Last Sunday was one of those glorious, sunny, clear-skied beautiful days that just make you want to play hookey.

So we did.

Loaded the dogs in the car, heading for Bendigo and the plant nurseries.

Stopped in Dunnolly for their monthly market - ran into some people who not only knew what sort of dog's Clancy and Jedda are - knows their wonderful breeder. True Australian Terrier lovers - knew all about them being German Shepherds that shrank in the wash before we even mentioned it. Meg got a huge fuss as well so all dog's very very happy with that outing. (Didn't stop Jedda whinging all the way to the next stop though).

Got distracted by a sign to Maldon.

Maldon was busy.

Got distracted by a sign for Castlemaine.

Got to Castlemaine a bit desperate for coffee and remembering a rather wonderful bookshop.

Before a stroll through the bookshop (and I will confess no books purchased..... it's okay, not mad, just distracted by dogs), we stopped for coffee and something to eat.

Quench in Castlemaine had a very extensive all day breakfast menu WITH GLUTEN FREE BREAD. YEAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I had chilli poached eggs with TOAST - he had a fisherman's basket.

The dog's had a bit of everything.

Lovely outside table just up the road from the live music venue - sun shining, dogs begging food, Jedda whinging when everyone didn't stop to say hello.

Didn't get to Bendigo.

Back home just in time to do a few chook related chores, for Adam to help load a car on a trailer next door, and settle down for an evening in front of the fire.

Has to be said - Central Victoria is a really really good place to live.

Those who have been following this blog will have noticed that the weather widget in the bottom right corner has been stuck in March. This was due to a combination of animal factors. One being a rodent eating through cables and the other being an alpaca that got caught in the cables and tipped over the old weather station, ripping the rest of the cables and breaking several of the sensors.

With time being taken up with other issues, it has taken a while to get around to fixing it. As it turns out it was cheaper and easier to buy a new weather station kit than the individual components. So we needed to work out a better place (to avoid alpaca induced failure) and closer to the computer so we didn't have long cable runs (to avoid transmission problems, and rodent induced failures).

The old system, basically the stand sat in the paddock to the back of the house.

First step was to dismantle the old stand to reuse as many components as possible. If you look closely at the weather vane you can see the attempt to fix it - the yellow insulating tape. Needless to say it wasn't a huge success.

To allow me to fix the mounting pole onto the top of the pergola I decided to use a piece of scrap metal strapping. This stuff has been invaluable, and certainly far more worth than the few dollars I spent on several lengths of it at a local second-hand yard. This was what was left over from several projects, including a pipe layer, a repair of a ripper, building of a gas bottle trolley, a modification to a tow bar accessory for the tractor and a few other things I can't remember. Not bad for $4.

You can see the pilot hole on the left and a finished mounting hole on the right. I ended up bevelling the edge of the hole to allow a countersunk bugle screw to be used to secure it.

After a bit of cutting and welding we have the finished mounting platform, painted with rust-inhibiting paint. The wooden platform for the rain guage I sanded back and painted with some waterproof silicone - mainly because I had some handy.

The rain sensor drops the water through the base of the sensor, so needs to be mounted such that the water is allowed to flow away. Here I've mounted it across the platform so the water has a clear path below the sensor. This is the sensor without its collecting cover in place, showing the see-saw like mechanism used for measuring the amount of water falling.

The unit installed in its new (hopefully less animal prone) location. The cables then run to the transmitter which also includes the temperature and humidity sensor.

Interestingly both the old console and the new console are both reading the data from the sensors via the wireless link, so we have the ability to check the inside and outside tempratures at either end of the house, and of course by checking our blog

I've been meaning to post a few odds and ends for a while now - so here they are.

We were recently "featured" in the local newspaper in a story about the farm, and our plans, as well as what we're currently doing for "day jobs". This was the photo that we took of Adam "grafting" a tree - wish we'd thought to take photos of the actual grafting, but I suspect 400+ trees are all going to look a bit like the last one after, oh I don't know, the 200th.

One of the the things that Tim did like doing when he was here was helping with construction projects. He and Adam are building a moveable fence which is just the right size to go around the dug over plots once we move the larger of the chook tractors. That wire is obviously much easier to cut if you get your mouth set just right.

He's also rather partial to getting his photo taken, despite protestations to the contrary....

And just to prove that it does rain a little bit in these parts.

One of the things that I love so much about media is the remote control. And your own personal control.

The interesting thing about information, and following people's opinions and discussions and updates is that if they are talking about issues that interest you - you can follow. If they are talking about things that don't interest you - you can move on and never ever come back.

If the truth hits too close to home, press the back button on the browser, the hide button on your Facebook page. Same goes for this blog - which is after all, mostly us rambling on about what is and isn't working in our lives.

There's some great extensions you can apply to Firefox to make darn sure that you never ever ever visit the blog or the newspaper or the opinion page that is saying something that you don't want to see or hear.

If you don't understand what an individual's blog post is trying to say, you can ask for clarification, or you can completely refuse to engage with that individual. If you've nothing better to do, you can read all sorts of things into anything, and you can use the content of that post, out of context, to attempt a massive swipe simply because you've never ever managed to work out how to move on in your own life.

The Internet is a wonderful place. You can keep in touch with the people that you want to, and completely ignore those you don't. And the nice thing is that neither party needs to know or even care that much - we've all got much more interesting things to do with our lives after all.

I have to confess I was pleased as punch this morning to hear of the Labor Party spill.

Yes it's great news to FINALLY get a female Prime Minister, but right now, at this point in our history, it's even more important to have a Prime Minister that we can see some future in.

But the historic point of a female Prime Minister cannot be ignored, and Ms Gillard has to be admired for her willingness to step up into this role and take on the responsibility in the face of both the accolades and the slings and arrows. I thank her from the bottom of my heart for her commitment and I look to her policy platform with considerable interest. Obviously I'm worried about the ETS (having said that I'm not convinced about the Labor Model, but I'm prepared to be convinced). I'm worried about Renewable Rebates and the Renewable industry in general. I'm obviously very concerned about environmental issues. I'm also interested in what this government is intending to do about Mental Health Services, and in particular Disability Services - obviously given our personal experience of late.

But aside from everything else, I'm keen to support Ms Gillard and will be following her policy outcomes with some interest.

But it's also beholden on me to support her more actively. To do that I'm giving up ABC local and Melbourne radio. I've spent the whole day today in the car and I think I've heard every bigoted, idiotic, self-involved, garbage opinion that could possibly be uttered in the face of a "woman" Prime Minister. And this is equally from men and from women.

Now I'm prepared to admit it was late in the 1970's before my feminist awareness cut in. But once it had there were a few elements that stay with me. The most important of which is that whole idea of women's right to choose.

That's right sisters. Choice. We actually had the right to choose our own paths in life.

Hard to imagine, and very hard to remember in the face of the appalling claptrap I've been forced to listen to today.

The most obvious is the "how can a childless woman possibly represent all women". WHAT! For goodness sake. How does a childless man represent you? How does a working man with a stay at home wife who does the "kid" thing represent you?

The question really is how on earth is somebody's gynecological status of any relevance to their ability to empathise / take advice / observe....

The most appalling thing today was that most of the "childless" jabs came from other women. There were obviously the few sad, deluded arrogant "how can a woman possibly want another career when the raising of the next generation has to be the most rewarding thing they can ever do" male opinions (and there were plenty of them), but in the main it seemed to be other women who were more than prepared to fire the jabs based on Ms Gillard's marital and/or childfree status.

But back to the point of this little rant. When did the "choice" part of feminism disappear and the sisterhood become all about the belittling of others? When did it become perfectly okay to announce that child-free women are not "real women" as I heard today?

A childfree status can be for a lot reasons. It can be circumstantial. Timing of meeting possible partners, sexual preference, geographical isolation, poverty, or even medical. Imagine the feeling of being treated like a third-class "unreal woman" because you aren't actually able to HAVE children.

But there's also childfree by choice. There it is - that feminist idea that you could choose the life that suited you. Then again "choice" isn't automatically a "selfish" desire to have no responsibility. Many "choose" for significantly more complicated reasons - such as family genetics, mental health issues, competency, financial or often more simply - no desire whatsoever to have children.

Regardless of what reason a woman doesn't have children it doesn't make her any less of a "real woman". You expect that sort of 16th century crap from a sub-section of the population, but frankly, to have other women throw that garbage around at any woman - particularly a woman who has risen to the highest political position in the land, is gobsmacking.

So Talkback Radio and the ABC is something I'm going to give up as my vote of solidarity to Prime Minister Gillard. I wish her all power to her cause in the role she has agreed to undertake. And I don't give a tinker's about her marital status, the colour of her hair, her child-free status, the sort of car she drives, what is or isn't in her fruit bowl, and what colour her kitchen is. It's about policies, and leadership, the state of the country as a whole and what she's going to do to keep the focus on the things that really matter.