Sunday, December 13, 2015

New Life

A few things have been given a new life at our place. Firstly the girls swimming bags, previously known as a freebee conference bags, have both received a new patch since the last bird patches ones were fraying.

Next small project involved giving the gardening tools a new home thanks to a palate saved from our renos. Handyman Andy nicely fixed the palate to the garage wall. This project then inspired more changes in the garage More on that to come....






No Gap

It seems like forever that Katy's adult front tooth has been  descending behind her baby tooth resulting in the baby tooth being pushed forward. We showed Katy's shark tooth to the dentist who seemed rather unconcerned and told us that it would eventually fall out which it did at school (several months later) thanks to the cord of her hat while lining up outside! Unfortunately Katy along with others searched and searched for her tooth but it couldn't be located! 

Back at home, Katy wrote a little letter to the tooth fairy explaining her problem.

Dear tooth fairy
at aranda primary school I lost my tooth after the boys toilet not the first drain go along the path to the double door in the drain or on the right. I hope you fid it.
Love from katy hogg.

And of course the tooth fairy didn't seem to mind and wrote back...

Dear Katy
Thankyou for the lovely note! I will look for your tooth next time I am passing Aranda Primary School and leave it for you.
Love the tooth fairy.

Spot the Difference #107




The only part of the reno which was painfully slow with the first shower man who took 12 weeks to re measure the shower screen three time before doing absolutely nothing. The next shower screen man managed to complete the job in 3 weeks. This then allowed us to finish the final coat in the main bathroom and we can now say that ALL the interior painting has been completed. Yippee!!

Important Stuff

It was KJK's last class assembly for the year and this time Katy had a speaking part! She was very excited and spoke well. Another wonderful presentation with a very funny short video titled "Kindergarten Experts' in which the students shared their thoughts about their school year.





Monday, December 7, 2015

Wildlife Sanctuary

Continuing on the topic of animals it seems out house has become some sort of wildlife sanctuary.The possums have been plentiful recently with the nightly stampede across our tin roof sounding more like elephants and consequently stirring up Pippa in the process. As summer approaches with the warm nights the possum get out a little earlier and are generally a bit more noisy when growling at each other.

However the other night we were greeted by a new experience. It was around 11.30pm as we were thinking about going to bed when we could hear something scratching on metal. Thinking a possum had somehow got stuck in the watering can in the front garden, Andy went out to investigate. He found the watering can, no sign of any possum plus the scratching had stopped. About half an hour later the scratching started up again and off detective Andy went only to report that he thought a possum was stuck down the downpipe adjacent to our bedroom.

Feeding a skipping rope down, Andy had vague ideas that the possum would be able to climb back up. In hindsight the possum was wedged head first down with no chance of turning around so this plan would have never worked!! Again the scratching had stopped, so off to bed we went sometime after midnight.

While I voiced my concerns about the poor possum, the possibility of it dying and blocking the downpipe and perhaps we would need to take the downpipes off somehow in the morning, the scratching started up again! There was no way we would be able to sleep listening to this noise. Andy suddenly jumped up saying he had an idea. Donning head torches and spanners off we went out into the front garden to unscrew the bolts on the brackets which held the gutter in place.

It was easier than expected and we soon had the gutter lying down on the grass. We thought the possum would be eager to scamper out but it was well and truly wedged in and needed a little encouragement from the end of the broom! Out it popped voicing it's disapproval before scuttling up the tree. Next thing we knew a large possum, probably it's parent, was giving it the once over! Hopefully the little possum has learnt their lesson and won't be venturing down any more downpipes!! We climbed back into bed at 1.45am to claim what sleep we could!


The moment of freedom!


Safely back in the tree!

It seems that our girls love animals too. I arrived home last week to find Ella attempting to coax a blue tongue lizard out of our garage with dog biscuits!! Actually she was wanting to catch it with her bare hands!! Mr Lizard wasn't too keen with this idea, nimbly hiding in hard to get places and adding a hiss or two for effects. Finally Andy arrived home also in time to see this spectacle. Eventually we convinced Ella to let Mr Lizard go on his way, which ever way that was (probably into the woodpile) and a few hours later he had disappeared.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Mr Hairy Legs Update

Since the last post in November, Mr Hairy Legs has a new friend - Mrs Hairy Legs! Together they have been going great. In fact they have been growing so fast that we have upgraded their home three times! Their current abode is my terrarium which unfortunately didn't fair well during the renovations and will need to visit the shop for a new lease on life once the current tenants move out.

So back to Mr and Mrs Hairy Legs, like I was saying they are growing fast. So fast that one morning I thought a third caterpillar had joined them only to discover one of them had molted their skin!

We showed Mr and Mrs Hairy Legs to our neighbours from up the road who were over for a BBQ and are keen gardeners/outdoorsy types. He ventured back home returning with a butterfly book in an attempt to identify the caterpillars. Searching through the pages, we couldn't find any similar caterpillar and he suggested that it may be some sort of moth. It was only then a light bulb went off in my head as to what these could be.

Frantically I searched through our Nandies blog and found the answer - White-stemmed Gum Moth!
Oh my what have we got ourselves in for! Looks like Mr and Mrs Hairy Legs will be here for awhile. One thing for sure is there is no more handling of these prickly caterpillars! Will keep you posted on their adventures.



Nice one...NOT!

Finally we got to the painting of the timber windows and door frames (interior only) but to do so we needed to take down the new blinds and in Ella's room we were greeted to this -



Three extra holes on the right and two on the left! As you can imagine we were not impressed. The guy who installed the blinds hadn't mentioned that he had a few problems let alone offered to get them patched up. So we added another patch and paint job to our 'to do' list.

By the time the blind people come back to replace one of the blinds which had a fault in the stitching, we had patched and painted but I thought I'd raise it with them. They were a bit surprised at the photos and dodgy job only to apologise profusely. Turns out the guy who installed it no longer works with them...I wonder why....

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

2015 GFD Retreat

The now annual GFD retreat headed to the Snowy Mountains. The group of 20 this year consisted mainly of post grad student with a few families. By mid week, the weekend forecast was looking pretty abysmal - 13°C max and showers.

We left after school on Friday afternoon, driving into Kosciusko National Park on dusk. A little too early for the wildlife however we did spot a wallaby or two, a few rabbits plus a couple of wombats. We quickly made dinner and opened up the lodge ready for our guests to arrive. They did so in dribs and drabs over the next 3 hours.

Saturday dawned with grey clouds shrouding over our normally beautiful view of Mt Tate and the main range. Not to be deterred Andy convinced Craig to run a 15ishkm loop - to Illawong, up Mt Tate, crossing the Consent Stevens Pass, over Guthega Trig and then across the dam wall back to the lake. They picked up Alice near Illawong Hut who bravely continued on the rest of the loop with them.






Meanwhile back at the lodge, the girls played games and tried their hand at building card towers with Kate!



Post lunch (and once Andy had recovered) we walked down to the Illawong suspension bridge with Kate and Alice, first stopping to play and rock hop at Farm Creek. It was a walk with a variety of weather - initially cool before warming up and then raining on our return!










Sunday was another relative lazy day. Slow morning of playing games, building card villages and cooked bedfast for the girls, while Andy took Craig and Callum on a tour up the Paralyser (a hill top just behind the lodge).

We decided on a little walk before lunch to the far side of the river below the dam to the waterfall. Here we discovered the remnants of a bypass pipe diverting the water back to the dam rather than down into the river. We wondered if this was part of the Snowy River Scheme. Retuning to the lodge, it was all hands on deck to clean up and pack up the lodge ready for our return at Christmas!