The ordinariness of life...

This has been what it looked liked out of my kitchen window for the most part since last Saturday. Am I allowed to complain about the rain even if I know that when summer comes all this water in our dams will be a good thing? I suppose I can, even if it won't change anything and to be quite honest, I really don't mind the rain IF I don't have to go anywhere!

In between the rain we have been trying to get washing dry making our backyard look like a Chinese Laundry, but at least we don't have to use the dryer (and only do in an emergency).

And life plods on...everyday a similar thing but a pleasing cycle to the days. Often just living a life that is of a this family, me giving the best food I can to my family, the life that is about growing vegetables and cooking from scratch is actually quite plain and ordinary.

Today I tried a new soup recipe, well, its a basic vegetable soup that I make, but I saw on Down To Earth that Rhonda added meatballs to her soup instead of shin for e.g. and we gave it a go. It was quite delicious and we were pleased when a friend popped in and we had enough for him for lunch too!

Our chickens have been giving us 5 and 4 eggs on a cyclical daily system...I am not sure how they decided who would lay on which day and even though they have 3 laying boxes (in Superman's workshop) they will often all rush to the last one and sit on each other to lay!

Talking about chickens I thought I would show you the little ladder that we built to help the oldest girl up to the roosting pole at night. All of the chickens managed to fly up there, so we thought! But the other night I had to go and check on something outside and saw the old gal sitting on the ground. Now that we have built this and my son has shown her how to get up the ladder, she is roosting again on the pole with the rest. He told me tonight that they all use it now...lol...

So while the days just tick over, we all take comfort in the routine of the day and week and besides for those hair raising days when we are out until 6pm there is a flow of meal making, cleaning, chores and more. There is the anticipation of Spring in us all, despite the weather. Perhaps from the children's side its more a bracing themselves as they know that the Saturday's of September are all about the garden, but they too know now that it's worth it for the just picked taste of organic vegetables.

Today while the oven was on for bread to go with soup, I made a quick batch of lemon poppy seed muffins for a mid morning snack...

2 cups Eureka stone ground cake flour
2t baking powder
2/3 cup organic sugar
1/2 cup softened butter
2 large eggs
1t vanilla
Zest and zuice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons of poppyseeds
1/2 cup (left over homemade) yoghurt...or buttermilk or milk!

Beat sugar and butter, add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla, zest and lemon juice and poppy seeds. Sift flour and baking powder into the bowl and then stir adding the milk/yoghurt as you go.

Spoon into greased muffin tin and bake for 25 minutes. Enjoy!

Linking up to Simple Lives Thursday