15th August to 20th August – Backyard Beasts

Thought it was time I gave another little update.  I am doing my best to not leave it too long between posts.

Aaargh, writers block!  Where do I start when very little has happened?  Do I mention the pet dog that a family barbecued the other day, rant about the stupid power plugs out here or rant about driving again?

Better start with the dog story, yes?  Headline news the other day that a family had barbecued their pet dog.  They spit roasted the pet named “Ripper” and then invited the neighbours around for a nibble.  They apparently put the whole dog on to burn away the fur and char the skin before taking it off the barbecue to gut and skin it.  It was the excess smoke produced in this process that caused the Fire Brigade to be called to the scene, which, in turn, caused the SPCA to be called.  The SPCA investigated and as the dog had been humanely killed (by striking it to the head and then slitting its throat and bleeding it), they couldn’t prosecute in any way.  According to the SPCA Chief Executive, “backyard dog barbecues were becoming more common”.  I’ll save the hotdog jokes for another time.

(Picture: Stolen from somewhere)

Power plugs.  Useless.  Doesn’t matter whether they are of the two-pronged or three-pronged variety.  They are useless flimsy things.  Usually a UK plug will under no circumstances have bent pins.  Half of the time here you have to bend the pins to get them to fit in the socket!  Now, perhaps I am being slightly biased.  My first encounter with Mr N.Z Plug was when Aidan was nearly two and got electrocuted by him.  It certainly isn’t reassuring when you plug something in and watch the flashes of electricity occurring.

(Picture: UK v NZ)

So where exactly has this latest little outburst come from?  Well, to avoid the pit of snake cables that inevitably occur as soon as you have more than one cable trailing somewhere I decided to tidy up the cables behind the computer desk.  Everything is very neat now with speaker wires, power cables, USB leads etc etc all hidden out of sight.  I have mounted a 6-way power block to the back of the desk and routed all plugs to it.  But.  Harrumph.  Due to the stupid design of these things, the power adapter for the external hard drive has a tendency to work its way out of the socket.  Redesign called for!

Next rant.

Cars, driving, stupidly.  For some reason people seem to think that fog lights are a requirement here whether it be rain, wind or sunshine.  I haven’t actually encountered any NZ fog yet so time will tell as to whether they use them in such circumstances or not.  I haven’t looked into too much detail to see whether it is illegal as it is in the UK to use them outside times of low visibility.  Surely it is?  Maybe not.  At least somebody is listening to me.  Yep, the AA has brought up the ridiculousness of the right-hand rule again.  A survey has revealed that 20% of drivers don’t even pay attention to it.  The rule was brought in from Melbourne where it was used to help the tram system.  I haven’t seen any trams around here yet.  Australia did away with the rule in 1993, leaving New Zealand as the only place in the world to use such a rule.  They reckon that banishing it will reduce intersection crashes (2560 crashes a year) by 7%. I quote, "In most cases he who is bravest goes first and gets across."

I think that is the end of my grumpy old git persona for today.

Neil gave me a call the other day to see if I would take a look at his computer which was struggling a bit.  We all popped along and pizza was ordered for those that wanted it.  I stuck to the beer, wine and garlic bread.  We might be meeting up this weekend or the next to go for a wander in the countryside somewhere.

The grass in the garden is struggling to grow where Aidan has been playing football/rugby etc.  He is under instruction to stay off it in the meantime.  With Aidan’s help we have spread a bag of grass seed over the affected area in the hope it will regenerate a little.  I have bought some other stuff to put down once the seed takes hold.  Failing that we might just need to buy another bag of bird seed which seems to still be thriving.

(Picture: Bird (seed) Garden)

Speaking of which, Tania and Aidan have been very green-fingered lately.  No, it isn’t due to bogey extraction procedures.  They actually planted some stuff…and it hasn’t died yet!  We now have strawberries, chives, rosemary, parsley, mint and things growing in the garden.

The noise created by this pair don’t seem to have distracted the bugs though.  Mr Spider came out to play for a while the other day.

(Picture: A spider came and sat down beside her)

Our friendly Praying Mantises (Manti? Manties? Mantids?) have been paying a visit these past few days as well.

(Picture: Holy Bug!)

A strange cocoon resulted in some extra investigation however.  We were expecting a butterfly or moth to emerge but when a caterpillar-like critter popped its head out we were slightly confused.  Turns out it appears to be Liothula Omnivora otherwise known as the Common Bag Moth.  The Latin name gives it away as something that likes to eat your whole plantation and needless to say it is now living in a box as a pet of Aidan’s.

  (Picture: Common Bag Moth devouring the plants)

Turns out that it is only the male of the species that takes flight.  The female lives in its bag/cocoon its whole life.  Funnily enough while I was writing this, ‘Bugs’ by Pearl Jam came on the stereo.  Listen below.

 

Not all of the critters in the garden have been multi-legged beasts.  Tania spotted this two-legged multi-coloured fellow in the tree out the back.

(Picture: Colourful dude)

Another nice sunny day the other day so we took a run over to the Mount.  We didn’t stay too long but long enough for me to take a couple of snaps.  Slightly different angle this time.

(Picture: Mount Maunganui…again)

Although I have been signed up to the curse that is Twitter for some time I have been avoiding using it.  Something just doesn’t appeal to me about it.  You tend to get a strange stalker sensation when using it.  Anyway, I have succumbed and started using it for this blog.  So anybody that tweets, twitters or twittles can now follow me and get notified when the blog updates.

Dat wid be aa’ fur noo.