My Dad just died. He was sick for a long while. Something called cancer. He got weaker and weaker and faded away. I feel so sad and lost. I'm not sure what's going to happen. Dad was my best friend.  We used to sit and have chats, we would go for walks together and I was his security while he worked in the garden. Someone had to make sure those pesky squirrels, monitor lizards and birds didn't steal his tools. But everything is different now. I don't know who will be my best friend.

I live in this big house with Dad, Mum and Mizz M. Mizz M is our housekeeper and she is very nice. I also have 3 older sisters -  Big S, Lil T and Young C. They live in someplace called Australia. It's no where near here. When they come back home, they smell very different to any place I know.

They have have been spending a lot of time at home since Dad got sick. I love it when they are here as I get a lot more treats and cuddles. Mum says I'm spoilt. I also get a lot more baths! If Lil T starts sneezing when she give me cuddles, out comes the shampoo. It's fortunate that I live in a tropical climate. A bath is no hardship. It's quite enjoyable in fact and I love snoozing in a sunny spot after.

On the day of the funeral, I just have to get away. Everyone is so sad and somber and it is more than I can take. An opportunity comes when Mizz M leaves the gate open and I make a dash for it.

I'm not supposed to go out of the house alone but I love to roam and check out what's new in the neighbourhood. Sometimes I break the fence and go for a walk. Other times, I run off when the gate is open.

I don't get to wander to my heart's content this time. I've been barely out 5 minutes and I see Lil T and Mizz M coming after me in the car. Not ready to go back home, so I run away from them. After a few minutes of this, they split up. Lil T is following in the car and Mizz M is walking.  I don't realise Mizz M is on foot until she is near me. Hah! This is a good opportunity to make her chase me, so I run off a short distance and wait for her to catch up.

There is a man coming towards me but ignore him and move further away on the sidewalk. Suddenly the man lunges in my direction. Mizz M shouts "Get away from him. He bites!"  The man keeps coming. So I bite hard on the hand that is too close to me  and run away.  Really! Just because I'm small doesn't mean you can manhandle me.

The man is angry. He yells at Mizz M, who is trying to calm him, and picks up stones to throw at me. I run away towards Lil T. She catches hold off my collar and I growl at her. All this drama has me really shaken up. Lil T very quietly tells me to stop that. "We have to go back home and say our goodbyes to dad. You cannot leave him to be sent off without you", she says. She sounds so sad, so I let her put the leash on me.

Meanwhile the man and Mizz M are coming up to where we are. The man yells " Your dog bit me. Why did he have to bite me?" Before I can reply, Lil T is yelling back at him. She tells him off for trying to grab me, when Mizz M had warned him that I bite. You don't mess with Lil T. She is sweet and kind but ferocious when it comes to my welfare.  And she was already upset.

The man is taken aback but still grumbles about how he has to get an injection (ewww!) and it's going to cost him money and he's going to be late for work. Mizz M and Lil T exchange a long glance, and Lil T abruptly tells the man to get in the car. I scramble in quickly with Mizz M behind me. I'm not letting her drive alone with him! I growl at him to show him I'm watching and that I'll bite him again if he tries anything.

We get home and Mum is out front gathering flowers. Lil T tells her what happened. If I recall correctly her exact words were "This interfering dumbo went after Quinoa. Mizz M tried to stop him but he wouldn't listen. Quinoa bit him and he tried to stone the dog! What kind of idiot throws stones at a dog that just bit him! Now he is moaning about needing medical attention." Lil T is talking in a language the man can't understand but I'm sure that he can tell from her tone that he's not going to get any sympathy from her. Lil T doesn't suffer fools.

Mum talks to the man and finds out that he is on his way to work. He has a small wound on his hand from where my teeth punctured his skin and wants to get it looked at. Mum apologises for not being able to take him to the hospital as the funeral is about to start and people were arriving. She gives him some money for his medical expenses and tells him to ask for her cousin, who is a doctor at the hospital just up the road. As you can see, Mum is the diplomatic one in the family.

The man leaves with a filthy glance in my direction. We all heave a sigh of relief when he is out of sight. Lil T goes inside to get changed and I get tethered to the washing line so I can't try to run away again.

It's been an exciting morning and I fall asleep very quickly. I can hear a lot of people, cars and singing but I'm knackered and sleep quietly through the whole thing.

Later that night after everything is finished, Lil T and Young C come out to sit with me. Young C starts brushing me and the two sisters start talking. I find out that Lil T is not going back to Australia. She is going to stay with Mum, help sort out Dad's affairs and look after me. Young C and Big S will return to Sydney in a couple of days.

Lil T wraps her hand around my chin and pulls up my head to look at her. "You have nothing to worry about you hear? You will be looked after. Things might change but you will be looked after. No more acting up and definitely no more biting people!"

 I lick her nose to show I hear her and we go back to looking out at the night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note from author: I have been thinking of trying my hand at storytelling for a while now. But I couldn't decide what I should write about. It suddenly occured to me that I know dogs very well and I'm always coming up with clever caption for the pictures of my pets. And so the Dog Tales short story series was conceived. This is the first instalment in the series. Would love to hear what you think. Please leave a comment below. 

Like to have a balcony or garden full of lush green plants, even when you are not there to water them? I do, and I have such a balcony and I'll show you how I did it in this post on how to set up an automatic drip irrigation system with timer.

This is not my usual recycle project but its definitely a DIY and one that I'm very proud off. Mum has been living in houses with gardens her whole life and she has a huge collection of potted plants. Palms, bamboos, ferns, succulents, orchids and greens that don't really fall into any of the earlier categories. Some of these plants were given by family and friends and to cut a long story short, she is very attached to them.

So when she downsized and moved into an apartment, she decided to take them along with her. She plans to spend a lot of time in Australia, where my sisters and I live, and she was resigned to the fact that she would loose these plants eventually as there would be no one to look after them while she is away.

Luckily for her, she has a smart and hands on daughter (self satisfied smirk here).

The apartment balcony has a tap. So it was an easy feat to devise an automatic garden drip system for watering the indoor plants.

I couldn't find a suitable drip irrigation kit, so I built one from scratch from components I found in the local hardware store. My sisters also brought some when they visited from Australia. The system consists of a Pope battery operated timer, 19mm main feeder hose, 4mm hose with dripper attachments to the individual pots, a few 19mm elbow bend attachments to take the main feeder hose around the perimeter of the balcony and a 19mm stopper.

I also had these mounting clips attached to the wall so that the 19mm hose could be neatly held against the wall.

How to connect the drip irrigation system
The first step was to change the existing tap to one with a 3/4 inch connector so I could attach the timer securely to the tap. See how the timer screws onto the tap. I was quite happy with this as I didn't want the water pressure to push the timer away. As you can also see the timer has two settings - one to control the frequency of watering and the other to control the run time of each session.

Then I laid out the main feeder hose. One lesson I learnt while working with long lengths of feeder hose was to avoid kinks. Once that hose kinks, you either have to replace it or cut it and add a connector. So unroll an approximation of the length you want and try to straighten it as much as possible before mounting it in place.

Once the main hose is in place, position your plants. Spend a few days arranging the plants to your liking before punching holes into the main hose to attach the drippers.  There are 4mm stoppers that you can put in place to fix mistakes, but you want to keep them to a minimum. So getting the pots positioned just right helps. I used the drippers pictured below, which are on a stand.

The next step is to work out what water pressure and frequency and duration of watering is required to keep your plants hydrated. I wanted a slow drip of water with as little water wasted as possible. This is complicated by the fact that mum has a number of hanging orchids. If the water pressure is too low, the drippers higher up don't deliver enough water. If the water pressure is too high the lower pots get over watered.  I'm still trying to fine tune this aspect of the watering system.

The automatic drip irrigation system has been in place for four months (updated 19 April 2016) and its definitely keeping the plants alive. I haven't needed to take the watering can out and we've gone away for a month in that time too and there doesn't seem to be any sign of wilting. I also love how you can't see the hose once the plants go in.

Definitely a successful project and a useful one. It's also something that can be adapted easily to create a garden drip system with in-ground and potted plants.  There is also an environmental benefit, as drip irrigation has been proven to save water. Who doesn't love saving water!

After testing the waters with this drip irrigation system, I’m thinking of branching out into a bigger project - setting up a vegetable garden with an automatic irrigation system.

 I hope I have inspired you to install a home automatic drip irrigation system too.

This was taken about 2 years ago, when TwoCrackedJars was experimenting with electric lights. Love the shadows made by the honeycomb pattern on the jars. 

We didn't get very far with them as we were worried about the heat output from the light. It's been on the backburner since then. Maybe I'll get around to addressing it one day. 

It's February and its time to reveal my second 3Rs project. This time it's a straight forward restoration of a trio of coffee tables.  There are two small square tables and a longer rectangular table in this project. They were looking very tired with scratches, burns and watermarks on the finish.

Two of the finished tables have been placed in the living room of the new apartment. The third one has gone into the bedroom as a catchall for my papers and bags. Being a table, I only empty the contents of my pocket onto it. If it was a chair it would probably be draped with clothes.

These tables have been in the family for a long time. I remember them arriving a few days before Deepavali about 30 odd years ago as part of a new lounge set.  Mum tells me that it's made from rubber wood but it has this lovely parquet like effect with different coloured timber. My original plan was to sand back the table and legs, give the table surface a few coats of clear varnish and paint the legs a white colour to contrast with the natural finish.

As I was giving the tables a last dusting before painting, I was admiring the grains and  patterns on the legs and I had second thoughts about painting it. But I had bought the paint (water based latex)  and thought it would be a shame to waste it.  So I started painting one side and knew it was a mistake right away. I didn't even let the paint dry. I cleaned it off with a wet cloth and never looked back. I'm really happy I didn't go through with the paint idea as it would have totally ruined the tables.

A few days later I was reading a DIY blog about choosing pieces for restoring and it said to beware of painted furniture as paint is often used to cover up defects or poor materials.  I'm so glad Iistened to my inner voice and decided to go with a clear gloss finish as there was nothing to cover up on these babies. I hope you enjoy the before and after pictures and that you too listen to your inner voice.