Winter

I've had a touch of blogitis, here is a look at what we've been up to.

At school there has been a complete rejuvenation of the extensive vegie patches, with new manure enriched compost and brick steps to stop the children compacting the soil. We planted lots of garlic, peas, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli... each class now has a vegie patch space to care for and a crop rotation system was devised. The place has never looked so organised thanks to some very dedicated volunteers.  A couple of the prep dads put together this wonderful tin man with mint hair, he is the envy of all of the other grades.

  There was a magnificent winter solstice with stories, soup, wood fired pizzas and a huge bonfire. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture in the daylight but a huge tee-pee stood proudly over the fire.  Each stick had been lovingly decorated by the students with bits of old fabric.

 There has been much crafting indoors and some quality time with teddy.  He even joined in on the June birthdays and had a party of his own.

 Our Schleich animal collection is one of the most played with toys in our house, and a peacock proudly joined the gang. 

 There has been lots of colourful soup, pink cauliflower soup, orange pumpkin soup and yellow corn soup have all been on the menu.

 The middle child is now obsessed with Harry Potter, great to see him passionate about books, although its quite obsessive.

The bread-maker has been getting a renewed workout, these cinnamon scrolls were one of our favourite creations.

 Mr Bowerbird had a sticky date pudding cake for his birthday and we had a beautiful day celebrating at a Kyneton winery.

 For my party there were Trentham spuds baked in the Coonara and a mushroom cake decorated with marshmallows and slices of apple. I shared a party with a good friend and was humbled by the generosity of food and gifts people brought along.

http://www.themuckymacbook.com/2012/06/party-marshrooms-how-to.html

For wonderful detailed instructions on how to make this cake see the link above.  The chocolate cake recipe seems very weird but is actually very tasty and generous in size.