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When we were in the UK we used to joke that NZ news headlines were along the lines of “Cat up a tree!”. Now we’re back we’re finding out it’s actually more likely to be about sheep…

So to bring things back into line with our way of thinking, here’s a cat up a tree story! In fact, TWO cat’s up a tree! At the same time even!

The eagle-eyed among you will notice that the tree that they’re almost to the top of is in fact the same tree that the fantail likes to sit in when he visits us. I suspect there might be a bit of an issue there at some point!

And yes, this does indeed mean that we’re letting the kitties out. It took a bit of coaxing. Coaxing me, that is, by Bec. I needed quite a bit of reassurance that they were indeed likely to come back, and that they’d be fine… But they have been, so far.

I think we’re up to four trips outside now, and both they and we have got more relaxed about them being outside.

The first couple of adventures were highly supervised affairs, with Bec and I tracking one kitten each, and keeping up with them as they really, really slowly made their way out into the big wide world, running back to us or the door whenever a car went past or a big bird honked, tweeted or quacked. Half an hour was their limit before we captured them and brought them back inside, where they totally zonked out after all that excitement.

The last couple of adventures have been less supervised. Today we just let them roam while we spent the time digging more holes for a couple of hours (more on that later). They were really good though, and came back inside when we called them. I think they’d had more than enough by then. Tree climbing can really take it out of you! Fidget even deigned to lie there and have his paws cleaned on a wet towel when they came in. He was a very dirty cat after playing in all the wet grass and the dirt from the post holes…

…was not a success.

In fact, it was a duck-killer if ever I’ve baked one!

I’m not entirely sure just which part of the process went wrong, or even which parts went right! Although when I re-read the recipe this afternoon I did think that it’s entirely possible that I forgot to add any salt to the mix, which the book does highlight as being essential… I do remember adding the olive oil though, but the book said that was optional. Oh well.

So I’ll try again, starting the rather long process again tonight. And I’ll try to pay more attention to the size of the dough to make sure it’s actually doubled in size etc. If it goes horribly wrong again I think I’ll try making a new starter just on general principles. Why I think that will help I have no idea!

The one day that we were in town all week and it happened to be the day that a shipment of wood was arriving for us to finally get on and get a deck and some stairs done so we can remove the pallets lying around all over the place. So we just had to hope all day that the driver wasn’t too stupid, and put it all somewhere close to where it was going to be needed! Luckily he’d the sense to call Jeff who was able to give him some advice about the correct location. Whew! Although in looking for a quick way out the driver buggered up the only decent bit of lawn we’d managed to cultivate so far. Oh well. A decent roller will start to even it out again, but at the moment the push mower won’t cope very well with the tyre indents…

So that’s the timber sorted then. We managed to get the house builder back on site on Friday to start to build it all. But I thought I’d add my help too. I might regret that yet! First stage (after a long discussion about just how we were going to do it all and some measuring and marking, of course) is all the holes for the posts. Between us we got a fair few done (29 and 2 halves) with the aid of an auger and spades before he had to shoot off for the afternoon, leaving us to finish the rest (another 25) over the weekend. I think I might have mentioned before about how stony the round is here? But Ill mention it again anyway. The ground here is bloody stony! I think my wrists and elbows are suffering from all the jarring of hitting stones on every drop of the spade blade.

But it’s started. We’ll see how long it takes to complete!

This week I finally got around to home-brewing a few temperature sensors to monitor just what’s going on around the place and help us to make sure that we’ve got all the settings for the heating system right. Which I’m sure we haven’t yet, but then it’s hardly been cold yet. In fact it’s been bloody brilliant weather lately.

So here for your viewing pleasure behind the clicky icon below is a graph of the temperature in seven different places around the house.

I’m sure that was really interesting for you! I can post more if you like?! Just a pity I haven’t (currrently) got an outside temperature reading to compare to these internal ones. I feel a weather station purchase coming on sometime. Yes, you can indeed expect more graphs!

I’ve currently co-opted some of the network cabling for the sensors, and tried to find spots where no direct sun hits the sensors. I’ve already found they give strange readings when that happens! Nice to find a use for some of that cable!

Everywhere we’ve looked lately we’ve been harassed by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall into trying to make our own sour-dough starter. On TV, on the net (although we didn’t use the rhubarb version of the recipe), in his latest cookbook that we’ve just bought, in his bread book that we’ve just bought..

Ok, so accusing him of harassing us might be a bit rich, but the constant bombardment about how easy and how nice sour-dough loaves will be got me to finally start a starter of our own.

I was a bit worried that I’d not managed to pick up any natural yeasts wandering around the kitchen whisking the dough, but after bringing myself to stop staring at the mix every 5 minutes and just sitting back and letting it do its stuff overnight we had some yeasty bubbly action in the morning.

So we’re now on day three of the starter feeding regime. Another week or so and hopefully we’ll have a starter ready to make bread with.

Looking forward to it!

The last couple of days have seen a couple of unexpected visitors. First up, yesterday afternoon we were having a relaxing game of snooker with the windows open to make sure we didn’t expire with heat exhaustion when we slowly became aware that there was a hell of a noise coming from the courtyard area. The fantail was back, and boy did he want us to realise it! What was unexpected? The timing of the visit mainly. This was pretty early in the afternoon, when the light was still pretty bright.

So I interrupted our game and wandered out casually with the camera and said hello. He was quite relaxed with me wandering around trying to get a reasonable pic. He even kept flying right by me on his missions to get a bit of food from here and there. And by “right by me” I mean about a foot away. The only thing he refused to do was to show me his damn tail when sitting in the tree where I could take a photo! Grrr. But I’ll keep trying.

The other visitor was even more unexpected. We were up early again this morning, and staring out the window we suddenly realised there was a hot air balloon floating at a pretty low level right over us!

We see a balloon or two pretty much every clear morning, but they’re normally a long way away from us. Looks like this one landed in a paddock just down the road.

I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that we’re running behind in blog plosts lately, so here’s something that caught our attention today…

I have a brown jersey (I can hear one particular person echoing something along the lines of “a POO BROWN jersey!”).

All the cats I’ve ever met while wearing it seem to like it. Really like it! Our two are seemingly no exception. They tracked it down and even though both of them were falling off, and even though there were hundreds of other more comfortable spots to sleep in, they chose my jersey.

The fact they go out of their way to sleep in uncomfortable positions might go some way to explaining why she in particular is quite happy to try to sleep right in front of our faces at night.

I guess you want all the other news too, huh? Well, there’s not much. We finally got our lounge suite delivered. We’ve had some very welcome visitors for various day or day/night visits. I’ve mowed the “lawn” again. I think we’re very slowly getting better at our long snooker shots. I don’t think we’re improving much at all at our shorter snooker shots… The fantail’s popped in now and then, but not as regularly now it’s a bit drier. There’s still at least one hare hopping around outside…

Basically there’s nothing that exciting going on!

We’ll try harder to find something. Honest!

We’ve always planned to have a kitty or two here at the ranch for many reasons. But today we installed a couple in the house. We didn’t really mean to, but we saw them at the pet shop and just couldn’t resist.

We got a boy and a girl, from different litters, but they act like they’re sister and younger brother. He follows her around, and she sometimes gets a bit snarly that he’s always in her space, but right now they’re curled up sleeping next to each other.

They’re just so cuuuute! Not the best photo of them, as I can’t bring myself to wake them up to get a better one. It makes them look about 4 times bigger than they are. He’s just tiny! You pat him gently and he falls over.

No names yet. We’ll see if they display any sort of need to have a special moniker over the next few days. But already she’s continuing to display the character that we saw in her of a very, very laid back cat, while he’s a bit more curious.

Late this afternoon we were getting in a bit of snooker practice when I noticed a bit of flitting around in the temporary nursery that has been set up in the courtyard until we decide what to do with both it and the plants. A focussed look revealed a fantail jumping all around the tree that’s there!

This grainy photo’s all we managed to get as it was pretty dark and horrid, but it is proof.

I’ve no idea where it came from or went to. We’re pretty much in an empty paddock except for the house. But I’m stoked that it came and said hi, even if it doesn’t come back for a while. But I hope it does! We might have to have more trees in the courtyard than I thought if that’s what they’ll bring in.

We keep trying to get a decent photo of all the swallows that seem to have made the house a regular venue for a snack, where they come and hover just under the eaves and pick off insects. But they’re just so fast that getting a decent picture is a bit difficult.

This is the best I’ve managed so far:

Reminds me a lot of Top Gun, for some reason! And they certainly fly pretty close and fast to both the house and us when we’re working.

A few days ago we made a bit of an attempt to hide all the septic tank gubbins.

A few grasses and iris and stuff seemed like a good start. We’ll just have to see if they do the job, or whether we need to get out a pail of green paint and attack the concrete and plastic. Hopefully we’ll remember to take another photo in 6 months or a year to compare the view.