Life is pretty good

Everything’s going along pretty well. Only 4 new Covid19 cases in Australia yesterday! Scott’s working a lot of overtime. Girls are settling back into school this week, learning at home of course. This is our new normal. Molly has stopped asking “what are we doing this weekend?”...which is also a bit sad.

(By the way, I’m not sure why some of my photos are not showing up on previous blog posts, when they were there a few days ago. I’ve got my computer guy onto it...)

Today I got some really positive feedback from my permaculture teacher, about my assessment. The design is good to go. Now I can get digging and planting, yay🌿🌱🌾🌻

The last couple of weeks I was busy recording some short videos of me playing a little something for Camerata’s 5@5 series on YouTube  (5 minutes of something beautiful at 5 o’clock each day). And I just heard that tomorrow they’re going to put up the video of Dave and I playing his song Rock Walls. I really love this song. It’s about Billywillinga, the place where we grew up, out in the bush, where my Dad built rock walls and the kangaroos mowed the lawn...

Dave recorded it at his house, then I added my cello bit here at our place and then Scott put it all together.

Charlie got to star in the introduction video

Molly has been drawing some more dogs.

And Emma has been under the table doing Reading Eggs on the iPad, while I help Molly with schoolwork.

And we saw this family of curlews on our bike ride the other day

Scott the builder/electrician

As part of my permaculture design project I’ve been planning to have some Japanese quails as part of the garden system, for the eggs and also for the excellent manure and compost. (I also like the idea of breeding them for the fresh organic meat part of it, but neither of us is prepared to slaughter a sweet little quail, not to mention the kids would be horrified if I served up Kevin or Fuzzy for dinner...)

I have been totally inspired by Kat Lavers (Melbourne permaculture teacher/designer and quail advocate) who I heard on a podcast last year, talking about how quails are a good alternative to chickens on smaller suburban blocks. They don’t need as much room to be free range, they lay more than chickens for the amount of feed they eat and they don’t make much noise (just a quiet kind of chirping). And their eggs are so darn cute.

At the start of all this Corona craziness, at the height of the mad panic buying, word started going around that we should probably all have chickens in the backyard, as well as fresh veggies growing everywhere. Which is pretty much what permaculture is all about so that’s kinda cool. So I thought Right, let’s get these quails now. Also, the kids are home all the time now so it could be a bit of an interesting homeschooling experience.

But Scott said, nope, he wasn’t committing to getting quails when we hadn’t even tasted quail eggs before. So then I rang around all the Asian groceries and googled quail eggs to see if I could find some to prove to Scott that they taste just like chicken eggs. But no luck finding them anywhere. Called the local produce store who said that yes they had 4 Japanese quail birds for sale but no eggs. When I asked what happens to the daily eggs that the quails lay, they said legally they can’t sell them so the guys just take the eggs home to eat. Bummer.
So I went to the store to take a peek at the quail and whaddya know, there was a little egg there in the straw. When no one was looking I opened the cage, swiped it and popped it in my bag.

A small crime perhaps, but what is one to do when one simply cannot locate quail eggs for sale???

Well, we took that teeny tiny egg home, fried it up and split it into 5 teeny tiny bite sized pieces. 
Delicious.

So then Scott started thinking and planning how to build a super awesome quail sanctuary with enough room for about ten quail to free range happily, that is completely predator proof (quail are a little more vulnerable than chooks) and also looks nice because it will be right outside the front window. And the build started yesterday...

(That would be Lady and the Tramp there on the floor, playing near the electric drill...😬)

Scott also found time this morning to teach Molly about electricity, with her electric playdough set she was given for her birthday a while ago. What a good dad.

And the dog found this pillow on the floor and just laid his head on it, like a human. So funny.

cookin’ and campin’

Woohoo, the Thermomix is back. All fixed and cleaned and computer updated so it can do even more fancy things. Celebrated by cooking a fancy chicken tofu quinoa dinner in it tonight -all three kids gobbled it up, no complaints, even got some compliments👍🏻

Inspired by all the kids on BTN doing Easter backyard camping Molly and Emma camped outside in the yard for 2 nights this week (Lucy wasn’t keen when her comfy bed was just metres away). They would have kept sleeping out there, probably forever, but it’s starting to get colder at night and I could hear Molly coughing through the second night so I wanted them back inside. Emma was devastated when we packed away the tent yesterday, because she “loves camping so so much.” In fact, a couple of weeks ago, when we quizzed the girls on what they missed most, Emma said camping.

One thing that has been worrying me lately is how much screen time the girls are getting now. It is now WAY WAY over the 2 hour limit we used to try and stick to... but there is only so much playing/drawing/reading/trampoline bouncing that they can do before wanting screens again, and I have stuff to do so I say yes. But I feel really guilty when I see their precious little faces in the glow of a device... (it’s mostly good quality educational type stuff, really it is!) 😬

Like, watching the live streaming of the koala leaf feeding at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. (Not the most riveting video but pretty cool to see the koalas actually awake and excited about their new fresh leaves.)

There has been quite a bit of tetchiness and bickering between the girls... it’ll be good to get back to school routines (at home of course) next week. But there have also been many beautiful moments when they play together and have a good laugh....

Here is Lucy, after I demanded she get off the computer and go run around and stretch her eyes. Nice try Lulu... looking at your phone in the hammock is not what I meant.

Sweet little moment between Emma and Charlie.

Easter

Happy Easter everyone. Our Lockdown Easter looked pretty much the same as our usual Easter...

Making baskets for the Easter Bunny to fill up with chocolate,

me staying up late on Saturday night to finish sewing the little treat (I have to do it -every year Molly asks hopefully if there might be another hand sewn Easter surprise... it is mostly for her, the other two don’t really care... last year it was 3 little chickens, this year I made quails)

then getting up early because the kids are just SO excited about the magic of chocolate appearing in the baskets,

an egg hunt in the backyard,

and chilling out for the rest of the day because we’re all so tired.

Spent hours making some pretty awesome LEGO creations together. Scott built a spaceship of course. Molly made some vet/zoo/animal shelters, and an animal spaceship. Lucy created a hedge maze for her people who live in a fantastic motor home. Emma built.... not sure what exactly... a house with a waterslide and some bunk beds...? And I made a Martian space station, complete with indoor vegetable garden, you know, so they can grow food to eat up there on Mars.

Easter Monday we had a lovely zoom chat with some of Scott’s family. So nice to see/hear them. Bit worried about those living in the US... I know old Trumpy says he’s doing a great job managing it 🤮 but the stats are pretty clear -the US has the highest number of cases and deaths worldwide. Not great at all...

Living life in the slow lane

After years of trying to bring more Slow Living into our lives, I think we might have finally achieved the goal... not doing much of anything, appreciating small things... is this what slow living looks like...?

Sweet potato flowers! What!?

 Beautiful butterflies everywhere... (also, caterpillars eating all my veg. Sigh.)

And internet meditation for kids

Scott and I had a fun Zoom chat with a few friends tonight... SO much fun! I really miss friends!!! Then we had Formal Friday dinner with the kids. Roast chicken and veg, tomato pasta and salad. And Grapetiser of course.  We all dressed up and insisted the children call us Mother and Father and that everyone eat nicely with manners. Ha ha. 

Kissed by the moon

I finally finished my permaculture assessment! Woohoo. 16 modules done, only 24 more modules to go... oh boy. Slow and steady...

Here is my Zone 1 Kitchen Garden design. Every single tree, shrub and vegetable has been carefully thought about, where is the best spot for each plant... I think maybe I spent way too long on it...

Tonight was a full moon and Lucy asked if she and I could go for a little moonlit ride in Herbie... it was fun except the moon kept hiding behind the clouds and we ran over a few cane toads. Gross. My lovely Lucy was in a good mood (except she started freaking herself out a little bit when she started talking about Twilight vampires).

More sisterly snuggles in the hammock.

Happy Online Birthday

So Lucy attended an online birthday party on Saturday. Her good friend Matilda had to cancel all the birthday plans and sleepover with Lucy and instead did a Google hangouts party kinda thing. We wanted to make her a present and drop it round to her place (just around the corner!) but it had to be something that could be washed so she knew it was completely virus free... oh the things to consider in the time of Coronavirus...

Matilda loves koalas so this is what Lucy and I came up with (Lucy did the embroidery herself):

We had a nice Sunday, riding around in Herbie, having a looksee at the park (nothing sadder than a closed playground) and making pizza for dinner.

Today we put up the hammock and the swing set that has been waiting to go out on the kerb for free giveaway. We have no room for it anymore now we have the massive trampoline. But we’re going to be hanging around at home for quite a while so we squashed the swing set into the area at the front, where visitors used to park...