Okay, maybe not quite on my doorstep.  But it was a big fire.  And it was possibly deliberately lit.  First I noticed of it was the smoke.  Not really that unusual, it's Australia in summer.  It happens.

Then Josh and the kids got home from City Farmers.  The kids were terribly excited, rushing in yelling that we have to wake up the baby and get going.  Josh came in and asked if I'd noticed the fire.  I said I smelled the smoke but otherwise hadn't been concerned about it, there's occasionally fires up in the hills.

What's been happening at Wannabe Farmstead? Feels like a lot.  I was out with the dogs at the oval when it occurred to me:

• I can sort out and adjust training "schedules" in my head fast from observing the dogs while working with them
• I can work out learning styles and interests of the kids from observation and interaction and work out where to go and things to do that they might find interesting
• I can work around family stuff with minimal dramas
• I can do things for clients on time (provided they get me what I need when I say I need it by)
• I cannot organise my own way out of a paper bag

I should probably do something about that last point.

1. when you have autonomous big kids who can set themselves up, poke head in every so often
2. make sure they know that the glass jar the brushes stand in is the paintbrush rinsing jar and that they shouldn't use drinking glasses
3. ditto palettes, so they don't substitute food bowls
4. choose non-toxic paints in case the above happens
5. never leave toddlers unattended.  Ever.

The conclusion to the sorry chicken saga.

Came across a problem someone else on Drupal dubbed "ghost field" in one of the issue queues.  My issue with ghost fields came about while setting up Profile2 to use in my profile (strangely), but the problem happens in other modules as well.

The problem

1. create a profile type (or modify the main one)
2. add a field
3. delete the field (I don't recall seeing any difference between saving data in the field or not)
4. try to add a new field with the same name, get an error saying the field name is already in use, but it doesn't appear in the "Add existing field" list

The solution

There was much excitement and trepidation at Wannabe when Chess, our bossy little evil Pekin bantam went broody, and amusement when the more demure Tempest decided that she, too, would also like to hatch some eggs.

We were pretty thrilled to have broodies, as one of our long term plans was to increase our flock naturally, including letting the broodies raise their chicklets, and bring in new blood every so often to prevent too much inbreeding.  This idea has since expanded to Josh planning on developing his own chicken breed.

It's the hottest driest summer ever in Australia (except in Queensland and northern WA where they're experiencing floods, and meanwhile in Europe where they're having longest coldest winters with craziest snowfall).  Here in Perth most of our rain happens in winter with drips and drabs here and there in late autumn and early spring.  We don't usually get rain in summer.  The last few days I've felt quite at home while a large number of my friends have been complaining of the oppressive, stifling, terrible humidity.

Yesterday, I noticed the humidity, which probably means it was pretty damn high, and not helped at all by the fact that there wasn't any wind worth mentioning.

Today, the radar looks like this:

Right now there is a particularly heavy cloud going over and my big kids are outside whooping excitedly about it and jumping in puddles.  The temperature is lovely and cool and very much like Christmas Island, which is making me simultaneously happy and homesick.  The rain smells lovely.

When my little big boy and his agemates hit kindy age (normal 4 year old kindy), I commented to a long time friend from back when Southies (better known now as Perth Natural Learning Network, website in the works and there is a Facebook group) first started up sometime near the beginning of 2007 that their social life had suddenly exploded with everyone's kids having birthday parties and playdates and whatnot.  She quite enthusiastically said yeh, she loved it.  I also find it enjoyable, though at the time for me it was more of a conscious noting of the fact that I had a child that was getting towards the stage of "big" (ie school aged) kid.  I was slowly but surely moving out of the realm of "mum of babies and toddlers" and into "mum of big kids" land.

Mostly for family, as I mentioned in the last post we're usually with one of our families at Christmas time.  This year is a rare occurrence, the last time it happened was almost 6 years ago when I, at the end of gestating Tao, decided flat out that I was not going anywhere.

Firstly, let it be known that we have no Christmas tree (though I am seriously contemplating one of these Fruut trees).  My family, who love their Christmas trees, may or may not be aghast to discover this was the best I could do:

The lovely Ursula (also known as SulaMoon) over at deviantART gave me and another friend of hers pearwood a dragon for Christmas.

I think it's agonisingly cute.  Ursula is an amazing artist.