Snow at the hut

The hut was made for snow. The magical snow dusting we awoke to yesterday seemed perfectly natural to us. The perfect white covering the weeds, the wallaby poop, the septic tank, the empty garden beds. I hope we don't have to wait so long for another snow day.





The dogs were in heaven, rolling and snuffling, eating and wrestling.

The girls and I made a tiny snowman.




A day to remember always.

Last days of summer

To be honest as summer ebbs away I am already thinking about autumn. The weather is cooler. The days are noticeably shorter. 

Sunday was a last blast of summer heat. We lazed about the hut, changing the sheets, getting some washing on the line. 

The doors and windows were flung open, despite the very unwelcome European wasps that have turned up for the year. Just in time to attack our plums and apples. Boo. Rob has set up traps, plastic tonic bottles hang in our orchard (there you are a reason to drink gin and tonics) with holes half way down and black currant cordial in the bottom. They are irresistible to the nasty creatures, and soon become a pulsing sea of wasp bodies. I am allergic to them and so keep well clear.

We took the pram and some buckets down to the gully on the side of our block to pick the first of the blackberries. 

The girls fell asleep. 

Rob has set up his new golf pins for dog golf. The paddock grass has been cropped short and is dry. Waiting for the autumn rain to become green. 

I suddenly felt guilty that the girls have nearly lived through two summers and not put their toes in the sand or the sea. We've walked on the beach but have kept the girls in the back packs. So we headed down in the late afternoon to Coningham beach. I have to say it didn't go down all that well! They cried when we dangled their toes in the water, and sat on the towel looking worried, before relaxing a little. Then they grabbed handfuls of sand to eat. 

An early dinner of cold roast pork, ratatouille, pan fried potatoes and zucchini, followed by blackberries and ice cream and it was time for a bath and bed.

Today I know:

That winter is over. Spring has arrived. Sure we may still get the occasional cold day, but the longer days, the wattle blossom, the frogs chirping, the garden coming to life, the almonds flowering, are all heralding a new season.

Never walk away and leave a rice pudding to cook in a rice cooker. Hot cream inside all the drawers as it overflowed on the way to the kitchen floor is not fun to clean up.

Sleep is precious. Very precious.

Elisabeth loves food. Despite the early intervention guys saying to wait until 6 months corrected, (our paediatrician did admit premmies can go early), Elisabeth is ready now at 5 months corrected. She lunges for our food, drools while she watches us eat, and looks longingly at my water bottle (she thinks it's a giant milk bottle). The other night Rob was eating some home made coffee ice cream, and she kept trying to swipe it! He had to hold it above his head. We are combining purée with baby led weaning, as she prefers her own spoon or hands but will happily accept rice cereal or mashed banana from me at the same time. I haven't noticed any great difference in her breastfeeding yet!

Maggie is such a dear. Elisabeth will only sleep during the day if we hold her, so Maggie waits patiently beside me. She talks in this cute breathy way, starting off quietly but getting louder as she gets going. She loves my silly ditties and smiles every time I sing her favourite one.  I have been coaching her on rolling, so she can catch up to Elisabeth. She humours me but I suspect she will do it when she is ready.

Nigella and Claudia are still hiding out in the breezeway, snuggling each other when they think no one is watching. If they didn't eat so much wallaby poop I may let them lick the babies as much as they'd like! 

Rob is looking after all of us so well. Shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing, working, gardening, nappy changing. Most importantly,  he is the best baby cuddler, a skill most needed here at the moment. Both girls are lulled to sleep in his arms, a smile twitching at their lips.

I love our little hut. It has been the perfect place for our babymoon. I return to work part time in late January, so I still have five months to make the most of. I am so lucky to call the hut home. 

Babymoon

Autumn is our favourite time of year in Tasmania. Clear blue skies, the weather can still be warm and sunny, but the evenings are chilly enough for warm blankets, ugg boots and snuggling up in the hut. The light has a golden quality to it. We have planted a number of deciduous trees so we wait to see their leaves change. Our menu changes to our favourite comfort foods, curries, braises and roasts. Rob's favourite fruits are ripening: coxes orange pippin apples, quinces and Comice pears. It seems perfect that although the girls were born at the beginning of the hottest summer in over 100 years, we have brought them home as the seasons change over for our babymoon at the hut.
I remember reading about Jodi's, of Che & Fidel (sorry no link can't figure that out on the phone blogger app), babymoon after the birth of her daughter Poet. At the time I thought what a lovely idea, and parked the idea in the back of my mind. So here we are day 5 and despite living on maybe 6 very broken hours of sleep a night, Rob and I are smitten. So are Nigella & Claudia. I knew we were ready last Monday and am so glad I pushed for us to get roomed out and home. We are getting to know our girls little quirks, snuggling, napping, dealing with wet nappies and clothes, feeding them 3 different dietary supplements, and the associated spills. The girls, we think, are beautiful, we delight in their little smiles, their wide-eyed interest in their new home and fur-sisters.
I admit I still cry silent tears sometimes, thinking about how far away their homecoming seemed when the girls were born. How scared we both were that we may not bring both or any babies home. I am present and drinking it in, despite the brain fog that hangs over me. Rob is a dear, keeping me well fed, and letting me nap first in those few moments when the girls are both asleep. I woke up the other night at 11pm after crashing on the bed, and he was sitting next to the cot in our room, holding a dummy in each mouth while playing calming music on the iPad, apparently both Maggie & Elisabeth had been crying whilst a few metres away I slept soundly. I love watching him snuggle them, his broad hands hold them just right.
I best go, a wee babe needs feeding, and if I'm lucky I may get time for a shower afterwards!

Home

Finally, after 112 days in hospital, Maggie and Elisabeth came home to the hut yesterday afternoon. Can't quite describe how it made me feel. Exhausted, elated, tears, joy, gratefulness, love.
We will miss the nurses, Drs, and support staff at the Royal Hobart Hospital NICU, but will be visiting often for check ups. Sorry to be so brief but I have some girls I need to snuggle.

Late spring hut photos to cheer myself up

Yesterday I came home feeling tired and a little grumpy/emotional.

I have been pretty good up to now. But I wasn't feeling the best and I lay down on the window seat and if I have to be honest, I shed a few tears. Nothing serious, just regular pregnancy symptoms, and general tiredness. Poor Rob. He went outside and braved the cold and rain (after our preview of summer last Friday we've headed straight back to winter it seems!!) to pick me some more of my roses. Which are a delight.

I didn't end up sleeping that well last night (and I know this is only going to get worse!) so feel a little tired still now. I only have 12 working days left after today. Things are starting to press in from all sides as I tick off things on my to do list.

So today I need to post some photos to cheer myself up, shake me out of my mood.

How can you be grumpy if you live here?





So hopefully now I can shake my silly mood and enjoy the rest of my week.

Friday Flowers

The grass is taking off at the moment at the hut. Rob spent a happy day in the orchard with his scythe getting the grass down, although I suspect he'll need to be back not before long at the rate it seems to be growing!

I quickly snapped a photo looking from the orchard into my flower garden and onto the hut. It's starting to look really good now, the lilies have started to get growing and my beds are filling up with flowers.


Nigella and Claudia always like to follow us about when we garden, they particularly like to sit on the paths and sniff the breeze. You can see my nicely mulched rose beds (with pea straw) and behind them our happy almond trees.

I think I will see my first rose over the weekend, I've been impatiently watching this bud develop and colour up- appropriately the rose is called "First Prize".

The roses seem very happy in the clay soil, they certainly get plenty of sun and now they are mulched we shouldn't need to water them much. Finally the ranunculi are going crazy, neither Rob or myself can pick a favourite colour, each is so perfect.


Hope you have a lovely weekend whatever you get up to.

One of life's surprises

If you've followed my blog for awhile you'll know we surprised our family and friends at Rob's birthday by getting married.
Seems the universe, fate or someone else had a surprise in store for us.
I've heard many people say that seeing your baby on an ultrasound for the first time is an amazing, life changing moment.
I doubt that Rob or I will ever forget the moment when our Dr congratulated us, and showed us not one, but two babies on that little screen.
We have since found out our babies are identical twins, a one in 300 chance event.
I have now gotten through 10 weeks of all day nausea and sickness, and am starting to grow a nice round bump.
We saw them yesterday in one of their big scans, a marathon 2 hour session of finding organs, legs and arms to measure. Somehow our lovely radiographer was able to keep track of which limb belonged to whom. It is amazing to see how close they get to each other in there. Apparently our 3D pictures were keeping the other staff amused in the other room (I didn't realise they had an audience) as baby A's legs suddenly turned up in front of baby B's face!
Our babies technical due date is in mid March, but twins tend to be early, so we expect them sometime in late February. Life at the hut will change, but it is a very welcome and happily anticipated change.

Snap it {bright}

Yikes two posts in one week!

The theme for Snap it this week is bright.

It wasn't very bright last night at the hut when we got home around 7pm. No electricity. I had been expecting it over the weekend when we had the gale force winds (over 100kmph) but for some reason a tree fell over yesterday afternoon and took out the power in our area. A quick phone call to the power company wasn't terribly comforting, "restoration time unknown, call back in 90 minutes".

So we got back in the car and headed down the road to the local pub for a counter meal. Whilst not the most exciting meal we'd had in a while, it was warm, we didn't have to cook it, they had lights, flushing toilets and running water and a nice wood heater to sit by. Rob and I made it last as long as we could, reminiscing about when was the last time we'd eaten at a pub together. We're thinking 2009!

When we got back to the hut, the power was still off, so we lit a tray of candles, jumped in bed and watched an episode of Northern Exposure on the iPad. The power flicked back on around 10pm.

The weather has just turned for the worse again, so I might ring the power company before we drive home, just to check there isn't a reported outage in our area!


Playing along at Faith, Hope and a whole lotta Love.

Snap it {straight lines}

Sorry guys I seem to have lost my blogging mojo. Hoping it comes back soon. I'm still reading and enjoying your blogs and I hope to post that risotto recipe soon.

So a short post tonight.
Straight lines. Our hut is full of them. In fact the only curved items are the sinks in the bathrooms and the round mirror above one of them. Everything else is angular. I like it that way. The builder told us he'd never built a house with such long external walls (27m)! I love this photo of our hut taken last summer after the great terrace building. Gosh I miss those long sunny days.


Playing along here.

These two...

...make us laugh with their constant wrestling. They love to tease each other as they run around the block. Life certainly isn't dull with these two around.

Happy weekend to you all, I'm looking forward to it.

Window seat spruce up

When we finally got our new window seat upholstered last year, we bought two acrylic rugs to cover them up and didn't even buy proper cushions. Just bought some red pillowcases and put them out. After awhile I admit I don't notice these things, but it drives Rob nuts!
A few weeks ago we came up with an easy solution (not sure why we didn't come up with it sooner). We bought 3m of the red gingham fabric and the same length of red polar fleece. Then last weekend my personal seamstress (Rob) hand stitched the two together. I found some red themed cushion covers and we put it all together on Friday. We're pretty happy with the new look. The cover can be removed and washed in the machine easily.

Happy birthday hut {one}

Tomorrow is our one year anniversary of moving into the hut.
We were so over building this time last year, it had dragged on. We packed up the big pieces of furniture (we'd moved bits and pieces down over the preceding weeks) with the help of our friends and their trailer and ute and drove the 15 minutes to the hut. We unpacked, and popped a Jackman & McRoss family pie in the oven, to share our first meal at our table.
The rest of the day was spent cleaning the flat (attached to my parents house and our home for the previous 4.5 years), then returning to unpack and put our bed back together.
We spent the next few weeks feeling like two little children playing house. Even now, we will both spontaneously say "we live at the hut" as it hits us that it's what we wanted for so long.
This year has been busy with the installation of the window seat, Rob setting up both gardens (beds and paths), and paving the terrace (all 108m2). Collecting some more mid-century pieces for the rooms, pulling the wardrobe apart and reassembling it in the spare bedroom.
We've hosted parties and lunches. Friends have come to stay.
The hut has seen much laughter and love, a number of spontaneous happy dances, a few tears and disappointments, and the occasional mild disagreement. But on the whole (and I think Rob would agree) we have loved our first year here and it has felt like our home almost immediately.
Happy 1st birthday hut.

Monday's Menu {and beauty}

Last night Rob took the dogs out for what we call "a wee on a wallaby" around 10.30. Don't worry no wallabies are harmed in this procedure.
He came straight back inside to get me. The night sky is spectacular at the hut anyway, as there are no street lights around the stars are so clear and bright. But last night there was an Aurora Australis happening. Our first at the hut.
Despite the cold -- thank goodness I'd grabbed a beanie and polar fleece -- we stood in the dark at the end of the terrace and watched in awe as a shaft of silvery light shot up from the horizon and then became a series of shimmering waves, that slowly moved across the sky. The light was like a translucent curtain moving in a breeze. Beautiful. Stunning. Luminous.

I didn't even bother trying to take a photo. For once I was content to capture the memory in my mind, confident that I could record it in words here.


This morning the mist hung over the hills as the sun started to rise. I don't know why but Rob and I have become so much more aware of the beauty of where we live since moving to the hut. It was hard to tear ourselves away this morning for work.


So the menu this week:

Monday: Massaman curry, I used a paste I admit and the end result wasn't as good as I had hoped, but still tasted pretty good with rice and poppadums.
Tuesday: We fixed the curry, by adding some almond meal to thicken the sauce and some silverbeet. We ate it with poppadums again and some natural yoghurt.
Wednesday: Lemon linguine.
Thursday: Tomato, vegetable and meatball soup.
Friday: same soup with freshly baked bread (Rob stayed home to work!)
Saturday: Egg and Bacon pie with rocket salad.
Sunday: Rocket salad with soft boiled eggs, blood pudding (sorry Sarah), and sourdough croutons.


Yesterday we headed to the Cygnet market (which is held on the 1st and 3rd Sunday of every month, from 10am-2pm). We love Cygnet on market days. Even better they have an atm for our bank now! So we picked up free range eggs, vegetable seeds, almonds, spices, rhubarb, carrots, parsnips, swede, leeks, and silverbeet. We couldn't resist a couple of Eccles cakes from Lotus Eaters, a browse in the second hand clothes shop behind the cafe, a loaf of Steve's sourdough rye and a couple of his jam doughnuts. There was a cute new fruit and vegetable shop in town, and we found some coffee beans (we'd totally run out so we were on the hunt for some) and I spied a beautiful dark grey salad bowl, made by Emile Henry. Rob indulged me and bought it.

I'm thinking of collecting my recipe posts in a separate page as a list, what do you think?

Before & After

So sadly, there was no need to celebrate all weekend, although faltering at the semi- finals is not to be ashamed of, ensuring we'll have a high ranking next year!

Our first winter weekend was another lovely quiet one. I spent 3 hours cleaning, sorting & tidying the loft storage space.

Yesterday afternoon we tackled something we'd been putting off for 3 months. Pulling apart and reassembling the myrtle wardrobe. It has sat accusingly in the breezeway. While we got up the bravery to do it. The guy at lifestyle furniture doubted it could be done. He said it would be glued. It would crack if we tried to pull it apart. He recommended a furniture maker tackle it.
But I couldn't sell it. Or even give it away. We debated it. But neither of us were very enthusiastic. Until yesterday. We started unscrewing. Removed the doors. Then pulled the boards off the back. Then prised the frame off the bottom then sliced through the glue holding the top on. We actually cut through several dowels before we realized so then went more carefully. We removed the top (not without a few what are we doing moments). We then tried to move the U shaped frame in. But nope. Then I accidentally flexed my end the wrong way and it came off cleanly with all the dowels in tact. A miracle. So we took the other end off. It took us just over 4 hours to pull it apart.
This morning we put it back together in the spare room, in just a little over 2 hours. It looks magnificent. We do feel a little guilty for ruining the original workmanship, but I desperately wanted to keep it. The spare room looks very posh now. Best of all the breezeway has returned to it's original spartan state. A good weekend after all.

De-beige-ing chairs

The cake worked well, and Maisy's party was lovely. I'll share some photos tomorrow.
We bought a few more Piper Tru-line blackwood chairs a while back. The style matched our two red chairs (the ones I saved from the tip). But they were covered in horrid beige vinyl.
So today was the day, it was grey and cool so we stayed inside and tackled the chairs. The other chairs had come apart easily once you unscrewed the screws. But the cushions on these ones didn't budge. We worked out that the vinyl had adhered to the timber frame, perhaps if they'd been in the sun. So we took to them with a razor blade and a knife. Cutting then free! We recovered them with the same red as the other chairs. We did two, but will need to buy some more fabric to finish off a 3rd chair. We're pretty happy with them!
Hope you had a lovely weekend. I'll be back tomorrow with the Hoot cake.