Power/Electricity

My place in time #56

About 15 km out of town, towards the Canunda National Park coast, is South Australia's largest, turbine wind farm. It consists of just over 120 wind turbines, dotted through the landscape for  about 25 kilometres. The Lake Bonney wind farm is currently owned by Infigen Energy, the first stage being completed in 2005 and the third stage and last 13 turbines in 2010. 

I find it so peaceful beneath one of these turbines and mesmerising to watch, they have a certain hum and whoosh. It's quite an amazing sight, and I love coming for a drive out to see them. 

There has been much controversy about the 'side effects' of living in proximity of the turbines, not that I know much about it. It has been in the local paper lately though.

'My place in time' is a local area history photo project. You can see the original challenge at the blackcurrant photography blog.

Scrunchie poos and wee

I have a scruncher. It bugs me no end, but I haven't taken the time to correct it. Or should I? Is it so bad that she is a scruncher? Or am I a serial folder, and think that there is no other way.

Sometimes the scrunch is so small there is no way it could mop up anything. Like, ridiculously small.

I am dumbfounded, as much as she is proud, at the size of her poo. Lucky for me, it's almost always a clean break, and the scrunch is sufficient to clean it up. Many a time I have heard her say, "Come and look, it's a big one". It always is, and sometimes the colour has me thinking she has eaten kermit the bog frog, or a smurf with a sponge bob chaser. This may have a lot to do with her requesting strange icing colours for her cupcakes, not because she is a fan of green veggies, because she is not.

Izzy is fine to go by herself. It doesn't stop her standing in one spot, doing the dance and, accompanied by the MJ crotch grab, whining that she needs help. This always happens when we have visitors, I am peacefully drinking tea, cooking dinner or computing. Why wouldn't she?  How dare I! 

What is more of a parental inconvenience is when she dashes down the hallway, rushes into the dunny, shuts (and locks!) the door. This is only forgiven because of the devilish cackle that resonates from the echoey cubicle, she got me, the little shite. Makes a mother proud. Not. Maybe. Not when I have already dropped whatever I am doing and am halfway down the hallway. 

Probably why I haven't the bother to correct her scrunchiness. Maybe I should take more time to convert her to folding, like a normal person, instead of worrying what I was doing when she rudely interrupted me with her pooness. Ok so now I am finding it weird that spell hasn't corrected me on pooness, but there is a problem with scrunchiness. Yep definite problem.

What's more I have to go through this all over again with Summer girl at the start of next year. Shiiiiit. It's a lot of dropping what I'm doing and rushing down the hallway for the sake of poos and wees. Oh the joys. It all fun and games, except for the pretty barbie undies full of poo, and the smelly wee tainted towels in the wash, and the endless mopping.

Do you have scrunchers or folders? What's your funniest memory of toilet training toddlers?

Five things to have instead of a biscuit binge

Some of you may remember me babbling on about trying to lose weight. Well it worked somewhat. I lost 9 kilos, but put four back on. I am extremely shit at keeping it off, so I'm on the 'stop eating crap' bandwagon ....again.

So what's my downfall. It's not chocolate, I am not much of a chocoholic, I don't keep a stash in the house, but I wouldn't say no. 

I do like potato chips. And ice cream. But I don't have them much. Hubby likes to have them, it seems it's becoming a usual Friday night thing, and I try to stay away, sometimes badly.

My achilles heel of keeping the chub at bay, is the biscuit barrel. It's there, right in front of me when I open the pantry door, and awfully easy and convenient to twist off the lid and grab a quick snack. Just not 5 times in a row!

Five or six goes of the biscuit barrel, depending on the type of biscuit, could equate to a whole meal. Not good. Not good when there is no nutritional value and just about all those calories are from fat and sugar. 

Hoping I can practice what I preach, here's five alternatives to the dreaded 3 pm biscuit binge.

1. Get out of the kitchen, away from the pantry and take a bottle of water. Drink it.
2. Grab some fruit. Apple, orange, pear, watermelon. Keep the fruit bowl stocked.
3. Eat a carrot, or cut it up with celery, cucumber, capsicum. Use cottage cheese for a dip, if plain vegies are too boring.
4. A tub of yogurt. Try some chia seeds mixed through. (Try it, you'll like it). 
5. Nibble on a healthy handful of nuts and seeds, like almonds and pepitas.

Take your time. Chew. Appreciate the flavour, texture. Sit, let it settle. 

What do you do when your 3pm cravings set in? What is your diet undoing?

Mud cake and somersaults

Wordless Wednesday

Nothing but trees

My place in time #33

If you drove along the Princes highway between Millicent and Mount Gambier, this is the view you would most remember, besides the fields of sheep and cows. It is the same view across many parts of the lower South East of South Australia.

I travelled the highway every school day of my high school life, watched the pines from the seat of the Tenison College school bus. Dotted along the side of the road are also apple trees. I like to think they've grown from apple cores being tossed out the bus windows by school kids over  the years.

I remember our bus driver never liked us eating on the bus. I ate an orange once and nearly got away with it, except for the idiot kid who purposely bumped my hand, resulting in orange peel being flung high in the air and scattered several seats away. Little prick! Sid (our driver), wouldn't let me get off the bus without sweeping the bus out when I got to school. He wasn't all bad. He'd let us play our music on the cassette player, usually Bon Jovi or Guns n Roses, until he got sick of the behaviour and Dolly Parton or some other unbearable country music would come on. I must say I wasn't in trouble much at school, I was one of the quiet ones. Dolly and Kenny Rogers have become much more bearable as I've aged.

I spent my primary school years in Nangwarry, another small town surrounded by pine plantations, again travelling by bus, from Kalangadoo. So these trees have been a big part of my life.

Block number, and year of planting underneath

It's so beautifully quiet, just the birds, the cracking of wood underfoot. Eerie at the same time.

In the past these trees have supported jobs for thousands of families in this region. My dad felled trees in the forest(and has many lifelong friends from it), and went on to work in the Kalangadoo Timber Mill. I even worked in the Carter Holt Harvey Nangwarry Mill 15 years ago, on a production line making laminated veneer lumber (LVL) or what you would probably recognise as plywood. Hubby used to cart pine chips to Portland for export, and work out of the various mills in the region. Kalangadoo Mill is closed, Nangwarry Mill is closed and the company hubby used to work for no longer carts chip to Portland, due to the Gunns collapse.

The state government has sold off the plantations in the lower south east to private investors(The Campbell Group) for the next three rotations. It takes about 35 years for trees to be ready for harvest, so 105 years. Long time. There was much protest by local businesses and people, to no avail. 

'My place in time' is a local area history photo project. You can see the original challenge at the blackcurrant photography blog.

The colour of the sun

I've noticed there is lots of yellow in the garden at the moment. It reminds me of the sun, but doesn't do anything to warm me up. The cold weather has set in now, I am missing the warmth of the sun. It still makes an appearance, but can't compete with the chill in the air. I hate the cold. 

glorious jonquils, they are now inside in a vase

the stupid soursobs, a weed 

last flush of 'gold bunny', a climbing rose, before I prune

We are still getting outside in the yard. The kids getting wet and grubby, always followed by a warm bath and dry clothes. This week we may be out a bit, I need to prune the roses, as long as the rain stays away. June has come around so quickly.

Pruning the roses will warm me up. It will make me shake my head and swear. I can't tell you how many roses will be called 'bastard' or 'mongrel', after it's thorns have penetrated my skin or clothing. I have a love/hate relationship with my roses. All will be forgiven in November, when they bloom in all their glory. Then I will love them. 

Chook house happenings

Making mud with the Nerf water gun

We went mushrooming again, and hit the jackpot!

My mum turned 60 over the weekend. Present from the girls.
Us kids put in for a Tassie holiday for her, and Dad, if he can be
convinced to go.

The last of the tomatoes, I've taken them inside in the hope they will turn red with the warmth.

Cool chic

Izzy sporting her new short do. Still whinging at brushing
time. Sigh...

My place in time. A photo challenge.

I have recently found a great photography project to take on. I really enjoyed doing Chantelle's photo a day last year(taking a break this year). I am so glad Carmen shared the link on twitter, for the My place in time photo challenge, otherwise I would have been none the wiser. 

It's a photographic local history log of 100 photos, set by Kell at Blackcurrant. 

“It’s important to capture reality. To tell the truth. To come back with a piece of history” – Stephen DuPont

It feels good to be excited about doing another photography project, and even more excited about printing the final product in book format! That is truly something to look forward to.

“A photographer’s responsibility is to come back with images that will tell a story” – Stephen DuPont

Movie greats, according to me

My favourite all time movie would have to be Dirty Dancing. It came out in the late eighties, right when my teenage hormones were raging. It's got hot bods (well one hot bod) and great music to boot.

Before these dancing dudes
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there was this dancing dude.......
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I love Star Wars. Any of them, old or new. Han solo may have been one of my first movie crushes. I am hoping the new movie, earmarked for 2015, is worthy.

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Toy Story...for keeping my kids entertained and quiet, just for a while. 

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My kids have also loved watching The Wizard of Oz, it is a timeless classic. Hard to believe it was made in 1939.

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It is so unbelievably hard to choose just one comedy movie. There have been so many side splitting favourites over the years, and if I started rattling them off I'd be here all day week.

So here is just one of my faves. I love Simon Pegg movies, Shaun of the dead, Hot Fuzz, Burke and Hare and this one pictured, Paul. Think of it like a grown ups E.T., just hell funnier.

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Draping myself on

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