unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot...

We intended to go to the final race stage of the Tour Down Under on Sunday. We won tickets for the family to attend in the corporate box but when the time came, i said I'd rather take the kid for his first trip to the zoo. Men in tights, albeit on enviro-tools, whizzing past for a second and a small bean to chase around in a very adult environment..pass. Totally in my style we missed the pandas (you have to be one of those book ahead, uber organised families (read mothers) which Im not usually, unless we're travelling...sorry kids -if you're not from around here, you need to know the whole State has gone freakin' panda crazy, drives me nuts!) i clapped eyes for the very first time on the zoos chameleon, which just blew me away! my new alltime favourite (well, maybe the meercats still win), best- est ever with the oogliest eyes and most fabulous skills ever, animal!.

I loved the new envirodome they have there, its small; Adelaide style, but awesome... when you walk in the door you're faced with a quote from The Lorax by Dr Seuss, which got me in a good mood straight away. I knew it would be intelligent fun from there-on in.

seating... made from cardboard boxes


small, fascinating creatures...
a plaque in the loo was right up my alley...

My kind of public toilet message!

the magnetic storyboard plates were a fun way to construct a day...good choices and bad both rated on a happiness, wealth and environmental meter...B2 enjoyed being a total enviro-pig!

and the bean doing lots of learning...
and the coolest bit of the day!...the Aldabra tortoise which is like 100 years old and i have never seen move, actually only ever seen in the same spot looking like another boulder, was doin' his stuff with Ms Galapagos and makin' a whole lotta feral tortoise noise. Go George!(oops, he's called Tati!)

tallow, oh my! what have i done?

*spoiler alert *warning* gross pics to follow
Seriously, I had an excess of fat, lots of beef fat. Ick. It makes me realise why I usually hate cooking meat. All that grease. Our carbon footprint at Chez Pan has been getting a bit more of a meat driven workout; the meat we have just started to buy is high quality and incredibly cost effective and can keep in the freezer for ages if vacuum packed. Our stsh has been eaten at a rather rapid rate - it must be all that meat deprivation thats been going on for quite a while in this normally vego household! It has to stop soon. She says drooling at the memory of a parmigiana.

Anyway, after another delivery of a fabulous beef rump by the Gnomes, I trimmed and portioned into into various cuts leaving me with a great pile of beef fat. Last time I did this the Gnomes were here and took the fat home for their chooks. This time no Gnomes. What to do with all that fat?

Compost it? nup

Feed it to the cat? nup

Bin it? ugh nup

So I bit the bullet and made some tallow. I just couldnt toss it. Tallow! Yikes. So I chopped it into small pieces, put it into a pan, covered with water and boiled it for about 30 minutes. Gross. Needin a shower right about now.Boiled meat stinks, the worst smell in the world I reckon and our kitchen fan is busted too! Double ick. I scooped out all the chunky, browned bits then i forgot to strain it and left it in the fridge to set hard.
When set, I cut the hard disk of fat in half and removed it from the pan. Underneath the layer of set tallow was a clear gelatinious layer and underneath that a layer or purplish sludge. dont ask! I washed the tallow under running water, rubbing off gently the jelly and the tiny fat balls and impurities that were on the undersides of the pieces.
I will probably ues it for some soap, beef tallow makes lovely big bubbled soap or some candles. What do you think? What to do with the leftover, very unappetising gristly,fatty meaty bits? Ive put them in the freezer to whizz up with bird seed to keep the native finches with a supply of fat which they find tricky to source mid-winter. Not my most favourite way to spend an afternoon but hey, that cow and its bits need some respecting right?

Haiku Friday

morning creation
holidays stretched out ahead
plastic perfection

Haiti brought home

Ive deliberated whether or not to blog about last night. Swung too and fro- i dont like to make a personal tradgedy into fodder, just something else to blog about. But I decided in the end that I would write about it, it happenned, it affected me, it may help in some way to touch one of you and lead you to make a difference somewhere, in some small way.

Last night at book club we learnt that one of our members, an old firend of mine, had been touched by the tradgedy in Haiti. My friend is from NZ and her old friend and bridesmaid, also a New Zealander had been living in Haiti with her Haitian/french husband and her three small girls. She was at work when the quake struck and raced back to her home to find it collapsed to rubble and her three children and husband missing. She dug through the rubble herself and found her husband and one child dead and miraculously and thankfully her baby still alive, protected from the falling rooms by the bath and her father. Sadly her other child is still missing. The grief of this woman i cannot imagine. Having rescued oned and recovered just two family members she has vowed to stay until she finds her missing daughter.

So last night my friend brought to bookclub a birthday cake, iced in purple and decorated with the name Zanzie in silver sparkly cachous and the number 4 in jelly beans, as it was little Zanzies wish to have a purple cake on her 4th birthday which would have been on Monday gone. As this woman has lost everything in the earthquake, except her youngest daughter, she has asked my friend to send photos of last night to her in rememberance of her little girl.

Red Cross
Avaaz
Médecins Sans Frontières
Haiti Earthquake Sanson-Rejouis Family Fund

loving earth on toast

I don't buy many processed foods and if I do its certainly not on a regular occasion. Canned/bottled/wrapped goods tends to be 'unmake-able' sauces/condiments like mushroom sauce/oyster sauce (the organic stuff! not the chemical goop from China) , canned coconut milk and tomatoes and beans, cellophane/glass noodles and sometimes tofu. Processed breakfast food is something not found here at Chez Pan. Its bulk muesli or porridge for cereal, smoothies or fruit salad. Alternatively a lazy breakfast is sourdough toast with local honey, fresh pressed cashew or peanut butter, local or home-made jam/marmalade, weekends can be tomato and basil or eggs with my home made chorizo sausage. The only processed spread we buy is Promite (like Vegemite but not as salty); full of sugar and salt and un-guaranteed GE free, but an addiction which goes with my butter. I keep meaning to buy some Aussie Mite ( made here in the Adelaide Hills!) but I suspect its made for the Vegemite lovers, and I loathe Vegemite so I haven't got around to buying a jar as no-one else here likes it either.

So I got sucked in by the packaging of the raw chocolate coconut butter! Earthy and wholesome. I was in the mood for splurging and I had a houseful of kids sleeping over and wanted to try a kid friendly but 'not all the way from Canada' alternative to maple syrup. It's a bit like eating a chocolate crackle with your toast - disconcerting but not too awful. Raw cocoa, fairly traded, single origin, sweetened with agave and certified organic. Its a product of Oz (Vic) but probably not Australian sourced raw ingredients. Fat content 4.0/100g and sugar 2.0/100g so pretty reasonable. Buying fruit and veg and nuts and cheese is as exciting as our weekly shop tends to be, this added a moment of sweetness.

a white stick for the blind

What with returning to work two weeks ago, meetings galore for everyone and a new year performance for B2 with productions every day this week and sometimes two, the creative juices haven't been flowing around Chez Pan. Basic gardening has been done in accordance with the extreme heat; lots of watering the fruit and veg, Ive read three books in a week and a half and have been cooking per usual, but nothing special, nothing really to get excited about, besides 'the date' the bloke and I had where we trundled off to go see Avatar and share a pizza when all the kids went swimming at their grandmas. Yawn. Thrilling huh?

The only bit of real drama around here has been the revelation that the ex- and his ex-(?!) are now readers of Taurus Rising. An interesting turn of events to say the least. What would you do? Make your blog private? Keep going without censorship but just be a little more restrained? Business as usual? Ive reviewed what I have written since I started this blog (about separation and divorce and blended family issues and his particular issues) and think that I have been quite fair and considered in my criticisms of situations so feel quite OK with him having read my thoughts. Really, I mean what a score for an angry 'not-yet-over-it' bloke.. a blog! just imagine? Hehe.

Ive decided to use the situation as it stands at the moment as a chance to list my top 5 parenting tips for separated parents in order of importance.

1. Don't bitch about the other parent to the children. It might make you feel better for offloading in the short term but you damage your own relationship with the child, its doesn't make them hate your ex (their mum/dad) it makes them disrespect and distrust you.

2. Leave your adult problems and issues as just that. Adult issues. Children get stressed when significant adults in their life pass on their worries. A problem shared in this situation is actually a problem doubled for the child. Let children be children and talk to another adult about your problems.

3. When your maturing child starts to develop opinions about life, the universe and everything which are confronting to you, don't tell them that it sounds like the 'other' parent talking. Young adults can think for themselves and find it disrespectful and painful that you cant love them for who they are despite differences in opinion.

4. Don't keep making reference to 'how much you look like your mother/father' when all that child hears is how awful that mother/father is. They put two and two together and conclude that therefore you don't like how they look. Just tell them they're looking lovely.

5. Trust, respect and love are earnt, they are not automatic. Relationships need to be built and maintained. If you don't live near your children you have to work extra hard at maintaining the relationship and use every opportunity you can to keep the relationship. You are the parent - it's your responsibility. Listening to your children and hearing what they say is an essential part of maintaining that bond. The small things are the important things and if in the course of your snuffling you come across a blog written by your ex - dont use the stuff you find as an excuse to bitch yet again to your child. They do not like it.

What have i missed?

Now back to business as usual here at Taurus Rising.

knock knock

who's there?

An ex husband who apparently had to move to QLD to get away from me but just cant resist searching for me on the internet. Go figure?

Im now saved to file://C:/Users/Vivi/Desktop/taurus rising.htm

He's had a good root around and spent hours visiting Chez Pan courtesy of Taurus Rising yesterday. Pity he had to traumatise B1 last night with a demanding phone call which reduced her to tears and great distress coz her mum blogs and he couldn't handle what he'd been reading.

The fun never stops!