Halloween, Christmas, and the new year

Before Halloween, I bought a pumpkin for carving. It day on the bench while Halloween came and went.

I was a bit surprised that it didn't go soft and stinky.

The weeks went by, and eventually it was nearly Christmas. I came up with the idea of carving a Christmas pumpkin.

Nice idea, but I didn't do anything about it.

Yesterday, on the eve of New Year's Eve, I finally carved a Christmas tree in the bloody pumpkin. 

I put a candle in and took a picture.

Done!

Bunnies, acting like bunnies

Ivy received a second bunny for Christmas, so now she has two.

They go around in a little pack. White Bunny is her  usual well-worn grey, with flattened fur and gritty bits. Pink Bunny is new and delightfully fluffy.

I find them around the place, acting like bunnies.

One day this will seem so long ago

So here are some pics:

Reminiscing about cakes

When the girls were turning four, I made two shaped party cakes. Luckily Hazel wanted a clock, which is a very easy shape. Ivy wanted a cat, so I went to the internet to work that one out. Here are some pics from way back when:

Did you eat the cake?

Me: Hazel, did you get out of bed and eat some of the cake?
Hazel: Yes.

This is the top half of the bunny cake I am making for Ivy, for Sunday's party. I think that bunny will have a dented forehead.

Ivy made dessert for me

It is chopped banana, passionfruit, yoghurt and cinnamon.

Harvest on a mild winter day

It must have been a mild winter, because there are still five capsicums on the bush,  happily ripening slowly.

How to learn to knit

Put on pyjamas, and then a dressing gown and big socks. Prepare the knitting instruments. Find the printout of the pattern. Get the ipad so that I can watch the helpful video that comes with the pattern.

Get a glass of sherry (ran out of port). Hop into bed.

Read Facebook updates. Sip sherry. Check on the AMBA forum. Sip sherry. Realise that sherry is mostly gone.

Notice that it is 7:57pm and acknowledge that I might as well just go to sleep. Realise that sherry is not entirely gone, and perk up.

Re-commit to trying the flippan knitting.

Wish me luck. I'm trying to make this (dire name, but a nice shawl): http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-dummy-clap-shawl

New shoes

Ivy made them for me.

On our way to Bright

In the car with Kath and Craig and baby Jaslyn,  on our way to Bright for Fred's memorial.

Post-sweep sweepings

After making themselves breakfast, Ivy and Hazel swept the dining room to deal with the carpet of rice bubbles and nutri-grain pellets.

After they left the room, I swept the room again and came up with this:

P.S. That is not a sultana; it is a rabbit poo.

Hot crossless buns

Just couldn't be bothered piping this morning. I think I know what we will be having for morning tea today.

In other news, the kids have been doing utterly self-directed Easter-based craft and narrative games this morning. Ivy is the Easter bunny (of course) and Hazel is seventeen-year-old named Less, which is short for Allessatif. Less has been a long-term member of Hazel's pantheon of alternative identities.

So far the bunny and Less have cut out and decorated about twenty paper Easter eggs, then paraded around doing unfathomable but allegedly necessary Easter jobs for an hour. Now they are drawing together in Hazel's room.

This is sounding a lot like one of those "my life is perfect and here are the pics to prove it" posts. In the interests of balance, know this:

This morning I threw out my latest fermenting effort. It was dill pickles, and I have a feeling that using dill from the freezer is a bad idea. The cucumbers and the oak leaves were fresh and so was the garlic, but the frozen dill made the pickling liquid go milky coloured and there was mold starting too. Luckily, the pickles I served to my family yesterday were from the FIRST batch.

What happens when goldfish are given cooked broccoli

They nibble it until it looks like coral.

All laid out

My new mixer arrived!

I am disproportionately excited.

First figs of the 2014 harvest

Three have been pecked,  and two are unblemished.

My daughter is totally a creative genius

This is a boastful post,  just be warned.

Ivy uncovered an unopened packet of modelling clay,  and she asked for help getting started. I found her a board to work on,  and snipped off some of the clay.

After working hard for at least six minutes,  she produced this truly amazing object. Its title is "Three rocks, squashed together".

I think that it had been influenced by a work we enjoyed last weekend, at the Lorne Sculpture Biennale. Ivy and I went for a bush walk and saw a little dark green sculpture made by a wombat,  entitled "Seven cuboid turds, lightly pressed together and left in the middle of the path,  crawling with little flies".

Ivy's inspiring work resonates with the wombat's, building a dialogue across time, space, and species.

Ready for more

I'm at Sandor Katz's fourth Melbourne session: Fermenting Grains,  Legumes,  and Tubers. I didn't go to the sessions about fending beverages and fermenting milk.

Here are the pickles he put up during the Fermenting Vegetables session yesterday:

Traffic light snax

Milk kefir,  villi (which is another kind of milk ferment), pineapple kombucha,  mint kombucha,  and pickled carrot and ginger.

Too much happiness

I am at the State Library Theatrette,  waiting for Sandor Katz to tell me all about Fermenting  Vegetables.

There is a sign on the door saying No Food Or Drink,  but the table at the front is loaded with quartered cabbages, cucumbers,  an enormous jar of chilli puree,  and great fronds of grape vine. It looks a lot like the Preston Market stall where the bored girl gives demoes of the gimmick vegetable shredder.

This is a strawberry

Creeeeeepy.

Little possums

 

You want to sell WHAT?

On the AMBA forum, we parents of twins, triplets & more sometimes give or sell gear to each other. Pregnancy, babies, kids... at the close of each phase we have a lot of stuff to get rid of, and it makes sense to pass on some of it to other families with multiples.

When I go to the forum, I see a list of conversations that have been added to since I last looked. For a couple of days, I keep seeing these two, one above the other:

And my helpful little brain conflates the two, and every single time I wonder why on earth anyone would possess a leather breastfeeding sports bra for a little girl?

I think my mind is doing the same trick it kept doing, way back last century when I worked in Kilsyth. I drove to work, and close to the office there was a garden supplies shop. They had a sign out the front that said:

CHEAP TRELLIS

But every time I drove past, my helpful little brain read that as:

CHEAP THRILLS

And every single time I laughed! A little snicker, all on my own as I commuted.

Still 42°C at 6pm

That's 107.6 °F, which sounds a lot more impressive I think.

I wonder how hot it was for these people in Georgia, June 1982. They are singing Morning Prayer.

Working hard

It's 8:10 am and we are working on pictures of aliens who go snorkelling.

No mum

I told Ivy to go into a different room because I was on the phone. She was noisily lying all over me and I wanted to concentrate.

A few minutes later she came in and whacked this down,  then flounced out.

Jumping the waves

Trudi took Hazel out into the waves. I think Hazel had a good time.

A baby crapped on my Magnum!

Yes, this Magnum is truly and actually yellowy-greeny-brown. Apparently it is "honeycomb" flavoured.

And yes, the packaging really an genuinely has ?! on it. I should have used that as a cue... even the marketing people weren't convinced.

I ate it though, and it was OK. Better than a kick in the pants, and better than a lump of baby shit on a stick, but not up to the usual Magnum standard.

A letter from Ivy

This morning I was working at home, and Ivy sidled up to me to whisper loudly, "HOW DO YOU SPELL IPAD?"

I told her, and she came back with this:

Translation: Mum can I have a go on iPad

Isn't it amazing how iPads help with kids' literacy.