How to make a Pizza.

My great niece lives with her parents in Ibiza.  What a life eh? Sun. Sea. Simple fresh food.  No clothes...

Waiting for Dad to come home.

Here's how to make a great pizza.

How to Look at a Painting

I'm currently reading the brilliant  How to Look at a Painting  by Justin Paton....

Farm-Sitting

A Scottish artist friend and his wife have a small farm near Whakatane.  I've been working on them for some time, doing a 'Gaslight' on them; suggesting that they are tired, need a break away, etc., hoping that they would believe me and let me stay and look after their farm animals.  Finally the idea took, and here I am, having a super time!

For three days I am in charge of a number of assorted creatures.

My menagerie consists of two goats, a cow, assorted poultry, two blue budgerigars, two cats, five neon tetra, a small school of guppies, and two dogs.

Chloe the cow, Milo and Lily the goats.

 Chloe the cow's broad head looks a lot like a beef breed to me.  This gentle monster lowers its head for a scratch but was quite aware this morning that it had got on the chook-run side of the tape and was quite happy to be moved back with very little persuasion.  She's not silly, though; She was very careful not to touch the electric tape that I'd laid down on the ground for her to walk over.  Just in case it was on.

The two goats Lily and Milo are the 'good cop/bad cop' team. Lily lures you into a false sense of security while Milo gets her horns sharpened ready on a nearby post.  I don't trust either of 'em!

Lily

Good goat Lily luring you close.

Bad goat Milo.

 Ingot the fuzzy-headed (silkie?) 'house hen' is practically blind and needs to have her food-bowl tapped so she can locate it.  She is about 12 years old and lives in the spare room.

Fizzy Lizzie and Whitey are two hens that, like Ingot, are getting well and truly past their use-by-date.  they are allowed a whole run to themselves.  As they are topped up with copious water and pellets, I don't need to worry about them.  Anyway, to get to them I'd have to get past the cops first.

Ingot the house-hen.

The gorgeous, strutting, yodelling-at-four-in-the-morning rooster leads his small posse of hens into the garden for early morning raids.  I've no idea how they get in, but he just flies over the gate and back whenever he chooses.  He shows them the corner of the garden where the budgie seed is discarded, and then they go back to join the rest of the golden girls happily wandering the field. Judging by their combs, I'd say at least three are laying, but despite exhaustive searches based on my years of experience, I haven't found their nests.  Cunning creatures.

'Quick girls, we've been spotted!  Back to the run!'

'Come on girls, gather around, stay together!'

'It IS a rather fabulous tail, isn't it?'

'Make sure you take my best side, won't you?'

Meeka and Neo are the two cats.  Neo is as friendly and charming as Meeka is nervous.  Neo has been around the house almost constantly since I arrived, leaping on benches to see what I'm doing, patting my knitting needles and attacking hummocks of grass as I pass.  I've spotted Meeka hurrying across the end of a field, or frozen, watching me from near a woodpile.  It looks like I'm not even going to get near her in three short days.

'I'm going to hold on to this patch of grass.  Don't even THINK about stealing it!'

The budgies talk constantly when I am out of the room, but stop the second I enter.  They are clearly talking about me.  They have resisted all my attempts at friendship.  I expect I don't have the right accent.  

'Shh, mate.  Pretend you were just preening.  Don't even glance her way'.

The fish are familiar to me since my sojourn in the pet shop!   It is good to see my old acquaintances the guppies and also the neon tetras.  However despite having them all to myself, they have still proved incredibly difficult to capture with my camera.

Which just leaves the dogs - two handsome, intelligent, border collies.  Clyde, who is older and wiser, barks less but knows every snippet of noise that indicates the soon approach of neighbor's tractors on the adjacent tracks.  Borders love to chase.  A lot.

Maddie is noisier, but keeps an eye on me, and is usually very happy to return if I indicate that the games are over.  Well, mostly.

Clyde has a idiosyncratic way of showing when he wants to play:  He chatters his teeth and smiles.  Delightful dogs.  But loads of energy.  If I had these two I'd have my work cut out.

Clyde.  Look at him summing me up.

Maddie.  Watching for the tractor.  Or the ducks.  Or a car on the road.  Or a calf.

There are two other things I should mention:  The small box of delectable Swiss chocolates left on the bench for me as a 'thank you' (for me having a lovely weekend?), and the exercycle in a corner of the lounge.  I've calculated that if I spend three hours on the exercycle each day I'm here, my calories should just about balance out.

A Grand Number.

I notice that today is the occasion of my thousandth post.   Woo hoo!
To celebrate I have compiled this '1000' that incorporates a few images from posts over the years.

I also reproduce for the occasion, my very first post.  Although it was to be unusual in that it was not accompanied by an image, on the other hand it seems nothing much has changed in the nearly five years, as I'm still writing about things in my linen cupboard!

FRIDAY, 28 DECEMBER 2007

Post Christmas Clean-up

When I was in the supermarket doing the Christmas shopping last week I bought one of those dusters.  You know, one of those special synthetic cloths that are 'static' and 'magically' pick up dust. It even had a special plastic cover (so it didn't zoom into action when you didn't want it to?) with a little hole so you could "feel the special surface".  When I got home and as I was putting in in the hot water cupboard, I noticed that there were no fewer than five! (count 'em, 5!) others of similar ilk that I had purchased previously.  Why then do I still have such a dusty house!?! 

Red Fish, Blue Fish.

Two colors in one fish!  Such an unusual-coloured fish was too hard for me to resist.  This is the last tropical species that caught my eye while I was artist in residence at the pet shop last month.

The Dwarf Gourami (Trichogaster lalius) is found in slow-moving water throughout Asia.  Although these pretty little red and blue fish usually only grow to about 2 inches, they are traditionally caught and dried as food.  

Of course they are also very popular for aquaria.  There are red and white versions too.

Apparently, before they mate, they make a 'bubble nest' of air trapped inside twigs and leaves.  The male collects up the eggs lad by the females, fertilizes them, and then pops them in this nest.  

Their long, thin, front fins are very sensitive.  I've tried to capture the shimmering quality of the sky blue spots against the orangey-brown.

Eye Candy Day 48

You've come a long way from 'Much Ado...', baby.

High Tea

In April I had a wonderful birthday treat, even tho' my Birthday was back in February.

At the time, my oldest son and his partner bought me a 'High Tea and Bubbles for Two' voucher.

It was for a lovely swanky restaurant in Tauranga down by the water's edge.

N. was home for Easter uni break, so we did a mother and daughter thing and dressed up and played ladies.

I had such a lovely time! Everything was delightful except perhaps it was a little nippy once the sun went in (I draped my cold shoulder with my pristine white linen table napkin and was perfectly warm again).

I had been rather tired and forgetful recently (too much painting) and had not thought to bring my camera but I didn't want to forget a single moment, so I wrote it all down on a till slip that was in my handbag:

In case you can't read it very well, here is what I wrote:

one hour and ten minutes
choice of four free tables.
1x three-tier cake stand

three white plates
per person:
plate 1:  2 little triangles sandwiches of tuna and cream cheese
              2 little triangle sandwiches of ham, rocket and chutney
              1 little bite-sized smoked salmon quiche
plate 2:  1 tiny triangle of to-die-for lemon cheesecake
              1 chocolate eclair with real cream and real chocolate for icing
              1 rich, alcoholicky rum ball
plate 3:   a scone with cream and strawberry jam in separate small dishes
               small square of carrot cake

1 x chilled-out muzac
2 x herring gulls x 30 seconds x 5
1 daughter
1 mother
glass sparkling wine
teapot, milk jug, honey pot, teaspoon.

aprox. 400 starfish
1 tide, advancing slowly
planes (bi) x 5
1 red helicopter
1 white-faced grey heron
4 black shags and one baby, feeding.
1 wharf
1 boat
1 harbour bridge, (with traffic)
1 marina (at distance)
sunshine and fluffy clouds

I should also add:  two linen table napkins and four white paper table napkins, less the one which blew into the sea*.
               

the square of wonderful carrot-cake

* it had got rather chocolatey anyway.