Blue Tamago

Checked the chickens in the morning, all was fine, gave them their treats, cleaned up their poo etc. etc. Came home to find a headless chicken. RIP little Ash.

Adelaide managed to swelter through another hot weekend. This time with both days over 40 degrees. It was so hot even a kangaroo decided to take shelter in our shade house.

In case you didn't know, this is the year of the sheep!  Well I think it's supposed to be goat (the Chinese word "Yang" can refer to sheep, goat or rams) since the origin of the word were from people that mainly raised goats. Anyway, I don't have a goat, only a sheep, so here you go! This is also hubby's zodiac year and the horoscope states " Married Goats will get along well with their spouses and will enhance their relationships through daily quarrels ".  Hmmm...does that mean I have to argue with him more? Ha ha. Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone. May you have a happy and prosperous year ahead of you!

Adelaide is due for another heatwave and today the temperature is forecast to be 41 degrees! Chicken owners all know the signs of heat stress, wings out from the body and panting.  When there is a heatwave forecast, these are the things I do to try and prevent my chickens from getting heat stress, like poor Penguin above panting in the heat.

I had a tight deadline to get Buffy's coop finished as I was due to head interstate for work for a week. It would have been too much for one person to look after the animals in three different locations, Buffy in his bachelor cage (since he fights with Penguin), Penguin with his hens and the chicks in their two different cages.

  This Hakone post will be split into two parts as I took loads of photos and we crammed as much as we could into the two days that we were there. The photos were taken mainly on the first day as it poured with rain on the second day and we spent much of the second day indoors, which doesn't bode well for photo taking. This one will focus on the trip up to Hakone and the ryokan we stayed in and the food...oh so much food served at the ryokan... To get to Hakone, we took the shinkansen from Shinagawa station to Odawara, a trip that lasted about 30mins. At Odawara, I highly recommended that you get a Hakone Free Pass , which gives you free access on the Tozan line trains (which you need to use to actually get to Hakone), the cablecars, ropeways and selected buses in the area. We got a 2 day pass from Odawara station for 4000 yen each. It is very easy to get it at the station, it will be the area that has loads of tourists crowded around. there are also Englis