Nature babies

Besides all the beautiful flowers that are blooming in spring, my other favourite thing about this season is all the new nature babies. We have 2 nests in 2 different trees in our front yard, the Black faced cuckoo shrike and the Australasian fig bird. The 'figgy's' as my DD likes to call them have been nesting in our tree for as long as we have lived here and the cuckoo shrikes for the last 2 seasons. They, along with the magpies provide plenty of entertainment for the wee ones with their fighting (aka protecting their nest/babies). The magpies have been making the most unusual sounds, almost like they our copying our words, I have never heard them make these sounds before. The other babies we have seen most recently were from our visit to Taronga zoo. The chimps in particular were most fascinating. 3 new babies and a whole lot of testosterone getting around. They were crazy! At one stage one threw another into the water. Very loud and very exciting! The zoo was an amazing place though I cant help but feel a little sad seeing them 'kept'. I know some of them know no different and others were 'saved' or whatever the story. I guess sometimes life is like that for some of us too...?

Our resident mummy and daddy Black-faced cuckoo shrikes.

Our side garden.

Our Sydney trip was much better than I expected. I generally prefer to stay where I have everything I need for the wee ones at my fingertips as I am a self proclaimed stress head/control freak! It was nice to get away from everything at home (although I was constantly reminding myself of all the things I would still have to do when I get home) and force myself to relax a little - not so easy to do. My biggest realisation of the getaway was how much we do for ourselves at home. We stayed in a room that didn't have the greatest facilities and thus made it quite difficult to do and eat what we normally would. Plus I didn't have all my bits and bobs at hand. I popped down to the local aldi to get some food/supplies and when you don't have any cooking facilities besides a microwave and kettle at your ready there really wasn't much I could buy, sorry kids - carrots and bananas for 2 days straight! Takeaway (we had Thai one night) was so expensive and tasted ordinary too. I did bring home a packet of biscuits and much to my delight the kids did not like! I do notice with a lot of things now when the wee ones try something that is not made by moi, they just don't like it and ask me "what is this?" with a look of disgust upon their face. Mind you lollies haven't worked their way into that category yet :( 

Third attempt at growing potatoes, so far a success.

Front garden coming along.

More of the front garden.

The garden is really getting a wriggle on now and I am picking 2-3 zucchini's a day, a handful of beans, radish and lettuce for the salads. We have had some amazing rain, which I am so thankful for and feel almost guilty hoping for a couple of days of sunshine now. I cleaned the chookhouse out and put all of their stinky straw over my garden and the rain has mooshed that in nicely too. I think when the sun does eventually show its face again my nicely 'maintained' garden will soon be as wild as my kids hair! As all the new little seeds are popping up I am starting to see all the bare patches of garden. I just want to fill them with something, anything. Hubby wants to leave it so it all looks neat and organised. We have very different ideas about how our garden should grow.....I wonder who will win out?

My Grandmother's beautiful Jacaranda tree (and pool) that we cant wait to visit on the holidays.

More of my grandmother's beautiful spring blossoms. I love visiting her garden.

In case you haven't heard yet, Christmas is only 51 sleeps away. I am really looking forward to the holiday season for so many reasons. The biggest and best is Hubby is taking 4 whole weeks off!!! In that time we will make a trip to QLD to see all my family and some of his. The kids are constantly asking me to go up there not understanding that its not just 'around the corner', but now they have something to look forward to and I can say yes we can and receive squeals of excitement in return. My grandmother's beautifully established and flourishing garden is always a treasure to see (and raid) and the kidlets spend most of the day in the pool and either running away from or with Jasper the dog. The rest of the year will be over before I know it. My mum used to say "there aren't enough hours in a day" and I used to wonder what on earth she would think that for - I'm sooo bored (thought 13 year old me), now I totally get it and hear myself thinking that all the time!