Two rats in a hammock - Part II

Simon makes an excellent pillow for Beans.

Doesn't that look so warm and cosy? I swear Simon is the plushest creature ever. It is impossible to resist picking him up and rubbing your face in his flagrantly fluffy fur. Mmmmh!

I wish he was my pillow!

Oh well. Off to bed now.

Two rats in a hammock

Hanging out with your mate.

The best way to spend your holidays!

(P.S. I have so much free time! It's incredible!)

Milo in his house

Milo sitting on his comfy facecloth rug, looking out of his cardboard house.

I love making houses that rats like to hang out in. So satisfying in that deep warm fuzzy happy way. Like baking cherry pie. Hmmmh.

Not at all like the self-flagellating prickly drudging falutin that is academia. Some of the time anyway. I'm just sayin'!

We made ravioli

From scratch! >_<

Ravioli filling was roasted butternut squash, garlic and pine nuts, and the pasta was made with organic eggs and 35% durum wheat flour for extra bite.

We ate it with sage butter, goats cheese and sage flowers.

It felt like an enormous success, since the previous (and first) time we made ravioli it turned out a flat wet floppy mess, so this attempt was pretty astounding, on a personal as well as tasty level.

(Quietly elated.)

:D

The North Wind Blew South

Such fun to watch, this video by Keith Loutit, on scenes in Sydney made to look miniature.

Milo vs the mites

My bright-eyed boy has been battling some itchy mites for a month now, with a horrible red and scrappy looking sore chin. Tonight we did another dose of the treatment and accompanying mad scrub down of everything, and he looks a little happier, maybe? Fingers crossed everyone for my little Milo!

Bear turns 38

The invitation.



The outcome.



Happy Birthday Bear!

The party was great fun, there were shiny balloons, spelt out candles and ice cream cake, and all our favourite people turned up.

(No, there are no photos of the actual party or the excessive amounts of food.)

(Because I forgot!)

(And was busy cooking all that food, damnit.)

Adrian and Alysha's wedding

A happy happy day!



Gorgeous outfits. Apparently inspired by the very scary clockwork frenchmen Madame Pompadour Dr Who episode. Very very scary episode. Still, they looked great!



There was much excitment amongst the under-10s about the throwing of rose petals. This young man on the left wasn't sure if he was allowed to throw them on the couple so tossed them over himself instead.



We had a great time! Apart from being so genuinely excited and happy for Adrian and Lysh, we also got to catch up with one of Bear's old friends and his very cool wife and kids, including an extremely nice 6 yr old who was great to sit next to and chat about toys and food and all sorts of things. I am so glad I didn't have to make polite small talk with people I didn't know, because I am very unskilled at that. Also, I had had several drinks.

We recovered over Sunday and I almost slept through all of Monday too. Back to work now, but certainly, desperately, a holiday must be in the offing? Soon?

Rubble rousers

Digging up the floor!





Now we are so sore.



But there are only six rows more!

Alfie opens can of pringles

I was looking through my rattie pictures and found some old 30 second clips of Alfie, opening a (mostly empty) can of Pringles. His method was basically to make holes in the lid around the edge till he got a strip of it detached, and then pulled on that to take off the lid. Alfie was also the one who figured out how to twist open the yoggie jar and then taught Monty how to do it. The third clip is my favourite. It cracks me up everytime I watch it.

Alfie was such a great rat.


First clip: Alfie notices the can and decides to try opening it. With his teeth.



Second clip: Alfie really gets going, hauling the can to his play area and trying to get a better hold on it.



Third clip: About twelves minutes after the first clip, he does it! Hooray! Hilarity ensues.



We miss you Alfie!

Introducing Simon

Hi Simon!

Simon came to live with us in March this year. We picked him up from the RSPCA Blue Mountains shelter after seeing his ad on their website.



When we first got him home, he was healthy but skinny and surprisingly well-behaved for a rescue rat. He would certainly have been a pet in his previous home, being used to being held and petted, and very generous with licks and cleaning our hands for us. He also liked it very much when we scratched him on his scruff between the ears, probably because he hadn't had any rat company for at least a month that we know of (ratties can't reach that bit themselves, which is why they tend to groom each other on that spot).

I have no idea how it was that he came to be in some stranger's backyard up in the mountains, where he leapt upon a freaked out (but obviously kind) woman who brought him to the RSPCA. Which is where he lost his balls. Poor thing.

So he had his big outdoors adventure, lost his harbls, settled into the shelter, charmed everyone, and then came home to live with us. He seems to like it here.



He seemed very relaxed when we first held him, and would brux contentedly when we told him it was his home for life and we'd take care of him, hot dinners every night, warm bedding, etc etc, all the most comforting things we could think of to say to a lost rattie. I think he decided we were Okay.

Eventually, he made friends with Milo and Beans ("eventually" encompassing a whole month of separate cages, rat wrangling, big pouffy fights and many hilarious incidents), and moved into the big rattie apartment where his beautiful plush fur and big warmness would certainly have been welcome in the cold weather. Simon is the plushest rattie I've ever held - I think desexing might've helped on that account. He has masses of fragrant, soft and very fine golden orange fur, with a cream belly and a cream smear up on one side, an orange creamsicle of a rat!

Anyway that's it for now. More stories of Simon later. Here is a picture of him enjoying some strawberry smoothie with Milo and Beanie. He's not so skinny anymore!

mucosal musings

I have been home sick for a week and a half now.

When it began, I thought, oh well, I'll just rest it out, remembering the need to take lots of afternoon naps from the last time this happened.

Of course I'd forgotten that the reason I'd had to take all those afternoon naps was because I could not get any sleep at night on account of All That Snot. Needing to be ejected, painfully hacked out, or otherwise stubbornly clogging up headspace and all breathing routes.

Green snot is the most satisfying and the transparent stuff just feels like such a waste of time. Panadol helps though, as do hot water bottles, thick socks and sleeping in two layers of pyjamas plus fleecy bathrobe. The husband is also useful for sympathy (albeit wearing thin), extra warmth during the night and for re-fueling the hot water bottle in the morning.

The best thing however, has been the discovery of hot drinks made with lemon, mint, slices of ginger and lovely bluebell honey. Mmmm.

*sniff*

An extraordinary story

From the TED talks



From TED.com: "Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment."

We bought a sofa

Today, Bear and I bought our very own very first, brand spanking new sofa!


(photo courtesy of the Myer catalogue)

In this colour!



(It's actually much lighter in colour than it shows up on my monitor)

Super exciting! We are now waiting on the 6-8 weeks for them to make and deliver it. >_<

Also, the fabric itself, despite feeling soft and lovely like suede-made-of-cloth (if that makes sense), is apparently teflon-coated during manufacture, so stains will slide right off it! Wondrous!

Night time fooding

I am nocturnal again, and I have embraced it.

On the days where work people schedule morning meetings and seminars, I stagger through the day zombie-like and muted, but otherwise, it's grand! Like a secret life in the quiet night.

So I made stock at 1am tonight. With the carcass of a bought roast chicken and carrots from the garden, the usual onion and celery, a slightly old piece of ginger, a long red chilli, several cloves of garlic, a small bunch of sage, two bay leaves and a sprinkling of black peppercorns. I wondered if the sage and bay leaves would go along with the sort of asian-y ginger and chilli, and it was fine! I think the trick with chicken stock is to leave some meat on the bones, otherwise you're just waiting for the flavour to turn up and it doesn't.

The stock was done in 45 minutes and was gloriously rich and flavourful. Yum! And then I made spicy chickpea soup with it, by adding in a can of chickpeas. I made this once with dried chickpeas and I think the truth of it is that I have not the patience to soak or cook the buggers long enough. I also added some cumin to taste, and whizzed it up with the scarily powerful metal whizzy stick. Bear is usually the whizzy stick technician in our household, and I see why now, because I dirtied up two (two!) otherwise clean pots to get the right depth of liquid to prevent the stuff splashing everywhere. Of course by the time I was done it had splashed everywhere anyway, but whatever.

I heated it up again to simmer for a bit, then took it off the heat and added the juice of half a lemon. To taste. And then, for the hell of it, whisked in an egg. I froze most of it and then ate the rest with parsley and pepper.



So there you have it! That is how you make spicy chickpea soup with lemon and egg at 3am in the morning, not that the time really matters, but at 3am, no one is around to say anything about the mess you've made. And after that, a banana with ice cream, chocolate sauce and toasted almonds for dessert!

Yum for private feasting!

Zucchini

I bet you did not know,
that when a zucchini is picked,
fresh from the plant,
it is kind of spikey!



I did not know that either!

Stephen Rothwell

I just came across, via boingboing, the collage art of Stephen Rothwell. Click on the image to see more of his deliciously dark and creepy images.

A perfect tomato

From the garden.

Veggies galore

Right bang in the middle of summer, we're looking at our last crop of tomatoes.

That makes me upset!



I've been so used to picking them off the plant, still warm from the sun, flavours so bright and bursting, manifesting their true fruit-ness, but no more!

Sigh.

*mope*

I've been meaning to write about our veggie garden for months now, since we started it. I even took some photos ages ago. Since I'm up at 4am and not even slightly sleepy, here we go!




Our very first zucchini! Whee!




Butter lettuces. Really tasty stuff - Milo loves this. We alternate with crops of Cos, some of which were rudely stolen. More on that later.




Carrots! They look normal on the top, but underneath, they're all kinds of twisty and tentacly!




Corn. The ears have come up now and we picked them a bit late - they're slightly dry, but have good flavour. The ratties like them too.




Part of my random flower bed - an assortment of petunias, marigolds, helichrysums and occassional short-lived but gorgeous dahlias.




The tomato bushes. Lots of different sorts, big ones, small ones, pear shaped ones, yellow, red, orange and 'black' ones. We lost many to the caterpillars until Bear invented (or rather appropriated the idea of) an organza bag-thing that we sewed and put over the fruit to protect them. Clever Bear! I think we should also have pruned them back a bit - they all seemed manageable while growing, then suddenly it was like a jungle. Lessons learnt for next time.




A butterfly/moth(?) on a white petunia.




Our first capsicums! So exciting! Except that they fell off not long after. Bleh.




This is part of our herbarium (fancy word for collection of pots of herbs) in our backyard. Pictured are basil, sage and thyme. The basil has gone to seed at the moment and we're growing a new crop. Other herbs we have are rosemary, oregano, mint, chocolate mint, bay, parsley, um... the dill died... what else is there... oh yes, lavender and this elderflower plant that I don't really want anymore. Also we have some chilli trees starting out and a meyer lemon tree in a big pot. Huzzah! Lots of pots!




Red helichrysum, also known as paper daisies and everlasting flowers (or something like that). I like this picture because it looks like a lotus.




Beans! Yellow ones. An easy and generous crop.




Figlets on our fig tree. Everyone assures us the bats and birds will eat them all when they ripen; that is, unless we find some sort of large metallic net to put over the tree. Meh. We also have a lychee tree, with fruits just starting to go yellow. Yummy anticipation!




Finally, this is our hardworking gardener, to whom we owe our bountiful harvest!

I do my bit too, but because I scream like a girl and run away when I see a wormie, I mainly do small-time planting and weeding. I also do the watering sometimes, which is arduous because it involves using a watering can (no hoses because of water restrictions), and can be tricky, especially when trying to manouvre around/through the Tomato Jungle to get to the leeks, etc. Nevertheless, I see it as a kind of ritual offering to the spirits of the garden - Here, I trudge around with this heavy watering can so that you may have this water, now please grow and become edible! Thanks!

Speaking of the leeks, it's difficult to talk about them because I'm still upset by the theft of our Entire crop of leeks. There was a large bed of them and I was really looking forward to using them. Steamed baby leeks with walnut oil... mmm. But some total low life came into our garden one evening, trampled my flowers, squeezed some tomatoes and then took All of the leeks. All of them! How incredibly rude is that?

So Bear and I passed several sleepless nights running through revenge fantasies to visit upon this vile soul.

We also bought a motion-sensing light thing for the garden and considered growing a hedge to block it from the street (because it's in front of the house, facing directly onto the footpath)... but we'd rather not, because of all the people who seem to enjoy looking into our garden. Everyday, we have this steady stream of people, usually elderly greek/lebanese men, women with prams and that one monk, who stop and lean over our front wall and look at the garden, and offer gardening advice and recipes to Bear when he's out there. It's really nice! And feels great and community-like. But what do you do about the idiots?

The leek theft wasn't even the first. The first time, they took several large unripe tomatoes, several lettuces, and left a large bootprint in the soil. We'd rather not wall ourselves off from the street, but then how do we show that it is Not Okay to come into our garden and take stuff?

Urgh. People.

Oh well. That's it for now. We're thinking of putting in some veggies for the winter, and redesigning the garden to have raised beds and some sensible paths and things like that. I love our veggie garden. It nourishes the soul!