A Magic Moment.

This morning as I walked onto the deck on my way to the clothes line (yes the sun was shining.....woo hoo) a rainbow lorikeet landed not 6 feet away. I stopped in my tracks so as to not scare it and it gave a little tweet and waddled toward me, chattering away, seemingly unafraid. Sadly the dog spotted it through the window, barked and scared it off. But that brief moment was such an unexpected gift. 
     

How many wonderful things there are to be grateful for in this world?! How many unexpected gifts however brief?!

Today I'm glad about : lunch with my dear friend Heather. She's funny and caring, honest and wise and my life is better for knowing her.

                                 : the sun shining so I got all my washing dry. (gotta lurve that sun!!!!!!!!)

                                 : talking to my husband and each of my 3 children. There are not enough words to say how much I love and admire them.

                                 

                                 : flannelette sheets. :)

Actually the list is pretty well endless, now I think about it. An attitude of gratitude is a handy thing to have.

And an occasional magic moment with a rainbow lorikeet helps too. 

And Again.

And still it rains; with an occasional little peep through by the sun (VERY occasional!) I have to go into town today for a hair appointment and am not looking forward to it at all. The council has been doing road works all over the place and with the torrential rain there are holes everywhere!

A little taste of sunshine this morning.

So pottering about in the kitchen and checking the girls haven't drowned in the coop; that's about the sum total of my days at the moment. Feet up in front of a fire of a night. Very quiet here in Eden. :)

 PEANUT BUTTER CUPCAKES.

90 g butter

1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter

1 1/2 cups brown sugar, lightly packed

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

2 eggs

2 cups S.R. flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

Grease a muffin tray and set oven at 190c. Beat butter and peanut butter together, then gradually add sugar and beat until light. Stir in the vanilla, then the eggs one at a time. Sift the flour with the salt and add alternately with the milk. Spoon into the tins, filling half full, and bake for 20minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Makes about 24.

WET, WET,WET.

Oh well ,what the heck, lets have some more rain. We've had enough of the mild, warm winter days. NOT!!!!

Standard uniform on the east coast.

Its a horrible night; cold, windy and wet but we're tucked up inside with the fire going. I was complaining about how it seems to be getting colder instead of warming up. Mark says his dad always use to say "When the days lengthen, the cold strengthens."  I've never heard that saying but it certainly seems to be true at the moment.

The next day.

Well was going to play hell with a stick this weekend, but i'm flat on my back with a bulging disc so that puts paid to all my plans! This will be ,by necessity, a very short post; I'm typing 1 fingered, right handed and laying down. lol - not the easiest thing to do!

I'd like to say I will use this time for deep thinking and musings........perhaps I will. At the moment I'm just tired, sore and bored out of my brain! :)

Thursday.

Had a wonderful few days away in Mudgee seeing where Jordan lives now. What a beautiful place! Quite cold in the morning - brrrrr - ; Jord must be becoming acclimatized though because it doesn't bother him too much and he's always been a cold frog. We're looking forward to going back again, its a very historic area as well as having some very fine vineyards. :)
                                     
Well the rain has stopped for a while. The ground is starting to dry out a little though there are places around that are still quite soggy underfoot. There's not much one can do outside when its pouring but we aim to take advantage of the sunny days we're having at the moment. I can hear a ride-on somewhere close by so someone else is getting to work as well.

I picked the first few sugar-peas a couple of days ago  - and ate them immediately lol. Is there anything better than picking something and eating it there and then? The first lot of potatoes are up and the rest of the veges are struggling on with wet feet. :) The gardens have been pretty water-logged but being raised beds they don't stay too soggy.We were flooded in for a day or two last week; Kim wasn't able to get to work. It went down fairly quickly but the roads are a mess with pot-holes everywhere.

                                     The first wattle in flower on the property.

                                      Bon's favourite place on cold days.
                         The rug in family room is a nice place to catch the sun.

I'm off to bring up some wood for the fire tonight. We're expecting a lot more rain next week so it will pay to get a fair bit up close to the house and under cover. A bit of grocery shopping at some stage, housework and a recipe for ciabatta bread (which I love!) that's been waiting to be tested. I'll give it a go to have with dinner tonight.

I'm really looking forward to the week-end. Kim and I are whipping out to the vineyards to pick up a special present; Jordan will be home; Scott and Rae will be dropping in as well. Sadly Mark will be at work through the day but gets home around 8pm so we'll see him at least. I'm going to do a bit of painting over the week-end too. Lol - no not walls; watercolour. I haven't picked up a brush since we moved here and I miss it so much - so this week-end I've given myself permission to do what I want - painting it is!!!!

Baby it's cold outside.

What a cold and rainy day it is here.The east coast is certainly copping a lashing yet again.

As horrid as it is there's always things to do; though not a lot outside. I love being busy in the house on a nasty day. The chooks have had their warm mash but are still looking decidedly miserable. It's really cold today, poor things. Jordan will be home late Thursday night so I'll go shortly and put flannelette sheets and a good thick blanket on his bed. Kim has a head cold and is feeling miserable so I'll put her new sheets and a warmer blanket on as well. There's a single arum lily in flower from some plants my dad gave me about 15 years ago. I potted half a dozen before we moved and though I nearly lost them in the heat-wave earlier this year, they struggled on and I can see one brave little lily waving about in the wind. Might go and grab it now before it gets blown away. The lily and some lavender in a little vase on Kim's bed-side table might cheer the poor thing up a bit.



Dads Lily.

Whoa........ it is soooooo cold out there.

I've been wanting to use up some things in the freezer; individual containers of things; so today seems a good day to make use of the yummy hot dishes tucked away. There's meatballs in sauce so I'll cook up  some spaghetti for Mark's dinner, ham hock soup for me and I'll pop down some vege soup for Kim to warm her up when she gets in. I'm looking forward to doing a whole lot of cooking this weekend to fill up the freezer again; can't wait to try out the new stove in earnest. One of my favourite things is the freezer, gotta love that freezer! I like cooking ahead and it's great having something on hand if I'm busy (or just feeling lazy!)

I was looking at a few blogs recently and they were talking about menu planning. If you don't do it already give it a try; you'd be amazed at the time and money savings. As I think I've mentioned before ( and the girls and I were talking about it at lunch the other day) I originally started because it stopped the usual "what's for dinner" question from being asked and it saved time. I'd do a menu, stick it on the fridge, shop around it; defrost the meat the day before or prepare ahead of time, and there you go. I also found, like most  people, I threw out a LOT of left-overs and that sort of waste doesn't sit well with me at all. Menu planning can cut that right down. That's another little job for today, doing a couple of weeks menus. I'm not pedantic about it but it does simplify life and I'm all about keeping life simple. :)
Can I say though, don't be a food cop about it.Sometimes no-one really feels like a hot dinner or pasta or whatever, go with the flow. It stops being fun when it becomes a stress.

The Girls.

I know I have waxed lyrical about my 4 chickens on a few occasions but I am quite besotted with them. I'm still getting around 2 doz eggs a week even though they should really be going a bit off the lay by now. (so I'm told) I make a special mash for them which they love, so maybe that's encouraging them. They only get the mash every second day, they have feed in the chook-yard and get scraps as well as free-ranging. Don't want them too plump.

HENNY & PENNY.

Cackles had a foot problem but it's healed completely now and she's gone from a rather introverted girl to quite a happy little thing. She'll take food from my hand these days so that's a big difference from when we first inherited her and La-La. She's also become quite social with Henny and Penny too which is lovely; she was terrified of them when they first arrived.
They're quite fascinating to watch; quite the little social group. Bonnie still hates them and its the only time I dislike having floor to ceiling windows everywhere - the girls peck the window and the dog goes berserk. You'd really think she would have figured it out by now - they're stirring Bon; they're stirring!!