Breadmaster] I've never heard that one, but my Dad has been bitten by Wolfspiders many times. He claims it is akin to an ant bite. Congrats on your publication by the way.
It seems difficult to get information about the precise toxicology of the spider venom. Or I'm not looking hard enough. No matter. A factsheet about huntsman spiders is here: huntsman. I think up here we tend to call all large black spiders "huntsman" spiders. A factsheet about Australian wolf spiders is here: wolf. The legs seem quite different, and huntsman spiders seem to be larger.
Cheers to Dr Q with regards to my minor success in Celebdaq. Now I fully understand what happens on a kneecapping. Call me naive, but I never realised that they took all of your existing shares away and you had to start form scratch again. Hmmm... well, as you can imagine, that was a bit of a surprise... On the up-side, I've now got a lovely green wad next to my name. On the downside, I had oodles of Arnie...
I am number one, I am number one, I am number one..(again). I would like to thank Mick Jagger and Stella McCartney for aiding me, (and others for getting kneecapped.) MWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
fl] Sorry - I have been very busy recently + I still use non-digital technology. Will do what I can. Just to say that the Chickens are thriving, lots of eggs (gorgeous yellow yolks). flerdle made a bid for freedom recently in desperation as she attempted to get at her porridge. When the garden vegetables have stopped and I've dug the ground (late September) I will let the chickens have completely free-range. They will dine on slugs eggs, centipedes, leatherjackets and other destructive pests, fertilising the ground as they go. Continuing in the Good-Life tradition, I recently tried brewing Honey Beer to an C18 recipe (the chickens ate the mashed hops). It has a 2nd fermentation in the bottle and so every so often there is an explosion in the pantry as a cork pops out. This is no bad thing as I can have a little sip to see how it is progressing. My God it is strong. It is almost revolting, but oddly, once tasted it leaves you wanting more. Probably needs time. Has anyone got any recipes I can use it in if it turns out to be crap?
[BtD] I understand that once gone wrong, Honey Beer makes an excellent nappy soaker, paint stripper and fingerprint remover (that's removing fingerprints from your fingers, not from surfaces). I'd wear marigolds if I was you.
This is some really weird font here. Me no understand. Must sort out my CSS on the return. The school is going well but I need to return to listen to a guy from Sunderland explain density functional theory. More dispatches later. ttfn, rab.
[Btd] Our neighbour has decided to install some chickens, too. He was banging and sawing pretty much continuously last weekend (while we were unboxing all our gear) and now there are gentle warbly chicken noises coming from his garden. No rooster, fortunately.
[rab] See! See! Not just me [snorgle] You'll find it was Bob the dog who's Chicken Man. I currently live in what would be classed as "inner city" (20min walk to the middle of the CBD), but it's quite low density still - blocks of units, but many individual houses. We really only have one person-neighbour (going anticlockwise: church, multistorey carpark, cliff and shop, more shops, neighbour in large house). Some friends have kept chooks (complete with renovated gardens for same), and I did hear about someone with a sheep, up in the hill just a little over. They used to take it for walks, on a leash.
[snorgle] Not really - we were moving in while the chicken coop was being built, so I suspect the decision must have been made a good while before we could ever have met the neighbours concerned.
[Roosters] One of my lovely neighbours has roosters, introduced a couple of years after we moved in. His attitude is "if you don't like it, move" but said in a more unpolite way.
whoops! I wasn't paying attention, and I'm awful at names - I often have to read back in books to check who is who again. We get quite a lot of horses running wild near me as there is a traveller site not far away. The local paper ran an article where a Belfast man now living in the area said he wanted to move back to the Garvaghey Road in Belfast as he felt it was safer, because his garden was constantly invaded by wild horses. Bit of an over-reaction, if you ask me. He said the police wouldn't help once they were on his property. I can't help but wonder if reporting the horses to a horse welfare society might be more likely to get a reply. He could say that they were in danger, and not just from him! (they do gallop all over the roads..).
I have noticed that the gentle warbly chicken noises you get from hens has an oddly soporific effect. I have considered recording it to sell as a new-age aid to meditation…(Page goes all shimmery) Are you stressed, anxious or hyper-tense? Why not try Bob the dog’s natural free-range homeopatic massage emporium! Yes! You too can experience deep massage set to the natural sound of real organic chickens. And for that full holistic experience, why not try the gentle scouring action of a detox colonic irrigation using the purest natural Honey Beer? Guaranteed to remove lethargy. Guaranteed to remove sensation.
Oh dear . . . every time the phrase 'Honey Beer' pops up on this page, I can't help but think of a porn star [y'know - add the name of your first pet to your mother's maiden ... etc etc].
[BtD] I'm with you, my friend. I do not have the pleasure at the moment, but a quiet Sunday afternoon with blue skies and chickens/hens going about their business is a most wonderful dream. Of course, if penelope's Stella Foster was in attendance - or either of them, actually - it would make the experience even more fulfilling. ;-)