Such sad news

We heard the sad news yesterday that Sunny's dear mother, Sun Ja, died in Seoul, South Korea, after a long illness. She was a wonderful lady who raised three amazing girls and the entire family feels great sadness at her passing. Luckily, Sunny and Jamie flew to Seoul earlier in the week to be with her. Kerry is on his way there now. We'll miss you Sun Ja.  Rest In Peace.

♥️ ~~ ♥️ ~~ ♥️

Back in the world of daily chores, Scottie dogs and chooks, I thought I'd do a pictorial run through of some of the past week.  Hanno spent time cleaning out the chicken coop and after washing the concrete floor, water and food containers, a layer of organic sugar cane mulch was placed over the clean floor and the girls allowed to return for an inspection. They're very inquisitive and always love the opportunity to explore something new.

Outside in the chook run, we have two lemon trees now about a quarter full with juicy Eureka lemons.  We picked a bucket full a couple of days ago and I'll use them to make cordial to celebrate the fast approaching beginning of spring.

The other plant of note in the coop is this Cecile Brunner rose. The buds are the size of my little finger nail and they open to a small but beautiful rose. These were one of my mother's favourite flowers and I've grown them here for the last 20 years as a daily reminder of her.

I'm sitting here right now.  I started cleaning and organising my writing and sewing desks yesterday and this is part of the finished writing desk area.  Yes, it's the finished article - a vast improvement on what was there. 

Here is most of our food from the past seven days.  Above, a spinach omelette with salad and below, another lasagne which feeds us for fours days. If you don't mind eating the same thing for a few days, and we don't, lasagne is one of those meals that improves every day.

This was the most delicious beef and vegetable curry with herb dumplings. We shared it with Kerry and his family and we all agreed that it really hit the spot on a cold winter's day.

I continue to make a white loaf and a rye loaf about every four or five days.  It's a simple and easy task. The bread maker does the mixing and kneading, then, after a second rise, I bake them in the oven. There's nothing quite like the aroma of homemade bread baking on a cold day.

I always make Gracie's food too.  This time it's chicken, vegetable, pasta and lentil stew which she adores.  Each of these containers holds four meals, so we have 20 healthy meals for her here. She has a small handful of omega 3-enriched, Black Hawk dog biscuits for breakfast and occasionally, some cheese or chicken necks to help her grow into a very healthy little Scottie.

I invite you to check the new blog links in my side bar under the title, Blogs from my Workshop.  We finished this blogging workshop group last Saturday with a group chat on Skype. ❤️  It was great fun and some good blogs came out of it. Please support these bloggers. Blogging is a tough game and I'd like to see these ladies get a handful of visits and comments from my dear readers. Thank you. 🙂

Actually, we finished two workshops on the weekend with my writers' group coming to a close with another chat on Skype.  The ladies did an incredible job and the progress from first draft to the last day made me very proud. I'm always pleased and eager to pass on what I've learned  during the years I've been writing and I hope the group make the most of the enthusiasm and motivation they're feeling right now. I'll probably offer the workshops again later in the year.