Head in the Clouds – Feet in the Dirt
Traipsing through life in NW Tasmania
I think of “Correct Weight” and I immediately think of horse racing – thanks to my Dad who likes a little flutter on the neddies every now and again!
But in this case, we have a zucchini that weighed in at 4.199kgs!
So congratulations Audrey, who put in a guess that was a teeny tiny one gram out of a perfect guess – 4.200!!! Fabulous! Thank-you to those that had a go.
I will find my ‘quirky memento’ to send off! 🙂
Cheers!
A couple of jars of orange peel had been sitting on my kitchen window ledge for a bit too long, and I was down to the last bit of laundry liquid, so thought it would be a good idea to restock on my cleaning products
The citrus cleaner I use is a ridiculously easy process.
So if I am making something that creates a lot of citrus peel, I just bung them in an old coffee jar, cover in vinegar and let them sit and look pretty until I am ready to strain them out –
Then I store the liquid in a clean coffee jar until I need to top up my spray bottle. I use it as an all purpose cleaner – it smells nice and I don’t have to worry about odd chemicals when I am using it in the kitchen.
Vinegar is pretty cheap – you don’t need to use an expensive type, so the whole thing is fairly easy on the wallet (Esp since most surface spray cleaners are around the $5 mark)
Laundry Liquid
I am sure a lot of you who follow homesteading/frugal living blogs are aware of people who make their own laundry liquids or powders, or do so yourselves.
Soon after we moved here I was determined to get in touch with my Happy Hippy Self and try to wind back on the spending and chemicals & rah rah rah… I haven’t started tie-dyeing yet, but I am, little by little, moving away from pre-packaged stuff and being a little more self sufficient.
With just a tiny little bit more effort, you can save a bundle.
This is how I make my laundry liquid. The basic ingredients have lasted an eon. In fact – today I used the last of the Lux flakes, from the first box I bought over 4 years ago!!
I have had to replace the washing soda and borax once each.
I did a costing on it ages ago and worked out it was costing me less than $2 to make 10 litres!! A high end laundry liquid here can cost $10/litre. Dunno about any one else, but I am way keen to be spending that spare $98 on something more exciting than laundry liquid!
You need a bucket that has a bit over a 10 litre capacity & a bunch of bottles – preferably with handles.
1 cup Lux (soap) flakes
1/2 cup Lectric Soda (Washing soda)
1/2 cup Borax
Half grated bar Velvet soap (or a pure washing soap)
10 litres water
Optional oil for making it smell pretty (I love using Eucalyptus oil)
Put all your dry ingredients into a pot, along with a litre of the water and bring to boil
Let all ingredients melt and boil well (it will boil over if you don’t keep and eye on it!)
Pour into bucket and add the remaining 9 litres of water – keep stirring it up
Add your oil of choice
Pour into your bottles, leaving a good amount of ‘shake space’ as the mixture will separate after sitting for a while.
It works fine (I occasionally use normal stain remover – we do live on red dirt after all…) Just add a 1/4 cup to your wash. Its half an hour out of my life well spent. 🙂
Enjoy what’s left of your weekends!
Cheers
Both Jeff and I have managed to catch colds (My first one since moving to Tassie) so I am not rushing around like a maniac.
Still… I started a bit of a vegie patch clean up and am still picking a reasonable amount of food. The chillies recently picked have been deseeded and added to the others in the freezer, and will be made into sweet chilli sauce at a later date.
More apples got put into the dehydrator and the pantry smells good right now!!
The zucchinis are a far cry, size wise, from my other ones, but they still go into dinners and give us a feed! (BTW I will announce the closest guess to the weight of the ‘big’ zucchini at the end of the weekend – one person is really close! 🙂 )
I picked enough silverbeet seeds to last forever and ever –
I will leave it to dry a bit more before taking it off the stems
I am also pleased to see a number of the laterals that I picked last week are showing roots. Hopefully I can ‘winter’ a few of these successfully
I have been running lots of jobs, projects & outings in my mind for the next month to get into as in a couple of days I have my gorgeous niece, Emma coming to stay for 10 days, and a lovely Japanese young lady, Mana, who will stay with us a month and help me out in exchange for food & board
It will be great fun to have a couple of sidekicks here with me. I reckon I can convince them to help fill the car with driftwood from Black River Beach while Jeff is sleeping off a nightshift! 🙂
Emma has been to Japan a few times (very lucky for a young teenager!) and Mana has lived in Australia before, so it will be fun for them both to meet and improve on their language skills!
Tomato-Zucchini Bake
Anyway – I will leave you with a side dish I love making up while the tomatoes & zucchinis are on form. Its a bit of a twist on the stuffed tomatoes. I have a lot of cherry tomatoes this season rather than the bigger ones that I make the stuffed tomatoes with.
First, get a baking dish and grate a good later of zucchini into it
Then layer with thick slices of tomato and thin slices of onion
Make some breadcrumbs, and mix some extra tomatoes up in the Gee Whizzer – I like to add some herbs and garlic salt too –
Mix the two together –
Crumble on top and add a bit of butter and chuck it in the oven for about 20 minutes 🙂
Its really easy and makes a fabulous side dish. You can add whatever else takes your fancy – I have put cheese in it, or added fresh basil on top!
Enjoy your weekends!
I first travelled to Japan when I was 19. I somehow wrangled a job as a golf caddy in a country I knew nothing about and spoke zip of the language (and I knew less about golf, but hey – when you are 19 you can do anything right??)
My 6 month trip turned into a year, and over the course of the next decade I spent about 3 years of my life living and working in beautiful Japan.
I thought I would use my “Friday’s Footprints” on occasion to share with you some of the places and people I love.
Japan is a really amazing place to visit. It is well set up for tourists, not as expensive as you might have heard, easy to get around, the food is awesome and the people who live there are delightful.
Arashiyama is a small town on the western outskirts of Kyoto. The name literally translates into “Storm Mountain”
Our friends, Mari & Koichi, with their daughter Moe live here, and I have been lucky enough to visit it on numerous occasions in its various seasons
I met Mari and Koichi by chance as I caddied for them during the early stages of my first trip. Mari spoke English well and we became friends forever-after! (Despite my terrible caddying skills!)
Arashiyama is a beautiful place to visit, especially during cherry blossom season or when the leaves change in autumn.
It is especially famed for its beautiful bamboo grove and at peak times tourists flock in their thousands! (Best to try to avoid – a quiet day is incredibly peaceful in the green!)
The main temple, Tenryu-ji is right near the heart of the town and is well worth a look
You can cross the famous Moon Crossing Bridge, Togetsukyo – a landmark of the area for over 400 years! A tradition when children reach certain ages, is to receive a blessing from the temple on the other side, then walk back along the bridge without glancing back, or bad luck will ensue!
Up in the mountains on the other side of the bridge, you can visit the monkeys at Kameyama Park. The animals are not caged, but rather, people can go into a building and be the caged ones looking out if they don’t feel comfortable among the local residents!
Every time we visit, we go to this little restaurant by the river
The thing is you have to grab a stray boat and paddle over to it!
It totally adds to the uniqueness of the area
Crazy fish lunch
Arashiyama is filled with beautiful pathways
Stunning colours are everywhere in November
Every outing is an adventure – you never know what you might see
The town seems full of artisans –
We met Bruce, who has this amazing shop full of his designer pencil cases!
He has created so many beautiful designs, the whole shop is a work of art.
The town is beautifully free of department stores, McDonalds & such, but has quirky interesting shops – yes its tourist driven in a lot of ways, but it has the charm of a small town – and it is fabulously fun to browse!
Quite often we will wrap up a stay with a BBQ in the front drive of our friends house, often joined by neighbours or other friends. The atmosphere is one of fun, with awesome food and a whole lot of laughs!
I hope you have enjoyed a small glimpse into “my” Japan
Cheers
After spending a long time in town this afternoon, this ended up being my lunch Рwhich was so late it might as well be relabelled as a dinner entr̩e! (Mind you we did a repeat performance of the pumpkin soup tonight, as requested by Jeff who clearly really enjoyed it! Yay me!)
I needed some photos printed. I took delivery of some blank cards & envelopes the other day, as now that I have a nice collection of local images, I had the grand idea to make some cards to add to my market stall
I miss film and proper photographic labs. I really do!
Back in my former life I owned a shop that (in part) developed and printed film. Of course, as digital slowly crept in and film slithered out, the industry changed and people either weren’t printing photos or were expecting super cheap jobs. (Due to some of the bigger chains installing labs and retailing their printing at under the price of what it cost for normal labs to produce a print.) We eventually closed the lab side of things and readjusted.
So, the consequence with digital and people not printing like they used to is the loss of labs with people that know what they are doing when it comes to your printing. I have to drive about 25-30 minutes to take my files to Harvey Norman which is a furniture, computer, homewares shop that happen to do printing as well. Its all booths to DIY and regardless of what you do at home to your files, their system is different and their screens show different again to the final print. There is no person who knows what they are doing attending to the fine tuning of your images.
So instead of this –
I get this –
So honestly I don’t think I got very far today. I plan to call my old lab in Canberra tomorrow to talk to them about sending them my files. At least I know when they are being printed, someone is casting a knowledgeable eye over the process.
I did manage to print some details on the cards and a number of the images will be usable
I found some excellent packs of glassine bags locally to pack the final product in too!
I guess I am quite picky when it comes to the quality of my photographs – (haha – says she while posting photos taken tonight under revolting light!!) I don’t mind paying more to get a better job done, but unless I send away to professional labs, there is no choice in this area. Home printing is out – Paper and inks are very expensive and the life of the print compared to true photographic paper (that has to go through a wet chemical process) just doesn’t compare.
Anyway – its a little challenge to get it fine tuned and looking good… then the real test will be if people actually buy them! 🙂
I’ll leave you with a few of the images that I plan to use on my first lot of cards!
Cheers!
Time to get cracking on all those tomatoes! I needed some smaller packs in the freezer that I can pull out and use for dinner every now and again. I did a few containers of plain tomato. Then I also made up a nice big pot of tomatoes, onion, garlic, capsicum & fresh herbs – a nice ready made mix for pasta sauces.
And then in a total fit of organisation that my mother would be proud of, I even labelled and dated the containers!
Onward!
I have been wanting to make up a batch of my Nanna’s cucumber relish. I even went and bought some celery seeds from the health food shop in anticipation of getting my act (and cucumbers) together
Procrastination set in and I have been carrying around this suspicious looking bag in my purse for 3 weeks. I am sure cashiers have raised their eyebrows once or twice as I have opened it up!!
Happily the recipe also calls for apples – another 5 apples put to good use!
First Ingredients:
1&1/2 lb cucumber peeled & chopped
1 lb green apples peeled and chopped
1 lb onion chopped
1/2 lb sugar
1/2lb white vinegar
1 small tablespoon salt
Cook all until tender
Second Ingredients:
1/2 tablespoon curry powder
1/2 tablespoon mustard powder
1/2 tablespoon turmeric
1 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 cup flour (I use cornflour to keep gluten free)
Mix all with a little more vinegar into a paste and add to relish, cook to thicken, keep stirring.
Spoon into sterilised jars
Yum. Another nice old fashioned recipe that I hadn’t made in a while.
Last on my list today was to make up a pumpkin soup. I had been eyeing off my little stash of pumpkins and thinking about soup!
So I baked a few pieces –
I fried up some onion and garlic, then added a litre of chicken stock and a couple of potatoes along with the baked pumpkin (sans skin of course)
Once the potato was soft, I whizzed it all up into creaminess and was pretty much done! I usually love adding coconut cream or coconut milk to pumpkin soup, but my taste test on this was pretty good so I thought I would leave it as is tonight!
So I am all kitchened out today. If the weather is kind, I will have to get outside tomorrow to play!
Its only 7 degrees C out there tonight (44F) and we indulged in a fire again tonight. During the day it was on and off again warm and cool, along with sun and rain! Typical “can’t make up my mind” weather for this place! 🙂
Have a great day!
Cheers
I really enjoy sitting down with Ruby & a cuppa and listening to stories of years gone by. Funny, happy, & sad tales and very different to the lives we live now.
I dropped in this afternoon (bang on afternoon tea time when the sponge cake was ready for eating!! – more on that later) and asked about her cow.
Ruby and her first husband Bill bought the 2 acre property that had a small dwelling and built up the house that is there now. When they showed it to her Dad, he was very keen that they should run a cow. Ruby and Bill didn’t have the money to buy a cow as they had spent all their money acquiring the land.
So her Dad gave them a cow – a big Durham. It was really too big for what they needed and the property size, so one of the neighbours swapped her for a nice little jersey heifer.
It was 2 years before she was able to be milked. Ruby said she did the milking as the jersey was small, and Bills hands were too big to effectively milk her so that was Ruby’s job.
They had a separator and a butter churn. The milkman came by about three times a week and collected the cream – and the cream cheque was enough to cover the grocery bill!! Ruby said she made butter about once a week from the cream or when necessary.
The best story that was related to the cow, was when Ruby was pregnant with her daughter, Margaret. She was having contractions and reckoned she was at about the second stage, so she thought she had time to milk the cow before trotting off to the hospital. She made Bill bring in the cow… but ended up pushing him out of the way as he wasn’t doing it right and speed-milked the cow! She told me “I don’t know how well she got milked that night, but she got milked!!”
Contractions getting stronger, so off they go to WALK to the hospital!!! This is at about 5pm. Spied by a neighbour they were asked if they were out for their evening stroll. Bill was a bit agitated by this time “No!!” he says they were “off to the hospital to have the baby, so bring the car around quick!!” Ruby on the other hand was quite determined not to make a fuss and walk. She lost that argument and was put in the car.
By 8pm she had a baby girl!!
Can you imagine?? Milking the cow at 5pm and walking off to the hospital to have a baby by 8!
Things are a little different today.
Ruby’s Recipes.
Each week I will try to share a gem from this brilliant tatty old diary-recipe book!
SPONGE CAKE RECIPE – Ruby’s Special
So I stroll in as the kettle is boiling and the first sponge cake is ready for testing!
In her heyday, Ruby would make a lot of these whenever the church had a fete.
This is the current recipe she is using.
INGREDIENTS:
3 eggs (room temperature)
1 small cup sugar
2 tablespoons cold water
Vanilla essence
3/4 cup of self raising flour
1/4 cup cornflour
tiny pinch salt
METHOD:
Separate the eggs & beat the whites until fluffy in bowl
Gradually add sugar and beat again until sugar is melted
Add yolks and beat again with the cold water and vanilla essence
Fold in dry ingredients
Place in two (pre prepared) greased & floured round tins, 7″ diameter or equiv.
Cook at 400F (200C) approx. 20 minutes.
Today Ruby and Margie experimented with coffee, which was added to the water. It made a lovely cake, but plan to make it more ‘coffee flavoured’ next time rather than todays ‘Hint of Coffee’ (todays had a teaspoon of instant)
Hope you have enjoyed a little glimpse into Ruby’s past.
Cheers
PS Don’t forget there is still time to “Guess the weight of the zucchini” in yesterdays Sloth Post. I am enjoying the messages and guesses so far! 🙂
Its a rare thing to actively plan to do nothing! I found myself thinking of all the things to do tomorrow that I was trying not to do today!
Really it was about moseying along and doing what took my fancy (And staying in my pjs for as long as possible)
I did eventually get outside and enjoyed picking what was ready in the garden
I went into town and stocked up on a few containers as I plan to partly cook and freeze the tomatoes into smaller packs, convenient dinner sized, rather than the 6lb packs that I have frozen for relish and sauce batches!
I have a rogue jam melon plant or two growing a bit late in the season around the rose bushes… I was wondering if they would ripen in time before the weather turned. I have noticed they are expanding quite quickly
This was one week ago –
This was today –
Jam melons are funny things. I had never come across them until moving here. Seem an old fashioned fruit. They are not edible like rock melons or watermelons, but are cooked into jams. I haven’t had them for a couple of seasons, and not sure how the seeds ended up growing where they are!
I don’t mind the little garden mysteries! Like how this snap dragon appeared –
I had never planted them deliberately… but they popped up a couple of seasons ago, then disappeared. Nice to see at least one back!
OK – here is a little challenge for you, if you care to participate!
Guess the zucchini weight. I will send a small mystery prize to the person who gets closest. (Don’t get over-excited, it’ll probably be something quirky) 😀
In Kg/grams (google will be your friend here if you are used to imperial measurements.)
For example “1.436kgs” The clue is that it is more than 1.000kg and less than 10.000kgs 😀
Leave a reply in the comments section.
MARCH GROCERY ROUNDUP
I didn’t make my goal of bringing in more than spending at the supermarket, but still didn’t do too badly. There were some larger bulk purchases (like lamb for the Spoiled Siamese that was on sale) and I didn’t get to the market yesterday as it clashed with guests – not that that bothers me. I am way happier to be spending time with friends than getting up at Stupid O’clock to set up a stall in the cold! 🙂
Anyway – totals
Supermarket spending for March            – $331.93
Incoming from garden/chooks & jams    – $226.40
I can live with that! (But I still want to do better!)
Now I am just rounding off my day munching on a bit of sponge cake that Ruby made for me, with a cat on my lap and a fire crackling away keeping me cosy!
Cheers!
PS It was pretty cool out there today. I haven’t set up my outside thermometer so I can check the temps during the day – but I will get on to that. Daylight savings has now ended here so suddenly it seems to be dark before I am ready!
Right now it is 8.8C (47.8F) and apparently the local area reached 19C (66.2F) today. The small breeze was quite chilly I thought! Makes me wonder how long I will keep getting tomatoes ripening.
PSS Just as I was proof-reading the above, I could hear some loud thunking about on the back veranda. Heavy enough to sound like a person out there!
The offender was this little fellow –
A ring tailed possum! I haven’t seen one around here for ages – they are usually all brush tailed possums!
Didn’t mind me much at all
I think they are sweet!
We had the luck of being able to catch up with long time family friends today! Helen & Geoff have been on a cruise, which stops off at Burnie for a day!
So with our house all scrubbed and shiny, and lawns mowed, we were able to show them our little patch of Tassie for the first time.
And as you can see – The north-west put on some rather lovely weather!
We enjoyed a little fossick at Fossil Bluff before coming home to indulge in tea & banana/raspberry loaf, garden tours and lunch!
Of course, since making her famous, a must do on guests lists, is a visit to meet and enjoy a cuppa with Ruby! Time was scarce, but we dropped in, and it was so gorgeous as she had the good china out, so we were all posh and drank in style (accompanied by a fabulous Ruby-Made sponge cake!)
So just a short post tonight, although I will add the recipe for the Banana/Raspberry Loaf just in case someone needs it! 🙂
Tomorrow I have scheduled a day of nothing for myself!! I have been working on this idea for a while 🙂 Not sure how I will spend my day of leisurely idleness, but I am looking forward to it!
Hope you have had a lovely day.
Cheers
Basic Banana Bread:
Ingredients:
125g butter softened
1 cup (175g) brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups mashed banana (although I use 1&1/2 and it is a little less heavy)
1&3/4 cups plain (All purpose) flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder, sifted
1 teaspoon bicarb soda, sifted
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup golden syrup
Method:
Preheat oven to 160C (325F)
Place butter, sugar, vanilla in mixer and beat until pale and creamy
Add eggs, beat well to combine
Add the rest of ingredients and stir to combine
At this point I mix in a cup of frozen raspberries (some whole some a bit crushed)
Spoon into loaf tin (approx. 26 X 11cm) lightly greased and lined with baking paper
Recipe says bake for an hour, but mine seem to take 1.5 hours or even a little longer.
I prefer it cooled, and spread with butter to eat.
In fact… I am going to indulge in some now!
So – who is like me, happily bopping along in their little world when suddenly you realise that your guests are arriving tomorrow and not the day after, and have a major panic because you’ve spent the last couple of weeks pretending that you are allergic to most forms of housework? Please tell me there is at least one person out there that does this!
Eep, and double eep! 😀
I suppose that’s why at 10 something pm I am just pulling a banana/raspberry loaf out of the oven as one of my last things on todays extensive ‘to do’ list.
My housework stories are not blogable. Boring! 🙂
I did escape outside for a bit to inspect Jeff’s lawn manicuring job (it looks spiffy out there) and to play the ‘inside – outside’ game with the clothes and the rain.
Also did a quick round of the garden, (ate a tomato mmm) and checked out my broccolini –
While they are not looking as fabulous as Ruby’s they are at least sitting up now!
And check this out!! –
Not weeds but about 1,000 more self seeded broccolini plants. Oopsie. Probably never going to get rid of them! They are pretty keen!! Maybe I will be able to sell a few at the market next time…
I thought my cucumber was about done, but when I checked out things in the hothouse I could see a number of new ones in various stages of growth! I wish I had counted how many it has produced this season! Its done incredibly well.
Still got some heirloom capsicums ripening –
But my main outside plot of tomatoes is looking a bit woebegone!
And the plant nurturing my oversized zucchini had pretty much had the gong, so I picked it! I think its heavier than the cat! No idea what I am going to do with it, other than make people look at it! 🙂
I tried to get Pip to pose with it – but I got that look again!
Well – The last lot of dishes are waiting for me and I am ready to fall into bed!
Hope you have had a great day
Cheers
PS It was one of those off and on again rainy/sunny days and the wind was quite fierce!! We got up to around 18C – (64F) it was lovely in the sun when the wind dropped. Right now, we are down to 9C (48F) and we are indulging in a fire!