We are as busy as!

DGS2 had a sleep-over at Nanna and Pa's place this week. No parents, no older siblings. He was always busy!

He sat at the piano, playing lightly on the keys and singing to himself.
He spent most of his time in the garden, watering the plants, playing on the balance bike, chalk drawing and watching the garbage trucks pick up the rubbish in the street (awe-inspiring!).

We were delighted with how he managed this 24 hours with us, and we missed him when he was gone!

DH has been busy too! He completed a project he has been working on to improve the storage of DS and DDIL's kitchen. They had bought a second hand pine cupboard. DH sanded it back, strengthened all the load bearing surfaces -eg adding a support under the bottom floor in case they were going to store heavy appliances in it- and finished it with an undercoat and a couple of coats of paint. The handles now match the rest of the kitchen.  DS has a plan to use this as part of an extension to their island kitchen bench, with the addition of more bench top space -that is why the top is left unfinished.

I have been busy - I have continued to work on the garden. There has been more work on the flower bed in the front garden, and of course some regular pruning and feeding and tidying up in the veggie patch. The picture above is the first time I have seen a butcher bird actually drink from the bird bath, though we are regularly visited by magpies and wattle birds. I am hoping a denser planting of shrubs and flowers will bring more birds in to the garden. I know that it doesn't look lush and full yet but hopefully things will grow and be wonderful by spring.

There was a big storm here in Perth yesterday.  Just before it happened I harvested lemons, limes and tangelos in order to lighten the load on the branches and save the fruit. These pictured below are the sixth and seventh boxes of Meyer lemons I have given to the neighbourhood this season, and the third box of limes.

Now I am flash freezing slices of limes and zesting and juicing lemons for our household. Maybe DH will make spiced tangelo marmalade later?

DH made me a 'hay box" for slow cooking and proofing bread overnight. He very proudly used mostly scrap wood he already had in the shed, and lined the box with some leftover earth wool insulation. We were thinking that, seeing that we now have an all electric kitchen, with a storm on the way it might be an idea to have alternatives for energy for cooking if the power went out.

The usual back up I think of under a power blackout is the portable gas bottle barbecue on the patio, but I couldn't imagine that being much use in a 130k wind!

The box is quite deep so I will add a woollen blanket to the box, on top of the saucepan,  after I put my food in it. That will ensure that the food stays safely at a good temperature to continue cooking.

I have just checked my bread -and the rise is great, so the box will get good use during winter at least. The view from inside the house, as the sun comes up, is that everything around here has survived the storm well.

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