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 [...]

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 [...]

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 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 [...]

Disposing of dog poo can be difficult for suburban dog owners. Over the years we have tried practically everything, from wrapping and putting it in the rubbish bin, to the biological digesters that go in the ground. Nothing worked well — and in fact some were downright disgusting and nauseating! And then along came the worm [...]

At our daughter’s recent third birthday party, we decided to try out a joint painting activity. We had never heard of anyone else doing this, but it worked really well. We wanted to keep the party really simple, so kept this activity simple too. We purchased a large painting canvass from the local bargain store along [...]

We just celebrated our daughter’s third birthday. We skipped her first two birthdays because we figured she was not old enough to understand. So this was her first proper party. While other families in our street have hired jumping castles, pony rides and even a ‘pirate’ boat for kid’s birthday parties, we decided to keep [...]

The following was originally circulated in January 2006. Government assistance for nannies is still an issue and is currently being debated in the media. Government contacts have changed since was posted in January 2007. Parents need choice Child care centres, in their many forms, do not suit every working parent in Australia. Nannies can often [...]