Text for pictures

I spent half an hour writing a humorous entry for the blog last night. It gave all the news and the low-down on all the pictures. I pressed the button to publish and the delightful machine informed me that there had been a malfunction. About 1 millisecond later I remembered that it is a really good idea to save your work regularly.

Anyway I am not going to recreate the same entry, the time has passed.

You will see 5 new pictures have been posted. 2 of them relate to Chantelle’s birthday meal at The Bushman’s Hut in Kaitaia. Good food, much appreciated by us all especially on a Tuesday night. Chantelle has a new hobby that is keeping her out of mischief. She has been coating boards, plant-pots, wine bottles, even a new post box in mosaic. It looks good, kind of Hundertwasser style. You have to be careful, if you leave something long enough it ends up coated in mosaic. Chantelle is typically modest about her creations, and has not taken any pictures herself, so I shall have to go round and take a load of shots.

Stuart is pictured just before going to his school disco. It was an 80’s theme night, so he went as a Beatle! His rabbit lives on, though it did escape for a few hours when we had a BBQ for some friends a few weeks back. Fortunately it came back to food and the safety of its hutch when the party had finished.

Paddy is shown waiting for his food. He was quite hungry. He has spent today back at Action world in Paihia swinging about like a monkey. He has a couple of friends round tonight and they are currently making a bivvy tent in the back garden.

Eric is still wearing the mouth metal, and will be doing so for another 18 months. He went on school camp to Houhora Heads again, camping and swimming and fishing. It seemed to go well. He has spent the day helping me dispatch the pig. It took quite a while compared to a sheep. Eric shot it with his .22 and then we heaved it up to the back garden where we put it in an old bath with a fire underneath to loosen the skin and bristles. Once these were off we hung it off the clothes line and removed its guts, lungs and heart. Then we hung it up in the shed covered in wet muslin to set overnight. We will get up at dawn tomorrow while it is still cool and cut it up. We will have a go at making some bacon from the belly flaps. The rest will go into roasts, ribs and random bits of meat. The head and trotters will get boiled up and turned into brawn. We had the liver for tea – very tender. The lungs and heart will be duly be dissected at school.

We did have 2 pigs; the other one has gone to live at Debby’s small-holding until it is a lot bigger. I have to say that I am relieved that they are gone. They are funny animals in a way that I cannot quite put my finger on. Much more demanding than sheep. If they don’t get what they need they squeal loudly. If they are scared they scream so loud that it is painful to listen to them. In fact they do seem not far removed from humans in some ways. I was spending a large proportion of my veg and animal time each day tending to their needs, so it will free up a lot of my time now that they have gone.

The chicks are a bit of good news. They prove that Sidney the expensive rooster from Russell is not in fact infertile as we were starting to think. Their hatching on Wednesday has saved Sidders from the slow-cooker.

Lets see if I can get this on the blog.

Summer Days

Democracy

In amongst all the elections taking place world-wide, people are asking me where is the bryans2nz comment on these momentous events. So having had my lunch, a cup of tea and a couple of nice biscuits, here it is.

Firstly the big one. Shawn Murray was elected as the student rep on the Board of Trustees election at Kaitaia College. His campaign was based on that old electoral favorite "time for a change", and he was greeted around school with the slogan "Shawn for change". I am sure that he will make a competent Board Rep and will learn a lot about how organisations change during his period of office.

More recently we had the House Captains election and Trigg house had to choose from 4 candidates. The whole house assembled in the Hall last Friday to hear their speeches and to make their choice. Sven Wright was one of the duly elected and will continue the family tradition of school leadership - his older brother Shay was Head Boy last year. His speech was witty and well rehearsed and must have contributed to his success.

Obama took a leaf out of Shawn's book and capaigned on a platform of change. I was not alone in expecting hime to be shot when he stepped out in Chicago to greet his supporters after having trounced McCain and co. What a speech! What a task he has in front of him, and yet I feel hopeful that he might be able to do it. If McCain had got in, I would not have been surprised at the American electorate, but it would have made for a deeply depressing global situation. Every time he spoke, all I heard was the word fight.

And then finally last night we had the result of New Zealand's election. Not a world shaking event, but momentous none-the-less given that Labour were kicked out after 9 years and national got in with a sizeable majority. Last time I was most concerned that national would win because their leader was openly divisive. I feared for race relations in this npart of the country where Maori and Pakeha live closely together and mostly get along with each other. National's new leader John Key is a more slippery character. He has a permanent smug grin and to me gives off that aora (?) of slipperiness. We shall see what happens.

NEWSFLASH

NEWSFLASH**** After 13 years and 4 months Eric has now passed his mother and is at least 2 inches taller. It must have been something ate ,as itseemed to happen over the space of fortnight.Here he is with stuart who is not far behind

Milk and teeth

Mike took a trip over to see Ruth and Stephen and their house cow. Soon the boy's were given a milking lesson, Stuart managed well.
And so did the cow, what a patient beast.
Eric went down to Whangerei to have his brace fitted. Apparently , according to kids at school, they are the "cool braces", called Gritts or something. They will be on for 18 months ,then the top ones comes off and a clip on /off retainer fitted ,then 6 months later, the bottom ones come off.
The plate of seafood ,are a little taster of the seafood that we picked up at one of our fav fishing spots.