Crumpled Home

In October, we drove south to Eagle Bay with some friends for a few days, and north to Gingin for a weekend with Grammy and Poppa. RJ had his first t-ball game and… his team won! In the middle of all of this (and the Royal Show AND Halloween) we somehow found the time to visit Scitech with some friends to see some of their new exhibits. Wow! We need a break!

We took a trip down to Eagle Bay and had a great time in the water. It's a lot easier to do now that the weather's warming up!

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In August, as many of us suffered colds and ear infections, another birthday rolled around, RJ played his soccer final, and the kids dressed up for Book Day. We also spent a great weekend up at Gingin with some friends and discovered LR really can be an angel when she wants to.

Make a wish! Mom slices into her favorite cake, pinapple upside-down cake!

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In May, Mom enjoyed a bit of a sleep in while RJ planned to conquer the world, with style. Poppa and Grammy took us to a great place to hide from Dad, and Joey soccer started up again, this time with RJ on board. Up at Gingin, we built version 1 of a flying fox (zip-line), which suffered from some serious design flaws, but was pretty fun regardless.

LR watches as Mom reads the Mother's Day card that she made.

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On the weekend, we all drove up to Gingin to help with the second stage of winemaking. The first stage, picking the grapes and first pressing, was already done a couple of weeks ago; it was time for the second pressing and getting the wine into vats for fermentation. We also spent time working on LR’s latest project, “The Museum of the Universes of Science” — a showcase for all the amazing animals, bones, plants and rocks that we discover up there.

Obviously, winemaking is a very serious business!

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While we were up at Gingin helping with the yearly wine making, a few cute little arachnids happily made their way across the floor to say, ‘Hi‘. Of course, the kids spotted them before anyone else. At first, we thought one of them had been crushed, but it turns out they are just deceptive little creatures and relish disguising themselves in places where they have the opportunity to attack your toes.

We found a suitable plastic container (one with multiple latches, locks, a secondary containment unit and an airlock) and collected them up so we could have a closer look.

Meet "Stingo", a (hopefully temporary) new addition to our family. We think he is a "Lychas spinatus spinatus", but we haven't identified him properly yet. A lot of people just seem to call them "Little Marbled Scorpions".

Unlike our last pet from Gingin (Mr. Bitey), these guys don’t have a disturbing taste for meat (raw, cooked or still attached to your body). They also don’t inspire the same deep, visceral fear that a vividly-coloured, 8 inch venomous predator with the alarming ability to scale any surface at surprisingly high speeds does… And the legs…. Oh god, so many legs…

We did a little research and discovered that they are terrific for getting rid of garden pests! Amazingly, they are happy to feast on slaters (pill bugs), which our garden beds are always crawling with.

Of course, the inevitable question came from RJ. “I can keep these as pets, right? Forever?”

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…

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Four hours later, the car was packed and we were driving home to Perth. As I drove, I had visions of our news friends escaping… Our first clue being a yelp from the dog, then yells from the kids, “The scorpions are out!!!”, followed by a lovely evening by the side of the road unpacking our gear and madly stomping around on the ground, eventually ending with us hitching a ride back, our car abandoned on the side of the road with a rough sign in the window, “Danger!!! SCORPIONS!!!!”

Fortunately, we made it home without a problem.

So… We’ve adopted three “Little Marbled Scorpions” for at least a week, just to see how they do. RJ can be responsible for finding food for them, and he’s already named them: “Fango”, “Stingo” and “Pinchers”. Unfortunately, they are venomous.

We wont be bringing them out for cuddles or playtime, but we have Bob for that.

We added a pond to our backyard. Everyone helped out!

You must first recruit your team and get your equipment together.

We took a quick trip up to Gingin over the weekend and discovered that some of the trees had fruit on them. We also drove around the farm, stopping at the big pit for an explore. On the way back, we scouted for bones in the fields and discovered a complete fox skeleton, with teeth and everything else intact!

Foxxy made the rounds at the kids’ schools for show-and-tell, and was a big hit!

LR is fully loaded up with mandarines from the citrus trees.

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(during a family lunch with everyone sitting at the dinner table)

Poppa: So does anyone want to get up and fetch me a glass of water?

(no volunteers)

Poppa: (gets up and walks into the kitchen) I guess I’ll get it myself.

LR: (with mock dismay) How come Poppa has to do all of the work around here?

Despite the hot weather, we made it up to Gingin for the grape harvest, but Grammy, Poppa, Kath and Brad had already picked all the grapes and crushed them the day before we got there! We made the most of it anyway, picking a lot of figs and table grapes that were ready to eat. Mum cooked up some fig jam and we had a big sewing ‘sesh’ during the heat of the day, before going for an explore out in the paddock.

Our incredibly brave**, heroic** and good-looking** dad rescued us from this marauding beast** that had been ransacking the countryside and was intent on destroying the farm.

We found this guy having a drink from the dog's water bowl. He's a bobtail lizard which are pretty common around here.

**Hyperbole employed as official privilege of the author

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We took a trip out to the Gingin Gravity Discovery Centre. The highlight was the 11 story leaning tower where you can drop water balloons into an incredibly cratered sand pit below. There are lots of other science experiments to explore too. We followed up with a night walk to spot some of the local nocturnal animals. We ended the night looking through telescopes at some of the features of the night sky. Great fun!

RJ looks deep into the black hole simulator.

No Mum! Kids don't go down there! They'll be spaghettified!

LR and Dad push the Bernoulli Principle to its limits.

The mums get the exciting job of filling a bucket full of water balloons.

It's a very, very long way down -- about 11 flights of stairs.

The kids begin the onslaught. Balloon after balloon is dropped onto the zone of destruction below.

E gets a closer look at a butterfly's wings.

LR gets a microscopic view of another specimen.

The face of sadness... E won something in the raffle. LR did not. Life is just so very unfair.

RJ agreed with LR... It is SO unfair... or maybe it's just way past their bedtimes...

We all went out with flashlights on a night stalk to spot animals.

The Leaning Tower of Gingin teeters towards one of the domes housing the big telescopes.