Joey Delights

Hello there :-)
Last weekend we toodled up to Perth to have cupcakes with a special young lady who turned eight - yay eight! Happy Birthday to you dear Stevie xx

Here are Michelle, Steve, Paul and Sam watching the girls play at a beautiful new park near Paul's house.  It was nice in the shade, it was a stinky poo hot day!  We felt sorry for the team of workers nearby that were creating what we think will be a skateboarding area, they looked very hot.

 We went for breakfast with Michelle to Halo Cafe in South Perth.  Well! Yum yum yum is all we could say.  I chose their homemade banana bread complete with caramelised banana and passionfruit syrup - delicious!

 Steve and Michelle chose the chia pudding, made with almond milk, agave syrup, and topped with almond butter and fruit.  They both loved it. 

 I have set myself a mission to use chia more, so I scoured the internet yesterday for a handful of recipes and doing a bit of tweaking, I had a go with the ingredients I had in the pantry.  Oh my gosh it was wonderful! 
Recipe for 4 serves-
1 400g tin of light coconut milk
70g (up to the 100ml line on a measuring jug) of chia seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
35ml of maple syrup
small handful (20g) of shredded coconut.
Put all the ingredients in a bowl and give it a good whisk to mix the chia seed well, then cover and put in the fridge overnight to thicken.  Serve with fruit.  Next try will be using almond milk.

Per serve of pudding (135 grams) - calories 225, protein 4.5g, fat 15g, total carbs 20g (within that sugars 10g), cost about $1.50

 Whilst we were in Perth, Paul served up Kale Crisps, we had never had them before - very very nice!  Shred up some kale, massage in some oil (we used coconut) and sprinkle with salt (we used garlic salt) and pop in a moderate oven until going crispy, about 13 minutes in my oven.  Our attempt ended up a bit salty but still very nice.  Who knew that kale could be so yummy.  Although, as my friend Cori commented, the kale is really only the vessel for oil and salt ha ha

 After the healthish cooking I also made chocolate chip biscuits ha.  Allow a moment of stupidity here, these two biscuits caught my attention and deserved a photograph.  These are the Emotional Biscuits. :-)

 We had a visit from our friend Claire from next door, who now mothers two orphan joeys.  Poppy on the left we had met before, and Pippa on the right has been with her for 2 weeks.  Oh my, what a delight, they are both hopping now, and we got to see Poppy hoon around like a total maniac.

 Pippa on the other hand was being quiet, and she spent ages holding my hand and sucking a fold of my jeans  Beautiful beautiful babies, and so soft!

 Speaking of wildlife, look at these two crazy magpies.  They look like they've died don't they.

 But no, they are alive and well, and merely sunbathing in the back garden, wings outstretched, warm as toast.

 Steve has been a busy busy boy carting barrows of mulch into the back garden.

 It looks so nice when garden beds are mulched, it makes everything look so neat and tidy and cared for.

 Hopefully the dripper watering system we've installed under the mulch will keep the plants watered well, but at the same time reducing weeds, by not watering between the plants like sprinklers do.

 I have been busy outside too, I whipper snipped everywhere to clean up grass and weeds, then I roared around on Helga and finished all the firebreaks ready for the fire season.  As I was bringing Helga back to the shed, a small stick got caught up underneath, a totally normal thing to happen, Helga chomps up sticks and spits them out, however this bloody stick got trapped in the drive system, destroying a pulley and thus the drive belt is loose and floppy and Helga isn't moving any more.  Bugger.  We pushed her back to the shed and are awaiting collection by the fix-it people to make her all better.  My reputation as a Helga wrecker continues....

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The view just outside the back door always makes me happy.  It is filled with lovely flowers, delighting the bees, butterflies and hover flies.  Bottom right is a very happy lemon thyme plant in full flower, to the left of that is a lovely pale pink trailing pelargonium.  In the background is the purple heliotrope that butterflies love, and the yellow abutilon at the back.
On a final note - the bushflies have arrived, flyveils are the current fashion statement around here.