My morning in the caravan

First camping trip since winter. Just popped to spencer park for the first weekend away.
Great morning, am still in bed, morris happy on my knee, Aaron made me a coffee, reading the last bit of the paper- bliss.

Eli's Creativity

Eli has been plotting and planning his Father's Day present ever since Aunty Alison gave us two big stretched canvases for the boys. (thanks Alison they are awesome!). Eli said that he wanted to put pictures of Dad and him all over it to make a piece of artwork.

So we went through all our photos and picked out what he wanted. I got them printed. He then painted the canvas with a green, which he thought looked like DOC green (as Dad likes tramping so much).

Then he trimmed the pictures and stuck them on.

This morning Aaron was presented with his Father's Day presents. Last week on the actual day Aaron was away. So we decided we would celebrate it tomorrow. But as we are hopefully camping (weather dependant as the forecast is hideous) this was too big to take with us.

Well done Eli - I was very impressed.

Linked here to parties - go and check them out.

A bit of scrummy baking

After a weekend of painting I am sick of the sight of brushes, paint pots, plastic and mess. So Monday started the "get the house back into order" blitz. And being me if I can procrastinate and not finish anything then watch out. So yesterday procrastination or delaying tactics were in play big time.

So I sat and had a coffee and watched "Rachel Allen Bake" off Choice TV. I thought -surely I can do that. So I made the short pastry ( in the last few years I have been cheating and buying pastry) and then made the filling. It was the yummiest Lemon Slice I think I have had. A lot of slices are to have with a cup of tea like a biscuit - this is not so. This is more like a dessert slice. My experience of lemon slices is that they are really rich with lots of butter and cream to set it. Not this.

It is creamy but really light. Sweet but still having the tartness of the lemon shine through. Then because the oven was on and I was not sure if the kids would have this for dessert I made some chocolate brownie too.

One thing about Rachel Allen was she said to use glad wrap for the lining when blind baking. She said it would not melt. Well I tried it. It did not melt onto the pastry or the beans but it sure shrank and melted on itself. Never again!!!!

Pastry
200g flour
100g chilled butter cubed. Rub butter into flour. Add
1 T icing sugar (confectioners sugar)
break 1 egg into little bowl and whisk. Add half the egg to the pastry and with your hands just start mixing. Add the other half and bring the dough to the point where it is clumpy. Pile it onto some gladwrap and wrap it so that it is the shape of a saucer. Push the dough once wrapped and the clumps will stick together. Chill in fridge for 30 minutes.

Roll it  out and put it into your 20-25cm flan tin with loose bottom. Line the pastry with baking paper - put in your blind baking beans and bake in the oven for 20 min at 180oC. Remove from oven and brush with beaten egg to seal the pastry. Pop back in the oven for 2-3 minutes. (this stops the pastry getting wet and soggy). Remove from oven. Lower oven to 160oC and put the liquid filling in. Bake for 25-35min. It should still wobble when cooked as it will keep cooking on removal.

Filling
3 eggs and 125g castor sugar whisked together. Add the zest of 1 lemon, juice 3 lemons and juice of 1 orange. Then whisk in 150ml cream. Taste the filling and add 1 T castor sugar if you need it.

Serve when cool and sprinkle with icing sugar.

linking up here  

The new room

Before

After

Before

After

I have one big tip for everyone wanting to renovate an entire room - Don't do it by yourself!!! Now I tend to do these things when Aaron is away because, to be honest, he can be more hindrance than help. But if he is dressed in the right clothes etc then he is good at the muscle stuff - lots of rollering on the walls, taking furniture in and out etc.

After

Before

This project almost became too much for me and halfway through I wanted to give up. I cleaned, sanded and prepped the room on Friday night till 11pm, Saturday I just finished painting at 11.30pm and Sunday the entire project was finished, in between going to church - seeing Pop for fathers day, at 10.15pm.

The pictures do not show the black curtain up. I now still have to put up new shelving etc and redo the foam pad on the blanket box and make a pin board. So I have two rooms half done!!

Paint drying

Paint drying

Eli chose the colours months ago and has been pretty strong about that choice being a good one. So I went with it. Why not give him what he wants? He is now also asking for a new quilt to go with his room!
Linking up here

Gardening experimentation

I have just had a failed experiment and started a new one!. I hate brussel sprouts, icky, yucky. But my husband loves them. So I thought I would be really good and grow some for him this year. Four have already gone by the way of the chooks for extra fodder as they just were not growing where they were. Two looked like they were doing the right thing. But all of a sudden they have starting running to seed as the weather turned dramatically warm overnight. We went from winter to summer in a couple of days.
I have taken a photo of the only one worth while and that is after I have plucked off all the sprouts that had "sprouted" to seed. It is PATHETIC. I think they know that I do not like them???

The new experiment is making watering container for tomatoes. As we go away a lot in the warmer weather the glasshouse often dries out and hence the tomatoes get affected. I am trying a trick I have seen in other places. If you put a bottle into the ground as deep as it can go then you water the roots rather than water landing on leaves and risking rust etc. So I tried the first one today with a little bottle and think I will continue. The idea is the roots will go down deeper as the water is down deep which means it should not get so badly affected with the odd "dry out".

Add caption

 1. Get a plastic drink bottle and punch holes in the bottle cap. I punched 5 holes in but think next time it would be 3 as the water drained through quickly

 2. Chop the bottom of the bottle, make sure the cap is screwed on well

 3. Push down into the ground so that about an inch of the bottle is above the surface of the soil. Hopefully watch those tomatoes grow!!

Linking up here

Bean Bag Buddies

This morning when the boys started watching TV they got the bean bag out and I heard Jakob say "Let's be bean bag buddies". I thought that was cute.

My tools of trade when Aaron goes away

I am blogging as I am procrastinating. It is 8.30am and I could paint for for an hour before church but I am exhausted. Yes Aaron is away for work and so I have done what I normally do and embarked on another project. It took till 11pm on Friday to prep, clean, sand etc, then last night I finished painting at 11.30pm and I am only halfway through. I feel like stopping but that would be a disaster - I am not going to but my body and brain want to!!

So I am having a coffee, making the boys french toast for breakfast (basically doing massive procrastination) and then I might get some painting in before church. Oh I am so looking forward to this being done.

A new strawberry bed

I have reclaimed the last bit of lawn that I am allowed. But all in a good cause - a new strawberry bed. I had forgotten how much hard work it is to dig up turf, do edging etc. This garden is 100% eco friendly, recycled and upcycled. The bricks are from various chimneys that came down in the earthquakes, The edges of the paths were from tiles already in the garden and just used in a better format. Then I dug out some of the chook pen and put all the lovely stuff on top of a pile of shredding I had done. Added some compost with loads of worms. A leftover 1.5 metres of weed matting from another job and viola a bed ready for a scrummy strawberry summer. (not to say sore bottom muscles from all the digging and brick moving.)

I still have to finish digging up the bed behind the strawberry patch, but at least it's edging is in too and as it will be a potato patch it is too early anyway.

The chooks are super happy as they have a new lawn for their run. I love the way they recycle things for me.

Tea for family time

Today when Aaron came home we all had tea. I really felt like an English tea but did not have the omph to get all the food done. It was later than it should have been - 5.15pm. We had Earl Grey tea and fresh pikelets (for those of you who are American this is drop scones), with three jams and whipped cream.
The boys and I had been busy outside, I finished removing the turf for my new strawberry bed and was hungry and exhausted. Aaron is away for work over the weekend. I thought tea would be good as a family catch up. It meant I could go and have a rest for an hour and now I am preparing a late dinner.

We all enjoyed it immensely.

My Pikelet recipe 
This makes quite a thick mixture which results in lovely puffy pikelets
1 C milk with 2tsp white vinegar in it to sour it

In a bowl put 2 C flour, 6 Tablespoons sugar, 2tsp Baking Powder, 1tsp Baking soda, pinch salt. Sift it. Into that put 2 eggs and the milk. Mix to a smooth batter. Melt 2 Tablespoons butter and mix in. Cook on a gridle or heavy based fry pan. Spoon on and when bubbles appear flip them over. Eat warm.

Jakob cooking the Pikelets

Gap Filler Project

Awesome gap filler where our Church used to be

Well our church is now a Gap Filler Project.  For those of you that don't know - project gapfiller is a non profit organisation trying to pretty up some of the blank spaces left behind after the building sites have been cleared of Earthquake debris. Our church was one of the many buildings that were badly broken in the September 2010 earthquake. It was pulled down a while ago and lately it has been brightened. First the paintings went up and then yesterday a pile of people where there putting in and spray painting the tiles. It looks fantastic. So much better than walking past stones to get to the church hall where we now meet.

Aaron and I took Sunday school and considered using the gap filler site but in the end we went to the park as there were tables there. It was an amazing end of winter day at 21oC. Spring is only 6 days away (officially). Aaron took the lesson in the band rotunda and then I took the activity using the two tables. It was a great morning.

Recycled super soft Angora into new born beanie

Well, today was sunny and spring is definitely on the way. In autumn I bought a 100% angora (rabbit) jersey. Unpicked it, washed it and reballed it. (if you click on those words you will see it was not such an easy job). Then I knitted a new born to 3 month old hat. It has been sitting in my knitting bag ever since. Not sewn up and no tassel. Finally last night I pulled it out and finished it. Why is it that when winter is on the way out that I get around to all the winter jobs?

This is a pattern that I developed years ago from an idea of the sleeve of a jersey I made (it had the ribbed look). In the last few years I can see that lots of commercial patterns are using this kind of ribbing too. Just when you think you are original!!

Anyway I now have bundles of wool, knitting needles and patterns all kitted up with this supersoft angora.
I will be listing it in my shop soon, I just want Alex to model it for me first.

Today I have been busy reclaiming more of the garden for my vege patch. Looking good but would like it to happen faster!!

Happy Chooks

I am loving the sunshine we have been getting. I have been thinking that the chooks could do more work for us in the garden. So my sister Anna gave me some old fencing she had. I put it around the dug out strawberry bed for the chooks to fossick in. Jakob got all uptight that the chooks would escape from it, Morris barked and barked, even when I put him inside, he was just too excited about the chooks being where they should not.
The chooks loved it!!! (But I did not own up to Jakob that two escaped in the two hours:). I will have to keep an eye on them and not just leave them in it). Anyway chooks are great at clearing out and fertilising gardens. When I look at the photo I realise that I it is a bit lackadaisical so will fix it up a bit tomorrow. So if the weather stays fantastic then I will fence another area off. Am starting to get the excited, ready for planting feeling!!!.

I had a lovely couple of hours out in the sun after work, starting mulching my big pile of clippings.