The Hidden Cost of Canada

At the time that you set off on a little adventure to the other side of the world for a couple of years, you understand that there’s going to be some sacrifices. You also understand that some of those things are readily identifiable. The absence of family and friends, departure from sporting clubs, changes of schools amongst what is a much longer list.

You also understand that there’s going to be hidden costs that can’t be predicted when you return and its also understood that they won’t all be immediately apparent.

Whilst we were in Canada, we tried to keep the boys in touch with cricket a little bit by occasionally getting out in the park and entertaining the locals with our crazy antics. Michael and Thomas were the two most keen to play, but then that was true before we left as well.

Michael was very excited when we returned to be able to finally take up cricket again. Unfortunately a couple of things changed in his absence. With the age progression that he went through the game changed. The ball went from a semi hard ball to a true cricket ball complete with all the padding that accompanies it. The pitch stretched out to a full length, taking away some of the menace from his bowling as he had to loop it a little more to get it to a decent length.

Even more telling, he went from being of average height to seemingly a foot shorter than most of his contemporaries. That foot proved to quite possibly be the single most telling fact as when he went in to bat, the ball was harder, coming faster and often, bouncing up around the rib cage of a reasonable length. It meant that when he went in to bat he felt incompetent and with his bowling not being as threatening, he was more often than not bowling fourth change or so and hence fielding whilst only being rewarded with 2 overs when the captain thought he could afford it.

It’s meant that he’s now declared that he no longer wants to play cricket. I completely understand, but it rips out a little piece of my heart. The hardest thing for me is not so much that he doesn’t want to play cricket, its that by playing soccer all year round in Canada, he’s been limited in his exposure to other sports. I don’t really mind what he chooses to play, I just really really want him outside and exercising and deriving all the benefits that come from working with a team to achieve a goal and simply socialising with ones peers outside of the immediate school environment.

For now, all we can do is encourage his participation and offer what ever support he needs when he decides to go down a new path.

Three Chooks Forward, Two Chooks Back

Last night I came home to be told that we had three new chickens; that and the fact that there had been something of a disaster. I wasn’t quite sure exactly what the disaster was likely to be and all sorts of things went through my mind not even related to the chickens.

It turned out that it was actually chicken related. When I put the chicken pen together, I put an outdoor roost in place as I’d read somewhere that the chickens liked that but that it should be lower than the inside roost. It was about a foot off the ground, which happened to put it about 3 feet below the top of the fence. Apparently when Caroline went in to introduce the three new chickens, Breakfast Lunch and Dinner took various levels of offence which resulted in two of them leaping first to the outdoor roost and subsequently they flapped their way to the fence.

Caroline had Thomas with her and sent him running around to try and scare them back to our side and home where they belonged. Thomas, doing the right thing, rather than run straight around, went to the door to ask permission. By the time that he go there, things had progressed and one of the chickens not only jumped the fence between our properties, but also managed to get over the fence out the back of the neighbours as well. That would be the house with the pool. Of course, this is the same house that also has a dog.

Caroline and Thomas jumped in the car and raced around to the next street to see if there was any chance of a rescue. Caroline sent Thomas in whilst she waited out the front, worried that someone might think that she was trying to break in seeing that no one was home.

Thomas came back after a bit of reconnaissance and shook his head.

“Is it dead?” Caroline asked. Thomas just nodded. “How did you know?” she asked. Apparently it had something to do with the fact that it wasn’t moving at all and there was a dog standing over it. Thomas said that he did take an extra step or two, but the dog started to take a bit more interest in him that he thought was desirable and at the point that it moved toward him he gave the chicken up for dead and high tailed it out of there. For reference, it was in fact Dinner.

The following day after having heard this story I came home and went out the back to check on the chickens after work and was just ever so slightly surprised when one of the newbies was gawking at me from the roof of the aviary. After a couple of seconds consideration, I whipped around to the neighbours, grabbed a big stick and was sure to scare it back off the aviary and into the safety of the chicken pen. Returning home I then spent the next five minutes chasing the little buggers around the pen until I had them all safely locked up back in the aviary.

Caroline did some research and finally got around to clipping those flight feathers after that episode. Thus, there were five. Three guaranteed females, one suspected female and one suspected Rooster.

The rooster has gone to the farm (literally) leaving us with four. And for the record, we’re still waiting for the first egg!