Roast Chook for Christmas Dinner

Today we attended a naming ceremony, for the son of some dear friends, who unfortunately we do not get to see enough of.  It was the first time I have seen their son, and he is five months old now.  When we lived in China, Asian babies inspired me to want to have babies of my own.  They never cried (in public at least) and were just so cute.  Apart from his gorgeous Asian colouring, his oh so chubby cheeks were to die for.  I could just eat him up.

The ceremony was held in a park in Joondalup - it was lovely.  The kids loved exploring and running around.  The toilets were close too (and clean), which is always a plus.

On the way home we made a stop at The Margaret River Chocolate Factory in the Swan Valley.  Now I can tell you, if you haven't been then you don't know what you are missing.  Free chocolate people and not your run of the mill garden variety chocolate either - award winning chocolate.  Go, go, go.

When we got home I came inside and it was really dark, because it was overcast outside.  So I put up the blind and to my horror I saw two of my chooks digging and scratching in my garden.  I nearly died.  So after a few choice words through the glass at them, I found my keys and Miss Four chased them back to their yard.  We established that the wind blew the gate over, but this was after accusing my mother, who sometimes chucks her scraps to the chooks and never seems to put the gate back correctly!  Sorry mum.

Just this morning I was admiring how fantastic my garden was looking.  I have been growing sunflowers from seed for a comp to see who can grow the biggest sunflowers.  However my whole garden has been benefiting from me getting up early to water my sunflower babies.  My vincas especially were all lovely, green and lush.  In fact they had all had babies of their own, which were all growing madly.  I thought to myself this morning I should dig up some of those vinca babies and re-plant them in the front.  But I didn't...  So imagine my terror peering at the chooks dragging my baby vincas out of the ground.  Luckily my baby sunflowers came out of the assault unscathed!

I noted that the main culprit was "Bossy" the chook.  She has some kind of wander lust.  Just the other day she escaped down our driveway.  I reakon it is she, that led the other (unnamed) chook astray.  She is the chook we have had the longest... perhaps the death of her best friend a few years ago tipped her over the edge.  She is hereby on notice - another claw out of line and she will be the roast chicken we have for Christmas dinner!

So after I got over my cardiac arrest, I remembered that I had a toddler to feed and dinner to cook before I could really assess the damage.  Luckily that did not take long at all and I delegated to hubby.

So I got down on my hands and knees to push all the dirt back into the garden and to remove the dying vinca babies.  But do you know what I discovered, that although they were wilted, most of the babies were basically unharmed, in that they had their roots and their leaves were intact.  So I sifted through the dirt and salvaged maybe thirty babies.  Then I filled in the excavation sites and replanted the babies in different parts of the garden. I gave them a good watering and am eager to see what tomorrow brings.

So perhaps Bossy and her friend did me a favour.  They did the hard work of digging up the babies, which truth be told, I was apprehensive to do in case I chopped off their roots...  Maybe Bossy won't be attending Chrissie dinner after all...

Today was my right hip fats turn to meet Mr C.  It was ok.  I put a heat pack on before the injection, which my groom did for me, and again afterwards.  Heat didn't work anywhere near as well as the cold pack, because I could feel the sting, but I didn't get the mosquito bite look followed by the welt.  Handy to know, if I ever want to show off my hips - not.