Month: July 2019

Hello!
I have been doing mostly unblogworthy things… getting ready to head out on Friday.
I actually got most of my bag packed. I’ve got more veggies and sauces than clothes I think! haha
I’ve not gone out to take photos as I don’t have much spare time to spend in photoshop

I dashed into town today to get a B12 boost, pick up some supermarket things, wheat for the chooks and dropped in to see Margie and Ruby. Nice to catch up with Ruby as I’ve been terrible about getting over there recently!
She is all cheerful but says she can’t believe how good she’s become at sitting back and resting. She does change chairs a lot though, just to mix things up haha.
We’ll have to make sure we’ve got a spot ready to plant her Christmas peas when I return.

Yesterday I went back out to Sharons to do another soap workshop (addicted much?) It was really good to go back. She only had one other lady booked in yesterday so it was nice to join in. (Plus Sharon puts on a fab lunch!!)
I fine tuned a bit of my technique and tested out her white colouring to get the base colour a bit less yellow. Going to look forward to doing more batches with white.
She also changed the recipe a bit (addition of a little coconut oil) which helped the mixture go to trace a lot faster (thicken)

I popped a post up on our community facebook noticeboard asking if there were any beginner gardeners out there that would be interested in a ‘how to start a garden’ workshop.
The short answer is yes. Lots. Haha – So… I know how I will be spending my flying times – writing up notes and ideas on how to go about it!!

I have a bit of a list to work through tomorrow to finish getting organised.
The weather is still fairly dismal. Everything is still squishy underfoot!
If I am super amazing I might get a real post up tomorrow… if not, you won’t see me stroll back until after the 4th August!
I am sure I will have one or two photos and a few stories for you by then!

Hope you are all doing well!
Cheers!

The many resting poses of Pip!
Hello! How has your weekend started? Well I hope.
I am working through a list of things to do before next Friday.
I am booked to fly up to Brisbane to visit my sister, Rosemary and niece Emma. Really looking forward to it and hope to enjoy weather that’s not quite as dismal for a short time!

As well as putting some frozen dishes aside for Jeff, I’ve made up some ‘worm spring rolls’ haha
Some scraps whizzed up.

Spooned into loo rolls…

Mmmmm-mmm. Looking mega delish hey?
Pretty sure Jeff won’t mistake them for his meals. I am guessing the toilet rolls are a solid hint that they are not for him.
I put two in the worm farm and froze the rest. That way if they need a feed while I am gone he just has to grab another couple out. Easy.

Little hothouse winter potato looking healthy!

A pademelon wandered in the front gate yesterday and proceeded to eat the lawn. It ended up around the back so I threw it some apple scraps!
It seemed pleased!

Last night I unmoulded the latest loaf of soap… it wasn’t cutting smoothly so I waited until today to finish slicing.

This one is a vanilla/rosewood fragrance. Quite soft.
Again the pattern was nothing like I was aiming for but its so much fun cutting the loaf soaps to see what you get.

What didn’t fit in the loaf mould, got put into the mould with the Celtic design… it came out beautifully. Totally got the hang of these moulds

So…. that was my Saturday! How was yours??
Pips was pretty relaxed too!
Cheers!

Sitting at home minding my own business and a local friend messaged me with a photo of her newspaper! haha
Front page no less!!
Want to see my concerned grumpy citizen face??

I hope you are laughing a little bit too as I think I was probably about to laugh while trying to look mad.
Honestly… I AM mad inside about the mess.
But maybe more attention will garner a bit of support and action.

Sadly, our local Mayor’s response wasn’t encouraging. You can read it here, if interested.
Sustainable Timbers is state government which is the area where the issue is. However, its our community members that are responsible for the issue and I think council should at least have a conversation how to manage local issues like this.
I think I was annoyed by the statement:

“…the problem had been going on for years, and that it came down to a problem in people’s attitudes.

“Nothing will stop what they’re doing,” he said.”

So, tsk tsk, its terrible, aren’t people awful, but shrug, nothing is going to work and its not our responsibility anyway.
That kind of defeatist attitude doesn’t endear me to people.
I hope eventually Sustainable Timbers has something more positive to say about what we can do.

So – there you go.
Me at the heart of local issues!
Have an awesome weekend!!
Cheers!

Hi!
I spent a couple of hours today with a reporter and photographer from the local newspaper.
The reporter, Meg, messaged me via facebook as I had put up a post on the local community noticeboard about the insane illegal rubbish dumping up around Oldina. She wanted to know if I could meet and chat and show her some of the sites.

Its a far cry from my usual Tasmanian photos isn’t it? How depressing is this?
I was able to easily find a few places that we could reach by road and not muddy hiking – and they were really surprised by how much stuff we found in a short time and area.
Not just household rubbish, but builders rubbish – cement, bricks, tin, timber & what we think is asbestos.
Oh and a few farmers getting in on the act with several cow carcasses as well.

I told Jeff I wasn’t going to stand around in photos with an ‘angry concerned citizens’ look on my face.
Sigh. Guess what? Thats exactly what I ended up doing. I am going to look so stupid haha. I don’t do ‘serious grumpy face’ well. I told the photographer that smiling was my default state of being and he was now under pressure not to make me look theatrically ridiculous!
Poor guy – I couldn’t keep up the serious for long so he is going to have some weird faces that I pulled trying not to laugh to delete.

I did my bit and brought some rubbish home (I am sure I will find a use in the garden for this…)

So… what next?
Market guy turned up with my garden beds that he custom made to size for me.

Not bad for $100 delivered hey? So awesome.
I wanted them down the side of the fence here… but this suspiciously looks like there might be some more digging in order.
Will give that a few coats of thought first!!

I swapped out the coffee bins today.
I gave a few handfuls to the worms

And dumped the rest into the new raised beds.

Its been raining so I imagine it will be washed down into the cracks.

Winter eggs are so manky!! Erk

Some of the new snow peas in the hothouse are going nicely…. others looked a bit chewed. I did find and eliminate a couple of suspects. (Slugs)

The lettuce in the hothouse seem to have gotten over the moving shock – its taken a while.
The brassicas I put in there are also painfully slow.

I made some more soap tonight too. I was trying another design mixing colours… but one got too gluggy compared to the other two – so hopes not high for what I want but I am sure it will be interesting to see the final result! I think they’ll have to sit until Saturday before I unmould.

Its cold. Raining. A lot… but some sun forecast for tomorrow! Better write up a list of things to work on tomorrow just in case they are right!
Hope you’re having a great week!
Cheers!

Just a quick little post tonight to share with you a project I have been working on for a while.
Since my parents received it in the mail yesterday, I am free now to share and not spoil the surprise!

Its a hardcover, coffee-table like book of photos taken when we were in Japan… and yes, that was a year and a half ago!!

Between one thing and another, its taken me a while to get my act together! First to finish post processing all the photos… then to choose and arrange what images I thought would look best together.

It was an enjoyable process as I got to sit and enjoy reliving the moments – little memories of a fabulous adventure. And I think I enjoyed it more doing it now while we’ve been guest free than trying to fit it in when I was hugely distracted.

You don’t have your family forever – and to be able to share a really special trip like this is a memory to be treasured.

We met lovely people who looked after us so well which made the experience even more amazing. We visited lots of gorgeous gardens, shrines and cities. Everything in its own way unique and enjoyable!

Of course my parents rang straight away after receiving it to tell me they loved it!! Mum is already talking about taking it to show her sewing class ladies 🙂

Anyway, that was just one of the background ‘things’ I had going on that I thought I’d share, since today was a no-photo day and spent with friends and out of the rough weather!
Cheers!

Lavender this time! I know its a bit ho-hum but so many people (including me) love lavender soap.
I put a bit of the mixture into my dragonfly moulds and I might have let out a girls ‘Squee’ of excitement when I saw the result.

I left the soap in the mould two days this time – I wanted to give it more setting time before disturbing it and possibly breaking the pattern (like in my first attempt.)

Its a hard mould so its a bit more iffy getting the soap to drop out. I ran a toothpick around the edge and exercised some patience and small pressure and they dropped out beautifully. Later when it hardens up I can run a potato peeler around the back edge to tidy it up.
If I was selling them I could imagine these looking very pretty and special boxed up! I might invest in another mould of these as I can only do four at a time.

So – since Jeff spent yesterday on my raised beds, it was only fair to get stuck into the tree today!
The wind was blowing the right way which was handy… and it hardly rained at all.

I moved and stacked a fair bit of the chopped wood

I set aside a lot of ‘awkward’ wood to put into the raised beds as well.
(and chucked some wood ash in just for good measure)

I love my parang! I started slow… just using it to strip some of the needles off the branches into the barrow to dump in the muddy chook yard. I wanted to get the feel of it before going too hard and losing a favourite body part. (I am fond of all the bits really)
Still… I used it to chop through some bigger pieces and its lovely to use. A bit heavy so I had to give my hand a rest every now and again, but I’ll get used to it.

The fire was fabulous to work by. Smokey but toasty.

Jeff was a machine today! He got through so much stuff.
We sort into usable piles as well as burn – we’ve got a pile for the chipper, a pile for using in the garden, one for cutting to fire sized pieces etc.

Clear ground again!!!

The chooks usually stay clear of the fire – or if the chainsaw is out.
A couple do a runner and escape up past the open fence to dig worms in the old compost. Pretty funny.
They are enjoying the nice long grass… no hope of cutting it for a while. Too wet and boggy.

A mere handful of tomatoes left! Not bad for mid winter!

Hope you’ve had a lovely day too but a lot less sore than we are!!
Cheers!

PS – had a chuckle when a friend noticed a comment of mine from a facebook article was pulled out and used in a newspaper article!!
Pet hate of mine is ‘photographic competitions’ where the fine print basically says if you enter, win or not, the people running the event get to keep and use your images forever. To me its just an image grab.
This bit appeared in the article:
“This is how so many places – businesses, councils etc get practically their own free catalogue of photos,” also wrote Lisa Maree Millar. “Very few competitions nowadays lack this clause of ‘we are stealing your photos to use as we please’.”
Ahhhh – nothing is sacred online!!
Link here if you are interested in whole article 🙂

Hello! Monday and its all go here at Norwich House!
Jeff, the madman, ignored the dismal weather and put on the gardening clothes. He was sweet enough to put aside his plan of working on the tree to help me put together the garden beds!

I had to do MORE digging out… but that didn’t take too long. We just had to get them lined up and the space wide enough. Of course… I had to deal with a little more concrete!!
Then Jeff screwed the layers together and we hauled each section down to its ‘forever home’
Cardboard that my young cousin Beau dropped off was put to good use as a liner both on the bottom and up the side of the higher ends

Look! Its a ‘Jeff-in-the-Box’

According to my back and legs tonight, I finished up by vastly overdoing things… five barrow loads of logs (including the nights firewood).
I am only going to do the bottom layer in logs/branches, then get the pruning done and bung those in the beds as well before topping up with the good stuff.

They are pretty solid! Now they are in place I can start leveling out the top area ready for the next steps. I am dying for it not to look so manky.
WE however looked manky at the end of it! Should have seen how the mud was sticking! Every time I walked over to the carport to make and pick up a layer, my boots would pick up stones, woodchips and sticks!!

Entertainment this afternoon for Little Moo

Messy start.

Was practically dark for the last shot… hence the blur!
I am looking forward to getting these filled and planting my strawberries!
Now… to take a leaf out of Pips book – time to snuggle down in a warm bed!

Cheers!

Hi!
I made this tonight. Why? Dunno. Seemed like a good idea at the time!
Its not yarn – its a nice string – hard to crochet with though. I just made it up as I went along.
It ended up being too big for the hoop (this is about 30cm/12inch across)
Still, I tied it into submission. haha
Will see if it looks good on the wall as a decoration tomorrow.

Weather today? Really really cold and someone turned the tap on and off all day. Jeff went out to work through a lot of the tree. I nearly went out then it just poured so I decided to stay inside and finish of my young cousins leavers dinner photos. Another task off the list.

No soap.

Hope your weekend is awesome!
Cheers!!

Hi – did my first solo loaf soap…
The weather is still spectacularly awful, so spending as little time outside as possible.
I’ve been watching some design techniques on youtube and tried one out yesterday.
The colours were meant to be more boldly black and yellow – the fragrance is honey.
I did some more soap this evening and again the colours were not what I envisioned. This will take some practice.

I also started cutting my honey soap wrong to show off the pattern. Once I figured that out it looked much more interesting. (Clearly I need to bang the mould down harder to get rid of those bubbles)

Plus I suck at cutting!!
Eventually I will need to look at getting or making a template with a wire cutter. Also – I think this needed another day curing as I muffed it in a few places. I’ve left a chunk of it to try to cut tomorrow to see if it behaves any better.

A reader mentioned her interest in how this is done!
If you are keen – I’d really recommend going to a workshop to start with. Its just great to talk to someone who really knows what they are doing and get some hands on experience first before going out to buy all the ‘stuff’
While I can’t share Sharons recipe, I can give you the gist of the process below. (There are several websites that have recipes to follow which is good, as you can choose what kinds of oils and if you want to use goats milk etc)
Unfortunately I have not really taken many photos of the stages I am going through as its just not convenient to stop and de-glove and grab camera haha.

The caustic soda/lye is the awkward bit. You’ve got to be so careful with handling it. Good ventilation, no danger of kids/pets getting into it while it is cooling off.
I’ve got it in crystal form and I add it to the water (NOT the other way around)
As soon as the lye hits the water it reacts fast! Heats up and you DON’T want to breath it in! Gloves/goggles are the go. I mix it in with a spatula and go back after a while to remix. (It needs to cool for an hour or so)

You need to get your other bits and bobs ready – the oil, fragrance, colours, (milk) moulds – as once the process starts you need to keep going.
Oh – and a stick mixer!! Very important.
All equipment I use is not used for cooking regular food.

Once the lye goes into the oil (and my case milk) it undergoes a chemical change – and becomes way less dangerous. (as in pretty much not at all)
You need to mix it with the stick mixer until it becomes thicker and leaves a trace on the surface (again this is all best seen) Its actually quite wonderful to watch!

Before it reaches that stage I have normally added the fragrance and set some mixture aside for colouring as well.

Then its all poured into the moulds – colours mixed in as artistically as you like and left to harden.
I can normally take them out of the moulds the following day but they need to cure at least a month before using. So hopefully I am doing all these right!!
The longer they cure, the longer they last in use.

Its not actually difficult – more a matter of getting your stuff together and knowing what to do. Certainly the class with Sharon gave me the confidence to dive in and make it by myself!

Anyway, thats all from me. I think we still have rain ahead, reckon there will be a few more indoor days for me.

Cheers!