Diabolical Clay

I have joined in the fun at Lotus’ aka Sarcastic Mom.. I will fess up and tell you that I do not have a clue what I am doing at all.. Veronica Did a thingy for me ..(she’s a good daughter). So All I have to do is copy /paste a word document and hopefully I will get Lotus’ groovy button up, then all I have to do is add my pics… Yay

Cross your Fingers for me…..

My Goddaughter B… has been selected to go to Japan..YAY.. Twenty students from year 7 and 8 are going to Japan next august. B… has only been out of Tasmania once before and that was for a wedding when she was 10. B… had to submit an application in the form of an essay. Ten students were chosen from her High School and Ten from another High school.

This is a 7 day exchange programme with B.. Staying 2 nights with her host family then 3 nights at a youth camp then back with her host family for the final night.

But… and there is always a but *sigh* B needs to find 1600 dollars for airfares etc. So this is where you come into it..
My Daughter Veronica has a fundraising competition thingy set up on her blog. We are asking people to donate to a pay pal account to help send B to Japan… So could you please click this link to Veronica’s blog and just have a look… please :]

There is no pressure to donate at all. None ok… Fundraising ideas are welcome as well. Very very welcome.

B is going fruitpicking in January to earn herself some money.. I had to smile when her mum told me that. Last year B.. spent one day in the orchard picking cherries and swore she would never ever return because cherry picking TOTALLY SUCKS . hehehe

Welcome to the real world honey…Ya gotta work for the money.

Thanks for reading this and a big extra thanks for having a quick look at Veronica’s post as well.

cheers Kim

These were clean towels. If you haven’t read how much fun it is to do the laundry at my house. click here SCREEEEEAAAAMMMMMMMMMM

The offspring spilled some water. There were dirty towels,sheets newspaper, a fricking mop all close at hand…

Nooo clean towels were the sponge of choice.

Another super quick post, I am knackered.. (‘hic’…hehehe.)

I found out today that it has been 37 days since we last had any rain over 5 milimetres.
I needed to post this, so I didn’t forget.
cheers kim.

Considering that it is ‘exackerly’ one month til Christmas Day, I feel like sharing recipes. I especially feel like sharing recipes for ‘festive food’. Food that I really can’t be bothered making except for Christmas, Birthdays and when I feel like doing some Proper Cooking..( or when my family has begged enough..muuawhahah)

So here is the recipe for a really nice Potato Salad. I call it the potato salad from Hell because it takes ages to make…and I make a hell of a mess in the kitchen preparing it…

2 kilos of potatoes
half a cup of olive oil.
2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
salt & freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
6 rashers of bacon
1 cup of finely diced celery
1 cup of finely diced red onoion
2 teaspoons of dijon mustard
2 thirds of a cup of mayonaisse
2 thirds of a cup of sour cream
half a cup of chopped parsley
half a cup of chopped mint
half a cup of chopped chives
4 hardboiled eggs sliced

Boil the potatoes until just tender, but firm.. Drain and set aside to cool.
Slice bacon into fine strips, saute, then drain off excess fat.
In a large bowl whisk the oil,vinegar, salt and pepper
Add the potatoes (peeled and chopped into bite -size chunks) to the oil mix.
Turn gently, to coat thoroughly with oil.
When the potatoes are cool, Add the celery and onion.
In a small bowl whisk together the mustard, mayo& sour cream.
Add the herbs,(mint, parsley& chives) to the creamy mix.
Add this to the potatoes with most of the egg and bacon.
Carefully fold the potato salad to combine all ingredients.
Use the last of the egg & bacon as a garnish.

I have copied this recipe out exactly as it was given to me..
and it is really yummy as is.
But I change things to suit myself sooo. It is a really flexible thingy.

I add small cubes of cheese or grated parmesan depending on what is in the fridge or how I am feeling. I also now add diced red capsicum for a bit of colour.

This is a really Yummy potato Salad even though it is a bit fiddly to make.
If you want to make this and have any questions I will answer them in the comments.
No Probs at all.
Cheers Kim

I am thrilled to bits, that I was able to take this picture of an Echidna today. Echidna’s trundle through my yard all the time, they have a rolling, waddling way of moving, sort of like a drunken Daffy Duck. … They Trundle.. lol.. And I absolutely adore these little creatures.

I had to do an Elmer and cweep down the backward wery wery qwietwy.
Otherwise the Echidnas will put their heads down and try to burrow into the ground and there is no way known you can get a decent photo at all….
This little girl was a superstar though and allowed me to take heaps of pics of her. So here she is…TADAAAA….

I have previously posted pics of my lovely well ventilated laundry. The laundry with the breath taking views. *sigh*
Please bear with me as I am about to have a whinge and for me to whinge properly, I need to explain exactly how you wash fricking clothes at my house.

I need to go outside. I need to check the tank to see how much water I have. If there is enough water in the ‘house tank’ ( this is the tank that is the easiest to use) I can turn on the hose, yes you heard me, I can turn ON the hose and squirt water into the washing machine. If the house tank is getting low*sigh* and it is. I can bucket the water from the ‘big tank’ into the washing machine. and this is a pain.

A great big fucking time consuming pain.

Ok, We are now assuming that the rotten twintub is full of water. Put 4 school polo tops ( no it isn’t a typo I said 4) into the bloody twin tub and  turn the button. 5 school polo tops will make the twin tub stop washing and start tearing holes in the school clothes. The wash cycle is 4 minutes. Kick the twin tub and click the wash button.

I am now Trapped. I have to be close to the torture device twin tub or we wont have any clean clothes and my darling son will use this as an excuse NOT TO GO TO SCHOOL.

Repeat this every three minutes or so.

Assuming the school polos tops are clean, I put them into the spinner and spin the water back into the machine. Water is precious up here and expensive.

I put the school polos into the white bucket , it is in the photo and I pour CLEAN WATER, DRINKING WATER, SPARKLING WATER on to them and I attempt to rinse them. Now 3 or 4 good dunkings in the white bucket and they smell less soapy. They even look less soapy . So back into the spinner part of the twintub with them. I have another bucket to catch this water this spinning soapy water, not to water the garden with. This water is to be set aside to be used to refill the washing machine when it gets low BECAUSE UNLIKE OUR POLITICIANS I AM LIVING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE and it sucks!!!

I put the next load of slightly dirtier clothes into the machine and start to wash again.

Are you getting the idea of just how difficult is is to do washing here?

Anyhow I was planting an olive tree this evening and I asked my son to carry a bag of sheep poo down to where I was digging the hole for the new tree and…

SHIT HAPPENS. SHIT! SHIT!SHIT! HAPPENS!

Apparently the bag of poo broke ACCIFUCKINDENTALLY .

ALL OVER THE TWIN TUB AND IN THE TWIN TUB AND NEXT TO THE TWIN TUB AND ALL OVER THE RINSING IN THE WHITE BUCKET. ETC .ETC.ETC

I should stop here BUT I DON’T

Hows this for a hypothetical scenario?

Now if you were a teenage boy and your mother was making totally unreasonable demands on you again*sigh*because your mother is a biaaaatch and wants to so totally ruin your life  and and and…
Wouldn’t you feel a teensy bit tempted to throw the bag of sheep poo at her? Oops, I meant at the stupid tree she was planting  because it is so UNFAIR
and it is only down the hill a little bit and how would she know anyway?

Unless the Bag broke.

Yep, The roof sprinklers are in good working order Yay!!! One less thing to do. We have a sprinkler system set up on the roof because we live in a High Fire Danger Zone… And anything we can do to make our home as fire safe as possible has to be good.

This is Not what I wanted to see today, or smell. No! No! No! . I do not want to see smoke when I go outside. I want to see raindrops big fat wet raindrops. Smoke makes me panic and I forget how to do simple things like put my shoes on. Smoke is not good. Panic is not good either. Finally my brain begins to work again and I manage to put my shoes on . It is too hot for shoes today *groan*
Although it is very smoky, the smoke smells old, I don’t really know how to describe the difference. Old smoke doesn’t smell as gumleafy if you can sort of imagine what I am trying to say…This is a good sign it means that the fire isn’t that close another good sign is the fact that the sun hasn’t changed colour. The sun is still a comforting yellow *phew* ( A red sun means the fire is quite close)
All this is going through my mind as I am mentally going through my bushfire checklist. All the while telling myself to” stay calm kimmy”

In the 5 minutes it has taken me to get properly dressed and remove the flammables from the verandah the smoke has become very thick and I am starting to have an “oh shit” moment because I am here by myself and the house tank is nearly empty. Eeeek. After I had filled up a few buckets with water I rang the Fire services 1800 number to find out where exactly this bloody fire was. It is about 50 ks away Yay. A very big Yay indeed. I was so relieved that I went outside and took a few photos and started to mentally compose this blog..hehehe

This however has been a very handy little wake up call for me there are things I need to do now so that when a fire actually does threaten us we are prepared. We already are pretty prepared as you cannot live in the bush like we do and not be” fire aware” I need to buy myself some cotton trousers and a new pair of blunnies. I need to buy petrol for the generator and We need to check the sprinkler system is still working. ( we have 3 sprinklers on the roof) We need to make some more ‘ beaters’ (long sticks with a piece of old woollen blanket wired to the end) We need to bring the 44 gallon drums back closer to the house. We need some rain…

Cheers I’m off to the pub now..I need to have a calming ale or three… lol.