Angle grinding... first attempt

Last week Matilda had her first attempt at using an angle grinder to cut and shape metal.  I've been meaning to show her for a while, but was concerned cos they can snatch, especially with the cutting disc you see her using here.  When that happens the disc shatters and can hurt!  Anyway, as you can see, she seems fine.



The knives below are what she cut out of the old circular saw blade that she'd found at the local dump.  Not bad are they!  She was well chuffed...now she wants to try welding.

Puerile...

More japes from Matilda and I, this time whilst out getting our spices... :-)

Ned the sleuth...

It's a hard life if you're a dog eh!  I wonder what goes through his head... poor fella, all he wants to do is round up some sheep, or failing that, at least be out walking/running.  This (below) is his favourite place...this is where the Goanna's are, this is where the Roos are...not that he ever catches any mind.

I quite often walk along this track, with a book, reading.  I've always thought that the fact that I have a dog will give me a better chance of not seeing a snake.  I NEVER see them, or hardly ever anyway.
Yesterday Daile and I were out walking and Ned went past a black snake that had just sunk its fangs into a large toad....no reaction from Ned to speak of...and it wasn't till the thing moved that I saw it, by which time we were almost standing on it!  It slithered away...leaving the toad, blood oozing from the puncture wounds in it's back.  Ned was up ahead looking back with a 'what!....why have you stopped?' kind of look on his face!  Nice work Ned!  Sheep counter!

We came across this fella (below) recently...just watching...eyeing up Ned, who didn't notice.  I guess they only notice things when they move eh!  In fact that's usually the case for me too of course!  Ned wasn't looking up here.  They're quite rare to see...preferring to keep out of sight of man, for obvious reasons.

Every day on my walk I go past a pile of stones... and I decided to make an 'artistic' statement.  I piled some on the top of a tree stump.  They stayed for a few days then someone knocked it down...unless the wind did.  So I did it again...and a few days later it was down again.  Who'd have thought a pile of stones could be dynamic art?

 

IKEA

Ikea's always good for a schoolboy snigger at the names of stuff we find .

This was spotted by our eagle eyed 'boy' Matilda...

Nibble therapy

One of the last times I was in Hull, I saw a shop in the Princess Quay shopping centre that was selling a novel thing:  They had people sitting in chairs with their feet in transparent buckets of water full of little fish that were eating dead skin on their feet!  I was brought to a stop by it I must admit.  

This week we went down to the quarry for a swim, and because Daile was with us we were walking. Instead of the usual spot where the kids and I sling our bikes, we sat further round in an area where there's some shade (the sun is fearsome at the moment!). We found that if you sat quietly in the water, the little 'Minoes' come and nibble....just like in the shop!  

Here's a pic showing the quarry...

We like to jump off here...

I wonder how they thought of putting these little guys to work in a shop?

A rock and a hard place...

I never thought I'd be writing this particular entry I'll be honest!  A while ago I gave up alcohol.  Not sure how long now...but something like a couple of months.  I'd not really given it much thought, other than that I wasn't really feeling all that good physically after drinking and I don't like the way that alcohol dominates so many of our society's social gatherings.  Not a biggy really and I've had no trouble with it.

At new year, I resolved to give up swearing...since it's become a very overused method of enunciating my feelings these days and the kids find my insistence on their 'non swearing' a bit hypocritical.  Fair enough.  So I've given that up too.  (Not been entirely without mishap so far, but less than one swear a day...so pretty good considering).

I also resolved to give up sugar.  I've been talking for a while about not really enjoying the meat eating thing....but Daile talked me into sugar abstinence first...which makes sense.  So...again, no problems!  I decided that I'd try to make more vegetable dominant meals anyway, and transition slowly away from meat altogether. I don't really know all that much about nutrition, so I'd sort of committed to make the effort to prepare things for helping me to avoid the sugar.  At the art school for example, I think I was eating half of the biscuits that I buy for my students.  I reckon that's about right since they were still going down when the school was closed on holidays but I was there painting, only half as fast!

Two days ago, whilst I was looking at a website about vegan meals, I noticed a comment by someone that said she'd been a vegan since she watched the documentary called 'Earthlings'.  So I looked it up. It's on YouTube..and I've put a link at the end of this post.

I found this to be very moving.  I've seen this kind of footage before, but for some reason, it didn't really connect with me in the same way.  I felt that, having seen it, I couldn't in good conscience continue to eat animal flesh and eat or use animal products, The decision to commit to this has, I suppose, been 'about to happen', since I was already thinking about this kind of thing, nutrition, health, getting older etc. But if you watch this, it's kinda hard to ignore the fact that you are what they call a 'Species-ist' (like a racist or sexist) if you don't make the connection.

There were lots of images that were shocking and I admit I was moved to tears on a couple of occasions.  This image shows an animal that has had it's skin removed for the fur...and it's STILL ALIVE!  The movie draws a parallel with the holocaust, and I kept imagining the same treatment being meted out to humans and how I'd feel about that.

So, I'm now attempting to be VEGAN on top of the other recently given up stuff! Please take a look at the movie and consider how YOU feel about this...  Earthlings movie link

Wasting my day...

So...last week I got a replacement iPhone, not because I particularly wanted one, but because Phoebe needs a telephone (new school is further away) and we'd said that she could have mine when mine came up for renewal, so it seemed like a good idea.  Thing is though I got talked into having the new 'BIG' one. and wished that I'd stayed with a smaller version, partially cos it's too big and too rounded to feel like I'm not going to drop it. 

I looked at some cases, which as usual, were naff... and then I had a stupid idea...I'd make a case!  So I did...and it took me all day when I should have been doing some painting...and it's well....a bit naff really!  Milled it out of aluminium, but really I needed a bit of 10mm and only had 3mm, so thought I'd assemble it from bits. It's OK but the lumps on the side are a bit of joke.  

Lah di dah.  

The funny hole is shaped on the other side to accept a foot (that I've not made yet) so that it can be mounted onto the car dash or a tripod or whatever.... and the screws need to be made flush.

Certainly not a pink fluffy kind of case is it!