First time for everything

Exciting day for us backyard chook lovers, our two Pekins decided to lay their first eggs – together!

Got home from tending the horses and doing a bit of shopping and as usual straight down to the chook run to let the girls out. Checked inside their shed and found a surprise in each box – eggs!

My last tax return

I retired in July 2010 and a couple of week ago we went to see the accountants with all the usual paperwork to do my last tax return. Arrived home today after tending to the horses and a bit of shopping and the first thing is to check the mail box. These days we don’t like to see anything in there but today was a pleasant surprise, a nice healthy cheque from the ATO!

So that’s it, for me personally no more tax returns  – hooray.

But wait…tax returns have not disappeared completely, we have our own SMSF that requires an annual tax return around Feb of each year. Never mind next time around the tax return will be very straight forward, no contributions or any other stuff just a pension paid out from monthly interest earned on a term deposit with a regional bank. I don’t think we will need an actuary report will will reduce costs even further.

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