Hop Hop Hooray

Happy birthday to you

The frogs send love too

Happy birthday dear Darcy

Happy birthday to you

The first couple of croaks are almost to the tune of happy birthday...

(or am I deluded again?)

Feeling piggy?

The frogs were a little porkish peckish

. 

Home made pork wantons soon hit the spot.

They pigged out.

A little bit corny

For reasons I don't wish to divulge in public, the frogs in my household have recently developed an interest in......

Corn Fritters!

And dashed fine they are too (with thanks to Stephanie Alexander and her Kitchen Garden Companion).

With a cob or two of corn and a few other bits and pieces you can make something truly scrumptious.

Like this.

Me and the frogs?  we liked it.  A lot.

(Iron frog mess factor? High. Very high.)

Master of Arts

Apparently, today would have been Akira Yoshizawa's 101st birthday.  I am indebted to Google for this information.

If you used the google machine today you would have found this doodle:

"Hmm." I thought. "Origami."

And delved a little further.

Turns out Yoshizawa was a dab hand at a folding pieces of paper.

He liked to use wet paper.

And people who follow his technique are able to make amazing things like this.

Cool.  Very cool.

Sweet Art

Valentine's day has been and gone, but love of frogs continues in many households.

The talented Rosemary Irvine constructed this Peppermint Cream Frog just the other day.

Sadly, the lifespan of the Peppermint Frog is not a long one. And we are here to report that despite that widely known rule "Never eat anything bigger than your head" cannibalism is still common amongst frogs.

It's the legs, you see.  They are just so sweet....

Hot and steamy

Apparently, steaming your vegetables is the healthy way to go.  Far better than boiling away all the lovely nutritional goodness.

What they don't say is that you really need to be paying attention.

'Cos otherwise things go from "steamy" to "hot" pretty quickly, before rushing straight on to "smokin'!"

Oops.

Tonight's menu: Steamed Charcoal eggplant. Delicious!

The last post?

Once upon a time there was a Frog and a Potato who got married.

Despite their differences (including ageing and shrinking at completely different rates) they lived happily together and raised many children - all of whom were sent to school to ensure they received a good education (including learning about tolerance, familiarity with the Romeo and Juliet storyline and some basic biology - sadly lacking in the Potato-Frog household).

As well as raising their own myriad children, they were lucky enough to be God Bog Parents to a very special young human named Darcy.

For a long time Darcy was sick - too sick to go to school.  But thanks to some girly stem cells, an incredibly strong will, truckloads of love and support from his amazing family, a ridiculously determined, caring and gutsy doctor (and associated medical team) and rather more drugs than most people (or frogs) take in a lifetime, Darcy got better.

And went back to school.

The end.

Last post - script

Way back in 2010 when the Frogblog started we had no idea where it would take us (Paris, anyone?) but we did work out by early 2011 that Frogs can play a significant part in the healing process and so a committment was made to post something to the Frogblog everyday until Darcy was able to go back to school. 

Job done. 

I'd like to express my thanks to the contributors from around the world (including Finland, Indonesia and Tasmania) and especially to the Irvines, Gina, Melissa and, of course, Megan, Hugh, Mia and Darcy. And to the myraid of photographers and creative artists and bloggers out there whose own froggy works have helped to fill these pages.

Rest assured that this will not be the last you see of the Frogs - they have stories to tell and Iron-Frog meals to cook and a blogspot to do it on. But they feel can relax their daily vigilance now.

Good luck Darcy.

And may the Frogs Be With You.

Sweet treats

Back to school is about more than just shiny shoes and sharp pencils.

You also have to be the envy of every other tadpole in the playground by having the best possible little lunch there is.

As Marie-Antoinette says, "Let them eat cake".

Just in case

Sharp pencils need cases.

And cases need labels.

The only challenge is getting the spelling rite

 

 write

right.

Sharpen up

It's not just brains that need sharpening up at the end of the holidays...

Back to school

It's that time of year.

The holidays are almost over.

The trials and tribulations of last year are behind us.

There's a whole host of lovely new stationery products just waiting to be unleashed on a new school year.

Frog begins the task of preparing his children to return to school.

First things first. The shoes must be polished.

Holy flying gastropods, Batman!

There are some days when pigs might fly.

These are pretty rare.

And there are some days when snails fly. 

Up-side-down.

Amazingly, our photographer was on the spot when the gastropods launched their incredible aeronautic display near the frog pond.

We think a Walkley may be in order.

We realise some of our dear readers may be a little young to remember Batman's sidekick and his extraordinary range of interjections, but this link might help. We like "holy chicken coop" - but there are so many to choose from.

The Frog and the Cucumber

So...

Frogs like cucumbers.

And sometimes cucumbers (are) like frogs.

And everyone loves a nerdy eggplant penguin.

With thanks to the European vegetable carving championships of 2011.

"Participants may bring their own pumpkin".

Who knew?

Bean there, done that

Another day, another harvest.

Lettuce eat

Sometimes it IS easy being green.

Backyard self sufficiency

The frogs are pretty excited about this whole backyard farming business.

Who knew that food came from gardens?

Having mastered wheat/beer, wheat/weetbix, wheat/ puffed wheat and, of course, wheat/ flour/bread, the frogs find there is also joy in simple crops.

 Tomato. 

And basil.

Frog wonders if they will go together....

A grain of sense (9)

But you can't eat flour.

Well, not uncooked. It's yucky.

Frog decides to make a little flat bread.

A few drops of water.  A little salt.  A bit of kneading and.... voila.

 Dough.

The dough rests.

  Before being rolled out as thin as possible.

And after dancing quickly in a hot pan, Frog has his flat bread.

Never eat anything bigger than your head? Hah!

Bite by bite, the bread is consumed.

Frog feels a little full.

But proud.  Oh so proud.

From this:

To this:

Cool, huh?

A grain of sense (8)

The milled whole wheat flour...

Is then sieved, leaving behind the bran and a few other bits of wheat germ

(so that's what they make wheatbix out of)

Leaving lovely fine unbleached flour as the result.

A grain of sense (7)

Our Farmer Frog decides to opt for a little "modern" technology in the quest to turn wheat into flour.

Mortar and pestle.

Still stone ground.  Just a little easier to manipulate.