peasgood nonsuch

Apple peasgood nonsuch

The stick in the ground next to the glowing beauty is an apple tree seedling. I liked the name Peasgood Nonsuch as soon as I first saw it in a catalogue last year. Since then 2 different people have been very enthusiastic about Peasgood apples that they've grown and eaten. So when I saw them in the local nursery it was a done deal. This one is on an M9 dwarfing root-stock so hopefully won't get too big (but also hopefully won't stay too small either - I'm hoping it won't fall victim to too-vigorous horseplay by les enfants).

I also planted the thornless blackberry today. I'm pretty excited about blackberrying without getting scratched!

And we had a surprise gift of strawberry plants. One of Merl's workmates has more plant babies than he has room for, so we very gratefully relieved him of about 20 strawberry plants. They are on my list of things to get planted tomorrow, along with the comfrey and the final apple tree...

I LOVE SPRING!!!!!

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how d'ye like them apples?

After humming and haaaing about whether it was too late to plant fruit trees (spring having definitely sprung in this part of the woods), and whether it was too boggy in our garden to plant them, I went on a "let's just see what's at the garden centre" expedition with a friend this morning.

I dithered and waffled and eventually decided it was too hard, gave up and we went for a coffee. Lovely coffee, lovely cafe - lots of room, and a toy box! excellent.

Got home, fed Miss1 her lunch, ate mine, and was just thinking about getting Miss4 from kindy when I thought "No, blow it, I am going to buy some trees today!"

I hopped online, looked up a couple of the cultivars that had caught my eye this morning, made a mental list of 3 and off we went! Collecting Miss4 on the way, of course :)

I headed straight for the apples, and loaded the cart with a Peasgood Nonsuch, and a Mother, but paused when I saw how tall the Oratia Beauty was. Could I fit it in the car??? (apples described here)

Yeeah, she'll be right! Give it a go... So onto the trolley it went too.

Of course, since I was in buying mode I then couldn't walk past a thornless blackberry, or a couple of comfrey seedlings, or a packet of runner beans, which is why I usually try and avoid the garden centre - but it will all come in handy and all be good for the garden and our food supply, right?

Managed to get them in the car by lying the tall ones from the passenger side floor, up over the tilted seat-back and along over the kids' heads. No worries!

Headed home, put Miss1 to sleep and then Miss4 and I were straight back outside into our lovely spring afternoon.

Here is Mother in her transplanted splendour.

Apple Mother

She'll need staking, but I was too pooped to bang a stake in. The root-ball is quite small, though, so Merl can do that in the next few days without fear of damaging anything. yay. Read more...

So when are we going to "start teaching"?

I got asked this the other day - when we were going to start teaching Miss4. Are we going to have a 'start date' on her fifth birthday, or start before then, or what?

I paused for a bit, wondering how to explain (nicely) that we had been 'teaching' her stuff since she was born, and wasn't sure what we'd actually be 'starting' that we hadn't already started. We'll be stopping kindy, because she can't go when she turns five. And we'll be starting Brownies, and heading along to our local weekly home-educators social catch-up more regularly (like, more than the once we've managed so far), and probably the swimming session with the same group, and maybe ice-skating lessons? But the actual "school stuff"?

So I hummed and haaaed a bit, and said, well, we'll probably be quite relaxed about it. Not do anything too differently from what we have been doing - she's already reading pretty well without us ever having sat her down and 'taught her to read' - about the reading age of a 9 year old (She likes to spend a lot of time sitting on the couch reading Asterix at the moment - I'm fairly sure she doesn't get the puns, but she asks a lot of thoughtful questions so is clearly comprehending the bulk of what she's reading. And heaven help you if you're reading out the chapter book and switch a word around, because she's reading over your shoulder...). So that's basic literacy kinda nailed. And we play a few 'maths' games - dominoes and dice games and card games, and she can do basic addition and subtraction. (We'll get onto advanced calculus when she feels the need for it). And the rest of education is all about life and the real world, meeting different people, doing stuff with others (of different ages and life experiences), getting a lot of exposure to ideas and having the time to think thoughts about the new ideas...

I guess I'm an 'unschooler'. Goodness.

And then my friend shared how well home-schooling had worked for a relative of hers, so we had quite a good wee discussion really Read more...

frugal ice blocks

And I mean super frugal :)

Somehow or other my kids have developed a taste for plain water ice blocks. Yep, just frozen water. They actually prefer them to sugary flavoured ones. Which is awesome on so many levels.

My sister in law bought us an ice cube try similar to these last summer.


It had sat there utterly unused until Miss 4's tonsillectomy. She really wanted cold drinks, and ordinary ice-cubes won't fit into a sipper bottle. But these do!

And then Miss1 wanted in on the act. She is currently teething (in a continual, no end in sight, sort of way). Chewing on these ice sticks was her idea of a super-duper treat. Which made Miss4 think she was missing out on a super-duper treat...

So now, almost every day, I wrap one end of the ice sticks in a little cloth and both girls happily slurp and chew their way through a stick of frozen water. I get little updates from Miss4; "Look what I did to it now!" "See how pointy it is?" "Hah! You didn't know I just bit it off, did you?". Miss1 will finish it up then tap me on the leg (tap tap tap) and direct me (using a no-nonsense finger point) back to the freezer to get her another one.

On the other hand, the home-made frozen-yoghurt and peach ice-blocks that I made specially have been taste-tested and rejected. C'est la vie. I'll get to eat them myself. Read more...

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - Andrews Sisters

Each morning the girls climb into our bed for a half-hour or so lie-in before we start the day. This morning I did the 'this little piggie' rhyme with Miss1's toes, using my Dad's variant - the boogie woogie piggie

This little piggie went to market
This little piggie stayed at home
This little piggie had roast beef
And this little piggie had none
But this little piggie was the boogie woogie piggie and he boogie woogied all the way home.

And while he boogie woogies home, you boggie woogie your tickle finger all over the place. Really gets the giggles going :)

Then Miss4 asked, "What's a boogie woogie piggie?"

So I explained a bit about boogie woogie music. But because you can't really explain music with words, after the breakfasting and getting dressed bit of the day was over, we You Tubed. Beginning with the Andrews Sisters' Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B (below) we journeyed through Boogie Woogie and Jive music for about an hour. Lots of fun.



She especially liked the Nicholas Brothers' dancing - their Chattanooga Choo Choo, with the Glenn Miller Orchestra got several watchings.



So we had music and dance appreciation, along with a touch of history ("Why are they dressed like soldiers?") Read more...

Great grandmother's tomato relish

My Nana's mother had a recipe book. Handwritten in a notebook are all the recipes - and some sewing and knitting patterns - that she used.

I never knew my Nana's mum. She died when my Nana was just 12 years old. Since then my Nana and my own mother have passed away and so this notebook treasure has come into my possession. When I was about 12 I wanted to type it out to preserve the recipes but my good intentions reached as far as a few pages, long since lost. The notebook is markedly worse for wear now, nearly 20 years later, and the mice have had a field day with the corners (My Nana had forgotten it was in the bottom of one of her kitchen cupboards and was horrified to discover this evidence of rodents in her domain). Sadly some of the recipes have vital bits missing thanks to the mice.

I have rekindled my good intentions, so as I type them up into a document, I shall post some here as well, to share the discoveries.

All measurements will be Imperial, not US (see here for conversion).

I will type them as she wrote them. If you're going to try them out (and I hope some people do!) please do remember that she was cooking on a coal range, and wrote these recipes down for her own usage, so her instructions may be confusing or incomplete where she just knew what to do next.

Tomato Relish

15 large tomatoes
4 large onions
1 lb sugar
1 quart vinegar
5 chillies
Cut up in small rounds. Boil together 1 1/4 hours - Add 1 dessertspoon of Curry powder, 1 dessertspoon mustard and 1/2 cup of flour - mix with a little cold vinegar and boil a few minutes.


From what I can guess, based on 'traditional' New Zealand cookery, 'mustard' will mean dry mustard powder, as opposed to mustard that's ready to use from a jar or bottle. Read more...

We have our little girl back!

Miss4 is bright as a button and full of energy. I have not seen her looking this well for a very long time. Removing her tonsils and adenoids appears to have improved her overall health immensely. My guess is that she's sleeping better because she can breathe more freely, and being properly rested is flowing on to being generally very well.

I haven't seen her this... I guess 'vital' is the best word... for probably 18 months. When she was two she had this high energy enthusiasm and glowing good health, but she has been just 'run down' for so long I had forgotten. Yay.

The grommets have done a good job too. She wasn't completely deaf but she was missing the ends of words sometimes so it will be good for her to hear properly.

We are very very pleased we did it.

In other news, Grandma (Merl's Mum) arrived for a surprise visit this weekend! It really shouldn't have been a surprise but I completely neglected to write it down in the calendar when it was arranged and it had slipped my mind. Still, no harm done. She texted me as she got into the airport shuttle so I was still able to have morning tea with Dad and make it home to clear her bed off before the shuttle arrived - we're always among the last suburbs they deliver to since we're not really on the way to anywhere else. A good weekend was had by all. Miss1 didn't have any period of shyness with her Grandma this time and launched straight into her charm offensive, and Miss4 was, naturally, over the moon. Lots of good family time. Read more...