How Not to DIY

People sometimes act as if they have a death wish. You wonder whatever got into the thing they call a brain for them to act in such a way. I will give you 2 examples and leave it to you to decide if I am right in questioning some people’s sanity.

First one is from when I lived in a house that had a straight chimney. This definitely was a weird one as most chimneys have an angle and this one was straight. The saga of what came down the chimney is detailed in my earlier post. Eventually after 2 years of complaining the landlord came to check what the matter was. Surely, he should have known about this as he was the owner and had previous tenants. Did they never complain about the offerings from the chimney? He tries looking up the chimney but it is actually hard to crouch in the grate to look up. Going out he came to the conclusion that the chimney was straight and hence the problem!! I think this landlord got so many eye rolls from me.. wonder I was not permanently looking backwards.

So, we had a discussion of what could be done. I pointed out that since it was an open hole it needed a cover of sorts. The easiest would be a piece of wood or a sheet of metal nailed down would be effective. So off he went and returned with a piece of metal sheet obviously from a scrapyard as it was like a lid with lip on all 4 sides of it. Now how was he going to get it up there? I stand indoors and watch as he backs his ute up into the drive which is on the chimney side of the house. Brings it close and then opens out his step ladder on the bed of the ute. Now I went out to see if he knew what he was doing. He climbed on top of the ladder which was in the back of the ute with that metal sheet in his one hand. Then he realises that it is just a little short of what he wants but goes ahead by standing on his tiptoes all the while muttering his wife would kill him if she saw him doing this. I was thinking well she seems to be the sensible one of you two then.

Now standing on his toes he swung the sheet up on top of the chimney and of course since he had no measurements the size was not right. He had been hoping to just sit that sheet into the chimney top but it would not fit in. Now he placed it face down with the lips just the bricks at the outer edge of the hole. The he came down for the tools. I receded indoor with fingers crossed that I would not have to call an ambulance. He said he had fixed it and left in one piece and I heaved a sigh of relief. Later in the week there was a storm with gales. I was looking out of the window to see the trees swaying and I saw something flicker past the corner of my eye and a big bang. Yes, you guessed it. The precariously nailed sheet had come off the chimney and flown down to hit into the metal fence and luckily not hit anyone. It only had to be at a slightly different angle to travel into the next-door garden or even the road – a perfect weapon to decapitate someone. Needless to say, the man was back and did a repeat performance of up the ladder in the ute and this time he nailed strips of metal from the metal into the brick on 2 opposite sides and it held.

The other example is when I moved into the current home the neighbour were moving out the same day. A couple of days later I heard voices next door and looked to see 2 – 3 young men. It sounded like they were doing some odd jobs but were they really? At one point they managed to knock the glass from out of the window frame onto the drive. It was wintertime and so it gets dark pretty early. After dinner while doing the washing up my husband said what is happening, I can hear clomping on metal. Looking out of the window on to the back of the house I could see 2 men on top of the metal roof that covers the portion of the drive where one can park a car. One had a camping head lamp on which gave out meagre light. By now it is pitch dark and I thought whatever is he doing up on the roof? Next a roar of the chainsaw and we look at each other with bewilderment as to what was happening. The man than climbed the tree branches that were coming over the roof of the house and the side of the house and started pruning the tree in the pitch dark by that dim head lamp. At one point it looked as if he was cutting into the branches right where he was standing. One slip could have taken his foot off. They could have had at least the light in the veranda on.  I must have prayed hard as neither injured himself and got of the roof in one piece.

Now you know why I was questioning the logic of these guys who go into chores for which they clearly not only unqualified but have not even given it a modicum of thought to the damage they could have done to themselves and the property.

Tale of a Straight Chimney

I used to live in a house which we think was from the 1930s or 40s. It was a fab house as it had 2 layered brick walls which kept the house very cool no matter the heat outside. Even when temperatures outside reached 40C+ it never got warmer than 29C indoors. But winter it was really cold indoors. Maybe this why the builders had put in a massive fireplace. I loved the idea of this fireplace and a wrought iron grate to burn wood for the fire. While I was not going to build a fire indoors as I would not be able to do the work required to make a fire and then clean the grate and of course the smoke would have me wheezing in a minute, I loved the grate and thought I would do some dry flowers and foliage arrangements.

The first sign of trouble came when one day there was a big splat. I was sitting in the sofa next to the chimney, listening to music and reading when I was startled. It was taking me some time to get used to the various bird calls which were so loud as the front door was open, that I used to get up and do a quick round through the house to make sure no bird had got in. So, when the splat came, I jumped up to look around after all the sound had been in the room. There was a slight movement and I saw a long black lizard, the kind that is all over my garden, in the grate. I think it was dazed for it took a minute to breath before rushing off towards the door and escaping from under it.

Next happened a few days later. It rains on and off here and some days it is a mild drizzle which is what has been happening since I moved here. When I go to hoover the house, I would hoover under the grate too and could not figure out why there was dampness. Was some moisture coming down the chimney? Then we had a massive storm and next thing I know I hear the rain and think ‘wow even the rain seems to be in the house’. But better check it out so I get up and see this puddle on the floor on the other side of the coffee table. Then I see the rain pouring in through the chimney. Damn this is the first time I have seen a chimney that is built straight and so the pouring rain brings it right down into the house. I had a few words with the estate agent and got very little joy. I used to put papers in the grate and that would absorb the water when it rained. This drama went of for a couple of years before the landlord (who insisted on doing all the repairs himself) was forced to come to do something about it.

The last one was most mystifying. It was a cold grey day with rain expected later. The wind was blowing big gusts every now and then. I was quietly listening to some music and then I heard this sound that can be best described as something between a long moan and a cry. A long wwoooooooooohhhh……. It was such a sad and worry sound. By now I am tuned to run to the chimney the first thing. I stood near the grate and tried to peer up the chimney and got a full blast of that eerie moan. Now I thought maybe there is a bird trapped in there. That it may have flown in and could not just fly back out. How does one get a bird out of the chimney? Who do I call? The estate agent will probably shrug her shoulders. Do I call 000 and ask for firies to come for the bird removal? Or is it the RSPCA? I thought let me rattle a stick or the broom up the chimney and see. But if it comes inside the house down the chimney how am I going to get it to go out again?  But nothing happened except another big coooooooo. Yes, then I realised that a pigeon was sitting on the chimney looking down the hole and cooing. Did it want me to coo back? I had a chuckle and told all my friends about being serenaded down the chimney. It was back a few times over 2 years cooing at me.

Interesting things happen to come down my chimney. The current house has one but is boarded up and fortunately I do not think it is a straight one.

Neighbour Washing Car

Neighbours can be quirky and while I am a friendly soul have not been able to make friends with all my neighbours. Well a couple were friends but only one has lasted a move. One of my neighbours I actually spoke to on the day before I moved. Often neighbours shift and new ones come and you suddenly think oh when did that happen? As I have not seen any removal vans come or go. Then it dawns on me that recently cars have been coming and going frequently and loads of large bags and packages have been loaded in to the car which I caught a glimpse of as I passed the window.

Yes, so I missed the actual move of the neighbour and only realised when I started seeing another person visiting daily to check on an extension being carried out at the rear of the house. Now I always make an effort to smile at my neighbours when I see them outside. But the one who had vacated never returned the smile except once when he was cutting grass and was right in front of me.

The current observation is about this gentleman. It was a cloudy murky day and quiet. Then the expected rain arrived. I have seen that more often then not the rain is a serious downpour almost monsoon like. My husband has often made video clip of the rain which starts with a dance of huge drops of water and then they run along the road. As the wind picks up the rain is seen at a curtain of water flying along. The road becomes a river that is rushing to find a gutter and race to the storm drain.

So once the rain started it was heavy with visibility greatly reduced. I love watching the rain racing about hither tither with the wind so I went to stand in the veranda to take in this view. The sight that I was confronted left me open mouthed, literally. The man next door was on his front lawn washing his car. Now one can understand that since it is raining, he would be making the use of all this free rain water but no that would be too sensible. He was holding an umbrella to protect himself from the rain and using a garden hose to wash his car. Why? The logic still eludes me…. Have never seen this before or since but then never know what new neighbours and neighbourhoods will bring.

And Everything Comes to a Halt

The dependence on technology today is sometimes scary. Now I do not mean the communication, media and internet nor the machinery used across all aspects of human life. I am referring to the most basic of technology – electricity. In the past I have lived in houses and flats which had both electricity and gas supply. The appliances were split in the utilisation of both, with gas being used for cooking and heating and the rest using electricity. This meant that a power cut while inconvenient would not stop all aspects of life. However, in the houses now a days there is a trend for everything electric.

A few years ago, I lived for the first time in an all-electric house. One afternoon there was a massive thunderstorm – a huge flash of light and a deafening clap of thunder and suddenly no power. My laptop was running on battery and that was all that was functioning. The phone line is connected into a modem and so without electricity there is not internet and also no landline. I also did not have a mobile phone in those days as I never really needed it. As I had no experience of power loss here, I was wondering what to do. Thought I should get a cup of tea and have a think. But oh! Without electricity how can I boil my kettle? The hob was also electric and so could not even boil a pan of water. So, I did a very Indian thing and went next door to check if they had power.

The young girl next door said they had a cut too but her mother had called to reassure the kids that it was ok. The call to electricity company had explained that a local junction box had taken a hit of lightening. I then walked over to my nephew’s house a couple of streets away. There I could ring the electricity company to lodge a complaint. I was surprised to find that when you called, they asked you to put in the area code and this gave a recorded message about the lightening hit and that power would be restored in 3 – 4 hours.  True to their word it was restored come evening.

This kind of outage happened once more but two other times it was planned outage for maintenance. I have to work out how to manage for the few hours and it was not so bad. But any longer than a few hours and it is hell. In the past few years, we have had massive storms and power outage across large parts of the city and suburbs which lasted several days. Life comes to a halt – freezer and fridge goods perished, no heating or hot water and no kitchen appliances could be used. Now with a trend to automate everything via Google or Siri or Alexa where even the opening of your front door is controlled by password or facial recognition what will happen if there is a power cut? You will either be locked in or locked out of your house. Is the fact that we have relatively very few outages making us forget to take that aspect into account when automating our homes? I enjoy technology but that is one step am not yet ready to take just in case…….

Buttermilk Scones

In the past we have tried different recipes for scones and none ever hit quite the right note. It would be a bit dry or crumblier than we would have liked or sometimes a bit dense. This time round we saw a recipe on one of the websites and decided to try that. Right from the word go we had plain flour and not self-raising, but then you can use baking powder to get the right effect. The recipe called for ¾ cup of buttermilk but when mixing the dough, it was too dry and crumbly so more butter milk was added. I like raisins in the scones so even though they were not in the recipe some were added. The scones turned out superb and light and just right.

Ingredients

• 2 cups plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 40 grams of butter – chilled and cut into small pieces
• 1 ¼ cups of butter milk  
• ½ cup of raisins

Method

• Preheat the oven to 220°C.
• Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a large bowl.
• Rub in the butter into the flour with your fingertips. It does not have to be perfectly mixed.
• Make a well in the centre of the ingredients and add the buttermilk.
• Start mixing with a spoon and finish with your fingers.
• Add raisins and knead just until it comes together but do not overwork it.
• Using floured fingers press the dough between the palms of your hands to form a round shape about an inch thick.
• About 12 scones can be made from these ingredients.
• Place on a lined baking tray.
• Brush the tops with some more buttermilk.
• Bake in the middle of the oven for 10–15 mins or until lightly coloured on the top and bottom.
• Take them out of the oven and leave to cool on a rack.

Serving Tips

• Serve with butter, jam and clotted cream should you have some.
• Jams traditionally used are strawberry or raspberry jam. But since I had none in the cupboard we used just as wonderful cherry jam and quince jam.
• Also, to get a savoury taste you can have it with some cheese – cheddar cheese seems to work quite well.

Vendhiya Uttapum

I am getting adventurous and my friends are gobsmacked at my enthusiasm for trying out new recipes. I am not a very good recipe follower and I have to be careful and follow it to the T for the first time.  This one is a recipe given to me by my long-time friend and she was pleased to see my efforts.

Ingredients

• 1 cup parboiled rice or raw short grain rice
• ¾ cup of tuvar dal (pigeon peas lentil)
• ½ cup of urad dal (husk free black gram lentil)
• 2 tablespoons of methi (fenugreek seeds)
• 10 – 15 curry leaves
• 2 table spoons of chopped coriander leaves
• 1 finely chopped onion
• Salt to taste
• Oil or ghee to cook

Method

• Gather the rice, lentils and methi in a bowl. Wash thoroughly and discard the water. Then add fresh water to about an inch above the mix and leave to soak for 3 hours.
• Drain out the water into a glass and set aside for loosening the batter.
• Add the curry leaves to the mixture.
• Grind the mixed curry leaves, rice, lentils and methi in to a fairly fine paste.
• Remove it to a bowl and add some of that water to loosen the batter. The batter should not be too thick that it falls from the ladle as a dollop. Nor should it be runny.
• Add salt and coriander leaves to the mix and leave it aside to rest for 15 – 30 mins.
• When you are ready to make the uttapum check again the consistency of the batter and add a bit of water if the batter has thickened.
• Heat the pan and add a few drops of oil or ghee to coat the surface.
• Put two ladles of batter from the centre of the pan outwards.
• Sprinkle onions on to top of the uttapum.
• Drizzle some oil on the surface and cover the frying pan with a lid.
• Cook the uttapum in the steam generated till the edges come off the pan.
• Remove the lid and flip the uttapum over to cook on the other side.
• Check to see if it is done and remove to a plate.
• Serve it with coconut chutney or pickle or podi.

Tips

Original recipe did not have onions or coriander so they can be omitted. I like them so I added them. Maybe next time I will add some green chillies too.

I had the uttapum with gongurai pickle

Visitors to My Garden

Over the years we have so may birds in the garden.  Right from the oft seen Common Myna to once in a while seen herons.

Kookaburra

My all-time favourite kookaburra on my washing line. Normally seen to the electric poles and wires. Largest group was of about 11 which I think was a lot of young birds as I believe they were nesting in one of the large trees.

 

Sulphur Crested Cockatoos

These roam in gangs and decimate trees in their path, screech and make a racket. The crest fan out when they are angry and in warrior mode.

Common Myna

These as the name suggests are aplenty. In one of the house’s I lived they had a permanent next in the partly broken guttering of the roof next door. Every year they had a couple of chicks and the racket started when they want to be fed. Woe betide if any ‘stranger’ came even in my garden. They would dive bomb it. That’s how I found my resident blue tongued lizard that I have got in the alter pictures.

Australian Myna / Noisy Miner

These were the fledglings of the noisy miner pair living in one of the near by trees. The chirping of these chicks is incessant and that’s is what drew my attention to them. Took me a while to find them among the leaves. From the hatching to the flying away took 3 weeks. They moved slowly around the couple of trees to test out their wings…. And last see on the wires before they left.

Rainbow Lorikeets

These are by far my most favourite bird. The colours and the sounds are just joyful I find. These were in the second house that I lived. The one after that had a lot of spider flowers and also bottle-brush trees which meant there was loads of honey and flowers for them to eat (. If the doors were open it felt that the birds were inside the house. It took me a while to stop going around the house to check if there were any lorikeets inside the house.

Blue-tongued Lizard

The first time I saw this creature it was in Melbourne. I was surprised to see such a large lizard and its blue tongue but before I could get a camera out it was off under the house. I never managed to catch it on the camera. But the second house here I was alerted to the sunning lizard just on the side of the house in the grass, by the screaming common myna pair from next door. They were trying to peck the poor lizard. I shooed them away and stood guard to let the lizard warm up. The second picture is of another blue tongue that lived in under the garage of the next house. Sadly, I do not seem to have one in this house… though I have seen one come from next door so maybe it lives there.

Wood Duck

No idea what it was doing here…. Am not that close to a water body. The river and duck pond closest is at Parramatta Park.

Ibis

This is seen everywhere here – parks, roads, city centres, gardens and called dumpster turkey as they are known to dumpster dive. In the first house I never saw any. But in the second one there used to be an occasional one. The next house there was a couple walking down the road. This house I have a large back garden and often they come and aerate my lawn by poking holes for worms. The best was a family of 5. The 2 large ones were of course the parents and the other 3 were smaller in size. Of course when I want to put up the picture those 5 can I find it?

Crested Pigeon

These are cute as they teeter about with that crest bobbing about. This one is well fed but usually they are not very big. They are also always found in pairs from what I have noted. The best memory I have of a pair was a courtship dance on the road. Right in the middle of the road the female was walking in front and the male kept coming and touching her. She shrugged him off and went forward. This went on for a minute of two. Her rebuffs were getting stronger and then she just turned and chased him, pecking at him down the road. I just wished I had been able to get that on camera. It was a funny site. I saw that courtship once again next year.

Heron

Now this is a stranger in the local area. Again, I got alerted when the noisy miners went berserk outside. This made me get up and walk around to all the windows to see if I could find the reasons for all this racket and of course I find the heron wandering about the garden next door. The second time it came over to my garden too.

Lastly, I point you to the last blog which had the rarest bird in the Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo.

Birds in My Garden

There are a lot of new insects, reptiles and birds that I have come across around my house here. It is always a nice surprise to see the different creatures. Australia is pretty well known for the many dangerous animals it has and I remember a few friends warning me about them before I came here.

First, we lived in Melbourne suburb and it was a very quiet neighbourhood with a lot of greenery, trees and grass around. There were so many birds calls which were unusual to our ears which are now pretty familiar. One day we were walking to the bus stop along a small path that took us to the main road and the bus stop. Around that time, I was still not stable in health and so had to walk slowly and hence had the time to look around as I walked. Looking at the amazing variety of different flowers and beautiful gardens. We used to walk that road often to get to bus stop as any outing whether just for buying groceries or to just an outing on the bus to see places, bus was the only way to go.

Suddenly my husband said oh look there is something in the tress high up in front. Large black mass…. Could that be a monkey? He speculated. But surely there are no wild monkeys in the suburbs in this country? We walked towards the tree as it was right by the end of the lane where we turned out on to the road. The size of this creature seemed fairly big .. yes it was big enough to be a monkey. Was that its back we were seeing. But then we were almost up t the tree and this creature squawked. Oh gosh! This was a black cockatoo and it is enormous. Then as our eyes adjusted to the angle and the light, we saw there were 2 enormous Glossy Black Cockatoos sitting on the branch and making soft sounds.

We stood there on the road for a good 5 minutes watching the beautiful birds.

Once again, we had the pleasure of seeing these elusive and endangered birds when we were at Murramurang National Park. We were sitting in the resort and having a cuppa. Suddenly there was a commotion and rustling in the trees….. loud strange bird calls. Everyone got up to look up through the trees to see what bird it was… and out flew a flock of 4 large Glossy Black Cockatoos. Simply beautiful and made me smile happily for the rest of the evening.

More recently, I was walking in my house as per usual and heard some screeching from outside. I live on top of a hill almost at a corner and so when there are bird calls it hard to figure out the direction immediately. So I looked out the front, opened the front door and looked out on that side. After a few minutes I gave up and continued walked. This time the screeching was coming from the back garden. I stopped at the kitchen window to see if there was anything visible. Suddenly I noticed the bark of my large eucalyptus tree being stripped and dropped down on the grass. There was something dark in the tree, could just about see a black bit moving. I went out and stood under the tree, oh my it was a glossy black cockatoo all right.  Just as I stood watching thinking its too late to grab my camera it flew off… a beautiful large yellow tailed black cockatoo.