Make do, make last...

The hottest day of the year, so far, has passed, with a clobbering 41.5 degrees in the shade of our well-ventilated verandah. CB had spent much of the previous day moving house, helped by a sturdy butch childminder and her partner in a car that overheated, but on that real scorcher of a day she went back to the old place to clean up. During those six hours we minded Harley, which was a bit of a hassle because we couldn't take him outside for fear of seeing him snap-dried to pemmican... Not that CB hadn't kept it in good nick, that owner-built pretence of a holiday home in leafy Losers' Paradise: in fact the agents had given her a top report card after a recent inspection - when she made the tactical error of giving them a list of things that the owner/manager needed to fix. Instead of attending to the oven that caught fire from the bottom-heat coils or punching down myriads of protruding decking nails that threatened to tear the crawling toddler to shreds, the local licensee of Raw & Horny gave notice to quit the premises, the earlier the better. She moved rather earlier than they may have thought, so to recoup the lost rent they presented CB with a list of things she allegedly hadn't done, including weeding, removing cobwebs and cleaning the gutters - all told 12 hours worth of maintenance for which R & H would snaffle $500 from CB's bond... Sometimes it's a relief a crying single mum can rely on a lawyer sister, so there's hope the rapacious rort will be nipped in the bud! But I wasn't going to talk about real estate rogues or developer dunces (her new landlord is apparently going to tear down her new abode, an old shack extension within cooee of the surfing beach). I have more pressing things to attend to: Barnevelders Bianca went to Sydney Tuesday to visit Giulia and grandchildren Raphael and Benjamin, so I had some room to manoeuvre. Even before taking her to the bus stop, I had hatched a plot to deliver our broody Leghorn hen Phebe of five weeks of sitting - on eggs, dirt, cardboard or wherever she found a likely nursery. And that included a grid of sticks high up in a separate portion of the chook run set aside for weaning likely breeders from such folly. My plan was simple, turn around the car at the bus stop and race to a nearby country town (120 km round trip) to fetch a clutch of 'day-old' chicklets and slip them under Phebe at night. I returned with five buff-coloured, white-winged Barnevelders that were perhaps two weeks old, and kept them in a big computer box at the foot of my bed til nightfall. I spent hours watching these springloaded little handfuls of life scratch, play tag for scraps, jump up on to a little stick perch I'd provided and flutter down with delicate wing beats. I hardly missed Bianca, but don't tell her that... Come nightfall, I grabbed the somnolent Phebe from the chookhouse and placed her in the 'maternity ward' nest, much against her wishes. Still later that evening, I attempted to slip the little chicks under her wings, but she cried foul and pecked at their heads, until they scampered off into the far corners of the 'nursery'. Two of the five she attempted to smother by throwing her full weight sideways onto them. I went to bed with a heavy heart, imagining all sorts of horrors, such as squashed chicks, eviscerated chicks lying about and the like. After a miserably night I went to the 'nursery at 5:10 a.m. when it was still quite dark, and found the little darlings all huddled in a corner, far from the mean 'mother'. I picked them up and placed them back in the box by my bed, and as soon as it was decent, rang Bianca in Sydney. She suggested, wisely I thought, to await her return on Thursday when we would try the trick again. That gave me an extra day to play with the lively bundles, although much of the time was spent preparing various kinds of grains, mashes, chopped greens and sliced strawberries. I even deconstructed macadamia nuts into pieces suitable for tiny beaks, but they spurned these; nor did they deign to taste garden-fresh strawberries. On Thursday I sequestered Phebe in the 'nursery' run early, and she went up into her little nest box early. By sheer inspiration, I placed two eggs under her, so she would not be too surprised when something would stir beneath her at night. Bianca came at dusk, we waited for darkness, having dinner and drinking some home-brew beer. When it was fully night, we crept into the low enclosure where Phebe slept, and I passed the chicks to Bianca one by one, and she gently stuffed them under Phebe's plumage. No peking this time, no harsh warning sounds from the hen, she crooned softly and settled back on 'her newborns' contentedly. Bianca has since spent inordinate amounts of time 'supervising' the experiment, even though it had patently succeeded extremely well. I started the Bosch kitchen machine driving the grain mill, and blew the fuse in the plug. Bugger, I said, but after 35 years or so even a slow-blow fuse has a right to blow. We dashed into town and I bought to more fuses. When the first of these also blew, I knew the time had come to dismantle the machine for a checkup. With a heap of parts on the kitchen table, it occurred to me to pry open the switch itself: bingo! a piece of the bakelite stub locating the axle had broken off, perhaps allowing contacts to make when they shouldn't. No problem, we'll epoxy it back together. A day later I assembled the switch with great difficulty, needing three hands to hold springs, cams and levers as I did so, but alas, the stub had come apart again. Does anyone know how to 'glue' bakelite? I found that the term is a trademark for phenolic resin compounds, so perhaps I'll discover a likely adhesive. In the meantime, I went into the shed and unearthed our old Retsel 'Arkansaw' hand mill, purchased in the Mother Earth News days but little used since. However, I found it makes excellent chicken feed from a variety of grains, even corn... Shedding rellies Giulia called offering to come up for Christmas Day with hubby Isaac, toddler Raphael and eight-month-old Benjamin, braving the heat and traffic for anything up to five or more hours if we could provide accommodation in the shed. I discussed it only very briefly with Bianca, and we both agreed it was an uncommonly bad idea, particularly out of concern for the children's safety and well-being on a snake-infested, machinery-strewn building site. When I rang Isaac on my belt-hung cordless phone to calmy explain the impossible situation, I was standing about a metre from our beautiful if somewhat lethal red-bellied back snake, Blackie, by the pond 2 metres from our kitchen door and verandah. I mentioned this unpredictable hazard as Blackie slid closer to inspect my gumboots. Somehow, I don't think Isaac believed me... What is it about Christmas that drives adult Australians to drive huge distances to eat turkey and Christmas pudding in some relative discomfort, preferably in the country, and more preferably near a beach? Haven't they got beautiful beaches within easy driving of Burwood? It's certainly not religion, at least in our case: we are determinedly agnostic and I don't think the occasion would have any special meaning for Isaac! As the poet said: "Poetry makes nothing happen - would this were true of Religion." (Peter Porter, in his new collection of poems and aphorisms, Afterburner, as quoted in last week's Speccie.) Without the rellies here for Christmas, I shall have time to: fix the cistern seal, start on the new drain field, repair the old Bosch kitchen machine, install the Casablanca fan and wire it up, maybe take the old Proton clock radio apart again, since it refuses to act on time-setting instructions since the last thunderstorm... I'm sure Bianca will come up with some more odd jobs! ('No dear, I've just repaired the Elnita sewing machine and put a honey gate on your honey pail... ah, and I've raised some seedlings for your garden, already!') Have a good one!