Living The Good Life

I understand that in New Zealand even greater efforts are being made to eradicate alien introductions in order to protect the indigenous wildlife. Rats, cats, pigs and deer and Australian opossums are all being hunted. The only mammal endemic to NZ is some kind of bat. Rare birds have been relocated to offshore islands so that rat poisoning policies can be pursued and then when the rats are cleared the birds can be recaptured and released back into their former habitats.
 
Marigold said:
Wonderful stories! That must have been rather an embarrassingly unlikely excuse for trespass in a private garden to have to offer to the police. I hope he got the cat back OK!
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I would get completely tangled up with 10 leads! I did try a harness when one of them was recovering from a broken femur but she just tried to back out of the harness and the distress didn't balance my need to give her some fresh air. I just took her for a walk around the garden in my arms.

As with any animal, it's early training that counts but fortunately my cats can come and go as they please as I have a third of an acre garden which backs on to an overgrown "buffer strip" and then open fields. The lane is safer do them than it was a few years ago although the B road 100 yards away is a different matter. They are relatively safe from vehicles but not things like foxes.

The article raised the question of curfew - that's easy, all you need is a cat-flap operated by the cats implanted microchip. The kittens were happily going in and out at about 12 week old, but the oldest rescue cat still hasn't worked it out - or probably thinks my function in life is to open doors for him!
 
Marigold said:
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Love that one Marigold. Had a debate years ago at the Hay Festival about so called energy efficient appliances. My old Hotpoint top loader would do a full hot wash in about 45 minutes so things were out on the line and drying very quickly. My modern Bosch takes 2 hours 40 minutes to do the equivalent wash by which time it has probably started to rain so I have to use the dryer. Energy efficient? No way.

Actually I use a different wash cycle which is not as hot but it still takes just over an hour.
 
We have an Indesit which has a 45 minute cycle on it, and a speedy 20 mins cycle for anything not too grubby. our neighbour has a top loader, you can still get them, but they are in the main too big to go in todays kitchens. They last forever as well
We still put washing out on the line, but a lot of people now a days seem to put everything in the tumble dryer, regardless of the weather. At least sun and wind come free
 
bigyetiman said:
We have an Indesit which has a 45 minute cycle on it, and a speedy 20 mins cycle for anything not too grubby. our neighbour has a top loader, you can still get them, but they are in the main too big to go in todays kitchens. They last forever as well
We still put washing out on the line, but a lot of people now a days seem to put everything in the tumble dryer, regardless of the weather. At least sun and wind come free
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When I got married 27 years ago, we lived in the desert of New Mexico. They have a rainy season, which runs from about July to September, with major lightning storms, and you can get 3 inches of rain in an hour. Thing was though, you could easily predict almost the exact hour the rain would come- and it very rarely rained before about midday. The rest of the time, the air was so dry, it was about crackling with static electricity. And still, everyone (except us) had and constantly used dryers. Literally, the laundry dried faster outside than in a dryer, but everybody just loved the convenience of not having to hang everything up and take it all back down.
Our planet is doomed!

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Doomed in more ways then one. Our neighbour's dry everything in the tumble dryer, plus first one up jumps in car and goes and gets a Costa coffee, comes back, next one up jumps in car and goes up and gets a Costa, as there are 5 people in the house, this can happen 5 times more than once a day. The cars are Mercedes sports, Range Rover, Bentley and two Porsches. They have a built in coffee machine in their kitchen as well, that does every coffee you can think of
 
bigyetiman said:
Doomed in more ways then one. Our neighbour's dry everything in the tumble dryer, plus first one up jumps in car and goes and gets a Costa coffee, comes back, next one up jumps in car and goes up and gets a Costa, as there are 5 people in the house, this can happen 5 times more than once a day. The cars are Mercedes sports, Range Rover, Bentley and two Porsches. They have a built in coffee machine in their kitchen as well, that does every coffee you can think of
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OMG! That really takes the biscuit.

My mum gave me her Hotpoint top loader, which was 7 years old, when I got married. It was still going 21 years later but then there was a fire in the storage facility for the really old parts. I replaced it with a newer model which bit the dust when, unbeknown to me, a repair man didn't replace a gasket properly and the main aluminium casting corroded as a result it leaked and a replacement casting wasn't available. The filter trap was excellent too and would have caught all the cat hair. I've tried all sorts of devices in the machine but none of them work. The one thing that does get the cat hair off is putting stuff in the dryer but sticky rollers or a damp rubber glove work nearly as well. It would help if I kept my bedroom carpet vacuumed then I wouldn't get cat hair on the back of my trouser legs when I put them on!
 
It wouldn't help, Margaid- I've got no carpets at all, I'm a bit obsessive about cleaning and vacuuming - and everywhere us STILL thick with cat hair!

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Marigold said:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/ng-interactive/2021/aug/01/simone-lia-the-human-way-cartoon
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Co-operation is the answer!

BTW, I have two loads of washing out on the line - no breeze unfortunately by my solar panels are generating lots of electricity!
 
They are obviously very switched on in terms of knowing how to capitalise on what they are doing, but their philosophy of keep it small is entirely in line with my own thoughts. Although I don't run a land based enterprise, their core philosophy is one I would follow myself, and when I lived in UK that was the basis of the majority of small holders from whom I would buy milk and meat, local/butcher your own/small sales/high welfare/pretty conservation aware. Very very good luck to them. And HenGen!
 
Completely different business, but some years ago, I spoke to a guy who ran a very small company making the most stunning heavy lead crystal. He said that over 70% of their stock was exported, and they could actually sell as much stock again if they made it - but they didn't want to expand. As he said "We're here with 20 people fully employed. We are all able to pay our mortgages and our bills, and that's enough. We don't want the extra stress expanding would bring - work to live, not live to work." That was a happy man!

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Maybe Margaid would like to enter a few of her cats?
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/aug/25/my-persian-had-a-three-hour-blow-dry-150-years-of-cat-shows-then-and-now
 
Cats, dogs, poultry, sheep, cage birds. They’re all the same. Mostly decent folk. A few egotists. Though I still subscribe to “Fur and Feather” I never made it to a rabbit show. A big hole in my life!
 
Marigold said:
Maybe Margaid would like to enter a few of her cats?
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/aug/25/my-persian-had-a-three-hour-blow-dry-150-years-of-cat-shows-then-and-now
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No thanks! I can't afford it and the cats would hate the journey, never mind being shut in a cage for a large part of the day. Most of the pedigree cats are beautiful but I'm happy with my mix of black, ginger, tabby, tortoiseshell ad one fluffy grey haired "alters". :D
 
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