There's beetroot and then there's yellow eckendorf!

Last autumn I sowed 5 different types of beetroot. (This time I will sow them much earlier because they did very little until spring.... but that's another interesting story.) There was an outstanding winner in the taste and resistance to bolting test and that was Yellow Eckendorf. At first glance it looked quite pretty too, having skin and leaf stems of a bright yellow and large, brilliant green leaves. The roots were also large but once cut I saw they were an insipid cream colour and did not hold much hope for a taste sensation.

 

 

However, I was so surprised at the first mouthful, after cooking them Jamie Oliver style. This was better than any other beetroot I'd ever had! The cooked colour is worse even than the fresh but every day that they sit in the fridge the flavour gets better and better. I do not want to eat the last piece and have to wait so long for more!

 

These photos are not mine; I copied them from Google Images. Sadly one of the websites where I found them was suggesting this to be animal fodder! Yes, and I know which animal is going to get my next crop!

I am going to go right now and find that packet of seeds and put it on my kitchen table to remind me to sow them soon, here in Tasmania. Anywhere hotter and I would suggest you wait until March.

Happy gardening!

The meaning of giving

Some would say that making a new life in a small, rural town, way down at the bottom of the world, far, far away from "everything",  is running away, becoming self-focused and almost a hermit. I might have even been one of those know-alls once upon a time. Small communities can be suffocating, insular, backward and treat newcomers like aliens. I understand there are such undercurrents in Tasmania and even here in Cygnet.

However my experience over the last 9 months is one I never would have expected nor dared hope for. As I sit here in my lounge, all around me are momentos of the people who have shared so generously with me and invited me into their lives. Next to my laptop is one of a whole stack of French cookbooks and vegetable gardening books, lent to me to read over the holidays by Jan of Woodbridge. Behind me are 2 big, comfortable lounge chairs given to me by Liz shortly after I arrived in Cygnet, hand-me-ons from a dear old friend of hers. Next to them is my Christmas tree, cut from Liz's block, then brought back here and decorated with tinsel passed on to me by her Bob. In the kitchen is a hand made coffee tamper and a dibber made by Rod for me as a trial before he started making them to sell. On the floor beside me Pickle is playing with a ball on a rope, given to him for Christmas by my new American gardening friends Ally and Steve who are house-sitting my friend Helen's house in Hobart. Beside the front door is a boule set lent to me for our after Christmas lunch lawn game.....on the lawn that Laura kindly came and mowed for me on Christmas morning.... and so it goes on. I cannot mention them all !

In the garden, just visible from where I am sitting, bloom the dark red, heaven-scented sweet peas which have grown from seeds given to me by Frances. Happily dotted throughout my whole acre are plants people have grown from cuttings or seeds and shared with me. I love that image of a person handing over something living, given with such care, each and every one of them with a little story to tell of how or why they are giving it to the other. In the Christmas bonbons that I made I placed some sunflower seeds which I had saved from the flowers in my garden, soon after I moved into my house. I added a little note, asking the recipient of the bonbon to take one of the seeds and plant it in my garden for me, then to be sure to return often and watch it grow with me. I hope they germinate!

Pride of place is taken by this wonderful sign which all of you who visit will see welcoming you to my Garden Shed business. Erica is a wife, mother and nurse and yet found the time to design and make this for me for Christmas..... look closely and you will even see Pickle standing in the doorway of the shed!

Thanks to the internet and blogs, on my bedside table is a delightful book Pattie  (USA) sent me and close by is a little book of poems written by Teleri (France). I have a dvd about gardening in the tropics, from Wilson (Singapore) and I now make seed packets based on the template shared with me by Laura (France).... the list is awesome.

I do not feel at all that I have escaped from anything, but I do feel I have arrived somewhere I belong, where giving includes time, thought and sharing.

The Cygnet Christmas Parade

It was such fun, such a happy occasion and such a lovely evening with no rain (evidently rain is usually a feature of the parade!). Cygnet has a population of 800 and I reckon that everyone of them was out lining the streets.

Me, visiting neighbours on the way to Liz's to decorate the wheelbarrows.	Alicia, Emily, Alex and Charlie getting into the swing of it at Liz's.
There was every kind of vehicle from little kids on little motor bikes to scout floats, a vintage car, utes and trucks, fire engines and this cute little racing car.... Oh... why were we in it? We were representing the community garden and next year we'll have a banner and seeds to throw to people......

Make your own Christmas Bonbons

From the BBC News

From my kitchen.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside is a joke, a little native Australian animal and a tiny packet of sunflower seeds. On the packet of seeds I stuck a label I printed saying.... Here are some seeds collected by me from my garden last autumn. Please go outside and sow one now. Then come back and visit me often and watch it grow. Tomorrow morning I will pick some flowers and put one with each bonbon, instead of a paper hat.

Joyeux Noel.

How to plant a garden in the snow..... and know when your garlic is ready to harvest

By Roger Doiron and family.

 

Thanks Roger, I love them!

And, if any readers were wondering, son Alex did get home. His plane left Heathrow on time, with him on it. Just plain lucky and oh so grateful.

White Christmas for gardeners?

This photo was taken in NZ in June, and I think I have put it on here before, but I can just dream about having a white Christmas.... I found the photo on Ooooby (Out of our own back yards). All the snow in the UK and Europe ..... and son Alex trying to catch a plane from Heathrow today, to get back to an Australian Christmas on the beach!

Sue of a previous garden-shed-envy blog piece sent me this very funny, clever and entertaining Christmas Story snippet:

.... and hot off the email press is this recipe from my nearly-ancient friend, Sally

CHERRY MISTMAS!

Ingredients
• * 2 cups flour
• * 1 stick of butter
• * 1 cup of water
• * 1 tsp baking soda
* 1 cup of brown sugar
• * lemon juice
• * 4 large eggs
* nuts
* 2 bottles of sherry
* 2 cups dried fruit
Method

Sample the sherry to check quality. Take a large bowl, check the
sherry again, and to be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level
cup and drink. Repeat. Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of
butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar. Beat again.
At this point it is best to check the sherry again. Try another cup just
in case. Turn off the mixerer thingy. Break 2 eggs and add to the bowl
and chuck in dried fruit.

Pick the frigging fruit off the floor. Mix on the turner. If the fried
druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver.
Sample the sherry again to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift 2 cups of
salt, or something. Sheck the cherry.

Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Add
a spoon of sugar, or some fink whatever you can find. Greash the
oven. Turn on the cake tin 360 o and try not to fall over. Don’t forget
to beat off the turner. Finally throw the bowl through the window
and wipe the counter with the cat. Finish the sherry and take a taxi to
Woollies to buy cake. Bingle Jells!!

As they say at Wilson's.....

Eat, think and be merry!

Vasili and Gavin..... Maresi!

If you missed Gavin on the TV show Vasili's Garden, back in November, you are in for a treat! Grab a cuppa, get everyone round the screen and sit back for a really fun and informative 3/4 hour or so.

I started reading Gavin's blog when it was brand new, back in about 2007. It has not all been smooth sailing for Gavin and his family, as they have had various health problems etc but nothing has stopped Gavin pursuing his desire to turn from a regular, petrol-guzzling consumer, to a model of green living, after watching "An Inconvenient Truth".

Now I am proud to call him a friend after a visit I made to his house on my Voyage of the Vegetable Vagabond, in 2008, and all the comments we have thrown at each other's blogs since.

Maresi, Gavin.... oh, and maresi Vasili too!

Let's do the time warp again.....

Did you see Gavin on TV last night? If not, then the footage is here , oops, no I mean here at Greening of Gavin.

I missed it.... sort of. Well I had written myself a reminder and put it next to my laptop but it got covered with my diary during the day.... and I forgot about dear Gavin completely. That evening I was, instead, chatting merrily away on skype with Maggie.

Next thing..... Maggie's phone is ringing and its a mutual friend reminding Maggie about Gavin being on..... because Maggie is in SA and that is 1/2 behind my time zone!

Maggie turned on the tv, eventually found channel 10 that neither she nor I ever watch, turned her computer screen around, with me on it, and together she and I watched Gavin! He did a great job on a very poor show which I promise I will never watch again.

What fun it was though and Gavin did us all proud, wherever he was and you are and so on.....

Just time for a quick snooze on the seat, in the sun..... while Kate goes to get a coffee. As if I'd run away.......

No-one said I wasn't allowed in the wood box!

Another day, another sunny place for  a dog nap. Ahhhh.... bliss!

Fresh herbs....a basic human need

 

	The formal herb garden in the Hobart Botanic Gardens is delightful this time of year. We had our Home Gardeners Group picnic there last week.
	Then we moved on to Pete's vegie patch which is also home to a huge variety of fruit trees, vines and bushes. This is Sue....
	....whose hand is spread across this enormous artichoke! Coming here is like going to heaven and the gardens are so convenient to get to and its easy to park.
(We all had shed envy when we went to Sue's recently. Her little extension is much nicer than a plastic poly tunnel.)
	The curved, bamboo teepees are much stronger than mine and have survived the winter pea harvest and look set for summer beans. You can see the food theme has leaked out from Pete's Patch into much more of the Botanic Gardens now..... hooray!

I never cease to be amazed at.... well.... stuff! This time though, its herbs, or the total lack of them, in people's lives. In place of the wonderful flavours herbs give a meal, people's cupboards and fridge (and sometimes fridges, plural!) are full of tins, packets and jars of flavoured sauces, mixed, dried seasonings and ready to go "Italian" meals..... as if any Italian in their right mind would eat that rubbish!

My herb garden is developing well but still I do not have enough of certain herbs to feed even just me. And yet, when I arrived, not a single herb was there in this acre. For 100 years families, gardeners and chefs have moved through this house so how could it be that not one of them has left me even a rosemary bush??

Until we find the solution to this problem, I fear there will never be a commitment to living a green life. This sounds very simplistic (and not a little bit crazy) but herbs are so basic to the enjoyment of food, give such joy to rub between your fingers and sniff as well as doing us so much good. If people are so removed from their food that they do not even expect to pick parsley for their soup, chives for their scrambled eggs or basil for their tomatoes on toast, then how can we ever get them to want to grow anything edible?

When I first came here back in March and had no herbs in my garden, I tried buying some from the local supermarket. Oh dear.... I closed my eyes and tried to conjure up the flavour I was expecting.... it was a disaster. Herbs grown hydroponically have practically no flavour and are a shocking colour. I felt sick from thinking of all the chemicals in and on them and gave them to the chooks who also refused to eat them. (Just like Pickle refusing to eat sausage mince when he was a little puppy. The chooks refused that too!). Luckily soon I found Terry, the man with a vegetable garden with a trillion dollar view, who only opens for 1/2 hour once a week!

Half my herb garden is planted up now and today I am going to weed the other half again (for the 100th time) ready for the basil seedlings I have grown and the oregano I want to shift out of the hothouse, etc, etc, etc! THEN I will take some photos..... I promise!

Just when I thought all hope was lost...

Just when the world seemed doomed to destruction....

Along came these three beautiful examples of creative thinking and restored my faith in humanity.....

If you go down to the pond today....

you're in for a nice surprise.

Some time ago I bought some more of the spent mushroom bags.... I waited and waited and no mushrooms grew. So, I carried them down to the other side of the pond and stuck my fork through the bottom of the plastic bag a few times. Then I dug a little hole in the mixture, put in a handful of garden soil and 2 pumpkin seeds. It was still cold back then so I pegged shut the top of the bag which made it like a little hothouse.

I put them down by the pond so that the roots will find the water later, and they might also help to smother a bit of the grass so I don't have to mow it. It meant also that at the time, I could sow the seeds without preparing the soil and without risking them being overgrown by grass before they got going.

After a while there was suddenly a hot couple of days and I forgot to unpeg the bag... and then I did unpeg it and it turned cold.... then it dried out.... oh what rough life for those pumpkin seeds and its no wonder they refused to appear for ages! One of them was then eaten off by a snail that left its slimy trail.

We have had a week or so of on and off humid, warm, damp weather.... nothing like the floods in NSW and Qld or the storms in SA, just quite pleasant really. In that week all 3 of the pumpkin experiments have taken off but not only the pumpkins.....

Mushrooms.... in summer! I could barely see the pumpkin seedling as the whole bag was brim full of mushrooms. They weighed more than a kilogram and were more than I could carry! Last time I looked there was only the slimy snail trail and the remains of a seedling and definitely no mushrooms!

So, guess what I am having for dinner, with my compulsory serve of broad beans!

 

Last night I had such a simple, delicious meal of broad beans and here is what I did....not exactly a recipe, more just an idea for you to adjust how you please and it began like this....Late yesterday afternoon I was sitting shelling broad beans and blanching them whilst listening to the ABC 891 Adelaide radio and hearing about the amazing rain and thunder storms which my mother had told me about earlier in the day. It got later and later and I wanted to finish the job..... soon I was hungry, it was 10 to 7 and there was no dinner in sight.... 

Crushed Broad Beans on Toast

.... so I grabbed a handful of hot, blanched broad beans and put them in a bowl. I crushed them coarsely (I had not cooked them much... just blanched) and added a slug of olive oil, some pepper.... all the while thinking about what to do next. I had a lovely, mini foccacia in the freezer made by Cam who sells them at the market here, so I thawed it out and toasted it under the griller. Into the bowl of broad beans I added some semi-dried tomatoes, some seeded olives and some mint leaves. I crushed it all a bit more. I wanted to watch the news at 7 so I did not add anything else, just piled it all on top of the foccacia and took it in the lounge on my tray.

It was so amazingly delicious.... I even told Pickle about it and he cocked his head on one side, as Jack Russells do, and looked at my plate; he'd eaten quite sufficient amounts of broad beans in the garden and then again while I'd been shelling them and dropping the occasional one on the floor in the kitchen. He had no desire for any more!

Bon appetit.

The bloke with the thongs...

If you are not Australian you may know thongs as flip-flops....

I keep thinking of this bloke at the Cygnet expo thingy and how like him we could all be if we let ourselves.

I was setting up my stall right next to the info desk in Carmel Hall on Saturday afternoon. The hall was almost completely empty and waiting for all the stall holders to arrive and fill it with their stuff to bring it to life.

A bloke walked in with a few bits and pieces. Mr. Thongs greeted him and directed him to his site.

"Where's my trestle, mate?" Asked the stall holder.

"You didn't order one, according to my list." answered Mr. Thongs

"Bugger.... last year I had one.... "

"It was on the form, mate"

"Oh, my partner organised it this year"..... both men sniggered. "Have you got one spare?"

(At this point I looked around the empty hall and it was very obvious there was not a single spare anything in this hall......)

Mr. Thongs looked at his info desk, which was 2 card tables, side by side..... "Here," he said shuffling his papers along onto one table..."You can have this one.... will this do?"

"Gee, thanks a lot mate." and off he went, happy.

A few moments passed and a young woman came in laden down with a huge banner....

"Where can I put this up, Mr. Thongs?" she asked.

"Let me see.... do you have something to attach it with or to?" asked Mr. Thongs.

"Oh..... no I don't.... gosh... I didn't think of that. But its so beautiful...." she replied.

He did not sigh or scream or refuse to know about her problem..... he said "Give me a few moments" and he left the hall.

About 10 minutes later he was back.... with hammer, nails, twine and a big smile "OK, now let's put it up here, above my desk"..... the only bit of wall without windows or exit signs or someone else's stall.

And so it went on the whole time I was there.... about 2 hours on and off. When I had finished I told him how wonderful he was but I forgot to ask his name! He was a volunteer from the Huon Environment Centre. Maybe someone will pass on this story to him.

Cygnet Herb and Organic Fair

Actually it had a longer name but this is what I called it!

Held in 3 venues in Cygnet, this Sunday event attracted a steady flow of lovely people from the moment it opened at 9am until closing time at 4pm. I had a stall in Carmel Hall and barely drew breath for 7 hours, except to eat morsels from the wonderful David who brought me spring rolls from his friends at the Vietnamese stall, every couple of hours! Luckily I had thought to buy a Farmers' Union Iced Coffee before the fair started.

From 1pm until 3pm there was a forum of outstanding speakers and the hall filled with people, who sat on the seats provided, filling most of the hall. Speakers included the gorgeous, eloquent, knowledgeable and entertaining Tino Carnevale, from Gardening Australia who talked mostly about integrated pest management. Equally engaging was Prof. Jamie Kirkpatrick who spoke about how to resolve the conflict between nature and conservation.... something that is close to my heart and is why I sell Helen Cushing's book "Beyond Organics" (which I sold out of today!). I was really interested in Dr. John Todd who spoke about air quality in your home and the benefits of having a warm home, and Belinda Robson from Gould's Naturopathica who spoke about herbs and I could have listened to her all day. Celia did a great job of introducing permaculture and taking it from something you do to your land, to a way of living your life.

Sadly I did not get to look at even one other stall and consequently have no photos of anything but my stall and the forum.

 

 

 

 

 

I would like to congratulate the organisers from the Huon Environment Centre and especially Jenny and the bloke with the thongs, who was so kind and helpful to everyone who came to him with questions.

Organic Sharecroppers Collectives

At last something positive to write about, to get excited about, to feel passionate about, in this crazy world of disasters and media madness.

All who read this blog probably know or know of people who would love to get out there in the fields and grow food, organically and ethically, but they do not have the land / money / time to be without an income etc. Moreover, we all know how backward is the thinking of many of our so called leaders, when it comes to promoting the reduction of chemicals in agriculture and in our daily lives. It seems that the effort required to do good in a community is being constantly multiplied by red tape, by stupidity and by a lack of foresight in our "leaders".

Every now and then a shining star rises from the depths of the leadership scrum and uses their power for good. Edouard Chaulet is one such man..... a mayor in southern France, who, 2 years ago, introduced organic food into the canteens of local schools, as documented in the film "Our children will accuse us". He firmly believes that it is the rise of chemicals in our lives and especially in our food, that is causing the horrendous rise in childhood cancers as well as destroying the earth we depend on for life on this planet.

His latest effort is very creative and inspiring. I read about it on La Vie Verte, which is a blog in English about green things that are happening and not happening in France.

Using an innovative social financing scheme pioneered with association Terre de Liens, he has made available a 120-hectare plot of land for organic farmers to rent and farm collectively. The aim: to increase land surface area in the Gard region of France farmed organically to help close the gap between demand and supply.

Terre de Liens, created in 2006 in partnership with bank La Nef, collects savings from citizens and companies to buy farms and then rent them out exclusively to organic farmers.

“The Common Agricultural Policy (of the EU) forces our farmers relentlessly towards large monoculture farms. These big intensive farms destroy the countryside, make the soil sterile and the water undrinkable. We need a diverse and local agriculture, not thousands of tons of cereals!” said Sjoerd Wartena, president of Terre de Liens.

You need to read how the finances are raised and what the deal is, on the Terre de Liens site, but I can see the possibility of this becoming the basis for a very successful model that could be used all over the world. All kinds of thoughts are stimulated in my head by reading about good, creative ideas that someone has succeeded in implementing.

I'd like to set the scene of how food production works in this small community at the bottom of the world..... go and get a coffee, I have a lot to say and I'd love you to stay around and read it! Ok, I have decided to post this first, my head is too full of organising my first ever stall, which I am having at tomorrow's Cygnet Herb and Organic Health Expo (oh gosh, is that what its called? I am not sure but you get the gist!).

Come back soon....

Pickle goes to Africa....almost.

	Pickle has been enjoying watching TV lately; in particular the BBC's "Last Chance to See" series, about endangered animals.
	Later, he stared out the window, gloomily, thinking how exciting it would be to be a whale or a gorilla or a rhinoceros.... life would be much more exciting in the wild than in his garden...
	.... so he attacked the last remains of his cane basket....making out he was wrestling a lion or fighting off sharks...
	.... until he had another idea.... better than all the others....
	This idea required some serious gardening in a newly watered vegetable bed
But no matter how hard he dug, no matter how much he tried, he could not quite cover himself in enough mud to feel like a real hippopotamus.... but he'd had a lot of fun trying!

Backyard Poultry classifieds

Just found this site!

Backyard Poultry

Anyone in Australia wanting any kind of chooks, ducks, other poultry should check this out.

Postcard from 43 degrees south, 147 degrees east....

That is approximately where Cygnet, Tasmania is.

I love to read Barbara's Postcard from Paris, where, for some years, she has been writing about her own garden, sweet scenes of the French countryside and rustic musings. Here is a video I just found there .

Herbiers

I have such a diverse range of beautiful plants in my garden this would be a lovely way of preserving them as well as finding people to identify them for me, even after they have finished flowering.

I like his idea of, for example, preserving all the plants on a particular farm or geographic area.

 

 

It has been raining solidly since the middle of the night so I lit the fire this morning to keep Pickle and I warm while we laze through Sunday. For breakfast, on the firebox I heated the apple pie I cooked last night, and made my espresso coffee. Cloud has obscured all of my view.... it makes me feel like I am living in the wilds of some remote island.... well, from most places in the world, I guess I am!

Pickle is bored. What is a dog to do on a rainy day but stand on the verandah and dream of digging up bones and chasing rabbits?

Crikey dot Ken

A little snippet from Ken of Woodbridge, who writes about local things near and far, in his newsletter called Crikey dot Ken..... great name, Ken! Here he is commenting on something he has read in the Channel Living bulletin. I just love the way he describes the simple way the Burbury's went about rejuvenating tired land.....

G'day,

Interesting lot of items in the bulletin.  Especially for me to see that Yeomans Keyline is still on the go.

Years ago I classed the wool, a couple of times, for (old) John Burbury and wife at York Plains.  They were early farmer conservationists and so unusual in that period you would have to open a lot to gates to find a farmer that way inclined.

They followed to some extent the Yeomans way of Keyline.  I had never heard of it until then.  With two books provided I read up on Keyline.

I got some appreciation of water and land in conjunction with each other.  I don't profess about knowing a lot about it however I remember to make the soil so that much of the water remains IN the soil and not runs off.   What runs off has to be slow so it can increase the value of the soil by depositing nutriments and not erode the ground.

The first time I worked for these gentle folk was when they had purchased an adjoining paddock that was run down; clapped out so much that It wouldn't feed a bandicoot.

Burbury's paddock, next to the run down block, had a feed crop on which they put a mob of sheep.  Each evening they would go move the sheep into the clapped out paddock and move them back into to feed paddock in the morning.  The mob of sheep emptied out on the poor ground each evening and soon built the ground up enough to plant a crop of oats which they had eaten down (by the sheep -:) then ploughed in and sowed back with rye and clover to create a reasonable bit of useful land. Minimum cost for maximum return.

There is more of interest about the Burbury clan but that can wait.

Thanks for reading this.  I can't send this to just anyone.  You either get or you don't get it.

Bye,

Ken.

WHERE HAVE I BEEN FOR 2 WEEKS?

Days have begun at 5.30am with coffee in bed before covering my pj's with a kitchen-friendly garment and starting cooking at 6am. At 9.30am I have been loading the car with morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea for 13 people and driving off on a ridiculous 50km round trip  with it all.... to a nice room which has no cooking facilities. I serve the food, leaving them to help themselves to afternoon tea and I arrive back home at 2.30pm or so, unpack and wash all the dishes, then start cooking for the next day, ending usually by 7pm.....

Why would I do such a thing? For some crazy reason I offered to cook for 2 weeks for a permaculture design course 25kms from my home! I am being paid but not enough and I will not be doing it again unless it is in Cygnet or, better still, in my Garden Shed.

Actually I have thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot about remote catering, people, time-tables and working with some interesting organisational skills! The best bit has been the cooking though. For once, I can cook and cook all day, all the things I love, and have enough people to serve it to so that I can cook different stuff tomorrow and never run out of customers.

They all have asked for my recipes and this has kept me going through some challenges. One man has told me he has not felt so good for many years, all because of my lovely, healthy food and others have said its the best food they have had in Tasmania....

Before I started I sent out an email to all the Tasmanian people I have contact details for, offering them to come and cook with me; to learn about seasonal, local, organic food, and cooking from the garden and pantry, even in what is sometimes known as the hungry time of the year..... mid to late spring. In return I would get an extra pair of hands in the kitchen and some nice company while we cook together.

I was pretty surprised to get almost no takers.... and then my email was sent further on, it seems, and in the net I caught 3 wonderful women.... Cynthia, Carole and Marion. Three people so different from one another but such a pleasure it has been to get to know each of them although they have not met each other. It is so interesting the way life takes us on these pathways.

It was my intention to document all the cooking so I would have notes and photos for the blog and for any future cooking I might take on. However I have not done it; not one word or photo has been set down..... sadly. It has been hard enough to just remember to wash some clothes and feed poor Pickle, never mind getting some nice photos or writing anything down!

Well, its back to the kitchen for the last 3 days.

Bon appetit!

ps I wrote something for the KGI newsletter which you may like to read here

Hi..... I'm Pickle

 

Hi, I'm Pickle and I can do all kinds of cool stuff with my ball. There is a new trick I have just invented. I got Kate to take some photos of it for you..... it starts with me getting up on the couch with my favourite ball.....

 

 

 

 

 

First, I make out I am hiding the ball between the cushions on the couch......	Then I grab hold of it like this....
Then I do this fun manoeuvre...	and end up all dizzy, wondering what happened to the ball.....
Did you see me?	Here's me practicing my tricks with my outside ball.
I also love pots because you can throw them in the air, you can put your feet or your head in them and there are hundreds of them at my place!	Most fun of all is making out I am an otter and sliding down the bank into the pond. But when I come racing inside all wet and muddy I get put out again. Not sure why!