Beauty found...

After much hard work and time (these things always take longer than I expect them to!) I think I have unearthed the beauty of the old orange vinyl chair that I blogged about previously. You can see the before pics here.

Here is the chair with new padding and timber work sanded back and refinished with Danish Oil.

Ta da! The finished chair...

The fabric is from designer Amy Butler, and while it is not what I originally had in mind, I love it! A bit colourful and funky; elegant as well.


What do you think? Beauty found?

Hello Beef...

Yesterday we had the pleasure of joining our local Organic Growers Society on a tour of a beautiful organic farm that produces beef and olives. The farm is also where we have been getting our beef for the last couple of years. To this point we had only talked to the farmers on the phone, so it was wonderful to go and meet them and chat face-to-face.



We also saw our beef face-to-face; the actual cow that would fill our next beef order. We are usually so removed from the source of the meat we consume. I remember one of my kids asking what animal the dinner meat came from, and someone rushing in with a comment like "Oh, don't worry about that." We are taught not to ask where the meat comes from, how it lived or how it died.

I have also heard the comment that it doesn't matter what kind of conditions the animals experience in life or death, because that is what they are bred for. Increasingly, I find that I am not comfortable with that kind of thinking. I also suspect that if we saw first hand commercial chicken farms, sow stalls, feed lots and the like such comments would be harder to make. If you want to read more about this there is a great article at Sustainable Table.

If I want to eat meat then I feel I need to square up to the source of that meat, the conditions it lived in and the manner of its death. Or become a vegetarian. Facing the cow in the field was sobering - my choice to be a meat-eater means an animal must die. But I now know that the beef I consume spends happy days grazing in a field with it's herd, and then has a short trip to a local abattoir. I think it is great that my kids also have had this opportunity to see where their food comes from.

We had a tour of the olive groves too, where Nathan tried his hand at picking olives grown for oil...


There was plenty of time for the kids to play with friends, and for us the chance to chat with like-minded people was wonderful.

Can you pass the Kyinkyinga please?

We sponsor some children through Compassion Australia, and this term we have been learning about the countries they live in - Ghana and India. To finish off the term we have been cooking meals from those countries for our family dinners.


Nathan especially enjoys the messy parts of cooking, and Amy and Lili love to get their hands dirty too...
It was difficult to find recipes specifically from Ghana, so we cooked recipes that were from West Africa generally, such as this Palava Sauce...


and Jollof Rice...
and these Kyinkyinga...
Tonight we cooked Indian, with these delicious Naan...


and this very yummy Maharashtrian Chicken Curry...

We probably won't be dinning West African style again, at least not with the recipes we tried, but the curry recipe has made it to the recipe book for sure!

What we've been making lately...

We built a new Guinea Pig enclosure, and it's a glorious one at that! Based on a geodesic dome design, it's big enough to leave in one spot for quite a while without the hungry little critters eating down to bare earth. I am quite proud to say I did most of the construction myself!!


It's also big enough for the girls to get inside easily. They love to get in there, pick up a guinea and sit with them. I recently accepted the offer of a free male guinea pig, so we are expecting babies in a couple of weeks (thus needing bigger guinea pig digs).

Des also built a couple of raised vege beds, using recycled corrugated steel, some old hose on the top edges and some old bits of timber we had collected. I created a net frame over the top with some bamboo and old poly pipe. We need the netting to keep out the possums as well as our chooks.


With the cooler weather I have brought out the knitting again. These are some slippers I made for myself using some wool I had leftover from something else.

Next is the refurbishment of the fireside chair, as well as some more knitting...

Bingo Maths

For Maths today, we played a Bingo game. Amy is just learning to write and recognise her numbers so we included the numerals 0 to 9. Lili has been having trouble differentiating between the -teens and the -ty's, as in the difference between thirteen and thirty, or fourteen and forty, so we also included all the teens as well as all tens up to 100 (20,30,40 etc).


I wrote the available numbers on a strip of cardboard, and the kids chose 9 numbers and wrote them with whiteboard markers on squares of cardboard that I had covered with clear contact. That way we could easily rub them out and play again.

The Bingo Master then drew out the numbers one by one and read out the number without the kids seeing the written number. This way they had to listen and recognise which verbal number matched their written one. We used counters from a Four-In-A-Row game to cover the numbers once they had been called out.

We each took turns being the Bingo Master. Nathan joined in as well and it was a really fun activity. The kids especially enjoyed yelling out "BINGO!!" when they had a full card. We will definitely be using this activity again.

Decisions, decisions...or Operation Sleeping Beauty

Last winter I bought an old chair with the idea of restoring it to use by the fire through the winter time. I got busy doing other things and so it has sat in the garage for almost a year, gathering dust. But now it is back on my radar and has become one of my current projects.
The project can be called Operation Sleeping Beauty because the beauty of this old girl is well and truly sleeping. Under a layer of nasty orangey vinyl. And dirt. And failing padding. But I believe there is beauty to be found. Here she is...


So far I have stripped the chair back and I am now working on sanding the timber and repairing/replacing the padding.

Meanwhile I am looking for fabric to reupholster it with, and here is where I am having trouble deciding!

Love the fabric at the back - "Chantilly" from Fabric Studio

So many nice fabrics out there. Two of my favourite fabric sources are www.boltofcloth.com and www.kelanifabric.com.au.


I have also just found this site and I love so many of their fabrics, although they tend to be quite expensive.

I also like to browse at www.duckcloth.com.au and www.funkyfabrix.com.au

I love the idea that an old, tired piece of furniture can be given a new life, and that it comes with it's own history. Some day soon (hopefully!) the chair will bloom into new-found beauty and become a favourite spot in front of the fire on a cold winters day. Watch this space!

Look what I got for my birthday!

It's my birthday soon, and this year I asked for a puppy :)

We picked her up this weekend, a little early as it's not quite my birthday yet.


Her name (officially) is Harvikgold Saffron Star, but it is Saffy for short. Her parents are champion dogs, and already her beautiful, gentle temperament reflects her great pedigree.


Introducing her to our other dog, Cooper, has been a bit intense, but hopefully they will settle down to be wonderful friends soon.