Powerless!

 

 

 

 

Last weekend saw us get the final bit of trenching dug and the stormwater pipes put underground. A trenching machine made quick work of the job...

 

even though it made a mess of my lovely lawn!

 However, it had to be done and all was going so well.

 

 

 

 

Until...my oven stopped working! And the kids yelled out "Who turned the power off. The computer's not working!!" Uh oh...

 

sure enough, the trencher had nicked the power cable!! :(

Bugger! We had invited friends over for a roast dinner and I had only just put it on to cook. Help! Luckily, Olivia had the bright suggestion of cooking it in the pizza oven so we lit that and eventually ended up cooking the whole meal in it...roast meat, vegetables and Yorkshire puddings. It was fun and games keeping the temperature constant but everything turned out well and by the time we ate, it sure tasted delicious!

 

 We had a quiet afternoon with no power and old-fashioned fun and games with the girls playing cards and board games instead of being in front of the computer! Lighting candles at dusk was also exciting and caused a few laughs when our friends turned up, looking very surprised to being treated to a 'candlelit dinner'!! Jeff organised the resumption of power and it came back on about 7:30pm.

So what was supposed to have been a couple of hours job turned into a whole afternoon/evening of excitement but at least it is done now.

 

Snail mail!

I love writing letters and sending them out in ways to make the recipient smile, whether that is by decorating the envelope or making the letter itself more interesting.

I found some 'make-it-yourself' jigsaw puzzles in the $2 shop recently and decided they would make great letters.  :)

 

So, after writing the above letter I broke up the puzzle, popped it in an envelope and sent it on its way.

 

Let's hope the recipient can put it together and actually read it!

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, when you send a letter you then usually receive a letter! My girls keep asking me why I get so much mail and I tell them it is because I write lots!

 

The above is a colourful assortment that arrived in my letterbox recently. Yay!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally...I have been participating in a couple of swaps lately on Swap-bot and these photos show one of the swaps - Mail Art for Your Country. The envelope had to be decorated front and back with icons/famous landmarks from your country along with the name of the country on the front. This is my effort...on its way to Finland.

 

 

So, feeling great about the mail I am sending and receiving although I do still have a lot of penpals to reply to...luckily, they seem patient and willing to wait.  I'm slowly catching up and look forward to hearing back from them to start the process all over again!

 

Have you sent any mail lately??

Cooking up a storm

As part of a badge Olivia is working towards for Girl Guides, she has to bake a cake and make some sweets from scratch. So, a few days ago she chased me out of the kitchen and set to work!

 

Banana Cake was the chosen recipe...

and she followed the recipe thoroughly. Here it is ready to go in the oven.

 

And here is the cooked cake...

 

 

which had to be decorated!

 

 

The proud cook!

 Well done, Olivia-the cake was delicious!!

 

This doesn't look as exciting but it was equally delicious - hokey pokey - YUM!

 

You did a great job, Olivia and I look forward to you doing lots more baking for me in the future.

 

Spring is nearly here

Well, we are nearly at the end of Winter...soon Spring will be here. And we have our first sign of Spring...our first lamb!

 

 

He is such a little cutie...a Suffolk X with black markings.

Hopefully in the next day or so we will have another to add to the flock.

 

 

 

In other 'farmyard' news...we have had a sick bantam! Our little white silkie suddenly developed a droopy neck and was generally very miserable. After consultation with 'Google' (every lifestyler's 'Bible'!)  I decided her diet was lacking some vitamins and minerals. It was either that or she was suffering a head injury and I couldn't treat that so went with the diet option!

 

 

The above is the concoction of vitamins and minerals that I purchased and have been adding to a cooked egg. She has been given this for a few days now and is already showing a remarked improvement. (I hope I haven't just jinxed her!!)

For the record, I crush up a half a Vitamin B tablet, half a Selenium tablet and add the Vitamin E oil to the mix. It is added to the scrambled egg you can see in the background. Apparently we need to keep feeding this to her for a fortnight-even if she improves sooner. Lets hope it is successful.

Cross country

It's that time of year - children all over NZ are training for their school cross country events. Tokoroa Intermediate held their annual cross country last week and, of course, Olivia took part.

 

Here are the Year 7 girls getting ready to run.

 

 

 

 

And they're off! (Olivia is in the "WeetBix" t-shirt)

 

 

She had a great run, coming 6th overall. This means she made the school team to travel to the Inter-school Cross country event held at Porritt Stadium in Hamilton later this week.

 

Good luck, Olivia!

 

P.S  Olivia competed successfully in the Inter-school cross country today (13.8.13) and came a credible 29th (2nd Tokoroa Intermediate girl to finish) Yay-well done!

 



A-hunting we will go...

The school holidays were almost finished so we decided to have one more outing...a hunting trip/bush walk, depending on who you asked! (Jeff and Olivia are the hunters, Briar and I were just there for the walk!) It was Nuggets first outing as her training as a hunting dog starts. She was very excited to be included!

 

Off we set...hunters in the front, spectators at the rear.

 

 

 

 

Briar and I decided to make things interesting so started making deer noises (and then, any animal noises we could think of!) We got the giggles big time and needless to say were not very popular judging by the glares from the front!! Oops...

 

 

 

 

 

We reached a highly technical bit-a stream crossing! (OK, a wee dribble of water) but it proved too much for some. Briar managed to step in mud that oozed over the top of her boot-ugh! She and I made the decision to turn back and wait for the others instead of carrying on with muddy, gritty boots...only to fill the other boot up with water when she slipped crossing back over the stream! Oh dear, it was not her day.

 

 

 

 

It is NOT comfortable walking with wet, scratchy feet.

We wandered slowly back to the truck where we sat and talked and just chilled out.

 

 

 

We were walking in the Ngaroma block in the Pureora Forest, near Benneydale. It was a 23km ROUGH ride in on a forestry road that has us all rattled to the bones by the time we made it to our destination. But the ride was worth it for the scenery. Along the walking track we discovered this lichen-it looked like drifts of snow! We will return one day (with gaiters) and complete the walk.

The hunters returned a couple of hours later empty-handed (as expected) but happy with their outing.

Yay, another lovely day out and a great end to the holidays.

 

Snow time!

It's the end of the first week of school holidays and we headed over to Taumarunui to catch up with Nana and Gramps for a couple of nights. Sunday was forecast to be a lovely day so we headed off to the snow at Mt Ruapehu; 45 mins away.

 

We were surprised to find the mountain was not as covered in snow as we expected, however there was enough for our purposes. Number one on the list of things to do was...build a snowman!

 

 

  

 

 

OK, so he's not the most handsome of snowmen but he was cute.  :)

 

 

Then it was on to number two on the list of things to do...have fun! We took plastic rubbish bags with us to slide on and great fun was had by all - yes, even Mum and Nana had a go! (Luckily no one had a camera aimed on us!!)

 

 

 

And no time at the snow is complete without number three on the list...a snowball fight...woohoo! We all had a few hits...and misses. With some people needing help with their aim...and effort.  :)

 

 

 

As you can see by this magnificent view neighbouring Mt Ngaruahoe, we had a beautiful sunny day without a cloud in the sky. We were rugged up but in no time at all the layers started coming off and we got very warm. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. We took snacks and drinks with us so stayed up in the snow for a couple of hours before the need for lunch drove us down to National Park where we visited The Station Café. We had a lovely lunch and coffee there before heading back to Taumarunui. What a great day in the snow!