Blue Tamago

 Buffy and Penguin are now 1 year old! Hard to imagine that the once looked like this:   From squeaky balls of fluff we got two roosters that grew up together. For the first few months of their lives, they were inseparable and did everything together. Then at about 7 months, they started fighting over the hens, to the point that we had to separate them permanently :( Their first meeting together. Playtime together! So what did these two gentleman do for their birthdays? Penguin err..snoozed under the rhubarb... And Buffy moved into his own new coop and run. Here he is checking out some food inside the coop. Buffy will share his coop with Flopsy, the mature Leghorn, plus all the little chicks that we bought. So he will have 7 in total! Far more than the 3 that Penguin has. Here is Buffy showing Flopsy the best nest in the world. Buffy spent a good 20 minutes flattening the straw and making a nest. Flopsy on the other hand, seem...

Since Buffy and Penguin absolutely hate each other we had to build a new coop and a run to keep the two separated. Buffy will have a cohort of hens and Penguin will keep the Araucanas. Just before Christmas, the fencing was started and the area for the run marked out. It's actually larger than the current one, but just devoid of much vegetation. Trench digging and laying out a skirt is a must. Foxes are in the area and notorious for digging through fencing. We could have spent about $1000 for a brand new coop, but I had mainly pallets and other scrap material. This way, I could tailor the coop to the space (slightly slopey and under a tree), plus it is significantly cheaper. Had to mark out the base and get them level. First wall is up. Not long after, the second section went up too. The second section included the space for the chicken door and a window. They were kept up by bracing until I could get the proper frame up. Unfortunately, we had a rain and wind ...

This post will mainly be pictures, didn't really do much on this day in Tokyo. As I said in the last post, we spent quite a bit of time in fishing stores in the Shibuya area. We went to Johshuya, which is above a 100 yen store (yes I love those stores) and another, Sansui. Hubby was interested in purchasing a telescopic rod, but all the made in Japan ones were over the $400 price range. The reasonably priced ones were all made in China. Johshuya has a nice selection of items but Sansui felt to be more geared towards fly/freshwater fishing. Anyway, what do I know. Another thing in Shibuya is Tokyu Hands, a one stop shop for any home things that you want and plenty of craft items. This is a shop I recommend going to! The above pic is something you can buy from Tokyu Hands, a fish skeleton? For about $40 you can own one. Or you can buy a crab as a pet. A live one of course. I just ended up buying some cosmetics and a bento box. Have to admit though, I went to the Shinjuku T...

What a horrid start to the year! The fire danger rating for the 2nd of January in Adelaide was rated as Catastrophic. Meaning if a fire started that day, it would be nearly impossible to contain it. So what happened? A fire started. The day was ridiculously hot, 42 degrees and Adelaide managed to top that predicted temperature. Added to that, strong northerly winds to fan any fire. The fire started in Sampson Flat, which is about 23 km north away from us. I think it started in the early afternoon and by late afternoon, it was out of control. Those northerly winds meant that it was fanning the fire south, towards us. As large fires make their own microclimate, this fire managed to spread in all directions. We woke up on Saturday to find (and smell) a smoke cloud outside the house, which put us in a bit of a panic. Had the fire managed to travel south that quickly? Checking the website, the fire was still out of control up north, but the smoke cloud had blown south/south eas...