Second annual Easter egg hunt

Last weekend was Easter so we organised our second annual Easter egg hunt. Everyone turned up at 10 o'clock and hung out in the sunroom until we were ready to go. It was great to see Archie, Ellie, Sofia, Otto and Rory playing together so harmoniously in the toy kitchen before we went outside. 

 

They were all pretty keen to get going.

The fact they were all a year older meant it was much calmer than last year, which seemed to mostly consist of a scrum of slightly bewildered toddlers running around the backyard together having someone point out where the eggs were. This year they all went in different directions and actually understood what they were meant to be looking for. Even Otto got in on the action.

Rory found a good stash of eggs in the sandpit and the girls loaded them into the bowl.

In the interests of fairness, all the eggs were pooled to be divided up after the hunt.

Of course, not all of the eggs that went in to the bowl made it back to be divvied up...

There was a bit of a post-sugar slump to deal with afterwards, but it wasn't too bad. Sofia was super excited the following day when we were out doing some gardening and she found an egg that had been missed the day before. We look forward to the third annual Easter egg hunt!

Getting ready for winter

Yes, we are still here but it's been hard to find time to write anything for the blog lately.

Winter will be with us soon and we use our open fire a lot. We had a few trees chopped down last year and the wood has been drying near our garage over the summer. I didn't take a "before" shot of all of the wood on the driveway but I did manage to dig up a photo from last December when we were netting the Mulberry tree. It's not that clear from the photo but there are two full rows of wood there.

The plan was to make our wood shed a bit more weather proof, then put all of the wood in the shed. This is the woodshed from behind as we were starting. First we put up some reinforcement mesh and tied it to the woodshed frame and the garage to give the back of the woodshed some more strength. We then measured out the black plastic that will make up the back wall.

This is the woodshed nearly finished. We used gaffer tape for some extra strength then nailed it to the garage and the posts - hopefully this lasts the distance. We also hooked the plastic to the roof of the woodshed so that the wood is completely protected from the winter rain.

Once it was finished we moved all of the wood into the shelter so that it stays dry over the winter.

And here is the driveway looking all nice and clean. While we were moving the heap I also discovered that chickens love to eat skinks. One of them would catch a skink then they would chase around fighting over it.