We love mulberries!!

This is our favourite tree of the moment - our mulberry tree...

It gets heavily pruned by up to half each year and it rewards us with it's bounty.  So far we have enjoyed mulberry and pear scrolls...

And we love mulberry muffins but there's never any left to take photos of.  We've made microwave mulberry and strawberry jam...

Which as you can see goes great on toast - excuse the finger in the photo!  They also get them in smoothies and in their brain food containers for school.  And of course, what is better than just grabbing a handful off the tree for a quick snack?

We love mulberries!!

Saving water, saving our skin...

I have finally found a way to save more water AND make Miss 12 take a shorter shower!  We already save our washing machine grey water to use on the garden, but now that our government has cut us down to one watering day a week, it wasn't quite enough.

So in to our shower came one 50 litre bin, and one 50 litre tub big enough to stand comfortably in.  We have two shower heads, so the 50 litre bin goes under the one not in use and catches the drips (it's turned off but still drips).  The person showering stands in the other tub and tries to finish their shower before it overflows.  This was Miss 12's shower water this morning...

Four minute showers are gone - now we have four bucket showers instead!  Now to the saving our skin bit.  You already know that I make all our soap.  The incidence of eczema and dermatitis has dropped dramatically because of this over the last year.  So to take it one step further, this is now my shampoo...

I was sceptical, I did the research, and I'm now on day four and loving it.  I wash the hair with 2 tbsp baking soda mixed with 2 cups warm water.  Then I rinse it, then rinse it again with 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar mixed with 2 cups warm water.  You don't have to rinse again, but I do - then I condition just the ends of my hair.

My scalp no longer comes out of the shower bright red, my hair still feels clean and healthy, and the itchiness is decreasing.  I've promised myself a two week trial so I'll let you know how it goes.

And now I'm making our laundry powder as well...

2 parts Lux Flakes (or grated laundry soap) : 1 part oxybleach (or borax) : 1 part washing soda.  I use the oxybleach (Napisan or similar) instead of the borax because borax is not recommended for greywater recycling - builds up the boron content of the soil, bad for the plants.  This batch was 16 cups worth - which used most of a box of Lux Flakes, half a 2kg container of a generic brand of oxybleach, and most of a 1kg bag of washing soda.  I'll let you know how long it lasts.

PS My regular laundry powder is great for gardens and skin anyway - I'm trying this as a cost exercise.

Surf Life Saving season begins...

Sunday saw the start of the surf living season.  On the beach by 8.45am, lined up behind the appropriate coloured flags (same colour as your caps, red for Blondie, dark blue for FJ), ready to start at 9.00 am.

There were long swims and runs, handled really well by both kids, then came the board paddling.  FJ got the hang of it on the return leg...

And Blondie also got the idea about half way, after the instructor had to drag the board out past the beach break...

Then came the flag races, "Toes on the line, heads down....GO!"

"Who didn't get a flag this time?"

Of course it had to be Blondie that got the jellyfish sting...

And considering that both kids had been with Daddy at Crusty Demons the night before until 11.00 pm, they did really well - we didn't get the expected meltdown, just this grumpy face...

"Can we go home now, please?!"

Swimming up a storm!

To all you suffering in the cold check out this photo...

Our pool is open for business, and last week saw air temperatures in the thirties and the pool sitting at 27 degrees.  The kids even managed to get me to get in a couple of times.

This week has been cooler but the kids will be back in this weekend.  They've gone back to school this week after two weeks of Vacation Swimming lessons.  Very successful - Miss Soon To Be 12 passed Stage 9, Blondie passed Stage 6 and FJ made great progess on Stage 3.  Kids loved it and we've enroled them to do two lots over the January holidays.

The last day of the holidays also saw the two youngest do their compulsary swim to get into the Litlle Nippers Surf Life Saving programme.  Blondie had to do 50 metres - which we had no doubts about, and she did easily.  FJ had to 25 metres - and he had not managed to do 10 metres to pass his Stage 3 swimming.  Well - he did it.  We are so proud.

Well done little man!!

The Nit Saga

Well, it is confirmed.  Blondie did have nits, and a well established headful as she had not told me for a couple of weeks that her head was itchy.  She had thoughtfully passed them on to her brother as well, and also to me - for the first time ever in my life.  Luckily FJ and I only had a couple.  Miss Soon To Be 12 was nit free as was her father - well he has no hair to have nits in!!

Now over the years I've tried every nit treatment out there - from the RobiComb, an electronic comb that zaps them, to the natural poisons, the chemicals and the conditioner treatment.  Normally I've found the conditioner treatment to be the best.  Not this time however.

After Round 1 of the conditioner treatment which removed heaps from Blondie, the next morning still saw her complaining of an itchy head.  A quick look confirmed that she still had heaps.  Right!!  On to the poison.

And we also did a very unimpressed FJ.

Master FJ was so unimpressed that he requested a severe haircut - doesn't this look much happier?!

And Blondie has been after a major change too - doesn't she look cute with a bob?

Oh, and Miss Soon To Be 12 just told me to tell you all - "It's six days till my birthday!!!!"  More on that another time.

Why do bad things always come in threes...?

I'm BACK!!  Yay!!  I do apologise for disappearing from the face of the earth, but our computer has been with our friendly repair guys for over two weeks - just got it back yesterday.  Turns out it was full of viruses and spyware and broken files - obviously our virus software was doing it's job really well -NOT!!

Now however, my washing machine is throwing a blue fit - and yes, it was in the middle of a load of towels.  And my camera is also in the repair shop with sand in the auto focus (how DOES that happen?).

 So, deep breath, that should be it - right?

"Mummy, my head's really itchy!"  Oh no - now we have NITS!!!!