Tough luck, dogs! & Melbroune Cup

Well,,, our dogs are very stinky, extremely stinky!! I can't stand the smell!
They must have rolled onto a dead cow again!! ( We live in a cattle farm so there are lots of cattle. Unfortunately some of them can't survive because of a disease or tick problems ><) We gave Ambi and Mick a bath just 3 days ago before Mick's castration. They smelt beautiful after that but now.... absolutely pong　( ×pongy)!! I don't want to give them a bath again! It's a kind of pain in the neck, you know..

Yesterday Gori and I went to his mum and dad's house to have a Melbourne Cup lunch with their friends. Melbourne Cup is an Australia's traditional horse race held in Melbourne. It takes place once a year and it is a very important event for Aussies. I read an article about it when I was taking English classes at TAFE and I learned that it is not just a gambling but a part of the Australian culture. People go to see the event especially women get dressed in a very fancy dress and wearing a fashionable hat, which lifts up the festive mood in the event. There are also fashion shows and competition during Melbourne Cup. Usually horse racing is a male thing but this kind of fashion events attracts women's attentions as well. I didn't know anything about horse racing but I picked one horse in the race and bet 10 bucks on it. ( actually, that was Gori's money^^;) My horse was doing well in the beginning but it couldn't keep up the speed. It was a very tight race and all the horses were running very close each other. I don't even know exactly where my horse placed(came in→これもOK), but it was a nice experience and I had a good time.

We wanted to take our dogs to the house as well but since they were so stinky, we thought they could murder someone there( laugh) so we decided not to take them. Soon after they found out that they'd been left behind, they started yelping and whinging so loudly. I felt a bit sorry for them, but we didn't want to ruin the get-together by their pongy smell! So tough luck, doggies!

*This article has been corrected by Gori.

Hey chooks! Behave yourself! & My favourite pasta

Morning everyone, how are you going? 

Gori and I have got a veggie garden in the backyard and we also have some veggie pots in the front garden. Gori made these pots from crates ( What a handy man he is!) We grow basil, rocket and spring onion in the pots. They were thriving until about 3 weeks ago but now almost all the leaves are gone (especially rocket) because our chooks pecked and ate them all!

We've got a chook pen which Gori made from scratch last May. The chooks are in the pen in the morning and evening and we let them out for a few hours in the afternoon as play time.  The chooks love to be freed. As soon as we let them out, they make a bee line for Ambi's dog house and start eating Ambi's leftover dog food! Ambi try to guard her food but she always fights a losing game. We usually put fences around the pots but our cunning chooks always find a way to the pots and enjoy the veggies there without our knowledge (^^;) Now the veggies look very shabby and that discourages me to take care of them(^^:)

Anyway we need to grow some new seeds and replant new seedlings there.  I think the place where we have the pot now gets too much sun so veggies get dehydrated very quickly.We gotta think about relocating  the pots as wall. I have never grown veggies before so I don't know what I am doing but I will learn the hang of it soon as the time goes by, will I?

I made basil source with our fresh basil, walnuts, garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. I made a basil cream source pasta with it and it turned out very well! I loved it! It reminded me of my favourite pasta that I ate in a Italian restaurant in Japan!! It was sooo good that I ate the same pasta 3 days in a row!! ( Crazy??) But unfortunately, Gori didn't share the same opinion with me(><) He said he prefers normal cream source pasta.　I can't believe it!

↓↓I made this with bacon, sausages, onion, shitake mushrooms and thickened cream．