And so far ...

Oliver arrived:

But while we were waiting for him:

We went to Yeppoon.

Roger and Kim visited Cairns

Jesse went through the temple.

 And then:

Roger and Kim went to Kuala Lumpur ...

and Cambodia.

 Then:

We all went to Cairns for Oliver's blessing. 

 And:

Jesse, Louisa and Kim went to Sydney.

Kim spent a few days in Cairns with Savannah & William while Kathleen was away.

And Louisa and Jesse left on a 5 week trip to South & Central America.

That's a whirlwind effort to include the big events - the precious events - the ones that made life richer.  Especially Oliver's arrival.

Animal tales

Savannah and William have guinea-pigs.  I'm so proud.

Guinea-pigs are the one and only rodent I can love.  We had fifty at one time at Far Away Farm, which now looks like this.

They pretty much ran free and we would catch the obviously pregnant ones and keep then in a shed till all danger of the males eating the babies had passed (truly disgusting I know - but that's the animal kingdom for you).

Earlier in Mt Isa I had a guinea-pig who had a broken leg.  Lee & Joan took it to the vet who was so bemused by the idea of putting a cast on such a tiny leg that he didn't even charge for it - the leg healed beautifully.  I was convinced for years that it could say my name and would call for me just before I arrived home from school. And by years I mean that I was an adult when Joan confessed she made the whole thing up!

For Tom's third birthday Susie made a treasure hunt leading to a box under Tom's bed.  The anticipation had been building for a while and I guess his imagination was running wild - he opened the box and was non-plussed - 'Oh it's a rat!' was all he said.  I hope he is happier about his latest addition to the family.

Of all the guinea-pigs we had when the kids were growing up I think Jesse's Princess is the most memorable - we borrowed Hercules, an appropriately named male, from Josh at Pine and had lots of beautiful babies.  Savannah & William have only girls so their herd should stay a manageable size.

Savannah read her train books to them (she's Tom's daughter through and through) on the first day and was a little unhappy that they wouldn't go to sleep after a story.  Apparently they are well loved and well handled.

And then on Sunday:

Ivy was visiting and playing around the hammock while we all enjoyed the only cool breeze to be had, when she suddenly jumped and scrambled over Louisa and Max to get to Alec.  Her terrified little face was cuter than she intended and she clung to Alec's leg then hurried over to Sam.  And all of this because the chooks cackled.

But Ivy hears chooks every day - and she's bold with chickens - she'll push them aside to collect eggs and chases them around the paddock. So Louisa said, "C'mon Ivy, let's go see those chooks."

They got close to the door of the pen when Louisa took a jump back and called out, "Hey, there's a big snake."

Actually there were two big carpet snakes and they were slithering around the nesting box.

Apparently Ivy can speak chook!  None of us could tell the difference between a panicked cackle and egg-laying cackle but Ivy certainly could.

William is One

And just like that William turned one.

There was cake,

which completely exhausted him,

a ride on the sky rail,

(Savannah has the selfie thing down pat.)

and ice-cream,

all while we were in Brisbane - we're so grateful for iphones and texting.

And most of all we're grateful this beautiful little boy is ours.

Waltzing Matilda

According to Jesse 'Waltzing Matilda' means to go travelling with a swag. (That's a lovely romantic notion so if anyone knows otherwise - better that you keep it to yourself and leave me to my dreams.)

And that's just what we did over the Anzac Day weekend.

Alec, Sam, Ivy, Roger, Jesse, Louisa, Max and I had three lovely days away in our swags. (Poor Peet was working and studying - making this the second big trip he's missed out on lately.  Tom & Kathleen had already taken my grandchildren and moved to Victoria.)   We drove in two cars to Glen Innes.  Roger insisted on taking walkie talkies and I confess that I mocked him at first but they were such a lot of fun - all manner of teasings and jokes were flying between cars.

First night was at Beardy Creek - a couple of k's outside of Glen Innes - cold, autumnal and practically empty. It was heavenly.  Crisp air, coloured leaves, morning mists, a trout stream nearby for fishing, a fireplace and all of it to ourselves.

Then it was on to Texas which was the motivation behind the trip - well the motivation was the Lee Kernighan song "Texas QLD 4385" - we just had to have a look.  Just quietly there's not much to recommend Texas but it is on a nice river and after a lot of hunting we managed to find a place to camp on a stock route away from the hundreds of camper trailers and caravans that had set up camp in the official camping areas.  Also a lovely camping spot - about twenty degrees warmer I think which meant we could stay up late talking and laughing around the fire and could keep the flap on the swags open at night to fall asleep watching the night sky.  And Ivy even had a bath - and her freshly bathed baby smell made the rest of feel cleaner even if it didn't do much for her.

Waltzing Matilda is definitely the way to go.

An Easter Feast

Easter may be my favourite holiday season - so little work involved - a four day weekend - perfect weather.  We do the usual - easter eggs, usually on Sunday morning - reading the story of the last week of Christ's life, though since we got half way through the story in five hours a couple of years ago I now clamp down on discussion of the scriptures while we read (as Tom said: "There'll be no feasting here!") - and a new book each to ensure everyone has something to read over the break.

This year we added an Easter Feast.  We had rabbit, baby pig, and a young deer in the freezer so we decided to have a 'game day'.  It turned into quite the day.

We started with a trip to the markets for all the extras. Then at around 12.30 in the afternoon we got stuck into filleting and carving up the meat, prepping the veges, setting the table and lighting fires.

And our first course started at about 3 pm - salt and pepper wild pork with a watercress and greens salad and sourdough.  I confess that my first bite of the pork was a bit hesitant - but it was fabulous.

This was Peet's plate - a much larger serve than most!

From there we just kept on going:

Cream and mustard rabbit stew with mash - I think this was my favourite course - at least it's the one I have a hankering to reproduce.

Louisa - aproned up for the afternoon.

Char grilled venison , fennel and pomegranate salad, wood fired pumpkin with nigella seeds and spiced yogurt, roasted quince.

And a bit of walking practice.

Seared and roasted venison with hummus and beetroot mash, mediterranean dukkah (from Sam's Your Inspiration at Home) and mint. I also really loved the hummus with the venison.

Rough mash, fennel, apple and red cabbage stew, salted and garlic roasted venison.

Wild pork ribs with potato wedges.

Baby spinach, brown butter pear and hazelnut salad with roasted wild pork and blackcurrant balsamic.

Flour-less chocolate cake with stewed rhubarb and whipped cream.

We finished eating at around 8pm - so that's eight courses and seven and a half hours cooking - brilliant way to spend Easter saturday. (Peet was there - just behind the camera most of the time.)