April 2016 – Page 2 – Head in the Clouds

Sunny Autumn Days

Autumn has been kicking up some pearlers of days! Its been great doing a little scruffing about in the garden (mind you a concentrated effort is needed)

The salvia has exploded. Its hard to believe I cut this back to the nub every season. I think it comes back a little bigger and better each year. Its alive with bee’s and butterflies.

I thought I killed it. Cut it back then got heavy frosts. Looked really woebegone for ages!

I was pleased to sell all my cucumber at the markets on the weekend but several more are nearly ready for picking again!

I haven’t had a cucumber plant this productive before

Chickens are enjoying their scraps and outings into the main yard – still laying well!

Pip totally thinks he is going to go prancing about on top of the chook coop. (I took him down much to his disgust – I didn’t really have time to go mucking about with ladders to do a Siamese Rescue.)

Its not all work – yesterday evening us girls went down to Fossil Bluff to watch the sun go down, paddle and generally enjoy ourselves

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Today was another super beautiful day, so we took the kayaks down to the river for a paddle

It was Mana’s first time trying this. She did really well. (Happily she didn’t fall in, even though it was sunny, the water was a tad on the fresh side!)

I got to trot along the path that goes by the river to keep an eye on them and take some photos

They had the river almost to themselves today!

Then it was back to the kitchen to make up a promised batch of raspberry ice-cream!

Emma cooked and sieved the raspberries while Mana and I made up the base vanilla recipe. Once cooled, we mixed them together and chucked it all in the ice cream maker

The taste tests were extremely positive – but it still needs to freeze properly overnight.

Apparently we are having ice-cream for breakfast. 😀

The last plan of the day was somewhat thwarted. As a treat, we were making home made chicken pizza’s plus we were going to introduce Mana to “The Princess Bride”

Imagine how happy I was to finally get the first two pizzas into the oven and exactly 5 minutes later – total power failure!!!

At 6.30pm weekday evening… you could hear the mothers in the district crying I am sure!! Half way through everyone’s dinner time!! It didn’t come back on for two hours!

We decided to try to cook one in the BBQ.

Oh. My. Sainted. Aunt.

Walking back into the shed, seeing smoke pour out of the doors – it looked like we had set the whole place on fire!!!

Source Images: Sad Pizza.jpg (Av: F2.8; Tv: 1/15 sec.; ISO: 1600; FL: 28.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — We are holding the funeral tomorrow

I went from “Not Happy” to “Less Than Happy”

I made an emergency run into Wynyard to get hot chips and bread – reeking of smoke – and put the other two pizza’s on the fire top – they crisped up, but at least they stopped short of cremation.

Dinner by candlelight & torchlight, entertainment by Emma’s string of really bad jokes! Mana thinks we are all mad. 🙂

Cheers everyone

Ruby Tuesday – Garden Update

It’s great to have minions… well… mine aren’t yellow, but they are willing workers, so we managed to get through a couple of garden beds for Ruby today.

Ruby had some visitors, so I didn’t go in to get stories – but we had a lot of fun in the beautiful sunshine.

The second potato patch has sprung a lot of potato plants at the end of the season, as well as a blanket of weeds

A couple of stinging nettles in here made gardening that much more exciting!

We left the potatoes. Even though Ruby wont get a lot off them, there will be something, and food is food!! 🙂

The next task –

The pumpkin/zucchini patch, while totally finished with only weeds growing, yielded a surprising amount of potatoes!! Too funny!

I weeded this quite a few weeks ago and the weeds have stayed away (mostly) due to the good layer of seaweed I dumped on top of it.

I will take Mana down to the beach next week and we will stock up on seaweed and cover each garden as it gets dug to slow down the weeds.

Ruby keeps finding nice sturdy little tomato plants popping up here and there! So it made me laugh to see that she had moved what she could into the hothouse to see if they would last the winter!

I got these ones to put in my hothouse

Ruby’s broccolini are looking great!

Tunnel of broccolini with rogue broad beans at back!

Even better I saw the start of the vegetable already!

These will be on the plate before we know it!

This zucchini got its second wind!

Emma and Mana got up the ladders and tidied up the man ferns

All the dead fronds were brought back to our place. They make excellent kindling.

At Half Time in the gardening, Ruby came out with a little plate of banana passionfruit (with ice cream) for us to try!

I’ll have to take a photo of the fruit for you to see tomorrow if you are not familiar with it

The vine covers a good portion of the back fence and has a lot of flowers right now!

I will be testing a beetroot recipe soon this week, so stay tuned. Its one of those vague old fashioned things that give you a guide and basically wish you good luck with it!

I thought I better test it out before writing it down here!

In other news, there soon will be a serious meeting & afternoon tea with a couple of cousins, friends & Margie with Ruby to pow-wow about her upcoming 100th birthday! (I’ll eventually let Ruby know about this haha)

Its all very well to say you don’t want a fuss, but when you have been around this long and are very well known in the community, along with a massive extended family, I am afraid fuss is what you are going to get. 🙂

I wouldn’t be surprised if around 200 people turned up on the day! Its to be a gathering at Ruby’s church hall, but not much else has been sorted out, and even though we are talking September, it will go fast. I think poor Margie has been having kittens about it! And really – a gathering of that size needs to be organised, so in a week or so we shall turn up with cake, put the kettle on and really get some proper plans in place!

Cheers everyone!

Lazy Day with Photos & Drawing Games

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Hello,

It was a really lazy, low key day today.

I think everyone (me) was getting over the shock of the 6am start yesterday. I can’t tell you when everyone actually got up or moved out of their pjs into proper clothes… way too embarrassing 🙂

Jeff is on a nightshift, but before he went back to bed today he put the fire on for us and we totally enjoyed the cosiness, since the day was dark, gloomy and cool.

I enjoyed mucking about with photos, trying some different post processing on images, while Emma and Mana abandoned their modern technology to play a drawing game! (Wow huh?)

Pencils & the Samitomato Drawing Game (Original version – it has now been updated)

My very clever and artistic friend, Samantha, developed this great little drawing game. Rather than encouraging competition, it encourages imagination and creativity.

Four rolls of the dice will give the budding artist a set of directions to go ahead and draw. Among the thousands of possibilities, you may end up drawing “A fat grey mouse, making pancakes” a “Determined sky-blue sheep flying a spaceship” or a “Hairy violet spider wearing cowboy boots”

It totally solves that “Mummy – what should I draw nowww?” question!

Emma’s Sleepy, lemon-yellow elephant, drinking coffee

Mana’s prime drawing spot in front of the fire!

You can buy the drawing game via Samantha’s Etsy Shop or check out Sam’s instagram – Samitomato (I am sure I will get instagram soon – when I figure out how to drive it via PC)

Since I can’t even draw convincing stick figures, I stuck to the computer and played about a little with some past photos:

Source Images: DSC_2698.JPG (Av: F22.0; Tv: 1/10 sec.; ISO: 250; FL: 16.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Liffey Falls

Source Images: DSC_2346.JPG (Av: F22.0; Tv: 1/125 sec.; ISO: 0; FL: 16.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Sisters Beach

Source Images: DSC_2326.JPG (Av: F13.0; Tv: 1/640 sec.; ISO: 640; FL: 250.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Rocks at Sisters Beach

Source Images: DSC_2343.JPG (Av: F14.0; Tv: 1/800 sec.; ISO: 640; FL: 16.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — More rocks at Sisters Beach

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Source Images: DSC_9355.JPG (Av: F9.0; Tv: 1/320 sec.; ISO: 500; FL: 60.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Don’t know what flower this was. It randomly grew around the side of the house.

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Time to hit the hay.

Cheers

Market Day Again

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Oh I could have rolled over and gone straight back to sleep when the alarm went off. I had to seriously guilt myself into crawling out from under the warm doona and get my butt in the car!

The car was pretty much packed the night before and Jeff came with me to get a spot and unload it before returning home to collect the girls.

I got a bit of a weird spot – I got moved from the one I thought I was getting. I really need to remember to call the council and book a spot if I intend on going. (It also means I don’t need to be there quite so early)

Clearly I didn’t get to really working out a decent display as this site was a much different space to the normal ones I occupy!

Weather wise it actually turned out great again! Warm, mostly sunny and most importantly – no wind!

It got to about 18C (64F) today – but its cooled right off tonight. Right now its 6C (42F). We totally have the fire going tonight.

People were in a good mood today and the atmosphere was really friendly. Lots of people stopped to chat & so many people brought their dogs along for a walk – this thrilled the girls no end as they had to meet and pat each one (if their owners said it was ok of course)

Someone had bunnies for sale! They were really cute. Of course Emma totally wanted one. I figured it wasn’t the kind of souvenir that I should send her home with. (My sister would have had a lot to say I am sure! haha)

13006555_1008880469204238_550879662241148302_n — Two happy girls! ( Credit – Mana’s camera – random photographer!)

I did end up selling quite a good lot of stuff today. The tomato relish sold less than usual, but I sold out of the beetroot chutney and the sweet chilli sauce. Emma totally charmed a customer into buying the last sweet chilli sauce bottle in a performance that was actually stage-worthy! 😀

The signs were done by another Japanese friend of mine, Sanae, who is an amazing artist.

The raspberry jam was a really steady seller today! Glad I made a couple of new batches!

I sold a few packs of seeds…

We managed to clear a tray of seedlings… hmmmm… now to keep them alive and unchewed until the next market!

Margie drops in for a chat while Jeff taste tests a delicious plate of crepes made by our friends

I also brought along my new Swear Jar. Sadly I gained no coin for it this time, but I am going to work on that. To be honest I think I may owe it a few dollars already. I got my ‘Swear Jar Sticker Pack’ in the mail last week and Emma tarted up a nice big jar (optimism) to make it look pretty.

Its all part of the Love Your Sister fund raising campaigns for breast cancer research. One of Australia’s fabulous actors, Samuel Johnson, rode his unicycle around Australia to raise funds, awareness and set a new world record for the most kms ridden as his lovely sister, Connie, tragically has terminal breast cancer. He managed to travel 15,955 kilometres over 364 days and raised over 1.5 million dollars!!!

Their new target is 10 million dollars and Sam has quit acting until the goal has been reached. I think he possibly almost gave Connie a heart attack with that announcement! 🙂

I feel a little proud as after a facebook post by Sam that had a few rude words (ok – it was more than a few! lol) and then Connie posting to do the correct sisterly thing and tell him off for his language, I made a comment saying that swear jars should be his new branch of fund raising! This made them laugh a lot – but the next thing I knew – They were off and running with it!

Every bit helps when it comes to cancer research – not many of us are unaffected by it these days.

Although now I have my swear jar in the house I may have to give up playing Soda Crush as I don’t think I can afford that kind of moolah! 😀 😀

I sold another pair of ‘cozy cuffs’ but my stock is rather low as I have been busy over summer with other things. Now that its getting cooler I need to get click-clacking!!

I use these a lot – fabulous to have parts of your hands warm but still have your fingers free – and much easier to knit than ‘fingerless’

These special crocheted cuffs are made by my friend, Nozomi’s mother. They are absolutely gorgeous and waaaaaay beyond my skill level. Every now and again I sell a pair for her.

Sadly no-one bought a photo-card today! 🙁 Never mind! I got a lot of really lovely compliments so my ego was boosted, if not my wallet. 😀

Overall it was worth getting out of bed, as I came home $189.50 richer! So I am pretty pleased with that. Not to mention we all had a great day out.

Of course, no market is complete without dropping in on Ruby for a late lunch/afternoon tea!

13010102_1008712382554380_1240160311_o — Ruby filled us full!

Well – its time for me to be off and make a start on tomorrow mornings sleep in!!

I hope all your weekends have been fabulous!

Cheers

Source Images: DSC_2788.JPG (Av: F9.0; Tv: 1/320 sec.; ISO: 1000; FL: 28.0 mm) DSC_2789.JPG () DSC_2790.JPG (Av: F8.0; Tv: 1/250 sec.) DSC_2791.JPG (Av: F7.1; Tv: 1/200 sec.) DSC_2787.JPG (Av: F8.0; Tv: 1/250 sec.) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Sunrise over Table Cape, Wynyard

Beaches & Market Prep.

It’s lovely to have Emma and Mana staying with us. The bathroom has exploded into ‘girl-space’ as suddenly its bulging at the seams with face and hair care products. Being an extremely low maintenance wife (you’re welcome Jeff) it never sees these things scattered about (well – apart from the times Jeff decides to grow hair, then he gets in touch with his inner girl and hair care products start turning up). And it took me five minutes to work out what that strange sound was!! (Hair dryer)

We have been busy getting this and that ready for Sunday (weather has been looking decidedly iffy) but we took time to go down for a stroll on Wynyard beach so Mana could feel like she really had left home and give Emma and myself a chance to have a bit of fun with our Harry Potter wands & see who could out-jinx who! (I know – nerd city)

I did take some time out from nerd-dom along with trying to gain points for “Aunty of the Year” and take some photos of the evening cloudy sky

Source Images: DSC_2729.JPG (Av: F14.0; Tv: 1/800 sec.; ISO: 1000; FL: 28.0 mm) DSC_2730.JPG () DSC_2731.JPG (Av: F13.0; Tv: 1/640 sec.) DSC_2732.JPG (Av: F11.0; Tv: 1/500 sec.) DSC_2728.JPG (Av: F13.0; Tv: 1/640 sec.) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Dusk over Table Cape

Source Images: DSC_2754.JPG (Av: F14.0; Tv: 1/800 sec.; ISO: 1000; FL: 28.0 mm) DSC_2755.JPG (Av: F13.0; Tv: 1/640 sec.) DSC_2756.JPG (Av: F11.0; Tv: 1/500 sec.) DSC_2757.JPG (Av: F11.0; Tv: 1/500 sec.) DSC_2753.JPG (Av: F13.0; Tv: 1/640 sec.) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Enjoying the clouds dance across the sky

Anyway, there is a market on tomorrow, so I am speed-blogging again so I am not up all night – therefore some chance of actually getting up at the right time to get a good spot. Also trying not to just go “Rah rah, blah blah, here – photos – bye”

Was awesome having a jar-washing-side-kick (Thanx Mana) Such a painful job – I cleared out some old ones before starting on the cooking

Still heaps of bags of raspberries in the freezers so I did a couple of batches of jam

Making Jam before Emma eats her way through my raspberries!

Manual labour – but I love my ‘Mooley’ (Moulinex). I use it heaps for my sauces especially, but it takes about half the seeds out of the raspberries – I just prefer my raspberry jam slightly less seedy.

For those jam cookers out there – how do you judge when its ready? I am slowly getting it right – I very much do NOT enjoy having to empty out the jars to recook the mixture.

So, sometimes it ‘drips right’

But I prefer to put it on a cold plate in the freezer for a few minutes to then see if the skin wrinkles.

All labelled and ready-

I’d love to get some fancy labels made, but – these do the trick without costing much.

While I am not working the girls excessively hard, they enjoyed todays job of folding seed envelopes

Since I also had both a broccolini carpet & a willing helper, I figured potting up some seedlings for tomorrow may be a good idea

Eventually I will just have to weed this!

No shortage of plants

I have pots everywhere, so I just had to pick up a bag of potting mix

Do you think $1.50 per pot sounds like enough of a bargain?

I also picked the rest of the cucumbers that were ready. Lets hope they sell!

Time to do what the cat has been doing all day (no- not bathing)(or chasing bugs) and get to bed!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend wherever you are in this amazing world

Cheers

Pip’s way of dealing with a grey day is to go straight back to bed!

Fridays Footprints – Cradle Mountain National Park

Cradle Mt is only a 2 hour drive from us and it makes a fabulous day trip, complete with picnics, wildlife and beautiful scenery.

Cradle Mountain forms the northern end of the wild Cradle Mt – Lake St Clair National Park.

The area is formally recognised through World Heritage listing as being part of the natural and cultural heritage of the world community. The core area was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1982 on the basis of all four natural criteria and three cultural criteria, at the time satisfying more criteria than any other World Heritage property on Earth.

Pretty awesome that we live near it! 🙂

There are a variety of walks, ranging from an easy 20 minutes, right up to a fairly challenging 6 day hike on the Overland Track. (This is on my “to do” list)

Some areas are dark and knotted with moss covered trees

And others more open and scrubby

Boardwalks help protect both the flora and fauna of the area and visitors are asked not to stray from the pathways

The variety of lichens fascinate me

We enjoy bringing our visitors here – usually after a picnic lunch, we tackle the 3 hour walk/hike around Dove Lake.

Sometimes we get brilliant sun –

And other days you might be lucky to see Cradle!

Personally I like the misty damp days best. It brings out brilliant colours – especially in the trees

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There is a fantastic path, mostly boardwalk, the entire way around Dove Lake, and the view of the mountain constantly changes

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Winding your way through the scrub

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At times the path leads you down to small beaches

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Where your view of Cradle Mt changes again

You find small determined plants, literally growing out of the rocks

How a small plant can grow out of a rock beats me!

And the unique Pandani stand out in the landscape

Source Images: DSC_9301.JPG (Av: F6.3; Tv: 1/100 sec.; ISO: 500; FL: 70.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Found only in Tasmania, the pandani is the largest heath plant in the world.

My favourite part of the walk is entering the Ballroom Forest

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Quite often you will see wildlife

Source Images: DSC_1428.JPG (Av: F8.0; Tv: 1/250 sec.; ISO: 640; FL: 300.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Wombat crossing a stream

The boatshed that stands on the northwestern shores of Lake Dove was built in 1940 by the first Ranger at Cradle Mountain, Lionell Connell & is quite a landmark on the lake. The shed was built largely from King Billy pine. Although some restoration work was completed in 1983, the shed remains pretty much unaltered from its original form – It can be a tricky proposition to get a photo sans-tourists as its a popular place for photos

We are hoping to return soon to do a different walk with Emma and Mana – if the weather isn’t too dreadful.

Enjoy the weekend all!

Cheers

Around the House

Source Images: DSC_2614.JPG (Av: F4.5; Tv: 1/80 sec.; ISO: 800; FL: 42.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Treasures from yesterday

This afternoon we picked up our new guest, Mana, so today was a day of making sure her room was prepared, a cake was ready for afternoon tea, and all that kind of stuff. (Will post some photos of Mana once she has had a good sleep! 30 hours of travel since she started from her home!)

Emma fossicked through the garden to put some fresh flowers in her room

I think she did a lovely job! I hadn’t realised we still had such a variety in the garden

I had to pick a few of the cucumbers before they got too big

The oca is looking reasonably good. No idea if I will get any tubers of them. They are a new thing to me – (since coming here anyway) they are awesome baked!

Oca – a long time from planting to digging up!

A little bit of autumn from our poor little Japanese Maple. Now that we have more water I will be able to nurture it a lot better.

I save, or get Ruby & Margie to save meat trays. I find them useful for catching water under pots. At times I can have a lot of cuttings or seedlings on the go.

The laterals in their new homes – lets see if they survive winter.

The three successful laterals in pots finally

One of them seems to be trying to grow a tomato!!

It was a gloomy day today – much in contrast to yesterday! Still, lets hope for some sun so we can take the girls to some more beaches!

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Have a lovely day – weekend is nearly here! 🙂

Garden Scraps & A Beach Afternoon

Such a gorgeous day today! Warm, sunny with puffy clouds!

We took our niece Emma off to Black River Beach and had a great afternoon! (More photos later, for now – on to the garden!)

Carrots. Decided I needed one for dinner.

Probably the biggest carrot I have had before

Problem was I got my heart set on Monster Carrot that would not let go of the underworld! Really! It shouldn’t take 25 minutes to dig up a carrot!!

So much for the gardening shows that you see the presenter grab a handful of greens, and with a gentle tug, up comes carrot!

Nope! Kicking and screaming mine was. In the end I dug up several more carrots surrounding it, went down half a foot (it seemed) and I still broke the end off it!!

But I did find the snuggle-carrots 🙂

There are still things happening in the hothouse – notably the cucumber that has definitely got its second wind, as I counted about 10 good sized cucumbers coming along nicely!

Jam melon still steadily getting bigger

The crazy carpet of broccolini is still sprouting. I have a feeling I am not going to be able to identify my small replanted mini cabbage seedlings among them now! I want to get a lot of these in pots tomorrow in the hope there is a rain free market on the weekend

The Salvia has gone mad – I cut it back to the nub every year and it bounces back bigger each time! I thought I killed it last season because we got some hard frosts after the last chop I gave it. Its pretty tough!

The one Protea I didn’t kill seems to be offering up some new flowers

Remember the little roots on the tomato laterals that I showed you a few days ago??

Not all of the laterals grew roots, which is why I like watching them in a jar. I know what I put in the pots, at least is keen to live with a mass of roots like that!

One of our tree stumps develops a covering of fungi around the same time every year. I quite like watching them grow!

Source Images: DSC_2309.JPG (Av: F10.0; Tv: 1/320 sec.; ISO: 500; FL: 75.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Tree stump fungi

And our girls are hard at work too –

I see so many tasks around the garden to get into – I end up turning in circles and not achieving much! Doesn’t help when you throw your hands up and say “Stuff it, lets go to the beach!”

Emma was pretty happy about it

Its a joyful thing to have such a huge beach nearly to yourself!

We collected lots of shells, a stack of driftwood (I know!! Excited much??) and I added a whole bunch of new photos to my library on Black River Beach.

Source Images: DSC_2316.JPG (Av: F16.0; Tv: 1/1000 sec.; ISO: 500; FL: 20.0 mm) DSC_2317.JPG (Av: F14.0; Tv: 1/800 sec.) DSC_2318.JPG (Av: F13.0; Tv: 1/640 sec.) DSC_2319.JPG (Av: F13.0; Tv: 1/640 sec.) DSC_2315.JPG (Av: F14.0; Tv: 1/800 sec.) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — I love the view that greets you as you come out of the scrub

Emma and Jeff watching little crabs in the sand

This lovely bit of driftwood was a bit beyond my ability to drag back to the car – had to content myself with photos

Source Images: DSC_2441.JPG (Av: F13.0; Tv: 1/800 sec.; ISO: 200; FL: 20.0 mm) DSC_2442.JPG (Tv: 1/640 sec.) DSC_2443.JPG (Tv: 1/400 sec.) DSC_2444.JPG (Tv: 1/320 sec.) DSC_2440.JPG (Tv: 1/500 sec.) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Driftwood

Source Images: DSC_2463.JPG (Av: F13.0; Tv: 1/400 sec.; ISO: 200; FL: 20.0 mm) DSC_2464.JPG (Tv: 1/320 sec.) DSC_2465.JPG (Tv: 1/200 sec.) DSC_2466.JPG (Tv: 1/160 sec.) DSC_2462.JPG (Tv: 1/250 sec.) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Patterns left by the outgoing tide

At times we were sinking quite deep into the sands

And the coolest thing watching the tide come back and fill holes and make new patterns –

Source Images: DSC_2586.JPG (Av: F11.0; Tv: 1/500 sec.; ISO: 200; FL: 20.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Where the river meets the ocean

Hope you have all had a wonderful day!

Cheers

Ruby Tuesday – Garden Flashback

Since Jeff and I have been a bit pathetic with colds this last week, we have been staying away from Ruby, since she is under all this pressure not to “fall off the twig” before we can celebrate her 100th birthday later in the year – so why make life harder by sharing colds around?? 🙂

So I will write up a little look over Ruby’s garden from a season or so ago, which some of the One Hundred Dollars a Month readers will possibly be familiar with.

Its only been the last couple of seasons that Ruby has enlisted me as “Garden Staff” to help a bit with the heavier digging around the place – I guess when you are in your late 90’s its ok to call in the cavalry. Not that she slacks off! Still a familiar site to see her in the garden, perched on a milk crate digging up weeds.

Ruby’s soil is a dark sandy soil. Quite a lot different to our red soil just up the road. It requires a bit more work, and a bit more water. As you can see, she has several patches that she rotates her vegetables around each season. At the beginning of the season she maps out where each of her vegetable plots will be, and we try to get the peas in early enough to make sure there are fresh ones on the table for Christmas dinner!

Its a massively productive plot and you would think she was growing food for an army! Very little goes to waste. Food is stored and preserved and given away – and of course eaten!

Even the weird shaped vegies go in the pot!

Plenty of potatoes

Tasmanian’s are serious about their potatoes!

Even tho Ruby’s eyesight has almost failed her, she knows her way around well enough to go up into the garden to pick something for lunch and then cook it up. Main meals are in the middle of the day and dinner is usually a sandwich

And oh, can that woman bake a turkey! Yum!! You can float on the aroma from the front gate!

The hothouse is a really important part of Ruby’s garden. She can get her early tomatoes, lettuce and cucumber on the go in here.

Hothouse in full swing – getting a drink

I discovered that in years gone by, she has manually taken out last seasons dirt, and wheelbarrowed in new soil from somewhere else in the garden so it didn’t get too stale! Wow!

This season just gone, Jeff and I got a trailer load of mushroom compost and dug it right in – and didn’t her hothouse go mad! She was pretty proud of the massive crop of early tomatoes that just kept on growing!

I have totally given up on trying to beat her with the first ripe tomato of the season!

Beans & peas of various sorts are a staple here too, so each season we get out the rebar, old clothes horses and anything else handy for climbing vegetables and set it all up. Usually before I can get back, Ruby has it all fertilised and planted!!

Ruby also has a beautiful variety of flowers, flowering trees and shrubs all through her garden. No matter the season, there is usually something pretty to look at that is attracting the bees

16 flowers one — Always something colourful & gorgeous to see

Its a space that gives Ruby an independent lifestyle as much as she can and a reason to get ‘up and doing’ in the morning.

An impressive sized yard for someone of Ruby’s age to manage!

Each week I will try to share a gem from this brilliant tatty old diary-recipe book!

PLUM WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE

This is one of my favourite sauces to come out of Ruby’s cookbook.

She has a beautiful dark plum tree up the back which generally produces a ton of fruit.

new plum — Plum blossoms – the first stage of sauce!

I enjoy using Worcestershire sauce in a lot of my dishes, is an ingredient in my BBQ sauce recipe and it makes home made rissoles/hamburgers fabulous!!

You need a really big pot

3lb dark plums

3lb white sugar

2lb Brown sugar

3 tins of treacle (approx. 850gm tins each)

7 pints vinegar

1/2 lb garlic

1oz white pepper

1oz allspice

1oz whole cloves ( I use ground)

1/4oz cayenne pepper

1/2oz ground ginger

2 tablespoons salt

Put all ingredients into the pot and cook until stone leave the plums.

Strain out stones & skin and reboil for about an hour. Bottle up.

This will last you a LONG time! So its worth the effort.

Once you are done, copy Ruby and have a little rest!

Cheers

Useful Folding

Hello!

Today was more of an organisational day (tomorrow is the day to collect our niece from the airport) so I didn’t make it into the garden!

I did sit and do some more cards in between the few domestic chores and going out to deliver 3 dozen eggs (which takes AGES when its Ruby, Margie & Shirley, because you just HAVE to stop for a chat. I reckon Jeff thought I was lost)

Anyway – When doing little crafty things, you often get lots of scraps that are annoying to pick up – In the case of the cards its all the backings off the double sided tape.

One of the useful things I picked up in Japan was making a small temporary paper bin – from newspaper or junk mail.

My Japanese friends mainly used these in the kitchen where all the food scraps could go into them – and then straight into the compost if you are using newspaper.

I tried to get a series of photos to show you how they are done.

I want to show you how to fold the pretty seed packets soon too, but will get my niece to help video that as the folds are slightly tricky and I think difficult to convey via still images.

I haven’t tried to explain this via photos before so let me know if it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and I will move on to video!

So – grab a sheet of newspaper