Camping at bear Gully

We went camping this year over Australia Day, down to Cape Liptrap Coastal Park.

A beautiful area of the coast just a couple of hours drive from Melbourne.

Lots of rocks for the kids to investigate.

Wildlife too...

Beautiful sunsets...

Some moody weather....

If you want to check out more of my photos you can see them here on the page I wrote specifically about camping at Bear Gully.

Hint: don't camp there over Australia Day, too many bogans!

And here's the 'lil fella on his first day!

More of 2012

Well, the Big Fella is 7 1/2 now, wow. Had a great year at school in 2012, too. 

This was footy day at school.

Passed his orange belt and is now on his green belt.

Enjoyed some time at the Farm.

And fished in the Mighty Goulburn river. 

The Farm is a great place for crafting and creating. No hair cuts happening, though.

A bit of bouldering whilst camping over Christmas.

Uncle Jono came too!

A bit of hiking.

Time well spent in the Australian bush.

More camping planned for the end of January, 2013 is off to a good start.

2012, such a busy year.

Mr 4 1/2 finished pre-school. That means school next year. I mean this year. School! He's so excited about it, asked me this morning that as it's a Whole New Year, can he start school TODAY....?

He got his junior brown belt and started in the big kids karate classes. 

Did not have a haircut for the longest time.

Played real, live Minecraft in the front yard. Eventually had a haircut, too.

Spent  more time at the farm.

And went camping over Christmas.

And, learnt to ride his new Christmas bike.
With gears....no more pushing-giant-4-year-old-up-hills for mummy.

I wonder what 2013 holds?

We survived the school holidays

I'd been waiting rather desperately (and so had the kids I 'spose) for the school hols, the eleven week term just seemed tooooo long. But once they were here I felt rather unprepared, as I'd been way too busy in the weeks leading up to the hols. I like to put in some pre-school-holiday prep but that just didn't happen this time.

But, we managed. 

Nothing high-brow, obviously.

Crafting....

Good old play dough...

More crafting...

Swimming, library-ing, beach-ing, lots of outside stuff, sushi eating, too much x-boxing.

And growing. Lots of height happening over here.

And just generally hanging round in trees with turtles.

Er, no haircuts though.

A one year anniversary

The one year anniversary of our stillborn baby passed by without fanfare in May. The day itself was uneventful and I managed to keep it all together, right till the very end of the day. Then just a few tears shed at the unfairness of it all.

We had recently spread Baby L's ashes, on this camping trip. They drifted away on the mighty Goulburn River, in the mid morning light. It is a wonderful place, and the farm will always have bittersweet memories for me.

There seems to be reminders everywhere right now, of what we don't have, I think I always see them but most of the time I ignore them and don't let them bother me. But the husband has been back in hospital having the plate in his shoulder out and going back to the hospital has brought back memories of our totally crappy year last year, which was rounded off by the plate-in-the-shoulder incident.

We're going on a snow weekend soon, with two other families. One family has three young children, the youngest being perhaps 2 years old, and a boy after two girls. The other have a five month old little boy. They're the ones who told me they were pregnant when we were staying at the Mansion last year. I haven't met their baby yet, so that may be an interesting weekend. 

One thing that irritates me is something that people say innocently enough. Seeing as our youngest (middle?) child is starting school next year, more people than I can count say something along the lines of "ooh, how exciting for you, you'll have so much time on your hands next year!" Well yes I will and no, it's not exciting at all. It's just an awful little reminder of what should have been happening next year. 

Hitting the beach when it's 5 degrees C

What else do you do on a public holiday, but head to the beach? Despite the fact it's 5.5 degrees celsius....

We were suitably rugged up against the fog and low temperatures.

The water was crystal clear and still as a mill pond.

Then one bucket/giant yogurt container got thrown a little far out....

And it was so much fun getting wet....

That we kept doing it, despite the FREEZING temperature.

We decided a water fight might be fun....

And then thought we may as well just swim.

Lucky mum brought extra clothes and hot cocoa because she just KNOWS that when there's water we will get wet. And we will eventually turn blue.

The fog and low cloud started to clear by mid-afternoon, but by then we were home in a hot bath.

Ah, gotta love a good public holiday!

Best melt and mix chocolate cake you'll ever eat

We had two birthdays recently, and a combined birthday party, so that meant a lot of cake making.

I know, I know, the hardship!

Mostly vanilla, for which I used this recipe, (I just left out the lemon juice and added vanilla) but one of them somewhere along the way was chocolate.

Now, I am all about ease when it comes to cake-making. If I can avoid having to beat butter and sugar together, I most surely will.
 Melt and mix is where it's at in my kitchen for birthday cake making.

So I give you the recipe I use for making the perfect melt and mix chocolate birthday cake.

It works well for any other occasion too, but it is perfect for birthday cake decorating because it's firm enough, it freezes well so you can make it ahead of time, it never sinks when baked and it makes a good quantity.
Oh, and it tastes really, really, really, really good.


(Don't kid yourself that this is healthy in any way though, I make an exception to healthy stuff for birthday cakes.)

(If you want to print this recipe, have a look on my side bar and follow the link with the chocolate cake picture. 
It will take you to my squidoo page where there is a print button at the bottom of the recipe.)


Ingredients


2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups white flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
1 cup of milk
100 grams melted butter (1/2 a cup)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup of boiling water

• Heat your oven to up 180 Celsius or 375 Fahrenheit.

• Line a 23cm square pan (9x9 inch)

• Melt the butter in a small pan.

• Into your electric mixer, put the eggs, milk and vanilla. Mix briefly.

• Add your melted butter and mix well.

• Mix together the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder. Add this to the butter/egg/milk mixture and mix on medium for about half a minute.

• Pour in the boiling water and mix on low until flour is incorporated and there are no lumps. (The batter will look thin.)

• Bake for approximately 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out cleanly.

• If you are like me and your cakes break when you try to turn them out while still warm, leave your cake to cool in the pan.

VARIATION: You can pour the batter into two 9 inch round baking pans and bake for about 30-35 minutes.

How to keep chickens out of your garden pots

Our chooks looove to jump into the potted trees and have a good scratch around. 

That's not so good for the roots as it can damage them but it also leaves them exposed to the elements, as the chooks seem to scratch the dirt over the side.

Actually, it's only the wyandottes, as the silkies can't get their feathery butts up there.

Here is Anakin Skywalker having a good old nosey at what I'm up to.

So I came up with this not-very-beautiful solution which seems to be working. I throw on any old, dried plants (that get tossed over the fence to the chooks when I'm gardening) and I've weighed it down with rocks and bits of brick.

This is a feijoa tree, I might put it in the ground round the front when the rest of those pittisporums come out.

Here's one of the boys' miniature cherry trees we gave them for Christmas, looking rather forlorn as it loses it leaves. But it didn't seem to like having it's roots messed with either. 

The chooks now don't bother getting up there much and can't access the dirt with their claws if they do. The little monkies have plenty of other dirt round to scratch about in.

Now, I just went to online to check out if daphne (the plant) is toxic. 

Somewhere in the back of mind I must have heard it is because when I sat and looked at this photo, something in me went uh-oh.

That daphne bush has been out the back for a few years now and it's a favourite spot for the chooks to hang out. They've now been here for nearly 5 months so it hasn't affected them, but they haven't been here when it's been flowering, which it's about to do.

Poop. I would hate to have to get rid of it but it seems like I may have to. I do love the smell and the one out the front has just recently inexplicably died. Well, it's looking more dead every day so I think it's on it's way out. 

The girls are still laying after a brief hiatus, only two of them though and I'm still not sure which two.

But have a look at this teeny, tiny egg we got the other day.

The big one of the left is a real size chook egg and the others are from our bantams.

See the teeny one? It's about 3 cm long. 

Got some winter veggies in the garden too, just waiting for it all to grow now....if it ever stops raining!