Winter weekend stills.

This weekend was all about winter. Right on cue, the night time temperature dropped down to 3º C. Just the right time to wrap the bed in super soft flannelette sheets. I had all the best intentions of getting stuck into studying this weekend (and I did do some), but I really needed to recharge from a super busy couple of weeks.

For me, this meant getting outside into the garden. I've been a bit of a tardy gardener this year, especially since the chickens razed last year's garden to the ground! I checked the Alice Springs sowing calendar and decided I could sneak into winter by planting spinach, silverbeet, broccoli, rocket and parsley - all those delicious greens.

Other weekend highlights included tapas with a friend, sitting in a laneway lined with candelit tables, live music played by a gypsy jazz band - we really had the sense that we could be anywhere! I also caught a film, Rich Hill, as part of the Human Rights Art and Film Festival. It was a harrowing documentary set in a small town in rural America, following the lives of three teenage boys and their families amidst poverty, violence, mental illness and other challenges. It didn't give a lot of hope - maybe just a small glimmer - that the cycle of disadvantage would be broken.

1. On Saturday, I met friends at the Steiner fête, a famous school fair at the lovely campus set against the southern side of the MacDonnell Ranges. I think my inspiration to get the garden going was spurred on by the fabulous kitchen garden in the school grounds. I also picked up a vintage cashmere-wool blend coat, it's soft and warm and a real bargain - $5.
2. Boss of the chickens. This one is brazen and bolshy and will sprint around behind me, sometimes even pecking at my heels.
3. Broccoli...
4. Spinach...
5. Silverbeet.
6. Super snug winter bed. Sooooo warm. Sooooo hard to leave in the morning.
7. From the garden - eggs and mandarins in abundance.
8. The mandarins are just how I like them - more tart than sweet. 

Joining up with Em's weekly Stills link-up x

EDIT: Oh, and speaking of gardens, have a gander at the green thumbery happening over in Prue's backyard. Go on!

Stills: Inside, outside.

1. I picked up this mirror from a trash-and-treasure stall at the local markets. It reminded me of a mirror I used to have that belonged to my grandmother. It was misplaced in a move at some point in time, so when I found this one it was meant to come home with me.
2. Bougainvillea from the plant alongisde the house...
3. ...on the mantlepiece, alongside the mirror.
4. This morning I picked this mega-zucchini from the garden. It is really heavy! 
5. Natives for along the back fence.
6. The chooks have been getting into the veggie garden and helping themselves to almost everything in sight.
7. Except, it seems, sweet basil and thyme. They also didn't care much for lemongrass and the zucchini bushes. They did, however, take a liking to corn, silverbeet, kale, Vietnamese mint, and the leaves from the chilli plant. Clever chooks left the chillies.
8. The guilty three, who now have clipped wings and a double-height fence!
9. Luckily they have been earning their keep and laying two-a-day.
10. We had book club on Sunday morning. We all rode our bikes together into town for breakfast and a chat about the latest books. This month we read Patrick White's The Twyborn Affair (which I'm still ploughing through) and The Long Weekend in Alice Springs (a graphic novel based on an essay, which I talked about in this post). Some of us also read the Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, which I'm just about to start now that uni is over for the year.

What are you reading at the moment?

Linking with the Beetle Shack.

An exam, those chickens and other stuff.

Hello! Here we are again. It's been a little while. There's lots going on and I've neglected this space just a little. Right now it's a beautifully breezy day in Alice Springs and after a week of stinking hot days, it's nice to have the windows and doors open and the air circulating.

The Exam.
I had an end of semester exam this week and whilst it's good to have the feeling of completion, the last couple of weeks I've also had that feeling of 'should-be-studying-but-brain-too-full'. The exam was horrid but it still would have been that way had I more motivation to put in more of an effort to study more. It was open book, as most (all?) law exams are but the questions were a bit unexpected in comparison to the last semester of course material and learning. I guess that's the nature of these things. I stuck to the time plan and answered each question (terribly!) so hopefully I pass. I'm undecided as to what subject I take over the summer semester (if any) but one option might be Indonesian law, which could be interesting.

Speckles, who should be on the other side of the fence.

The Chickens.
As you might remember, two of our three little hand-raised chooks ended up being hens that crowed. This was problematic for two reasons: 1. Roosters and suburbia don't really mix; and 2. Roosters don't lay eggs. The decision for action was made on a Sunday morning at 5.30am when old mate was trying really hard to perfect his crowing. "Those roosters have got to go!" were the exact words, as I recall. So we put them in a big cardboard box and drove them back to the poultry guy we got them from. He very generously agreed to swap them, either for two more (correctly sexed!) day olds, or two laying hens. We chose the latter and returned home with a white hen and a brown speckled hen. Back at home, our little red hen was fretting for her brothers but now, a couple of weeks down the track, she is happy to follow her new big sisters around. The new gals are laying an egg a day each and have been since the first day they've been here. They are also more adventurous than little red hen, and jump the fence into the veggie garden on a daily basis. This hasn't been such a good thing for our newly planted corn or flourishing silverbeet. One day they even ended up in the main section of the yard, much to the curiosity of the two kelpies, who ended up helping Peter herd them back into the yard.

Toby, always eager to help.

Other stuff.
I was following a debate on Twitter following this article being published on Mamamia (groan). The article went along the lines that for girls (women?), being drunk puts you at greater risk of being sexually assaulted. Um, no. The non-absence of a perpetrator puts you at greater risk of sexual assault, whether you are sober and in your own home, or a little tipsy in a nightclub. The debate needs to shift from placing the responsibility on the victim to protect themselves to placing the onus on the perpetrator not to assault. I realise this is a much bigger topic than this short paragraph explores but, yes. It got me a little riled and MF's advice is not something I will be taking. Another perspective to this issue can be read here. Did you read these articles and follow the conversation on Twitter that followed? What are your thoughts on this?

Speaking of Twitter, what are your top accounts to follow? I always enjoy reading perspectives from these accounts, in no particular order:

:: @CJaustory
:: @IndigenousX
:: @clementine_ford
:: @utopiana
:: @croakeyblog
:: @WomensAgenda


And, oh! Almost forgot the linky. Joining with Em.

You, my friend, are not a hen.

We came to the realisation last weekend that one of our chickens is, in fact, not the chicken we thought it to be. You might remember from this post that a couple of months ago we picked up some fuzzy little chicks and were raising them in the hope of having a trio of egg-layers.

Evidently, that's not to be.

I noticed a couple of weeks back that the chooks, and one in particular, were developing some deep green, glossy feathers around the neck area. Then, the largest of the brood - and the one with the deepest, greenest, glossiest neck feathers - started to grow a spouty green tail. Then everything started to fall into place. The standing-up-tall-wing-flapping. The play fighting. The launching off the ramp and bursting out of the chookhouse as soon as I open the door in the mornings.

And then, the crowing.

For the moment, it sounds like a teenage boy whose voice is breaking. Thankfully, he practices at about 7:45am and not any earlier. For now.

We suspect there's another rooster amongst the brood, and one hen. Which means eggs, I suppose, but not exactly what we had planned.