One green bowl

Take one green bowl left on the kitchen counter from the night before and add a little morning sunlight. Results? a spell of snapping and a serving of cornflakes left to go soggy. I love the red of the tamarillos against the jade of the bowl. Here's the simple recipe we will be trying for tomorrow nights dessert -

Tamarillos poached

12 small peeled whole fruit

1 1/2 cups of cold water

3/4 cups of sugar

Poach fruit in water until tender.

If fruit a large size, halve them lengthwise. Serve with ice cream

Natures Table

Today it really feels like autumn. The lawns are a fabulous garish green and the leaves of the fruit trees in the yard have all but fallen to the ground. Summer lasted so long, and without much rain it has been hard to believe that autumn and winter would really come to colour our weary landscape. To celebrate the change in season the children redecorated our nature table, retiring the bees wax picnic of strawberries, watermelon and plums and introducing the new tastes of the season, pumpkin, lemons and mandarin. Autumn reminds me of how finely balanced our natural world is. How during the days of rain and overcast skies, we are also provided with an abundance of colour and light all around us.

Mothers Day

A belated happy mothers day to all you mums who love and care for children young and old. I take my hat off to you. Freezer paper printing Over the weekend I got around to trying out freezer paper printing. I have wanted to try out this technique for a while and was really looking forward to the process of designing, cutting and painting. There is a good description of the process at Angry Chicken. A note for you crafty Australians : freezer paper can be bought in supermarkets across the US but as far as I know is not stocked here. Luckily you can buy it ($1.50 per metre) from behind the counter at spotlight. I am looking forward to sorting through my collection of 5o's fabrics and stenciling up some floral and leaf designs soon.

between the lines

I have found a few moments in this busy week (where the balance has been temporarily tipped towards work commitments and general 'housekeeping') to gather together these photographs and to tap down some thoughts. Adding to this blog reminds me of the importance of how we look at things and how looking at something in a particular way can nourish and sustain and even inspire us.

rainy days and sundays

7 am: we awoke to the sound and smell of old friend rain. Rubber boots were hastily donned (by my not quite four year old) and a favourite umbrella retrieved. I love that for her rain is an event, a joyful occasion to be celebrated in her own way with a good spell of jumping, stomping and splashing. For me rain is always welcome. Here's hoping for a big wet.

When the rain passed an afternoon of planting bulbs and vegetable seedlings began. I have been collecting bulbs for the last few weeks or so. Buying a handful from the local market with what shopping money is left over. We have a pretty good selection but I have forgotten which ones are which. It will be a lovely surprise when they grow.

What to do

What to do.... I am having some trouble settling on what my next small project should be. Over the weekend I rummaged and sorted through materials, buttons and ribbons all the while piecing together colours, patterns and textures. A small case of craft block I think. Not to worry. I had plenty of fun looking through old and new materials. A ripped dress bought from the op shop when I was 16, a floral swatch a friend gave to me, a beautiful piece of 50's seersucker picked up at a country Salvo's. All treasures happily re-visited.

Available Light

I got a little carried away with this sequence. On the way home this morning I came upon these beautiful leaves spread across the footpath. It had rained during the night and as you can see some of them are beginning to show signs of breakdown. I looked above and momentarily thought about pulling a few fresh ones of the nearest branch but then decided I would rather collect the ones that had fallen. When the clouds cleared and light came brilliantly through the front window, I knew that it was the right time to photograph the leaves using the available light - and my young ones late afternoon snack. The photograph of my young one looking at the rainbow was taken late yesterday afternoon.

All in the family

By my standards it was a big weekend. Cooking with the young ones, catching up with a friend, a Saturday drive to a country school fair and the welcoming of a 7 week old feline who, after some tussling, we named 'Scout'. All were carefully planned activities except for wee Scout. We came across Scout and her 6 siblings behind a stall at the fair. A young girl proudly presided over the 7 warm slumbering bodies and asked eagerly if I would like a hold. I did and that was that, I was completely taken. We paid for her by a donation to the school and took her on the hour or so drive home to join our small menagerie. I am happy to say that she is toilet trained, confident and performs well for her supper. I think that young girl did a beautiful job of nurturing and caring for all of those kittens. success!

Dahlias

A pinch and a punch.... Happily I can not think of a thing that is foolish about April. April is in Autumn and April is a cool two months before the Winter chill. Another great thing about April is that it's when Dahlia flowers open up their fleshy or cactus like petals to flourish in the sun. It was only last Autumn when a good friend brought these incredible flowers to my full attention. Since then they have well and truly been pulled from the 'Nana' garden school of flowers. To qualify this statement, I certainly do not dislike certain flowers it is just that I am really beginning to notice the beauty in some of those that were so commonplace when I was a child. On another trip to the Botanical Gardens on Sunday I turned off my favoured path and came across an impressive Dahlia patch. The colours and varieties were really varied and I could not resist taking a number of photographs. I was also inspired to visually document these from my recent travels to the beautiful Flower Press.

Autumn

The season change to Autumn has brought with it rain and the promise of more. I awoke in the early hours to the sound of it and lots of it. After a three hour intermission it has returned. A happy Easter has passed and somewhere in between the many festive activities the children made some quiet time for a spell of egg blowing and painting. The making of these colourful eggs is a favourite ritual and one that my older child now takes responsibility for organising and showing our younger one. Each year we add the new offerings to the previous years.

The Small on Yellow

My eyes have become trained in seeing yellow everywhere these days. I believe that it has to do with the changing colours of our sun dried landscape. Yellow is the colour of dying grass, open fields, and of crisp falling leaves. Yellow it also has to be said is familiar and comforting. It is after all the colour of lemons, my favourite citrus. The colour of ripe bananas, an old school favourite, and the colour of fresh soft butter, a welcome indulgence. This is all I have to say on yellow.

Park Life

A visit to the Botanical Gardens is always a treat. In a city of high temperatures and water restrictions, the gardens provide welcome visual relief from the dry streets and browning city parkland's. Gardens top 5: running in shade, poking at fish in the pond, spotting turtles, walking with our own shadow, rolling down the grass slope.

Hot Tomatoes

Today is the tenth consecutive day above 35 degrees Celsius. In a summer (now autumn) of high temperatures and little rainfall I made the decision to let the veggie patch go. A logical decision really as I only keep a few herbs, a small group capsicums and 5 cherry tomato vines. My sense of disappointment however was high and for three weeks I was unable to make the walk up to the back of the yard to survey the damage. I will not dwell on what was lost but will instead proclaim with a hurrah! what was left. To take inventory: 1 oregano bush, a struggling collection of wild rocket and 5 twisted, distressed and fallen tomato vines, that had to my amazement managed to produce a small number of red and juicy tomatoes. I gently picked up the warm fruit. Some split down the sides at my gentle touch, so hot and ripe. I washed a bunch under the back tap while my younger one danced from foot to foot impatiently. Then we ate a selection of the finest ones, I savoured the sensation of biting into the surprisingly elastic skin then eating the soft and wet insides, while my younger one happily gobbled one after another while commenting on the wetness and warmness.

Treasure

It was decided by we three that our morning walk to the deli should include a walk on the wild side. We left our well trod path and descended into the altogether different world of the dry winding creek bed. Apart from finding what you would normally expect to see in a dry creek bed, rounded and smoothed rocks, broken tree branches, piled leaves that looked suspiciously like the nests of rats. There were also examples of the introduced, empty spray cans, broken glass and surprisingly china, a horse shoe in an advanced stage of corrosion. The latter two were declared treasure and quickly stuffed into my cloth bag to mingle with the fruit and bread we would soon buy.