Articles written by Shaun Ashcroft

What is Helium

About me - Shaun Ashcroft

In my fabulous fifties, I share on a small acreage in the mountains inland from Coffs Harbour, Australia. I say share as apart from my wife and two dogs, there are a myriad of birds, frogs, lizards, snakes, bandicoots, wallabies, marsupial mice, butterflies,

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Home & Garden > Gardening (Other) True gardening stories: My most inspiring garden experience: 5 of 131
A double trailer truck, laden with quarry stone, ambled along the road. Filled with youth and invincibility, astride my new gleaming motorbike, I was in no mood to sit behind the lumbering giant. The road was straight, the view was clear. With a quick flick of the wrist and a tug on the throttle, I was soon passing the back c... More..
Home & Garden > Gardening (Other) True gardening stories: My funniest garden experience: 15 of 63
My funniest gardening experience.There can be a huge cost to getting things for free. The garden, if you could possibly see with a vision that would allow it, was a green junkyard. It did not look like a junkyard but to the trained eye, there was much incongruency.There was a tree fern fence that acted as a backdrop, with a f... More..
Food & Drink > Cooking (Other) Cooking inexpensively on a student budget: 21 of 55
Home made skinless sausages.Good nutritious food, that can make you feel like a bona fide chef but on a budget.This task is not just for students but for all manner of people with limited funds. And there is the challenge. The challenge to make a great meal from eye fillet steak or lobster is small compared to some of the che... More..
Food & Drink > Cooking (Other) Family cooking on a budget: Tips and tricks: 24 of 51
Some things in life are free. The ultimate in budgeting!We all need our "greens". Two greens of the many you can use that are free, are Dandelion and Sow thistle. They are common through out the world, particularly in the temperate zones. These two are also high in vitamins A and C, iron as well as the usual goodies. Both hav... More..
Food & Drink > Recipes (Other) Recipes: Dishes for students on a tight budget: 31 of 63
Student Suprise:Finding a good recipe for a student on a tight budget is hard. They are hard critters to catch and too large for most pans and ovens. If there is a large group to feed, roasting on a spit is the preferred option. However, an open fire is preferred as they take quite a time to cook through and a gas fired spit ... More..
Pets & Animals > Vets & Pet Health Dog and cat food recipes: 3 of 6
How to make your dog love you. The way into a dogs heart is via it's stomach.Imagine not being able to prepare any food or ask for what you want. You are at the mercy of your feeder and "they know best". You might get lucky, and I don't mean the brand of dog biscuits! and get a thoughtful owner but maybe not. That is the posi... More..
Travel > Vacations Best vacation destinations: 47 of 85
Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, East Coast, Australia. Coffs lies basically half way between Brisbane in the North and Sydney to the South. It makes a great vacation destination because, you can have fun on your own, you can have a great romantic time wityh your partner or the whole family will have plenty to do or just unwin... More..
Religion & Spirituality > Self-Healing The key ingredients for grasping a second chance in life: 158 of 282
The Key Ingredients for Grasping a Second Chance in Life.The song, "I get shot down, but I get up again, ain't never going to keep me down" comes to mind. The essential ingredient for grasping a second chance is attitude. Act like a loser, be a loserHaving cleared that out of the way, there are five important things to provid... More..
Pets & Animals > Vets & Pet Health Diabetes in pets: 6 of 8
So your dog has diabetes.Arrgh, panic, Bonny our black labrador has diabetes! A seed pod of thoughts exploded in my mind. How would we cope and how would Bonny cope? What was involved? How were we going to give a dog an injection every day, she would run away. You can hardly say" It's in your best interests so take your medic... More..
Food & Drink > Cooking (Other) Who is the best chef in the world?: 4 of 5
To determine who is the best chef in the world, you need a rating system.The rating system would include the usual sections of flavour, smell, presentation, is the food hot, do the food items on the plate go together, are they correctly cooked or to your liking and so on.The next areas of judgment are probably harder to get a... More..