pepper

well today was more stressful then I imagined it would be. When I came home from shopping for gardening things to help my sister make a vegie patch I only had two birds not three. How this happened is a mystery. But pepper was not in her cage and oscar was very sad. Oscar and pepper bonded and I have noticed them recently engaging in sexual activity, so I've been thinking of popping a breeding box in their cage. I digress. The cage was shut up, the other two birds were secure but pepper was gone and I presumed stolen. However given the child laden community I live in I had a theory that some children let themselves in through our fence and opened the cage and pepper accidently got away because it's really easy to see the birds from the street. So I went for a walk looking for signs of a dead parrot or listening for a distressed parrot sound and calling out to pepper using oscar's quiet whistle. After an unsuccessful walk I got in the car and drove around with the window open to try and hear pepper. I got totally disorientated but wound up on a street and thought I could hear pepper but decided she was in the street behind these houses so drove around to there. I did the quiet whistle and she did her distressed cry. I decided she was in one of about 3 houses and I called matt and tried to describe where I was so he could help and when I looked around I realized I could see our house. Then I asked this kid if he'd seen a parrot and he pointed to a fence where he'd seen her. But Boone was home there. So I knocked on their neighbours door and the kid their climbed the fence and found pepper and we got her back! It was pretty much a miracle because I was fairly surprised the local birds didn't kill her. Anyway I can't be bothered proof reading this to see if there are typos or if it makes sense because I am doing this on my phone and it's too tricky to see the whole entry.

Georgia

I don't always take as much notice of world events as I should. However the conflict between Georgia and Russia caught my attention because I have a friend who is from Georgia and who lives in Australia, and I knew this would be something that would really be affecting her. For me world events have so much more meaning when it personally involves someone I know. So I emailed her to see how she was going, and with her permission, I thought I'd share her response, just perhaps to make it more personal for everyone else too.

"It is a disaster what is happening in my misfortunate country. It is really hard to fight for an independence and democracy while having Russia as a neighbour.We are extremely concerned for our family members' and our friends' safety as Russian armed forces are advancing in the country way beyond the territory where they are "protecting their citizens" [one example of the "famous Russian protection" is the Beslan tragedy that happened in same Ossetia .Remember how Russians "protected" poor innocent children form the terrorists? They simply detonated the school building sacrificing innocent kids, or how they "protected" Chechen people from "criminals " by extinguishing nearly half of the nation?! But that's the Russian "truth" , their "side of story" and whoever argues with them receives the bullet for an answer [ask people of Finland , Baltic republics, Poland, Chekoslovakia, Hungary and all former Soviet statesand you will know how that feels...] Bombing of Georgian cities continues as I write this email...Yesterday our family members and friends were alive.We will call them again today...

Sorry about an emotional email but it is SO painful to see this PLANNED occupation and destabilization of my country. This unnecessary war started only because of an attempt to fail Georgia's opportunity to get into NATO in December 2008 , only because Georgia wants to break away from Russia.This heavy punishment is the price of freedom from our "big brother"."

And when I emailed to ask permission to publish here, she added:

"My family and friends are doing well ,they all are scared of the uncertain future and the huge economic devastation this war is bringing .I still do hope that this madness will soon end.We have many mixed families , many Russian and ossetian friends who are as concerned as we are.I just want to emphasize that this is not the war between Russian , Ossetian and Georgian people, this is well planned war for Power , Oil and World domination initiated by Russian Empire !"

Weary Plodding

It is the weary plodding of every day
That wears me away right now
Until I feel surprised I have the power
To even open my eyes
Somewhere in the back of my mind
I know there are things I need to focus on
Things I need to do
But all I want to do is rest
To lay it all down
Walk away
Lie on green grass
Breathe clean air
And close my eyes
Against a bright and warming sun

Lazy

Well I have been particularly busy and not managed to read or write blogs at all. This is because it has been birthday season. Thank you to everyone who sent myself happy birthdays.
What have I been doing?
Well I blog in the dark because lightbulbs are very tricky to change in my house.
I have lots of yummy dinners either at home or out.
My birds are successfully off seed, and on a terribly expensive food that I only seem to be able to locate at chermside (and they've currently run out of that and are on fresh fruit and vegetables and muesli)

Most excitingly recently I went to Jerry Coleby-William's open garden which was awesome. They had this plan to buy this house and for under the cost of a new four wheel drive (approx $62000) make it essentially self sufficient. They put in a huge water tank, they recycle all their sewerage/waste water and make it sterile (without using chlorine in it), they just about never use mains water at all! They have a solar panel, but they do use mains electricity as well. They grow enough food for three people to live on. The whole thing was awesome and I tasted some new greens that I'm really keen on growing myself. I think I will join seed savers. It's hard to explain how great it was. Check it out: Bellis

My sister got robbed. Whilst her and her husband their four children were asleep. Some people came in and took their computers, they went into the children's room and took their computer, they went into my sister's room and took her jewelry. They stole her car keys (including a set of keys to the car they didn't steal), they stole her car, they stole lots of things. But mostly, they went into their rooms while they were asleep in them - yuk! They did it all between the baby's 11pm and 3am feed. They then used her car between monday to friday in 5 armed robberies. She has her car back.

Well Matt's home. Pitfinder - you must make flourboy post. He now has a grain mill attachment to the kenwood chef. We buy our own wheat and then flourboy makes wholemeal flour which we use to make pizzas, pancakes etc. But Flourboy has to tell us all about it!!!!