Holidays and Copperwork

Irving and I had a really lovely extended Winter break.  We  had our regular classes to attend surrounded by a few excursions, and some interesting extended learning at home, and a trip as a family down to SW Western Australia, to visit Willow and her fiance.

We had our Winter solstice celebration with a fire on the balcony, but sadly no ember baked damper this year, as it had been quite wet overnight, and so having a fire was a last minute decision.  We instead had freshly baked home made bread.

We got some last minute tickets to join our home school group, and headed with them to see the Teracotta Warriors at the WA Museum.  The whole exhibition was amazing, and the presence of the larger warriors  was formidable.

Irving turned 12, and we had a lovely family day celebrating with him, and Willow made him a fabulous birthday cake this year.

Blackforest Birthday Cake

Irving and I learnt about harvesting Aloe Vera, and the need to drain the aloin from the freshly picked leaves to make it edible.  It was fascinating finding the sticky yellow substance had drained out after leaving the leaf to strain.

Leaves Draining

We tested and cleaned out this coffee machine, that we found in the hard waste, and discovered that it works, is missing the tamphead, which should be easy enough to replace, and needs a little attention to the finial on the top.  So that's part of our next jobs to get it functioning again.

DeLonghi coffee machine

There were lots of toasted marshmallows eaten during our stay with Willow, as they have a woodfire stove and the weather was adequately cold for our visit.  When we came back to Perth, it seemed to have finally gotten cold here too!  We had a lovely time visiting Manjimup, Busselton, Pemberton, Northcliffe and exploring the SW in general.  Particularly on our way home, when we kept making spontaneous stops into small towns along the way.

Marshmallows

We headed to Busselton, found some great shops for tea, healthfood, jewellery- buying a few too many things probably, and then headed to a local jetty for Irving to do some fishing with Willow's fiance.

Off to do some fishing

Out on the jetty.

We really loved our visit to the Manjimup Electricity Museum.  In fact I think it's the best Museum that I've been to in a while.  Much better than the WA Museum.  The electrical  tech side is well integrated, given it is about electricity they engage with it really well.  And it was an amusing and pleasant surprise to discover that a lot of the tech was from the old East Perth Power station, which is not too far from where we live.

We got to the Southern Forests Chocolate Company near Pemberton, and had the best chocolate that we've had in WA IMO.  They definitely rival our friend, Steven ter Horst in Adelaide (visit to Steven's shop here).

Out front the Southern Forests Chocolate company

Truffle selection

Arden sadly didn't make the trip with us, as he had a surprise last minute event via airforce cadets, and headed off to a camp for the week.  In fact he had quite an eventful lead up to his week away, as he got his learners permit, and he also got a retail job, working for the chain, City Beach.

Irving and I did quite a bit more copper work over the break, and one of Arden's and Irving's friends has joined us in our latest sessions.

Learning to saw copper.

Circular bowls and experimenting with pickling- using vinegar to keep it kitchen friendly!

Irving's left, mine on the right.

My bowl.

Irving's varying square shaped bowls.

We've been watching a lot of youtube videos to expand our copperwork knowledge, and we found this one particularly interesting and inspiring.  We loved that this man had taken up the traditional method of making and repairing old copper pots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTztlpAcips

https://duparquet.com/coppercare

Irving and I have been reading "The Secret Garden".  Such a great book, and it's still fascinating to remember having discovered that people back then learnt cursive first if they were educated, and that printing may have been tricky.

Irving and I spent quite a bit of time having quiet coffee dates, where we took our current reading and headed out for a coffee with our books.  I've been learning about bicarb soda since finishing reading Portal.  Both books are quite fascinating, and I think Portal is a particularly valuable read on birth, as it explores many of the untalked about aspects of bringing life into the world.

Arden finally finished this Guns'n'Roses jigsaw puzzle.  He was finding the black rather challenging!

We found one of our favourite coffee vans down by our stretch of the river, which was a lovely surprise.  They have fabulous Polish pastries.

2020 Before Covid and Heading In

The start of the year was much the same for us as any.  Taking our time and being relaxed in the heat, swimming, keeping cool and being outdoors. 

Wandering around Dalkeith and enjoying the Summer.

Plus learning some local history along the way.







We usually start into our at home activities gradually and we did that again this year.  Starting with painting.  We did some work on mosaics and finished off a story book that we were working on for Irving's Grimm fairy tales work.

Snow White and Rose Red paintings.

Irving.

Arden.

Mine with and without heading.

Arden and I worked together on painting two types of colour wheel.

Arden and Irving went through a domino/ marble run phase including making paper dominos and watch hours of youtube tutorials to develop ideas.

We spent some time reading the Mr Penguin series, and finally got around to reading Farmer Boy together.

We moved onto geometrical drawing for Arden this year, and Irving loves doing it,so he joined in a lot of the time.

We worked on more images with Irving.

This inclueded making images from plants by hammering them with a mallet to see if they would "print".

Arden started working on perspective drawing using this book.

We didn't go to as many fringe/festival shows as we often do during the Summer season, but we took full advantage of Highway to Hell after we discovered "Steve'n'Seagulls" were playing, we followed them along the first leg.

Briefly saw "Shonen Knife"  at the Highway to Hell stage.

Eventually decided we were walking to Fremantle since it was unlikely that Canning Highway would be open for a walk again.

Looking east towards the rising moon.

 And west toward Fremantle.

 

And we made it to Freo! (Irving was inspired to make it when he realised we could stop off for icecream in Fremantle.)

We got a surprising harvest of bird's eye chillis which sprouted up on our balcony garden.

We moved onto biology by the second half of the term using these books.  "Muscles and Bones" by Kovacs and "A Leg to Stand On" by Oliver Sacks (one of my favourite authors for science.

And as covid came into life and caused lockdowns and turned the world upside down, I had the luck to find a coffee machine very cheaply priced in the op shop.

Learning to use the coffee machine.