Rocket and Roast Beetroot Salad

With the Spring weather comes a "new to me" salad.
My Sister made this last time we went to her place for Friday night Pizzas.
Made pizza night a lot more fancy!!
Dress some rocket leaves in extra virgin olive oil.
Scatter with roasted beetroot, pine nuts, feta/goats cheese, avocado chunks and drizzle with balsamic glaze.
So yum and looks great.
Take it to your next BBQ and impress your friends.

Spring Garden

 Even though the back garden is a dust bowl from the landscaping.
The rest of the garden looks pretty good.

 In a few months the backyard should be presentable again.
I'm itching to start entertaining in this warmer weather.

Concrete

 The pool has been concreted and needs to dry for a few weeks, before being tiled.

 This hasn't stopped the kids from "swimming".

 The King of all sheds has been built along the back fence.

 We are going to install a "proper racking/shelving system" to "neatly" house all of our junk.

I don't want to see a bike, scooter, skipping rope or ball at my back door ever again!!

Stansbury

 The Family was packed up into the car for a 3 day trip to Stansbury on the Yorkes Peninsula.

 The Boys have their Annual Father Son Fishing Holiday here each year. And last year came home with a great haul of 12 Blue swimmer crabs and some squid.

 Im not sure if the Girls being on the trip caused the bad luck with the fishing, but we only caught 1 blue swimmer crab. Thats if for the whole 3 days.
Poor Master J, he will sit out there for hours in the freezing blustering wind.
The girls much prefered the playground.

 Stansbury is a pretty quiet place.
NOTHING to do, suits me just fine.
Great Pub for dinner.
Few to many of these!

Digging a really big hole

 Now our backyard looks like this. A small retaining wall will be built along the left hand side.

 The pool is pegged out and this is the first dig, of one ginormous hole.

 Once they got past the mud on the top, the underneath was good old Adelaide clay.
It looks great and we are getting really excited.
Im dreaming of yellow and white cushions on the daybed on the deck, and cute hanging candlelight, and G&Ts as the sun sets after a 40C day, and friends lingering for dinner.

 Just a little bit of work to do before then!!
I really am enjoying a project.
Its a bit more stressful for My Mate, worrying about all the finer details.
 Im not a details kind of girl, I just choose the colours!

Chocolate Roulade

Had a request from Miss S who watches Youtube cake decorating videos 24/7, to bake a chocolate roulade. Look at Master J on the laptop in the background!!

So one afternoon we did just that.

Chocolate sponge cake, rolled with fresh vanilla cream and strawberries. And Yep, Master J still on the laptop in the background.

Building a pool

Busy times here at number 6.
We have decided to take the plunge, so to speak, and build a swimming pool .
The process began a few weeks ago.

I sold the shed and a guy came and dismantled it and took it away.

My poor Mate had the hard job of jackhammering the slab up into manageable size pieces so we could put it into a skip to be removed.

These bricks made a path around the shed, they were my job to clean and move out of the way onto the verandah.

The full content of the old shed, plus the brick pile and all of the other crap that was already there is what greets us everyday. Kind of depressing.
But we have ordered a bigger shed, so I know that very soon EVERY PIECE OF CRAP will soon be housed far away from my eyes, no longer to be seen.
I don't want to see a bike, scooter, skateboard, fishing rod, skipping rope or anything else on my back verandah.

The boys dug up the row of Agapanthus. We put them up the back under the fig tree, to be replanted down the side of the pool fence. We killed the grass, cut the legs off the cubby house (with a hand saw!!) to be used a chook house, and moved the trampoline.

Then the digger arrived to level out the block.

It had been a wet month.
A bogged Bobcat put a halt on things for a few days.

Looking out my kitchen window into this mud pile is not great.
But there is usually a little bit of progress each day, so I shouldn't have to wait to long to see some good results.

Sunday Afternoon

A lovely afternoon gathering at my Dads house, for my Sisters Birthday.
Lifes good!!

School Holidays

Weve been pretty quiet here at Number 6.
The children were tired at the end of Term.
I like the holidays to contain plenty of down-time so they can recharge thier batteries.
But, we have been to the movies, watched a few DVD's, read, knitted, skipped, and played netball on the local courts.
Yesterday we went on a bush walk in Chambers Gully.

 Took some friends and a picnic.

                                    
 Saw 16 Koalas along the way.

 And an Echidna.

 We got caught in a Thunderstorm, much to the little ones horror!

 On to Waterfall Gully for hot chocolate to warm up.

School holidays coming to a close.
Its good and bad.
Ive enjoyed sleeping in and not changing out of my PJ's until 11am.
But, my baby starts school next week, so Im cuddling her a little closer whenever I get the chance.