Now you’re talking. With a nice cold beer and a Raki…… 
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I was absolutely stoked to find that the ‘local’ Grape Store stocks different flavours of Halva. There are so many Greek and Cypriot dishes that I used to really enjoy but it was all so long ago I can’t remember what they are called and my attempts to explain them to ‘natives’ are usually met with frowns and shrugs.
Back then there weren’t any different flavours of Halva - it was all the plain variety. I was pretty shocked when my brother went on holiday to Cyprus and when I asked him to bring some back he asked “which flavour?”. Moussaka is pretty well known, but there are some desserts that make me drool just thinking of them - but no idea what they actually are.
I really miss kebabs on the beach and moonlight walks along the seafront after a good meal at the Apollo restaurant. Or the Avenida.
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Took most of the summer off from gaming, at least the serious flight/racing titles. Flying (work) was BUSY (a good busy for the airlines) and when I had my 3 day off stretches, I was enjoying the time off with the fam while squeezing in some first person shooter titles when able.
Most of ya’ll like airplanes so here is a bit of a photo dump from my travels in the Embraer E170/175 during the last 2 months. It’s not as cool as military jet cool, but 
These Spirit Airlines Airbus have seen better days. I just chuckle every time I taxi past.
Best office view, IMO
Holding short at Washington Reagan, D.C. / DCA
Durango, Colorado
When we “deadhead” (airline company travel), might as well get exit aisle seating - Airbus 321
After engine start, we had a flight control test failure. Worked through the issue with maintenance control and we were on our way. These electric airplanes!!
Tulsa, Oklahoma - a mysterious spot called the Center of the Universe. When you talk, the sound echoes back much louder. Interesting acoustic anomaly.
The BOK tower in the background was built in 1976 by the same architect as the World Trade Center Twin Towers.
Original flight was an empty ferry flight from Little Rock, Arkansas to Miami, Florida. We ended up in Charlotte, North Carolina. Long story short, welcome to the airlines! This one deserves it’s own AAR. And I’ll let you use your own imagination on the end result of the route… 
Luecke Farm just southeast of Austin, Texas. 3 mile/4.8 km tree signature.
Norfolk, Virginia layover. Got to tour the USS Wisconsin which completed my tour of all 4 Iowa Class Battleships
National Airlines B747 taxiing past at Chicago O’Hare
I flew the King Air 350 in a previous life. This is the U.S. Army’s version
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I read Luecke there. (German for gap).
Those are big letters!
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Typo! Thanks! Fixed!
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Have you been to an amphitheater? I’ve been to the one at Curium ( Κourion) in Cyprus many times - same effect and it does feel weird!
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Nice write-up and congrats on your employer and equipment upgrade!
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Rowing up the hay
Post bailing.
23 bales this year is by far the biggest crop we’ve had from this field. Should see the sheep through winter.
Next job will be getting the hay in, once it’s had chance to cool.
Note: This is my departure field for the Xmas flights.
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Even though I know that there are only four Iowa class Battleships that were commissioned for some reason I keep thinking there were 5 of them.
Pretty cool that you were able to check all 4 of them out. 
Wheels
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We had this little fellow turn up in the ‘house paddock’ yesterday evening. I was reluctant to take photos because it was already dusk and the light was quite low. Man, this D500 is amazing in low light - I just set everything to auto and managed to get quite a few shots:
It is still quite young, can’t be more than two or three years old (about the size of a rugby ball). They are often still hanging around with Mum at this age but it isn’t uncommon to see them on their own. I suspect this one is a male and he has been ‘told’ it is time to go and establish his own territory.
However when taking the photos I noticed this - mange.
Mange in wombats is a serious issue, almost certainly fatal if left untreated and primarily spread by foxes (they use the burrows).
We keep an Ivermectin based treatment on hand for this reason. My wife couldn’t get close enough without spooking him but he seemed to be OK with me… Maybe he just liked having his photo taken?
Anyway I managed to get close, real close and was able to get a line of ‘pour on’ straight down the middle of his back.
A quick shake and he was off. Hopefully we got to it in time and he will be OK… and my wife is now calling me the Wombat Whisperor 
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Having some nice skies lately
and happy to see one of these guys show up, been a while since they’ve been around.
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23 bales from that small paddock - wow, I’m jealous.
And I love that photo from the tractor - probably the only vehicle where you spend more time looking behind you than where you are going
But I guess you calculate sheep per acre. We calculate acres per sheep 
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How large is that field and how many sheep are there to be fed?
I am curious because I heard the number for horses (they say 2-4 acres per horse, of which half is for winter hay IIRC) but not for sheep.
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Technically there were another 2 boats (Illinois and Kentucky) slated for the Iowa Class (hulls were laid but work suspended in 1942) . they were eventually parted out and scrapped as the war came to a close.
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Covering another pop-up flight in the middle of the night. This time taking a patient for a transplant.
There’s a neat line of Wx with tops up to FL550 so we’ll be deviating a bit. Either way it’s good to be back in the cockpit for the second day in a row after a week off.
I had a similar flight once, with similar results in flight path due to company changing its mind every 10 minutes. Probably a little less expense though.
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Holy heck boi! Bless you for doing that job. 
Respect.
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Lol. Yes, we do.
23 bales is way more than we expected, this year we had a warm spring followed by 2 months of unsettled weather, finally becoming warm at the weekend.
The field is just shy of 4 acres. We’re a smallholding with a total of about 20 acres of grazable pasture.
Current head of sheep is 73, having sold the majority of this years lambs, we were up at 150 just before the summer.
We rotate the sheep a week in a field, so move them after that with a field not being reused again for 4 weeks. This cuts/breaks a lot of parasite cycles and reduces the amount of treatments for them.
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My dog found this little fellow trying to get between our neighbours’ garden and ours. I’m surprised she didn’t kill it (she’s learning not to finish off everything small and furry in sight, I hope…).
Can you imagine - it’s squeezed itself through one of those tiny little squares in the mesh and then couldn’t get it hips through and so got stuck! No idea how long it had been there - probably got stuck in the night, but didn’t make any noise.
I put on my thickest pair of hide gloves, got a pair of pliers and snipped around the poor thing until it could get away (with a loud squeak that I took as a “thanks, mate!”). It was really feisty thing - squirmed itself upside-down as I was cutting the wires, and kept trying to bite me - its teeth sticking in the hide, but not going through.
Amazing.
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I think I’d have finished it off, there’s way too many rats. It was a rat, right?
Glad that you didn’t get bitten!
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That’s a… kinda weird looking rat!?
It has the face of a lemming but seems to be too large.
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