A year ago...

12 Months ago this week we flew to Brisbane to look for a new house to live in before our big move to Queensland. Hasn't time flown by!

It was a busy week, we visited more than 20 houses in the week, many that did not meet our requirements, went to some theme parks and then watched my beloved Hawks lose a Grand Final, to top it off we sold our house over the phone. Towards the end of the short stay we decided to make an offer on a house that we had quickly inspected, in the end it became our home.

No need to fast forward 12 months, as it seems to have been so anyway, this week I hope for a change in fortune for the Mighty Hawks, I won't be watching... I am sure my short temper and frustration will ensure I wouldn't enjoy it anyway. Instead I will get out into the garden and get back into the long list of jobs to be completed.

We have not done a lot in the last few weeks, we have been doing any number of things, many to avoid the hard work needed. Last weekend I went pig hunting, wasn't the most successful trip but we had a great time anyway. The property has plenty of pigs on it but not many that we could find, the only one we saw crossed our path while all firearms were secured and unloaded in the ute. Needless to say he had all but made good his escape by the time I had unpacked and loaded the BLR. An off hand fleeting shot at him as he disappeared into the thick dense scrub was not accurate enough to pull him up. The Cocky's game camera mounted on his pig trap indicated we were minutes away from a mob of 30 odd pigs when spotlighting but alas we did not see them and for the life of me I can't think where they disappeared to!

The pool has been swum in everyday and we are loving it, the solar has warmed the pool up to a balmy 28 degrees Celsius, so warm that we had to adjust the temperature set point to prevent it becoming a bath. The girls are swimming like fish and are loving time spent in the pool, they have invented any number of games to play and keep themselves amused. Much to my chagrin, my swimming ability is on par with that of a rock, however I have taken some time over the last few weeks and have successfully taught myself to swim properly. The pool is big enough to allow me practice my breathing and stroke, however I am yet to get the whole tumble turn thing.

You may recall that there was a Magpie by the name of Graeme that was making my working day a Hitchcock inspired nightmare, the little black and white prick chased me over a combined distance of more than a kilometre during which time he would swoop and peck, or hit me or my helmet more than 50 times each day! Thankfully Auspost decided that it was a safety issue and organised to have the bird relocated. I was informed Monday afternoon that there had been a successful capture and relocation of Graeme on Friday! It was amusing to see the reaction of the boss when I told her that the $600 spent to move the bastard was spent on the wrong bird and in fact Graeme was still dive bombing all over Kingfisher Park to his hearts content. This morning I was rapt to get a phone call from the bird catcher letting me know that this time she had indeed got Graeme, not convinced I met her at Kingfisher Park to confirm his entrapment. It was him and the smile on my face was a mile wide, I truly enjoyed the rest of my day, while Graeme was in transit to the Sunshine Coast, good riddance you cowardly feathered fiend.

You might also remember I had a run in with our Crimsafe screen door, what a saga that has turned out to be. I have had heaps of trouble getting the installer out to repair the door, obviously they are not happy having to honour the lifetime warranty. Finally after three weeks and many phone calls they came to have a look. Surprise surprise the stooges have squibbed on the warranty, claiming a door of that size should have a centre stay and the previous owners must have waived the warranty to have it installed thusly without a centre stay. Can't really argue about what might have happened six years ago when installed, but I do find their reluctance to cover the warranty and the fact they have weaseled out of it pretty damn poor. Needless to say that I reckon Crimsafe is not worth a pinch of hot cocky shit! Scumbags!

It's a Small World...

We have had a few of the it's a small world moments since we have been up here!

Firstly Karren came home from work and asked if I knew a bloke called Hambly who used to work at Mars, yes was the reply. It turns out that Karren now works with his son in law.

The second it's a small world moment involves a long and detailed story that I am about to regale, or bore you to death with.

I saw a video produced by the Ballarat RSL, a story of a man called Bull Allen. The video tells the story of a brave Ballarat man and his gallantry during WWII, the link was posted by Bruce an old workmate of mine. The video inspired me to search for similar stories on YouTube.

One video that I found was titled Tribute to Australian Soldiers in Afghanistan 2012, and was posted by MozfromAus. At the time it meant nothing to me but I kept searching. Later I returned to the video to read some of the comments and I had a WTF moment. MozfromAus was a bloke named Ken.  Those of you who went through their secondary schooling at Sebas Tech with me and escaped unscathed will probably, no certainly remember a larrakin called Ken, who left school to join the army. I don't like posting the full names of people on Blogs and the like so if you can't work out who I am on about send me a message. One of the last times Ken and I were in touch, he sent me some photos and a letter from Namibia where he served with the UNTAG forces.

Photo from the Australian War Memorial Archives.

I had been unsuccessfully searching for ways to connect to Ken to no avail. MozfromAus was a clue that would eventually enable to me to connect with Moz on Facebook after not being in touch with each other for more than 20 years.

So last night I was next door having a BBQ with our neighbours Jason and Danielle, Jason was ex-army and he handed me a stubby holder that was emblazoned with a Combat Engineers insignia. I was sure that Ken/Moz was at some stage a member of the Combat Engineers when he was in the army. I thought it was a remote possibility that the two gents would know each other but asked the question of Jason anyway. The answer didn't really surprise me, Jason "Killer" knew Ken "Moz" very well, they great mates in the army and have known each other for years.

I find it amazing that I now live next door to a bloke who is mates with an old mate of mine from the other end of the country from more than 20, nearly 30 years ago. I reckon it's a great story, but I will certainly not be asking why Killer is so named.

It has been some time since my last post, nothing of real note has happened.

We fired up the Chimenea to roast some marshmallows, one thing led to another and soon I had consumed the best part of a bottle of Bourbon, Karren a couple of bottles of Vino, the girls a bag of marshmallows, they also ended up with a couple of little burns from the molten marshmallow as well!

mmmmmm fire.... so pissed I couldn't even hold the camera straight!

 That night I did explode the myth that Crimsafe screen doors are Crimsafe! I was a little joyous after consuming three quarters of a bottle of Devil's Cut and walked straight through a closed Crimsafe door. Crimsafe they might be, pissed idiot safe they certainly are not!

Didn't hurt at the time!

Last weekend I had my 44th Birthday, a forgettable one, the only positive is that I keep having Birthdays, getting older is better than the alternative.

For my Birthday treat we went to the Brisbane Boat Show and dreamed of what we would buy if we won the Lotto, then we followed that with lunch on Sunday arvo at SouthBank. My luck was out and we had the misfortune of picking the single worst restaurant in Brisbane, thankfully is was so bad I have forgotten its name, or is that old age, anyway where was I.... we tried a few establishments that were too busy, then found one that wasn't. 

The fact that this restaurant wasn't busy should have rung alarm bells, but once we saw our food it became immediately apparent why it was so quiet. I ordered a seafood basket, one would think a safe enough choice when on the coast near some of the best fisheries in the country! Alas my seafood basket consisted of some crumbed and fried fish, calamari and prawns all thoughtfully prepared and frozen by Birdseye or some such similar company many many weeks before my birthday! The fish fillets were hardly fillets, instead more like a oversized fish fingers. The food was so substandard Karren and the girls were also unable to completely finish their meals - which is highly unusual for Emily and Rosie! The restaurant proudly proclaimed to serve Australian cuisine. If by Australian cuisine they mean cheap and nasty food that tasted like crap and was prepared by chefs too lazy to batter and fry some seafood, they nailed it!

Karren's Birthday is Tuesday so I need to get my backside firmly in gear and organise something special for her for dinner. Processed and frozen seafood is not on the menu!

The things you see...

Just a quick update, we went to Seaworld today, just a treat for the girls. They have been behaving pretty well lately and have kept their rooms clean for two whole weeks!

Driving down on the M1, when in the distance I could see something large, it wasn't instantly recognisable but as we got closer I saw not a truck as I initially thought but rather, a very large dual cab ute.

Big dual cab F750

So I was thinking to myself - why? Then I thought hey why not! I wouldn't really want one forever, but would love to pedal one just for fun! It is a massive vehicle and Emily posed a pertinent question. How and where would you park such a beast? If you are that big I would suggest anywhere and anyhow you please. It dwarfed the Mondeo.

Monster Truck F750

After I had spent a few ks drooling over the F750 we eventually made it to Seaworld arriving just in time to see the Dora show, both girls are a little old for Dora the Explorer, however watching one of their favourite school teachers from Pleasant Street PS perform as Dora was a special treat for them.

Kate Lewis as Dora the Explorer

Later during her break we were fortunate enough to catch up with Kate for a quick chat, both girls adore her and it was great treat for us to see her smiling, happy and enjoying herself on the Gold Coast.

Rosie is slowly getting taller and has just passed the 120cm barrier (by a couple of mm) which qualified her for the Sky Climb. We didn't get the chance to get any photos of the Sky Climb, because all four of us were able to go on together. It certainly challenged Rosie and I who are a little acrophobic and possibly thanatophobic. Emily and to a certain extent Karren, were bounding around on the ropes course without fear.

After the Sky Climb we went on a few of the roller coasters, and then Viking Flume - repeatedly, which we love as it is one of the few rides we can enjoy together. Emily and I rode the Jet Rescue ride, Emily then conspired to trick her mother into going on it, by telling her the ride was pedestrian and boring. Karren is not all scared by roller coasters, so the enjoyment was in the sting rather than getting her on the ride.

Post Script.

As an adjunct, Karren and I noticed the Boss is touring again in Brisbane in February of 2014, we are currently looking for a reliable baby sitter so that we can both go... I will hope to be camped by the computer on the 21st when the pre sale tickets go on sale to ensure we get seats.

More Gardening

Today we got stuck into some more gardening, transplanting Golden Cane Palms was the order of the day!

We have searched on a number of different occasions for instructions, for moving Palm trees. Last night Karren stumbled across one that outlined a very technical process.

1. Firstly remove about one third of the palm fronds from the tree.
2. Dig up the palm tree leaving a decent size root ball.
3. Dig a hole big enough for the root ball.
4. Put the palm in the hole and fill with dirt.
5. Water the palm.

Gee, we would never have thought to do it that way! The only step that was not obviously necessary was step one. After starting on the first tree the reason became immediately apparent! You remove the palm fronds that hinder your efforts to extricate the root ball at the base of the tree.

The Golden Cane Palms were tightly clumped like this.

We began moving the palms at the western corner of the front garden. The Palms were planted very tightly and in our opinion were not particularly well set out. We chose the ones we wanted transplant and roughed out where we wanted them to go, once decided we hooked in to the first and smallest of the three we wanted moved.

First two Palms in place

The little one in the centre of the above photo was first to be moved and planted, it wasn't too bad, but was very heavy and awkward to move. The bigger ones would be more problematic, twice the size and weight.

Hilux in place for winching the third Palm out.

We got into the second tree with a different plan. I hooked the winch on the Hilux to the Palm, dug up some of the roots then winched it out, this method proved to be much easier and a lot less back ache.

Third Palm ready to plant.

Given how dry and warm it has been, the ground was very hard and required a lot of effort to dig the 800mm diameter 400mm deep holes required for the two bigger Palms.

In the ground and tethered.

The two larger Palms were tethered to prevent them being blown over in the wind.

View looking north west

Karren and I were utterly exhausted after spending the best part of three hours moving the Palms so we cooled off with the girls in the pool!

Next week we move four more Palms from the eastern side of the garden, then commence the garden edging. We are slowly getting there!

Holiday Today!

Today was the public holiday for Brisbane Show Day so we decided to have a bike ride in the morning, then spend the afternoon playing in the pool.

Bike Riding - By the Brisbane River

Initially we headed to a bike track around the Enoggera Reservoir, I thought a bike track around the edge of a lake would be fairly flat, oh boy was I wrong! It very quickly became apparent that we would not be able to do the planned ride when the approach to the reservoir was so steep we were barely able to stand on the shale and rock as we walked our bikes down to the start. After about a kilometre and having had to walk with Rosie up three hills (it's not easy for seven year olds to ride up steep hills on a fixed gear BMX) we thought better and returned to the car to re-plan our ride.

So we headed off to Southbank for a river ride. We started our ride heading north west along Southbank, crossed the Brisbane River via the Kurilpa Bridge, then in a roundabout way onto the Bicentennial Bikeway. This busy path took us south east along the river's edge to the Botanical Gardens then along to the Eagle St. Pier. We didn't want to wait for a cross river ferry so we back tracked whence we came and crossed back over the Brisbane River on the Goodwill Bridge. 

On top of the Goodwill Bridge - with helmet hair!

Once back on the south-side we again headed in a south easterly direction towards Kangaroo Point. 

Rock Climbing Kangaroo Point Cliffs

The girls thought all the people rock climbing on the cliffs along the rivers edge were really cool. They want to give it a crack so we might investigate that at a later date. We turned around at the cliffs and headed back to the car.

An Afternoon Swimming - Pool Now Finished!

We commenced the longest pool build in modern history on the 7th of February,  the pool was officially completed on Saturday the 10th of August when I braved the 18 degrees Celsius water and fitted the suction filters to the suction pipes, 184 days or just over six months after the build commenced! The pool was contracted to be completed on the 11th of April, we only missed that deadline by 121 days!

There have been hiccups along the way with enormous amounts of rain causing delays, contractors not showing up, problems with the ground it was built on, project variances and other annoyances. However now the pool is completed and the weather is warming up we are starting to really get some use out of the pool, thankfully the solar pool heating system has made a big difference!

The solar is doing a great job, in an earlier post I spoke of my first swim in the pool at a balmy 21 degrees C, as it turns out the temp probe was out of whack and needed calibration. Once correctly reading the temp, the solar started working properly and is now warming up nicely after a couple of warm days! I even spent a couple of hours in the pool yesterday afternoon, with the water temp at 22 degrees C it is quite pleasant.

The girls really love mucking about in the pool and it is amazing how quickly their ability in the pool improves, along with their confidence. In a couple of short hours Rosie gained enough confidence to swim under water the length of the pool - albeit with flippers but that is still a very big improvement for her! Both girls can duck dive and pick up small objects from the deepest part of the pool, which is 2.1metres deep. 

We have used a mineral salt blend called Acqua Therepe for the salts for chlorination, which apparently has many benefits, most of which are not really measurable. However the one thing that is very obvious is how soft the water is on your skin and hair. So far so good!

I wont win parent of the week this week, Emily has a little sun burn on her shoulders, I must remember we are no longer in a normal winter and act accordingly!

What Are Your Memories Worth?

About three weeks ago I was up late watching the cricket on a Saturday night, thinking about my latest blog post offering, when the laptop started to misbehave. The normal reboot did nothing to fix the issue so I googled some fixes on the iPad and tried a few different things. A couple of hours later, frustrated not just by the cricket, I was struggling to get a resolution and went to bed.

Sunday Karren and I tried dozens of things but the laptop appeared to be cactus. We made a phone call to Apple and organised an appointment at the Apple store in Carindale. The Apple tech guru had a quick look, plugged in some diagnostic gear and determined that they needed to do some real work to get it going. It was looking more kangaroo edward by the moment.

On Tuesday I got a call saying that they needed to reformat the hard drive. For this to happen we needed to do one of three things;

1. Provide a back up of our data to be reloaded once the hard drive was reformatted. This was a little problematic given we didn't have a back up.
2. Agree to have the hard drive wiped and lose all data, including all our photos since the digital photography bug took hold - about 10 years worth or about 7500 images.
3. Pick up the lap top and take it to a data recovery specialist to retrieve all our data.

We had a think about it for a while and settled on a price for what we thought we would pay to get all our stuff back, in particular the much treasured photos!

Next we had to choose a data recovery company, there were quite a few and the first we contacted, were recommended by Apple. Initial quotation would cost $75, then if data was retrievable the cost would be between $800 for an easy job and $2000 for a difficult recovery. Wow... how much are your photographic memories worth? That made our decision easy, no way were we paying that.

The second mob I spoke to were prepared to analyse and quote free of charge, that was a good start! Then the rate for data recovery went from $250 for an easy job to $695 for a difficult job. That sort of makes the decision process a little easier. Painful but easier.

So I dropped the lap top off and waited for a phone call. The next afternoon I got the call I was waiting for. All the data was retrieved but it was a tier three recovery $695 plus a portable hard drive to store the data on. Costly but not as expensive as the quote from the first company. I was left wondering how many people would just go with the Apple recommended repairer and either pay through the nose or begrudgingly choose to lose everything? 

The lap top was then repaired with a new hard drive and I loaded all the relevant information back on to the repaired lap top. The whole issue took two weeks to get resolved from failure to being back in full operation.

There were two lessons in this for me, lessons for first world problems I admit, but lessons none the less.

1. If you have a PC or lap top with information you could not live without if your computer failed then do a back up. In fact the recommendation from the data recovery guru was to run two parallel back ups. The frequency of portable hard drive or storage disc failures are simply too high to rely on only one.
2. Always shop around for a second or even third quote. Third party recommendations or referrals are not always to be relied upon, particularly not this time.

We now back up our laptop each weekend, to two different hard drives. We discovered just how much stuff you keep stored on your computer that you never miss until you can't get it. Emails with tax information was one that bit me on the backside this time.

Back to the Garden

It has been quite a while since my last blog post, for obvious reasons! We have done a fair bit in the last month or so. Although the back garden is not finished we began out the front as well, we are at the stage where one of the major jobs - garden edging - require work in the front and back yards, with roughly 50 metres of edging to be concreted in.

Firstly we had to cut up the turf out the front and transfer it to the bare areas out the back, this took most of Saturday in the rain and a few hours Sunday, in the rain too. I shouldn't complain though because normally working in July in the rain would result in frost bite, chilblains and other nasty Wintery ailments. Thankfully none of that in Brisbane. Unfortunately after we had exhausted all our over supply from the front yard, we ended up about 10 square metres short of covering everything out the back.

Once the new garden beds were grass free we than had to remove all the old garden edging and salvage what edging pavers we could, then take the concrete and broken pavers to the tip. I loaded up the trailer with what I thought was a reasonable load, I was slightly over weight by my estimation but not dangerously so.

I got a nasty shock at the weigh bridge when the ticket was given to me indicating roughly 1050kgs of concrete on board, wow I was way over weight. The gate attendant told me it would cost about $150 to empty the trailer in one go, or I could empty half, then go out pay and go back in and empty the second half and pay much less. Brilliant, sixty bucks versus a hundred and a half for making a little diversion in and out was fantastic, simple and super cost effective idea. Or conversely a flaw in the tiered payment system easily exploited?

Paw-Paw trees are ugly

This weekend we ripped out the horrid Paw-Paw trees and replanted a Lilly Pilly hedge in their place. Photos will follow.

More Deer

We have seen more deer since the last post, more fallow, firstly a stag that had just lost his antlers.

Antlers gone...

Then I spotted these three multi coloured Fallow after dropping the girls at school, the colour variation was pretty amazing.

Three Fallow Does

The deer are incredibly docile and easy to get very close too, it is pretty obvious that the greater population of deer up here have not been hunted. The locals are getting sick and tired of the damage being done to gardens by the deer. The second issue is the number that are damaging the locals' cars as they wander into traffic.

Apparently the Brisbane city council have engaged professional hunters in an attempt to cull the numbers. In a letter to one such aggrieved resident, the local councillor stated that in the last 12 months more than 50 deer had been culled on selected private properties in Pullenvale. No doubt the local population is significant  in number and living predominantly in areas that cannot be hunted. As usual the answers to reducing feral animal populations are not easy nor widely acceptable.

What are you looking at?

Trials and Tribulations of the Postie

I am still enjoying the job, but it does have its challenges! Three things seem to be recurrent;

1. Dogs hate Posties. This isn't problematic for those responsible owners who keep their dogs on leads or in well fenced yards. Those that don't however are the bane of a Postie's day! I have already had the misfortune of running over a small dog!  Thankfully I didn't fall off nor hurt myself,  I couldn't have cared less about the dog, but it seemed OK and the fact that it barks at me each day from the front window of its house tells me it survived. Last week I had a run in with a nasty flea bag that seems to escape its back yard fairly often, it barks, growls and charges but is yet to bite. There is one other dog that is new to the area that is getting more aggressive each day. On Thursday it chased me  for more than 100 metres whilst trying to bite the mail bags on my bike. I need to be very wary and careful delivering in his area. Please remember to keep your dog responsibly and safe. Make sure it is restrained or fenced.
2. Is it Magpie swooping season? Graham seems to think so! Graham is a legendary local Magpie who each year in July begins a four or five month assault, initially on the Postie, then as he becomes more protective everyone. Each day I have to ride into and out of his attack zone twice as I deliver to each side of the road. The challenge when being attacked by Graham is to not flinch, keep your eye on the road and not worry about the constant whack, whack, whack as he flies above you smacking into the helmet and swooping past your shoulder. Initially I was being hit eight to ten times, now he is getting me 12 to 15 times and becoming more aggressive each day. He hates the Postie, but he is not alone...
3. A very small number people are completely anal and unreasonable about the nature strip in front of their house, even though they don't own it they are of the belief that it is their right to prevent you from legally going about your job, that is delivering mail on the footpath. Ropes, sleepers, rubbish bins, bricks, piles of rubbish and filthy looks are numerous. They need to understand I do have permission from the owner to deliver mail from the footpath. It is only grass, get over it.

Fallow Aplenty...

We have seen numerous deer over the time we have been here, this morning however, I was treated to a rare sight.

Whilst taking the girls to school I saw a large white Fallow stag eating some Lantana just off the creek on Pullenvale Rd. He is the same stag we saw on Anzac day I am sure. As I passed the bridge I looked back over my shoulder and saw another stag, only with much larger antlers in the scrub on the edge of the creek. I was excited, so where the girls! We turned around and had another look, they were a 100m or so away and not spooked by us and the car in the slightest. I got a grainy and poor quality shot with my iPhone...

White Fallow front and centre

After dropping the girls at school, came passed again and saw they were both still there! Time for some more photos - I hoped!

I went home and quickly grabbed the camera, then realised I needed the bigger lens, now where was it? Not where it should have been... Then I remembered it was in the car, so off I went again.

I pulled up on the RHS of the road and proceeded to take a couple of shots of the white stag, something spooked them, then I saw a bloke walking towards me apologising that he had spooked them and asking if I got any shots, I showed him what I had and he was happy for me as he only had the crappy phone shots as well...

I managed to get these before me old mate scared them off...

If you enlarge this shot (by clicking on the photo) you can see the second stag just above and slightly to the left of centre of the fence post. the two stags seem to be looking at one another.

In this shot you can see the ears and antlers of the second stag a little more clearly, at this stage they know something is up and start to slowly head for cover.

I have to say I was pretty happy with the shots and I spoke the the other guy for a few minutes then said I would have a crack at seeing them from the other side of the creek, this would require a little stalking - not an easy task in my bright yellow hiviz Aus post uniform. I was glowing like a beacon. Still I would give it a crack!

Uh oh, he has seen me...

Obviously he was not your average Fallow stag and he was quick to realise a hunter would not be wearing Aus post hivis, so nothing to worry about, business as usual! He turned and went nonchalantly  back to his pal. Then had a casual look over his shoulder to see if I was still there, ooh the yellow it burns...

OK they now knew I was stalking them and the thought they had better make for thicker cover, damn that postie this tucker is too good! 

At this stage my old mate joined me again, and for someone who says he is a bow hunting deer stalker - he made a lot of bloody noise. This was my last semi focused shot before the got the flock out of there!

Wow, that was excellent, my heart was pumping, adrenalin running. Great stuff!

I did learn a quick lesson, whilst photographing wildlife in scrub and motley light you need to switch off auto focus, I lost a couple of excellent shots because the camera did not focus on what I wanted it too. Now I need to find the camera manual to see how that is done...

I reckon I need to get a bow and permission from the land owner to see if I can bags me a trophy, whilst stalking with a camera is good, the thought of a trophy stag on the wall and a few feeds of venison is also quite appealing!

Now google bow hunting supplies Brisbane...