Brassica Massacre

The veggie patch is still going strong with the cherry tomatoes continuing to flourish and the chillies plants have gone crazy! As we aren't mad chilli fans ourselves, I tried to preserve some by drying them out in the oven. They went a little brown and time will tell whether it was a successful process.

My recently planted winter vegetables including brussel sprouts, broccolini, cauliflower and red cabbage have unfortunately been attacked by little green caterpillars. I suspect if left, they will become Cabbage White Butterflies. Manually picking the little critters off doesn't seem to be working very well.

It's not only the brassicas that have sustained damage recently. While we were at Little Aths Pippa decided, for reasons unknown and the second time in a few weeks, to try to get into the car. On our arrival back home we were greeted to this....luckily the pieces all seemed to pop back into place and there weren't any obvious scratch marks either.

Enlighten

The weather wasn't kind this year for the Balloon Festival (the balloons only managed to lift off on 2 out of the 10 days!) but was a little better for Enlighten. Unfortunately we weren't able to squeeze in a mid week after work trip and instead faced the crowds on Friday night. Actually it wasn't too bad really.

Meeting up with Aoife, Cath and Eoin we first set about finding food. The big curly potato chips and delicious waffles were hits with the kids. For the adults it was a green chicken curry which topped the favourite list.




As the sun slowly sank, we made our way to the edge of Lake BG, to see the Cloud exhibit. It was very cool! Made from 6,000 repurposed incandescent light bulbs with pull strings switches hanging down appearing like rain. As advertised in the Enlighten program, Cloud highlights through social interaction and collaboration that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The kids were oblivious to this fact as they were memorised with pulling the strings to turn light bulbs on and off!

Continuing along the lake's edge, we made our way to the furthest point of Enlighten, the Art Gallery arriving just as the Versailles inspired images lit up the wall.

Next it was on to the Portrait Gallery where one could enter a Photo Booth to have their face projected on the wall. Again another clever idea to involve people in the festival. If the line wasn't so long, we might have joined in too!





As we meandered up to Old Parliament house, we bumped into ladies in lit up dresses on stilts looking fabulous as well as a trio of angels flittering around in the dark!

 

On the way to Questacon, Aoife showed us the torsion waves sculpture which demonstrates the transfer of energy perpendicular to the the direction is travels. The girls had fun making torsion waves.













We watched the images flash on the Questacon walls and bumped into Susie, Patrick and the cousins! Only after we walked past the corner of Questacon did we realise that this display was best viewed at the corner as the image projected onto both walls!



The Pedaleando Hacia El Cielo Parade made it's way around. Consisting of four ladies in enormous billowing white dresses blowing kisses and throwing confetti whilst propped up on a bicycle driven contraption. They were quite a sight set against the darkness of the night.

Making our way towards the National Library and the car....we briefly stopped at the Wings of Freedom. In this display, 180 butterflies symbolising change, creativity, soul freedom, joy and colour were neatly arranged. As it was getting late, we didn't have time to interact with these butterflies via our phones.

Finally we reached the National Library, the last building with a projection on it. The girls were distracted or rather memorised by the glow sticks being launched into the air on a nearby lawn by a whole heap of children. Keen to get home to bed due to imminent meltdowns, Cath appeased the girls by purchasing a few of these glow stick launchers to be used at a later date. And so we made it to the car without fuss ending a lovely evening with friends.

Ella's Escapades

Ella's first cricket season has come to an end. What a season, what a learning curve! They all improved so much over the summer and had lots of fun doing so. On their final match, their coach Zoe Cooke, a former member of the ACT Meteors, playing in the Australian Women's Twenty20 Cup (the precursor to the WBBL), presented each girl with a bag. Inside was a cricket shirt from Zoe's or her good friend Sam Bates playing days. Ella and Mia received a Sydney Thunder shirt signed by Sam Bates! They were both extremely happy. Ella wore the shirt non stop for the next few weeks!!

Next came the Western District Cricket presentation day, where it was revealed that the girls made history! It was the first time in the club's 28 year history that a junior all girls team competed in an all girls competition. Each girl was presented a team medallion. Ella scooped up the Best Bowler for her team too.

Then it was off to school where Andy watched Ella's class assembly. She read out her limerick.

Also during this assembly, the swimming ribbons were handed out and Ella placed 2nd in the 10yrs 50m freestyle. Her time qualified her to compete in the next round 'the zones.' The competition was much tougher at zones. Ella did her best, swam fast (in her words) and was happy with her swim with Nana watching on. Her time of 51s for the 50m placed her 26th (out of ~45). Well done Ella!

Exploring the Trails

While Katy was off playing at a friends house, we organised to meet Cath and Aoife for a mountain bike ride at Majura Pines. Not wanting to waste our energy levels by riding up and over the saddle from Hackett, we drove around to the main carpark located on the east side of Majura Parkway.

Access from this point provides the variety of tracks we were looking for. The first loop we rode all together was the Flash. From there Cath and I peeled off while Andy, Ella and Aoife explored the jump track and Crazy Crab loop. Our aim was to meet up somewhere on the otherside!

Cath and I headed on up to the northern most section of Majura Pines, known at Winery Hill. In on Mata Hari to Mr Squiggle before making a wrong turn down. Luckily we realised fairly quickly and turned around. Successfully up the switchbacks of Batcave. Emerging at the top we enjoyed the views overlooking the vines of the Mt Majura Winery. Fast down Pinot Grinio and on to Bombora, a great little track criss crossing an erosion gully multiple times. We popped out on to the fire trail to discover Andy and the girls riding along.

It was tough going for the girls along the Bogs and Logs track, living up to it's name! Certainly put their bike handling skills to the test. Both did a great job emerging from the trails via the 20m curved Monkey Bridge. The ride hadn't finished there. We were taken back to the jump park for a few more laps.

Lunch back at Cath and Eoin's completed the morning!

Updating and Recycling

Ella's little wooden bird feeder which hangs in the snow gum was looking a little worse for wear but nothing that a new coat of paint couldn't fix! The feeder now lives in the crepe myrtle as Ella decided that the birds needed a bigger feeder.

Searching around for something suitable and she came across the bottom of the old chicken water container. A little tinkering with Andy and the new feeder is now hanging in the snow gum tree. It wasn't too long before the first customer arrived, giving the feeder a tick of approval!

Meanwhile elsewhere in the garden, it was a green harvest from the veggie patch - a capsicum, a green chilli and a zucchini!

Also came across these 3 large ?cocoons in the grevillea bush...an internet search revealed that they are oothecas, otherwise known as an egg sac belonging to a praying mantis. I learnt many new interesting facts:
 - the sacs can hold hundreds of eggs and will take up to 5 months to hatch (as long as Mr Hairylegs the White Stemmed Gum moth we had!)
-  they have 5 eyes...yep - 2 large compound eyes and 3 eyes on the top of their head known as ocelli!
- and lets just say that I am glad I'm not a male praying mantis after reading about the female cannibalistic ways!

Sleepovers

In the land of sleepovers.....Jessica and Aoife came over for the night! All went smoothly. In the morning the bigger girls made pancakes for brekkie!

Bowling

To celebrate and farewell Cat, a PhD student at RSES, we joined Andy and his work colleague for lawn bowls. It was a warm evening as we graced the grass at the Turner Lawn Bowls club. There were lots of novices, including Katy, who found this sport challenging but lots of fun at the same time. We had several games going on at once, with people swapping in and out of groups. Towards the end it seemed that our girls were more interested in doing cartwheels and handstands only to be egged on by Alice and Paige who were doing all sorts of gymnastic manoeuvres! It was all short lived though as they were reprimanded by a staff member...luckily by then it was time to head home...