The Australian Experience - Cats, Dogs and Small Nuisances

Fred Flintstone has a lot to answer for. At the end of every cartoon show, Fred dutifully put his cat out at night, which I assume has become the norm for cat owners. At least Fred's cat had the sense to jump back inside and lock Fred out. Serves him right!!!

If you have a vegetable garden, I am sure that you have ventured out of a morning to pull some weeds or maybe pick some lush red, home-grown tomatoes, lettuce or even pull a carrot or two, and then have your senses inundated by the stench of cat faeces and urine!!!!!

This problem is the bane of every gardener's existence. How can we expect to care for our gardens when we are continually exposed to this stench each time we try to do something in our gardens??

When someone owns a cat that they profess to love like one of the family, why can't they train the animal to use a kitty litter box rather than putting them out at night to roam into the neighbours' gardens to do their business? It has been proven by eminent scientists and doctors that cats carry a very dangerous germ and if they urinate anywhere where children play, there is an imminent danger of a child picking up this germ and becoming very ill. Sand pits in playgrounds and back yards are renowned for this problem when cats wander around looking for toilet facilities. It comes down to the responsibility, or lack of, of the animal owners. If they own a pet, they are directly and ultimately responsible for the care of that animal and also responsible for the damage or disease it may cause. Cats are closely related to foxes and everyone knows that foxes will never despoil there own area. They always go somewhere else!!!! So cats do the same unless they are kept within the owner's boundary and trained to do their business correctly, which does not take a lot of doing!!

When I was living in Tasmania I read about a man and his garden. He was continually beset every night by a neighbour's cat using his vegetable patch for a toilet. He caught the animal one night, and through pure frustration, threw his garden fork at the cat. Whether it was a fluke or whether he had been practising  is not known, but he was charged by the Police and RSPCA for an act of cruelty towards the cat. What cruelty??? He killed the vermin outright!!! Good on him, I say. Besides, it could not have been intentional. Have you ever tried to hit anything throwing a garden fork?? Virtually impossible!! 

The animal would not have felt much at all, at least a lot less then the poor bloke who had to put up with the stench in his garden every morning. I believe that after this incident, cats stopped visiting his garden!! Maybe they have an underground communication network to pass on incidents such as this as warnings to other cats??

On the other side of the coin - Have you ever settled down of an evening, flashed up the barbie and cracked a tinnie for a quiet meal with friends and relatives only to be inundated with the continual barking and howling of dogs??

I cannot believe that some people who own dogs can also be so irresponsible as to allow their canine pets to continually bark during the day and, worse still, during the night until very late or even into the early hours of the morning. I think that every dog in the area joins in right from the mastiff type large dogs to the yappy little lap dogs. Once one starts barking, they all want to have a go.

Nothing irks me more than the irresponsible owners of these pests who allow this to go on night after night. Surely they can hear the noise their dogs are making?? Do they just think "The dog is just letting off steam" or "The dog is letting everyone know he is on guard", or are they absolutely deaf to the barking when its their own dog?? Studies have shown that some dog owners ARE ignorant of their own dog's barking.

I doubt whether they realise that the continual barking of dogs is classified as noise pollution and the dog owners can be summonsed to appear in court and will receive quite a hefty fine if they don't take action to stop the dog barking.

Also with dogs there is the problem with 'diggers'. These beasts derive their pleasure from digging under the neighbour's fences until either the garden on the other side caves in or they get the hole big enough to get through to "explore" the neighbour's vege garden. I had this problem and complained until the Council forced the dog owners to put a barrier along the fence to stop it. As you can see, they do a lot of damage.

My side of the fence

Over the fence

Another one on my side

The Council forced the neighbours to get rid of one of their 3 dogs and I

think that the dog that went was the 'digger' as I haven't had any such problems since.

It still amazes me that the animal owners do not venture into their back yards and notice this blatant damage being caused by their so-called "loved pets"!! Usually the dogs are never taken for a walk or exercised to any degree. This is the main cause of digging. The dogs are just plain bored out of their simple brains. It also goes to show that their owners' brains are not much better as they continue to sit around their barbie with a few beers and dote on how well their dogs are behaving. Little do they know that the dogs have begun mining operations further into the back yard!!!

Apart from the noise of dogs and the stench of cats, how about the tiny insects like ants, flies and mozzies?? Isn't it marvelous how they always turn up as soon as the wife puts the salad on the table or you flash the barbie up and the first succulent piece of meat begins to sizzle. Flies appear from nowhere and buzz around almost suicidally trying to to get a taste of your meat sizzling away. Even when you have cooked the meat and sit down, they are still there, buzzing around, annoyingly and are just plain pests!! Combine the flies with the hundreds of ants that appear at outdoor meals and we have a "real problem Houston"!!

We cannot always be shut inside to enjoy the summer months, so I suppose we just have to grin and bear it. Commercial insect sprays are not the best idea around food, but sometimes citronella candles work OK. The best solution is what is referred to in Australia as a "Mozzie Zapper". It is an ultraviolet light that lures the insects to an electric charge and they then become dust on the bottom of the light. Great invention!!

If only there was something like a candle or zapper to stop the annoying pests that owners call their pet dogs and cats!!!!!

5 Weeks to go!!!

Kay is half-way through her family visit to Malaysia with just a few days over 5 weeks to go. From the messages I have had from her, she is enjoying the time catching up. I am very disappointed that I couldn't go, but I don't think my crook leg would stand 8 hours on a plane each way.

I have been keeping myself pretty busy doing those little odd jobs around the place. After having breakfast and reading the paper I usually do the gardening that needs to be done by 0800 or 0830, as it gets a bit hot after that. I cut the lawns this morning and couldn't start until about 0815 as there was quite a heavy dew overnight. The back lawn is quite flat and easy to mow, but the front is 70% mountain!!!!

 

 Even though I cut across, and not up and down, it still takes a lot out of my leg. Guess I'll not be doing much for the rest of the day, but I did manage to sow some vegetable seeds in seed trays before my leg tightened up. So at least that's something I suppose.

As I said, I have been keeping busy, maybe doing too much each day and defeating my aim that - "If you do too much today, there is nothing left to do tomorrow" - as I am running out of things to do. It is so bad that I actually cleaned all the windows in the house. The inside was easy but so far I have only hosed down the outside ones and they haven't come up too well. The security screens make it hard to clean them and I don't want to take them off if I can help it. I'll try a couple of ideas I have and see how they work.

Everything is growing well in the garden and hopefully I should have ripe tomatoes in a week or so. I have dried 2 1/2 jars of chillies - sun dried of course - and there are lots more coming on to be picked over the next few weeks.

The passionfruit looks like its going mad with new flower buds everywhere. Hope they produce fruit, as the last couple of flowers just withered and dropped off. I think that they just were not ready to complete their task. The couple of fruit already on the vine are ripening up nicely and I am waiting for them to fall so I can try them for taste!!!

But I will keep pottering about to keep myself occupied and amused and try to blog more regularly over the next few weeks.

Good, Bad and Ugly

I haven't been in the mood much for writing lately as I have been trying to balance my daily chores with periods of inactivity!!!! I made a list of to do things before Kay went home to Kuala Lumpur to visit her family and I have been trying not to do too many jobs all at once as I firmly believe in the adage "Don't do everything today as there will be nothing to do tomorrow".
I have already completed Page 1 of my list and I have had to look around for items for Page 2, which I have already started. But .... I have really been waiting for the perfect "photo opportunity" to present itself, and it did yesterday just before the rain started.

When we were living in Launceston, we had friends who we used to visit quite regularly and John managed to befriend a family of kookaburras, not tame them, but just give them some food and they brought tremendous amounts of joy to all of us at the barbies. They would sit on the clothesline waiting for the titbits that were on offer.

I have had a kookaburra perched on the back fence several times now (not in the gum tree as the song goes, as we don't have a gum tree!!) and as yet I have not been able to get too close to him (or her) and I haven't managed yet to catch some lizards to feed it, but I am working on that. They are sometimes referred to as "laughing Jackasses" but I think this is a derogatory term and should not be used for these beautiful birds. Old-timers will tell you that when they start their "laugh", it warns of impending rain after a dry spell. So far that has been proven by this little fellow. He sang his heart out, and not long after, the rain came, not much but a good drop for the garden. I hope he hangs around for a while.

After the good news ... now the bad. Just look at these ugly brutes:

   This little one does look  quite spectacular with its colours but it devastates citrus trees.            

 And this whopper!! It is just hanging after I sprayed it with ant poison, believe it or not. It seems to be doing the job and I wish I had tried it earlier. I was using a dust and the wind would blow most of it away and the butterflies would just lay their eggs without a care. Now a quick spray and problem solved ... I hope!!!

  This is a medium sized caterpillar, in comparison to the other two, but it does the same damage to citrus trees. They have left the mango, bananas and other fruit trees alone and seem to concentrate on the lemons, limes and mandarins. I don't know why!!



When we look at a caterpillar all we see are the wonderful colours and the knowledge that they will evolve into beautiful butterflies. But those beautiful butterflies lay more eggs which in turn become caterpillars and destroy our plants, then the cycle begins again. They are so sneaky that the buttlerflies often lay their eggs on the underside of the leaf so you don't know they are there until they start munching away.

This is the destruction of a kafir lime that has been eaten by caterpillars. Unfortunately I didn't find them in time so I had to do some drastic pruning so that, hopefully, the new growth will develop after the caterpillar season, if there is one here in Queensland. That's all I need if they breed all year round!!! But we didn't have this damage last year either.
I will just have to keep spraying and hoping.

Maybe my mate the kookaburra can be trained to eat the caterpillars and do my job for me. Well, I am allowed to dream sometimes.

Am I the Harbinger of Doom????? - Additional

I found I had problems sleeping last night. Something was worrying me and I couldn't quite work out what it was. About 0300, after tossing and turning between drowsy naps, I realised what it was!!!

It was the date of 21st December 2012. In America the date is written as Month/Day/Year. Therefore December 21st 2012 is written as 12/21/12 and without the slashes -----

122112

So there you go. Is there a hidden meaning in this date?? Or am I just reading something into it to try to explain to myself as an unbeliever that there is reasoning behind the Mayan Calendar?????

Am I the Harbinger of Doom?????

Archaeologists have predicted that, after studying the Mayan Calendar, the world as we know it will end on 21st December 2012. This has come about by the intense study of the scribbles on bits of rock tablets and pyramids hidden for centuries in the South American jungles. When the scribbles were translated, the scientists decided that all the predictions engraved on those surfaces were able to be matched with actual events in our history like the fall of the Roman Empire, the invasion of the Far East by Genghis Khan, the slaughter and imprisonment of the Jews under Hitler's rule, among other instances like the first atomic bomb and the end of the world on 21st December 2012.

It is up to each individual whether you believe or not, but as a non-believer, I am sort of getting a little bit worried that maybe there is a grain of truth in the prediction.

Just look at what has been happening over the past couple of years, and especially over the last 2 or 3 months.

Mortal unrest in the Middle East, freak weather conditions throughout the world over the past couple of years and now the devastating floods in Australia, the freezing winter in America and Europe and even bushfires in California. Now we have reported today an earthquake off the East coast of Japan which reached 8.9 on the Richter Scale. This caused a massive tsunami which destroyed massive areas of the coastal town, cities and agricultural areas on the East coast.

The tsunami warning has now gone out to all islands and countries in the Pacific area such as Indonesia, Philippines, and all countries and islands East of Japan including Australia, New Guinea, Guam, Hawaii and now, North and South America. This is shocking news for the island nations in the path of this massive wave of water and hopefully it will pass into oblivion before it does any more damage. Tsunamis are renowned for their instability and could just as easy die out before any more real damage can be done rather than continue on its destructive way. We can only hope.

When the big questions are asked.... "Is it global warming??" .... "Are the ice-caps melting" ... "Are we raping the planet??". In answer to these questions ........... DON"T BE SUCH BLOODY IDIOTS!!!!! (As I say with hope in my heart!!)

History will tell us that the weather and associated events are cyclic. There is always a calm before a storm (ask me, I was a sailor, which also brings to mind several bawdy jokes) and through the investigation of ice tubes drilled from the polar regions, scientists have proven that these events (apart from the human war type ones) occur regularly and frequently every couple of thousand years or so.

So it seems that it is about time that we had such an event, Mayan Calendar or no.

Destroying the English Language

I haven't spoken to anyone for over a week now, since Kay has gone home to Kuala Lumpur to visit her family. The last conversation I had was with the bloke who owns the tobacconist shop at the Village when I bought my tobacco Thursday week ago. I haven't been out either because of the weather and I have really had no necessity to go out. I was hoping to go for a walk to Aldi, but the rain put an end to that thought. So, I have had a lot of time to think and listen to others talk, mainly on TV.

And what a load of dribble they come out with!!! I think that most people who know me will say that I am not what you might call verbally challenged, but I do believe that some of the so-called presenters and news readers on TV do surely have a problem with the English language.

One of my greatest hates is when a so-called "educated person" blatantly makes the same error or mispronunciation time after time. Women are some of the greatest offenders when they say something like: "I wanted to arx her if she was OK." or something in that vein. The correct word is "ASK" not "ARX". I have noticed that it is quite rare for a man to make this pronunciation error but a terrible lot of women do.

But men don't get off easy either. When a newsreader can change "gears" in mid-speech it is either very clever or very stupid. You be the judge.

The word in point is KILOMETRE. I believe the correct pronunciation is KILO-METRE, not KILL-OMMITTER. Take into consideration other metric measurement terms such as centimetre, millimetre, etc. We don't pronounce them as CENT-IMMETTER or MILL-IMMITER do we? So why mispronounce kilometre???

There was an instance the other night on the news when a reporter was talking about a speeding motorist. He reported as "The driver was travelling at over 80 KILO-METRES per hour and he travelled well over 15 KILL-OMMITERS before being apprehended by the Police." Why change the pronunciation within the same story??? Does the word need to be pronounced differently to suit the scenario????

NO!!!! Whether it is KPH or just KM it is pronounced the same way, which should be the correct way. This reporter is raking in humongous dollars and can't even speak the English language.

Another common problem with "educated" newsreaders, and this is mainly the younger generation, is that they use acronyms incorrectly. Take ATM for instance. An ATM is an Automated Teller Machine. You will often hear it referred to as an ATM machine. Therefore that translates as "Automated Teller Machine Machine". How stupid is that???

Another one cropped up the other night when there was a report about a well known TV star who was being charged with breaching an AVO (Apprehended Violence Order) and the reporter called it an AVO Order. Again, it is so ridiculous that it is beyond belief. 

Don't they proof-read their scripts before presenting them?? Or are the script writers at fault for making the errors in the first place?? Then why don't the presenters read their scripts first??? 

What has happened to all those good old-fashioned English classes that we all used to hate when in Primary School??? Oh for the good old fashioned education system to be brought back --- cane and all!!!