HeLLLOOO Garden!

Look at this.....

This piece of dirt is the garden bed that runs down the side of our shared driveway. The lady we now share the driveway with recently suggested we should clear it out of the random trees and ugly box hedging and use it for a veggie garden.

Brainwave!

So we promptly did just that.

Actually, she and hubby did it as I was heading out just as she came and suggested we make a start right then. The lady seems to have a knack for finding me when I'm busiest.

So, we have since dug in about 5 bags of composted cow poop and planted some tomatoes, capsicums, cucumbers which I hope to get climbing up a trellis, spring onions and an asparagus plant. Still waiting to see if that's growing or if it rotted during the rainy spell that happened right after I planted it.....

I'm waiting for some yellow capsicums and chillis to sprout and my own baby toms to grow a bit bigger before I put them in the ground. Oh, and there's baby spinach and lettuce there too.

A while before all this went down, I had shot off an email to a local community garden I had found through Landshare Australia. The boys and I will go and check it out tomorrow morning, it's a permaculture garden run on the grounds of a local high school and in return for a few hrs work a week all workers get a share of the produce. They have 55 heritage fruit and nut trees planted, compost, chickens and water tanks, and I was told they would be delighted to have children around. It's fairly newly established from what I can tell and they are still very much in need of man/woman/people power.

Updates on how that goes later, a balmy 25c is predicted, and I'm really looking forward to checking it out!

Child labour

The little guy wanted to clean the car.

An old sauce bottle full of water and Dad's golf-club-cleaning brush, and he was happy.

Hehe, he even managed to leave most of the paint on our aged and venerable car.

Today is another day

Oh my, I was in quite the funk yesterday.

Baby L.T's due date, should he have made it to a full 40 weeks. Thing is, his birth was to have been a scheduled c-section, so technically he would have arrived at least a week ago.
I didn't think the date would affect me all that much, but boo ya, who am I to dictate what my mind is going to do? At the same time as my body gives me a definite 'not pregnant anymore' sign. Yeah, go me.
One of those days where you just want to crawl under a rock and not speak to anyone.

But instead I took the boys out to the farmer's market, then later, up to the school to ride their bikes and play in the massive school sandpit. I got through it and today was a new day.

Meet (the) Eggbert(s)

When your family eats as many eggs as we do, you can end up with a lot of egg shells.

When you have two small boys, as we do, you need to come up with activities for those freezing, grey days of winter when they're bouncing off the walls.

Enter, the eggshells.

Ok, this was not my genius, I saw it somewhere on the blogosphere, but aren't they cute?

Hello Eggbert 1, Eggbert 2, Eggbert 3 and Eggbert 4.

Yes, we got creative with names, didn't we?

To make your own hairy little guys, save some shells from good old boiled eggs.

Place a cotton ball in the bottom of each shell and drip water on it till the cotton wool is fairly damp, but there's no extra water pooled around it.

Add sprout seeds.

We used................er can't remember. Cress and radish maybe?

Keep the cotton wool damp and in a lightish place, like a kitchen windowsill and your little baldies will have a fine crop in no time.

Then you can give them a haircut and eat the trimmings if you so desire.

(My boys did not desire, they left them to dry out and eventually let me consign all Eggberts to the worm farm. Er, I mean Eggbert heaven.)

My garden

First up, check out the colour of the pumpkins we grew!

All two of them, albeit, one giant one.

I picked up this passionfruit vine at the farmer's market a couple of weeks back, it's still looking for a home though.

And in the seed tray, can you spot the two baby apple trees?

Might need to enlarge it to actually see them...the boys and I saved the seeds from any apples that got eaten for a couple of weeks and planted them about three to a.......space? what do you call each individual space in a seed tray?.......patch of dirt in the seed tray!

Since this picture, two more have come up.

I have no illusions about how they will grow and whether or not they will produce, but still, it has been kinda cool. We just sat the tray out in the cold and after about 2 weeks the first one came up, about a month later the second one, and at least a month after that, the last two.

And, we've had a strange bird nesting in the garage.

Hmm, wonder what sort of creature will hatch out of those?

Home again

Back from the mansion as of yesterday. I must say, I didn't realise the weather was so miserable when we stayed there, must be the central heating and massive fireplaces. Or maybe today was actually worse, freezing and grey the entire day.

Ho hum.

But we had a lovely time as usual.

We....

tried rollerblades for the first time....

tooled around on the world's most impressive tricycle...

watched movies of ourselves doing the above activities...

bounced...

a lot...

gathered (and ate) many oranges...

visited the museum...

hung out in the tents, in the 'playroom that is bigger than our house'....

made s'mores, thanks to the massive open fireplaces...

made pizzas, using the pizza machine...

and did some impressive cookie decorating

As well as caring for the dogs, which the boys enjoyed, although Mum was definitely on poop-scooping duty.

Much time spent walking dogs and riding bikes.

Had a couple of play dates, who were suitable impressed with our digs.

Made it snow by tipping torn up paper towels over the dining space from the second level.

And my youngest magpie spent a long time gathering bits and pieces from all corners of the mansion to keep in his tent. Including the eyepiece from my beloved camera. Which I only noticed missing when I discovered it as I emptied out the tent and attempted to relocate everything back to it's correct position the day before we left.

Phew.

Ouch

My hubby has a few friends round tonight and one of them quietly told me that his girlfriend is 12 weeks pregnant. He told me privately, before the others arrived and that was such a thoughtful thing for him to do.

I congratulated him, then cried on his shoulder for a minute. I didn't realise it would hurt so much to hear that someone in our circle is pregnant.

I am very happy for them, and yet it makes me cry, knowing that they're expecting a baby.

Thermomix heaven, anyone?

What's better than one thermomix?

Two, of course!

Oh yeah, looooove staying at the mansion!