Author: Lisa

Clearly I have not hurt myself in the garden by overdoing it haha

Poor potatoes

The weather hasn’t been kind, so with that and madly having to get my Christmas soaps done and dusted to cure in time… I’ve not done heaps in the yard

This was a Dodgy Brothers weeding job… mostly hoed stuff up to upset it, ripped out handfuls then just smothered it with the straw.
Today the potatoes are popping up through the straw nicely already!

Little wisteria by the chook run is looking sweet

Then the other day it was on to the raised beds by the back veranda…

ummm…
No real convincing excuses for this tragedy

And this travesty

Even Pip was judging me…

Time to get into the dirt properly

I dug up a squillion cape gooseberry plants. Took a bucket full down to Farm it Forward Tasmania where I do my workshops and basketweaving etc and we put them out the front for people to help themselves.

Lots better. The straw should keep any recurring weeds down until I decide what to plant (Salad greens most likely)

Pip’s creative Siamese Knot tying skills…

We’ve had three sunny days in a row!!! I am really hoping it will continue!
Jeff got out and did a huge effort with the lawns (out the front was pretty bad)
Between weather and work he hadn’t gotten back to them and at this time of year… things grow fast!

Meanwhile I thought I would be a clever clogs and stack all the wood that Cousin Jeff dropped off.

Looking back I think this was a bit ambitious for one days work…

First stacked wall…

I started the third wall… but had to quit as I was getting pretty sore!
I took a break and weeded, fed, mulched and netted one of the strawberry patches, came back and did another couple of barrows but then gave up. There really isn’t much to go and I was miffed to not finish it off, but I needed to be able to walk and stand upright today.

Body still hates me today haha

So… in other exciting news, I went into town with my friend & Market Buddy Maureen last week and spent a good portion of my saved Soap Money.

What did I buy I hear you ask??

Well, since you asked… I bought tickets to go to Japan!!
(I haven’t rung and told my parents all about it yet… so cue phone call in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,… haha)(Yes I’ll call them tomorrow and regale them with the details!)

I had wanted to take Margie with me to Japan since she has never been out of the country – but she has only just moved back in to her renovated home that is AMAZING, but took forever and of course went over budget. I don’t think I’ll pry her out of the place for about 12 months 🙂

It had always been a dream of Maureen’s to go so we have been working at our markets with the goal to save and go.
Then covid happened. Then Maureen got breast cancer – so she had a long recovery road… and has done incredibly well.
So finally, she is well, Japan opened its borders again and I lucked out on some fabulous accommodation so we dashed off and secured our tickets!
We are booked to go next April, hopefully in the right time for cherry blossoms!
Looking forward to it hugely!

Poor Jeff and Pip have to stay behind although Jeff and I are planning to return later next year and incorporate a lot of hiking into the trip

I love being able to plan again!!

Anyway… thats all from me!
I had a soap workshop today so right now I am feeling a bit tired!
Hope your weekends were fabulous
Cheers!

And a basket!!! I finally finished my condiments basket!
Complete with little loop to hold the spoon I use to liberally sprinkle garlic salt on everything!

I took so long to finish this one off but pretty happy with it

(Bottom) Just love the variations in the natural colours!

I feel like now I should be investing in prettier condiment containers!!

Within the last 8 days I’ve had two markets and one workshop. So I’ve been all about soap… plus trying to make the last Christmas soaps to be ready cured before Christmas!

This soap was the demo for students to have a go at cutting

(I think that was Black Raspberry and Vanilla)

A fun bunch of ladies attended last Sunday…
Above was the lovely oatmeal, milk and honey fragrance with a pretty blue drop swirl, made by Genevene. She added a little gold to the top too!

Bernadette used a spicy rose and (something I forget and am too lazy to get off this chair to find the bottle) fragrance
She used the dusky rose clay with some poppy seeds for a scrub
Also we put the patterned bottom on these

Jo did a bit of a fun swirl – with the Kakadu Plum fragrance

She also bought her own mould which we used with the leftover mix…
So. Darn. Cute!

Louise did the soap workshop with Sharon but hasn’t made soap in a while and wanted a refresher and some inspiration.
She had fun experimenting and I love the effect of the sprinkles at the bottom of the mould. They look like soap geodes..

Edna had a lot of fun mixing these beautiful colours into pretty moulds. (Edna usually goes to basket weaving with me and has been eyeing off the soap workshop for a while!)

She wanted to do some gold but by the time she told me it was a bit late, so when I unmoulded them I took some liberties and hand painted a few with gold highlights. She was quite thrilled when she collected them on Friday!
(Baby Powder fragrance)

My show off demo soap was done with Anjou Pear and Lemon Zest.
This design never fails to please 🙂

On the home soaping front I’ve done more Christmas tree soap (I had some at the markets which have been popular.
I also got a new embed mould… lots of owls! So I put them into some square soaps with a bit of gold swirl to fancy it all up!
(Oud Wood and Moss)

And the soap I have had the most fun with lately…. ducks!

We were watching a Japanese Anime and there were these little funny duck characters and I thought their design might be simple enough to make out of soap!
So I did!

Their faces are such a crack up!

I managed to unmould and cut without duck injury and rather pleased with this first go!
I would make the blue ‘water’ part a bit more wave-like for any future soaps!

Well… thats it from me.
I had a market today and I am feeling like bed would be a splendid idea!

Hope your weekend is going well
Cheers

Lush herbs!!
My herb spiral is insane 🙂 (In a good way)

A week or so ago I got around to putting some carrots in the ground

OK…. not carrots. Seed.

Garden bed all tidy and planted. Just checked today but no sign yet of any popping up. I think I might be a bit over estimating their germination time

The garlic patch I mulched is looking fairly good

I worry that they are a bit woossy looking but have to remind myself they still have 2 months growing left to do

I picked up some new polypipe and some netting to cover the blueberries. One plant didn’t fit under. Might bodgie something up later but at least the other three are safe under their net. Lots of flowers on the bushes so Jeff might finally get his blueberries this season!

In the hothouse, several of the seeds I planted have come up happily.

Absolutely no sign of the basil, stevia, cucumber or… um…. (There’s one other that I can’t think of…) oh yes. Portulaca. (Just a flower)

Poor Mumma spider had to relocate her spiderling egg sac

I grabbed a capsicum seedling and two tomato seedlings to pop into the hothouse for more of a head start.
Weather is being… cantankerous.

It gets muggy warm (weird for here) then just gets cold and rains excessively.
Apparently we are in for a massive bit of wild weather at the end of the month.
So I think I’ll save putting too much else out for the minute.
I might have to cover my carrot seed patch if it gets too bad so the seeds don’t get washed away!

Hope everyone has had a great day!
Cheers!

Hi!
Gee the time passes. I meant to get back here ages ago.
I’ve taken a while to shake off this bug and also still had markets/workshops etc so I’ve let a few things slide

The Cherry Blossom Tree is at its best… so time for Family Photos!!
Yah… Pip was SO INTO IT!

Not…

(Even dressed Pip up with his little kerchief!)

I’ll be back soon with more garden and soapy photos!!
Hope everyone is having an excellent week!
Cheers!

Above. One drugged and dopey cat.
Took him to the vet for a checkup. He had to have bloods done.
As a standard, I drug him so he isn’t so… er… feisty.
He behaved well overall, low rumbling growls but no hissing or fanging people so that was good!

I’ve been crook all week. Caught a cold. Seemed mild. Took covid test, turned out negative. Was feeling fine so did my soap workshop Sunday.
That night my voice packed it in. Nothing above a whisper for the next couple of days. I can croak now. (in the voice sense not the kicking the bucket sense)

Tomorrow I can finally spend the day slothing about resting doing nothing. Probably half the reason I am not getting better. If this keeps up I might have to go see the doc!

Tasmania has had some pretty horrible flooding. I didn’t get down to the river for a photo – our walking track is well under water right now.
Our last efforts on the chook run haven’t worked well! The water is pooling back on the roof and bowing the laserlite.
Bummer. That will need attending to next week. We didn’t raise the end of course but for some reason, whatever we did… we did it wrong.

Last week I got several soap orders in. So exciting.
This company was fun! Not only did I get my orders but also a heap of random bits and bobs

The tube came with some tools to make interesting patterned soaps

I’ve tried a couple… this one worked reasonably well. (Second batch didn’t go as great)

The main reason I ordered from them was to get this cutter so I could cut my slab mould soap with less hassle and more precision.

I also got this:

I was puzzled about the baking paper…
But it turns out you do use it with the tube mould.
But inside the cool case?

A mad hodge-podge of things! (mmmm that reminds me. I didn’t eat all the minties… back in a minute)

So, Soap workshop. I thought I only had 4, but a last minute student brought me up to my max and we were away.
The above was a demo soap for students to cut.
New fragrance – Black Rose and Oud. (I had to look up what on earth Oud was… apparently a much sought after fragrance taken from a special tree.)

I went for the dramatic colours.

We had a bunch of nice people, even a fellow joined in this time!
Anne chose lemongrass as her fragrance. We used the saffron powder to add some colour… and Anne had fun doing gold swirls to finish things off
Amazing after a day or two how much that saffron colour develops

Krystal was our late addition to the class. Turns out she has an allergy to coconut oil. I changed up the recipe a bit and thank-fully it seems to have turned out well
She went for the black raspberry and vanilla fragrance… and wanted pink for her highlight colour. I assured her the madder root powder would turn pink

I will admit to being worried… but I should know better.
In a few days the colour did indeed develop to a lovely speckled pink (with sprinkles)

Chris is a metal worker and apparently has a ton of bentonite clay at home! So he chose to keep things fairly simple, mixed some clay in, added poppy seeds for a scrub and a lovely citrus and sage fragrance.

Julie chose baby powder as her fragrance and had some fun choosing pretty moulds to go with her lovely fresh green highlighted soaps (Couple of dinosaurs for the grandkiddies)

Jan had participated in a soap workshop with Sharon and myself quite a while back and wanted a refresher.
Since she has made a few batches, I asked if she wanted to try the Taiwan Swirl.
That way the other group members could see another design technique.
It turned out so beautifully! (Lemongrass)

And last but not least, my show off demo soap.

The colours turned out great despite a glitch when my two purples turned out almost the same!! A bit of a quick adjustment with the white and we were good to go
I used peppermint, but if I had cherry, this would be the colour combo for that!
We’ve called it the black forest cake soap

I dropped most of them off today for pickup at basket weaving… although I didn’t stay.
I did however manage to do two batches of soap.
Another Christmas one – hope to cut tomorrow, and one so I could use my soap dough flowers!!

I was a bit nervous doing this!
I thought one of my new fragrances, French Pear would be perfect for this… its lovely and elegant.
I felt like I was all thumbs trying to put these together.
I used a bit of the new mix as ‘glue’
They looked good but a bit unfinished, so out with the gold mica for a swirl on each!

Getting them out of the mould will be nerve wracking!!!
Still… I am pleased so far with the results.

Hope everyone has had a great week and has an excellent weekend upcoming!
Cheers!

Hi!

Looks like the cherry blossom is going to start flowering! Its a grafted tree, so half has these simple little blooms and the other half has the full multi petaled hanging flowers

We took advantage of a beautiful day to get on with bird proofing the chook run. Feed (like everything else these days) has become so much more expensive and we can’t keep feeding squadrons of sparrows and galahs

The first part was tricky. We had to cut back the overhanging crossbeams under the roof overhang. We loosened the screws on the laserlite to get under it. We REALLY didn’t want to remove the whole roof.
It got sorted and we put another facing beam on that side. Failed to get a snap of the finished bit!

At some point we turn around and find we had an audience!

A bit of a bodgy job at the front where the roof didn’t quite meet the end of the structure

Once we got the facing beam on it didn’t matter so much as you can’t see it

Then a bit more work on putting some supporting timber up to attach the bird wire to the big open area at the back

Pretty pleased with getting this sorted.
We had about done with it so we were packing up the tools and whatnot- was away from the coop for approx three minutes and came back to this!!

This doofus magpie didn’t get the memo about the bird proofing!!!
He’d been hanging about (no pun intended) near us getting worms and bugs from the paddock. Nosey beggar!!
He was panicking a bit so I walked slowly over to his side so he eventually naturally ‘shooshed’ out the door!

I hung some material over the gap at the top of the door and shredded old jeans to do a temp soft barrier at the chook entrance
They weren’t keen on using it this morning. All eventually went out but two. I left the door open and will put them in training to use the small entrance and not be scared of my jeans haha
That will slow the birds

Still a fair bit of day left so I went and rescued the garlic patch!
Under the net the weeds had gone mad

Picked them all out and fed the garlic some kelp tonic and mulched them

The potatoes are starting to poke their heads above ground

In the hothouse my winter potatoes are starting to get some size

And we are getting salads again as the lettuce in the hothouse are good for picking now

Some cherry plums starting

Lots of borage and other spring flowers around

This patch just hums with bees!

My rocket is up

The herbs are doing great!
Lots of parsley

And bugs

Tons of oregano and lemon balm

And the beautiful man ferns have newly unfolding leaves

I think they are so cool

So hairy!

In true Tassie spring style, today is fairly awful, so will do some indoor stuff.
Maybe start clearing out the pantry and later reward myself with some soap making (Got some new fragrances in that I am keen to try!)

Hope everyone is doing well
Cheers

Hey there!
Its nice to be back home – haven’t taken time to sit and do more hiking photos, but since I have a couple of markets and a couple of workshops coming up I’ve tried to get more soap happening

Still working on Christmas designs. Above trying to incorporate the ‘shimmy’ with the Christmas tree and colours.
Thought I’d try again with a colour switch and I am rapt with the results so I will stick with the one below

A young cousin (Ange) came over to do some soap with me. She had taken a workshop with Sharon a while back but wanted to see how I do some of my designs

I showed Ange how to do the ‘Taiwan Swirl’ and she chose these colours and the Oatmeal, Milk and Honey fragrance. They turned out so pretty! Esp with the gold swirl on top!

I wanted to try to recreate the ‘Phoenix Rising’ soap and thought it would be a good design to show Ange. We both did the pour and once I showed her how to finish off the design, she did the rest.

The cut turned out amazing. Really love this combo.
The one I did for the class as a demo I handed over to the co-ordinator on Friday and by today she had sold all but three I think! So popular! (There are 16 bars so thats pretty quick!)

Got some new moulds so having fun giving them a go

Pretty colours and designs

Also did a ‘peacock swirl’ in my slab mould with Lemon Myrtle as the fragrance

I should be getting a new cutter that will cope with my slab mould soap. Looking forward to that.

And then… another attempt at soap dough!

Too late I thought it would have been smarter to do a half batch in case I really muffed it up!

Basically you mix the soap then wrap it in plastic wrap and seal in an airtight container for a day or two (discovered that two days is better)
Then take it out, smoosh and knead it so it goes a bit like play dough and re wrap.
A few days later it should be ready to work with

So, in the spirit of ignoring all housework, I’ve been getting in touch with my inner child and making ‘stuff’

I had the leaf cutter doovers, but nothing to cut out flowers… so I free hand ‘drew’ cut and squished into submission the flower design

Dusting with mica and sparkles made them more interesting

I can’t wait to make some soap suitable to pop these on top as an embellishment.
They do take quite some time though, so pricing might be a conundrum!
I really need to do more gardening but now I feel like I want to be sitting inside being creative with soap dough!!

Hope everyone is doing fine – I know a few of you are from the Florida area and I really hope you are all safe and sound.
Take care!!
Cheers

Hey hey!!
How is everyone?? Doing just fine I hope!

Well… clearly my friend Nardia and I got back off the Overland Track in one piece and in excellent spirits!!

Just thought I would swing by with some of the random photos I’ve post processed and tell you a bit about how it all went!

So… Nardia’s husband, Jock, drove us down to the finish point and we dropped off Nardia’s car ready for collection in a weeks time.
Back to Cradle, we took a room for the night then wandered down to the restaurant for a decent meal (and drink) before heading off into the wilderness

And there we are… starting off in true Overland Style… RAIN

All the forecasts totally sucked by the way!

We looked like bank robbers!
It drizzled at first… then it got colder, windier and snowier!!
The best bit was the stinging hail to the eyeballs!!

We were complete muffins and didn’t put our rain pants on until the shelter at Kitchen Hut where we stopped to sort that out and grab a quick bite to eat – and at this point Nardia was probably reconsidering her life choices as our fingers had gone a bit numb!!
(Thanks to Nardia for the above photos)

I’ll pinch more photos from Nardia later as day one wasn’t a good day for me to be using my camera due to the weather. But we made it to the hut in good time, dried out as best we could and watched the sideways falling snow from inside Waterfall Valley Hut.

The next day, heading to Windermere was mostly pretty lovely… a lot less rain anyway.
A LOT of water on the track.

As always, pretty in any weather

Adopting my ruffian look

The new hut at Windermere is well under way. But estimated to finish in Nov. or Dec.

Day three was excellent as usual… changing terrain made things so interesting.
Nardia was loving it

I must admit… it was a long slog through mud for most of the day!

In the end Nardia got the hang of it and started charging straight through the mud and water like I was doing. Saves a whole lot of time and the potential to fall in while balancing on dodgy planks and rocks

Poor new shoes!!

Was really fun having a new Overland Buddy – the only probable drawback was our mutual love of Japan – which meant a lot of discussion of our favourite Japanese foods, which at that point was a LONG way out of our reach!

We bucked the system of taking lots of energy laden dehydrated foods and subsisted instead on cup-a-soups, cheese, bikkies, sourdough bread, chocolate, our friends nut and fruit slice and lollies.
The one real meal I brought I honestly couldn’t even get through quarter of it!

And another great thing about hiking with Nardia… she’s pretty keen on getting millions of photos so neither of us would feel guilty about stopping all the time to get photos.

Selfie! There! Aren’t I glamorous????

We squished two days together. Skipped Kia Ora hut. Nardia went up part way to the Mt Ossa Climb to see ‘The Japanese Gardens’ and we met at Kia Ora, then continued on through the forests, checked out one of the waterfalls and hiked the last hour in the dark with our headtorches on into Burt Nichols Hut!!

We then mutually agreed we wouldn’t take ‘The Ferry of Shame’ back and finish the whole walk on foot.
So we skipped Narcissus and did the extra 5kms to Echo Point where we camped our last night.

A beautiful stretch of the track but had its fair share of squidgy muddy bits!

Was lovely to finish up and get that free five minute shower at the end – we were NOT fragrant hahaha

There is my little proud moment, announcing I’ve now done the track six times!

And here we are together feeling pretty good about getting over the mountains and back in one piece.
Bring on that yummy end of track burger and chips!
Cheers!

Hi!
Sorry I have procrastinated about writing posts!!
I have been keeping busy practice hiking, new shoes and tomorrow I plan to set off with my friend

I took myself around Anniversary Bay one last time – got some lovely weather

The hills felt a little rough but I had planted potatoes the day before and my legs protested a bit!

I actually got around in a reasonable amount of time so was pleased with that

With luck, our Sunday start won’t be too bad, even though its the hardest day (I reckon)

As mentioned… I got the potatoes in

Then used this plot to put some rocket seeds in

Started on the strawberries then decided that was a post-hike job

I have a carpet of oregano!

And here are a few of the spring colours that are currently in the garden

Forgetmenot

Calendula

Borage

Tulips are just starting to appear. Hope I am back home to enjoy some of them!

And my boronia is out!
Hope everyone has a lovely weekend and hope to be back in a week with some stories!
Cheers!

Hello 🙂

I did another soap workshop weekend before last. Busy but fun day.
The above was the loaf I made so the students could experience cutting soap (Kakadu Plum and Bush Cucumber)

I forgot to take my camera in to class so I just have a series of snaps of the results

Marilyn opted to use the decorative moulds with the Black Raspberry and Vanilla fragrance

Sally had fun decorating her Cedar and Saffron fragranced soaps

Christine chose the Lemongrass and Exotic Lime fragrance and we did a lovely subtle wave pattern

Lisa fell in love with the Kakadu Plum and Bush Cucumber fragrance from the demo and used that with her batch

Lots of fun swirls here!

Therese did a drop swirl pattern and used the Baby Powder fragrance… the speckle colour is from madder root powder – really effective

My show off soap I did in fun bright colours. I did use peppermint ess oil but I used an older bottle of it and the scent has kinda just disappeared! Bummer

The ladies collected their soaps yesterday and were all really positive about how much they enjoyed the day and they were pretty happy with their soaps too!

I am trying to get a few more batches done and curing before I go away – there are a couple of markets on in October I want to be ready for.

So I did a double batch of the Cedar and Saffron soap which is always popular

I like how the mixed pour colours come out throughout the soaps

And I had a heart embed that I needed to use so I made a loaf using the Chai Latte fragrance and did a drop swirl pattern.
Very pleased with the results!

Well… thats all the soapy news from me!
Have a lovely week!
Cheers