This week has been one of sleep deprivation. In between the unseasonable thunderstorms, the (expletive) dogs have taken to nocturnal horse-bothering on a semi-professional level. I will shortly be getting t-shirts made - red ones for our lot and blue ones for the neighbours' dogs: please do not read political affiliations into the colours - they are just colours and they belong to everyone. (Always a tremendous source of amusement that immediately following a change of local government the public trash cans are over-painted with the new party's colours. In fact, 24 layers of alternating blue and red paint are probably all that's holding most of them together.)Sorry - I have deviated from my complaint-track. Whilst the dogs are merrily chasing horses in that useless, floppy, grinning, oblivious way that only dogs can pull off, the local possum population have been advertising our hen-house as the latest KFC franchise. Feeling I had done my bit with the heron-proofing, I set the workers on possum-proofing the place. Wholly satisfied with their chicken-wire patches, I sent them home, waited til dark and, once all and sundry were safely roosting, quietly closed the door. Actually, I quietly pushed the door toward the door-hole, but there was no way it's warped little self was ever going back in that space again. Wouldn't you think they would have checked that...? I know, I expect too much. That cost me another chicken that night. No amount of gyrating and torch-pointing would galvanize my stupid canines into chasing it off. You could almost hear them: "no way man, it's dark over there". Useless lumps.
Anyhow, to happier things: the new aviary is at last finished. Woohoo. Its first resident was an aricari (Harry) apparently injured by a sling-shot. Lovely things, sling-shots. I think every child should be given one at birth. Very useful, not at all damaging to wildlife or the development of a child's sense of responsibility and morals. Harry recovered and was released yesterday. The aviary is now empty and ready to receive the Veloceraptors - who are now both flying, and biting, and nastier than ever. Veloceraptor 1 is rather adept at tucking into that area just below your shoulder-blades that you can't quite reach. Even though you know you can't reach it, it doesn't stop you spinning round trying - I don't know what I expect to happen - one day my head will stay still and my body will move to the front, so I can swat the little burger? Actually, no, that wouldn't work either because my arms would still face in the wrong direction...
Ah well, never mind - this time tomorrow they'll be safely behind bars. Better add little orange jump-suits to my shopping list.
