Nits and head lice are the bane of every parent’s existence if they live in a warm climate and have children in school or child care. We suffered through four summers of head lice infestations before we finally started using tea tree conditioner from Thursday Plantation to prevent head lice. We now have a five year old daughter in Prep Year (the year before Year 1) at school, and an eight year old daughter … more »
How do you season and clean your brand new carbon steel (black steel) or cast iron fry pan or wok? Different manufacturers recommend many different techniques. In the first instance, you may want to try their recommended method. When that does not work, try the following. I have tested this method on a de Buyer Carbone Plus carbon steel fry pan; a Wiltshire carbon steel wok; and an eBay, no-brand cast iron griddle pan. Following … more »
I thought that today’s parent’s tossed their children a Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation or other such electronic gaming device and told them to shut-up. Apparently that is not the case. I was somewhat amazed this summer by how many of the children who came over for playdates with my children knew how to play card games. And they genuinely seemed to enjoy playing them! So it seems that many parents are still teaching their children how to … more »
The unseasonal hot weather in Queensland this winter has brought the snakes out early — this photo was taken on 4 August! We spotted this carpet python in the grass near some children’s play equipment at our local park in Brisbane. By my guess the carpet snake was around 2 metres long. The snake was a little slow as it was not really warm enough for it to have come out of hybernation. … more »
After two years of successful operation of a dog poo worm farm (blog post 1, 2), I accidentally nuked it. The last time I gave my dogs an intestinal worm tablet, I promptly forgot about it. I remembered a couple of days later, but by then I had put several lots of poo in the worm farm. The worm tablet had gone right through my dogs and their worm tablet tainted poo nuked … more »
Some time back I wrote a few handy tips on keeping a dog poo worm farm in working condition. I have been using a Reln Can-O-Worms to good effect for a couple of years. However, the dog poo worm farm has, quite frankly, become a bit stinky of late. My long suffering wife reckons that I have a theory for everything, and this is no different. 1) In the last six months our small … more »
I have a Hungarian Vizsla named Roger. King Roger is very affectionate and is easily disciplined — he hates it if you yell at him. He will try to sit in your lap given half a chance. A breed trait is that when excited — such as when you come home — he picks up things in his mouth while simultaneously growling. Apparently Vizslas were originally bred by the Hungarian warlords as a … more »