Hi there… It’s Me and Mister C…

Hi there… How nice to have seen the glorious sunshine over the past few days? Thankfully the rain has eased for now; Mister C and Me are thinking of the communities, who have been (badly) affected by the rain and floods. Our hearts go out to everyone, and we wish for a straight forward clean-up for you all. We have been so lucky (and thankful) we did not have such a deluge as other areas higher up have endured; our chook girls were safe, but the chook area did get a lot of rain, with a small leak in their shed (very minor), and some inevitable top soil erosion too. I have to say, today they are super clean and shiny from their forced rain bath! Speaking of chooks, Flossy and I were able to go pick up our two new black leghorn (with mixed breed) baby chooks (about 18 weeks old) on Friday afternoon. We were very excited and had already picked out a few cute names for the new girls. We finally decided on ‘Jasmine’ and ‘Ebony’; they have beautiful shimmery green colouring filtering through the black feathers, and are definitely girls! (image to be uploaded shortly). Now we have seven sweet girls; with our baby white silkie chooks, who should will be arriving by then end of next week, we will have a total of ten sweet girls again (hopefully). Let’s hope we can get some yummy eggs soon, as we have had none!…

The week prior to the recent rains, I spent a few days with some help from Flossy (thanks sweet girl!), fixing up and painting our side double (wooden) gate (second road entrance for our property); in preparation for the new carport and solar auto gate install, that is (hopefully) commencing on Monday (tomorrow- fingers crossed). I don’t know why we are excited over a simple metal roof, but we are looking forward to being able to park our cars undercover, without the hassle of the annoying neighbour’s garbage bins (always in the way), along with the tight curve of the old driveway at the top of our existing property. Husband and I were keeping an eye on a particular auto gate install set on ‘eBay’ (gotta love this site); magically a few days ago, it appeared on the site reduced to half price! So, we checked with our builder (and first-class handyman- thanks heaps B.W), that it was the correct equipment we needed and purchased it (yay-a great saving there!).

Righto, lets hop back to 2018… So, let’s recap where we were up to (as I didn’t write anything last blog from 2018). Mid-June, I recall I had written about Husband’s issues with ongoing heart palpitations, and his decision to lose some weight. Husband was working hard on this endeavour and had lost about three kilos (well done Husband!). Uncannily, with having our two new chooks today (2021), I recall a work colleague had experienced some issues with a nasty fox (damn naughty creatures!) on her property (just out of town) and had sadly lost most of her chooks. My colleague knew we had chooks and one day at work, told me her story and how she couldn’t have any more chooks (as we know- it can be quite traumatic losing chooks to foxes); while offered to give me her two remaining pekin-bantams (small fluffy chooks). I agreed, and my colleague was able to drop the chooks over after work the following afternoon (thanks heaps!). The chooks were lovely and were both a pretty golden and cream colour each; we decided to name them ‘Ginger’ and ‘Honey’ (quite fitting really?).

As I have mentioned in the past, it is difficult to integrate old chooks with new ones, it can take several days (even weeks) for them all to settle in. So, we managed to put the new girls in to chook shed late in the evening, when the other girls had settled to roost. At this stage, we didn’t have the small auto gate installed yet (unfortunately) and one of the chooks ‘Honey’ (I presume got spooked) and ran out of the shed and had disappeared into the open garden area. Husband recalls, “Wife’s work friend delivered two new hens this afternoon; one disappeared at about 530pm out from the chook shed in the dark and Wife was very stressed. All of us and the kids looked for it for over an hour, with our torches. I made her feel better, by saying it would turn up tomorrow. Wife found new chook in the morning and brought it inside for a while; she wrapped it in a warm towel and sat in front of the heater. Mister C fed the hen some grains from his hand, it was very cute to see”…

I was SO relieved when I had found ‘Honey’. I felt really bad during night, as we had just received them the same day; it would have be awful if the chook had passed away that night from being out in the cold and rain. ‘Honey’ promptly recovered from the night’s event and became a wonderful edition to the chook girl clan with her sister ‘Ginger’. However, about two months later, (sorry to write) ‘Honey’ did sadly leave this world, to go to chook heaven (not sure what had happened, found her cold and motionless under a bush in the yard one morning late winter). As a little remembrance tradition, we made a plaque (wooden heart shaped sign, with name and decorations painted on it) for ‘Honey’ and each of the girls we have lost. Since we have been caring and raising chooks, so far, we have now unfortunately lost ten chooks to date (2021).

I recall it was a very cold winter in 2018, we had snow twice that year! It was like a Winter wonderland, but SO cold. On one of the days, it snowed we got up early, after Mister C yelled “Mummy, it’s white everywhere! Come look everyone”… We grabbed our gloves and beanies and ran outside to play in the snow, it was fun! The weeks later, I also recall the kids and I did succumb to the coughs and colds, that were going around at school and work. Having said that though, Husband did NOT get sick (again), as he always claims he never does; one year I bet he is going to get very sick?! (I’m always the one who gets the kids bugs). I ended up developing a bad chest infection and needed to see the GP for oral abs (antibiotics), to help clear up the nasty bug; it did take over two weeks for me to start to feel better (don’t you hate that post sickness tiredness?). The girls and Mister C had time off school to recover from their bugs too (always best to stay home).

Mister C was doing better in kindy and was attempting to learn to read (gotta love those magic words!); some days he got the simple words, other days he struggled. We all enjoyed reading together (or on our own) at home and encouraged Mister C to do the same. Husband commented, “The sweetest thing, last night just before Mister C’s bedtime, he was sitting between me and Mummy on the couch and announced, “I love both of you, I really do!” Wife read to him on the couch and I read to him in bed; for about the sixth time we read that small superhero comic book with two-to-three page jokes. We both love the one where one character says, ‘Have you seen ‘Ant Man’?’ and the other says, ‘I think he went to the Flea market.’ On the next page, he is the size of an ant, actually at a market being run by fleas! ‘Ant Man’ says to the Flea stall holder, ‘Two for a dollar, right?’…

It was around this time mid-year, that Mister C had begun to remember having some vivid dreams (hence the dream diary on the blog). Husband recalls, “Turns out Mister C had a bad dream last night, after coming into our room a few times. This morning on the way to school, Mister C told me, “Can we talk about my dream now? Well, I dreamed I was downstairs and tried to close the door four times, but a bat came in and bit me on the neck. I then went to get a band-aid and all of you were also bitten by the bat!” Crazy dream my son!… Husband also commented, “This morning was before school care. My sweet little boy came off the computer and into the kitchen with shoes on the wrong feet! I lifted him up onto the kitchen table to fix them; he still seems so small and cute as a button. Anyway, I said in about four years I probably won’t be able to lift him up, but for now… I lifted him up high in the air and swung him around, both of us smiling”… A strong bond shared by these two zany fellas…

A Word from Mister C…

Dad and Mister C were sitting together in the lounge room. Mister C had a thoughtful look on his face and said, “So, Daddy; if someone was to go to that place in ‘hell’, would the devil eat them?!” … “Oh, no, my son; he just makes their stay very unpleasant! Don’t worry you won’t be going to ‘hell’, my son; you would have to do something VERY bad to go to there!” … “Oh, that’s okay then;” Mister C said, sighing. “I haven’t been to heaven yet, naturally,” Dad replied, smiling. “I’m still here living my life out with you, Mummy and the girls first. I look up to the sky and imagine heaven is so far away, maybe even further than the moon?” … Oh, yes Dad. I like you here with me, not in heaven” …😏

Stay tuned…

Thanks for your ongoing support, we LOVE you reading our blogs! Illustrations are over half way through the images for the third book… Stay tuned for more stories in August and September of 2018. I end up having three operations in the space of four short months (not pleasant I can assure you). I will keep it short and sweet (you don’t need all the gory details-do you?). Hugs and night from Mister C ❣