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!