Frazzy Dazzles

Have you met our girls?

 I have eluded to them in past posts. They are a trio of sisters who sail around our back yard wing in wing. They have their ups and they have their downs but they always band together when the chips are down. Especially if they are down on the ground and then its every hen for herself to clean them up!

This is the leader of the back. The top bird. The head chick. This is Dorothy Dinsdale…

This is our little angel sweet Rosie…she has a slight pinkish tinge to her if you look hard enough…now I may or may not have coloured her with food dye when she last had a bath….alright. I did. I did dye her with food dye and I did love watching her blow around the yard like a fairy floss pink tumbleweed. I liked it so much I just might do it again!

and this is Rosie’s daughter…Poppy Clover. She is the fluffiest chicken in the world. And she knows it!

and this is the biggest chicken that we have in the yard. Her name is Ruby Tuesday. She is a furry red leghorn. Not a variety you will find in most chicken runs but she thinks and eats like she is a hen and that is good enough for us around here!

We keep our hens for a lot of reasons. They give the yard a wonderfully ‘domesticated’ feel. I like it that they are a little bit of a different pet. Not every suburban back yard has urban hens….but ours does! They also have a pay off. They provide us with eggs. Beautiful eggs with yolks of the brightest yellow. You can never go back after you have eaten free range eggs.

They are also a great little talking point.  Everyone wants to talk about them.

I imagine that they are sit together with their legs tucked up laying their eggs discussing knitting patters. Perhaps they swap recipes or give each other tips on troublesome stains….what do hens talk about?

But the main reason I think we keep chickens now is for the children. They love them. The Little Bush Princess picks Rosie up and carries her around with her. They play in the cubby house together and what little child would not like to go out and search the garden for the prize of fresh eggs? It is like an Easter egg hunt every day of the week!

This little guy lives at our house. He has quickly become a big favourite with The Little Bush Princess. But he didn’t always look like this. When Bumble first came to our house he was an old faded chenille bedspread. But now he is a vision of beary-ness!

He is a very old fashioned bear with his long hooky arms and legs. Although I don’t think Steiff ever thought of using a bedspread to create their timeless masterpieces!

He does hold onto a lot of his earlier days though. He has random fade over his body. A relic from the days when he laid on a bed under a window I suspect. The fade was probably the thing that bought him his ticket to the opportunity shop in the first place! I had to make his nose look a bit ‘rough’. Perfect would never have suited this little chap!

The strange thing is that most things in our home ‘belong’ to someone. That’s my doll. That’s my blanket. Sharing always happens but someone always seems to retain ownership of said objects…but bumble just seems to be part of the house. Bumbling his way through he moves from room to room and from game to game without ever causing a fuss or a fight. He brings a lovely peacefulness to games. The children seem to be just happy to be with him with no need to possess him. Does that mean he’s mine? hmmmm, maybe! And why is he bumble? Because his paw pads are soft yellow cotton with bumble bees busily flying little patterns on them.

I think that re-using fabrics like this teaches the children that things don’t have to be ‘new’ to be desirable. What something is now… or how something looks today does not mean that is what it always has to be…or look like. Imaginations is the mother of all invention….right alongside necessity of course!

Have a great day.

…that sounds a bit rude doesn’t it? Ha Ha!

I have spent what I would consider to be a rather large chunk of my day yesterday learning how to use this blog. I am a huuuuge believer that books are an essential part of raising children. They promote togetherness. They build vocabulary. They offer little imaginations a wonderful platform to launch themselves from. They are….just wonderful!

So with the help of my handsome husband I have learnt how to use the ‘now reading’ component of my blog and have listed some of the favourite books from around these parts. Such greats as Amy and Louis (published in the US as ‘Half a World Away’), Miss Lily’s Fabulous Pink Feather Boa, Olga the Brolga and Flora’s Blanket just to name a few.

It makes my heart sing to see their covers lining the side of my blog page! I hope that you find something in here to tickle your fancy. I have even had a little amateur attempt at writing book reviews for each of them…Mind you if you are looking for a review with nothing nice to say you might be a bit disappointed!

Now go and read a book!

I have been playing with photoshop a bit of late. I have to admit that I am the least technologically gifted person I know….so it goes without saying that the simple and instantly gratifying nature of photoshop is right up my alley! Yes siree Bob!

I have enjoyed seeing the images of my children transformed into works of watercolour art and have played with that filter a lot! However I have also started playing with outlines and contrasts. Fiddling with the brightness levels. There just seems no end to the amount of fun I can have with this….I said I was a simpleton didn’t I??

This is the Golden Child working on his father’s 1971 Kombi Devon Camper….I love how mature and all grown up he looks in this picture every time I come across it. In this quiet picture of him I can imagine the man that he will one day be. With a bit of tickling the contrasts and the outlines and he then becomes of art to me! But I am his mother….I might be a teensy bit biased?

…..well the Easter Bunny was due at our place last night. It seemed a little rude of us to expect him to leave us with little presents and not have something for him in return….so the kids and I set about baking….what else? Carrot cakes. Little ones to be more precise.

and they must have done the trick because in return for our offerings of carrot cakes, fresh carrots and a drink of water we were showered with goodies. There was this lovely little pair of china rabbits for the Little Bush Princess.

She also made out like a bandit with these glamorous little cheepy cheeps…

with their little neck kerchiefs I can see why the bunny was so taken with them…I am too!

The Easter Bunny seems to have been a little more concerned with engaging the children’s minds and a little less on rotting their teeth this year because as I write this there are stretched canvases drying. There are games of felt board creations afoot and there is a never ending stream of little object (mostly the little chicks above…) hatching out of a rather snazzy collection of brightly coloured eggs. It has kept them amused for hours! All the time while wearing their fluffy bunny ears and Easter hats….tonight they will be off to bed in their new Easter pj’s….I wish I was one of my kids!