#1831 Monday 25 June

While preparing breakfasts this morning I noticed a picture on the side of a cereal packet.










 It looked familiar so I took a closer look .... it's an Allis Chalmers Model B!  These were built in the early 1950's and were supposed to be the first American tractor to be made with rubber tyres standard.  It was a 20hp "single plow" tractor.


The reason for my interest?  I had one from 1984 to 1996.

It was given to me when we had the Northcliffe farm ..... as usual it was a basket case that hadn't run for many years.  I got it going again and it was a useful machine on the farm.  When we moved to Busselton in 1989 I took it with me as it was light enough to be carried in the trailer behind the car.  It eventually became a restoration project and ended up with new paint and decals.  It went to many local shows.








This is a photo of a similar machine that Anne saw in a museum in  Tasmania.

This is the "Allis" before restoration .... driving in the front yard of the farm at Northcliffe.  Donna is driving with David on the back.








Kaylia is on her way to school as I write..... she is going to the movies today ..... to see "Incredibles 2".   The other day she came home from school and as soon as she came down the stairs she rushed over to my computer ..... I always have a photo of Kaylia as my desktop and I had changed the photo!  She noticed and she had to come over to check it out.

Evening

Kaylia is really fixated on Bali at the moment.  If we mention the name in any conversation her ears prick up and she asks "Bali at Christmas?"

#1830 Saturday 23 June

Now here's a sobering graphic from history.....  it's the number of people who died in WW2 illustrated by nationality.

It would be interesting to see this as a proportion of the population of each country at the time the war began.....  and the total as a proportion of the world population at the time.

[I later found that this has been done in Wikipedia .... and the results are even more sobering.]

What does this have to do with Kaylia? Nothing except to be thankful that we are not living in those times.  I just thought it is worth sharing as our wonderful leaders teeter on the brink of further conflict. 

#1829 Friday 22 June

Another school week is over and Kaylia is just as excited by it all as ever.  She has one more week of school and then it will be school holiday time .... and we will have her counting down the days till she can go to school again.  What a girl!


This next bit is for the blog readers who are in Australia ...... our government is seeking to pass some new laws which would apparently make me a criminal .... because I want to express a view which is different to the view of the government ! ! !  Take a moment to watch this video clip of Andrew Wilkie - an independent MP.

Andrew Wilkie

Put these proposed laws together with the trends being shown in this article .......

Why-young-voters-are-turning-their-backs-on-democracy

..... and it is very disturbing.

Spread the word!

#1828 Wednesday 20 June

 

This old cartoon is so 'right' for today's callous immigration issues ...... and it is equally applicable to the attitudes shown by Australia in the treatment of refugees on Manus Island.

Kaylia?  .... since this blog is primarily about her!  She had a very early morning .... up at 5am.  I think it was because we have put a doona on her bed which has a slippery cover..... and when I went down at 5am, the doona had slipped off the bed ..... so she was probably woken by being cold.

Evening

You know the IT joke where an Irish voice asks "Did you turn it off and on again?"......   I had something similar today.....  I was called to render assistance where three staff couldn't make their computers work.... none of them could make the keyboard enter the password so that the PC would start up.   So off I go down to the office... I walk in....  and the computers all start up perfectly!  Was it my magical presence?  No.... none of them had pressed the space bar to make the password field open!   There were some very red faces. 

#1827 Monday 18 June

Once again Kaylia has come home from school ... excited and happy .....

Now .... 5:30pm .... she is in the bath with a mountain of bubbles!  She's been chortling and singing for 2 hours now.  Hopefully she will hop out soon so we can all have some tea!

In the news today .... another death on Manus Island.  Shame Australia Shame!!

If you share my feeling of shame at Australia's collective guilt for the treatment of the people that Australia  imprisons without trial and without hope ..... sign the petition to our federal senators.

Sign the petition to the Senate

#1826 Saturday 16 June

Gee .... days have slipped by without a blog entry!  What has been happening?

While Naomi has been away, life at home has been a little more hectic I s'pose ..... Naomi came home Wednesday and Kaylia was very happy to see mummy after school then ... it was story time before the dust had settled!

Then Thursday and Friday were business staff pay preparation and processing for me ..... this is still my task ..... the person we have employed to take over the accounts from me is doing a good job but it will take a while before the pay process can be handed over.  This will come eventually.

Today I had some tractor time .... a neighbor wanted a hand with preparing a part of his yard for lawn.  The area had to be leveled and then fresh soil spread over so that it was ready for grass to be planted.    It was a little worrying because he has a young boy who was fascinated by the tractor ...... and I had to keep one eye on the child because the father was not keeping the child as far from the work as I would have liked.

Kaylia is still fixated on when her next day at school will be!  She is also trying to get us to talk about going to Bali at Christmas ..... but we know from experience that we must keep away from that.  Our tactic is to tell her
"No .... we will talk about Bali in November. 
How many months to November?  July .... August ... September .... October .... and then November!"

#1825 Monday 11 June

School excursion to the Maritime Museum in Fremantle














Kaylia seemed to enjoy the day ..... usually when I ask her questions, she gives the impression that she doesn't know what you're talking about and she's not really interested ...... but when I talked to her about today, she knew that she'd been to the museum ... and she responded to comments about pirates.






Tonight when Naomi Skyped from the villa, Kaylia joined in.  She was happy to see mummy but once she had seen her and made sure that she was still around, Kaylia was off again .... back to her room.