Sunday 31 August 2014

Project 365 week 35 24th - 30th August.

Sunday

Not doing bad, had them for 24 hrs and got them eating out of hubbys hand. The only way we will get them free range is to train them to come back when something is offered to them.







Monday

Went out to get a few geocaches tonight. Had planned on going earlier in the day but the rain clouds kept making an appearance throughout the afternoon. But ot turned out to be a pleasant evening for a walk. Disappointed we only managed to find one cache and despite being out for nearly two hours I saw nothing different to photograph so never took any pictures at all, apart from this when we got back to the car.





a nice walk





Tuesday

Was a lovely evening, but had been busy all day and could not be bothered going out for a walk.  But admired the sunset from the back garden.



the tree at sunset 









Wednesday

I took Bob out for the day, we went to do some orienteering round a localish park. Did not manage too well with the orienteering but we found a cache, caught some bugs and used the bug viewer, found a pond Bob wants to go fishing in with granddad, and watched pond skaters.



Bob taking pictures of pond skaters 




Thursday

Had the children to stay, and after tea we went put for a walk. Did not get where we had intended to go as the road was closed, so we doubled back and had nearly two hours of fun walking through a river, over hills and eating blackberries.

Fifi spotted a hole she thought might have been a rabbit hole. So here they are discussing how you look for grass growing in the hole to see if it is being used, and placing something light weight across the hole to see if something moves it overnight




explaining about holes 




Friday



I went to babysit the twins as they were not feeling well and mummy wanted to go shopping, so she left them behind with me. I picked Minky up when I went in as he was grumpy and he snuggled in with his sucky blanket and fell asleep. Then Dinky started moaning as she was tired too, so I got Bob to sit her up the other side of me, and she fell asleep as well. So that was me stuck for an hour and a half till they woke up again, Had taken my camera to take some pics but never got a chance to use it.

So instead you have got my age creeping up on me. We had taken possession of our new coop yesterday and I had a boot full of rubbish, and how well my husband knows that it was highly likely I would bring it all home again instead of dumping it. So I got left a note, on the radio inside the car. It worked I came home with an empty boot.




my note, works better than my memory






Saturday

Yesterday had been an atrocious day weather wise, the rain was running in a river down the street most of the day. Bet my poor chickens were wishing they had webbed feet,  Today was a totally different day, dry, bright and sunny.
So here are the girls enjoying the evening sun just before locking up time.


a snack before bed time



Friday 29 August 2014

Celebrating crisp sarnie week

Seabrook crisps tell us that they are celebrating National Crisp Sandwich week. Call a sandwich what you like, a sarnie, a piece, a butty, there are plenty of alternative names, with literally hundreds of different fillings, from sweet to savoury, hot or cold we all have our favourites. A sandwich is
 a food item consisting of one or more types of food placed on or between slices of bread (wiki) 

I was going to do bacon, lattice and tomato, as a nice play on words, but cannot find lattice crisps in my area at all.

So I thought I would share this one with you instead.

Makes enough for either twelve open slices or six slices stacked.

Pre heat oven to 180oC and

cook six slices of bacon and chop into small pieces.



When removing bacon from oven place twelve garlic bread slices on a tray and put into the oven.

Meanwhile chop three tomatoes





crush a packet of salted crisps



and grate some cheese, lacto free if you prefer.




Mix together the cooked bacon, tomato, crushed crisps and grated cheese. 

Remove garlic bread slices from the oven and top with the mixture. I haven't added seasoning as I used salted crisps. 

You can either top all twelve pieces with an equal amount of topping and serve as an open sandwich as I did, or you could pile more onto six of the pieces and then top with the other six giving a more traditional sandwich once the topping has melted. 





Return to the oven for three or four minutes until melted and warmed through.




Serve immediately. If you want this goes nicely with a side salad. 

bacon, crisp, cheese and tomato open sandwich made on garlic bread


This recipe is an entry into the National Crisp Sarnie Week competition with Seabrook crisps

Saturday 23 August 2014

Project 365, week 34, 17th - 23rd August


Sunday

We spotted this rather large fungi whilst out for a  walk. 

stood nearly 2 ft tall


Monday

I told them if they lined up and smiled for me I would pop them on my blog, so here they are. We went out goecaching and these girls came over to see us. Found a couple we had failed to find on a previous occasion we were out, Experience certainly made them easier.


the ladies are famous now


Tuesday

Today was Fifi's first day at secondary school. So after school we went round to see her. Surprisingly she was not in. So instead I helped bath the twins. He was clean ten minutes before this picture was taken. 

a cheeky face

also got this wee bit of video, how cute is this? and you can't hep but laugh along with her!





Wednesday

Was our visit day to son No1. As usual we did some geocaching while we were in the area.   Found this piece of history in Sauchie that we would not have found had we not been caching.

This is a fantastic beam-engine house built in 1865 to pump water from Devon Colliery, of the Alloa Coal Company. The area was first mined in the 1840s and the last mined in the 1950s.

Devon Colliery closed and was razed to the ground many years ago. Only the beam engine house survives. It is a tall, rectangular building of high quality, with a hipped slate roof. The back wall has a large arched opening, partly timbered, through which worked the cast-iron beam of a Cornish pumping engine, built by Neilson and Co, Glasgow in 1865. The pumping engine was used to drain the mine shaft but only the beam and part of the pump-rod are all that survive of the engine.

a beam engine house in Sauchie


Thursday

With the children being back at school they were available to stay over night. We did a few bits and pieces, went and played in the park, took A with us (but didn't have a camera). Over the last few weeks I have been picking up the card packs in Morrison's and so we played a few games of cards. 


playing cards 


Friday

With Fifi being at secondary school now she needs to be up a lot earlier. She got herself up at 6.30am, to get showered etc before she left here at 7.45 to catch the bus to school. A big difference this year from previous years. The village school has approx two hundred children where every child knows every other, and now she is in the largest secondary school in Ayr. She is liking it so far and is looking forward to the after school activities starting. 
It is a fairly new school with amazing facilities. 

wish she would tie her hair up



Saturday

Here are the latest additions to the family. Have been wanting chickens since we moved in here last year, and today was the day. They currently are in temporary housing as their new coop is not being delivered until Wednesday, but if we didnt take them today it would be sixteen weeks until we could get more.



looking forward to tasty eggs


Saturday 16 August 2014

Project 365 week 33 10th - 16th August.

Sunday 

Popped in to see the kids on the way home and Bob was sitting drawing an owl that he then covered in glue and glitter. Here it is before the glitter was added. 



pencil paper, glue and glitter = fun




Monday

Popped in to see them all as we had taken a walk down to the shop. They were having one of those family mad half hours. The two of them had been resting a jar of baby cream on their heads and the other one was trying to blow it off. Bob kept cheating and was knocking it off and it ended up in riotous giggles as only children can. Here was Fifi pretending to be a baby and sitting on her mums knee, so Bob decided he would as well, except they dont quite fit as well as the twins do.



cuddles and giggles



Tuesday


Decided to pick up a few random caches locally. This one is slightly different, stapled to a back garden fence, not sure what it tells you if you QR it as I dont have a qr reader on my phone. 



nothing to sign here




Wednesday

Was suppose to be children over night, but both the boys have got a tummy bug again, and had spent most of the day spewing and feeling rotten. Granddad also had it, as does the other granddad, so a lot of grumpy people around. Fifi was also being grumpy, didn't want to go the park, didn't want to go caching, didn't want to come up and bake, so she stayed at home and mumped. Think she is just nervous about starting secondary school next year.

So I did some baking myself.Made a chocolate cherry flavoured cake with vanilla butter icing and some sprinkles on. Some apricot and prune flapjacks, and a spicy peach and pear pie done like a swiss roll.




Took this half of each down to daughter 




Thursday

Bob had a hospital appointment at 3pm, right at the start of visiting time, There are building works going on at the hospital and so some of the parking spaces are off limits. The car park is busy at the best of times so this does not help. So rather than take the twins with her which means she needs to find a large space so she can get one baby out each side and open the back hatch to get Bob out as well, I said I would take the twins.

Granddad and I had a brilliant afternoon without mummy and they played away quite happily. Bob was still feeling rotten and refused to cooperate with the tests they wanted to run.


Xander is into everything



Also have a video of them as well, boring to most of you but great memories for us. Granddad is laid in front of the marble hearth to save any accidents



Friday

OH was feeling better today and so we decided to go and take a walk and mix it with some geocaching ( as usual). Not been this far up Lanfine Estate for years. Nice to see the boars are still here and I have to say the wee piglets are very cute. Fifi would have liked these, but again didn't want to come with us. We covered 9km up hill and down again.







Saturday

This came through the post, every household in Scotland got one. Lets hope we get a sensible result on this.






TheBoyandMe's 365 Linky

Saturday 9 August 2014

A photographic update of the twins.

Not done an update on the twins for a few months. I cant believe how much they have grown up, how they have changed from babies into little people with their own personalities, their own likes and dislikes, and their own way of doing things.

Minky is crawling everywhere, he can pull himself up and stand, and let go of the furniture and stay stood up. He cruises round the furniture. He is determined and focused when he wants something or to be somewhere, and off he goes, there is no stopping him. He interacts with toys and has worked out with baby toys how to bang them or rattle them or shake them and generally get them to make a noise

Dinky on the other hand has no real interest in moving, she is quite happy to stay where she is put, though she has started to move backwards in the last few weeks, I would not call it crawling and she gets frustrated that she can see something in front of her but cannot get it. She has a bad temper and is very good at screaming if things dont go her way.

They both are on solids now. They happily eat pretty much anything that is put in front of them, and neither of them appear to have any food allergy issues in the way Bob does. Dinky does have a bit of eczema but at the moment that is as far as it goes thank fully. Having said that we cope with one Bob we could just as easily cope with a second. Minky has 4 teeth and Dinky has none.

I love having them on the doorstep so I, along with their other grandparents, can enjoy them on a very regularly. The older two lived a couple of hundred miles away when they were this age and we only saw them three or four times a year and missed all the little changes.


May


all four on the couch



he just pinched my toy



all poshed up




I can fly


tickle tickle granddad



at Auchincruive


yum yum strimmer wire

one serious faced Dinky

Dinky and mummy


Minky can roll




sitting on grraddads knee


5th June 

Dinky






Dinky

Dinky

Dinky

Son, daughter and twins

in the garden

Minky and daddy

Minky with the bricks








Dinky in her cot

pinching her toys





Dinky chewing a rattle

Minky with a biscuit

aaahhhhh fast asleep






and a few videos