A monarch dropped from the sky and on to Timo.

the family car

J and I were eating breakfast this morning and in rolled "the family car", the first invention for the day:

morning forage

Went back to the golf green this morning with the three young ones for a forage and found a good lot of pine boletes.
Looking forward to eating them this evening.
Autumn is so good for being outside all day, which is also good timing as we have poison stations about the property (Jeremy thinks there are hundreds of Rattus rattus' running rampant on the property due to the Nothofagus mast, so some serious pest control is in order) and in the house and the rats are dying in the walls down the side of the chimneys so it's exceptionally stinky in those areas. So pleased the weather is lovely and sunny to be outside.

Timo's day

The boy who loves life, loves people, and absolutely loves being right in the centre of it all.



His self portrait:



Weather is beautiful these days, sea warm enough for swimming.



He loves to play ukelele for people and perform in general. This is at Gus's birthday party.




won't be using fisheye lens again, borrowed a friend's one to see what they're about.

best surprise on bike ride

photo of the mushroom gills, now linked to flickr

Went for a bike ride this morn, 2 smallest in the trailer and Timo on his bike, and we came across the best surprise - field mushrooms on the golf green. So it was spot on timing as they had come up on the mowed green that hadn't been mowed and right near the road so we could easily pick them. First time we have come across these mushrooms over here, so am very pleased as I think they are tastier than pine boletes, the edibles we usually find around here.

Sunday afternoon

Exploring body painting:




Timo's "colourful banana":




Timo's creation on my arm:


Caoimhe's turn:


And then creates a garden for herself with her beloved flowers (reminder, make flower press):



The baby, not long after he had taken a bite out of one of Jeremy's habanero chillis, Timo and Caoimhe have both been through this at similar ages.

Sunday morning

All busy at play (work):
Lennox exploring his transporting schema.
Caoimhe sorting her "pixies".
Timo sorting money into groups, tallying and calculating. Typical capricorn apparently. Will do a stocktake of our seeds tomorrow.

writing

Caoimhe loves to write.
This is her letter to Grandma and when she finished she said she would "put cages around the words so the words can't escape."

I like the imagery that Caoimhe's idea of words escaping evokes.

It lends itself to the imagination for a film scene or short film etc, where written words become animated and are trying to escape by means of dancing/jumping/running off the page... would maybe be a good way to describe some useless boring written information, a parody of bureaucracy for example; or non love letters, or ___

pesto

We have some delicious fresh walnuts (thank you very much Sara) and one of the things we did with them was to make pesto.
We harvested what is probably the last basil for the season and added garlic and salt.
This was done outside because sometimes to get food made it has to be in the places that meet everyone's needs, including the baby who loves being in the sandpit.
Timo pulverizes the roasted walnuts:



The pesto:



And one of the advantages of doing stuff outside is that we get to watch the local wildlife that we would miss if we were in the kitchen. This mataku-moana (white faced heron Ardea novahollandiae ) came along for a visit:

fishing at Martins Creek

First it was Timo having a quiet fish
with his self-made rod on show,

then Caoimhe turned up...

Tommi cat too,

and later that afternoon as the tide had gone out,
the kotoku came for a go.

cooking sweets

Pear tarte tatin for a change. Best one made yet.
Ingredients: 2 parts wholemeal flour, 1 part white, olive oil, salt, water. Pears and about a T of rice syrup and oil to caramelise, vanilla pods. Simply delicious.

Timo's creation and experimentation with melting ~ hot chocolate ~ can you tell that they have already had some?

postchildhood

crayons, glue, acrylic paint on canvas

Have since come across Dada. At the library on the new books shelf there was a book simply titled 'Dada' filled with dada artists. It is completely relevant. And provides more understanding to the idiotic schism between existence that is based on memetics and existence that is based on creativity. So much more to say about this...

Music and Mosh Pit

Timo enjoys creating music using the keyboard especially. He created this piece above.

Here's a pic from the mosh pit in the kitchen listening to the album Nevermind by Nirvana.

Dolomedes sp ~ Water Spider

dolomedes sp

To compliment an investigation of spiders, we found some water spiders lurking in the paddling pool. Timo observed and watched what they did with their prey, the mosquito maggots (wrigglers).

Timo's Creekside Cuisine

smelling


ready to eat
"... delicious!! It tastes like fried fish!!" ... beams with surprise and much enthusiasm for more.


Ingredients:

1 fresh cicada

Method:
Kill cicada in most humane way.
Pull off wings
Sizzle in a hot pan for a bit with a dash of olive oil and sprinkle of salt.
Bon apetit!

(Timo's idea came from his 1001 disgusting things book, he's not perturbed by any of the insect eating and is keen on trying snail next!)

Poem for Autumn

The Wordle created from our poem we created today.

The poem we (T, C and me) pieced together from our comments when playing under the Oak tree today, this day of autumn.

Autumn.
Catching leaves falling off the tree
It smells like Autumn
We see the brown leaves
We can hear the rustle of the leaves when the wind blows
The leaves feel soft but when you give them a rub they feel crunchy
The outside of the leaves feel smooth
They smell earthy
The leaves sound sizzly when Claude rolls in them
When the leaves all fall off
the tree will be naked!!
HA! HA! HA!

Pumpkin Harvest 2011

Our first pumpkin harvest for the year. We had a lot of fun searching for the pumpkins amongst the long overgrown vines and grasses. Timo used the bike trailer to carry them all as we moved around the garden hunting them out. Meanwhile, Caoimhe and Lennox played on the trampoline. Lennox can now climb the ladder. Timo discovered 2 pumpkins that had been eaten by something and from the teeth marks we concluded this to be rats. Despite our cat Tomasina, we are inundated with rats! Timo tried to lure them out with his ukelele (act inspired by the story RATS by Gavin Bishop with Rapscallion Claw who is like the Pied Piper) but it didn't work. I turned on the light one early morning (3am) to find a rat running across the curtain railing until it stopped at the end and stared at me. It had Mickey Mouse ears. Timo has been catching rats in traps (earning $1 per rat caught). It is maas season for rats apparently which means a major population explosion until they run out of food and the cycle begins again. We're wanting our cat to tighten up her act and get fierce because the rats are starting to eat out food inside if they can get at it - they are clever! And their favourite food seems to be pumpkin seeds.
Anyway, here are the pumpkins. Some of which have since been eaten by rats of course:






We measured the biggest and smallest. Diameter of the biggest pumpkin: 31 cm. Circumference - 83cm. Smallest, D - 10cm, C - 30cm

Paella at Martins Creek

Seafood and vegetable paella made by Jeremy outside on the open fire barbeque.


Timo and Caoimhe sit down to enjoy and eat.

Jeremy told us the story of how paella is traditionally eaten that went like this:

Paella was originally cooked by the workers in the fields as a lunchtime meal. They would hunt rabbit and wild birds and simmer them in the paella (pan) over an open fire with rice in olive oil and saffron.

Snails were sometimes used, and a few beans added for flavour and texture. It was traditionally eaten straight from the pan, each person using his own wooden spoon, or with hands I am sure according to our new neighbour Louisa from Brazil.