Fashion for the 30's

That's temperature in the 30's. The air outside is thick with dust, and we're praying for the rain.



Littlest chicken has a new fashion statement for the day:

Blankie scarf casually draped over the exclusive Pooh Bear peek-a-boo pj's (back to front). Pj's placed cunningly over a light summer dress, which is, in turn, over pink heart swimming pants. This attire is made complete with pink socks and Ug Boots. (Can you tell I have the airconditioning on?)

Wildlife in the house

A day of 'raised dust' again today. Only one person in our neighbourhood was crazy enough to hang clothes on the line outside today. Oh, er.. yes, it was me. Never mind, in this 40degC heat it's dry in half an hour. (If only I'd left it there for only half an hour...)

After we found a frog in our bathroom last night, Don and I were pondering the different wildlife we have had in the house since we arrived:

• Plenty of spiders,
• a few scorpions,
• a ridiculous amount of crickets,
• a huge centipede,
• the usual troop of ants,
• a few mice - one for which we re-enacted Rapunzel, but with a rope (ie let a rope down into the exhaust fan so it could climb up and escape), so that we wouldn't have to take the kitchen apart to extract a dead mouse...),
• the odd frog (one which started hopping around inside our skylight in the middle of the night, and also needed to be rescued...,
• and a naughty dog.

Not too bad, really. I could have done without the scorpions and white tail spiders..

In other news, the Christmas tree is up, and littlest chicken swallowed a button yesterday. At least she didn't stick it up her nose again. I'll let her body do the removal this time... And speaking of buttons, we have been making Christmas decorations out of buttons. Not quite Martha Stewart, but very useful for replacing the rapidly dwindling decorations on the tree (we've averaged about one a day for breakages...).

A day with the veggies

... For Don, that is. I'm just planting the capsicum and eggplant and getting snap happy! Don is setting up a watering system so that when we're away we can just leave it going on a timer. Every bed is full at the moment - it's lovely! The two weeks of around 40degC weather did seem to stop most things fruiting, except the zucchini - we have three varieties: green, grey and yellow!

Corn, zucchini, potato, pumpkin, carrots, onion, leek, celery, beetroot, eggplant, capsicum, tomato, spinach, chilli, violet bush beans, pak choi, asparagus. Phew!

More Wasps nests

This one was found discarded in the back yard. So thin and papery, you would expect it to be quite delicate, but it is surprisingly tough.

Now you see it, now you don't

I discovered a wasp digging mud in the yard. I was interested in how it's hole had a lid, and after it had dug down a little way it started to dig sideways.



I came back after a few minutes, hoping to get a better photo, and discovered it had closed the lid! It took me ages to find it (you can see why).

Breathe again

The last fortnight has been uncharacteristically hectic. Thankfully I can relax now. And breathe again!

We have had a few fun moments, though:

Pretending to mow with the dog.

Seeing a certain boy determined to master writing the number 8.

Pondering the different personalities of dogs. (This one is my sister's dog, and he likes everything to be neat and comfortable!)

And enjoying seeing responsibility taken for a mess that was made. I did offer to do it for him for a sum of money, but he remembered when he had to pay me to finish tidying his room, and rather emphatically told me to step away from the wall!! :) [That tip is from 'Loving our kids on purpose' by Danny Silk - a highly recommended book if you want your parenting to be relaxed and fun.]

It's officially hot

35degC. The washing is dry before I've finished hanging out a load. Man, we need our trees to grow quickly, but I've discovered a nasty bug eating some of them... Grrr.

We have been sheltering inside. And my boy has decided to start drawing people. And very cute ones, I think.

Littlest chicken has also decided to start drawing (can't be left behind). Her people are heads with an extraordinary number of legs. V. cute!