Birds eat mice?

Now it's a swallow.   It has been in the kitchen for hours.  Steve left the door open to let in the nice warm sun and in it came.... the sun and the swallow.   When it began to get cool around 4pm, we started trying to get it out.  No use.  Steve did some pretty good impersonations of a crow and I tried cheeping in swallow.  Then we took a broom each, with a net curtain draped over it and flailed around vigorously but the swallow is much quicker than we are.  It flies over the top of the door, never right in front of it. 

We have had no mice appearances for 6 days!!!!    When we returned from Melbourne, there were 2 dead on the floor and one in a trap.  We continue baiting the traps with poison pellets.

No permits have been issued for woodcutting in the forest so we had to buy a ute load of expensive wood, cut last season.  That is in very short supply.   Therefore, we think that we will pack up soon and head for Moree and the heated pools.   Steve says that he will come home if his Mother needs him.

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Melbourne Surprises

Here we are in Melbourne, supervising Maddy 14, Josh 12 and the Chinese student Jiaming, 16, while Talitha is working in Gippsland.

Last night, I cooked a silverside roast beef.  This was no easy task, as the oven never seemed to get hot enough.  After battling with it for 2 hours, I was told by Josh that it was a bad oven and that his Mother and Maddy hated it.   So I turned it up full bore and after a total of 4 hours, some of which was in the microwave, I pronounced it cooked, ready or not.

I carved off some and gave Josh his to eat.  Steve and Maddy were out and I didn't know where Jiaming was, so I planned to dish the meal up for everyone and heat it up when they arrived home.

Just then, the phone rang and Josh picked it up, in the lounge.  He called out that his Mother wanted to talk to  me so I walked to the lounge and straight back to the kitchen.   This small "journey" was too long.  I arrived back just in time to see the big Labrador, Zack, with the roast sticking out of either side of his mouth.  He wasn't going to drop it --- he chomped hard and fast.  Away went the roast.  Josh said it was nice too!!!  The look in Zack's eyes said the same thing!!

Ziaming still wasn't home at 10.30pm and the kids informed me that he had never been out that late before.   I was worried.  We didn't know his second name,  his phone number or any of his friends.  I couldn't ring anyone to enquire after him and it seemed a bit ridiculous to ring the police when we had only his first name.    Talitha knew all of these details, of course but I didn't want to worry her.

Ziaming walked in at 11pm, only moments after I had wailed, "He could be dead in the gutter somewhere."    When I told him this, he thought it was very funny.  As we're here for another week, we exchanged mobile phone numbers and I discovered his second name. 

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