Kids eh! Here I am trying to do bits online and Harriette is chirping in my ear every 3 mins 'can I have the cable?' - the broadband modem cable, as we are both on the computers. She has found a 'fan fiction' website that is basically stories online. We have an ongoing battle about this. Her argument being it's just the same as reading a book, mine being it can't be good for her brain, or her eyes, to be in front of the screen for hours each day. I sort of see what she means but I am much happier seeing her with her nose in a proper book than clicking through pages on the web. It has one advantage though, a threat of computer ban will get her doing almost anything!! She even sets her alarm for 5.15am so she can go on the damn thing prior to school. I thought I had put a stop to that but when her alarm woke us up at that time on Thursday we were not impressed. Especially as Eric had to get up to turn it off as Harriette was staying at a friends!! Harriette seems to require less and less sleep, she is almost at the stage where she sleeps less than us, reading until 11pm some nights and up before 6am most days. I wish I was like that. I'm usually ready for bed by 9pm though I do read a lot.
I am in one of those sanctimonious, 'aren't I good' moods, - and I ache! I have spent over 7 hours in the veg plot today. For those of you who know what I am talking about, I have been working on the left hand bed as you look down there. Where I have had topsoil and horse poo delivered and have worked different bits of the plot at different times it is on different levels. Saddle, as you may remember, was in there a week or so ago, and several sheep were recently chased out so they had made a veritable mess! I spent today firstly weeding, particularly fiddly as the weeds were mainly around the carrots and coriander, which are still quite small plants. Then I barrowed about 12 loads of soil from one part of the plot to the other. When I was on my knees with exhaustion Eric came and shifted the rest of it. I then planted seedlings I bought on Friday: 85 red onions, 40 silverbeet, 40 spinach and 35 cauliflower plants. I have more to go but ran out of time. In recent weeks I have also planted broccoli, cabbage, brocoflower and broad beans in the same bed. There are full grown leeks and cabbages there as well as the afore mentioned carrots and coriander. It actually looks like a veg plot and not a weed bed for a change. I may take weekly photo's a.to incentivise me and b.to have a record of the progress.
We also moved all the sheep into Claire and Ian's races (pens and run) today and Eric binned them (the sheep not Claire and Ian, just to clarify, as it didn't read quite right)up in the woolshed this evening. Tomorrow we plan to dag (cut poo and fleece from their rear end), drench (give medicine orally to fight all the worms etc), tag, vaccinte and dock the lambs, pedicure the older ones and give them a shot of vitamins. Eric will be the one throwing the animals around so he will be seriously aching tomorrow night!! The girls have been warned it's all hands on deck.
I have started compiling shopping lists for Mom and Daddy. The IKEA website has been perused for hours and the list sits next to the computer. Ditto Lakeland and Screwfix. And then there are those essentials, custard creams (though Cheryl posts us a parcel on a regular basis - Bless her), chocolate Hobnobs (last ones from Juliets parents have just about run out), and solid blocks of coconut cream which you cannot get here at all. I am sure I shall be adding to the list daily. I just hope Mom and Daddy find the time to get everything. The person buying their house wants to complete by mid-September!!!
On the day Mom and Daddy got their residency the geeses started laying. But what does one do with goose eggs, except make omlettes? They are very rich. When I can get the modem cable back I will look online!! We had planned to look at the fencing around the tree stand in order to confine them but I can't see us having time this weekend. On the subject of eggs I am at my wits end over the chickens. They have never laid well and I can't find a reason why. Robyns chooks are laying and during the course of today I reckon I have heard 6 of Claire's chooks lay. Ours are laying - nothing!! I popped into a chicken farm where we bought the last few chooks and asked the women there what I could do and she was no help beyond saying they should start next month. We have decided to move the chooks into the orchard. Just need Eric to build another chook house so may have to wait until the summer, unless Daddy you want a little project while your staying here. Mind you, if you do, there is the little job of the Range Rover!!!!!!
I am listening to National Radio. Well listening is an exageration. In fact I should turn it off, it's like listening to Radio 2 30 years ago - but worse!!!
Short break to put some CD's on!! Brooke Fraser - much better.
I have a yearning for the chocolate cheesecake I made last weekend. I sent half of what was left back with Steve and Fiona and eeked the rest out over the following 3-4 nights. I was actually really impressed with myself, I am usually one for having a scoop of leftover goodies every time I open the fridge but I was very restrained this week!! And I think it actually improved with age! The recipe has the honour of being the first one to go into the recipe journal Juliet bought me for my birthday and now going onto blog so you can all share it. It is actually supposed to be made with toblerone but I made it with milk chocolate.
Use a 22cm tin. Make a base with melted butter and a cup of crushed choc biscuits.
Beat 500g Philadelphia cheese for 2 minutes then add 1/2 cup castor sugar, 200g melted choc and 1/2 cup thickened cream.
Chill overnight.
Try it. I love chocolate and cheesescake so you can see why it appealed to me.
The weather has been - fantastic. In fact Harriette and I have caught the sun today. Harriette through playing netball. Today was the LAST WEEK OF NETBALL - HURRAY!!! That means we get our Saturdays back! I even had to pull out a pair of summer 3/4 length pants it was so warm today. And they said on the radio today we are set for a warm spring to follow the incredibly mild winter we've had. Just hope the summer is good too. Eric has cleaned the pool this week and it now looks something like swimable - if you ignore the temperature! How's yours looking Richard????
Well as usual the weather means I've run out of things to say. I will now drag my weary body to bed to read my book The Torment of Others by Val McDermid - very good, quite Prime Suspect-like. Night night.Oh I forgot to say, Richard has some calves for us so the Cedar Lodge population is set to increase further this week. Photos - I promise.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Residency
Had an email from daddy this morning. It started like this:
Yes!!!
...written in very big letters on a red background. They have had a call from NZIS to say they have been accepted. I have tears in my eyes as I type. I am sooooo relieved. Partly because we want them here (obviously) but I think moreso because I know they so desparately want to be here and they (Daddy in particular I think) would have been devastated if they had been turned down. They have a buyer for the house so hopefully it won't be long before they are here
YES! YES! YES!!!!!
Yes!!!
...written in very big letters on a red background. They have had a call from NZIS to say they have been accepted. I have tears in my eyes as I type. I am sooooo relieved. Partly because we want them here (obviously) but I think moreso because I know they so desparately want to be here and they (Daddy in particular I think) would have been devastated if they had been turned down. They have a buyer for the house so hopefully it won't be long before they are here
YES! YES! YES!!!!!
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Lamb that tastes like hay.
Ah, the end of a weekend. Actually for me it's been a long one as I took Thursday and Friday off sick, sinusy, headache and just shattered really. I'm not usually one for taking sick time for such vague-itys but it did me the power of good.
No blog for awhile but not a lot to report really. Alice has a new lamb, borrowed for calf club this year from a local farmer. He wouldn't let us buy it so we get to feed it for 4 months and then return it after Alice has trained it (!) and shown it at Ag. Day, or calf club as it is more commonly known. This photo was taken today.
I did take some the day it arrived but they did not come out well. You may recognise Meg from the Hukajet photo's. Fiona and Steve, Meg and Amber, came up from Taupo today for Sunday roast and we have had a nice day. Fiona is disgustingly fit (said as I tinge green with envy) and cycled the first 20km here ("only 20km, not enough to break out in a sweat"!!) and was collected en route by Steve. I had planned to eat around 2.30 - 3pm. You know I'm going to say we didn't aren't you! Well you'd be right. I seem to loose an hour this morning. I was busy baking and cooking and was just thinking it must be about 11am and I should put the meat in, when I looked at the clock and saw it was 12.15pm!!!!!!!! Bugger. I resigned myself to a 3-4pm meal. Now dinner was a little unusual as Eric decided to try Hugh F.W.'s lamb cooked in hay. Well the hay was retrieved from the barn and Eric had prepared it all before popping into town to feed the dogs in the pound and collect pig food from the veg shop. When I took it out, at the end of normal lamb cooking time Eric said it did not feel very hot, and what temperature did I have it on. The normal 180 degrees. Well no. It was supposed to be on 220. Oppps. So it when back in, on a high temperature - and we ate at 5pm.
Unfortunately it was not one of my 'everything from the garden type of meals' (the chickens have decimated the cabbages and bloody Saddle, he is overdue for removal, got in the veg plot last week, tramped on everything and ate all my silverbeet. I won't say who left the electric fence off but he's sitting not 3 feet away!!!!!) but I think they appreciated it nonetheless. The meal was topped off with apple crumble, chocolate cheesecake, chocolate fudge cake and ice cream. no-one had room for coffee afterwards!!! As to the verdict on the lamb in hay, I wouldn't bother with it again, it tasted of all hay and no lamb. I can get that from just standing in the haybarn and breathing deeply through my nose.
We have bought a DVD player. I know, I know, we don't watch TV. Well we do, and we don't. We now have 2 TV's, an English one to watch videos on once in a blue moon, and a NZ one given to us prior to the World Cup, to watch rugby on. Apart from rugby Eric and the girls watch about 5 episodes of Antiques Roadshow a year, but that's it - honest. Now we all know that before long videos will stop being made so any films we want now have to be in DVD format, and all we would buy is the Harry Potter movies. Well I bit the bullet and used my Flybuy's points for a DVD player. So, despite not watching TV, in principle......Well the girls bought the HP3 DVD between them from their birthday money. I got it home, from the Warehouse in Hamilton, and the woman had put the wrong DVD's in the box. Matamata Warehouse would not change them so I decided to buy another copy and take the other one back when I was next in Hamilton. According to their computer they had 8 copies in stock. Between helpful lady in shop, H, A and I we turned the store upsidedown but could not find them. We left and headed for the video store to hire the movie. Now while there I sucumbed and also rented 'In My Father's Den'. What a fabulous movie. I must admit it took awhile to get into the story, chopping around all over the place and for awhile I was thinking 'what is this about?' but when it came together it was worth the wait. A fabulous movie, brilliant plot, excellent acting and superb photography. Set in NZ by the way. Oh and Mathew MacFadden is definately thinking woman's crumpet! Carol you'd love it. (I wrote that before adding the bit about Mathew MacFadden by the way!)And the music is great, Patti Smith and Canteloube's Bailerio. The latter I have played over and over since watching the movie.
We have had some fabulous weather - and some rain, of late. What a mild winter it has been. Signs of spring are definately in the air with rhododendron trees and daffodils in flower. The white arum lilies were sadly lacking through the winter though, maybe it wasn't cold enough for them.
Weather talk means I've run out of things to say. Night. Night.
No blog for awhile but not a lot to report really. Alice has a new lamb, borrowed for calf club this year from a local farmer. He wouldn't let us buy it so we get to feed it for 4 months and then return it after Alice has trained it (!) and shown it at Ag. Day, or calf club as it is more commonly known. This photo was taken today.
I did take some the day it arrived but they did not come out well. You may recognise Meg from the Hukajet photo's. Fiona and Steve, Meg and Amber, came up from Taupo today for Sunday roast and we have had a nice day. Fiona is disgustingly fit (said as I tinge green with envy) and cycled the first 20km here ("only 20km, not enough to break out in a sweat"!!) and was collected en route by Steve. I had planned to eat around 2.30 - 3pm. You know I'm going to say we didn't aren't you! Well you'd be right. I seem to loose an hour this morning. I was busy baking and cooking and was just thinking it must be about 11am and I should put the meat in, when I looked at the clock and saw it was 12.15pm!!!!!!!! Bugger. I resigned myself to a 3-4pm meal. Now dinner was a little unusual as Eric decided to try Hugh F.W.'s lamb cooked in hay. Well the hay was retrieved from the barn and Eric had prepared it all before popping into town to feed the dogs in the pound and collect pig food from the veg shop. When I took it out, at the end of normal lamb cooking time Eric said it did not feel very hot, and what temperature did I have it on. The normal 180 degrees. Well no. It was supposed to be on 220. Oppps. So it when back in, on a high temperature - and we ate at 5pm.
Unfortunately it was not one of my 'everything from the garden type of meals' (the chickens have decimated the cabbages and bloody Saddle, he is overdue for removal, got in the veg plot last week, tramped on everything and ate all my silverbeet. I won't say who left the electric fence off but he's sitting not 3 feet away!!!!!) but I think they appreciated it nonetheless. The meal was topped off with apple crumble, chocolate cheesecake, chocolate fudge cake and ice cream. no-one had room for coffee afterwards!!! As to the verdict on the lamb in hay, I wouldn't bother with it again, it tasted of all hay and no lamb. I can get that from just standing in the haybarn and breathing deeply through my nose.
We have bought a DVD player. I know, I know, we don't watch TV. Well we do, and we don't. We now have 2 TV's, an English one to watch videos on once in a blue moon, and a NZ one given to us prior to the World Cup, to watch rugby on. Apart from rugby Eric and the girls watch about 5 episodes of Antiques Roadshow a year, but that's it - honest. Now we all know that before long videos will stop being made so any films we want now have to be in DVD format, and all we would buy is the Harry Potter movies. Well I bit the bullet and used my Flybuy's points for a DVD player. So, despite not watching TV, in principle......Well the girls bought the HP3 DVD between them from their birthday money. I got it home, from the Warehouse in Hamilton, and the woman had put the wrong DVD's in the box. Matamata Warehouse would not change them so I decided to buy another copy and take the other one back when I was next in Hamilton. According to their computer they had 8 copies in stock. Between helpful lady in shop, H, A and I we turned the store upsidedown but could not find them. We left and headed for the video store to hire the movie. Now while there I sucumbed and also rented 'In My Father's Den'. What a fabulous movie. I must admit it took awhile to get into the story, chopping around all over the place and for awhile I was thinking 'what is this about?' but when it came together it was worth the wait. A fabulous movie, brilliant plot, excellent acting and superb photography. Set in NZ by the way. Oh and Mathew MacFadden is definately thinking woman's crumpet! Carol you'd love it. (I wrote that before adding the bit about Mathew MacFadden by the way!)And the music is great, Patti Smith and Canteloube's Bailerio. The latter I have played over and over since watching the movie.
We have had some fabulous weather - and some rain, of late. What a mild winter it has been. Signs of spring are definately in the air with rhododendron trees and daffodils in flower. The white arum lilies were sadly lacking through the winter though, maybe it wasn't cold enough for them.
Weather talk means I've run out of things to say. Night. Night.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
More nocturnal ramblings!
But don't worry he had a driasabone on this time - it was raining (nothing else just the coat!). Woke at 2am and Eric says 'I think Freckles has started'. Needless to say I couldn't hear a thing. He was adamant she was lowing. Luckily she was in the top corner of the front paddock so he didn't have far to go to check on her. He came back announcing she had just had a heifer calf!! It was much smaller than the other days calf so we were worried, in view of her enormous size, that she may have another one on board. This ensured we did not get back to sleep for HOURS!
These are piccies taken this afternoon.
Carol's bull calf sunning himself:
And introducing:
We need names. We are leaving the bull calf to Carol to name but I want a pretty girlie name for Freckle's baby. I like Daisy or Maisie. On discussing names at supper Harri said 'Jester because the mark on her face looks like a jesters hat' (?) To which Eric replied, muttering 'Looks like a target to me' Will he ever change?
On the subject of names Carol, I was going to follow your comment with "Jim Bowen?" Bully didn't mean a thing to me. Eric then explained and pulled out Stan's (?) Peter Kaye tape with his take off of Bullseye. Bully - Sorry No!
Eric is struggling and I insisted he take the day off uni today. He has pulled a muscle in his good leg and as a result his bad leg is playing up. I think he probably favours the good leg most of the time and now he can't the bad leg is taking more strain than usual. You may be thoroughly confused, I know what I mean. The consequence is he can hardly get around at the moment. I didn't remember this at 2am though else I'd have gone and investigated Freckles myself - honestly.
Now George, Carol etc. Less talking about 'shooting up' please, this is a family site!!!!
Off to get much needed beauty sleep.
These are piccies taken this afternoon.
Carol's bull calf sunning himself:
And introducing:
We need names. We are leaving the bull calf to Carol to name but I want a pretty girlie name for Freckle's baby. I like Daisy or Maisie. On discussing names at supper Harri said 'Jester because the mark on her face looks like a jesters hat' (?) To which Eric replied, muttering 'Looks like a target to me' Will he ever change?
On the subject of names Carol, I was going to follow your comment with "Jim Bowen?" Bully didn't mean a thing to me. Eric then explained and pulled out Stan's (?) Peter Kaye tape with his take off of Bullseye. Bully - Sorry No!
Eric is struggling and I insisted he take the day off uni today. He has pulled a muscle in his good leg and as a result his bad leg is playing up. I think he probably favours the good leg most of the time and now he can't the bad leg is taking more strain than usual. You may be thoroughly confused, I know what I mean. The consequence is he can hardly get around at the moment. I didn't remember this at 2am though else I'd have gone and investigated Freckles myself - honestly.
Now George, Carol etc. Less talking about 'shooting up' please, this is a family site!!!!
Off to get much needed beauty sleep.
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