I had a market stall at the Rhododendron Gardens on the weekend – was a gorgeous day out for visitors… sold a decent amount of soap, hung out with my Market Buddy Maureen and had a really good day. Came home all enthused to dive in to restocking
(Photo thanks to my friend, Nardia xx)
First photo above is a nice subtle colour and fragrance ‘baby powder’
Today I did a double batch of cedar and saffron… always good to be stocked up on that!
Next was a loaf of the rose-geranium essential oil
This has sprinkles inside…
and lastly a Taiwan Swirl using the Lemongrass and Exotic Lime fragrance
I finished my big rustic basket…
Like some crazy birds nest!
I made up a hamper for the market stall but no-one really noticed it. I think it would look great filled with veggies tho…
Yesterday was a superb day so we got out into the Sisters Hills for a hike
No wind either so the perfect hiking day!
We just kept on going until the time said we needed to double back so we weren’t hiking in the dark
Stopped for a picnic… nothing too gourmet
And an apple…
Always good to get out!
Hope everyone had a great weekend and a good start to the new week! Take a leaf out of Pips Book and RELAX 🙂
Hi.. Just attacking a few more spots in the garden. I think I am about done with the wedding photos – Bride and Groom are meant to be popping over for dinner tomorrow In between I am going to have to go back to the dentist… developed quite the ache that aint getting better. I am a bit bummed because it seemed to behave so nicely to start with.
The blueberry patch sprouted some tomato plants! Finally thought I might tie them up and tidy things… not sure how many decent warm days for ripening we’ll have from now!
Its a 3D tomato jigsaw… or pickup sticks or something!
The fungi are cute
The tomato plants have done well without any help from me!
A bit more sensible
I picked the pumpkins and pulled out their vines…
This has had its day…
Brought Flossie in to ‘help’
Just one chook in the garden at a time is enough
Then I start hearing lots of other ‘chook noises’ behind me!! I was SURE I shut the gate!
All of them! Teleported in somehow!! (and ate the red tomatoes!!!)(They went the long way around through a gate I had left open then marched into the garden from the other side, hence me not seeing them!)
I think the garden below is a ‘destroy and start again’ scenario
I started digging up the twitch, then decided I didn’t want to be doing that until Christmas so gave up. (its awful) Will think about what to do…
One of the blueberries is looking pretty!
Time for bed I think! Have a great day everyone! Cheers!
Hello! First up – sprinkle soap cut! Very cute Yesterday I spent the afternoon up a ladder cleaning out gutters. In the last light I started weaving another basket just for the fun of it!
Looks a bit spider-webby
Today we did a short hike then came back to do more work on the chook run
I dug a hole… (Wondering A. How much dirt the adorable little chickens have kicked back into it and B. Since its raining heavily, if its filling with water right now!)
I picked up a sheet of garden lattice which I was hoping we could use as a door.
We’ve added some timber down the sides to make it a bit less flimsy (Not that its bad really) The main thing is, I wanted a door to not only fit a wheelbarrow through, but to get it through without skinning my knuckles.
Its all taking shape
I am super excited to get in and start whacking the shadecloth and tin up. Jeff is more sensible and is aiming to get the whole bones of the structure up first. Sigh. (Curbing my impatience)
The slight off and on again rain became a steady downpour so we had to pack up the tools and quit for the evening.
Happy Easter everyone (Who celebrates) Hope your Easter weekend has been lovely so far Cheers!
It was raining, dark and miserable all day. Pip sat around in conspicuous places hunched up and looking woebegone. This is his way of hinting that life would be better with a fire and a warm towel Eventually he curled up on his chair sans towel (I did light the fire later and dutifully wrapped him up and he was so much happier)(Spoiled much?)
I went to the dentist yesterday. I knew I had a cracked tooth and just couldn’t put it off longer… oooo ow ow when I used it (Shockwaves up the jaw kind of ow) Happily my dentist that one of my cousins recommended is a treasure… so patient even when I am trying to throw up the XRay plate out of my mouth! He is really gentle. The crack was quite severe… went down below gum line and he had a bit of patching to do. I’ve been gingerly eating on it today and its not bad. Funnily enough even after all the mucking about, once the anesthetic wore off I had minimal pain. Yay!
As a present to myself for being brave, I bought myself some broccoli seedlings And in a fit of anti-procrastination I planted them. Decided not to fight with weather and just bunged them in the hothouse. Hope to get some nice fresh broccoli over winter.
Since today was so miserable, I woosed out of a long hike with Jeff (the madman returned home SATURATED) and made soap instead
A double batch to stock up on just the plain unscented soaps (Nice and quick and easy… and less to clean up!)
Spiced Provincial Pear. Its a nice fragrance!
And some more Australian Lavender… some gold swirls on top and underneath there are sprinkles… we’ll see how the cut goes tomorrow!
Well… Tentacular took over the hothouse along with his new pal, the Tromboncino… And neither of them put much effort into producing food (I got about 3 passionfruits)
Just wild how they grew! (BTW never be silly like me and get a grafted passionfruit. The suckers are going to be with us until we die)
The tromboncino did start to produce but the fruit never really seemed to go far along the development stage. Plus it had lots of white fly and bugs so instead of saving it – out it came
Everything just needed a good tidy up and a severe hacking
(Don’t you love the parsley growing happily between the slats? I have NO IDEA how that happened.)
I even planned to sort the outside bushes that shade the hothouse. Again I was silly in my choices of plants here (note Tentacular trying to escape)
So… hack hack hack…
Poor Tentacular. His life hangs in the balance while I decide what to do
Not bad hey? Even mulched… something I should have done at the START of the season!
Outside got its trim too.
So much light now!
I spy some little eggplant fruit in there…
I’ve left some tomatoes. There are some small plants that have self seeded… dunno about leaving them Would like to put some broccoli in here – just because 🙂
The strawberry patch still has lots of lovely tomatoes just ripening daily
A decent days work really! Hope you’ve had a great day too! Cheers!
Hi! Jeff is on some nightshifts and it wasn’t a bad day out there I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do so I thought I’d get into the garden
My zucchini patch – I intended to pull the whole thing up. I got a few zucchinis and a heap of potatoes!! (What is it about potatoes? They just grow everywhere!)
A couple of plants still were trying to produce zucchinis so I left a couple in
I tidied everything else up, cut off the manky leaves and bedded one half down with straw
Then a quick hoe over the old potato patch
Lots of little weeds appearing. It will need covering too
Ugh… and my failed tomato patch
This is going to take forever! I admit being quite disgruntled with it, so I ended up just ignoring it since no tomato plants wanted to take off at all
I just started yanking out weeds and then started digging up that infernal twitch
Doesn’t look like I got far does it??
I did keep digging up more potatoes tho –
The nasturtiums have taken over the compost
I had a dig about in this one! Chokka-block full of worms! So pleasing
I grabbed my newly made basket and did the rounds of the self seeded tomatoes. Very cute
And yesterday’s soaps:
My oatmeal coloured aloe vera soap
Candy pink rose soap (Leftover mix round soaps with the Japanese Honeysuckle)
And the first cut of the loaves of Japanese Honeysuckle soaps
Busy days for Pip being a Siamese with a comfy warm spot! Meanwhile, we’re getting nice steady pickings from the garden (Last of the corn… sob)
Yesterday (Saturday) I thought it was Sunday and set out to do nothing important at all – all day.
Having been to basket weaving on Friday, I decided to try out what I saw being demonstrated by Adele (I am still working on my bread basket)
Conveniently we’ve got stacks of things around the yard I can prune and use
The vine thing is out of control around the side and takes a fair bit of unwinding and untangling to then be able to use
The gilderose (snowball plant bush?) is perfect for sturdy bendy frame sticks
The tricky bit is trying to bend them all up evenly
Sooooo… a whole heap of yarn later…
I kept working out on the back veranda until Jeff wandered out and mentioned he was going to get into the olive bread we were given so I thought I better head inside and sort dinner out! (We’d had some overnight guests now that we’d proven not germy and they brought us this lovely gourmet bread and a bottle of wine)
I brought all my rubbishy vines inside and continued my weaving after dinner in the comfort of the fire
Ta Daaa?? Haha… Its done !
It doesn’t sit up completely upright but I could do something to the base to fix that if I wanted to
Anyway, it was fun and quick to do!
Today (Sunday for real this time) I decided to smash out a few batches of soap.
I started with some Rose Fragrance soap since I had run out and its so popular
A batch of the aloe vera soap as I had disembowelled some aloe the other day and frozen it. Even with the green clay in it, its worked out a bit more oatmeal ish in colour. (Its got Rosemary essential oil in it too) I am loving using the aloe soap from the first batch I made. This time I changed the recipe a bit… added some castor oil which makes it more sudsy (apparently)
Then a double batch of Japanese Honeysuckle. I’ve got three layers of colours in here… and went fancy pants with a drizzle of gold on top. Fingers crossed the cut looks ok. The leftover mix I popped into some round moulds
We’ve started putting on the fire in the evenings (mostly) as its cooling down. Pip has been THRILLED to have his special warmed towel back again. He gets wrapped up and we don’t see him for the rest of the night!!
Hello! Well… I managed to avoid getting covid (so far) I can’t say I tried to avoid Jeff that much and didn’t even bother changing bedrooms- I just felt the damage was probably done. Still… did my week in ISO, RAT still negative, still no symptoms so am good to go Jeff pretty much recovered – bit weary but overall ok!
We ran out of regular sauce, so I whipped up a batch.
Weird bananas became muffins
I even did some soap! Gosh its been a while. Starting to go through withdrawals!
Since I was happy with the shampoo bar, I made a double batch this time. Its got a lot more goats milk, and as well as the olive and coconut oil, also has castor oil, sunflower oil and lard. (Recipe called for shea butter but dang thats expensive stuff… lard works just as well!)
And stocking up on the ever popular ‘Black Raspberry and Vanilla’
Smells so good
Nothing crazy fancy with the style… just a nice swirl and some extra bars with the leftover mixture
Hey look what I got in the mail!
Rosemary sent me a cute t-towel (I love t-towels but find them hard to put into use because they are so pretty!) Also lucky me got a copy of Hannahs book! Hannah is the Tasmanian Permaculture Lady!! She’s pretty amazing – lives near Hobart with a fabulous garden with goats and chooks etc. I’ve enjoyed starting to read her book. (She has a Facebook page too – I’ve learned quite a few things from it! I like her down to earth non fussy style)
I’ve been looking at this strip for aaaaagggges!
English box hedge. These poor little plants have been in their tiny pots for a scandalous amount of time! I couldn’t decide where I wanted them!
Hmmmm I wonder where the tarp stopped and started?
So here we go… made a bit of a start on rebuilding the chook run.
Snoopervisor #1
Since we only kinda know what we are doing, its a slow process at the start
I did some sawing of the timber but while Jeff was drilling, and I didn’t have to hold anything I scrubbed up one of the tin sidings we plan to re use
Bit manky…
Slightly better? We will paint them all once done (What colour?? My heart says ‘do bright red’ or something equally as obnoxious)
So… we’ve decided to put a light coloured shade cloth on the upper section rather than bird wire. That will still allow ventilation but further stop a lot of rain blowing in – and wind so more shelter which will be nice for the girls over winter. The tin will go back on around the bottom section. (Still looking to put bird wire on top along with laserlite as a roof)
Jeff is back to work tomorrow (I think) so if its not too bad weather wise I will get back down and measure and cut more timber ready for Jeff’s next days off. I’d love to make a start on putting up the shade cloth but I have a feeling I might be better off waiting for a second pair of hands!
Snoopervisor #2 as Snoopervisor #1 had to retire back to the house to rest
Walked back inside to find this!! Seriously! You’d think we don’t provide him with any nice spongey couches or beds Nope! Its the velveteen cloth for Pip. (The white fur shows up SO much better)
Life! Its tough!
Hope everyone is doing fantastically well! Cheers!
I lit a beacon just before our friends arrived last week…
That got rid of one pile… Mess mess, lots of mess
Hmmmm… started dragging out timber that we want to cut into usable bits for the fire and digging up weeds as I went along
And tossing them on the second bonfire pile. I didn’t light this one up the other day as there was no clear break around it
Some of the thistles were massive… and boy… gloves do not work in the slightest with these monsters I admit to a lot of jumping about and swearing during this process
Flossie was never far away!!
Started making headway in here… the scotch thistles are also a bugger to deal with!
I wore Flossie out clearly!! Every so often she’d just go and sleep UNDER the barrow which is a bit limiting if you want to use it!! (I had some over filled barrows as I didn’t have the heart to shoosh her out haha)
At days end I had a new pile of weeds…
And a bigger burning pile!
Look at those pointy bits!!!
Anyway, that day I made a really good dint in moving wood and clearing weeds.
Rest time…
Back into it yesterday, Jeff on board helping this time.
From little things… Big things grow!
She was kicking out some heat
It took a while but once it calmed down a bit we were able to get closer and start throwing all the other bits and pieces that were around (lots of bark etc) onto it
And yes… I found some nice potatoes under the area with all the bark!!
More weeding too
Up in this area I was wanting to clear and level to put in my garden shed
I cleared it back a bit but now looking at the slope and the hard work involved I am not so sure about putting the shed here…
It does make sense to tuck it in here somewhere but I am a bit daunted about creating the solid level ground needed… And if I dig down near the fence then I’ll just end up with a gap for the chooks to run out of. More thought needed.
Well … that made a rather big difference!!
I moved about 3 wheelbarrows full of wood to the wood pile, the rest will need cutting to size before stacking. Just feels good to have all the rubbish gone!
Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend planned! We are meant to be getting some groceries delivered tomorrow morning – I’ll do my RAT as well and let you know if I’ve succumbed to covid or resisted!! (Still feeling pretty ok… perhaps a slight sniffle (imagination?))
My birthday today… spent it in style by creating a nice big fire. My little pyromaniac heart was happy!
We are in ISO so no other trips or outings Jeff has covid, so I am stuck here as well. At the moment Jeff has what amounts to a bad cold.. sore throat, congested and not much energy. No temperatures. Me? Sailing on through so far. Will do another RAT on Sunday to see if I might have it and be asymptomatic, otherwise… I think I’m all good.
Anyways, I have more photos of the yard stuff but being sooooo lazy about putting anything together tonight, so I am going to leave you with a link to a 20 minute youtube video done by a friend of ours (Brod) who just cycled his way around Tassie!! (I met Brod and Kim when we all did the Overland Track together when I went with Fiona and we had that diabolical start with the weather!!)(We all bonded haha)
