29.12.13

52/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."


Sofia: wiping the bench, it still amazes me that this girl loves to clean.
Otto: embracing the ceremony of "cheers" with a clink of cups - repeatedly. Luckily Granjan is happy to oblige.


Well we have come to the end of the series - my, how they have grown! I had thought to reference my 1/52 with similar settings for the final portraits and while Sofia is found once again helping in the kitchen, Otto wouldn't have a bar of lying quietly on the bed as he had done when he was a couple of months old. In fact he is often a blur in photos these days as he tears around the place, so I resorted to a good old highchair shot.


Thanks to Jodi for hosting the 52 Project at Che & Fidel

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

28.12.13

Grey (white) goshawk

One of the special birds that visits our yard, mostly in the summer time, is the Grey goshawk. Grey goshawks come in both grey and white morphs on the mainland, but in Tasmania all grey goshawks are white. Here is a not very good photo of today's visitor sitting on the power line in front of our house. Apparently they don't like having their photo taken as this is not the first time that I've taken a bad photo of one that was quite close and sitting still. 

 Grey (white) goshawk

I would have had another snap at it but was distracted by the fairywrens right in front of me. With three days to go it was the first time I'd seen them in our garden this year. I also managed to take a bad photo of the fairy wrens.

Superb fairywren

There are a lot of young wattlebirds around our yard at the moment and this seems to be a young Yellow wattlebird feeding in the big grevillea in our front yard. If you zoom in you can see its tongue poking out as it has been getting nectar from the flowers.

Yellow wattlebird feeding in the grevillea



22.12.13

51/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: berry stained cheek, tongs in hand - helping her aunts in the kitchen.
Otto: wanting to help water the garden.



Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

15.12.13

50/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: selfie - about the only way I can get a photo of her at the moment.
Otto: reaching, reaching.


Some iPhone shots this week, struggling to get the 'big' camera out lately. Only two more weeks to go in the project. I don't think I can commit to photos every week next year, but have been considering other options. Maybe a '12' project with monthly portraits would be the way to go.

Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

8.12.13

49/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: creating.
Otto: all teeth and tongue at the moment.



Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

3.12.13

White-faced Heron

A very unexpected visitor yesterday. This White-faced Heron came and hunted round our front yard for an hour or so. This photo was taken through the sunroom window as it hunted in the grass.


2.12.13

Looks like a good berry season

We have a number of different types of berries growing wild in our yard - and we've never worked out what they all are. They don't get much attention so anything we get from them is a bonus. A lot of the unknown berries are eaten as they are picked or end up as jam. There are also red currants which are a bit of an acquired taste.

Our favourite is definitely the raspberries which grow just outside our back door. The first year we were here there was quite a good harvest. Last year was a warmer, drier season and we were competing with Sofia and the chickens so we hardly saw any. This year we have had a very wet winter and spring and all of our berry bushes are covered in fruit.

The raspberries are almost ripe so to make sure we actually get to eat some raspberries this year, this afternoon I netted them.


In fact, the first few raspberries are already ripe but we haven't eaten them yet.


I also went to check the berries that have found themselves inside the netted veggie patch and there were a few ripe ones there too, but not exactly sure what they are (Loganberries?).


I picked five and we all tried one, including Otto. They probably could do with a little bit longer to sweeten up but they were very yummy.


The red currants are also almost ready to go and Sofia has noticed, so I imagine there will be plenty of red currant munching sessions in the next few weeks as she loved them last summer.


So much more yummy food to come...

1.12.13

48/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: pensive in the morning sun.
Otto: tip-toeing through the tulips flower filled grass.


These photos were taken this morning, the first day of summer.

Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

24.11.13

47/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: spotted a bird at the top of a tree while eating her muesli.
Otto: enjoying his own bowl.


The breakfast edition. I finally relented this week and allowed Otto access to his own bowl at breakfast. We follow BLW and he has been feeding himself from a pre-loaded spoon since he started solids at six months and he is very efficient.  But it was time to embrace the mess again and let him have a go at it bowl and all. He thoroughly enjoyed himself and I think I may have to dig out the long sleeved art smock/bib again.

I should add that Otto has been saying a whole lot of new words in the last week or so including: "Minke" (our cat), "cracker" (while proudly retrieving a box from the pantry) and today the all important and powerful "more!".

Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

20.11.13

Artichokes - the first produce of the season

We recently made a netted veggie garden and planted some veggies but our garden is full of surprises and we already have our first produce of the summer. On the weekend we noticed that there were some globe artichokes ready to eat.


I'd never cooked or prepared artichokes before so there may be a more efficient way to do this. The first step is to remove some of the outside petals (if that's what they are called).


Then I chopped the top off.


This gives access to the choke which has to be removed with a spoon. The choke is the fluffy stuff in the middle.


 It's important to get all of it out so that it looks like this.


I then cleaned up the rest of the petals.


And was left with the heart. The hearts go brown quite quickly and need to be put in acidulated water to keep them looking good. I didn't bother with this as I only had the one and planned to cook it straight away.


Then the good bit - cooking them. I sliced them finely and fried them in olive oil. We all tried some and it was a big hit. 


There are lots more artichokes still on the plant so plenty more opportunities to experiment with other ways to prepare and cook them over the summer. 

17.11.13

46/52


"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: looking like she is about to take off on her rake.
Otto: also getting in on the rake action.


The weather has been lovely this weekend and the kids really enjoy 'helping out' in the garden. Although it has to be said that Sofia wasn't too pleased when Otto was allowed to use Ian's rake.

Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

10.11.13

45/52


"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: pulls books from the shelf one by one, 'reads' them and ends up with a carpet of books around her.
Otto: wearing a beautiful handknit from his Aunty Jenny, hat from the dress up box and evidence of some rough and tumble.


Bonus sibling photo - the backyard hose offered endless entertainment on a sunny afternoon this week.


Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

7.11.13

Simple pleasures #9 - wheelbarrow ride

Sofia always has a smile on her face when she sees me getting the wheelbarrow out to work in the yard - the requests for a ride start pretty soon after. You can hear for yourself how much she loves a wheelbarrow ride. Otto is new to the game and still needs to learn how to ride one of these things (I love the bit at the end) but seems to enjoy it just as much.  

(If you are viewing this post from an email you will have to click on the title to view the post in your browser to see the video).

3.11.13

44/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: really gets in there when she smells a flower.
Otto: getting much more out of our playground visits now he can walk run around.



Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

27.10.13

43/52



"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: a quiet moment reading a book on her Daddy's lap.
Otto: making an attempt to blow out the candle on his first birthday cake.




Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

22.10.13

Growing some veggies

Last Sunday Sofia and I managed to dash out and buy some seedlings for the veggie patch. The weather was pretty miserable with 10mm of rain for the day so the clay soil was difficult to work with, but we decided to put them all in as I was back at work the following day. The weather has been very windy all week but most things seem to have survived their first week in the ground. One of the tomatoes didn't make it and the zucchinis all looked a bit stressed by the wind but at the end of the week almost everything is still standing.

You can see in this photo that the tomatoes are at the back, the zucchinis in front of them and the peas at the front. Arranging the patch will be a bit of trial and error but the idea is to put the taller things at the back - except for the peas.


 We chose two types of tomatoes: grosse lisses


 and romas. It's a bit hard to tell the difference at this stage but the tag helps.


We also planted some zucchinis which all struggled with the strong winds this week (up to 96kmh on Wednesday). If you look carefully you can see the stick supporting this one. We hope that they all survive but some of them look a bit wounded.



Also some peas. We had some peas before and Sofia loved picking them and delivering them to the kitchen.


And if everything does succumb to the wind then we can always fall back on this self-sown pumpkin



These berries will be protected from the birds too.


After the miserable weather all week, this weekend we have had some still, warm, sunny weather and a good rain on Sunday night so I'm hoping that this has given everything a chance to recover and start growing.