one for Piglet

Our first black sapote for the season, kindly given to us from Shane via his cub, Jason. Piglet loves black sapote and when he and Murray stayed with us last December/Jan, they bought one at Daley's Nursery at Kyogle and its going strong on their Somersby property. We have two black sapote trees, one donated by Warwick and John, but they won't be fruiting for a few years yet.

Black sapote is also known as the chocolate pudding fruit because the fruit tastes like chocolate pudding, I kid you not.

Eric and Teo's no-Bake Choc-peanut cookies

We've had the pleasure of hosting our first American Helpers - Eric and Teo from Philladelphia. They arrived last Tuesday after a horror ride on the overnight train from Sydney to Casino and then coach down to Ballina where they arrived at 5.30am and waited then until Steve picked them up after he finished work. They were still in good spirits even after that ordeal. Anyways, they've done lots of great stuff including making a wonderful native garden out of a pile of soil that we had dumped from our soon-to-be Balinese central courtyard. I'll post a pic or two of that - the new garden, not the courtyard, in the next day or two.

While we were in Brisbane at the weekend, they created the most delicious no-bake cookies and they have generously provided the recipe.

2 cups of sugar

half a cup of milk

half a cup of peanut butter

1 stick of butter (hmmm not sure what this might mean...maybe try 50-75 grams)

3 cups of dry rolled oats

1 teaspoon vanilla

half a cup of cocoa

Mix in bowl and then spoon out and pat into shape. Simply put if fridge for a few hours and the mixture sets into the cookies. Yummo.

I dropped them off at Lismore station (which of course thanks to state government decision-making, has no actual trains passing through it anymore) this morning on my way to work, so they could then travel back to Sydney and on to their next Help experience in outer western Sydney on a flower farm.

Hanging carpet

When we arrived home from work this afternoon we had this rather large carpet python skin hanging from the roof of the entry area to greet us. Shane, who is here today, didn't see it at lunch time so it must have crawled out of its old skin sometime in the afternoon. Fan-bloody-tastic!

Tomas' last day

So what better way to spend his last day with us than cooking a spanish omelette (something which Tomas had been promising for some time) which became part of the feast we enjoyed today with friends, Trev, Julie and their three boys, Kel, Jamie and Tom, who we hadn't seen for months...
Each of the boys has their own python and so they were keen to spend some quality time with Kimba who also enjoyed getting out into the sun for a crawl around. Here's Tomas showing off his empathy with serpents as well as chooks! Tomas leaves us tomorrow - we wish you all the best matey and thank you for all your work over the past fortnight...we hope to see you back again sometime

Election Day excursion

A nice antidote to all the electioneering going on yesterday was to head the 25 minutes or so up the road from our place into the Border Ranges National Park. We'd first driven to Nimbin where we intended to vote and also show Tomas the town, but the queue to get in to Nimbin Central School to vote was about 20 people long so we pulled the plug on that (voting, you will be reassured to know at Cawongla school on the way home - we voted absentee) and after a pie and lamington on Nimbin's main street we drove up into the national park. Our first stop was Pinnacle Lookout where an amazing view over the ancient crater and across to Wollumbin/Mt Warning.
We also went for a short walk down into the beech forest where it's cool and damp, even in the middle of summer...
Tomas and Steve pose in front of Wollumbin

Tomas the Chicken Whisperer

No-one other than Tomas has managed to create a close and intimate relationship with our girls. No sooner does Tomas appear in the chookery than one or two of the bolder, cheekier girls flies up and perches on his arms or lap, eager to snatch any chicky morsels he might be offering.
eeeek I wonder where those feet have been?

Meet Tomas

Tomas is our current Help_Xer from Madrid. However, I am pleased to say that he bears absolutely no similarity with Manuel from Faulty Towers. Indeed, we continue to be blessed (can I say that as a non-believer?) with wonderful people who choose to spend some time with us. Tomas is wonderful.
He loves that we have a baby grand piano,which he plays most days, though he still hasn't given us a recital, and he also plays guitar, which he carries with him on his travels with his backpack. He doesn't have a laptop and nor does he use facebook or msn. Such an old fashioned backpacker!

He works pretty much all day, broken up with piano playing, and he's developed a very strong relationship with our girls, one of whom, as he demonstrated to me this afternoon, will actually jump/fly up and perch on his forearm while he hand feeds her! I am hopeful I can visually capture this unique moment before Thomas sadly leaves us on Monday. He has also been a most willing body for me to practce my massage, crucial since I have to accrue 30 hours of massage before mid-September.

I've been quiet...sorry

Apologies to those who like to read this little blog of mine from time to time. I have been aiming to blog at least once a week but over the past ten days or so I just haven't had the time...or, sadly, the inclination. Last weekend I was up in Brisbane attending the second of my massage workshops which meant I didn't get back home (with Steve who I picked up at Gold Coast airport after his weekend in Newcastle where he had been enjoying the triumph of Boy from Oz) till close to 7pm. And by that stage I was too tired to do much at all.

The weekend was good, though, and I'm feeling more and more competent with my hand strokes (first, second and third levels) following each workshop. We learned more hand strokes plus arms and next workshop which is the weekend after next, we do upper chest, belly and upper legs. Then the final workshop is in mid September when I do a one hour massage and am evaluated. Other than massaging, and being massaged, I wandered across the road from my apartment building to go to the Brisbane Show, the Ekka, which was a bit of a disappointment. It was the final evening and many of the stallholders and other exhibitors had decided enough was enough and had pulled up or were in the process of pulling up stumps. Getting disoriented, well lost, in the side-show alley area for 15 minutes or so was not much fun either.

Boy from Oz review 'costumes...breathtaking'

The Boy from Oz, which is the production that Steve was costume designer for, opened at the Civic Theatre in Newcastle on Wednesday night to high acclaim. The Newcastle Herald's reviewer, Ken Longworth, seems to have loved it, calling our friend Grant Drury-Green's performance as Peter Allen 'stunning' and if you click on the image of the review it should enlargen enough that you can read the text yourself. If you can't, then a sentence in the final paragraph will be of interest: 'Scott Allan's lighting design is stunning and the costumes designed by Steve Harrison and Bev Fewins are breathtaking, whether the setting is the formality of the Radio City Music Hall stage of the riotously coloured I Go to rio performance'. 'Riotously coloured'..that's my Stevie.

If you are in Newcastle or the region, do yourself a favour and go see it! It runs next Wed, Fri, Sat matinee and Sat night. Mr Harrison himself will be viewing it across three performances Friday and saturday next week, but unfortunately I have a massage workshop and can't go. I'll have to wait for the dvd.

Annual return of land and stock

I've just completed the annual return of land and stock form that we are required, as rural landholders, to complete each year. The form asks such questions such as the number of cattle/sheep/pigs/goats/horses/alpacas/ostriches we have, which as far as I know, is still zero. We're not in innercity Newcastle, anymore, Toto.

Brown bandicoot

Source: Googleimages: wet tropics.gov.au

A small brown form appeared in the headlights of my car as I neared the bridge over our creek last night at about 8.45pm. It was a northern brown bandicoot eating grass seeds on the edge of the road and it stayed put for maybe ten or fifteen seconds before bounding off into the shelter of the rank grasses that grow down to the road edge. We have a few on our property as well, their presence betrayed by the diggings in the lawn as they search for grubs. Unfortunately we most often see them as little brown corpses on the road as we drive to work. Sometimes we'll see as many as three unlucky animals that were in the wrong spot at the wrong time the previous night. There's been more red necked wallabies dead on the road these past few weeks and no doubt as the weather warms up we'll start seeing brown snakes on the road as well, most of which will end paying for the body-energising warmth of the road with their lives.