Murder in the backyard

Went to the kitchen to make a cuppa and noticed some activity in the backyard, two HUGH crows standing in a pile of feathers – OMG. Immediately our chooks came to mind, where are they? raced downstairs and out into the yard whereupon the crows soared away their powerful wings threshing the air. I looked around for the chooks and spotted them huddled together under the bay leaf tree near the back fence – relief!

The murder victim is the very common spotted turtle dove, remains are to the right and below centre of picture.

ALDI: Electric Knife 12.99

• 180W motor
• Low noise
• Dual safety switches
• Blade release button
• 2 sets of stainless steel blades (standard and frozen foods)

Never owned one of these so we thought lets give this one a go – mistake.
Wasn’t expecting much for 12 bucks, reasonable to expect it would handle a small Sunday roast.
Well…after several attempts neither of us could cut even one slice of the roast, so returned.

Lancer car audio upgrade

Back in March this year we upgraded the wife’s 1997 Mitsubishi Lancer GLXi to a 2006 ES model. We weren't actually looking for a car but this one owner private offer was to good to pass, little old lady not able to drive any more and car was in mint condition with 25K on the clock. Has the MIVEC 2.4 with sports auto – very impressive performance.

The factory audio system is adequate for our needs, we listen to a few CD’s but mainly tune into AM talk back radio, in particular 3AW on 693. So I set about re-tuning the AM band for our favourite stations, press Seek to find the first one and press/hold one of the six preset buttons to store in memory. After several attempts Seek could only find one station at the top of the band, MTR on 1377 – we have a problem! I thought about it for a while, unlikely to be antenna problems so should I pull the unit out and set it up on the workbench (old radio and TV tech person) to run some tests? or just buy a new CD Tuner for $100 odd bucks.

ALDI: Folding Laundry Trolley $19.99

• Add convenience to your washing with this folding laundry trolley
• Suitable for round or rectangle baskets
  
  

Retirement anniversary

Today marks the first anniversary of my retirement - how time flies!

So…what’s it like? well one of the obvious benefits of not working anymore is not having to get up at 6:30am to go to work, I still use the clock radio alarm every morning but now it’s usually set for 8:30am, weekends included. This is to maintain some sort of routine but more specifically to let the chooks out of their run and for the dog to do her business. Some weekday mornings depending on the weather conditions I can hear the traffic drone and feel quite contented that I’m not part of that any more.

Being retired doesn't wipe out all commitments, every morning regardless of weather conditions we have to tend to the horses and you are not allowed to have a sickie. We get ready and leave about eleven for a short drive to the horses which takes about one hour to feed them, remove or change rugs and other assorted chores like moving bails of hay and bags of feed etc. After this we often do a bit of shopping and some days have to visit the older kids place to check on her dog, a long haired German shepherd.

Anyway, when we do get home I am free to do as I please for the rest of the day. Depending upon the weather, my mood and energy level I might stay inside or venture out to the workshop or potter around outside in which case the chooks are very interested in what I might do, in particular weeding the garden beds - LOL

Super good news

Checked the post box today and something from the family accountants?

A cheque from the ATO for $2500 – finally. This is for two super co-contributions that I put into our SMSF for ET – the wife.

I posted about this 12 months ago, the first contribution of $1000 was three years ago when the govt. was offering $1.50 for every $1.00 put into super up to $1000 for people below a certain income level, that’s $1500. With Labour having spent all the surplus Wayne Swan started his penny pinching crusade and the co-contribution was reduced to a dollar for a dollar which amounts  to $1000 –that adds up to $2500.

The exact amount is actually $2500.01, yep…two thousand and five hundred dollars and one cent.