Posts

Showing posts from November, 2016

Black Cockatoos

Image
We had an unexpected surprise tonight when Phil heard the distinctive sounds of a black cockatoo.  We are used to frequent visits from the noisy local flock of sulphur crested cockatoos, have only seen a few of the black birds from far away in the mountains.  He told me to grab the camera, and we quickly ran outside to watch them.  There were four flapping around in the trees, and one of them was even feeding another.  They hung around for about ten minutes before they did a dramatic fly over and flew away.  It was so wonderful to see them from our suburban back yard! Hanging out in the tree One bird feeding another Look how pretty their yellow feathers are! They have such graceful flight The flyover

Third House is a Charm

Image
The journey to building a house isn't quite what we thought it would be.  We found a builder and house design we liked fairly quickly, and put the deposit down to start on a January build.  The house had the required downstairs guest bedroom and bathroom, a living area that could easily be turned into a bike shop, and of course a massive sewing room with the rumpus room and 5th bedroom combined.  The kitchen was beautiful and the pantry was a great size. House #1 - Ground Floor House #1 - First Floor The following morning, we got the news that the house couldn't be built on our lot because it interfered with the North facing sun the neighbouring lot is entitled to by 200 mm.  We were disappointed, but started looking at Plan B options and came up with a good one.  This house was a tiny bitty smaller, but had an even better kitchen than the first house.  The bike room wasn't quite as good, but it was something Phil decided he would still be happy with.  We spent a c

I Voted! (8 Times!)

Image
I voted today!  8 times!   This is the first US presidential election where ballets have been sent to overseas voters by email.  You can't actually submit your vote by email though because apparently email is not secure enough.  The options - Mail or Fax.  Yes, fax.  Not sure how fax is more secure than email, but maybe that's something that our presidential candidates could have considered when they were sending old-fashioned emails back in the day ;) I wonder if they'll fax me back an I Voted sticker Has anyone actually tried faxing anything in the last 20 years?  Let alone fax something to an international number?  It's not exactly easy...  There's a large quantity of zeros and ones involved, and then the machine beeps and whistles while you stare it it wondering if it's working.  And it keeps making those sounds for about thirty minutes until you give up and walk away.  Just at that moment it usually prints out a piece of paper saying the transmittal f