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We have had a number of deaths in our house lately.

First the assisted death of our pet dog Raz Soondari. She was 10 years old, suffering complications from a dislocated hip and also a thyroid problem with an associated skin condition. Her hip had re dislocated and we were looking at expensive surgery and the need for her to be confined afterward. She went away with our vet friend Audrey last week and went to sleep peacefully.

The same day we had to euthanise one of the longest living pet mice – suspected tumours and growths were making her very fat and she wasn’t eating. Gold was Erin’s mouse.

Today one of Miranda’s snakes King died. We are not sure why, but he was a very fussy eater and that may have contributed to his demise.

And finally today also our last central netted dragon Sleepy died. He was a dragon that had some birth defects, and couldn’t keep sand out of his eyes properly. He actually lived a very long life for a CND, lasting around 4 years. they live for 2-3 in the wild.

The kids have been upset by the deaths as can be expected, but we also hope that this will assist them to learn and understand the cycle of life, the grieving process and how to deal with loss.

Today was a DIY day. I designed and built this enclosure for the blue tongue skinks this morning. Start to finish around 2.5 hours.

The base and sides are medium density fibreboard as are the end and centre pieces. the bottom is braced with 3x2 batons that also work as feet.

The centre top piece is a bit of MDF, and the end mesh pieces are bits of an old bird cage that was lying around in the rubbish heap to be taken to the tip. Now it forms the essential part of letting light in and keeping our snakes and stopping the skinks from escaping. One end is hinged ad allows easy access to the skinks while the other end is fixed but has two openings in it.

Job well done.

Oh and Heidi helped Tim the Toolman as well.

This article has been written in response to a readers question.

Traci writes:

When I take a spreadsheet that someone else has created & remove some unwanted columns & rows, add a notes column of my own outside of the last column of their original spreadsheet, it won’t pick up that last “notes” column when it sorts.  If I highlight the entire document it will, but most people don’t highlight the whole thing when they sort.  We share this document with other people, they sort it and don’t realize that they didn’t sort the notes field.  Do you know of a fix to include the extra added “notes” column in the “my data has headers” “sort by” option that will travel with the document?

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