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Slow news week. Not much has been happening here at all. Not even a cat up a tree.

But speaking of the the kitties, they do seem to be finding interesting places to sleep lately. I happened to walk past the bathroom and heard a bit of slopping from something. Wandering back to check it out I caught a glimpse of a little kitty cleaning his head with his front paws, as they do. I sneaked away and got the camera to catch the little shite in the act so Mike would believe me and not put the muddy kitty paw prints on the vanity down to the fact that I hadn’t filled up the kitty water bowl so he must’ve been looking for a drink.

Once he finished posing for the photo he got a short sharp shift!

…just as tasty as the first!

And the third is currently sitting on the bench. I’ll assume that’s one each until I can tell anything different.

It does look like we’ll have to watch one of the hens that seems to be displaying a few broody tendencies already. She seemed to be staying in the nesting box for a very long time so I ended up lifting her out off the egg that was sitting there… She hasn’t rushed back in there yet, so maybe it was just beginners confusion…

Today was the day when the chickens finally moved from pets to productive members of the household! Well, one of them did, at least. That’s right, we got our first egg today!

That’s it there on the right. The other one’s from the supermarket and is there just for size comparison. We were warned the first ones might be a bit small, but it’s not too bad for a first effort, I think, not bad at all!

And it was delicious!

No point in waiting around to see what they’re like, it was straight into the pot. Tasted pretty darn good to me!

Now I just have to stop myself going out every five minutes to see if the other two are going to join in on this action too. There has been a lot of popping in and out of the coup lately… Expect an update if they have!

Update: 4:30pm There was indeed a second egg delivered unto us this afternoon! I should have waited and then we could have had one each. I wonder how many we’ll get tomorrow…

My latest sewing project to make me feel like I am doing something other than just being a cow! It was done in fits and starts when someone was sleeping. Of course I um’d and ar’d about the letter colours but finally settled on what you see here. I really enjoyed it and am happy with the finished product.

Now I am contemplating another sewing project I have up my sleeve for Adele’s room. Let’s see how long it will take to finish that one as it involves a lot more letters!

Sometimes it seems like it’s easy for us to forget just how things were, and how far we’ve come with the house and garden. We don’t always have before and after shots of things, and if we do they seem to get stuck on memory cards somewhere in the cupboard and we don’t have a look and compare to now to see how things are coming along. But today I was scanning through some old directories and came across the photos that we took just over a year ago when we started to disguise the septic tank. This one, in fact:

Made me realise that some things have indeed changed over the last year! Here’s what it looks like today:

A lot better! Not perfect, but we’re getting there. And the much more even grass and lack of shingle piles is still a huge relief. Might still have to take a pail of green or brown paint to things yet though.

And I might just have to trawl through the memory cards to see if I can find some other before and after shots, just to make us feel like we’re making more progress.

Slightly earlier than last year, we did indeed get a dump of snow this week. Quite a dump! When we woke up on Wednesday morning it had already started to settle, and it just kept on snowing all day, getting heavier and heavier and heavier.

I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen flakes as big. They were massive! And with no wind they just drifted down majestically, piling up ever higher. By the end of the day I think we had about 7 inches as a standard covering, with a bit more in small drifts. More than enough to turn everything white and pretty!

There was so much piling up that I thought it wise to go and sweep off the tunnel-house a few times during the day, just to lighten the load a bit. And even the netting over the chicken’s run was slowly collecting a fair bit of snow and starting to sag somewhat, so that got a few rounds of banging too.

The normally nosey chickens were nowhere to be seen while all this was going on. I don’t think they emerged from their little house at all on Wednesday, and only came out very late yesterday. I did take pity on them and take some food and unfrozen water out to them to have inside. They better not get used to such butler service though!

The snow also apparently settled right on top of all the trees sitting next to power lines. Enough to take out trees, and therefore the power. For us we were without any juice for just the 22 hours. Gulp! Luckily the house stayed warm enough, and we were smart enough to cook dinner before the light faded (on the gas stove – love gas even more now!). And even more luckily we weren’t one of the poor guys that still didn’t have any last night either.

But the day was clear and bright yesterday, so the sun warmed the house in the morning, as well as making everything look very pretty. As only snow can do.

As usual the kitties went through several phases of going completely loopy trying to catch flakes or roll themselves small snowballs to bat around, then a bit of chasing each other around, followed by some chilling and warming action. They’re so funny to watch. But Fidget was also really cute wandering up and down the tyre tracks, freezing fog slowly rising behind him, like some sort of Siberian mountain cat.

As I type this up at midday Friday, we’re still surrounded by it all, but it’s starting to look a bit soft in places. But it did have a bit of a slow start as it got bloody cold last night. I’m just glad we had power and heating for that one!

And no, I’m not talking about the after effects of a particularly vicious curry, but the after effects of a couple of particularly vicious frosts that we’ve had in the the last couple of weeks. They pretty much did it for all the remaining tomatoes and chillis left in the tunnel house so it was time for an autumn clean.

So it’s all looking a bit sad and empty in there at the moment. Some lemongrass and strawberry plants are all that’s left, as we were pretty disorganised and didn’t get anything sorted out for winter when we should have. Oh well, there’s always next year.

The compost heaps, on the other hand, are now full to overflowing.

Yes, this little rock hangs out in our kitchen, normally beside the egg timer. It’s a very quiet little rock. Doesn’t say or do much. We found it hanging out outside when the lawn was being prepared.

But it does perform a very important function in our lives. It keeps the lid of the rice pot more firmly squeezed onto the pot, hence avoiding too much spillage or steam seepage giving us a much cleaner stove and nicer rice.

Thanks, little stone!

… a kitty be trying to climb the walls?

To get to the mouse that managed to climb right to the top, of course!

Mouse 1: Kitty 0. At least Until the mouse got knocked off the wall with the spade…

I’ve been watching the chicken’s bum feathers get blasted around by the wind despite the windbreak cloth that we’ve installed, so last weekend we grabbed a few native shrubs to start a bit of a good looking and not too expensive shrubbery to assist them to scratch around unmolested by the breeze.

So far we’ve installed (from right to left, and really just so I have a record of what they are) Griselinia Broadway Mint, Griselinia L. Whenuapai, Pittosporum tenufolium “Oliver Twist”, and Pittosporum “Stephen’s Island”.

Four is about all I can install in a day without my wrists cracking from hitting rocks while digging, so that’ll have to do for now. Although I suspect we’ll need a few more to stop some of the other breeze directions.

And now I have a record of how big they started off so I can see if they’re actually growing.