The Taj Machook

Actually when I ponder it I think the Taj Mahal may have had less time and thought invested in it.

Beau has been lovingly and methodically slaving away at this Chook Palace for weeks now. In the meanwhile our poor girls have been shunted around like itinerant Gypsy's whilst Beau madly hammered away on the few days he gets away from work.


I'm so proud of his handiwork, between the fact it was practically free( lucky for us we live in a new development...hence lots of skip bins filled with timber scraps)
and the fact he managed to do something so technical with no plans and nothing but a few basic tools...well shucks and all that but I have a new respect for The Man of Much hair aka The Husband.


So it was move in date for the girls today, and after much cursing and experimenting to get the coop out of the garage it's finally in place and chookies look noticeably happier already.


Anyway enough of the praise for Man of the House, and back to my favourite subject...ie bragging about myself.

I made homemade pasta today( it's amazing the things you can achieve when 2/3's of your children are being cared for by government employees)


It wasn't bad at all even if I do say so myself...but I think I'll have to find a better drying tool, I'm not sure draped across the back of my kitchen stools was completely ideal.


I served it with a cream,garlic,basil reduction and it was none too shabby...kids hoovered it down but that isn't unusual for them, they'll consume anything.


So once again another riverting insight to the Davidson household,I bet you can hardly contain the excitement Dear Constant Reader.

It never rains it pours.....

At least in Far North Queensland.

After much finger drumming and whinging about the humidity the heavens have seen fit to open and rain down upon us.
Of course in perfect timing this also coincided with my Zucchini and Pumpkin setting about 300 fruit which have now all rotted, and back to school for the elder children of mine. Which meant I had the debatable pleasure of chaperoning back to school on Wednesday two children who by the time they reached their new classrooms were soggier than drowned rats and almost $200 of drenched school books.
The Joy.


But yes our Fat Boy otherwise known as The Child who had a Speech Delay yet now won't shut up has started school. Prep. I'd almost pretend I'm human and I shed a tear, but Dearest Constant Reader you know me too well. I shoved him through that door with more glee and I even experience when I hit the David Jones sales and went rocketing home to enjoy the peace and quiet.

Oh and the rain....mustn't forget the rain.

Well that's about it for us at the moment...I'm slowly trying to restore the veggie garden to some semblance of order after the torrential rain and within a few days "Our Girls" aka Angry Chook, Zen Hen and Poppet's Chicken Palace should be ready and I'll update with pictures ( Beau is fancying himself muchly,with reason mind you)


Purple chilli,Black Zebra Tomato, Capsicum and a heritage Eggplant
Tomato and Eggplant
My very happy Okra

Baby Watermelon!

Sad looking Zucchini

Squash and various Tomatoes

My Yam!

Sweet Potato

Self Seeded Pumpkin

Sunflowers

Tommy Toe Tomato
Over and Out.

Beware the Ides of March(Flies)

Well in a valiant effort to follow through with my resolutions, here I am again Dearest Readers.

I'm back from our trip to the wilds, our first official "Family Camping Trip". Amazingly Beau and I remained on speaking terms for most of the trip.

Biggest hurdles were the evil mass of march flies that decided it had never feasted upon a tastier morsel than my pregnancy bloated legs and the torrential downpour we had the first night. Probably not helped by the fact I clung to Beau all that night whimpering and clutching a hammer and asking him if the bolts of lightening was actual Axe Murderers come to butcher me in my sleep....Ahem anyway.

But despite this we all had a great time, I floated in the beautiful freshwater creek scaring the cows, Beau wandered around half naked trying to spear fish and the kids turned half wild.


We came home to find the garden had bloomed once again( especially the bloody nutgrass)and some self seeded pumpkin and tomato had also popped up. I've managed to con Beau into setting up my raised garden bed as well, so I've been fantasising about what seeds I'm going to order for that. I'm thinking some Purple Chilli, Pink Thai Tomato and a heritage variety of Thai Eggplant. Ohhh and I'm ordering some Yams and fantasising about the Push Mower I saw in Bunnings yesterday....exciting much?

So that's about it for my thrilling life at the moment, I'll finish off with some updated garden pictures and if you can stay awake through that consider it a triumph.

Zucchini Patch

Sunflower

Pumpkin

Watermelon hiding behind the Pumpkin

Sweet Potato

More Watermelon

Self Seeded Butternut

Raised Garden Bed

My amazing garden in its entirety


Peace out.

New Years Resolutions.

Can you guess #1 is to Blog with more regularity?

After wasting approx 6 months of my life this year mentally drooling over everyone elses blogs

I've finally found the motivation to return once again, if only to TELL you I've found the motivation to return once again.

So you all know 1# now, and I pinky swear now Non Constant Reader I will stay true.

Now for the rest.

#2 To eat better. Somehow whenever I fall pregnant I change from being the food nazi to consuming anything that crosses my path. Somehow I doubt my breakfast each morning of chocolate rolo dessert custard and diet coke is doing much for my backfat or helpful for optimal fetal nutrition.

3# To live more sustainably. This shall be the ultimate challenge considering I can barely spell sustainable, but hey my hearts in the right place. Normal wanky suburban measures are being put in place, half dead vegetable garden etc haha. Aim in the new year is to get some chicken and a bokashi bin. But I have been trying, I've even given up the dream of having a hushamok for bebe #4 and instead I'm putting that money towards a stash of cloth nappies....the ultimate sacrifice *wipes a tear*.

If only I had inherited my mothers green thumb.

#4 To finally get on top of all our debt and start saving for some land, after being inspired by the very clever Kelly of http://theantirat.blogspot.com/ .

#5 Learn how to sew. BAHAHAHAHA *clutches sides*

And now just a preview of the start of my "resolutions", hopefully now I've admitted all this I'll follow through!

My Meyer Lemon Tree


Imperial Mandarin Tree



Zuccini



Pumpkin


My Snazzy new watering can



Sprouting sweet potato.


Homemade laundry powder

I also have Chocolate capsicum, two types of tomato,watermelon,passionfruit,basil, snake beans,eggplant and balinese sweet corn growing. Beau also gave me a lovely raised garden bed for Christmas but we're yet to assemble it. Hopefully I manage to get something edible in the end!

Last but not least, a new companion to Fred and our latest addition.



"Frankie Blue Eyes"

Meatloaf and Me Me Me!!!

Well like everything in my life, once I get off the proverbial butt and get started I can't stop, so after a break of 9 months I now have 2 blog posts in 2 days.

I'll start off with THE best meatloaf recipe ever....this recipe changed my life, fail to believe me if you will, but trust me make it and you'll be a convert

Credit to my cooking idol Tessa Kiros, it's from the worlds best cookbook Apples for Jam(excuse the picture, I couldn't find the last picture I took of the meatloaf so I took a photo of the cookbook pic).


Meatloaf with Roasted Vegetables

80g White bread crusts removed
1/2 cup of milk
2 large carrots peeled
1 large potato peeled
1 red capsicum
500g Beef mince (she uses lean, I use pov mince because I think it makes a better tastier meatloaf)
2 tbs of finely chopped parsley(I use basil)
1 garlic clove finely chopped
1 heaped tbsp grated parmasan
1 lightly beaten egg
4 tbsp olive oil
100g thinly sliced pancetta
2 sage sprigs(I never have sage so just double the rosemary)
2 rosemary sprigs
2 unpeeled garlic cloves
1 tbsp plain flour
1/2 cup of white wine or stock

Preheat the oven to 180C. Soak the bread in milk for about 15 minutes, squashing it up with your hands so it collapses.
Cut the carrots in half lengthways then into four. Repeat with the Zuccini.Cut the potato into more or less the same size wedges and the capsicum into strips.
Put aside
Put mince into bowl with parsley(or basil),garlic,parmasan,egg and squashed up bread and a flat tsp of salt. Combine until smooth then form a large loaf shaped like a giant egg.
Drizzle half the olive oil into a large flameproof baking dish and put the meatloaf on top.Cover with overlapping slices of pancetta tucking them in at the bottom.
Scatter the veggies around, drizzle them with the rest of the oil and toss with some salt. Tuck the herbs and garlic cloves under the veggies.
Bake for about 1 1/4 hours turning the veggies halfway through. They should be crusty and golden and the pancetta crispy. Turn oven off. Remove the veg and meatloaf to a platter, cover with foil and return to the oven to keep warm.
Put the baking dish on the stovetop over high heat and sprinkle in the flour.
Cook, stirring constantly to scrape up all the bits. Pour in wine/stock and stir until evaporated. Add 250ml of hot water season with salt and cook until smooth and thick.
Serve with thick slices of meatloaf and veggies.

Enjoy!

Now just for some random pictures of my Oh So interesting life.

We've recently had the misfortune( I kid I kid) of having Beau's sister Bree and her husband EJ come visit from the backwater they call Perth. It's lovely seeing the kids, especially Bruno interact with their cousins and I'll be very sad to see them go...well the boys anyway haha



They actually have my big kids and have taken them camping once again proving without doubt to me that they are not the brightest sparks...leaving me with just the unruly child, Miss Teddy. So to take advantage of our new found freedom Beau and I pretended we were a one child family yesterday and took Her Ladyship The Esteemed Theodora to Muddies for some chips and a splash around.
She's obnoxious but rather lovely to look at.









And lastly mucho thanko's to the lovely Tina who reminded me of two precious objects I had "put away somewhere safe" and now have pride of place on the girls bedroom walls.



I don't like to blog about Ava, because I don't believe anything I say can do her justice,I sound too clumsy, too sentimental. But she is still very very much remembered in this household.
XoSuper PrincessoX

They say it's like riding a bike

And for a start stop being filthy you lot, I'm talking about blogging!

Secondly it's all lies, it's not at all like riding a bike, I can't remember
a damn thing...where is the thingamie button to post pics? How do I do this?
how do I do that? I have the memory of a goldfish so it's like learning to ride
said bike all over again.

Well I'm back ;)
I thought I'd be back because Domestic Goddess I am, I made my truly superb
Tess Kiros Meatloaf the other night for dinner and I wanted to share with the world
what a clever clever chook I am.
Then I realised I didn't take a picture.
Then I realised I'm as unmotivated as hell.
Then I forgot.

Then I decided that I'm going to die in childbirth with this pregnancy from an amniotic embolism (reason #7585 why Dr Google is NOT your friend ) and in the search for information about my future manner of death came across this foul piece of blogging trash.

http://skepticalob.blogspot.com/ I tried to insert her Blog as a clickable link
but it was an epic fail.

I'm not particularly passionate about Home birth, not that I don't think it's a wonderful idea, but I just KNOW I'd be racing around afterwards wanting to mop up blood and home births and white bedlinen is so not a match made in heaven ( plus I'm a sicko that loves hospitals and even *gasp* hospital food).
But Dearest long suffering and now probably non existent Constant Reader, her views on homebirth are just vicious, she's meant to be an Ob Gyn but the language she uses to describe home births, the midwives that attend them and the woman who have them are just, well , petty?
She sounds like a 14 year old who's boycrush decided to take her uglier nicer friend to the movies instead of her.
Soooooooo of course I went poking about in her Blog and what was her latest post about...Down Syndrome of course *sigh* . And because I have all the self preservation and control of a gnat I stayed and read it...and let my panties wedge further up my bum crack, then commented , then got my panties further twisted.

Result, now I'm here Blogging about it.

My first disclaimer is that I am not religious at all and I am not Pro Life.
My views about termination and Down Syndrome derive from neither of the above things, in fact if anything the fact I'm not religious means effects to an extent the way I feel about D.S and termination for medical reasons.
We get one shot at this life kiddo's and Down Syndrome is not a bloody good enough reason to let that chance go.
I read recently on Essential Baby someone parrot the view that there are some "Fates worse than death" too justify terminating a fetus with Down Syndrome.
Fucking.Bullshit.
I dare, I effing double dare, anyone with that view to come live with me and observe Raphaela's life and tell me that her fate , her very existence is worse that being dead. The very concept is so far removed from the truth it's difficult to even dignify it with a response. Yet the sad thing is that it's quite a common view, especially( a view made from my very unreliable experience online in the past 6 years) in American culture and nowhere do you see this view parroted more than in the U.S blogging community and in U.S parenting forums.

What I think bothers me more than anything is the lack of honesty and posturing behind it all. Say you don't want a child with Down Syndrome, say it's to hard or hurts too bad or they look funny....hell medical inducement will make it all go away.
But do not patronise me and pretend that being born with Down Syndrome is hell on earth, that that extra 21st chromosome guarantee's a short lifetime of medical problems and pain,a worthless life, of being a burden on their families.
If we were going to bargain away the lives of our children on odds, we'd be better off only having children with Down Syndrome, anyone ever googled everything that can go wrong with a chromosomally "normal" child?

What people like the esteemed Dr Amy Tuteur MD and like minded colleagues fail to grasp in the nasty little cesspit they call a mind, is that parents like me, parents of children with Down Syndrome, advocate and get caught up in these extremely painful discussion not through some sadist need or because "quote" of the guilt of bearing a defective offspring.

Down.Syndrome.Is.Just.Not.That.Bad.

We, not Dr Amy Tuteur MD, not any of the other Dr's or genetic counsellors LIVE with a child with Down Syndrome every day. Not a "high functioning" child as my friend Dr Amy Tuteur MD would like to claim. But a child whos quality of life is as good as any of her siblings. Who deserves to LIVE. Just like any of her unborn peers.

So take that Dr Amy Tuteur MD and shove it up your pipehole.

P.s Melissa, will be back with said meatloaf recipe when I've finished making playdoh voodoo dolls of my favourite blogger :)