Our last days....

We have really been enjoying the last few days of the school holidays. I am very aware that these casual, lazy days will soon be over. In just few days, new routines will be made, stricter bedtimes will need to be adhered to.

This year, both of my children will be going to school.



Our farm stay was so much fun (as usual) we did not want to come home.

Soap making, apple, rhubarb and peach crumble, pink fairy dress ups and baby dolls, baby chickens, leg ham and salad sandwiches on fresh white bread, swimming pools, sandpits and ice-blocks, crochet, embroidery and vegetable gardens.



My cousin and I enjoyed many cups of tea and some lovely mummy chitchat. Despite the constant interruptions that come with seven children, a husband at home and a kitchen renovation in full swing, we happily found time to discuss motherhood, op shopping, expectations, crafting, family, homesteading, dreams, reality, gardening, blogging, farming and slowing down.



This morning (back at home) we went to see "Charlotte's Web" a fantastic production put on by a small local theatre company. I loved it! Lots of laughs and fun for all ages. Tonight we took the book off the shelf and we have started reading our first chapter book together.



But it's not all fun and games. While Mr Moo and the kids watched "Horton Hears a Who" on DVD this afternoon, I had other things on my mind.

• I brought in, folded and put away three loads of washing. I put on another load of whites to soak overnight.

• I unpacked our farm stay bag.

• I made three batches of bolognese sauce and three batches of taco mince to go into the freezer.

• I cleaned out the fridge and tried to find room for the three large boxes of fruit I bought on the way home from my cousin's farm. There is sauce making and preserving on the list for later in the week.

• I sorted out all of the school books (and supplies) ready to be covered and labelled tomorrow morning.

I am really looking forward to bed tonight.

Are you ready for school? Are your children rested?

Dreams for sale

Don't ask me why I was looking on this website at 6:20am this morning, I just was and this what I found.

This property for sale. This property is the farm where my mother grew up and where my some of happiest memories were formed. It is the farm that I have often referred too, and I know that I will do so again in the future.



I was not looking for this farm, so when the images came unexpectedly onto the screen, I cried and cried. Why? I'm not sure. For a lost time perhaps, for something that is gone forever. And for my Nana, who, at times, I miss desperately. The last time I saw these houses and this farm, was well over 20 years ago.

My Nana often passed this house as a girl, when she would go along with her parents, in a horse drawn buggy, to take their butter into town. She would look up at this house on the hill and tell her mother: "One day I'm going to live in that house". She made her dreams come true. She did it. Her and my grandfather, along with two of Nana's brothers bought the farm sometime during the 1950's. Eventually as the children came along my Nana and Grandad bought them out.

She then lived there for the next 40 years of her life.

The house in the top picture is the main farmhouse. Oh, the love between those walls. That house has such a hold over my heart, I can't even explain it. But Nana only lived there until I was about three years old. When my grandfather got sick, they moved up the hill to the cottage. That is the house in the second picture.

The cottage was actually where I spent all of my school holidays and where my our whole family came together every Sunday night for Nana's roast chicken dinner. It was here that I watched old movies and put on concerts with my cousins. Our cubbie houses were out the back of the cottage, ours (the three younger cousins) had a cubbie in the old dunnie and the boys (the two older cousins) had a cubbie in the old chicken coop. How Nana put up with all five of us at once, I'll never know. We laughed, we cried, we fought. We played a lot of cards and a lot of matchbox cars. There was often a green frog in the toilet and we had to reuse all of the wash water for Nana's rose garden. We are all very lucky to have experienced this kind of childhood.

Yes, those time are gone, and the house remains, but what I am looking for is no longer at that farm, it's in me.

Farm eggs and baked custard

Last week, when we were on the farm we swapped some of our homegrown passionfruit's and banana's for these fresh farm eggs, collected by Spunky Monkey on the morning that we left.

I had this pudding dish desperate to be used and this recipe book ready and waiting full of yummy goodness. I had wanted to make the baked custard recipe in the 'how to cook' section. I had never cooked one before, in truth I was a little scared of it.

But yesterday afternoon with big pot of chicken soup on the stove and just enough farm eggs left to make it, it seemed like to perfect time to try. The kids got involved and saw that there was a chocolate option. So that was the one we made. Baked chocolate custard. It was delicious and easy peasy. I think I might be making another one this week for Miss Moo Moo's birthday dinner.

I was happy with my new Gordon Ramsay pudding dish that I had bought a while back from 'Buyster'. It looked great coming out to the table, a definite improvement to my old pudding dish. And maybe even more important, it was easy to clean. Not at all like the quiche and baking dish incident that I had recently, I won't go into it, but lets just say, the dish was soaking in the sink for days!

I've been looking on 'Buyster' again today and after watching Jamie Oliver's cooking show in Spain last week, I am eyeing off this paella pan. What do you think?
Si, por favor.

Also............

Welcome to my newest follower, Melissa.

Birthday Bunny

We are back from the farm after delivering this special Birthday Bunny to Miss A for 4th birthday.

I only got around to finishing it off at lunchtime on Friday. My original plan to have it wearing a pleated white tennis skirt with matching embroidered tennis bag went out the window. With only hours to spare, we went with a cute Amy Butler lazy day skirt and a fancy brooch. Miss Moo Moo and baby Leisel certainly liked hanging out with the bunny for the afternoon. I hope Miss A likes it just as much.

Staying at the farm was fun, even though it was a little more crowded than usual. My amazingly calm cousin, mother of five, happily opened her house to eleven extra people staying over night. And this is after everyone else left the official birthday party held during the day.

We were one of the lucky ones sleeping over, happy in her nest.

Thank-you Karen, you are such an inspiration.

Off to the country

Mid year school holidays have started here. We are off to the country for a few days, but not before I get a chance to do two things:

Welcome my newest follower.... Ellie from petalplum.

and

Give a big thanks to the lovely Natalie from After Noah. My new clock has arrived in one piece. Thanks again for all of your help.

I hope you have a lovely week.

In the country

(this picture is from Emersonmade, I just can't get enough of their website at the moment - I dream daily of their beautiful fabric flowers. Dream, dream dream!)

I spent a lovely weekend on my cousin's farm with her and her beautiful family. Lush and green, autumn breezes, chickens free-ranging, cosy flannelette sheets, wild ducks, children giggling, roosters crowing, fresh farm mornings, real eggs.

It was so relaxing. I had lots of cuddles with the new little Miss M (5 months old) and was spoilt with an amazing dinner.

Jamie Oliver Chicken Caesar Salad and the best ever Potato Bake, all followed, much later, by Pear, Chocolate and Sticky Date Pudding. Delicious!

On Sunday morning we (just the Mum's) went into Ikea for breakfast and a bit of a shop. Needless to say that I went crazy in the fabric section. Fun, Fun, Fun.