Today was the third consecutive day of seeing at least one wedge tailed eagle on the ground. The last two days it was a single bird on the road but today it was 3 and in a safe location.

Lunch today was a gochujang beef rice bowl. Think this one will be going into the lunch rotation

It is very wet today.

Just realised today was a first for our household. Both the children went to work while the parents were at home. Starting to realise they won’t be around for much longer.

Afternoon snack time.

Today was the final day of my short stay on the West Coast and we had to start with a tour of the heritage centre in Zeehan. The rock and mineral collection is first rate and the rest of the exhibits are worth the trip. One of the better regional museums.

Last night we went out to the spray tunnel and got to see the glow worms. It was quite a difficult place to find after dark but well worth a visit.

Travelled to Zeehan today via the most rarely travelled road in Tasmania, the Western Explorer. Spectacular scenery but painfully slow There is a 50km stretch that takes nearly 2 hours to travel with narrow twisty corners full of large potholes and ruts.

The cats are struggling to adjust to the addition of a robot vacuum intruding into their peaceful world. Not as scary as the normal vacuum but needs ti be viewed with suspicion.

My teenage son was filling up his car while the attendant was adding a price rise into the system and it accidentally wiped all trace of the transaction resulting in him scoring a free tank of fuel.

There’s two things that New Zealand seems determined to cram into every product. Feijoa or cranberry. However, I don’t blame them. Fresh NZ feijoa just taste so much better than the ones I can get back home.

One of the things that irks me traveling between farming areas with strict quarantine rules (Tasmania to NZ) is they make such a fuss at the airport over the tiniest speck of dirt but neither have installed boot disinfectant stations to deal with the prospect of unseen pathogens.

My competition pumpkins are coming along nicely* *goat for scale

Whenever there is a major bushfire people ask why they don’t do more hazard reduction burns but when they actually do hazard reduction burns the smoke from them is a major issue. This is from a small burn 80-100km away.

My footy tipping will never look this good ever again. Leading the work tipping by 1 and leading my boss (a footy tragic) by 3.

Today has been a great day for middle aged Tasmanian men who like to say “but it’s a different sort of heat down here”.

Being hand reared means Penny is used to being handled and likes a cuddle.

Afternoon animal posting.

It’s snake season at home. First one I’ve seen at home for the year. He was curious but didn’t want to hang around.

It’s so nice hearing rain on the roof in summer when you rely on tank water. Our gutters have been broken and were fixed this week so it’s doubly nice hearing the tank fill up. Also finished harvest yesterday so it was also nice to get that finished before the rain.

Trod on a tiger snake today while getting a site ready for harvest. It was a small one (about 80-100cm) long but it will definitely be over 1m by the time I get home and tell the story to my wife.

Woke up the pigs during their afternoon nap. This is Winnie’s “bed hair”.

Was out chipping thistles and looked up to see this view. Sometimes I almost take it for granted by but not today.

Meet Penny. The newest addition to our menagerie.

Pigs have worked out that they can push the float valve and flood the area around their trough to make mud. Orwell was right to have pigs as the evil protagonists in 1984 in that they will intelligently arrive at a solution that elegantly solves their problem but is destructive for everyone else.

Wife took some excellent photos of our animals last night while the hay was getting raked and baled so I’ve borrowed them to post here. Start of with the mini donkeys and the goat.

I’m no US constitutional law expert but I’m wondering how the second amendment is meant to work in a situation like this. There seems to be a bit of tyranny going on at the moment. Right to bear arms seems fine but what happens if you were to form a well organised militia and use them against ICE?

I have somehow managed to scratch the cornea of my right eye and deeply bruise the eye in my sleep. I’ve basically poked myself in the eye but have no recollection of doing that. Yes it hurts. Yes I look like I will scare small children.

It was 9°C when I got home at 2:30. It was windy. It was raining. It was nicer in winter.

A few years ago I saw Tasmanian Waratahs in flower at Christmas in the Hartz mountains and I thought how nice it would be to plant a hedge of them to have a mass of red flowers at Christmas. What I failed to understand is how different seasons are in the mountains. This year though, I have flowers.

Fern hook getting its annual work out clearing gateways ready for harvest. Dad got it from the Scott family clearing sale back in the late 80’s. When dad asked Mr Scott (born 1898) how old it was he said it was his grandfathers or possibly his great grandfathers. A piece of living history.

My cats impression of the Epstein files. Redacted, redacted and mostly redacted.

Today was garlic harvest day. This year’s yields are ok but not anywhere near as good as recent seasons. The relentless cold weather has made everything run late.

Belly rub time.

I don’t think I have anything to worry about the US combing through my social media. No mean posts. Just sensible and reasoned critique of some of the baffling and appalling decisions that have been made over the last decade. I’m sure they will detect and understand the subtle nuance in the posts.

Forgot to get my work phone unlocked for international travel so I arrived in Christchurch with no mobile data which meant no maps which was problematic as I was driving overseas for the first time so had to navigate via gut instinct and memorising the map before I started and had access to wifi

This is the first flight I’ve been on where the free inflight wifi is actually good. Celebrating this by posting halfway over the Tasman Sea.

I’ve seen people doing a thing there they list 5 animals they’ve seen in the wild. I’m going to go one better and list 5 I’ve seen in the last 24 hours. 1. White bellied sea eagle (roadside, got a very good look at him 2. Wedge tailed eagles 3. Wallabies 4. Plovers 5. Echidna in the driveway

Mable is somewhat concerned by the ride on lawn mower getting a little too close.

Feeding time.

For the Aussies, the zoologists and the architects out there. 💩🧊🧪 By @chazhutton.com

Tonight’s meal is a butterflied chicken seasoned and covered in spices then basted on the BBQ with a butter, lemon, garlic and oregano mix for 5 minutes each side. Then cooked in the oven on a bed of lemons that get squeezed over the cooked chicken once it’s rested.

Winnie is upset and sulking because the plover parents are protecting their 4 new chicks and won’t let her past her shed.

Compost heap update. First heap (last winter and spring garden waste) has almost fully broken down and is now home to my competition pumpkin. Annual competition between local agronomists. It’s competitive and I suck at growing pumpkins. This years attempt has been 15 months in the making.

Our resident echidna has returned for spring

Tasmanian native Waratahs are in full flower. Only two from the first planting survived as the pigs got out just as they were established and killed all but two. Plan is to have an avenue either side of the driveway

I need to remind myself not to set an ambitious hard deadline for a project as the last day before a long weekend. Compounded by the fact I needed information out of people with one foot already out the door at 9am.

You’d think with the number of smart and funny people there are in the world and the potential of AI generated video to generate any scenario there would be a lot of genuinely hilarious content doing the rounds. So far I’m yet to see anything that raises even a mild smirk.