Resident Pests

We found that our chooks were going through their food rather quickly, and assumed that they were just rather hungry. We soon discovered that not only were we feeding our chooks, but also the neighbourhood birds as well. In particular, there's one type of bird that seems to be a frequent flyer to the chook pen. The birds come together in a pack and stalk out the pen before gorging themselves on the chook's food. Now, the girls just stand by, not seeming to mind all that much that their food was being eaten by these birds. I tried shouting and throwing things at them, but they kept coming back. I tried moving the food around the backyard, but they always found out where it was. I'm now at the point of confiscating the food during the day (it must be the teacher in me).

Here's one of the pesky birds, just about to start eating the chook food.

He's looking around, checking for danger. He looks shifty to me.

Here they are, caught in the act.

Any suggestions as to what we can do to stop them from eating the chook food?

Bringing Down the Wall - Day 3 & 4

The plastering has been done on the ceiling. The plastering won't be finished on the walls until the engineer has checked that the roof is being supported (and hopefully it is!)
More excitingly, the skylight has been put in.

Here's our builder putting the plaster boards around the skylight.You can start to see how much light is now being let in - it's great.

Here's pretty much what's been done so far.

Now, we're trying to work out where to put our furniture. This is what we've come up with so far. What do you think? Does it work?

Bringing Down the Wall - Day 2

Today, most of the work was being done inside the roof. The builders spent most of the day installing a steel beam into the roof, so that it will hold up the roof permanently. Seeing that all the work was done in the roof, it doesn't look like much has happened today. But, putting in the steel beam was a huge job.

As you can see, the metal poles have now been removed. This is pretty much what it will look like - we'll get the plastering done tomorrow, hopefully.

Noelene - Dave's on the phone to you.

Bringing Down the Wall - Day 1

We are having an interior wall removed from our house. The builders started Yesterday.

Here they are, beginning to tear down the wall (viewed from the kitchen).

What's the quickest way to get rid of a wall? By kicking in the plaster, of course.

Now, all the plaster's gone and you can start to see what it's like without the wall.

The timber framing has gone. These metal poles are holding up our roof.
I was feeling a little nervous!

Here's a view from the lounge room, looking into the kitchen.
Lots of space now.

Great Ocean Road Pt 3

On the last day, we went to Cape Otway Lighthouse.

Great Ocean Road Pt 2

After seeing the Twelve Apostles, we continued down the Great Ocean Road, and went to see Lock Ard Gorge.

The Twelve Apostles

On the second day of our Great Ocean Road Trip, we drove down to the Twelve Apostles.