Cooling down

The weather has been cooling down rather fast, and this morning we had our first serious frost. The fire is keeping us lovely and toasty warm of an evening and my new slippers are a very welcome addition to my slothful wardrobe.

Some of our recently planted seeds are sprouting up in their planter pots, keeping warm in the hothouse. The tomatoes are still giving us plenty of juicy harvest and when the weather gets too seriously cold for them to keep ripening we're going to make green tomato pickles with them. Spikee is very keen to help pick the green tomatoes. He'll be less keen to eat them if history can offer us any clues.

Vinnie and Ra seem to be embroiled in an ongoing war for top cat. Ra is winning by virtue of his sharper claws and nasty disposition. Angus has been driving Ra mad pulling his fur out and trying to get into his bowl when he's eating, but sometimes Vinnie and Ra have quite long standoffs near the cat bowl where Ra decided he's finished eating but won't let Vinnie finish off the scraps. it's almost as if Ra likes flirting with the dog. The dog is very keen to befriend him, and often rolls around in a submissive way trying to get Ra to acquiesce, and sometimes Ra will actually chase the dog around playfully.

Mother's Day

Today was mother's Day. It was a really lovely, simple, stay home family day and the only consumerism we partook in was one pair of lambs wool slippers. The kids made me a card each and Stylish did all the dishwashing for my present. A gave me eggs benedict and a clean house. 

This evening a good friend and her kids came over for dinner. We had lime, chili, garlic, and cayenne roasted chicken thighs on the bone and lots of vegetables. Spikee is the same age as said friend's son so they played contentedly all evening and we watched "It's Complicated" and breast fed upside down babies and folded the clothes. It was a really enjoyable movie, and a lovely day all round. Best Mother's day ever!

Wintering! Making semi dried tomatoes

This is yesterday's harvest. The chard was delicious!

 We cut the larger tomatoes in half and coated them in olive oil, bush spices (wattle seed, pepperberry and lemon myrtle) brown sugar and sea salt. Then I put a cake cooling rack over the top of a baking dish and baked them for about 2 and a half hours on about 150C

The semi dried tomatoes are stored in my second hand tupperware container, covered with olive oil. The flavour is AMAZING!

 Then tonight we added about half of them to a spaghetti bolognaise with more bush spices, lemon pepper, homegrown zucchini and masses of freshly picked parsley. It was delicious!

My thumb is green today!

I finally managed to spend an hour in the garden in between the teething baby, and the other children. I planted a heap of seeds. Pak choy, brussel sprouts, beetroot,  cauliflower, lettuce, radish and silverbeet. I also harvested a whole box of tomatoes of every imaginable colour, a massive bunch of parsley and a beautiful red stemmed chard. 

We had a gorgeous family lunch yesterday with a massive roast consisting of pork, lamb, potatoes, pumpkin, broccoli, beans, and home made mint sauce and gravy. After that there was a choice of melting moments or chocolate cake. Most people chose both. There was also a good whack of the latest home brewed beer which is lime and chili. I think it's my favourite. I like the berry beer but the lime and chili is such a unique flavour with its' mix of green and red chili and fresh limes, you just can't go past it. 

I plan on roasting most of the tomatoes until they're semidried, and making the parsley into pesto with cashews, and having the chard with sour cream and grated nutmeg, but I won't do anything until the teething demon awakes from his nap. 

pesto

Autumn is upon us

You can feel a definite chill in the air now, but for the last few days the weather has been beautiful in the afternoons. Last night before bed I let Vinnie out to pee and I could hardly see the front fenc through the mist. I love mist! I never knew how much I loved it til it was a regular part of my life. It was cooooold out there standing in it, but I think I'm going to enjoy winter with the fire, and weather watching on the hill.


We've been taking Vinnie out as much as we can, knowing that soon it'll be dark and rainy and too cold to enjoy the out doors as much as we have been over the Summer months. He's improved so much with his training. It's a beautiful sight to see him running freely at the park, he runs so fast, you can really see the cattle dog in him when he's running.

We went for a walk over the Easter long weekend and discovered a new park near the bowling club. The river goes through it and it's beautiful, open and sunny. We've spent every day over there since then, with Vinnie running wild and the kids skipping stones on the river. Today they banked lots of them up in the current to see how the water changed course. There are lots of toadstools there and they look so pretty, Spikee thinks that faeries live in them, and was very upset to see one that had been deliberately smashed. 

We had a wonderful Easter weekend, we made a big pink marshmallow rabbit and a berry jelly one, too. And we enjoyed lots of other tasty treats like home made hot angry buns and, melting moments with mandarin icing. The family were planning on coming down but they ended up canceling, but they're coming over next weekend instead and everyone is really looking forward to it. We also celebrated Mabon, just to completely confuse things! We went walking and collected a basket of beautiful coloured leaves, red, yellow, brown, faded green, and sticks and some rocks, which we had in a basket on the coffee table. We're going to tie the sticks in a bundle and put them in the fire to welcome the Dark Mother, next weekend, and the kids are going to read Mabon poems.

hot x buns

where the faeries live

the dog, enjoying the park

pink rabbit with crazy son!

latest harvest

pink rabbit with jelly rabbit

kids at the river

At least you got the groceries!

My friend went to the supermarket to go shopping. She prefers a natural diet because she knows it's better for her and her kids. She had to go on a Tuesday because that was the only day they could fit her in, despite the fact she didn't need any groceries for another week or two. They didn't have any of the food she likes to eat, the staff were rude and insisted that she buy what they had - even though she was very firm about not wanting it - they rushed her through as fast as they could and told her to be quiet so she didn't put off the other shoppers. When it was time to pay they simply fished around in her handbag, took out her wallet and the money and ushered her out the door with armfuls of shopping bags and a toddler in tow. They waved enthusiastically and said "see you again soon!"

She wasn't very happy so I said to her "Well, at least you got your groceries!"

She wasn't very happy so I said to her "but I find that supermarket WONDERFUL!?"

My friend went to the hospital to have a baby. She wanted a natural birth with no drugs. They insisted on inducing her because they didn't want too many women there on the weekend when her doctor was going on holidays. They didn't have a birth pool or allow her to move about freely in labour to ease the pain. In fact when she tried to move around they loudly chastised her, saying she was being too loud, and that other women would be frightened by her noises and that some were trying to sleep. They insisted that she have every imaginable procedure in the "cascade of interventions", despite her protesting. They even held her down and put things into her vagina against her will, once again telling her to be quiet and think of the other patients. Then they cut her baby out, told her she couldn't feel the ripping and tearing of her flesh, took her baby away, and left her in recovery, cold and alone. When it was time to discharge her they expected her to be happy, they waved and said "see you again soon".

She was traumatised, unable to breastfeed, unable to form a true bond with her baby, her caesarean scar was badly infected and burst open, she felt violated, she couldn't stop crying, she felt alone and scared, and guilty, and didn't want to get out of bed in the morning. She couldn't look after her older children and her partner couldn't take any time off work to help out.

I said to her "Well at least you got a healthy baby"

I said to her "But my caesarean was WONDERFUL!?"

RETHINK THE HEALTHY BABY LIE!

Every women is grateful for the health of her baby. But a healthy baby is NOT all the matters, mothers matter too! And just because YOU had a good birth in a hospital doesn't mean that everyone has a good hospital birth. Let mother's speak their truth!

The Cascade

The Dog, and other furry creatures

The dog is completely toilet trained (although tonight he peed on the rug because we didn't understand his "please let me out" pleas) and for the most part is settled in now. He's had a few cold nights now because he took it upon himself to totally destroy his bedding, leaving it all across the front lawn, through the kennel, and right down the driveway, there were even bits of green stuffing floating aimlessly down the street on the wind. We relented and gave him an old doona because it is quite cold out there of a night and we're hoping to pick another one up from vinnies (I can't decide if that's a pun or not...) when they have one that isn't good for humans - they do give them out apparently.

He had been a little bugger at the park when we let him off his lead and he was refusing to come when he was called, and running rings around us when he did come. This was ok in the middle of the park but he ran up onto the main street (not too busy in comparison to Sydney, but still not entirely safe) and wouldn't come back. So we took dog treats to the park and made him sit for one. let him off the lead and then called him, made him sit and gave him a treat every time he came. The first day we did it he came about half of the time, the next day he was even better, and the third day he came every time except when there was another puppy (which happened twice) and when he was chasing pink crocs (stay tuned).

After a wander up the platypus walk we took Spikee to the skate park on his bike and he was happily riding over bumps and ramps and whatnot when Vinnie decided to chase him and try to chew his pink crocs. Spikee came off his bike very badly and landed with an almighty face plant on the concrete. Blood was gushing out of his mouth and I was worried he might have lost a tooth, but he just cut the inside of his cheek very badly. The cut is easily the size of a 20c piece, and there is a graze on the outside and purple and blue bruising is still coming out. He also grazed his knee and got a cut on his forehead from where the helmet was crushed between his head and the concrete. Seeing him come down as I did I am relieved beyond words that he was wearing his helmet because without it he would have undoubtedly fractured his skull.

On our next trip to the park we will take Spikee, his bikee, me, A and Stylish, and when Vinnie goes near Spikee on his bikee he'll get a whack on the bottom. I attachment parent my kids, the dog isn't so fortunate after this incident.

The day after the accident was shopping day and A and I made a snap decision to ge the kids a guinea pig each. One of the cutest things I have ever seen is Spikee sitting down watching tv, tickling the guinea pig in his lap. They're really tame little things even though the guy in the petshop said they were quite skittish. Today we went to the tip shop and bought timber to make an outside run for them. It's coming along nicely so stay tuned for pics!

You can see the cut on his face and the swollen lip here but not very clearly. It's actually much worse!