February 2018 – Page 2 – Head in the Clouds

Timeline

Hi there!
Sorry for the none appearance in the last couple of days. I seem to be getting out of whack with everything!
We did get out for a walk – as you can see from the above photo. I thought it would be a great idea to take my new boots for a test run (hike).
And… because I am an idiot, I thought the very best idea was to just put them on and do a two hour hike over Anniversary Bay instead of taking them to the supermarket… or down to visit the chickens… or a lap around the kitchen.
Oh yeah… didn’t take bandaids either.
You can work the results out for yourselves! haha

At least we remembered the fly veils… the flies have been really sticky lately.

OK… so, yesterday the weather kicked up a fuss and we woke to howling wind, rain, a drop in temperature and no power for over 10 hours.
Yay.

My most recent corn patch was being flattened, so between rain squalls, I set up the netting over the patch just to give it a little bit more of a wind break

Today I got back onto the relish that I started the other day – since the power seemed to be staying on. So nice to have a full batch again ready to scoff into!

Oh and check out the mealworm gang!! I have lots that have turned into pupae!! I still don’t know exactly what I am doing yet, but so far so good:

They wriggle a bit when you poke them

Then, every now and again I pinch off a cos lettuce flower bud and empty out the seeds. Not something I could sit and do in one hit… so many and so little and fiddly. So just a few here and there every now and again and I should end up with a nice collection of seeds.

So … Timeline?
Wanna hear whats on the go? (Feel free to skip to tomato photo at the end!!!)

This weekend we are taking on a boarder. My cousins girlfriend needed a place to move to, so we thought we would put up our hand. We have thought about renting a room for ages, but… procrastination set in and also working out how to get someone that is not an axe murderer. (And who loved Pip)
We cleared out her room of our ‘stuff’ dusted, pulled out furniture, vacuumed, mopped, removed spiderwebs etc etc. Its about done and hopefully comfy.

In 10 days three Japanese boys arrive and stay for about three weeks although we are working out how to get them over to my friend in Melbourne (Rachel) for a few days as well and the cheapest options for them to do it. (The Bass Straight can be an expensive bit of water!)
Room upstairs is about half ready. Lots of ideas in my head on where to take them and things to do! (and cook!)

Pretty much the day the boys fly out, my business partner and his wife from my Canberra business are coming to stay for a week!! Can’t wait to see them as they haven’t seen our place in Tasmania yet!

The day they are planning on leaving is the day Jeff heads off on his Overland Trek.

Today I got a message from another Japanese friend to say her daughter and cousin are coming to visit in April.
9th – 22nd and want to also squeeze in a visit to Rachel in Melbourne/Ballarat and my sister Rosemary in Brisbane.
Mind you… on the 14th April is when Fiona and I head off on our Overland hike!!

I think that is about it without the obvious inclusions of the normal things to be done in the garden/kitchen etc etc.
Not scared.
Time to install that revolving door??

I am really looking forward to seeing everyone and playing tour guide.
Never a dull moment! But I will be a happier person once I get the housework under control!

Hope everyone is having a splendid week!
Cheers!

Almost a Day in my Nightie.

So… I actively planned to do nothing today.
I really tried to sloth.
Eventually I got the guilts and (still in my nightie) chopped up the tomato and onion to make some relish!
I cried a lot. (onions, not because I failed to sloth)

I’ll probably cook it up tomorrow.

I did get out of my nightie before wandering about the yard. Saves explaining myself when I get caught by people dropping in! (I did replace the nightie with outside clothes otherwise the explaining might have had to be more creative)

Compared to last years pathetic attempt at pumpkins, this season is going fabulously well! I think I have at least 5 of this type of pumpkin growing happily. I have heaps of the smaller butternuts growing beautifully too!

Did I mention I finally pickled some beetroot the other day? Have been scoffing it ever since.

The potatoes are slowly dying off. I am hoping they will be ready to dig up completely while the three Japanese boys are here. They might enjoy the process!

Dodgy photo but this patch is my second round of sunflowers! While I was in the garden I did some random weeding around the place – just because I could! Every bit helps right?

This discovery made me laugh. I finally have my first watermelon!!!!
What a pip-squeak!

Another haul of apple cucumber, a few beans, tomatoes and some corn for dinner!

Well… that was my day.
I have plans to be more exciting tomorrow!

Cheers

Slow Sunday!!

Hi there!
Last night I baked a tea cake as my cousin and his girlfriend were popping in to see me today. I thought baking a cake would be civilised! 🙂

It turned out pretty well… and there is none left! Good sign I guess! Jeff took the last bit to work with him.

I squeezed in a little house painting – I had to wash it down first. Hot day again so it dried quickly and was able to get the first coat on in short order. The weatherboards here are a bit dodgier than the other areas… Still, its has come up ok so far.

I went down and collected my lettuce seeds. They are now sitting in a box in the sunroom drying.

Not too much else to share today!
Nice to have a slower Sunday!

Cheers

Rain!

Would you look at that! A lovely afternoon of decent soaking rain!
The garden was loving it. I think its great the leaves on a lot of the plants sit up like cups when it rains!

It made a lovely change. I let it get on with it and stayed mostly inside and continued my domestic bliss.
Apart from decluttering and vacuuming, I managed to bake bread and a cake.
Nothing earth shattering tho 🙂

Hope your weekend has started well!
Cheers!

More Painting, More Weeding

Nice and grubby today! I am trying to encourage myself to get at least an hour of weeding done per day. That’s got to help doesn’t it?

We did get a bit further on the tall front part of the house

Jeff wobbled about on the extension ladder and I did some second coats of the lower half.

Meanwhile – I started with this:

And ended up with this:

The parsley has self seeded ferociously!!

I also managed to put together a little plot of celery by relocating some self seeded plants

My dodgy bit of plastic worked… now to get some more convenient sized stuff to work with over the pathways in the garden to kill some more weeds!

The accidental potatoes in the failed broccoli patch are enormous!! I have never seen plants like it! They are huge and spilling over the side. I dug about and found some really good sized spuds in there too! I need this plot back soon but don’t have the heart to uproot them until they are ready. Hoping for a lot of potatoes from them

The newer patches of lettuce and beetroot are going beautifully!

Gave everything a good drink today. Its just so incredibly dry and hot! Not used to that anymore. So glad we have the bore!

The last day of the challenge is today (when I say last day I mean last album to be posted and then follows ten more days of annoying people to get their last images in and vote haha.)
Anyway, subject was twisty… had a nice time sitting down and photographing the tendrils from the adventurous pumpkin plants!

Have a great weekend everyone!
Cheers!

Out With the Old – In With the New

So – these poor old much abused boots have just about had it. While I am happy to keep gluing them up and throwing them some polish once in a while, there is not much I can do about the tread.
AND – I am now booked in to do the Overland Track again mid April so I thought the smartest thing to do would be to treat my feet to new boots!

Doing the good wifey thing and spending Jeff’s paycheck.
I do get my money’s worth out of these though and they can hack a lot! I feel the walking will be a bit easier with more grip and a bit more sponginess – the inner sole was pretty cactus too in the old ones.

Well… thats my shoe shopping done for another 2-3 years!

Anyway – Mega excited about tackling the Overland again. Jeff is going on his own later in March while I look after Pip, the chooks and the garden.
Then Mid April its his turn to babysit while I trot off with Fiona for our jaunt! Fiona has never done it before so I am really looking forward to sharing it with her. Plus she goes at my pace!! (Not rushed… lots of rests on those uphills!!)
We booked now as on our starting date (14th) there were very few places left. They limit the amount of people starting each day.

If you didn’t catch the stories of last March’s Overland hike – there is a category for it you can take a peek if its of interest to you!

Thats all from me tonight!
Roll on Friday!

Cheers

Cloudy night…

Just Working

Jobs that take on a life of their own.
We got the second coat on the front today which was great – and a lot more quickly done as Jeff didn’t need the extension ladder like I did to reach the top!
We then started eyeing off the boards that were all beginning to warp upwards.
Meh- why not? Grabbed the crowbars and other useful tools and started prying them up.

Under that layer of dirt and debris, there was a nice big concrete slab.
The timber pieces laying on top that were bolted into the cement and used to nail the veranda boards onto were completely rotting away.

We now have a mini renovation job at the corner where the slab ends (Leaving a dip and a hole) as well as making the cement slab even and prettier!
The veranda boards are actually in quite good condition – just grotty and in need of cleaning and staining. We removed all the nails which took a while, but they are all stacked and ready to be used… not sure where, but we will think of something!

We also did our tip trip today to get rid of about 3 months of rubbish. Mostly household stuff with a bit of stuff around the yard that really was past its used by date. Not photo worthy, but great to start fresh with empty bins again.

Looking forward to pickling these beauties and adding them into my salads!

Found another couple of ears of corn ready today – they are already in our tummies and much enjoyed!
Lots of home grown on the plate tonight… not least our fav. summer side dish, the stuffed tomatoes!

Hope your day was just as delicious!!

Cheers

Not Sure What I Did Today

“Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well”

Tomorrows subject in the photo challenge is ‘Bones’ Thought I would make use of this cat skull that our chickens managed to dig up a while back!!
And of course there is the star performer, Pip. Who was not at all interested in skulls until Jeff put a few bikkies up there!!

I did this and that today. Not blog-worthy.
A bit of sorting/organising (not a lot really) as in less than three weeks we have three Japanese fellows coming to stay for a few weeks.
(It’s ok… I have a list haha)

I called Fiona and we went for an afternoon hike – Beau came along too.
Boy, was it ever hot out there tackling those hills! And the flies were dead annoying.
Still… I am sure it took care of some of the excessive potatoes I have been scoffing!

The Banksia are out and look so good!

Was a bit of fun mucking about on the beach… Fiona has a new camera and is off to New Zealand in a few days so have given a few (hopefully useful) tips on using it.

Tomorrow going to have to knuckle down again and get some more things crossed off my list. (A list that sadly seems to get longer not shorter!!!??)

Cheers!

Zucchini Slice Recipe

Hello! Hope Monday wasn’t/isn’t too tragic for everyone!
Well… that’s the photo I was working on yesterday. Hopefully some of you will recognise what I was trying to do.
For those who don’t know – its a wartime propaganda poster (well, my copy of. I am not quite as glamorous as the original Rosie the Riveter though!!)

Anyway… I like my new hair bandanna so I wore it today as I spring cleaned the sunroom… here is the appalling before photo (I am such a clutterer)

Too easy for me to just drop things when I am busy and in a hurry!
Anyway, its all cleared out, vacuumed, mopped and de-spidered. I don’t like sprays, but sometimes we go for a surface spray to keep them from taking over.

I spent some quality time with Merv, Kevin, Annabelle, Daisy, Gertrude, Bob and the rest of the gang in Mealworm City (ie I cleaned their box out)

They are active and happy, so I must be doing something right.

Latest beret… I lashed out on some fancy yarn. I undid half of it as the thicker wool was making it huge. Now its more kid sized. Fits on my head but not as well as the other ones.
Its pretty tho.

I had a lovely time in the garden digging potatoes. I love doing that so much! I got a good amount in one go so I can leave them alone to grow for a while longer. I ate some of these tonight.

Then more apple cucumbers, a big zucchini and a few more tomatoes!

There was a bit of discussion about what a zucchini slice was yesterday!! I didn’t realise that everyone in the world who ever grew zucchinis didn’t have this as their ‘go to’ recipe!! 😀
Anyway, its half loaf, half omlette:

This was before I cooked it. Its quite flat.. an inch or so high.

Ingredients:

375g (14oz) grated zucchini (pffft… who measures? Just keep grating)

1 large onion finely chopped

1 large carrot grated

1 cup grated cheese

3 rashers of bacon chopped

1 cup self raising flour

1/2 cup oil

5 eggs salt/pepper

Method

Combine vegetables, bacon and cheese

Add flour – stir through with some salt & pepper

Whisk oil and eggs then add to the mixture

Pour into a baking tray (well greased or lined with baking paper)

Bake at 180C (350F) until golden brown (30-40 minutes)

Serve with some fresh garden salad and enjoy!

You can add other things if you like (sun dried tomatoes??) Its pretty versatile.

Have a great day!
Cheers!

(A goodnight show!)

Busy Day

Hello! How was the weekend?
I wrote up an ambitious ‘to do’ list for today and got through everything except cutting up those chillis!

Firstly was to finish the first coat at the front of the house.
Tick. I needed both ladders to do this. (Jeff sleeping today) So I wasn’t super fast, but it didn’t take as long as I thought it might.

I followed that job up by bagging up the rest of the mushroom compost out of the trailer. We need to make a trip to the tip soon so it will be handy to have the trailer empty!

Make part one of the next batch of ice cream (tick) (Yes the recipe requires eggs)

Make Pesto! Tick!

On a side note, I finally got some roots happening with the basil cuttings!

Prepare ingredients for tonights zucchini slice dinner (another tick)
Step one.. go pick some carrots and whatever else is out there…

Step two… chop and grate

I moved the sprinklers all over the place today to give some of the dry areas a good soaking. The ground is cracking!!
I also spent some time getting my challenge photo for the subject of ‘recreating art’ and I think I like the result… but will post tomorrow as its not due in the challenge until the day after tomorrow.
THEN it was a speedy trip to Ruby’s to plant some lettuce before coming home to cook my zucchini slice.

I like getting lots of things crossed off a list!

Cheers!

PS anyone else having issues with getting/not getting the blog post emailed to them? Suddenly wordpress doesn’t want to send me my own posts!! I can’t figure out why but to be honest I have spent very little time trying to problem solve this one 🙂