Monday Menu 31 October

Here is this weeks menu

Monday  Quick quiche.  I did not make this last week so here it is today.

Tuesday  Freezer meal. I have a busy night so a preprepared meal is waiting to be served.  It is a beef crockpot

Wednesday  Meatloaf and salad

Thursday  Roasted potato, chicken sausage and peppers with green salad

Friday  chicken wraps

Saturday  steak with a rub with pasta salad.

Sunday  Leftovers

I am linking this to I'm an Organising Junkie

Moving the Pool Part 3

As you would have read here and here just on a month ago we moved the swimming pool in our new house out of the ground.  I don't know if I said before but it needed to be moved for the safety of everyone but especially Hayden.  You could get access to the pool from every ranch slide in the house.  In the middle of summer those doors would be unlikely to stay shut thus a huge safety risk.  Also space.  We live on 1 1/2 acres and had no yard....this had to be fixed.

So the pool sat in our yard for sometime until I got into get to sell it on Trademe.  This is a site like Ebay.

Rather an eye sore if I might say so.

So after 10 plus enquiries the pool sold.  We were so excited that it would be gone and that we would have a few dollars to easily finish the last of the jobs before summer really arrives.

This is how the pool left our property

In comes the truck, it braces itself, gets its crain ready, attaches strops and chains.

The pool is drained of water and lifted onto the truck.  It is a tight fit but does the job.

The pool is situated lopsided on the truck because of our driveway.  It is going to overhang our fence line.  It is a really tight fit, it even scratched a little mud off the bottom of the pool.

Then finally there is the tight 90 degree turn to navigate. The pool needed to be repositioned on the truck to get around the corner.

We all stood there heaving a huge sigh of relief.  Please that it left our house in one piece and that the truck was able to get around the corner.

Now our yard is looking like this.  The photo was taken this evening.  Hmmm all that grass will have  to be sowed and mowed but that will be for next weekend.

Relax

When time was mine and mine alone I used to love lying there on my back, enjoying a summers day just looking at the sky.  I loved to feel the sun beaming down on me and listening to all those native birds enjoying life around me.  A book at my side completes this picture.  Sadly there is very little for this in todays world. 

Just maybe one day in the future this will happen. again but at this time I am more than happy to give it up.

I hope you all find your moment to relax

Wordless Wednesday 26 October

It is three photos today.  Not the best photos but I hope they tell they story.

Firstly there are the trees at my place.

Then there is the ladder that McKenzie and her cousing built.  They used only sisal for this part.

Finally the tree house.

So we have plenty of bamboo and some figure eight rope tying skills were developed but two days of work during the school holidays and these two were happy.

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys.

Toasted Museli

I have been looking for a new breakfast.  Toast was getting really boring so I have taken with this homemade toasted museli.  I double the recipe because my children love this too.

2 cups of oats
1/2 cup of pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup of sunflower seeds
1/4 cup of sultanas
1/2 cup of maple syrup

Mix all above together well.  Cook in a fan baked over at 160 degrees celcius for about 20 minutes.

There it is straight out of my oven.  You really need smell-a-vision.  Just perfect to look at better to smell.

Serve with yoghurt and fresh fruit.  Hmmmm I cant wait for the morning.

Monday Menu 24 October

Well Monday here in New Zealand was a Public Holiday so my blog took a break too.  But I did have a menu so here it is

Monday   sirloin steak, potato and green vegetables

Tuesday  Steak and Kidney crockpot on rice.

Wednesday  Chicken wraps filled with salad vegetables.

Thursday  meatloaf and salad

Friday  tuna burger and salad  (McKenzie wants to make this for dinner so this is the night for her to have a go)

Saturday  quick quiche and salad

Sunday  Leftovers


I did think that this week I would make toasted museli.  You will find the recipe here on my blog.

I am linking this to I'm an Organising Junkie

New Water Tank Part 2

Following on from this post you might have guess that our 30,000 litre water tank in now installed and working.  Of course it has not rained to start filling it.  The new pipe work all done by my Father and DH who have pottered around at this for 2 days.  I have to say that they have done a marvellous job.  It is so neat and tidy. 

So after the first days work no pipe work but we still had water from the older concret tank.  You might as why we need to install a second very large tank.  Well it is very simple Hayden.  Yes we do many things for him and his needs.  He creates one load of washing mainly consistently of bedding on a daily basis.  He needs to use the toilet twice as much as the rest of use and thus flushing, then there is all the water he drinks, the water he plays with etc.  Of course I can not ignore the fact that I will have teenagers in my house soon and the whole idea of a short show will be foreign. 

Here is the tank after the first day.

It is not a good looking tank but it supplies us with all the water we use.  At the moment it is about 3/4 full and summer is just about here.

Then there are my wonderful workers studying the pipe work that was in existence.

Then there it all is.  Lovely looking pipes.  I still have water running, my big hole (yes right there in front where the dirt pile is) just needs a little grass seed tomorrow and some plants to make things look a little more like eye candy. 

 Naturally I still have a few more jobs before we can sit on the deck and enjoy the summer but that will be for another post.

The New Water Tank Part One

We have been waiting sometime to put together the cash to finish installing the water tank and today was the day to being phase two.

The Little Yellow Digger needed to return to finish the hole and help us find the feeding water pipe.  While at our place a couple of other jobs were finished too but that is another story.  As you can see we have an exsisting concret tank from the 1980's.  While there is nothing wrong with that tank Haydens medical condition uses a lot of water through washing and flushing the toilet etc.

Behind the fence the hole is for the next much bigger tank.  Then the little bit of grass that is good enough to mow was defaced because we needed to find that all important pipe.  Hmmmmm more mud created.

So back to the hole.  In rolls the digger.



He increases the depth and width of the hole that we had there already.  Of course it is always worth a look I say.

Especially when this is what the action looks like.

So tomorrow I will post Part two with it all in site and my wonderful helpers.

Wordless Wednesday 19 October

Here is my photo this week.  It has rained here a lot during the school holidays.  A trip to the movies was an obvious choice so here my lot are after we got home having thoroughly enjoyed the 3D version of The Three Muskateers.

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys.

Monday Menu 17 October

Another monday is here and summer is trying really hard to show itself to us. Sadly the rain is trying very hard to hang around which is keeping the air temperature a little lower than I like. Anyway I don't have many internet links this week sorry. If you really like the idea of something not linked leave me a message and will blog it for you.

Anyway on to the menu for this week.

Monday Chicken Wraps

Tuedsay Baked chicken and feta bake with green vegetables

Wednesday Indian Lamb Cutlets with sauteed potatoes and green vegetables

Thursday Garlic and chilli beef with ginger and soy vegetables

Friday Pumpkin bacona and feta pizza

Saturday pasta with bacon, tomato and sourcream sauce

Sunday leftovers

I am linking this to I'm an Organising Junkie.

Lemons and Grapefruit, what to do with them?

I have inherited a prolific producting lemon tree and a grapefruit tree.  While these trees look like they have had little attention (my sort of tree really..little attention required and but plenty of positive results.) they are now bearing so much fruit I am not sure what to do with it all.  It seems like such a waste for this fruit to fall on the ground and go to waste.  So I thought it was time to put my Edward De Bono Thinking Hat on, Green Hat is best suited, and see what the options are for me to consider on top of what I already do.

(lemon photos mine from my tree today)

1. Make marmalade.  See my previous post here about this.
2. Use a cut in half lemon in a saucer with a little water.  Turn the microwave on for about 1 minute.  Then wipe clean.  Such an easy thing to do.
3. Bake with lemons making such things as lemon mereinge pie (or the light version here), muffins, lemon cookies and lemon honey.
4. Then you can stuff the cavity of a chicken with lemon.  Bake it and hmmm beautiful
5. Squeeze lemons and freeze the juice for later use.
6. Candied Citrus Peel
7. In New Zealand a hot lemon, honey in water for sore throats.  Maybe elsewhere in the world you use this.
8. If you have a rubbish disposal system in your kitchen then a cut up lemon down this with sweeten up the disposal and maybe even clean somewhat on the inside.  I use oranges and grapefruit also for this.
9. We use lemon and baking soda on oil that has stained the garage floor.
10. Wipe the inside of my fridge down with lemon juice in warm water.  Hmmm not only is your fridge clean but is smells great too.

I am sure there are other things I can put to this list so please leave all your ideas.  I am sure that I can make good use of them.

My Fabulous Little Helpers.

As you might know my 'yard' requires quite a bit of  manual labour to knock it into shape.  The labour force is all home grown so, even though my DH is away, we began on what a fairly major chore at my house. 

You can see from the photo that pile behind the trees, the pile that is taller than my children, it was the focus of our attention today.  We had already moved a pile slightly smaller and easier to manage yesterday.

Eagerly with gumboots on and wheelbarrows at hand we started. 

Two hours of lugging stuff, you know the sort...wooden fence pails, branches, trees, bamboo etc, we had to finish because there were other committments in the afternoon and my helpers and I were getting tired.  I guess we are half way through the stuff that needs moving but another bin will be required to properly finish the job. At least there is a little more lawn that can be created for the children to play on which was one the big incentives for the move.

I am very proud of my childrens effort.  I have promised that tomorrow should be the last of what can be done without another bin. 

Making Marmalade

I thought, since I have a more than plentiful supply of grapefruit and lemons, I would have a go at making marmalade.  I can't say that I was filled with confidence about my chance of success but it was worth the effort I thought.

So I found this recipe that did not involve me having to peel the fruit and I was ready to go.  I did a little research to work out how to sterilise the jars in the microwave, which by the way was very easy and hot.

Anyway it is now 10.44 pm and I have just finished cleaning up the bench in the hope to avoid attracting the ant colony that seems to know when the bench is not cleaned properly.  It has taken about 4 hours from fruit recovery to having a clean bench at the end with 8 jars of marmalade on the bench.  It is too soon to tell wether it will set property (the spoon test) told me I should be right for an easy to spread marmalade.

So fingers crossed for a marmalade that can be used on toast not one that acts like a sauce.

Wordless Wednesday 11 October

Wow it is Wednesday again.

After yesterdays hospital visit with Hayden I thought that this photo was very appropriate.  If it was to have a title then that would be 'Still Waiting'

I am linking this to My Little Drummer Boys.

A Day in Hospital

Hayden needed to spend 6 hours in a planned hospital visit today.  He was having a renal function test done and that requires time to get it right.  The day went something like this

1. Arrive at the hospital, go to Daystay to get the needle inserted into Haydens port a cath
2. Go the Nuclear Medicine Department....wait
3. Have the special dye inserted into the port a cath access point (the vein)
4. Wait for two hours.
5. Have blood taken
6. Wait for one hour
7. Have blood taken
8. Wait for one hour
9. Have last blood taken
10. Go home

The hardest part of this day is that there are limited things to do at the hospital and Hayden, with a short attention span, did all of these things in half an hour.  Oh boy.  The rest of the time was simply difficult and tiring.

Here is the port a cath ready for todays action.

Having a ride on one of those $1 ride things.

Hayden got to particiapte in a holiday programme and made this fish.

Monday Menu 10 October

Mondays menu is here again.  I am linking to I'm an Organising Junkie


Monday  Sausage(from our homekill man), baked potato and mixed vege

Tuesday  Indian coconut beef curry on noodles

Wednesday  wonton soup with stirfry vege

Thursday  bacon and pumpkin pizza with salad

Friday  Freezer meal

Saturday  vegetable samosa on noodles with yoghurt

Sunday  leftovers

Have a fabulous week.

(source photo of bacon and pumkin pizza from here)

The Holiday List

I loved Melissa's idea of making a list of things to do in the holiday.  This is especially so because I am a list sort of girl.  So I thought being the beginning of the holidays I would make a start remembering we have some serious manual labouring to do to the outdoors of the house we have just bought.

1. Visit the Fan Zone at Queens Wharf, Auckland.  I guess a must do thing as the Rugby World Cup is being held in New Zealand and the finals in Auckland.
2. Take Hayden for his EDTA kidney function test
3. Go to the movies
4. make Toilet Roll Seed Starter
5. make marmalade
6. make Rocky Road Bites
7. send my scrapbooking books off for printing.  Very exciting.
8. start a photo time capsule
9. bake with the children home made bread.
10. make dinner together starting with these homemake pita breads
11. Go walking in the Hunua Ranges.
12. make Strawberry Lemonade
13. take photos for Christmas Card with this template as inspiration.
14. hire a bin to fill and take all the rubbish away from our new house.  (Ok so the bin was not nearly large enough but one bin is full and one more will need to be hired.
15. Movie and popcorn afternoon at home.
16. plant grass in my large needy spot
17. finish bracing the deck.
18. pizza garden

Lastly lots of  outside play and fun.

How much rain is too much?

I know that living on a block of land requiring rain to keep us in water is something new.  I know that we have been crossing our fingers and toes for a little rain to keep our water tank full until we can get the new one installed but really and truely the weather Gods truely took my hopeful thoughts way too litterally.  This was after about 15 minutes of really heavy rain and a dash of large hail balls.   Just take a look.

My husband out chicking the current water tank to make sure we are collecting maximum water.

A closer look and you can see the DIY moment as the water collection pipe is going to need futher repair on a dry day.  I can just see the children listening to 'dont't play with the wood please'.

Then ofcourse you find our yet to be grassed spot well watered.  I suppose when the seed goes in next week the sun will shine for weeks with no rain.

Wordless Wednesday 4 October

Another Wednesday.  This week you can see the story of this moment.

Here is father and son just last weekend.  Hayden is disabled but is paying a lot of attention to the art of DIY.

Fixing the drill bit.

Immitating fixing the drill bit.

Just check out the goggles....hair stuck inside but Hayden is oblivious to it.

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys.

Monday Menu 3 October

Here I am linking again to I'm an Organising Junkie.  With in being the last week of the third term in this school year I can truely say I am hanging out for a holiday.

Monday   freezer meal

Tuesday  Herb and garlic beef stir fry

Wednesday  Ham and capsicum  Fritata

Thursday   Sweet and sour stirfry

Friday  bbq chicken with salad and vege kebabs

Saturday   chicken wraps

Sunday left overs

That Puddle

We have a puddle in our yard... well it is not really a puddle but a hole we are getting ready to put the 30,000 litre water tank in.  You can see the sence of scale when comparing the water tank to the trampoline just beside it.

Unfortunately the water table on our land is very high and when you dig down water comes to the surface and this is what is causing our puddle, along with some rain.  This photo shows what happens after you have pumped the puddle out and you can see the bottom. 

This all leads to my photo from Wordless Wednesday  .  Andre asked if he could rescue Haydens gumboots, which had been thrown in the hole when it was 3/4 full of water.  Without looking I naturally said yes.  The next moment he is there in front of me in his swim suit and goggles waiting to get wet.

So knee deep in water, in he gets and the wet gumboots are found.  We all spent the next 10 minutes laughing especially as the swim suit and goggles did not get wet.

I scrapbooked this.

(The credits for this can be found here at Nuts4Digi)