ilultham

 The other night, while I was making tea I picked half a bucketful of French beans. With a quick shout to the living room two helpers appeared to help me prep them (the eldest went off to pick tomatoes).    In fact I didn't do any of the French beans, instead leaving the youngest two to top and tail them, then weigh them out into freezer bags for use later in the year.  As well as leaving us enough out to steam to have with one of our beautifully roasted Indian Game hens and rice.  They love helping put food down for winter - good job as well otherwise it can get a bit overwhelming!  Anyone else make use of their helpers when it comes to food prep?

Obviously this post contains pictures of dead animals so please don't read if that kind of thing upsets you.  I had planned to process a batch of Indian Game chickens for the freezer this week. I was then disappointed when I found out that the day I had planned to do it the children were going for a sleep over at my mum and dads.  This is how far things have come with the children, it's so much easier with them that I now plan to do it so they can help. So I made sure we all got up early that morning and got cracking before they had to go! I had considered keeping the hen from this batch but in all honesty they were so wild. I don't think I've ever had such a wild hatch of chickens before, even thought he children spent so much time with them when they were younger.  As a team we've become pretty quick at processing the birds. I normally set the water to boil while we're having breakfast, ready to scald them to make plucking easier. So by the time we've disp...

I put this on twitter the other day so apologies if you've seen it already.  This morning she was frustrated trying to figure out Greek gods from a poem and 16 pages of maths. This afternoon building a chicken coop, marking up parallel lines, taking measurements &first time using the jigsaw on her own. Perfect apprentice. I love how useful they've become and how they like to help. I can now set her to finish putting in screws or mark up timber to be cut. It's a lovely way to spend time together. Carpenters daughter. 

 My little girl turned 9 this week. I honestly can't believe I've been a dad for 9 years now!  She is a wonderful human being - full of kindness with a wicked streak of humour.  Having birthdays so close to Christmas it's always tricky to know what to get them, but she is always helping or undertaking some task on her own (last year she took apart a chest of drawers all on her own as she wanted them out of her room and got fed up of waiting for me) So we thought she might like some tools of her own, she had already talked about a draw knife that she could use on the shave horse (mine is huge), so I ran with the idea and decided to make her a tool box as well.  Of course having a carpenter as a father has some knock on effects, that's why the tool box is hand made and carved with a Victorian design on both sides! If you go over to my other blog you can see the carving process and my challenge I've set myself to carve or turn something every week this year - 52 weeks...