Pete Seeger asks:

If a vegetarian eats vegetables...
What does a humanitarian eat??

Volunteering is awesome. Working with kids must be hard, but I bet its satisfying. We're very proud of you!!

I like the idea of "Random" too!!

Volunteering is great! I volunteer to help people in need of care, or are lonely and just need someone to care enough to listen.. I volunteer and help people/musicians at a Folk Club. I also volunteer to help abused horses realize that people can be kind and aren't as awful as they thought they were. It's amazing how much progress you can make with a brush and a curry comb.
Volunteering is a great way to put things in perspective...you feel better and have more purpose in your life when you're concerned about someone else and not just what'a happening in your world.

Larry please don't place our beloved Ornithorhynchus in the same sentence as .....you know who.
Look out cos the males have a venemous spur on their back leg that can cut you down like a tazer and kill a Dog.

ideas???
what kind of ideas?

I mean the random thread idea is good and all, but since when do Blunderites need a thread to be random? I mean I for one have been random for years. I don't know if this is due to a wide range of interests or a short attention span or what, but I accept it as a fact of life.
I mean who would not be impressed with a community where some people know really big words for chickens and train them to attack dogs?
I mean is this person the Micheal Vick of Oz? At least if the dog wins, somebodys gets a drumstick I suppose. Am I rambling? If I am, I think I'm on topic, because it' the random thread. Did you know that someone broke into my house once, stole ALL my stuff, and replaced everything with an exact duplicate? It's hard to notice stuff like that unless you really have some sort of perception that is rare. I mean the police still don't believe me, and this was years ago. And the insurance company denied my claim too.

I worked at a preschool in CA when my kids were small...the preschool had chickens, ducks and geese....attack geese! They'd run up behind you silently, grab a piece of skin on the back of your calf, pinch it real hard and TWIST!! Then, they'd beat you with their wings. They left terrible bruised, sore areas on your legs.
It became my job to move Gary and Gilford behind another fenced area away from the kids after they'd been loose in the yard overnight. They liked the yard.
I developed a technique for getting them over the fence...you grabbed their neck, they'd beat the hell out of you with their wings, but you could "fly" them up and over the fence.
I discovered that their favorite food was mulberries from the tree in the yard...we eventually made peace with one another. I hand fed them juicy mulberries picked from the tree, and they finally allowed themselves to be herded into the duck and goose pen.
We didn't have any attack chickens, but we did have an Araucana hen, named Jemima, that liked hanging out in the arts and crafts classroom. She discovered that if she hung out under a table when the kids were eating lunch, if a kid was unattentive, she could lunge up between the kid's knees and steal a whole sandwich right out of the kiddie's hands. It didn't matter if it was tuna, peanut butter, or chicken salad....she stole and ate it all. We had to ban her from the classroom. The kids liked it when she sat on top of the cubby hole area where the kids kept their sweaters and lunches, and laid her blue-green eggs up there, so even though she was a thief, they missed her.

Attack geese huh? All ya gotta do to control attack geese is flash a bunch of old yellow plates at 'em.......they WILL get the message! I am a little surprised that they only goosed you in the calf though......

note the eloquence
while i was reduced to a bumbling silence!

'nuff said

They can't bite if you grab them just behind their heads...you can lead them around and put them where they can't terrorize anyone else, without harming the geese. I learned this the hard way. It also helps if you don't look like a victim...you can stare 'em down and look tougher than they are. These were gray geese...and their heads came up to my waist level. It's all about who is better at intimidation.
At that time, I didn't know about the yellow plate theory. I'd really like to see you try that on some angry geese sometime, Larry...I'll bring my camera!

Back in my younger days people used to pay me to "break" horses. Several times I arrived to a crowd of people expecting a rodeo show. They were pretty dismayed to see that it started with a halter, a lead rope and a curry comb. It's all about trust (not just with horses).

there is no formula that i know of for trust

A friend of mine once had a coupla attack chickens when we were teenagers. I went to visit her one day & she said she had found a stray chicken in her back yard & was gonna show it to me. She showed it to me & there appeared 2 chickens. So she kept them both. One day when I was visiting her the chickens were chasing after us & wouldn't let us be. So her older brother chased them away with a broom cussing at them the whole time. LOL...

Talk about random. Lar, are chooks and Ornithorhynchus related? I suppose they must be, or more related to ducks since they have a duck bill and lay eggs. HHMMM but then they do have that spur thing, like roosters but the rooster doesn't have venom in them thar spurs like the platypus does. Fair Dinkum! Those platypusses can be ornerythorhynchuses when they get mad.

I don't think chook spurs can kill dogs Larry. But kangaroos can. Don't EVER let your dog chase a Kangaroo. They sit back on their tails and then one good slice with the back toe to the middle and it's the "big sleep" for Fido. And watch out for those Artesian Boars too. (go figure that one out)
Thats kinda like the OZ version of "hillside gougers" (which is one of my all time favourites)

Can you tell it's the middle of the night here and I couldn't get to sleep (which is unusual for me especially on a Friday night when I'm pooped.)
I might go count Mooses. Or Kangaroos. One hopped up the driveway the other day to say hello, then jumped the fence into the horse paddock and scared the s**t outta my mare.