Lesson 1. When you have low blood pressure, don't stand up too fast after bending down to pick up something off the floor.

Lesson 2. When you haven't learned lesson 1 yet, make sure you can land on a soft surface when you faint.

Lesson 3. When you haven't learned lesson 1 or 2 yet, don't do it on a Friday night when the x-ray department is closed until Monday.

Lesson 4. When in pain, codeine is good stuff (Not recommended when pregnant though).

Lesson 5. Just because the pain killers are working well for a change, it doesn't mean you should be stubborn and neglect the fact you're injured and continue on with your daily routine as if nothing was wrong and keep working on the lighter duties you can get done in the yard, because...

Lesson 6. Pain killers wear off faster than an injury can heal up when you're not resting it properly.

I have done something to my shoulder. I can move it, no swelling or bruising to be seen, but it has a constant throbbing ache, when I move it or put pressure on it a sharp pain shoots through it, I have a sharp pain shooting down my arm constantly - most of that pain is in my forearm along the radius bone and going to my thumb and forefinger... so guessing there's a pinched nerve in there somewhere... and my shoulder is making the most remarkable popping, grinding, crunching and crackling noises when I move it. X-rays tomorrow, will find out the damage then.

BB and I placed 3 eggs each from our hens under the broody chicken 20 days ago. The chickens have started hatching. It is the first time this hen has gone broody so we weren't sure if she would sit on them properly, so it was all an experiment. Silly surrogate mummy rolled some of eggs out from under her during the incubation process, so not all are going to be viable; and two eggs were put under her later than the others, so if they hatch it won't be until tomorrow. We just have to hope she keeps sitting on them for the extra day.

In checking the eggs it looks like only one more is going to hatch if any as there is only one left that has any little scratchy sounds coming from it and they're rather weak. We marked the eggs with child safe non-toxic markers and carbon pencil to tell which is which, but not sure if non-toxic ink would still hurt the egg they were an experiment as well. Seems the ones marked in pencil are the ones that work, so if you're incubating eggs and need to mark them, only use a carbon pencil. But of those that have turned up so far...

One of BB's hatched yesterday afternoon. His is grey. One of mine hatched overnight, and now I have a little yellow chicken. Perfect, one each. Knowing my luck, mine will be a rooster! LMAO

Here are the pics of our chickens hatching...

http://www.minti.com/members/darkenedangel/photos/70336?msg=C620-EA35-CB03-B0DA

I have a couple of friends staying here from Adelaide for a few days or so (Crystal and Laura). In need of extra food in the house, I called on Jeff to come around and do some cooking. The girls went out for a bit and brought home 2 other mutual friends of ours (Joel and Tammy). Joel had heard the stories about the mess fights we have around here, but hadn't experienced one himself... until last night.

It started out with the girls attacking Joel with make-up, which developed to hair mousse. Jeff and I watched in mild bemusement from the kitchen as they wrestled with hand fulls of white foam in the corner of the livingroom. I shook my head and commented to Jeff that they really don't know how to do it right. He nodded and agreed and commented with something about teaching them a lesson. Yep, that definately had to be done.

I went out the back and got a bucket of water, walked back inside to the livingroom where they were cornered and yelled out "Oi! If you're going to come here and make a mess of my house, at least do it properly!" and threw the bucket of water over them all.

Shocked, wet, and laughing they all went out the back for smoke break. Jeff and I joined them. Joel was laughing and stunned, he couldn't believe I'd actually done that. I whispered to Jeff, he looks too clean. Jeff nodded in agreement. So I went inside and got some flour in a bowl, walked back out and showed it to Jeff and asked "Is that enough?" Half way through cooking dinner and Jeff being in charge of it, no one thought anything of it. Jeff looked, nodded and replied, "Yep, looks good to me." No sooner had his finished his sentence I threw it over Joel.

It was on! FOOD FIGHT!!! Inside the house of course, most of it in the kitchen where the food was and the rest in the bathroom where everyone was trying in vain to hide and get cleaned up until they finally gave up trying and conceeded to staying covered in mess. By the end the mess was spread all over the kitchen, all over the bathroom (to the ceiling no less!) and a bit on the back veranda.

The house is back to normal again now but for the kitchen floor needing a second clean. It was an inch deep in sloppy sticky mess at one point and I had to call a truce to mop it up before someone slipped and got hurt. I wasn't so lucky however, because when flour and water mix and dry, it sets hard... add tomato and bbq sauce to it, plus more flour and try washing that out of your hair a couple of hours later!!!

Why did I bother cleaning up after the massive dust storm on 22nd Sept?

This blew in today.

It's nothing compared to the last one. In fact, pretty much everyone here is getting about as normal, because this sort of dust storm is considered typical of here.

Of course no one else will hear about this one because it isn't big enough to reach Sydney. Oh yeah, I'm cynical, but for good reason.

This one has been blowing since about 10am this morning and isn't expected to ease up until much later tonight. The sky has varied from yellow to red all day, tens of thousands of tons of dust blowing over every hour, visibility down to about 50m when it's gotten thickest so far today... about as bad as Sydney copped on the 22nd.

La de dah de dah. What a boring day. I was hoping to get out bush for a while today, so much for that plan.

Must remember to tech screw down loose sheets of iron on roof again in the morning, because we have hail storm warnings from the Flinders Ranges SA to Broken Hill NSW for tomorrow apparently...