I’ve not added to this blog since pre-pandemic times, and am also taking a break from writing DIY articles, and deadlines in general. There is an article called Harness The Winter Sun in The Owner Builder No.218 (June-August 2020), in which I’ve looked at effective passive solar heating – in this article, with a special …
Juggling
I’ve been trying to get a little gap for writing a journal update all day. This morning I was feeding home-made hazelnut-honey cluster muesli to guests before giving them a farm tour that lasted most of the morning. When they left to go sight-seeing on the coast, I started juggling. I was a little late …
Magazine Articles – December 2019
In newsagencies this month I have articles in Grass Roots No.256 (Nelly & Benjamin) and in The Owner Builder No.216 (Owner Building Without The Divorce). Nelly & Benjamin is also running in the December edition of the Canadian Donkey & Mule News, as a cultural exchange item. You can see Nelly & Benjamin, with bonus …
The Spiderman Is Having You For Dinner Tonight
So you’re in Australia, on the first day of a heatwave with temperatures forecast to hit 39-40 degrees C for the next three days. You do all your important work early in the morning before it gets too hot. Guests have just left and in your innocence, you say, “I’m going to air the guest …
Continue reading “The Spiderman Is Having You For Dinner Tonight”
More Uses For The Cure’s “Disintegration”
From the curefans forum: http://curefans.com/index.php?topic=9257.msg771324;topicseen#msg771324 Good literature, art and music stays relevant for a long time after it was born, and can speak to new contexts as they arise. You get this with Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, which, though over 150 years old now, still has so much of fundamental and timeless relevance to say …
Continue reading “More Uses For The Cure’s “Disintegration””
Nelly & Benjamin
A version of this article was published in Grass Roots 256 in Dec 2019/Jan 2020. In late 2018, I had an unexpected telephone call. The man on the line said he knew from a friend that we had a group of three donkeys courtesy of the Donkey Society – and would we like two more? …
Aussie Trail Outing With Camera
I don’t do trail documentation very often when I go riding, but I got some lovely photos one morning late last summer and thought some people not on the Horse Forum (where this was originally posted) might enjoy seeing this. So sit back, and have a vicarious ride in Australia, complete with some natural history. …
Blues Gig Review
Blues gig last night! Long-anticipated, a real Chicago Blues band, in our little town on the South Coast of Western Australia. The warm-up act was a local guy called Moondog who’s been couch-surfing in the US for months every year, for the last ten years. He was very competent with his guitar, harmonica and stomp …
Fuzzy Little Jetfighters
We have eebs. What on earth? Well, Brett and I are slightly potty and enjoy language games, and early on in our homestead beekeeping careers, we decided that our hives had eebs in them, and that eebs go sssssb! Did you know that you can find umblebeebs in Tasmania, and that spoonerising is also fun, …
Fight Back With Real Tomato Sauce
It started with the re-organisation of the local supermarket, which we used to frequent weekly prior to our tree change, and are now going to fortnightly at most, for items we don’t yet grow ourselves and can’t obtain directly from other local smallholders, the local butcher, or the bulk supplier who stocks local stoneground wholemeal …