Seasons, food, fun and Technology

We finished Arden's block on seasonality and food last week and have now moved onto shelters. Today we focused on Aboriginal shelters, and the seasons. We had a lot of fun, with our last block, and Arden is certainly an enthusiastic cook; he is always discussing future plans for cooking and running his own cafe.

We've been following the moon, and watching it move through it's phases.  Irving is our most enthusiastic moon watcher!

Arden preparing parsley (for our gremolata- Italian green sauce) to have with our osso bucco

All served!

 Arden's form drawing, working on mandala style pictures.

Gabriel working on biology- sketching bones

Our Halloween Jack-o-Lantern ( we had a fun night out rockabilly dancing,  and then coming home to eat pumpkin pie and drink mulled wine)

Some more cheese- we had a few goes at mozzarella- started to get it, by our third try

Folding the curd

Arden working on making some pyjamas for himself

We just finished reading "Little House in the Big Wood", we've been quite inspired to try a few of the foods from it.  We had hasty pudding last week, made using masa flour and topped with cream and maple syrup and dried fruit and chocolate peanut butter!

With our constant "Harry Potter" obsession, Arden and I went out and collected him a very nice solid piece of wood to carve a wand.

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At work creating

We headed out to Wireless Hill last weekend to look at radio technology in Western Australia.  We have discovered that they do some interesting talks on radio technologies.  Gabriel is currently doing a science block, and this week we are looking at the development of the telegraph and telephone.  Today we started off with a series of videos on youtube.  This is my playlist that we've been watching; though not in the order I have them saved.

Willow and Damien have been very busy with rehearsal for "Iolanthe" and Gabriel and Arden both have small acting rolls in it.  Willow has also been working through her mythology essays, and looking into auditions and doing a lot of writing.

Cheese

This week has seen Arden and I back into following the seasons; and in particular the moon- focusing on it's rising and it's setting.  As well as doing this, we've also been learning to make cheese, starting with ricotta.  I'm not sure I'll ever want shop ricotta again our home made versions were sooo good.

This is ricotta number one, made with milk and an extra cup of cream.  *Everyone's* favourite.

Ricotta number two was made with my buttermilk, but since it was fresh buttermilk and not soured, we needed to add lemon juice for the curdling.  We felt this was average and only as good as the shop ricotta.  (One that I would normally think was worth baking with spices.)

This is ricotta number 3 made with our souring milk, almost as good as the extra cream ricotta from day 1.

We only strained our ricotta for 10-15mins to keep the creaminess in.  Ricotta is *soooo* easy to make and so much tastier home made I'm not sure I'll ever buy it again.

Gabriel and I have been making progress on our blues guitar, and I'm starting to feel like I can play a bit.  Haven't asked Gabriel how he feels he's going, but hopefully we're both getting somewhere!?  Arden has got a few songs that he's becoming familiar with on  harmonica as well as his Gilbert and Sullivan selection and his own creations now.  He's also coming along nicely with violin lessons with Willow; they are now starting to work on learning his first song.  Willow is singing Iolanthe endlessly; and of course so is Irving.  I'm sure before long it will be driving me as mad as Pirates did last year!

Gabriel is working on a biology block currently and reading "A Leg to Stand On" by Oliver Sacks.  He's also reading "Romeo and Juliet" for English, and I was hoping to find a copy of "Iolanthe" to read.

Arden is starting on his first hand sewing project; a pair of pyjamas for summer, and Gabriel is starting to put together his tie.  Irving has fallen in love with Arden's gingham pyjamas that I made, so I'm hoping to start him some this afternoon.

Willow has been busy singing and writing, and we need to sit down and have a focused chat again with Damien.  I find it hard at this time of year, when everyone's in a production, as it takes up quite a bit of free time.  Gabriel and Arden both have small rolls in Iolanthe, so it's just Irving and I hanging out this year!

Today we are showing Class Dismissed (again!).
https://www.facebook.com/events/799938486817918/

Yesterday was Samhain for the Southern Hemisphere, so we went Pumpkin shopping and had pumpkin pie and carved a lantern, and shared mulled wine, was a very pleasant end to the week.