Christmas

 Christmas may have been several weeks ago now, but better late than never. I've had a request to post some photos of the most popular member of my family enjoying his Christmas adventures.

I had a very good Christmas. Good company, good presents, and good food. On Christmas Day, we went down to Hobart to my Aunty Libby's for a big family Christmas lunch and then on to one of my favourite places in the world for a few days camping. The drive was made much more interesting than normal because Darcy accompanied us. Previously, the furthest Darcy had travelled was the one hour trip to Devonport so this was a very big trip for him. The drive exhausted him completely, but Darcy settled in to the camping life reasonably well. He was a bit overwhelmed by it at times, but he happily zoomed around in the tent when the great outdoors was a bit scary.

When the tide was out and it wasn't too windy, I let Darcy loose (well, not really loose, but in his ball) on the hard sand for a bit of a run. He was more interested in sniffing and tasting the seaweed and other detritus than in running, but he seemed to enjoy it.

He come through his camping adventures unscathed and is a much more accomplished traveller now. On the way home, rather than his usual refusal to sit still while in his travelling box, he made the wise decision to sleep the whole way home.

Darcy has since been spoilt rotten because I spent a good part of the weeks following Christmas at home on sick leave.

Right now Darcy's palace needs cleaning so I'd better attend to that before he throws one of his tantrums and throws his food and bedding all over the place.

Macarons

 

Orange blossom mini macarons for Christie's wedding.

 

I set myself a challenge to learn how to make macarons before Christmas this year so that I could do them for our traditional family cooking exchange. I also wanted to perfect them so that I could do a big batch for Christie's wedding.

The first two batches were complete failures, but they were both learning experiences and on the third attempt I managed to make a passable batch.There are a lot of things that can go wrong with macarons, but once you've got the feel for it they aren't too bad.

I made Christie 70 mini macarons for the dessert table at her wedding and they turned out beautifully.  Everyone was impressed by them, and Christie was very pleased so it was definitely worth doing.

Over the past few weeks since Christie's wedding, I've been working on making enough batches for the Christmas cooking. Not all of the batches turned out perfectly, but most of them are pretty good. I've made chocolate, raspberry, orange, pistachio and rosewater, coffee, and chocolate mint.

 The first successfull batch I made - double chocolate.

I think I'll take a few weeks break from making them, but after that, if you want macarons, I'm the person to ask. They are fiddly and a bit temperamental, but the sense of achievement when I get a good batch is worth it and they are so delicate and pretty looking,

 

My latest batch - coffee.

Field Trip

 So, I spent 10 days in the bushland at Edith Creek (North West Tassie) playing with wild devils. We were very busy, working 12-13 hour days, but I had a great time and got to meet 65 beautiful devils and 4 lovely spotted tail quolls. It was good news all around, with a very healthy population of devils and no sign of DFTD in the area yet.

 This was the sunset view from the shack we were staying in at Rocky Cape on our first night.

One of the interesting mosses (or possibly lichens - its been a bit too long since I did botany) that were everywhere throughout our study area.

Our city-girl volunteer, Liz, and her spikey friend. Liz was far more excited about the encounter than Spike. Liz was a great volunteer to work with and along with our biologist, Bill, we formed a really good team, which was lucky considering that the three of us had to spend 24 hours a day together for 10 days.

 Some more of the wildlife from the area.

 A very pretty view from Stanley looking back towards Rocky Cape. We had dinner in the Stanley Pub one night, and I've decided that I want to go back and spend a lazy weekend at Stanley sometime. Liz and I decided that Stanley is the Port Wenn of Australia (Port Wenn is the cute village from Doc Martin).

And here's a quick video of one of the devils being released after its health check.

I've been home for a week now, but I've been very busy. I did get 4 days off to recover, but I spent them all being busy and travelling around the state with my family to go to my cousin's wedding. As busy as it was, I had a really good weekend (with the exception of the coffee incident) and I'm only a little bit exhausted.

Wildlife Cam

I put my wildlife camera out in the bushland around my Grandparent's home on the Tasman peninsula on the weekend, but all I got were a few blurry shots of an antechinus.

I had tried putting it out in the bushland behind my house once just after I moved in, but I (extremly embarrassing considering that I'm supposed to do this every day in my job) forgot to turn it on. I decided that it was about time I gave it another go, so I took a couple of pieces of apple and an egg yolk that was left over from my macaron experimentation about 30m behind my place and very carefully made sure that it was turned on this time.

I got shots of this mamma and bubba pademelon

And this mamma and bubba possum (a bit overexposed, but cute).

And also of a naughty cat, a blackbird, and a rat. Nothing suprising about any of that because I already knew I had pademelons, possums, and cats wandering around out there, but it was a fun excercise anyway.

Even more Darcy cuteness

 

It may seem like I haven't done anything except take photos with Darcy recently, but that's only because I haven't taken any interesting photos of any of the other things I've done recently. i promise I'm not a sad mouse-lady that sits at home every night playing with my mouse. I just do that most nights :) Here is a selection of Darcy's most recent shots.

The next couple of shots are intended for Christmas cards, hence the Christmas theme.

 Teeny tiny Santa hat!

More Darcy Cuteness

Firstly, we have Mr Darcy, the country gentleman on his noble steed. This one is particularly for Reegan as she is a almost as mad about horses as she is about Darcy.


Next, Darcy and I have a series of birthday party themed shots. My favourites are the ones with the cupcake (which is really a lipgloss container). I was a bit worried that Darcy would pop one of the balloons and scare himself, but he didn't.

And then there's the geek shots.

Darcy in Chicago

So, remember last year when Darcy and I produced a calendar for our friend, Reegan? After seeing all the different photo themes and props, Reegan requested photos of Darcy doing "Chicago" on stage. I think she was imagining Darcy dressed in sequins and a feather boa, or at least a top hat, but I didn't think he'd be very enthusiastic about that, so rather than spend my time designing and sewing him a costume I forgot about it until the other day (good thing too, because he got a bit pudgy while he was staying at Aunty Reegan's and wouldn't fit into it anyway). I've decided that rather than make another calendar, this year Darcy and I will give Reegan a photobook full of handsome Darcy shots so we aren't limited to just 12 themes. I thought a good way to start off the book would be the requested "Chicago" themed picture, so I put together a stage backdrop, made a new photo studio (a box with a hole cut out for the camera to go in), and stuck a cut out of a microphone onto a toothpick to get this shot. Darcy was very cooperative, enthusiastically "singing" into the microphone, in order to lick a tiny smear of peanut butter off it. What do you think of the shot?

I've planned a few different photo themes, but if you have anymore ideas that you would like to see Darcy do, let me know and if Darcy agrees, we'll work on it.