The door into summer

"While still a kitten Pete had worked out a simple philosophy. I was in charge of quarters, rations, and weather; he was in charge of everything else. But he held me especially responsible for weather. Regularly Pete would check his own door, refuse to go out it because of that unpleasant white stuff beyond it, then badger me to open a people door.

He had a fixed conviction that at least one of them must lead into summer weather. Each time this meant that I had to go around with him to each of eleven doors, hold it open while he satisfied himself that it was winter out that way, too, then go on to the next door, while his criticisms of my mismanagement grew more bitter."

Robert Heinlein

Heinlein's fictional cat Pete could have a meaningful discussion with any or all of our three goats. Convinced that it is only winter on our property, they regularly abscond into the forest looking for warmer climes. They return, sometimes after a few days, bleating and bedraggled and glaring at us for not having flicked the "warm this valley" switch during their absence.  We feed them and house them and pat them, trying in all of our clearly fallible human ways to repudiate the notion that we have anything to do with the bitterly cold nights and sleeting days.

The temperature oscillates diurnally between about -3°C and 15°C, with the "unpleasant white stuff" descending down almost to our front door.

Nice by the fire, nasty in the fields

It is spectacular, and the wattle in the corner of the picture is trying to let all of us know, even the disbelieving goats, that summer will surely follow spring, and spring is maybe not that far away.

200 channels, nothing but dog

Every dog should have a man of his own. There is nothing like a well-behaved person around the house to spread the dog's blanket for him, or bring him his supper when he comes home man-tired at night.

Corey Ford

In training the Giant Galoot we have employed a technological solution (of course), consisting of a Raspberry Pi Zero W connected to a small camera and a power supply.

Small Pi, small camera!

The Pi is programmed to switch on a video stream and then we retreat to a safe distance (e.g. back to bed with breakfast) and watch what we call "Dog TV". It might be a little bit boring by some standards, but it allows us to growl at the Gargantuan Mop when she moves from her bed. She looks around in bewilderment ("How do they know??") and then settles back down.

Using this method we have been able to stretch out a session to over an hour of her sitting faithfully on her bed. Thanks Raspberry Pi and nerdy goodness.

All tucked up and snoozing

The eagle has landed

And wisdom is a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.

William Butler Yeats

It has been custom for some time in our family to herald the arrival at an airport with the immortal lines "The eagle has landed" (from about 17,911 days ago). The proper reply (from CAPCOM) is "Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground."

We have feisty children who do not give the proper reply but rather return an SMS with some off-topic discussion about turkeys, etc.,

This week in a slightly delayed celebration of the 49th anniversary of that original 384,400 km round trip conversation, we had our own eagle arrive on-site.

Eddie the Eagle?

It was lovely to see the nesting pair, right up to the moment where they snatched one of our chickens for extra protein! Farewell Hyline Brown (it's too painful to remember her name) - so long and thanks for all the eggs.

In other news we hosted the delightful Yukihide Takada for the week, an English speaking Japanese teacher here in Tassie with a school group. He enjoyed many meals with us and bonded pretty strongly with the puppies. We don't trust anyone who doesn't like dogs!

Scratch my belly!

Bye mate - happy trails!

In amazing and wonderful news, Kym's consulting work last year with UWA, Curtin and CSIRO was successful and the team was able to secure an $18 million funding deal through various agencies, including $4 million from the Federal Government. What a marvelous result and so gobsmackingly stupid that UTAS chose not to continue Kym's tenure in 2016. You know, because they are doing so well.

In fact, all three applications by UTAS for similar funding failed - if only they had an experienced and demonstrably successful business development manager on their payroll! Dummkopfs!