Welcome Spring

It has been cold and stormy here for most of the past week, but before that I took some photos of our garden. It has only taken me a couple of weeks to upload them. :P
Here's our little peach tree in blossom:

It has many more flowers now.

Our nectarine tree has many more fruits than last year, though none are ripe yet.

 

And spread throughout the garden there are still many nasturtium flowers ranging in colour from dark red to almost white.

 



Really we have let the garden go this season. It is overgrown with wild rocket and random weeds. It still gives us food, namely chillies, parsley and the occasional onion (although the onions, too, are flowering right now).

Welcome Spring.

-Polly

Muddy Puddles

Yesterday evening I asked E, "What was the best thing about today?"
Her answer, "The zoo."
"What was your favourite thing at the zoo?"
"Walking."

She also enjoyed seeing the animals, especially the rhino which came right up to the fence to see us. The zebras are still a favourite. I thought the baby tortoises were cute.

It was raining a lot. We got wet. We had fun. E and her cousin jumped in a big, muddy puddle.

 

Just like Peppa Pig. Good thing they had their boots.

 



-Polly

Nectarine Blossom

Whilst we still have another month of Winter and I have certainly felt the cold this year, our little nectarine tree is already welcoming Spring.



I love to see the first blossoms of the season in our own backyard. :)

-Polly

Playground

We finally got some nice Autumn weather!
Yesterday, E and I hopped on the bus for a day out. We had lunch in the markets. We had a quick look in an op-shop where E bought a book and a basket. Unfortunately, we didn't get to the playground which is E's favourite thing to do.
So today, even though we were all a little tired after E's soccer class, we went for a drive and had a picnic lunch and a long play on the playground.

There were plenty of things to climb on and explore:

This cool cubby:

And a slide:

It was overcast all day and we thought it might rain. It didn't, which was fine by us.

-Polly

Green Garden

Happy St Patrick's day. I don't have anything holiday-related to share, but I do have a 'green' post for you. :P

I love how the garden is refreshed after only one day of rain.

I had recently pulled out what was left of last year's silverbeet and left a couple of roots behind. Now we have nice, fresh silverbeet without having to replant.

We have a rockmelon that seems about ready to be picked. Not bad for a store-bought melon that we buried as 'compost'.

The second lot of chillies are fruiting at the moment (we've had jalapenoes for a while now). It's always nice to have fresh chilli to add some kick to a meal. We had a big, red one chopped up in our tacos last night.

I love Autumn. :)

-Polly

Mud Puddles and Raindrops

Yesterday, we finally got a rainy day! Above is a picture of E wearing my old slippers to check out the mud puddles. Last Winter's gumboots are 2 sizes too small.

To take advantage of our first rainy day in what seems like forever, we did some 'rain drawings'.
We got out the washable markers and drew pictures onto ordinary copy paper.

We placed the pages one at a time onto a large tray and took them out into the rain.

Then we brought them back inside to dry,

And that's how we made our rain drawings.

There seems to be no more rain today, but the weather is slightly cooler and the sky is still overcast. We spent the morning in the backyard, E playing on her swings and slide, both of us simply enjoying some much-needed outside time.

-Polly

Back in the Garden

We finally got a cloudy day this week and decided to spend it out in the garden. Our garden had been a little neglected with all the hot weather, but mostly kept alive thanks to the reticulation. There were plenty of weeds to pull and veggie beds to prepare. It is officially Autumn after all. We still have a few veggies that we can use and we picked a zucchini and a bunch of beetroot. We still have chillies and parsley that we pick as we need them.

The flowers that we planted make the garden look nice and bright and they attract a lot of bugs.

E was singing one of her favourite songs this morning (The Itsy Bitsy Spider) and so we went outside again to look at some real spiders and their webs. There have been a couple of decent-sized spiders living in one of the veggie beds for some time now. I would have pulled all the celery already if it weren't for them. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of baby spiders now, too, but they are way too small to photograph with our current equipment.

Sorry for the weirdly focussed pictures. I'm still getting used to my new phone-camera, but it does take higher quality photos than my last one.

-Polly

Corn

Here is some sweet-corn that we grew in our garden this year:

Yesterday we had a "corn" themed day. Some of our corn was left until it was dry and I set these out on a tray for E to explore, with the cobs, husks and silk all separated.

She discovered that she could pull the dried kernels off of the cob.

I introduced her to dry polenta (ground corn) and we made some cornbread using a recipe from "The Joy of Vegan Baking".

E made some corn collages using little squares of crepe paper.

We glued on some real corn husks to finish them.

Some of the husks were also used to make this paper flower:

I thought this might be a good theme for the beginning of Autumn (according to the calendar). According to the weather outside, it's still very much Summer.

-Polly

Tea Party

We've all had the flu this week, so a lot of our time has been spent "camping out" in the lounge-room (on an inflatable mattress and lots of pillows) and watching tv or sipping hot citrus water and resting. It's not all bad. We don't just sit and watch the telly very often, so it's given us a chance to learn new things from how to make Chinese food to flaws in Newtonian physics and of course the all-important lessons from Dora the Explorer.

I do have some activities to share from before we all got crook, but haven't uploaded the photos yet. Today I'll just share some pictures of E hosting a tea party for her dolls. This was a couple of months ago now, but I don't think I've posted the photos before (sorry if I have).

I hope everyone else is well... and keeping cool. It was 42°C here yesterday and it's not forecast to get any cooler for the next couple of days. Good thing we have that air-conditioner to help us stay comfortable inside.

-Polly

Things that make me Smile

Inspired by Kaylah's post over at The Dainty Squid, here's 10 things that are making me smile today (in no particular order).

1. The lovely, cool breeze that lets me have the house open for once.

2. This freshly-picked basket of parsnips from our vegetable garden.

3. E playing happily with her train set.

4. Actually, watching E play with any of her things. She's gaining so much coordination and language skills and all that stuff that kids do. And I'm so happy that she seems to be over her horrible tummy bug.

5. The marigolds that are flowering in our garden. They're so bright and cheerful!

6. Having watched E and her dad build a robot together. And then playing with it.

E did really well identifying gears and placing components. She'll be building robots on her own in no time. :) Her new saying is "That cool robot!"

7. Parcels in the mail. Doesn't E look so sweet in her new dress?

Thanks Maple :)

8. A letter from my sister.

9. This little one kicking me in the belly.

10. Finally getting around to making new bunting for the living room.

I used last year's local map-book. I usually make fabric flags, but this paper one was so easy and looks pretty, too. E was inspired to make a 'flag picture' where she pasted triangular pieces of wrapping paper onto a piece of card and drew in lines for the string.

Having not posted in a week, I certainly had a lot to share. What's making you smile today?

-Polly