Eggstra, eggstra!

T'was the night before Easter and all through the house...

not a creature was stirring eggcept Mother who may have been assembling roughly crafted Easter baskets for the slack teens....

 and crawling about the patio with a bowl of talcum powder to give the lady next door something to ponder.

 The feathery girls down the back have been eggceptionally prolific of late so there were many eggs...

to be boiled and dyed and consumed. Is it just me or does this egg look like Dr Lala just removed an organ from somebodies innards?

We like to buff ours up with a bit of paper towel and olive oil to bring  out the colour in their cheeks.

Of course there is still an egg hunt although the older ones had to be suppressed from finding them all straight away whilst Shorty Divine ran very fast from shrub to succulent in a frenzy of egg gathering.

The counting of the twenty eggs  is of vital importance eggspecially as we like to hide and rehide them until they get a bit crushed and soft. Curiously, after finding 120 eggs, there always seem to be just twenty in the kitty. Eggs here are not kept by individuals but always donated to the egg kitty to be divided up later. We follow Mother's Rule of Eggstrapolatory Eggodynamics-  the total number of eggs is always divisible by the total number of eggsplorers. Even Steven!

Lala suggested we make Easter potatoes too. After all they are ovoid so they too can be eggsamples of eggdom. 

This cut down on peeling time and made for rather pretty spuds.

They lost their  colour but tasted great with some bush herbs and posh salt.

 There's that pyrex bowl again. I just can't use it enough!

Hope you all had a restful and pleasant Easter with no chocolate headaches.

Op Shop Stop and Drop

There hasn't been enough of the opping lately. After a quick drop there was a trickle of karma. 

We found was a pretty shaped basket for nestling some woolly balls in. 50 cents!

Ha, ha, ha. Hee, hee, hee. Little red jugs don't I love thee. These ones have West German markings underneath but are quite fine boned.

I really bought them for their shapely bowls at the top. $2 each!

Red Riding Hood, here, has taken to wearing all the brothers' hand me down cut offs. She is a bit of a grunge monkey, me thinks, which I kind of like. The occasional skirt or twinge of fashionista might be nice for the mother but she is determined to be a little boho princess. 

The feathered ladies have been in overproduction mode and I've been off the baking (except for the ever present pikelets) so we have been walking in the Spring sunshine and dropping eggs of at the neighbours. Noice!

Changes afoot

Just for a change we had a homemade pizza picnic in front of Toy Story.Lala felt like a change too so she cooked in her roller derby ensemble. Bananas have started to reappear in the fruit bowl so their prices must have changed as well.
There have been other changes afoot. Long ago this rock was the photo rock at a local park where we had to pick the little tackers up and squat about six of them on there with room to spare. They used to gaze up at the summit of the rock trying to judge whether to climb the North or West face. Now they just step onto it.
This has gone under the house to be passed onto a new baby coming to new parents this month.

It had just become a jumble sale under there and Divine Ms M was getting too long for the top. So it has gone and the nappies will too with Summer. The coat is a bit dreary but was found in a bag by my sister and identified as being mine when I was two. We put Shorty in it and she looked like a Bosnian orphan. How styles change.
Her room has changed now into a little child's room instead of a baby's room. Her interests have changed too. She has stopped lining people up and changed to crowding them in rooms and vehicles- much like her parents do with her siblings.

See that little house down in the left corner. Just for a change I bought that at Ron and Brian's for seriously small change.

I bought it because it was so cunning the way it changes from this neatly packed little apartment...
into this fabulously Miami style villa, complete with roof spa, bunk beds and a waterfall swimming pool.
Look at the casually flung hat and towel. This could be the model for the 'Birdcage' set. One almost expects to see Nathan Lane burst through the port holed door looking for Robyn Williams at any moment!
In stark contrast and to change the flavour of the post completely here is another imminent change. It was busy over the holidays and this was erected when I wasn't looking. I have no idea. That's the letter box in the corner and the untouchable poinsiana which has been there since the 30's and will not be affected for ANY change... but I'll let him go ahead. Bless.
He is helping change this into a much bigger garden but I'm ready to change from veges and just do herbs and flowers and tomatoes. The fauna is overtaking the flora and that is never going to change.
Here's something he prepared earlier. It is a nice change from the lap pool/ quagmire we had after the Brisbane floods in January. That house colour is going to change too he tells me. Any ideas?
It is quite the nice place to hide after I put out the laundry on a sunny morning.
No change here. They are laying like champions and finding a clutch of these never fails to make me feel happy because they are just so pretty and perfect...
so lovely to hold all warm and smooth. I go all pastorale.
Sheizen! Fumble Fingers! Some things never change.
Just for a change here's a different take on Bowie so Frenchy, so chic and acoustic.

Cooking S.N.A.G.s

Now I know it's summering up because the light comes through the kitchen window just so in summer.
It gives the eggs the most wonderful glow and texture.
Sometimes they are almost transparent and the ginger boo ladies are producing lots.
We made a batch of double flavour swirly biscuits to celebrate.
Check out the dextrous hand action here by a S.N.A.G. in training. Apparently the large rubber band is the latest thing and also handy for quick crossbow repairs.
It's not all about footy and bone collecting and weapon modification, you know.
If you do it right you get this very cute little swirl.
It stays there after it's cooked. Smells so good!
Another S.N.A.G. in training waiting for the bowl. Cupcakes are more his style.

Enough frippery. Back to boys world!
Easy Biscuit Recipe from some magazine in a holiday house:

125g soft butter

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 glowy egg

1/3 cup coconut

1 1/2 cups SR flour

1 tbsp cocoa powder for 1/2 the mix

2 tbsps hundreds and thousands for the other

Cream butter and sugar, add egg, add rest. Divide and make two colours. Cook at 180C for 15 minutes then inhale and eat.

Let me know if yours like it. I have to double it because they eat the dough.

Hello Yellow!

It must be Spring! Everything has burst into bloom outside- grevilleas, rock iris, daisies.It was the first swim of summer. A friend dropped in Sunday morning with her four and they all got in. (Except for the broken one.)
The Divine Miss M had one of her personal assistants carry her in and squealed with sheer delight.
Have you ever drunk hot tea out of a bendy straw? Lala made me this lot at about 5pm when I was getting tired and grumpy after two days with the Big fella away in his canoe. Girls just get it, don't they?With raised spirits we gave Shorty a yellow bath (the good kind) to celebrate Spring and that she has discovered that yellow is different to other colours.
What a wonderful first colour!
The ladies are still put out about the new members of the Ladies' Lounge but have bumped up egg production. It could be to outdo each other and curry favour.
More fabulous morning Yellow to wake up to on a Spring morning. I love these thrifted Pyrex and Bessamer bowls and the whisk is my favourite (also from Ron and Brian's) and the loveliest thing to use.
Yellow Spring!