Potter's Club, Pets, Griffith.

G'Day,
Today was my monthly duty and meeting day at the potter's club. Usually an enjoyable day, catching up with good friends etc. I spent the morning doing a slab work lesson with a new member, Milton, who is a retired farmer and is keen to get into playing with clay. He has done a sculpture class and enjoyed it which took his interest. He is doing well. We have had 5 new members join in the last 2 months so things are looking good. Two of the new members have already done a lot of potting.
Coming up next month we have the painting of the gallery and also the sanding and resealing of the wooden floors taking place.
Rufus the pup had a very adventurous day today. He caught a rabbit in our back yard. Very exciting for him, I'm glad I wasn't here to see it though. Rabbits are feral animals here and are quite a nuisance and very destructive to the environment. He has often been excited by their scent and chased them on out walks to the golf club but has never caught one until today. In our enclosed yard is very different than chasing them on the golf club where the bunnies know the terrain and have space to run at full speed. We don't take him to the golf club this time of year because it has too many snakes in the warm weather.
Rufus also suffered from misadventure today. When Pete took him in the car down to the shops he saw another doggie walking down the street and leaned out of the car window too far, and fell out. He was left in the middle of the road stunned and was lucky to not have been run over by Pete or another car. He has a few grease spots on him and I guess a few bruises but other than that he appears to be unhurt. Pete would be heart broken if anything had happened to Rufus as he treats him like his baby. Which is funny, because he has never been like that with another pet before until we got Rufus , who seemed to instantly win his heart.
My new water tank was connected up on Thursday. We have had a nice bit of rain over the past week. I don't know the figures but it was good anyway. There are already a few inches of water in the bottom of the tank. Things are a bit greener and cooler, but humid . We have had thunder storms over the last few days, the thunder doesn't seem to worry Rufus too much, not like my poor old Freddy dog who was absolutely terrified of it. Like chicken little who thought the sky would fall on him, or the world was going to end. Nothing could ease his terror. The best we could do was lock him outside and not make eye contact with him, or he would panic more, until he made himself vomit. He was the same with fire crackers.
This morning when we went in to Wagga we took a ginger kitten in to Michael. (Annie's Boyfriend) Annie wanted to give him a kitten for Christmas and this one was ready to go now so Christmas came early. Annie has named the kitten cheese burger, yeah! I know! Why? Our cat Boo, was completely unimpressed by cheese burger. As cats are with an intruder to their homes. So that was another reason for him to go to his new home earlier. He is quite a little character and was only here for a few days but had in that time decided he was quite at home and that he owned the family. Including Rufus who was trying to mother him. The sight of the week was Rufus laying quietly on the mat with the kitten on top attacking him, and Rufus carrying the kitten, puppy style, in his mouth, by the scruff of his neck.
On Tuesday and Wednesday last, I took Mum over to Griffith for a visit. She decided to stay for a couple more days and will come back late next week. She still has 2 sisters and 2 brothers and their families living there and it is her home town. We stayed overnight at Auntie Joan's place and had a nice B.B.Q. tea together with them and 2 of my cousins. My Uncle Wal got bitten on the hand by a snake a few weeks ago and spent a few days in intensive care. He is alright now though. Not good practice for an 81 year old. He was doing some work cleaning up in his neighbours yard.
Griffith is only 2 hours drive north west of here. It is in an area known as The M.I.A (Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area) which is a big fruit, veges and winery area. It is a multi cultural town with people from India, Turkey and the Pacific Islands settling there for work. It is also known for its large Italian community which has been there for quite a few generations working in the fruit & wine industries. It is a progressive place nowadays with lots of growth in related primary industry and lots of building going on. I checked out the new shopping mall. There is good shopping there too and I got Annie's birthday pressie for next week. Australians also know it for its infamy because of the italian mafia and related drug growing, which is a hard reputation to shake off once it is there. No, I don't have any of those in my heritage. I have English, Welsh and Scots blood, but I am a 6Th generation Australian, maybe more, 5 generations back I have aboriginal blood, if such a tiny bit can be counted. We are Australians and we all come from somewhere else.
In the news! We had our federal election last weekend and we have a change of government. We are now lead by the Labor party. I am a bit sceptical, as are quite a few of the people I have spoken to since the elections. People I might add, I hadn't expected to feel like that knowing their comments to be against the Liberal party whom were in power previously. My thoughts! Well I am pleased that the labor party might be the ones to spend lots of money on education and health and environment ( where there is desperate need of repair) but worried they will go too far the other way and get the country into big debt like they did last time they were in power. We will see won't we. Also the labor party has traditionally been associated with unionism which can also be taken too far and make things on the employment side unstable.
I hate politics, I don't even pretend to understand its intricacies. That is my version. You don't have to agree.