Aussie at Last

Yesterday Purple officially became an Australian citizen – we went up to the city for the ceremony, which was kind of funny. Purple got to shake hands with the mayor and receive his certificate.

The first thing Purple said was “Now I can vote him out”. LOL

Since we were all in the city with not much to do, we did some shopping after the ceremony. First we went to an op-shop (charity thrift store) and I scored a bunch of nice green clothes, and Littletree found a telescope!

Not the kind of thing you’d usually expect to find in an op-shop, but there was an old Tasco telescope, still in its box, for $15. She was over the moon!

Her latest saving venture (since the netbook) is to get a telescope. We still haven’t got it properly set up, and there’s a good chance something wont work with it, or it will be too old or crappy, but for now, it’s probably a good starter for her.

Then, just to celebrate Purple becoming an Australian, we bought me a new computer. It’s an Acer TimelineX 4820TG. Which is actually a gift to Purple, since he now no longer needs to sit patiently while I’m tearing my hair out all the time because my old computer wasn’t working. Naturally, a new computer and telescope deserve their own posts – coming soon!

The Village Dance

The little village we live in is very old and historic, and there’s still lots of quaint throwbacks to its former glory, like the post office with it’s 1908 sign, and the village dance.

I don’t go out dancing that often, but I do try to get to the village dance party every month (well, yeah, for some people going dancing once a month would  be a lot!)

I got all dressed up and ready to boogie

It’s so nice to see the local youngsters out on the dance floor

This month we grooved to the phat tribal beats of Ganga Giri, drum, bass and digeridoo.

It’s an alcohol-free event, but the local herb shop makes a herbal punch and chai, and there’s always a cake stand with a range of gluten-free organic cakes.

There’s always a few kids running around outside, people hanging about chatting, fire twirling.

Littletree was running about, playing with the other kids; we all had a great time.

It’s so nice to be a part of these old traditional village events ;)

Visiting Faeries

We had friends from New Zealand staying with us last week, which was lovely. My friend, Flower, and her little girl Flowerlet had a great time, exploring the area and playing with the kookaburras on our porch

I actually met Flower about ten years ago; we travelled together in Africa, in Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, and we lived together on a little eco-village working on establishing a self-sustainable community, building little dwellings from mud and sticks and stones.

It was really great to catch up with her again; she also wears all green and has honey coloured dreadlocks, so we make quite a pair

Flowerlet is very cute, and gets into all kinds of mischief

And Littletree enjoyed having a “little sister” for a week (but I think she’s glad to have her own space back and not have to defend her special things from little fingers LOL )

Wheelie Fun

This week’s home school group met at the skate park in town for a ‘fun with wheels’ day.

 

Littletree got out her rollerskates – it was the first time she got a really good go of riding them around in a big space

The kids all had a great time on the jumps

Rollerskates, rollerblades, bikes and scooters

And of course just running around and having a great time

And the best part: having the whole park to ourselves while most children are in school :P

I won!

I won a raffle this week! Even better – it was a free raffle, at the organic butchery. When they called me up to tell me I’d gotten the second prize, my reaction was: “but I never win anything”

Well, I suppose that’s not entirely true – I did win a jellybean guess at the school fair when I was about 9 years old. But I think I was the only kid who didn’t just ‘guess’ – I counted the beans visible on the base of the jar, counted the number of beans going up the height of the jar, and multiplied. The irony was that I didn’t like jelly beans!

Anyway, I went in to the butchers – The Southern Cross Organic Butchery in Murwillumbah – to collect my prize. I love the guys there (even before I won the free raffle I thought they were great) – they’re always friendly and happy to cut up beef knucklebones for me to make stock, and since I’ve now healed a bunch of cavities in my teeth from eating stock and following the Weston Price dietary guidelines, I love it even more :)

The butcher handed me a $50 note – I was expecting to get a $50 credit for meat, but he just gave me the money. Of course, I bought meat with it! LOL Yep, it’s not very vegetarian, but I like my teeth better than I liked vegetarianism ;)

So I got a kilo of chuck steak (among other things) and made Beef Bourguignon – it was DELICIOUS!

RECIPE FOR BEEF BOURGUIGNON:

1. 1kg cubed beef, marinated all day in 2 cups red wine with a bay leaf, some fresh thyme, parsley and whatever other herbs are fresh in the garden. Drain the beef, put aside the marinade and pat beef dry with paper towel.
2. Brown the meat in a big frypan (in batches) and add to a big casserole dish (note that the dish should be big enough – mine wasn’t and the casserole bubbled over and burned on the bottom of the oven, filling the house with smoke).
3. Pour the remaining marinade in with the beef, add 1 cup home made beef stock and a big spoon of flour, mix it up, cover and pop in the oven at 180C for about an hour and a half, stirring every 1/2 hour.
4. Heat 30g butter and a schluck of olive oil in a heavy pan, cook about half a dozen small onions, peeled and halved for about 10 mins, set aside. Then fry in the pan 200g mushrooms, set aside with onions. Then fry about 250g bacon, in strips until crispy.
5. Add the onions, mushrooms and bacon to the casserole dish with a cup of water, stir into the meat and back into the oven for another half hour.
6. Serve over rice or couscous. ENJOY!!!

Tap!

One of Littletree’s friends gave her a pair of hand-me-down tap shoes, which Littletree is completely enamoured with.

She doesn’t really know how to tap dance, but she’s been avidly watching YouTube videos and practicing.

Zeke, Ky and the Mountain Stream

I came home from my ‘Midwifery Monday’ (I have all my clients’ prenatal home visits scheduled on Mondays) to find a big envelope in the mail… it was a gift for Littletree: a copy of Zeke, Ky and the Mountain Stream by Gwynneth Beasley.

Gwynneth herself sent us the book, which is really exciting. Littletree was (as always) very excited to get something in the mail, and she loves this book – so far we read it every day, sometimes twice.

Zeke, Ky and the Mountain Stream is about a homeschooling family who learn the power of the mind to shape reality – if you believe in yourself; you can do anything. And it’s set at the same campgrounds we went to with the Liberated Learning Unschooling Camp last year.

Awesome!

Art Workshop

Last week’s home school group met at the regional art gallery for a workshop with local artist and children’s storybook author/illustrator Chrissy Butler. We saw an exhibition of children’s artwork from around the state that is destined to be a permanent collection at a children’s hospital in Sydney.

Chrissy talked about the artwork, and pointed out a few styles that we were going to try out ourselves. Then we went into a workshop room and set to doing our own drawings.

The kids had a great time drawing – we started by doing a single line drawing portrait of a partner, without looking at the paper. Then the kids did copies of some art from the gallery

I even did a few drawings of my own – we all had a great time :)