The 4 O'Clock Fox

 This setting pout foul weather must be trying for man& beast,  for the last six morning's or so a dastardly fox had been visiting the hens.  You could set your watch by "him", he's very regular.  If you offered him wages,  he would surely sleep in& claim sick leave.  But this fellow is a sole trader, hard working and reliable. 

But,  I don't worry too much, art the sound of a screech I loose the dogs & they will pursue the little fellow a good while.  They yap excitedly about the usual places before Zipper gets the scent & they invariably charge off  eastwards and halt barking loudly.  Presumably this is where foxy goes to ground.  

I give them all a treat on their return & there's much back patting as they crunch their crackers.  The kittens join the fray with ac small few biscuits & I'll be a coffee & take a biscuit to my berth and read Tilman & reflect on the days progress on Ka'nu.

Popular posts from this blog

the week ending 10dec23

Image
I haven't been onboard this week, due solely to the fact that she lays some 300k from where I live.  I do have good news though, and that is that this week I took formal ownership of JS and am about to secure the Clareville Beach mooring. The very same Clareville Beach from where Ann Gash departed and returned from her solo circumnavigation. I have new lateral chainplates to install too, so apart from shipping safety gear (flares, vhf & ?), I just need to overhaul the anchoring gear and  ready for sea. SydHarb is just 16nm, head to head, so a solid halfday's sail could see us swanning around under the coathanger. Apart from getting under sail and testing her out, the under the bridge sail is the only immediate goal I have for JS. Taking a dump out the front of government house and Vaucluse mansions are two other perverse pleasures I may take part in, though l will need to mind the Fun Police.              *     * ...
Read more

getting close to full time

Image
this weekend just passed saw us have Harry over again and hopefully and it will be his last "visit" before permanent care next weekend.   things went well,  on the morning of his arrival we shot of and bought sausages and fresh bread which we barbequed for lunch. and apart from only having spicy barbeque sauce instead of plain tomato, it went down well.     we later bought a life jacket and fishing rod. the fishing was lousy but he has a swim in the rover at Morpeth.   that evening we hung out,  Mia was away but it gave Joe and harry time to play computer games.  the following morning Harry reckoned it was his first sleep-in for five years.  that may have been an exaggeration, but it clearly demonstrated how relaxed and happy he was.   today's task was to go sailing and we did.  the bay was lively with big winds and tide flows,  so we solved under main alone.  as usual Harry wanted to control eve...
Read more

getting the ship:s papers

Image
After motoring to the beautiful Clareville Beach, I found the waters calm and silky dark. Slow skidding cumulus that reeked of showers, hung without menace.  The lovely Barry Marshall (previous owner) arrived with a bag of ship's papers which provided a potted history, receipts, manuals and registrations. Generously, he also passed on a porta potti, boat hook, auto bilge pump, two headsails and a spinnaker. The headsails felt heavy and crisp, were labelled North Sails and are possibly unused.  I also became the caretaker of the yellow surf ski. I'd seen Barry, who paddled across Bass Strait calmly paddle this as a tender and as he told me the lock code, extolled it's virtues and how easy it was "to stand on to get onboard ". Of course I couldn't wait to try out the new tender in order to check on on Jack Sprat  so off we went with se new chain plate fittings and little else. As we arrived at the gunnel Barry's words came to mind as I shuffled and jerked, g...
Read more