A Big Surprise!

Our cat, (he had a lot of different names including; Puss, Putty, and Kitty) once a very lively young fellow, was sickly.

He walked in a funny way and didn't eat or drink much.

After a while, when we thought he had hurt his spine by being bumped by a car, we decided that it wasn't very likely he was going to live.

A lot of the time he would disappear and we would find him hiding. He barely came in the house anymore and just yesterday morning, he disappeared.

He was gone, and we didn't see him all that day. We gave up searching.

That afternoon, around 5:00, my Dad came home from work. We all ran out to the car to greet him and he opened the boot. There was a box in there that I didn't notice until I heard a strange noise coming from it.

Dad brought out the box and he had that certain twinkle in the eye and that certain smile and I knew he had something. And then I knew what it was.

"Dad!?" I said. "Is it…?"

And Dad smiled and carried the meowing box up to the house. We went inside and Dad opened the lid and lifted out a lovely tabby kitten.

It was such a surprise!

He wasn't scared of Lou because he had had a dog in the house he'd lived in before. He was an adventurous little guy, and didn't waste time exploring the whole room. He went behind the curtains, under cupboards, and even on the very tops of the couches! 

He's quite mischievous and is always having to be watched. He loves to sleep on your lap and is the cutest little guy I've ever seen! 

We haven't picked out a name for him yet. He's quite contented with Kitty.

OUR LITTLE KITTEN

Thanks for reading! :D

Tea Time!

The roses are in bloom! The mint is healthy, and so I've decided….it's teatime!!

So today I decided I would make my own recipe of tea. 

I'd been doing some research on lavender to see if I could eat the type in our garden.

I finally found out that I can, so I picked some lavender heads, about 6, and some rose petals, and some mint, and sort of crushed them together. I ripped the petals to bring out the flavour, and shredded the mint a bit too. 

I'll give you the recipe.

SERVES 2-3

Ingredients:

6 lavender heads.

6 rose petals, shredded.

5 mint leaves, ripped up a bit.

Mix the rose petals, mint leaves, and lavender heads together and put in teapot.

Pour boiling water over this and leave for 10 minutes.

Pour into teacup and mix a quarter of a teaspoon of sugar into it. Leave to cool for a few minutes, and then enjoy!

I noticed that it tasted a little soapy, but that mint gave it a good taste, and the sugar sweetened it up a bit. If you prefer, put a little bit of honey into it instead or leave it as it is. 

The rose petals don't give it too much taste but make a little bit of pinkish colour.

It was nice but only have one teacup of it, as it is filling and not so nice after drinking more. 

I hope you enjoy!

I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for reading!! :)

Taking photos of a dog, and…..a Columbine!!!

Today I was taking photos of our dog, Lou.
It was hard at first.
"Lou!" I called, camera in hand.
He padded along. "Sit." He sat. "Stay." He stayed.
"Stay there," I said, trying to get a good position, and watching him carefully.
I pushed the button. Flash! There was a photo. 
But Lou wasn't very happy. He wanted to move.
Flash! He turned his head. But that was alright, I was getting good photo's at least.
This is what they looked like.

They worked out but he kept moving his head. But that actually gets better positions, because when he moved his head he turned, and that got a different posture.





Quite a while ago we went to The Diggers Club. I got a Columbine flower. The pictures of it looked quite pretty.
I bought it and Dad and I planted it. Soon after we had to transplant it to another place, because Dad was turning the other place into a herb garden. 
The columbine looked sickly and the leaves started turning orange.
"Dad, my columbine is dying," I told him one morning.
"It will probably get better now that I've planted it in another place," said Dad.
I wasn't so sure.
But as Winter faded away and it started getting warmer, the little columbine started to get healthier. 
It got back it's good old green colour.       
I decided it was probably because when Winter came it faded out, and maybe…maybe it was just normal.
And a little while ago I got a surprise. It had flower buds!
I waited excitedly for them to open. Then, only yesterday, one of them did!
Today they are all open. I hope the sun won't burn it.
Do you have a columbine? 
I hope you enjoyed my post.   :)




PHOTOS OF THE COLUMBINE

They are beautiful! These are a Pink Columbine, there is also a purple one.
Thanks for reading!! :D

A Hairstyle, some Garden Photos, and an Interesting Experiment!

 This morning I decided to do my little sister Anna's hair. 

"What sort of hairstyle do you want today?" I asked her. I had done her hair the day before, and it had worked out. I had done two little piggy-tails on either side and then left the rest of her hair out.

"Two pig-tails on both sides and then one at the back!" said Anna. 

Hmmm…I wondered wether it would look cute or just….weird. 

But to Anna I replied, "Okay. Are you sure?"

"Yep!" said Anna. She picked up the brush and gave it to me. I stared at it for a minute. Then I gained confidence and began brushing. 

"Ow!" said Anna as I finished the first pig-tail. 

 "I'm finished that one," I said. 

Anna smiled. "Now the next one," she said. I gathered up courage (and hair) and tied the hair tie around.

"Two down, one to go," I said. I picked up the hair tie and grabbed the rest of her hair. 

 As gently as possible, I tied the hair tie around with difficulty, as her hair is so short (because of a small accident a long time ago including scissors and her cutting her own hair, now she always wants it short) and I looked at her. She was looking at herself in the mirror and smiling, so I guess she liked it. "How is it?" I asked. 

She turned around. "Good!" she said, and she looked pleased. I let out a sigh of relief. It looked good. 

Not only that. 

It was really cute!

Now for the garden photo's! I took some today and I will be posting some of them but the rest aren't good enough so I'll show you some really nice one's I took the other day.

I 'm very pleased with them.

NEW PHOTO'S

I didn't like those ones so much, so I will add the good photo's. 
I got some really cool photo's of bees!

Okay, enough of the garden.
THE INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS


After I took those photo's, I asked Anna, "Would you like to do some experimenting?"
"What's experimenting?" asked Anna.
I told her.
Finally she agreed.
We did one experiment (I'm afraid I forgot to take photo's) and that was where we put milk in a plastic plate, ( this was something Dad found on the internet a while ago) and then dripped some food colouring on that, and put some dishwashing liquid on a cotton tip. Then we dipped the cotton tip in the milk, and the colours spread. Of course, you need lot's of different coloured food colouring dripped in there, or it doesn't work very well.
Then I did my own experiment.
I poured oil into a glass (just sunflower oil) and dripped some red food colouring in.
It stayed on top, just little dots, and suddenly, one of them sunk to the middle of the cup. Then another did. We put more drips in, and then mixed it gently. Not too much happened. So then we added water. Then something happened. I'll show you a photo to explain it.

 THEN WHEN WE PUT THE WATER IN….

Then we got a cotton tip and soaked one end in milk.
Then we dipped the milk in there and because it was on oil, the milk floated just like the food colouring had!

It was pretty cool. Then we put lots of drips of milk (We even tried to put honey in but it just sunk to the bottom and didn't do anything) and mixed it.
This is what it looked like.

Then I tipped in the rest of the milk and it looked like this!

 This is what the final thing looked like.

It was a valley of bubble-hills!
It was a cool project. We left it to sit for a while, and finally, the last of the bubble-hills popped.
It was a really fun experiment! :)

Do you like to do experiments? 

The Donut Disaster…and a cake!

I like to make clay things. Polymer clay is very fun to play around with. I have made a few clay things, the cake, recently, and the donuts are from a while ago. 





THE DONUTS

I had the clay in front of me. I had a "How To Make Polymer Clay Food" book in front of me. 
I flipped through the book, marvelling at all the awesome realistic clay food in it. 
"Mum," I complained. "I don't know what to do next. All the stuff in this book is so realistic….But I don't have the right things for them, and not the right talents, either!"
"There are some cool looking donuts there," said Mum. 
"But you make them with liquid clay," I sighed. "We don't have any."
Mum thought. "I'll look clay donuts up on the internet," she said.
So we looked. And then we found the perfect thing. Donuts, that didn't need liquid clay.
"You could make them," suggested Mum.
I smiled. "Okay," I said. "I'll give them a go."
So I tried it. I rolled them into little balls, then I used a little round tool to make the hole. Unfortunately, I couldn't make the hole go right through to the other side. Dad gave me some tips on that so I will try it sometime. 
The icing was a little more tricky. I had to make it very thin. Then I carefully layered it on.
"Mum! I did it!" I said triumphantly. "Can I put them in the oven now?"
Mum put them in the oven and we let them stay in there for a while. Finally, they were hard enough.
I waited for them to cool and then glazed them. Success!


The cake wasn't as tricky. Actually, it was really fun!
It was my own idea. It worked out pretty well. The problem is, The cake sort of went….crooked. 
I rolled it and tried to get rid of that, but it didn't work. Any ideas?



THE CAKE

It worked out pretty well apart form that!
I hope you like it! We hope we can buy liquid clay sometime because it will make things look much better. It's a pity it is so expensive. 

Do you like to make clay things? 
Have you got any tips?

Nori Rolls, Scallops, Fish Eggs And My Birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday! I got lots of presents, including a very pretty sort of patch-work dress that my mum (Kelly Casanova) made.

  Then we went out to mass. I am so blessed to have the latin hymns and Holy Communion on my birthday!
 After mass we went to a market, to things for the cake and other stuff.
It was so busy! At one point we lost Dad. We got strawberries for my pavlova, and some other interesting things…like flying fish eggs. And raw salmon (I think it was salmon) and tuna for nori rolls.
Then we went to a little Japanese shop called Fujimart. We got some seaweed for the nori rolls and Dad asked me if there was anything I wanted. I took a look around the shop, wondering if I should get any teacups or little Japanese bowls. Finally I shook my head.
"There's nothing that I really want here," I said. "I already have a teacup and saucer."
"Alright," agreed Dad. "Let's go and check these things out."
We went to the counter to check the things out. I was standing there waiting for Dad to finish and wondering how the nori rolls would taste with flying fish eggs and what the eggs would taste like, when suddenly something caught my eye.
There were tiny packets of gummy looking things right next to me for sale.
I wondered what they were.
"Dad, look at these lolly things," I said. "They look really gummy."
Dad looked at them in surprise. "Wow!" he said. "These are smoked scallops!"
"Oh," I said. "I thought they were lollies. Are they nice?"
"Yes!" said Dad. "It's been about ten years since I tasted them. They are great!"
I was happy with my find. Dad immediately bought them and we trotted back to the car. Then we went back home.
A while after we got back, Dad started on the nori rolls. He put avocado in them, and the tuna, in some, and in others, the salmon, and also the rice ( of course) and Japanese mayonnaise, and the fish eggs. When he opened them (They weren't that expensive fortunately for us) he let me taste a bit of them. I was surprised to find that they popped in my mouth!



THE NORI ROLLS
ORANGE THINGS ON TOP ARE FISH EGGS.
UNDER THEM IS THE MAYONNAISE. THE RICE ON TOP OF SEAWEED.

DAD PUTTING TUNA IN NORI ROLLS. ABOUT TO ROLL THEM UP.

We ate some of the food and then started on the nori rolls. I was pretty full before too long!
We decided to wait for a while before eating the cake, and so me and my siblings went out into the backyard and played until it was properly dark.
Then Mum and Dad started on the pavlova. Dad had made the base before, and now he made the cream and spread it thickly over the top.
Then he grated chocolate over the cream and covered that with strawberries.
I poured juice and then we turned out the lights.
I smiled as I saw the cake, with all the candles lit, come over to the table, and heard, "Happy birthday to you!"
Then I blew out the candles and Dad started handing out the plates.
I dug into my piece of pavlova.
Yum!

ME BLOWING OUT THE CANDLES.

Then I watched a movie and went to bed. It had been a wonderful day. :)
But……….I have to wait another year until my next birthday!!!!! :(


Have you tried fish eggs or smoked scallops before?
And….., do you like pavlova? I love it!