Keller Family Blog

Yes, we voted in the USA elections and sent our Abseentee ballots back to FL.  Whether they will ever be opened and counted I have no idea.  They only open them if a race is close enough to warrant opening the ballots.  Basically if the race is won by 2000 votes and there were only 1000 Absentee ballots then there is no need to open the Absentee ballots.  If the candidate is leading by 1000 votes and there are 2000 Absentee ballots they will open as many Absentee ballots until the outcome is decided.  Therefore my ballot will only be opened if it is a very close race.

Wow, here is a theory with some potentially huge implications for Evolutionary Theory. Why, it impacts our perceived age of the universe. If the universe were to be proved less old than the current thinking about the age of the Earth, that would require a rethink.

Basically a new theory has emerged to explain the oddities of needing Dark Matter and stuff. It is that the Earth (whole Solar system) sits in a “cosmic bubble” of less material. This would act like a lense and altering the perceived distance of things.  Here is the article from Fox News. The yet to be fully peer-reviewed theory will be published later this month. Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,430943,00.html

So on Sunday evening Jaden ate his first ever Pizza.  We had bought an Orgran Pizza Crust mix several months ago. The kids were itching to make something last night for dinner instead of having leftovers so I mentioned to them that they could make a Jaden Safe Pizza.  Shay and Karlissa jumped on it.

We greased the pan with Nuttelex and sprinkled some Polenta (corn meal) on it.  Then we followed the directions to make the Pizza Crust. The kids did all of the kneading and such.  We rolled it out with a round drinking glass since we don’t have a rolling pin in Australia. Then all four helped pinch the sides, put sauce and meat on it. We used some left over roast chicken, some ham and some Green Capsicum (Green Pepper).  Wish we had had some more veggies in the house we could have put on. Of course there was no cheese put on the pizza as there is no dairy free cheese substitute that is free from Soy (at least not that we have found).

Anyway after 15 minutes in the oven Karlissa pulled out the pizza (and dropped it but we had a great save).   We carried it to the table and fed one very excited boy and an excited family.

The neighborhood directly south of my old neighborhood in FL found bombs near it.  Surprise, Surprise they say.  Hmm.  I heard many years ago (at least that it was next door to a WWII practice bombing range. A co-worker at least a decade ago was looking for land for his church and he found quite easily that the area had been an old bombing range.  He said that it was mostly duds used for practice, but still there would be a LOT of lead and shrapnel in and around the ground area.  We figured there would need to be a lot of cleanup on the site if anything would want to be built there.  That really didn’t take a lot of work to turn up, but now the school board cries foul in that they didn’t know there was the possibility of bombs in the area.  I suspect they are taking the play it ignorant stance. If I knew there had to be plenty of others that knew the possibility.  If anything the land that we knew was a bombing range started maybe 500 yards/meters south of the land where they found the unexploded shells last year, but still someone else with more authority knows there was a potential problem.  I also think it is a little silly watching them use metal detectors in the video story below looking for bombs in an area that is now 5 feet higher than it was a decade ago. All of the dirt in the area shown on the video was taken from a couple of holes that have been turned into lakes.  That should mean that any bombs left in much of the housing area would likely be 5-8 feet underground and very difficult to detect.

Reference:  http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=8861633&ch=4226713&src=news

Well I did it.  I ate an entire meal with just Chopsticks. First time in my life.  We took Karlissa out for her birthday on Saturday to a musical with a friend and afterwards went out to eat at a Chinese Restaurant. I couldn’t let 2 - 11-12 year olds show me up too much. On Sunday Crystal bought us some chopsticks to use at home when we cook stir-fry as we did on Sunday.

At AllergyBlock on Saturday, we bought some Jaden-safe Ice Cream cones made by Orgran.  Jaden had been asking for ice cream cones for some time and I just became aware of these a few weeks ago. The Gluten Free ones at the local grocery store still had some Soy in them. He has been asking for Jaden Safe Ice Cream every day since we got them. This Evening, 15 minutes before the oven incident below, I bought some Passion Fruit Sorbet made by Gelativo. After dinner I scooped some in his cone. He was so excited and happy. He ate it all up faster than I have ever seen him eat the Sorbet before.

I ate a cone too. They tasted as good as any other cake cone.  Wonderful.

Crystal just left to go out to dinner with several American women. I was home with the kids eating dinner while something was in the oven. We heard a pop and the lights dimmed. We heard another and the lights dimmed. And then a few more. I went to the oven and saw some flashes of white light when the popping happened. I opened the door to look at the roast that we are to eat tomorrow. Another pop or two. I could see around the side of the over that there was an orange glow like from a flame and there was several more flashes of light from whatever short was causing the fire. I told the kids what was happening and to stay in the dining room. I turned off the oven. The flames and the popping continued. I went outside and cut the power to the house.

I think the kids were a little frightened then. Anyway I could see that the orange glow was gone. I lit some candles for the girls and found a flashlight (torch) for me. I looked around and saw that the fire seemed to be gone, though there was smoke still coming from the sides of the mounted oven. I pulled out the fuse to the oven and restored power. I made a call to the property manager, and pulled out the oven from its place and pulled the plug. The flames and the short had been where the plug enters the oven.

Praise God we were home at the time and not having a roast cooking while we were at church or dance class or something like that. Or just Praise God it didn’t happen while I was at the store just 15-30 minutes earlier getting some more food for dinner while the oven was on and Crystal and the kids were home without me.

 I went on a men’s retreat this past weekend and was able to play golf for the first time in Australia on Saturday. I had a wonderful round despite the use of rental clubs and no golf shoes. The best part was that there are over 300 kangaroos living on the Anglesea Golf Club. I didn’t take a regular camera.  Just caught a few pictures with my mobile phone. Still worth seeing. The shot of me hitting the ball from between kangaroos was not staged. That is where my ball was and where I needed to hit it from. Lots of Sulfur Crested Cockatoos were on the course. Fortunately the kookaburras which woke us up at the crack of dawn with their very loud laughing did not disturb our game.

In case you didn’t know, my father built a golf course in Indiana and I very much enjoy the game though don’t get to play very often. Also as I played I thought of my late father and wished he could be playing this course with me. It was his birthday.

I am sure you would like to hear other parts of our adventure in Australia, and we would rather write about them, but this is the most sensational of the events of the days. I keep thinking that every post I post about the rats/possums will be the last. Alas the saga continues. Hopefully all will be done before some family visits in a couple of weeks.

Basically while we can’t get to the dead rat, the flies can and then there must be a space big enough for them to crawl into the house. I have killed over 40 flies in the house just today. As an experiment, we have employed a venus fly trap near where the flies are congregating. We’ll check on it tomorrow to see if it gets any. We can’t identify where they are coming in or we would stop up the hole or crevice.

Also I will post some pictures of the house and things soon.

We had referenced earlier that “good news of having rats” because it was better than possums. Well on Friday the man dealing with the rats for us found a dead possum. They had chewed their way back in and consumed all of the rat bait. Very likely the “rats” we heard and described in the last post was mother possum and a couple of young ones. As he was telling Crystal about it she could see he was a little nervous. If he had suspected that possums were also  in the ceiling then he would have been prohibited from using bait in the first place as it is illegal to try and kill a possum. So he removed all of the baits, sealed up the hole in the eaves and put in a one way door in the roof for the possums to come out.

On Saturday night returning from the Australia Day fireworks we saw a small bush-tailed possum on the top of the roof.  Likely one that had just come out of the house.

After yesterday’s inspection the door was reset as it had been used at least once. Today it hadn’t been used so the hope is that there are no more up there.

The good news of the day was if a bush tailed rat comes in the attic the rats are unlikely to enter the attic for a couple of months. Therefore we should have a couple of months of peace.

(If only the dead rat in the chimney area would stop stinking when the sun hits the brick in the late afternoon…)