Christmas Bickies

Lou was getting into some Christmas cooking yesterday with a bit of help from his big brother and myself.

We were making Christmas Bickies for Someone, who loved these Spelt ginger cookies last time she came to visit us from Sydney. So, we made a batch to send down to Sydney for her.....:)

Lou samples the biscuit dough. I have to keep an eye on him as he loves to eat a lot of this biscuit dough.

After the biscuits have cooled down, we decorated them with icing. This is harder than it looks. We didn't have a piping bag so we improvised with these instead.

Good messy fun!

We had to wait for the icing to set then pack them in their box, off to Sydney. We did eat a couple - for quality assurance reasons, of course...:)

Star Lanterns

I love these star lanterns. They make a beautiful, hand made, and inexpensive gift. I can't take all credit for these... Lou did the water colour painting and his Dad folded the paper to make the lanterns. Well, I did oil them..... ;)

I got the pattern from a blog that no longer blogging, but if you google Waldorf Star Lanterns, I'm sure there might be someone out there who has a tutorial on their blog.

$2

Look what I found at the opp shop yesterday in a bag for $2! This beautiful wool is from Rowan. The pink wool is a another brand of wool, but aren't they beautiful colours together. I'm not sure what you would do with 25g hanks - it wouldn't go very far.... maybe some crocheted flowers. The other hank is 100g.

At the moment, they are in my freezer for a few days to kill any hitchhikers. I usually do this with any wool from the opp shop just in case I missed something.

Reds & Oranges

Katoomba Knitting and Needlecraft have a sale on at the moment. I got this Jo sharp Silkroad Aran wool for $5 a ball. I have no idea what I'm going to knit up with it yet, but I love this burnt orange colour. I'm sure that if I ferret around Ravelry in my 1308 listed favorites........;)

I'm sure I'll find something.

I also got 2 skeins of Araucania Ranco Solid on sale too. In a yummy terracotta red colour, I would like to make a triangular shawl with this.

Apples

Apples!.........we have apples!

Ok, it's only 6 of them.... but our tree is only 1 1/2 metres tall.

Little Lou is very excited. He has been going out each morning, checking on them to see if they are ok and still there.

On the other hand, something keeps eating our strawberries and the rest have gone mouldy from all this rain.

Day 19: Are we there yet?........

Are we there yet?.........

Are we there yet?.........

Have we arrived at the end of Blogtoberfest?

Too tired to post anything interesting today.

I've been out all day and this evening.

See you tomorrow...:)

Day 18: Noro Silk Garden Sock

When I was at Penrith on Saturday afternoon, I popped into the Wool Inn.

I didn't leave empty handed........I love these colours.

Is there a Noro Anonymous?

Day 17: Market Treasures

Today I had a market stall at Lawson Markets. I sold clothes that I don't wear any more - just moving on stuff with my friend, Mon. It was a slow day but I still made over $100, which I was very happy with. Me, being the Bower Bird that I am, found some treasures to bring back to my nest.

The Moroccan box was $15. It's heavy - I couldn't stop picking it up.

The silver pendant ($10) has two hands painted on it with all these little symbols on them. The lady who sold it to me said they were Ayurvedic pressure points. Anyway, I couldn't stop looking at it. The delicate painting on it is beautiful.......

The purse/handbag I bought ($5) is hanging off my bookshelf. It is a work of art in itself with delicate hand embroidery from India around the old mirrors.

And last was the first item I bought - the lantern for $10. It is a little battered in parts but nothing that can't be fixed.

I wanted to say hello to Nicole from Going Green, who I met today at Lawson Markets. It was lovely to meet a fellow Blue Mountains blogger who is also doing Blogtoberfest.

Day 16: Woolly Bargains

I went down the mountain today and popped into Lincraft. They have a wool sale on at the moment and I picked this wool up for half price at $2.99 a ball (Wool, Acrylic and Alpaca mix). I have plans for this wool ....:)

I couldn't believe it... We got snow here today. Not enough to cover the ground but big snow flakes falling out of the sky - just to think I was wearing a T-shirt a few days ago.

Day 15: "Masked Devil"

Yesterday after dropping my son off at school, Lou and I walked back through the bush and came across this wonder not far from our home.

We discovered this cicada coming out of it's shell.

Lou and I went back home to get Katie, who was off school sick. We didn't want her to miss this.

Katie was excited. She thought it was a Yellow Monday.

We sat for a while trying to protect the cicada from the sun and birds. Usually, cicadas come out of the ground in the evening in the safely of darkness when the birds are asleep. The cicada is very vulnerable at this stage and their wings are very delicate. They need to be able to pump their wings out. It was cold and windy. Katie was worried that its wings would dry out and it wouldn't be able to pump them out.

Katie carefully got the cicada onto a stick and brought it home.

Here the cicada sat on this stick in my kitchen for a few hours, pumping it wings in the safety of our home with Katie and Lou watching and keeping a check on her (girl cicada). Their wings are moist and if bumped they can deform easily, making the wings useless for flight. Sometimes you see cicadas with deformed wings when they come out of the ground during the day and the sun has dried them out before they can fully pump them out. Or, they have fallen off their shell onto the ground on their back and haven't been able to flip themselves around and their wings set all bent and misshapen. Katie found one like that the other day.

When her wings were fully expanded, she put them into place to dry out completely.

Now, what was amazing was that we left her there for a few hours. The kids and I got on with other things - we baked cookies, so the kitchen was nice and warm. When we came back to check on her she had changed again. She developed back markings on her head and her tail turned black.

This type of Cicada is called a "Masked Devil". It has a black stripe that goes between its eyes like a little mask. In all my years of looking out for cicadas and collecting them as a child, I haven't seen this type before this season. I wonder if it is native to the upper mountains region.

We kept her until my son got home from school. Then we thought it was time to release her back into the wild now that she had safely gotten out her shell.

We went down into the bush and found a gum tree that would be a nice home for her.

Off she goes......

Bye bye!.........

Day 14: Zzzzzzzzzzzzz....

So tired ......

Too tired to post today.....

... exhausted by that bundle of energy, Little Lou.

Day 13: Front Garden

Here is a glimpse of my front garden at the moment.

Spring time in the Mountains....

Day 12: DragonFly

Dragonfly on the washing........

Day 11: Visitor

This afternoon we had about 30 minutes of sunshine. When I came in to make a cup of tea, I stopped and admired how lovely the light looked on my crystals and the Daisies that I'm going to try strike roots from. I'll leave the Daisies here on my window sill, change the water now and again, keep an eye on the ends to see if roots strike, then pot them on.

As I was standing there, a little feathery visitor came to say hello....

Day 10: Necklace

On a trip down to Bega a few years ago we stopped in a little town. I can't remember what the town was called but there was this nick-nak shop where I bought this pendant. It is silver, lapis lazuli, turquoise and coral.

At the Bead and Gem show a few years ago I bought a few pairs of really daggy earrings that the stall holder was selling cheap to get rid of. I bought them for the beads which where lapis, coral and turquoise. I pulled them apart and threaded up this necklace, which I think works well with the pendant.

Day 9: Ducks

Today it cold, wet and misty...

... lovely weather for ducks. ;)

This lovely couple live near the stream near my home.

I love the beautiful markings on their feathers.

Day 8: Cicada Boy

Yep!...... It's that time of year again.....

These bugs live underground for about 7 years then emerge for about 2 weeks, make a hell of a noise, try to avoid being eaten by birds and caught by kids while trying get their leg over (well, in their case, legs) - then die. And the life cycle goes on again....:)

Yep!......... It's cicada season.

"My mummy found a cicada. It wasn't a Green Grocer, or a Double Drummer, or a Black Prince - it was a Yellow Monday...........;)" - by Sunny boy age 6..........;)

On our walk today we found our first cicada for the season. Sunny Boy was so excited. The cicada went on the walk with us for a little while and he proudly showed him off to the other bush walkers that passed us by. I made sure Sunny Boy put him back in the spot where we found him on the way back out of the track. We know it was a he because only the boys make a noise, which has been described as a little car alarm.

Watching my son brought back memories of my childhood Summers, collecting cicadas and letting them crawl all over me. And having a competition with my brother and the kids in the street where I grew up as to who could collect the most in one day and who could collect the most different types. We kept them in a box inside near our back door then after a day or so let them go. I remember one morning we woke up with cicadas all over the kitchen because we didn't put the lid down properly. My mum wasn't impressed... (lol)

In Sunny Boy's hands are the empty cicada shells which we found on the trees.

Day 7: Sari Silk Scarf

When I was sorting through my wool stash, I came across this scarf that I was working on made out of sari silk. I love the beautiful vivid colours.

Modelled by Katie.

And a big thank you to Bonnie @ Fat Chick Designs (another Blogtober blogger) for featuring little ol' Me (LOL) on her blog. Go pop in and say hello.

Day 6: Big Mozzie

Big Mozzie

Day 5: Cheeky Monkey

One cheeky monkey jumping on the bed.

He fell off and bumped his head.

Mother rang the doctor and the doctor said,

'No cheeky monkeys jumping on the bed!'

We had a little bit of an accident today. Little Lou fell out of his bedroom window. There is usually a bit of dowel that stops the window from opening up fully so little people don't fall out (the window is set low - as we are in a rental property, we can't do too much to it). Anyway, I opened the window up a few centimeters to let some fresh air in and didn't check to see if the dowel was in place, as I got distracted. The dowel had been moved so the window could open up fully. Lou fully opened the window and leaned on the fly screen. It didn't take his weight and he fell out the window (about a 1.5 metre drop) onto the concrete path below. A trip to the hospital to check him over.... Luckily, he just had a cut and a sore head.