Snow Peas!

I was pleasantly surprised when a friend pointed out to me on the weekend I had snow peas nearly ready to pick. They seemed so hard to see against the leaves and vines that I had completely missed them. So in a few days I had a small harvest ready for the dinner table!

The warm weather we have had over the last few days is giving everything a real growing boost, especially the seeds I planted under the poly tunnel. I think I have nearly halved their germination time, so fingers crossed I get carrots, beetroots and radishes sooner than expected!

The strawberries are coming along beautifully, they are big and plump and are bright red. I am having a hard time keeping my strawberry thief away from them. I decided to buy some more strawberries and plant them in planter boxes on a ledge over the garage, this way they are out of sight and out of mind. Fingers crossed we get lost of sweet strawberries in the next few months.

The boys have had a great time this week. It started with a visit from my Mum and Dad (Marsie & Parsie). Dan and Parsie took the boys to the Aquarium and Leo loved all the sharks!!! We all then went to the Museum during the week and explored all the dinosaurs and Australian animals. I must admit even I love the Museum, there is something quite soothing about wandering around and looking and learning about our animals and prehistoric dinosaurs.

This weekend we watched the boys participate in their first Halloween dress up and trick or treat. We all went over to a friends place and gathered the boys up for a walk around the streets dressed up in their costumes. As much as Halloween is very American and can be frowned upon in this country, it was wonderful to see families out and enjoying themselves, the children had a great time socialising and this makes for good all round community and social relations. So no matter how you look at it, it was a win win situation for all (especially Leo and Jack with all their lollies they collected along the way)! I still think the highlight was the Jack O' Lantern pumpkin cake I made, I haven't lost my knack after all!

Halloween normally is the last day of the season and brings the change in weather (as well as "All Saints Day") So the 1st of November is here, lets hope we have some lovely warm veggie growing weather!

The Strawberry Thief......

Another drizzly cold Saturday and I have come to expect bad weather everyday of the week, I feel that the "Gods of Summer" are punishing us for something we have done. Just what that is I don't know! We have had so much rain lately and everything is waterlogged. I haven't needed to water my veggies at all last week. My poor tomatoes were growing beautifully in their grow bag, until all the rain. I noticed on Friday one plant in particular was looking very sad and sorry (after a close inspection I think there was not enough drainage in the grow bag). So Dan decided to build a small raised bed for them, after a quick trip to Bunnings he knocked up a very swish raised bed. I was very impressed with his skills. Now that all the tomato plants are in the new bed hopefully they will all be happier with better drainage.

The veggie patch is looking fantastic everything is growing just beautifully. I decided to add a cloche over the lettuces as they had been damaged from all the rain and wind, after 48 hours they have really picked up and seem to like the protection with a little added warmth. I have also placed a poly tunnel over the beetroot seedlings I am hoping it will speed up their growth as well as spur on the carrot & radish seeds freshly planted over the weekend.

And finally to our strawberry thief! First clue: He is 85 cm high. Second clue: Has strawberry blond hair (and not much of it). And third clue: Has fat little fingers! Yes you guessed right; Jack McGrath is the strawberry thief!!!! I was so excited to see 2 strawberries turning a beautiful shade of red, but alas their colour was too enticing for my little Jack, who by the way had no intention of eating them, but just to feed them to Mariah (the dog). Oh well lets hope the remaining 11 get the chance to turn into beautiful fat red delicious strawberries and not fall victim to the "fat fingered strawberry thief"!

Another year goes by.........

Everything seems to have calmed down in our household. So far the boys have managed to keep themselves in one piece for a whole weekend (a three day weekend too)!

It was my birthday on Sunday and I notched up another year closer to the big 40, where do the years go? Leo loves anything to do with a birthday, especially birthday cake and candles, it so sweet to hear him sing happy birthday, even if it is only the first few lines. The boys gave me a beautiful book for my birthday called "Harvest" by Meridith Kirkton, it has all the information I need for growing all my veggies. All I need now is a few quiet days to read it (in my dreams)! Dan gave me a beautiful pink climbing rose called Nahema, to grow over the gabled gate at the front of our house.

I have planted quite a few trays of seeds and they are all starting to shoot. I have come to realise that I need to continually have seedlings growing all the time, I am amazed at how fast everything grows, and also how fast we eat everything (mainly lettuces)! My herbs are growing at an alarming rate and I love being able to pick whatever I want and when I want. The mint especially has grown fast, maybe a little too fast as it is starting to take over.

This week has been an especially good week for Leo and his talking. I am always amazed how out of the blue we have huge spurts of new words. Leo's phrasing is also sounding more and more fluent. I feel we are jumping some big hurdles!!!!

And last but not least the $5.00 rocking horse that I picked up has been a hit! As you can see it is quite old but still has a lot of life left in it....I hope :)

A quick note: Tomorrow night Dan and I are attending a fund raising trivia night for a very brave woman called Judy. Judy has been diagnosed with grade 4 or terminal melanoma cancer. I had the time to read her blog today and for a mother of 3 boys (a 5 year old, 3 year old and a 5 month old baby) she would have to be one of the bravest and most determined people I have ever heard about. If you have the time take a look at her blog and be inspired! Judy's Melanoma Journey

The trouble with boys!

I have come to the realisation that the word "boy" really spells TROUBLE! I feel like I have aged 5 years in 5 days.

It all started on Friday (day 1) Jack took the liberty of helping himself to a bottle of dishwasher rinse aid and took a few good gulps. I have always had to be careful with cupboards, as Jack has proved himself to be a Houdini on many occasions, but Friday took the cake, after a quick call to the poison hot line I found out it wasn't toxic, but he would be very sick. And yes he was very sick!

The weekend (day 2 & 3) was just a few days of plain naughtiness with me yelling from the sidelines, and then Jack developing conjunctivitis.

Monday (day 4) came around and I was feeling quite calm and looking forward to a peaceful week, but not for long, Leo was playing a game of chase with Mariah, I believe they took the same path and collided this resulted with Leo being thrown into the air and landing on the back of his head... ouch! After he became quite lethargic and his speech started to slur it was off to the doctors with a possible concussion. Our doctor decided a head scan was in order, but quickly realised this would be impossible for Leo as it would be to traumatic and only result in an ASD meltdown. So with a list of instructions and the doctor's home phone number, we headed home for a night of close observation. The next day Leo was just fine.

Tuesday (day 5): I rise and shine in the morning with my fingers crossed hoping for a much better day with the boys, all seems to be going well the clock hits 5pm and yes I am on the home stretch.......Then a loud thud followed by that eternal pause and a loud cry, oh no Jack has just chipped his front teeth, a quick call to Dad (he happens to be a dentist) but not much can be done. Thank goodness he gets another set when he is older. I have adopted a new rule in our house "walk don't run" but already it is falling on deaf ears...............fingers crossed tomorrow is a better day!

Garden Progress.

My seeds from Diggers finally arrived (the day before we went to the zoo) I have sown the carrots, beetroot, french basket radishes, & peas. The radishes have already started to poke their little green heads through the mulch and are worshipping the sun. I have to say my lettuces were looking a little brown from all the dust that was blown our way via a very intense dust storm. It was quite eery to wake up in a haze of red darkness, I have a feeling this is what it would be like to live on Mars. A thought I hope never becomes a reality!

I purchased a little portable green house on the weekend so I can propagate the rest of my seeds that couldn't be sown direct into the raised garden bed. I have potted up mini cucumbers, mini capsicums and spring onions, fingers crossed they sprout into strong little seedlings.

The lettuces are going gang busters, all of a sudden they seem to have taken off! We had our first salad last night and it was a great feeling to know that the lettuce came from our garden and hadn't been contaminated with nasty toxic sprays. The herbs also seem to be growing beautifully, I think that little spurt of warm weather over the last few days has really helped (I even have a few strawberries popping up).

I have finally planted the tomatoes, I couldn't decide how and where to grow them. I bought a grow bag to plant them in and have placed this against a sunny fence facing West with a little protection from the wind, I am still not convinced they are in the right spot, I suppose only time will tell!

Dan and the boys dug up the back garden and replaced some bare patches with a stronger more child/dog resilient grass "Kings Pride" a flat leaf buffalo. We have always had problems with bare patches through the winter and I think the boys and the Mariah don't help either.

They all had a great time, unlike me with all the dirty washing that has been produced over the last 2 days I think I will be washing all week.....oh well that's boys for you! :)

Zoofari!

Our long awaited trip to Western Plains Zoo started at 4am in the morning. With a 6 hour drive ahead of us we decided to make the most of the 2 days and one night (in the plush tent) by setting out at 5am in the morning. With printed directions in hand (we are yet to join the satellite navigation generation) and the children bundled into the car we set off. We were barely out of the driveway when Leo piped up with "watch an animal movie" Leo loves David Attenbourgh documentaries, so we put on an animal movie, something soothing and tame for 5am, by that I mean "no lions hugging and kissing gazelles....!!!" After a quick breakfast at McDonalds and a fuel stop we were well and truly on our way. The drive to Dubbo is a little monotonous, sheep, cows and more sheep and cows, I was starting to tire of these domesticated animals and was longing to see some wild animals (surrounded by fences) after a few more hours of David Attenbourgh's soothing voice chatting away in the background, we found ourselves driving through the gates of Western Plains Zoo. With our map in hand and a very gusty hot Westerly wind blowing we headed straight for the Black Rhino, then the Hippo who was very lazy and just lay in the sun. After looking at the Gibbons and the funny Wombat we proceeded to our tent,and unpacked. A zebra striped minibus arrived and took us to meet the 3 boy giraffes, which was the highlight for me as they ate the carrots from our hands with their big long curly tongues. Then we were whisked off to see the tiger have his dinner, wow I'm glad I was on the other side of the cage, he wasn't very friendly. The zebra striped minibus took us back to our tent and for Leo this was probably the highlight of the zoo, he unfortunately didn't want to get off the bus (we quickly realised he had never been on a bus before) after a lot of convincing we finally got him off!
Day 2: A 6am "rise and shine" to a wonderful sound of animal calls got us off to a great start. We headed straight to the minibus (a full 20 minutes early, Leo just couldn't wait) and the first stop was hand feeding the black rhino, this was fantastic, then onto the Galapagos Tortoises, a little boring for me, well what can you expect from an animal that has a top speed of 3km per hour! Our final port of call was the Meercats, everyones favorite, then we were heading back to our tent for a quick breakfast, check out and a last cycle around the zoo before heading back home. A wonderful 2 days away, now my mind is swimming with ideas of a real safari in Tanzania.........I think we are a long way from this but who knows!

The Veggie Patch!

Over the weekend we put together the raised veggie garden from Natural Yards. We had a little hiccup, it was no longer viable to place it where I had originally wanted it to go. The ground was quite uneven and it just wasn't getting enough sun. So with a little jigging and looking around we found another spot that looked perfect. I had my little helpers, slowing everything down, wanting drinks, morning tea etc, I didn't think I would see it finished by the end of the day as I was spending so much time in the kitchen preparing food!

Now for the dirt and compost and why do boys love dirt so much......?

After lunch and more snacks we headed off to our local garden nursery and I purchased some lettuce seedlings and snow peas, I thought this would be a good start, as I am still waiting for my seeds to arrive form Diggers. Once again with my little helpers by my side I got down to the serious stuff, PLANTING and voila I was I starting to see progress!

By the end of the day we were all tired and extremely happy with our efforts, the warm weather had zapped all our energy so it was an early dinner and off to bed for me and my little helpers.