April 2016 – Head in the Clouds

Saturday – Kitchen, Garden & Walking

Source Images: DSC_4028.JPG (Av: F4.0; Tv: 1/60 sec.; ISO: 1000; FL: 75.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Bucketing down

We finally started getting some decent rain yesterday! It got pretty wild there for a while!

Source Images: DSC_4026.JPG (Av: F4.0; Tv: 1/60 sec.; ISO: 1000; FL: 75.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Trees getting a drink

I had planned on going to the market tomorrow so I picked what was left of my beetroot to make into chutney

Sadly the weather forecast is rain and wind – so I am staying home. Its not that I am a sook about getting up at 6am to stand about in the wind and rain – (well actually, I am) – but on days like those no-one much comes out to buy stuff (sensibly so).

I decided to roast up the beetroot anyway, I just didn’t make up the chutney yet

Big Beetroot – I am giving credit to my kelp juice

The girls won the leafy bits

I love the colour!!

I peeked under my vegie netting to find my broccolini taking shape!!

I also found a few leftover grubs!! I have to squash them myself because our spoiled chickens turn their beaks up at them!!!

I had to get onto clearing up the windfall apples as the European wasps were getting too plentiful.

Lucky the cows have been moooved (haha right??) closer and were happy to munch up the dodgy apples

Best coloured apples! 🙂

Got a decent haul of windfalls – into the dehydrator they go

Well, I finally came up with a goal for this year. Every day during May, I am to walk the 8km circuit around the Inglis River. I have a number of spare kilo’s that I’d be happier without, so…

Start of our circuit begins at the bridge not far down from our house

The fluffy cattails line the river banks – you can use the roots to make something similar to flour-Jeff collected & processed some roots and today made a cake/blob/biscuit from them.

I would say this is kinda like a damper… the taste wasn’t bad. It would stick with you for a looooong time I suspect. It was also somewhat gritty, so I am going to recommend he wash the roots out more!!! 😀

Still – its fun to try bizarre new things.

Anyway, back to the walk… Its pretty easy – a few ups and downs, but not too punishing

I like the paper like bark on these trees

The tide was pretty low as we set out. the muddy banks aren’t as pretty, but they are a hive of activity as you see little crabs scuttling about everywhere

You get to walk through a mini rainforest –

The first real excitement of the day was seeing a Tiger Snake!

Hardly saw a snake all summer – I was surprised to see this one.

Dodgy photo – Snake was in a hurry to hide!

I enjoy how the path changes along the way with the vegetation

Little bits of interest…

But the most exciting part of the day was at the close of our walk when we came across a platypus!! It’s so rare to see one in the wild – and this one was practically doing cartwheels for us!! (They are supposed to be shy!)

If you are not familiar with this animal, it is classed as a Monotreme. That is an egg laying mammal – a class that also includes the Echidna. Its a lonely group – they are the only two animals that belong in it!! Platypus are the oddest looking creatures with their duck bills and beaver-like tails. It really looks like they were put together in a hurry. Cute they may be, but in keeping with the good traditions of Australian animals that want to kill you, they are equipped with venomous spurs – so not a good idea to cuddle them. Apparently the pain from a scratch is pretty bad, and also impervious to normal painkillers, even morphine. And it lasts for months.

So hard to photograph – they blend so well with the water!

Well – off to bed for me. We have some new arrivals tomorrow morning.

I’ll keep you posted! 😀

Cheers and enjoy your weekend!

Friday’s Footprints. Sister’s Beach

Since I am in the Sister’s Beach mood, I thought I would continue the theme for todays Footprint story.

River running into the ocean at main entrance to beach.

The tea tree stained waters can create some great sand patterns

One thing I have noticed here is the huge tide differences. High tide means about 6 ft of beach, where low tide you seem to have acres of sand to skip about on!

As noted yesterday, as you get up the beach, you start reaching rocks that vary in colour and style

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Black clinging shells add to the dramatic look of the rocks

At the west end of Sister’s Beach, you reach the boat ramp and a rock-strewn beach that you can follow up into the Rocky Cape National Park on a short walk to a couple of caves

There is a narrow path that leads you up the side of the hill

The first cave you come to is the Wet Cave. I love this one. Its a scary looking hole in the ground that you can easily go into.

You can only go down so far before a pool of black water stops your progress.

One day I will stop being lazy and lug my tripod up in here to get a better shot

There is a fabulous story associated with this cave that has been told within my family. Apparently a bush ranger (outlaw) stashed his gold in the barrel of a shotgun and flung it into this cave before being apprehended. (Tell me I am not dying to drag one of the kayaks up here to paddle out with a nice big hook to go searching huh??)

Imagine if I found a ring with some elvish words engraved into it? Precious?

Some fabulous almost fluorescent moss grows on the cave sides

Its just what a proper cave should be!

Back out into the light and you follow the trail up…

And over the other side…

Enjoying fabulous coast views

You can clamber down to the rocky shore but then you have to clamber all the way back up!

Probably called Rocky Cape for a good reason

The next cave you get to is the Lee Archer Cave. A much more open and larger cave. The slanting rocks are very cool (in my opinion)

There is a midden (old rubbish heap of shells from when the area was inhabited by Aboriginal people) and plenty of nesting birds flitting in and out

You can have a little fun with perspective in this cave

A rocky beach at the foot of the Lee Archer Cave gives us rock art building opportunities

Rock Man –

Whereas I built Rock-Grandpa

You can find weird things

And dead things –

And pretty things

All this is about 20 minutes from our front door, and we love taking advantage of it!

Hope you have enjoyed

Cheers

PS don’t forget you can see other occasional snippets of whatever takes my fancy via Facebook

Source Images: DSC_1118.JPG (Av: F13.0; Tv: 1/1250 sec.; ISO: 400; FL: 28.0 mm) DSC_1119.JPG (Tv: 1/1000 sec.) DSC_1120.JPG (Tv: 1/640 sec.) DSC_1121.JPG (Tv: 1/500 sec.) DSC_1117.JPG (Tv: 1/800 sec.) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Large driftwood at Sisters Beach

Escape to the Beach

Didn’t even bother taking my shoes out of the car. Enjoyed a paddle.

It was an undecided day, weather wise. We got a little rain overnight, and the day started a bit gloomy. By the time early afternoon arrived the day could have gone either way, so Mana and I decided to risk a potential downpour and go for a walk up Sisters Beach.

Darn good choice.

We met about 6 people and three dogs.

Other than that, we pretty much had the beach to ourselves!!

This is one of my favourite walking beaches

As you walk up the beach, you find interesting rock formations/colours and today a bit more seaweed. (Mana must have been relieved I didn’t have collecting bags with me!)

Mana soaking up the sun & surf

I like where the scrubby grass meets the sand. All this area is Rocky Cape National Park

We came across this great little display of beach treasures. Someone has had a wonderful time putting this together.

Always fun for me to click away with the camera

Source Images: DSC_3977.JPG (Av: F20.0; Tv: 1/15 sec.; ISO: 0; FL: 20.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Wave movement over the rocks

Source Images: DSC_3974.JPG (Av: F20.0; Tv: 1/15 sec.; ISO: 0; FL: 20.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Love the colours and textures

A closer look at seaweed

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I am wondering if I got a bit sunburnt today – while it wasn’t hot, walking into the sun was a bit intense!

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We did little else today – sure was a wonderful way to relax and recharge our energy levels!

I hope your day was super too!

Cheers

Source Images: DSC_3991.JPG (Av: F13.0; Tv: 1/640 sec.; ISO: 250; FL: 20.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Stunning day out there

Ruby Tuesday – On Wednesday!!

Flowers from Ruby’s garden for us to take home! Lucky!!

So what do you take with you when you visit your 99 year old Aunt? Flowers? Cake? Sweets?

I once brought Ruby a bucket of worms and she was so excited (her sandy soil doesn’t have the worm population our red soil has). She immediately dragged me & my bucket of worms all over the garden with a little spade to bury them here and there!! 😀

Today Mana & I brought a trailer load of seaweed. Nothing says love like fresh seaweed hey?

I did promise Mana some beach time today, but she probably hadn’t thought she would be stuffing and lugging multiple feed bags full of seaweed around the neighbourhood!

East Wynyard Beach quite often has lovely big piles of grassy seaweed that I like to use as mulch. You just pick a spot to park with beach access –

By the look of those pavers I bet the locals just walk over with their wheelbarrows!

Probably better at low tide, but we were out with the trailer, so I thought we might as well fill it again with something

Not much beach today – I think we managed to time it for the highest of high tides! 🙂

We got our feet wet a couple of times as we filled our bags

working – yes, but at least the view is great!

The sea was really choppy today

Once we had all our bags chokkas, we dragged them up to the car and headed to Ruby’s.

First things first… cake and coffee!

We had had a busy day and it was oh so good to sit and have a cuppa

While we recharged our batteries on Ruby’s excellent raisin cake, we chatted about her first fridge.

Of course, way back in the day people used meat safes to store their perishables in wooden or tin safes, usually with mesh sides.

When Ruby and Bill moved into the cottage on the current site in 1948, they had a main safe and also a small tin one that hung in a tree where it gained a nice breeze in a cool area.

They had to shop frequently for meat as it would only last a couple of days in the safe. Apparently you “Let your nose tell you” when you needed to hurry up and finish the meat!! If things were smelling a bit funny, you got it out and washed it and made sure it was cooked quick-smart!! (Do we know how easy our lives are these days?)(I don’t know about you, but if I smell “something funny” about meat, then the chickens get an expensive treat!!!)

When they moved into the cottage, there was no electricity connected to the property. There was electricity in the area, so Bill took himself up to the energy supplier to arrange connection. The fellow wasn’t so helpful – put them on a list that had a vague waiting time of a few weeks.

Bill said they were hoping to get it on a lot quicker as his wife was finding it difficult to get things done and out to work on time. Foolishly the man asked “What’s so special about your wife?” Ouch. Apparently Bill told him – in no uncertain terms that his wife was the “Matron at the hospital so I hope you don’t get sick mate!!” (You can see Ruby’s proud look telling the story as her husband championed her) Then she giggles because apparently she had to drop home at 2pm that afternoon and found the power connected!!! 😀

Ruby’s current modern convenience – a far cry from a meat safe!

It wasn’t until around 1954 that they got their first fridge. A lot of items were hard to get following the war years, and Tasmania is that little bit more isolated again.

Word went out that a container load of converted kerosene to electric refrigerators was arriving at the port of Burnie. They were all snapped up for the most reasonable price of around 40 pounds!

Oh the convenience!! Bill was especially thrilled because he had “Never dreamed he could have all the ice-cream he wanted”

Well, story time over, Mana and I unloaded our seaweed and spread it over the two gardens that we weeded last week.

With luck, the weed population will be slowed

While Ruby picked us a beautiful bunch of chrysanthemums (pretty sure that’s what they are! I am a bit wonky on my flower names)

Hope your day has been wonderful

Cheers

A Bit of Barter

First – Sorry I have to postpone “Ruby Tuesday” I had planned to go over there today and fine tune a story etc but a friend, Jeff rang and asked if I could help paint his house – in exchange for a load of firewood!! Yeah! Count me in!

For someone that enjoys looking for ways to reduce spending & be economical, swapping some manual labour for firewood is a no-brainer to me!

Our friends bought a little investment house – a fixer-upperer in a great area – and are getting things sorted out for the keen tenants that are waiting to move in.

(Note *Friends* Actually family, but down here in Tasmania that could get complicated. Jeff’s Nan is my mothers second cousin. If you want to work out the nitty gritty cousin titles feel free, but it hurts my brain. 🙂 I label everyone ‘cousin’ or ‘friend’ and move on! 😀 )

Mana hasn’t done house painting before, so I dragged the poor girl out of the garden and gave her a paintbrush! (nothing like offering our international guests some variety hey?)

We started easy on the doors and then moved onto skirting boards and doorframes

Had to paint a few areas that already had the new carpet down!! Scared much???

Skirtings safely painted, didn’t kick over a tin onto the new carpet! yay me.

Thankfully no mishaps and we pretty much got done what Jeff needed to have finished today.

So one day of painting will give us a good number of warm nights by the fire for free! Yay!

Firewood = a lot of work for me, but warm winter nights!

Not to mention a couple of days of getting very warm stacking the wood up!

I am totally off to bed – Just a couple of photos of the clouds this afternoon to leave you with… they looked a bit splendid this afternoon!

Cheers all

Source Images: DSC_3844.JPG (Av: F13.0; Tv: 1/640 sec.; ISO: 500; FL: 20.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Its like the sky got wrinkles

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Filling up the Trailer

All these beautiful days! My kind of autumn!

I vaguely hinted at going on a bit of a hike today but we ended up getting stuck into tidying up the front/side of the house. Its an area that hasn’t been touched in forever!

Who wants to go hiking at the beach when you can spend all day cleaning this up huh??

Because its not seen and it grows no vegetables, it gets neglected.

The gum trees that tower over us on that side, shed a lot of bark and leaves – a constant issue, so its kinda easier to ignore than worry about it!

Whatever we do here, it will be a continual cleaning up effort – so apart from cleaning up the mess and pruning back shrubs, I am not really sure how to use the area.

We have a pretty amazing bush out front called “Lions Ear” I cut it back to the nub each year and it springs back bigger and better each time. It also self seeds rather happily, so we ended up with a front entrance issue

The flowers on this are rather unique – well I hadn’t come across anything like it before –

Closer look?

Anyway, so I went the hack

But then I had to get the roots out of the ones we weren’t keeping.

I think I broke off a lot of the tap roots somewhere..

Note to self. Dig up plants early, not three years later.

I will keep these for a month or two until they are dry, then run them through the mulcher for the compost. (or kindling or garden markers)

I managed to clear a decent space!

I know – it doesn’t look pretty yet. But at least we have some access!

Time to bring the trailer closer!

Meanwhile around the side, Jeff has gone from this –

To this –

And Mana wielding a spade –

has cleared this bit –

We found a tap!! And what’s more – it works!! Seriously! Been here for four years and had cursed the effort of getting water to this side, and all this time we had a tap!!

Still a bit of colour left in the hydrangeas!

A vast improvement so far!

Reckon the trailer is about full!

We gave up about now and came in for a late afternoon tea

Still able to enjoy fresh tomatoes whenever we please!

Which entailed testing out all the relishes

And hot chocolate!!

I hope the start of your week has been excellent!

Cheers

Blue Sky Sunday

I am feeling pretty creaky tonight! We have done a lot of digging today!

Absolutely superb sunny warm day so Jeff, Mana and myself spent quite a few hours today in the vegetable garden for a much needed makeover.

This is pretty much what the patch looked like before – lots of straggling end of season plants and a host of weeds

So on with the gardening clothes and hats

The chooks were hanging out close by waiting for worms and other treats

Who can see the flying chicken? (Ok chickens don’t fly as much as the plummet – one was plummeting off the wheelbarrow)

This strip was where my potatoes were this last season. I am going to prepare this area for garlic. Since it will go in in June, I’ll leave the dahlias in there to enjoy them a little longer.

I also plan to run a small strip along the garage wall and fill with marigolds the whole way!

Seeing some progress!

Still pulling up lovely fat carrots

These came up more easily than “Monster Carrot”

I have a few self seeded leeks – this one was put in the soup tonight!

I love marigolds scattered about the garden. So cheerful (and useful)

I really didn’t think they would bloom this late in the season. Bonus!

Check out that yummy red soil!

My next step is to sow a few of the areas with wheat, let it grow up a bit (hope its still warm enough for it to germinate) then dig it back in as green manure and cover with seaweed – which slows the weeds down a bit.

Can’t help having a little bit of a barefoot wallow in the dirt.

No matter how carefully I dig the potatoes – there are always a lot missed! The purple ones that look like cat-poo are pretty cool. They have a fabulous purple colour right through – but taste very normal potatoish. I am actually trying to get rid of them all. They are just a bit time consuming to clean because of their shape and size. I prefer working with the nice big Dutch Cream potatoes. mmmmm.

Some of these went in the soup with the leek!

Not a bad lot of produce for the day!

Excuse me while I faceplant my bed

Cheers

PS for some odds and sods via Facebook, click here

Saturday

Jeff’s slightly ‘fixed’ smile after photo #8 as niece was helpfully pulling faces, sticking her finger up her nose and dribbling cucumber – best I could do with what I had.

This morning we bid a fond farewell to Emma as we put her on a plane to go home. Its a lot quieter here tonight that’s for sure!! Apparently she is returning next holidays – not sure she has cleared that with her mum as yet!!

We managed to do a lot of bits and pieces today. The weather was again super-gorgeous, so I shoved a load of washing on

My awesome Canadian cousin (who lives in the US) sent me this t-shirt!!

We ate lunch on the back veranda and soaked up what vitamin D we could…

Everything is better eaten outside – especially if it has home made tomato relish on it!

Mana and I collected the rest of the silverbeet seeds while we were sitting out there.

I picked a few things from the garden/hothouse

Still this and that coming out of the hothouse

And treated myself to a bunch of spikey dahlias.

Mana and Jeff took the bird netting off the strawberries and dug up all the weeds – it looks amazing now

Strawberry patch – long overdue for a clean up

I cleaned up the kitchen (surfaces in our place invite random ‘stuff’ to be plonked on top of them)

And prepared part of dinner –

Grating zucchini – collecting some of the seeds from that big one. It was the best plant, so makes sense to collect those seeds.

Who keeps and reuses cereal packets?? I find them easy to recycle. The boxes are great for craft (or backing for signs at markets) and the bags are tough as nails – I bake our bread, so I keep my bread in cereal bags! I also store meat scraps/cooked bones etc in them in the freezer until either we take our rubbish to the tip (no collection here) or sometimes pop them in Ruby’s bin if I am really pushed for freezer space.

Stupidly I only recently discovered how fabulous these are to re use!!

Mana came inside and put on another batch of apples to dry

The apple trees haven’t run out of fruit yet!

Thought I better restock up on wood. So much better to do that job in this weather than wait until its cold, miserable and raining sideways!!

I like to have two or three loads at the back door

Jeff build us a couple of wood storage boxes for the back door out of pallets. It’s pretty easy around here to get hold of pallets to make various things. And the ones that don’t break apart nicely make beautiful kindling.

We store our main supply undercover next to the hothouse. We also use pallets to raise them off the ground, which saves a lot of muck & bugs when you get to the bottom layers!

We also have a foreman for this job

Dinner was a meatloaf (I tend to thaw enough mince to make hamburgers one night, then use the rest of the mix in a loaf tin the next day to make into meatloaf)(Its like leftovers you haven’t cooked yet!) along with home grown vegies and my fav. tomato/zucchini side dish. Easy (and probably healthy)

I finished the day by completing a ‘Cozy Cuff’

Getting in touch with my Knitting Nanna Self

So a bits & pieces kind of day, but definitely productive!

Hope everyone’s weekends have started well!

Cheers

PS re the band aid.

Emma decided yesterday that she needed to take this old broken jar home that she found at Magnet Mine. (Who am I to argue? My souvenir was a three foot long chunk of driftwood!! 😀 )

Since I am a klutz and can injure myself on dangerous objects (like margarine containers)(Sadly not kidding) I shouldn’t have gone near the jar. Instead I picked it up and made quite a mess of my finger

As a friend kindly pointed out, I married a walking first aid kit, so I got sorted out by my personal nurse & got a kiss into the bargain! Awesome huh?

Emma helpfully ran about taking photos of all the blood splatters and made me the fabulous montage below!!

Friday’s Footprints – Rocks at Penguin Beach

Another favourite beach of mine, when I am in a rock collecting mood, is a small hidden rock beach, just on the outskirts of a sweet little coastal town called Penguin.

You really have to know where to go (love local knowledge) to access this one. There is no sign, or parking… you just pull off the road by the railway as best you can.

Without being run over by a train (mind you – they are only infrequent goods trains so you would have to be very unlucky) you cross the tracks and see a big hint as which way to go –

A fifteen second walk through a stand of trees…

Then you get to feel all rugged, hiking down the mini cliff to the beach.

Unlike the gorgeous white sands of Sister’s Beach and other beaches in the area, this beach is covered in amazing rocks.

Mid to low tide is best – more rocks to find

Look closer

There are a stunning variety of coloured rocks on this beach

It is also a beach known for having a lot of sea glass

I know a lady that makes beautiful and creative jewellery out of sea glass. I just like to collect it – one day I will take what I have over to her so she can actually put it to good use. In the meantime it looks pretty in jars on the back veranda.

At low tide you can scramble across these rocks to the next beach, once you run out of rocks to look at on the first one…

Jeff was awesome enough to give me a rock tumbler for my birthday a couple of years back.

The colours and patterns are amazing once polished up

I need to put it on again soon as I have a vast collection of yet-to-be-polished rocks

Anyway, short and sweet tonight. It was a big day out at Magnet Mine again, and got to be up early to deliver niece to the airport! 🙁 Her stay here has gone too fast – we enjoyed her wacky company, chatter and enthusiasm.

Check out my facebook page here It will take all of one minute as I have only made two posts! 😀 (I am sure it will find direction and momentum eventually)

Hope everyone has a super weekend!

Cheers

Origami, Wrapping & Sunsets

Be healthy. Start your day with a nutritious bowl of raspberry ice-cream.

As promised – we had raspberry ice-cream for breakfast. (and Emma followed it up with pizza – well, its not a proper holiday until you have had pizza and ice-cream for breakfast is it?)

And I can happily report that the ice-cream tasted amazing!

Today we got a LOT of rain. And its about time too! The recent grey days have hardly yielded a drop, so the garden must have enjoyed itself!

With the help of my lovely niece Emma and her fancy phone, we created a video to show those who were interested in learning how to fold those origami seed packets, seen in an earlier post.

However… seems there are limits to what I can upload here and my video was about 200 gig oversized! Oopsie.

Damn.

So… I opened a facebook page for “Head in the Clouds – Feet in the Dirt” as the easiest way to share it that I could think of right now (not being the most tech-savvy person I am at the bottom end of the learning curve with this blogging 🙂 )

You can take a peek here . (I’ll figure out what else to do on the facebook page as I go along!) 😀

So…(again) as a preliminary instruction, grab your square piece of paper, turn to the blank side and mark out each third of the paper – for most standard origami papers that means every 5cm

Mark your paper like this (on all 4 sides)

You don’t need to draw each fold like I did in the video. That was just so you could see more clearly where the folds were to go.

Then watch video.

I apologise to those who don’t use facebook. When I have more time and get more savvy, I will work out a different plan of attack!

And if all else fails – stop-motion-photography! (What else am I going to do with those upcoming long winter days huh?)

I also had to finish off and wrap a few presents that we are sending back with Emma for various birthdays that have come and gone. Yes – on one hand its the cheapskates way of moving things about… but on the other hand I know they will get there. I have had a couple of postal hiccoughs recently – one parcel is currently lost between here and Canada – so at least I know this little lot will have a good chance of making it.

A friend of mine makes these amazingly cute little bags and sells them at the market for a crazy $5 each! Makes the perfect ‘wrapping’

I actually suck at wrapping. I am not neat and my only saving grace in the above photo is how pretty the origami paper is that I used!

The Japanese have got wrapping down to a fine art. In fact, there are lots of people in Japan, whose sole job is wrapping presents at department shops! Their presentation is superb, and even when you buy a box of bakery biscuits or cake its wrapped with tender loving care with all the trimmings – here in Oz, you’re lucky if someone shoves it in a bag for you!

We hosted a 16 year old young man for a month – this was some of the beautiful parcels his mother sent us!

And this is how you wrap sweets –

and each sugary treat is individually wrapped in a twist of fine paper

Beats plastic hands down any day!

Well, that’s all from me today! I will leave you with a few sunset photos I took a couple of hours ago – again after the rain, the sky and clouds were beautiful. (So far the across the road farmer hasn’t noticed me using his fencepost as position of choice for my photography!)

Cheers!