Endless Summer

 Livinia picking apricots in the new year

 Seems I lost my blogging mojo over summer, but here are some productive garden snapshots from the last 3 months.  We had a bounty of apricots and nectarines, the trees were well pollinated by the bees in spring.

 A little bit of soap making, lavender and peppermint

 And beeswax candlemaking from our beeswax and our eggshells

 Some of our almond harvest... scorched almonds for Easter?

 Golden delicious apples have been picked this week

 Butternut pumpkins coming along

 The second flush of raspberries ready for autumn

 Banana rockmelon, hopefully will ripen before the cold sets in

 Some of our 43kg honey harvest from 3 hives this season

 Garden looking good after the huge rains we got on January 27.  The sedums are at their best and covered in bees at the moment.

School Holidays

 The kids have been back at school for a week and a half, and I haven't blogged for months, but anyway, here's some highlights from the holidays!  The order of my photos has been jumbled, but here's Liv, who got to fulfill her wish of a horse ride (pony), at Koombahla park in Wallington.

 And Evie with her new bike that she got for her 9th birthday.

 The birthday girl with her longed for Merveilleux cake

Livinia is 6

 Liv turned 6 yesterday, and we forgot to take some birthday photos.  To our defence, she was at school, then had a couple of friends over for a "party", then we went out for dinner, then it was bed time.  And it started raining pretty much as soon as we walked home from school.  Today was a much quieter day with lovely weather.

 Poor kid, who'd have a birthday in December? 

 The garden is still growing well, probably the best time of year, before summer really heats up.

 Violet in front of our newest garden beds

 Flowering dwarf apple gum, I'm enjoying watching the bees buzz around it

 Yarrow 'Coronation Gold' is always a winner

 Avocados getting bigger- this is the biggest we've grown them so far, they normally drop off when they are the size of a pea.  Will this be our year for avocados?

 Golden delicious apples getting bigger

 Another favourite, the curry plant

 The grapes are growing very quickly

Dinner tonight- cold boiled eggs, lettuce, carrots, snowpeas, yellow cherry tomatoes.  Doesn't get much better than this.

Liv's first day of school

It was Liv's first day of school today, Evie started yesterday.  The house is very quiet, and now pretty clean.  I hope she's having fun, and the day is not too long for her.  She knows a lot more people than Evie did when she started, so that should help.  I'm looking forward to some breathing space after last year's busyness!

Livinia is 5!

Happy Birthday Liv! 

Dance concert 2013

Just a few snaps from last night's dance concert, both girls were in it this year, and did very well.  Backstage was a bit more frantic than last year, thankfully the girls want to do swimming next year!

Homemade Icecream

It's been a long and tiring week, so I'm posting about ice cream.  The long and tiring part involves Liv having gastro while on a road trip up to NSW to visit in laws, 2 trips to the emergency department, and 2 trips to doctors.  She's having a hard time getting over it, but seems it will just take time.

Anyway, I bought and ice cream maker a few weeks ago, and this is the latest, dare I say it, healthy batch of ice cream.  The recipe is from Nourishing Traditions, and our version is gingerbread cookies and cream.

3 Cups of cream (from grass fed cows).  You can substitute a bit of milk if you don't have enough cream.
3 egg yolks (from the backyard is best!)
1 tbsp arrowroot (real arrowroot, not tapioca if possible)
1 tbsp vanilla extract (homemade by us!)
1/2 cup maple syrup

You just beat up the egg yolks, mix in the rest of the ingredients and pour into the machine.  I added homemade gingerbread biscuits broken up for the cookies part.  They were made with spelt and teff flours, homemade butter, and rapadura sugar, so they are a healthier version too.  With a fussy eater in the house, it's important to create nutrient dense foods that you know will get eaten!

Haven't seen these in a while

I haven't made these smock tops in a while, I thought it would be fun to make a couple out of woollen blankets, and line them with vintage bed sheets.  I think they turned out pretty well, and this style still fits Liv- she wants to keep one!  These two are in my shop now.

Now I am 4

 It was Liv's 4th Birthday on Sunday

 She had a lovely quiet day to play with her new toys, and then a small family gathering for wood fired pizza and ice cream cake.

 With Evie and cousins

 I find it hard to summon much energy for her birthday being the time of year it is, but the simpler the better at any time of year I say!

 Our sunflowers are starting to bloom, always a happy sight.

 And here's the front garden again, a bit over 2 weeks since I last posted a picture.  We've had a few really hot days, but we've also had a bit of rain, so the growth is amazing.

 We even have some artichokes, which I thought we wouldn't have until next year, as they are new plants, and apparently produce in the second season.