Bend in the Weather (Entries tagged as pets)

Winter Vegie Gardens

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:19:00 +1000

Regular readers of my blog will know that at the end of last year we moved into our new house. In February we completed our front garden, but as yet haven't started on the back yard.

I took two weeks off after Easter and spent the time doing some odd jobs around the house. When moving into a newly built place there's 1000's of small jobs to do. (I know, I've already completed one large white board of such tasks, and have another one on the go!)

Whilst we've drawn up what we want to do out the backyard, we are starting getting our planter boxes up and running, so we can enjoy some great winter vegies as soon as possible. Around late Winter/prior to the start of Spring I'll also be planting a series of fruit trees as well to help complement the vegetables. We'll also be planting a range of herbs amongst the vegetables, as many such herbs work as natural pesticides to keep the creepy crawlies out of our lovely green leafy vegies. Much better letting nature fight it then introducing a range of chemicals.

A quick visit to see Trevor and Glenda (thanks guys -- we really appreciate it!) resulted in getting some great red gum fence posts that we were able to convert in to free-standing planter boxes. By using red gum and some galvanised bolts, these boxes will last us years and hopefully return us some fantastic home grown produce!

We've built one box so far, and plan to build one more in the upcoming weeks (in between birthdays, and an over-flowing social calendar!). A big thanks also to our fathers for helping with the building process.

So how did it turn out?! Well, we're certainly happy with the results!
Now to get planting and enjoying some home-grown goodness in the next few months.

The raw material.	Front On View.
Front profile.	Rear profile.

Once the 2^nd planter box is completed, we'll be gravelling around the boxes (so it's easy to move in gardening equipment (like wheel-barrows, etc). I'm considering whether we need to put up a short fence to keep the dogs out... still be determined at this stage.

We'll also have a heap of composting/chip-barking to do under the proposed fruit tree locations. Slowly but surely the back yard is starting to take shape. I'm finding working in the garden is a great way to get away from the computer and a good outlet that isn't 'electronic'.

Back online after moving into the new house

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:44:00 +1100

In my last post, I mentioned I was moving out of the city (Melbourne, Australia) and heading to the country.

Well the transition has occurred and I'm more than happy with the move. Our neighbours two deep on each side have all come out and introduced themselves, and the general atmosphere around the place is warm and uplifting.

The sense of community runs strong outside of the capital cities by the look of it.

Bannockburn is by no means a small town, though it's no thriving metropolis. It's about 15 mins drive from Geelong, but you would think you're thousands of miles away or in a parallel universe. Hand-waves whilst driving, a chat with a stranger (soon to be become an acquaintance/friend) are all common place. At the time of the 2006 Census, the population was a mere 2,486, but has more than doubled in the following two years. By 2015, they are expecting a population of around 15,000. If you're down this way, be sure to drop in. It's a quaint part of town and quite charming.

All the majority of our daily needs are here (local Woolworths, petrol, green grocer, butcher, baker, vet, auto repair, post office, pub, restaurants, fast-food, legal and accounting services,etc can all be found in the town). Those not here (ie: the not-every-day purchases) is only a 15 minute car-drive into Geelong.

I'm loving the lack of police sirens/choppers and cars doing wheelies until 4am most nights. The only noise we hear at present is the 6-7am chatter of the native birds found in abundance. (Not a real problem -- we're up at 6-7am anyway -- working through to late at night getting the house set-up).

Bannockburn for me was a natural choice. It's closer to loved ones, as well as the type of environment, community I would like to raise a family one day. The hustle and bustle and dog-eat-dog attitude that the big cities portray is not the values I would like to instil into my own children.

So how did the move go on Friday? As many know there was a deluge across a lot of Australia. In our neck of the woods we had the pitter-patter of a few rain drops from about 10:30am whilst filling the removalist's truck. By 3:15pm they had finished unloading the truck and literally seconds after the truck doors had been shut down it bucketed!

I'm glad we got our water tank hooked up prior to the move. Those 24 hours resulted in approx 70mm of rain. The tank is now full!
That much rain ensured we had a natural inground swimming pool over most of the backyard. The dogs found this too irresistable (they had never seen so much rain in their young years), and decided it was time for swimming. Shortly after we had dual-coloured dogs.... The original colour on their top half and a nice brown/muddy underbelly.

Saturday/Sunday saw us return to clean up our vacated premises. On Wednesday we return the keys to the landlord. It's a great feeling moving out of the rent cycle and into our own home.

Monday I had our networking guys in to terminate off our wired house. We now have 48 GigaE running throughout the house. The 19" racks I have in the garage look all very impressive now. I'll take some photos in the next few days and post them up for all to see. (Once I find the box with my camera data-cable! )

The new 48-port GigE Managed Switch also has PoE on all ports, and makes powering the Snom VoIP phones a breeze with no need for a power pack anymore (frees up on power point, and also one less cable to tangle unde rmy desk!). Cabling the house was a great idea -- being able to just plug an Ethernet cable into the wall in nearly every room of the house is just a god-send and something I would recommend to anyone who's building (do it during the framing stage, prior to the plastering).

The mountain of boxes strewn around the house are slowly disappearing. It will take us some time but we're hoping by Christmas to have everything fully unpacked/setup. That will leave me with the daunting task of establishing our gardens/plants/lawns outside during this crazy drought/summer. Something I am looking forward to getting up and running.

One of the benefits is since moving that my ADSL1 connection is indeed faster and cleaner here than our previous location (though we are about the same distance from the exchange (1-1.5kms). I'm pulling down pretty much the physical limits of ADSL1 and squeezing 100-150Kb/sec more then I previously have. Once ADSL2+ becomes available through my provider (Internode - due in the next few days), I may consider the move up if the price is 'reasonable'.

The garden shed and vegie garden will probably be first off the ranks, with the rest to follow after that.
I'm seriously considering putting in a large sandpit for the dogs so they can dig til their hearts content (and not in my lawn/vegies/plants! )

Though, all in good time. In the interim, I'm just enjoying country life, and not missing the glare of the city at all. A few more weeks of setting up house and I'll be as happy as my dogs running around in mud!

The Duckling

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 01:03:00 +1000

Recently my mother took a photo of her sister's new duckling.

My mother is handy with the camera and always taking shots.
She isn't a professional photographer by any stretch of the imagination, but it's amazing just being in the right place and the right time can produce a fantastic photo. This is one such shot.

The duckling was just wandering around the dining room table when the shot was taken. What makes it such a great shot is the reflection in the mirror of the duck as well as the random items placed around the table, giving the photo depth and colour. If fact, if I didn't know any better you would swear it was 'set up' and not just a happy snap (which it was!)

The photo turned out so good it looks like a HallMark Greeting Card!

So to Mum, well done! It's a fantastic shot and one I had to share with others.
Hmm... I wonder if we can fatten him up in time for Christmas lunch!

New addition to the family

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:49:00 +1000

Well it's time to introduce our newest member of the family.

We picked up Nina this week from a local Pet Rescue as we were looking for a companion for Duke (our other dog).

If you are wanting a pet, check out your local Pet Rescue. Saving a pet ensures it's one less pet that isn't put down unnecessarily. Most rescues do behaviour testing prior to putting them up for adoption and will also ensure they are vaccinated, spayed and micro-chipped and registered.

We met and instantly fell in love with Nina! The picture on the left is the one that they had on her advertisement.

She's an 18-month-old Blue Heeler/Cross and needed a new home. After talking with Pauline we both agreed that getting a dog from a Pet Rescue was a better option than going and buying a new puppy from a pet store. We also weren't so keen on a puppy as the extra work involved in keeping those naughty doggies out of trouble! We also knew that young puppies also find homes much easier than older dogs.

She's resting quietly at present (much to the annoyance of Duke who would love nothing better to do then jump and play all day with her!). The main reason is she's only recently come out of surgery for being spayed, micro-chipped and vaccinated. So a few more days restricting her jumping or running and she'll be right to go.

So far Nina has settled in extremely well. It's been a pleasant surprise to find she's already house-trained and let's us know when nature calls. We'll undertake some basic obedience training but generally she's pretty good already.

As you can see, she's settling in well to her new surroundings!

twitcher updates for Wed 4th June

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:43:00 +1000

(06:34) Someone set the alarm far too early. Jumped out of bed in a panic & twisted ankle. #

(06:44) Jumped in the shower. I missed, landed on the soap. Other ankle now throbbing. #

(07:09) Walked out front door to grab morning newspaper. #

(07:10) Eyelid meet bee. Eye now swelling. #

(07:11) Bastard paperboy has got the paper in the damn bird bath again. #

(07:15) The same someone who fiddled with the alarm clock has now set the toaster to the 'burn like a crisp' setting. #

(07:16) Forgot to buy coffee, will have to settle for water. #

(07:20) Toothbrush is now black from the charcoaled toast. #

(07:25) Where the hell are my keys? #

(07:29) Tackled dog rugby style after chasing him around the coffee table. Have managed to recover them, albeit full of dog saliva. #

(07:30) Apparently keyless entry into your car doesn't work after being chewed into a black ball of plastic. #

(07:31) Hit head when entering car. Maybe this is why keyless entry was invented? #

(07:43) If you are going to have a road-rage episode, choose wisely. Now sporting a growing fat lip to match my bug bee-eye. Note to self: Don't abuse a boxer. #

(08:17) All car-parks now taken due to the time lost with the boxer. Have to park 4 blocks further away from the office. A great workout for sore and swollen ankles. #

(08:33) Remember the umbrella even if the weather report says there is little chance of rain. #

(08:53) Finally in at work. #

(08:56) The company provided International Roast is a poor substitute for coffee. #

(09:05) Coffeeeeee annnndddd keeeyboardddddds donnnnn't mix. #

10 year anniversary

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:38:00 +1000

How time flies.

Tomorrow (2^nd May) Pauline and I will have been married for 10 years!
It only seems like yesterday that we were two scared kids wondering what the hell we were getting ourselves into.

We can honestly say that it's been a great 10 years. Whilst like every couple we have our ups and downs, we generally have more ups then downs. We've both grown together and stronger as individuals.

This year, is a big year for us. We are building our first house, and potentially may start a family after that. So life moves on, always throwing more challenges and adventures.

To celebrate the milestone, we're heading away for the weekend.
I'm taking a few days off work to extend the stay. We're not heading too far, but enough so that we're out of mobile phone range and the hum of computer power supply fans for a few days.

We've decided to head up to Healesville. For those unaware, it's located North-West of Melbourne in the Yarra Ranges.

View Larger Map

There is tonnes to do there, and we indeed to make good use of our time! We're hoping to get to Healesville Sanctuary (Pauline is an animal loving nut - this is a must stop for us!), The Hedgend Maze, The Yarra Valley Railway (time permitting), as well as visiting a bunch of wineries in the region (Map here) (I wish to stock up the ever diminishing supply of good Australian Red/White wine I have.)

It will be good to get away for a quiet retreat and leave computers, mobiles, television and most of the usual suspects that distract us.

Matt's new watch that Pauline gave him to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary.

As I've already blogged, I got Pauline an eternity ring to mark the occasion. Pauline returned the favour by surprising me today with my own present!

She came home with a lovely watch. My existing watch had been banged up quite a bit and was in need of a new battery (though it did tell the time correctly twice every day!).

She couldn't wait to give it to me (she was planning on surprising me on the day and had to show me straight away!

It is indeed lovely, it's quite easy to read, balanced beautifully and quite an attractive piece of jewelry. I'm extremely happy with it. (I would of personally picked something like this - she has got my taste down pat!).

It's fantastic, we now both have something lasting to remember the milestone.

So we've packed our bags, getting the dog looked after and heading out early tomorrow. (Friday).
The camera has been thrown in so we will hopefully take some photos of the picturesque country that is the Yarra Valley.
Pauline's selected a lovely apartment for us to stay in, and it's been furnished in a lovely traditional Japanese style. I'm looking forward to staying there, as it looks divine.

I won't be near a computer or Internet access for half the week, so I suspect the Email will still keep rolling in.
For those of you wanting a response, please SMS me (I'm not sure when we'll have coverage), or wait for our return.

Whilst the weather forecast isn't ideal, it is strangely very similar to the weather we had on our wedding day! In any event we have a number of indoor and outdoor activities planned so I'm sure we'll have a blast.

More puppy photos

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 18:49:30 +1000

I've placed a bunch of photos up in our gallery for you to all take a peek at!

You will find a bunch of photos of our Pets there, and in particular of Duke... our newest addition!

So enjoy!

Still alive!

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 16:34:14 +1000

It's been a while since my last blog entry.

There has been a few reasons.

Haven't been on my computer much.
Had the flu for three weeks.
Purchased a 42" Plasma TV and setup a HTPC to keep all our movies/music/photos on!
Had a few weeks of on-call support for work.

Rest assurred -- I'm still alive!

I'll be posting more this week, including:

An update on Duke (our new dog!) -- with more photos (coming -- I promise!)
Details of our HTPC
Details of the new computer I've just bought -- with hardware virtualization -- allowing me to run Windows and Linux at the same time with no performance loss!
A post on the new version of SuSE Linux 10.1 -- that will be the main driving OS of the new workstation (and powering Xen).
A posting on the new 2.0 Beta of Firefox.... that now includes a spell checker and anti-phising tools!

If there is anything else you would like me to write about ... let me know!

Meet Duke

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Tue, 09 May 2006 00:05:07 +1000

We've got our new puppy!

He arrived about 2-3 weeks ago so we've been having fun with him most of the time and haven't had much time to post up here (add to that .. .being on call two weeks straight!)

He's a real cutey! Take a look:

I've uploaded a few pictures of him to our photo gallery. You can view them here.

Duke was given to us by my sister. Her dog Susie (Labrador) mated with a Golden Retriever/German Shepard. It probably explains the very unusual markings he has.

Currently he's about 13 weeks old... and still very puppy!

He starts puppy school tomorrow night... so that should be exciting!

Christmas Day - Part 2

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 18:10:46 +1100

Chistmas Day we headed down to Little River to celebrate it with Pauline's side of the family.

Unfortunately not everyone could attend (Christine, Michael and the kids, as well as Barry, Diane and the kids all couldn't make it).
Besides some people MIA, it was a great and fun day by all that attended.

It was a relaxed and enjoyable time for all. The usual 'Cini Feast' was layed out. After lunch the exchange of gifts occurred and several undertook a game of Bocce.

Feel free to click on the photos to see an larger version of each.