No more fish

Goodbye little fella - the last of ET’s Neon Tetra's (RIP).

ET’s Cristmas present

One of them, a very nice Coo Coo clock present from the kids.

Christmas 2016

Coo Coo clock present for ET from the kids.

Christmas 2016 – we break from tradition

After so many years of Christmas eve at Meadowbrook Mansion our older daughter , who has moved into her new home, will from now on take over hosting Christmas festivities…with lots of help from mum.

The Christmas tree, decorations and related stuff have all been transferred to their new home, a changing of the guard.

Holly happy & smiling...

Taken 10 years ago…crikey.

Pixie & Holly to vet

At vet for their regular checkup and jabs.

Christmas 2016

Tree set up but this year its in Botanic Ridge , not Wheelers Hill

K9 Visitors

With their humans.

Willow, Mindy and our Holly.

Misty to the vet.

Our silver laced Wyandotte Misty has a egg problem.

Diagnosed as egg yolk peritonitis, she will need antibiotics and a hormone implant.

New mail box

From the Mansion series of the Sandleford range of letter box's that Bunnings stock

New 7” tablet purchase

Came across this in Woolworths Wheelers Hill for $45 bucks - into the trolley.

Holly sunbaking

New TV for ET's den

The Bauhn 19" from ALDI is acting funny and well out of warranty so we are replacing that with a Hisense 24F33 24" HD LED LCD TV from JB Hi-Fi

Pixie getting her back scratched

Pixie getting a back scratch with a scratching tool that ET got from the market today – LOL

DVD writer for Lenovo AIO

While at the market also got a Samsung DVD USB external writer for the AIO Lenovo.

Flowers from the garden

Flowers from the garden near the gazebo area, now safe inside from the crazy wind outside.

New microwave oven

Panasonic microwave acting funny so bought a new one from Kmart for $75.

Lenovo AIO desktop

New Lenovo AIO all setup on our balcony desk

IKEA work lamps

Off shopping again today in a similar manner to a few days ago - Bunnings and then IKEA. If your after a decent work lamp I highly recommend this one, very nicely made and for a swing arm type lamp the $20 price tag is good. Bought three of them for the workshop.

New AIO desktop computer

Went to The Glen (Glen Waverley) to do some shopping and ended up purchasing a Lenovo AIO 510s desktop from JB Hi-Fi. Picked the top model i7 with 16GB RAM, SSHD & GeForce GT 930A, 2GB  – nice.

Initially unpacked and setup on the kitchen table.

Holly to vet

For her regular check-up.

Ozito NSG-5000 brad nailer & stapler

NSG-5000 brad nailer & stapler, gone in the shed fire, so want to buy another one but can't find it at Bunnings and it’s not on the Ozito website anymore.

Will there be a replacement ???

Contacted Ozito on Facebook and they were very helpful, Bunnings Scoresby should still have a number of them - so off to chase that.

Masters hardware shopping trip

Masters - purchased a Tahiti 2 seater and matching table plus...20 x 2.7M lengths of timber. How do we get it all home?

Order door for the shed

Went for a cruise to Officer in the blue limo (Camry) to Sheds & Beyond to order a door for a shed that was originally ordered with no door – don’t ask. The door plus jamb metalwork cost us $120 - pickup next Friday.

Chooks a point-of-lay

Last month the younger Pekins reached point-of-lay, I'm using the CCTV cameras to keep track of traffic flow to open and close gates as needed .

Foxtel from Telstra

Although still happy with my Telstra T-Box, which Telstra pulled from sales last year and replaced with Telstra TV (stupid thing), I suspect T-Box services will end in the near future – don’t know ??? Today I was browsing the Telstra Foxtel offers when a Chat online popped up, OK Joy lets chat LOL. Advised her that none of the Telstra Foxtel packages appealed to me and that I want to build my own like on the Foxtel website, Entertainment + Movies + Doco...s for $56 bucks. She pointed me to a special online offer (see picture) where after signup I could fiddle with the packages to suit myself…BUT…that required credit/debit verification (no to that) and still includes Sport – which I don’t want. OK…Joy transferred me in-house to Honey (nice name LOL) and we went around the dance floor again resulting in a – done deal !!!

The Sports package is part of the online offer (offline for me) and yes I can remove that at a later date but she’s saying why would I ?

Install – free
IQ2 – free
Entertainment + Movies + Docos - $56 (same as Foxtel)
plus
Sports for $4 = $60 bucks
with
Friday 12th install

I will then remove Foxtel from T-box to recover $40, basically a $20 changeover – happy with that

Days getting longer

Wow...5.30pm and the chooks have only just gone to bed, the days must be getting longer!

Sunset this evening 17.37 EST

Garage CCTV system

Preparing for our annual council waste collection, here the chooks are very busy rummaging through some of the pruning's.

Chooks rummaging through garden pruning’s.

Memories

Some good memories here for the oldies and in many ways a better life for all in the fifties & sixties. Throw in a few more briquettes before settling down to watch the telly. And yes...lots of yarn adverts, some years later someone gave me one of those knitting machines to repair and found the problem but parts not available - sound familiar

CCTV system for garage

CCTV system - setup my spare Cocoon 4 camera kit in the garage to monitor the backyard, in particular our chooks and the bloody cat from over the back fence. Mind you have not actually see the thing in the yard since I put up wire mesh along the back fence and also have my DIY motion activated sprinkler ready to set up.



Camera 2 in the coop is done, still deciding  where the others will go and make rain covers for them.

 

Checking on the chooks

Waiting in the car for ET while out shopping so checked in on the chooks back home.

CoopCam

Nicer day today so finally ran the camera cables to utilise the second 4 Camera CCTV-DVR system that's been sitting on a lounge seat for some months - bloody weather. Setup one camera to spy on five ladies :-)



Stay tuned...more to come on this.

Just put the chooks to bed.

.Good night girls.

Luna to vet

Luna at the vet for check up.



 

Ozito 18V Compact Drill Driver Kit

Returned the ALDI WorkZone 24V Hammer Drill and with the refund went over to Bunnings and got this Ozito for $99. I’ll get a spare battery later on for $30.

The Ozito Power X Change Compact Drill Driver Kit will get you started on your DIY projects. The 18V drill driver with two speed gearbox and 18 torque settings has a powerful 40Nm of torque to drive and remove screws easily. With variable speed and LED work light, you’ve got more control and better visibility in dark or confined spaces.
This kit comes complete with a 2.0Ah Lithium Ion battery and 40 minute Fast Charger, which powers all tools from the Power X Change range.

ALDI – Ambiano Mini Fryer

Miserable outside with a very cold wind so let’s try out the new mini fryer.

Motion Activated Sprinkler - part 5

After the failure of the water solenoid pictured here managed to swap for a larger one.

Telstra Internet Outage

No big deal just tether the PC to my Samsung.

Hurry Up Spring

Check this out looks like a tsunami.

Motion Activated Sprinkler - part 4

A bit of a rest after house cleaning and then off to the garage to make final preparations for water testing the unit.



Found some click-on barbs at Bunnings so I'll change the plain barb on the left for one of those - like on the right.

ALDI – Albiano Mini Fryer

My ALDI e-mail reminder reminded me to toss one of these into the trolley - pensioner couple deep fryer.

Motion Activated Sprinkler–part 3

Another session did some prep work on the plastic box and after drilling some holes actually got some wiring done!

Using a strain relief cord bushing to secure the power lead, we can wire in the sensor to the transformer now.

Motion Activated Sprinkler–part 2

Off to the garage to do some more thinking and planning...



Found a more suitable US Robotics modem (remember them) 20V AC power adaptor so cracked open the case to pull out the actual transformer.

Twin floodlight – needs replacement.

Pulled down the old one from the back of the carport, the sensor cover is disintegrating from the weather and before long a squatter (spider) moved in stuffing up sensor operation. I've broken off around the edges to tidy it up.

The light will be fine to use somewhere else and I can make a new cover from some overhead transparency sheet.

Motion Activated Sprinkler - part 1

Our Chooks - Prowling Cat

We have a cat coming over the back fence stalking our chooks. I have put up some stop-gap wire and since then have not actually seen the bloody thing in the backyard. Still it's a big worry so we need to do more to strengthen and monitor the perimeter:

1) Put up more fencing
2) Install CCTV cameras
3) Buy or make a Motion Activated Sprinkler

Garage Workshop – Part 1

The 7 x 3.5 metre garage provides a nice workshop area but…I still have a space problem. This is mainly due to the fact that the garage was…well…just a garage with all the usual home and handyman stuff. However over the last decade, and certainly since I retired in 2010, woodworking has moved to the forefront of my hobbies. Therein lies the problem, cupboards full of electrical, electronics and computer stuff taking up floor space and preventing me from expanding my woodworking operations. There’s already a ‘space backlog’ with my router table and jigsaw table stacked in one corner – nowhere to put them. Anyway…winter is a good time for planning and that’s what I’m doing so hopefully by spring I’ll have somewhere to move all the secondary hobby stuff to – another shed?

Besides all the issues above I’ve had to locate my main workbench in the centre area (which I would like clear) because I have a pile of 2.4M long laminated chipboard material down the middle on the floor, so I just put the bench over that. The pile sticks out past the bench so I had to make up a ‘special’ stand for the table saw, which like the bench sits over the stuff – crikey.

My 2014 Bandsaw

Checkout one of my most ambitious projects that I built in the second half of 2014.

Click on picture to view construction in chronological order.

My 2017 Bandsaw

My first benchtop machine project in the new workshop.

Click on picture to view construction in chronological order.

My 2018 Bandsaw

This one to replace the 2014 saw lost in the 2016 shed fire.

Click on picture to view construction in chronological order.