Recipe 1

Ok. . . . Thought I'd start a recipe line of blog. At the moment I'm house wife and husband, yes she has deserted me for a week! Oh and left the children behind as well . . . . . You'd think if your wife wanted a relaxing time away they'd take the kids for peace of mind!?
Anyway . . I like cooking and there's a few recipes I'd like to share like this one today, a real masterpiece, a work of art.
Good ol Spag Bog!

1. Buy an amount of spaghetti from the shop and boil some of it. If there's too much boiled, feed it to the dog, if too little, your stuffed and will have to give up your share to feed the kids!
2. Buy some mince meat, probably no less than 500gms, well for us that is.
3. Fry it.
4. Buy some Dolmios or Leggos bolognase sauce.
5. After mince is browned, chuck the sauce in and let it simmer.
6. Grate some cheese, whatever is in the fridge.
7. If you want to be healthy, cook some vegies like Broccoli or carrots for on the side.
8. Once the Spag seems right, drain the water off and serve it out.
9. Stick the meat sauce on top and throw some grated cheese on.
10. Eat

If you make stacks you can freeze it and have it every night while the Mrs is away. Saves heaps of dishes! The kids only start grumbling after 3 days and then they get use to it.
They may be a little larger than when she left but I just see it as helping Mum to be more appreciated when she comes back!
Stay tuned for more riveting recipes in the future!

Farmer Glenno

Oh yeh! You heard right, I think you can now add farmer to the list. I drove me a tractor! Why? You ask. Coz the farmer dude next door is training me to drive his tractors for grape harvest, yeee Haah!
Now I know the pic is a really badly cut and I'm not quite, how do you say it, as belly challenged, but give it a bit of time loafing on the tractors and a few grapes and I might be heading that way.
Just need me a pitchfork and a stalk of hay out my mouth.

Relate to this?

I'm sure many of us at this time of the year can relate to this photo, taken yesterday by my lovely wife at the zoo.
I kinda think it relates to the fella's a bit more though. I'm sure if he had pants on his hand would be down there and a remote would be on his lap.

The BIG 3 . . . 7

Spent the day at the Zoo yesterday with the fam for the 37th Bday. Gotta say the big 4 . . 0 is creeping up way too fast for my liking. It all depends on the way you feel I guess and actually with my knee giving me curry and a stuffed shoulder 40's sounding about right. Actually . . . was carrying a couple of pavers a couple of days ago, walking between a couple of pallets and my foot became caught in between the pallets which sent me flying. Came off with a great graze on my shoulder and a lump on the good knee. I think this is what they mean when you get old and they say 'he had a fall'? I hope not! I'll put it down to pushing my body to the limit and living on the extreme edge, holding on to my youth and living to the full. Now, where's that ice pack?

New Addition

I think Scruffy's a little worried and unsure just what he's got himself in to . . . . other than his favorite hiding pipe that is.

This made me crack up!

Butter wouldn't melt?

Well, you'd think that with a face like this that something this cute could never hurt a fly. Well . . . . . maybe not a fly . . . . . . . how about a chicken? . . . . . . . . . or maybe a kangaroo?
I guess she (Lara the family shepherd x ridgeback dog) kind of thinks that if we can have chicken and roo on the barbi, she can have it rare.
It all started when one day we came home and couldn't find two of our chickens. If you look at the 'My Pics' link, one of them, rest its soul,(if they have one) is in Hannah's hands as a chick. Well one of them is still nowhere to be found to this day, just one clue of a few cute chicken feathers over the fence. The other one came back, well actually not the whole one just half. One leg, one wing and no head. There is a hopping chicken around, also flying in circles, somewhere in our vicinity. If you see it let us know coz it owes us some eggs. But wait . . . . there's more to the tail of Lara the not so farm dog. On Sunday the family is in the car ready to head to our gathering of people who follow Jesus, I refuse to say 'going to church', it's a bit of a thing in our fam at the moment, and I called out to see where our wonder dog was and . . . nowhere to be seen or heard . . . . . . Great! So off we go. After a short drive, by now about 20 minutes has gone by since we noticed she was gone, we stumble across some quite stressful looking ladies walking their Rhodesian Ridgebacks among the vines. Totally identifying with their stress I asked them if they'd seen a dog. Yes was the reply 'we saw them,(I thought, them?) a dog chasing a kangaroo in that direction' (south east) and 'you need to get a bigger fence!!!!'
Oh NO!
So we drove on a 100 metres and looking to the left of the road was an awesome sight. Down an isle of vines was the biggest kangaroo I have ever seen, standing on it's back legs and tail as tall as it could, 8-9 feet tall, no joke, and Lara was just laying down panting at it's feet, paws, whatever they are. They were both stuffed. Obviously they had been hopping and running for some time, long enough that they couldn't go any further and the kangaroo had decided to turn and fight rather than run. This didn't suit Lara as she didn't care about anything that wasn't running/hopping anymore. I called her over to the fence, one of many that the two had just scaled, and she just flopped down and couldn't be bothered getting over. Her mouth was covered in slobber and she was puffing like I have never seen her before. I carried her to the car, took her home and TIED her up.
New fencing soon.
Dog not so cute anymore.
Don't let chickens out anymore.
Had roo on the barbi the other night.

Laptops and Farmers Union Iced Coffee

Two passions of my life came together in spectacular form the other day while in my office and nearly destroyed quite a few years of data.

Yep you got it; my Laptop had a drink of Farmers Union Iced Coffee. Now available it seems in all states across Australia and not just the original but now in light and extra strong. Farmers Union Iced Coffee is ‘the’ drink of South Australians and apparently has the title of being the only drink to ever knock off one red and white labeled drink that ends in cola, as the highest selling drink in a capital city. I am a particular fan of this iced coffee and am trying to line up my empties so that they surround the internal circumference of the shed on one of the ledges. This is taking a certain amount of time due to lack of Iced Coffee funds and the fact that my kids love to fill them with sand or put them in the recycle bin to get money from them. I tell you, they are blocking my goal!! Anyway . . . It just so happened the other day that I did have funds for a Farmers Union Iced Coffee for lunch which accompanied my potato pie and while dutifully working in my lunchtime I somehow managed to tip Iced Coffee all over my keyboard . . . . . the end. . . . .
I now have a new laptop thanks to EIG-ANSVAR because of extra accidental cover. Woo Hoo!!!! I have also been able to access all my data due to a handy little 2.5inch USB external hard-drive case. So the moral is. . . . . If you love Farmers Union Iced Coffee and work on computers keep them away from each other or . . . . make sure you have good insurance!!

Gymnastics @ Broken Hill

Well what a huge weekend!
That week of training I had did wonders for my physique as you can see, and the skills training really paid off. After never doing gymnastics, except for the occasional floor routine at Boys Brigade about 25 years ago, my balance on the pommel really came in to play, actually you'd be forgiven in thinking that I was actually an olympian from russia, go figure!
Seriously. We had a great time, the whole family went to Broken Hill for the weekend with the Funky Moves competition team. We travelled up and back in a bus with the whole team. Shannon, Kirrily and Hannah are all on the team (not me) and they did really well. This was Hannah's first comp and she even managed to come away with a medal. Kirrily has been on the team longer which really showed as she won the overall 1st medal for her grade. Shannon also did very well getting a first on the floor in her level. The comp was between about 8 clubs from country SA and Broken Hill teams.
It was great getting to know people and being a part of a totally different community of people and it has totally deepened relationship with people we didn't really know. Some more 'real' pics are available to look at on the 'my pics' link. The girls all look the same though with their hair pulled back so I hope you can pick them. Ps Brod's was ok . . . we took a footy.

Spaghetti Up The Nose

Have you ever had something to eat and whatever you're eating has gone up you nasal tube the back way? Well I have and it's not a good feeling and it takes a bit of the old hacking to get it out and not choke when it does.
Well . . . tonight we had Spaghetti for tea and Brod's had that happen to him only he didn't hack it out and re-eat it, he blew it out of his nose! This was no tiny bit of Spaghetti mind you, it was about 40mm (1.5 inch's) not a bad effort and it had us in stitch's. The pic above shows the evidence.