I just saw the cutest, tiniest mouse hop out from under our fridge. He had long, stick legs and giant, eager ears. At first I thought he was a giant cockroach, but he turned out to be an especially tiny house mouse. Emily wasn't quite as excited about our visitor as I was, but I hope he sticks around.

I have been watching a cockatoo eat jacaranda nuts in the backyard. It got me wondering. Sometimes the cockatoo drops the nut pods before he has eaten all the nuts in it. I assume he drops them accidentally. It doesn't matter for this cockatoo. There are plenty more pods for him to grab and he does. For other cockatoos sometimes there probably aren't so many pods.

I wonder if you could measure a cockatoo's ability to concentrate on what it is doing by seeing if they dropped fewer pods when pods weren't in such abundance. Humans are like that. The scarcity of something makes us treat it more preciously. Do you think cockatoos would be the same?

There are two gorgeous doves flirting on my roof-balcony. The girl is playing it a little coy though.

I used to think Raja must be the weirdest dog in the world. And then I looked after Maggie. Raja is still pretty weird, but this week he is projecting normality like you wouldn't believe. At first I thought I must be doing something wrong because Maggie just barked all the time. But she has food and water a somewhere to sleep and I don't know what else dogs need. Maybe what she really wants is somewhere inside to wee. Weeing on the kitchen floor is her favourite hobby after barking.

And just now, in The Journal of Wildlife Management, I found "Do black bears respond to military weapons training?" Totally brilliant.

So last night, at about 1am, I was sitting quietly in my room, graphing away at some time series when this large owl crashes softly into my bedroom window. It hovered there for a moment and flapped away.

And now a pair of turtle doves are hanging out on my roof. Birds are awesome.

The other I was up late somewhere and there was a show on SBS. It was a documentary about a Latin American jungle village. The scene I saw was of a group of people killing a cow to get it ready for a feast. They tied it between to trees, with its head tied to one and its tail tied to the other so it couldn't really move. If it sat down the rope around it's next would start to strangle it.

All the people were laughing and joking about it. They gave a machete to a girl who didn't seem to have killed a cow before. The others described how she was supposed to do it. You had to thrust the machete down through it's collar bone to get into the heart. She thrust in and the cow bellowed. She wasn't strong enough to get it in all the way, so the cow just stood there with the machete about 6 inches into its body. A boy came over and starting pushing it further in. The cow really screamed and blood started spurting out of the hole. It fell down onto its knees and the rope around its kneck starting to strangle it. Someone came over and cut the rope so the cow fell to the ground. It lay there screaming and gasping while buckets of blood poured out of the hole. They pulled the machete out and you could see the blood pulsating out. The cow struggled to get up again. It really made the most harrowing noises. Eventually it fell down. Its tongue fell out of its mouth. It just lay downing gasping quietly.

The people starting poking it in the eyeball to find out if it was dead. When it was they started cutting it up.

Maybe sometimes killing animals in the wild yourself is more romantic than this was. But what I saw made abattoirs seemly thoroughly humane.

I found a pretty good SMH article about all the different sorts of eggs. Vegetarians eggs are not free-range eggs. No. They are bad.

The NSW Department of Agriculture also has a handy page on what a free-range label actually means. It's encouraging. People can get prosecuted for labelling eggs free-range when they aren't and the regulations are fairly strict.

Those economists/right-wingers/republicans always complain about regulations. But sometimes it offers such a good simple option. Certainly compared to the whole fair-trade mess which isn't regulated. Although I suppose that is complicated by national borders and the like.

I've just read The Ethics of What We Eat. It was a very good book and it's definitely worth reading if you're unsure about all that stuff. Assuming you want to be surer - a lot of people seem quite happy with their current level of sureness even if it's low.

My dear friend Tully has been sweet-talking into becoming vegan again, offering me all sorts of vegan social events and treats. I went to some of those energetic sorts of websites where people try to convince you to change your life in three paragraphs. I needed a little more convincing though, because I'd felt like I had found a reasonably merry and practical vegan-vegetarian blend. Sadly, I hadn't.

I've decided to become Mostly Vegan. Between one and four are absolutely out. Five or higher will only be OK if I haven't made a choice to buy or include them in something.

Ethical Hierarchy

1. Eggs or chicken meat (battery chickens)
2. Pig meat
3. Fish
4. Cow and sheep meat
5. Dairy (battery cows)
6. Eggs (free-range chickens)
7. Dairy (free-range cows)
8. Honey (organic happy bees)
9. Scallops, mussels, oysters and clams

The main difference is that marginal eating and cooking decisions are going to be totally vegan. This means 100% vegan restaurant eating. And I won't cook with dairy or eggs at all or eat it if there is a reasonable option. I'm conscious of not making life difficult for my community. When I have been vegan before I found that I inevitably had a large impact on the behaviour of people I lived and ate with. I don't think the strength of my feelings warrant changing people's life that much.

Fortunately most of the things I cook are vegan anyway. Dairy is mostly for garnishing, snacks and treats. I will definitely miss the snacks and treats. Luckily all the best garnishes can be replaced by a virtually perfect vegan substitute - salt.

Things I will miss most

1. Camembert with mum
2. Camembert generally
3. Cakes and croissants
4. Butter
5. Eggs on toast and vegie stacks
6. Danish fetta
7. Butter

I'm just thankful that I don't like chocolate very much. Oddly enough, after reading the book I'd be happy to eat mussels and oysters. I don't imagine I'll ever want to, but if I did want to eat them I would.

One of the good things about this is that I'm no longer a vegan fraud.

[W]hen nonvegetarians say that “human problems come first” I cannot help wondering what exactly it is that they are doing for human beings that compels them to continue to support the wasteful, ruthless exploitation of farm animals.

Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 1990

Hurray. I've found buckets and buckets of Happy Tree Friends episodes.

Mum found this little critter. He has yellow bandage booties. He was involved in a hit-and-run accident, but is getting better apparently.

This afternoon Libby and I had went for a walk up to the shops for ice-cream. Raj came too. I got an almond Magnum and Libby got a chocolate Cornetto.

When we got home I was standing on the driveway with Raj and May ran up to us. They were both a bit nervous at first, but I held Raj and May just sat there. Eventually Raj lay down, and so did May. I sat down next to Raj and read junk mail. It was real nice.

Update: Apparently the Cornetto was not a chocolate one, but actually a Tim Tam-flavoured one. Ingenious.

There is a dog that lives not far from us who we see whenever we go to St Peter's station. He's a friendly, sad-looking dog. He always gets happy whenever people walk past, but goes back to his bed when they don't stop to pat him.

Libby and I have wanted to pat him for a long time, but we were always too scared. He's a big dog, and you get the sense that if you caught him on a bad day he'd be able to snap your arm without even breaking a pant.

But today Libby told me I should pat him when I walked back home after dropping her off at the station. So I did. And he was a great dog. So lovely and generous. He got a bit riled when a skate-boarder skooted past, but who can blame him.

I read his collar too, looking for his name. It said Today we kill, Tomorrow we die. I can only assume it was an ironic statement by the dog, like the guy in Full Metal Jacket. Perhaps he was wanting to say a little something about the duality of dog. Sir.