the roof as Maree could not reach her anyway. Maree was worried about being left in charge of the 'chooks'."If the worst should happen do you want me to text you!" She asked."Nothing will happen," I said. " Everything will be fine."I should have touched wood....We got a text from Maree yesterday saying she wasn't sure how many we had had but she thought she could only count 10. Today on our way home she texted again to say there were definitely only 9 and she had found feathers behind the pen and found one dead bird up the hill. Sometime yesterday, in the early evening, before they went in to roost, we suspect a fox attacked them.For most of the journey home we were speculating on who we could have lost and we were hoping it was three of the un-named roosters, who are for the pot anyway. We arrived home after dark and assured Maree it was not her fault and that it would have happened anyway if she had not been there.It was hard to tell in the dark, even with a torch, who was still exactly in the coop. Sheng-Mu was up on the roof so I chucked her in. Yudhisthira was there, as were Pacha and Wang-Mu but it was hard to tell if Arke or Iris were there, though I was certain at least one of them was missing.I went with torch in hand up the hill to search and eventually found the dead bird. I carried her back down to the shed. It is our worst fear. We think it is Iris. I am hoping daylight will prove us wrong and that it is Arke rather than Iris, which will still be terrible but not as terrible as losing lovely, cheeky, greedy, brave Iris. It is possible that we have lost them both and if so...they were the only ones laying.Oh, woe! When will this run of bad 'chook' luck end?

Bargain!

So...we have been in Brisbane this weekend to collect some solar panels and catch some movies. Yesterday we saw 'Finding Your Feet' and today saw 'Black Panther' and 'Tomb Raider'. The ticket for 'Tomb Raider' cost $6.50 each (£4) and we were in the Deluxe cinema with reclining leather seats and practically had the cinema to ourselves!

Frog...not!

So...after sharing our Blue Moon bedroom with a bat and a possum, now we have a frog!It is happily crawling up the walls in search of insects, and other creepy crawlies. I'll let it get on with it this time but it can't stay. I am glad I am under the protection of the net... it's a jungle out there.