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Hello hello!
Already 2022 is getting away from me!

Part busy, part distracted, partly unorganised! The usual!!

We’ve got our lovely friend Rachel with us at the moment – been so long since she has been here. We’ve fully relaxed and talked our heads off for 4 days!
Sadly have to pop her back up to the airport tomorrow

Then we have a day to put our final stuff together before heading off on the Overland Monday!!

So been doing some prepping for that (for example my muesli bars)

I was unsure about being able to go as I was worried I had a stress fracture in my foot.
Happily the xray says nope. The ultra sound did say I have most def. got plantar F. in my heel.
So I am doing certain things (shoe insert, stretching exercise and magnesium spray) to help take the edge off
Jeff will be more of the packhorse with our gear (bless his cotton socks) and I will take hiking poles this time!

So… I am not quite as ready as I wanted to be – fitness and pack carrying – but we aren’t running any races and just looking forward to getting back away in that beautiful country!

So… the zukes have started

And more

Something tells me 8 plants might have been overkill
At least something is growing really well!

We are bandicooting potatoes for most of our evening meals… and the hothouse cucumbers were producing one ready every few days.
Then the apple cucumber plants outside exploded

There are so many coming along and I’ve picked well over 10 so far. They are so lovely and fresh and sweet

So happy to get enough basil to do pesto!
Bliss

And the beetroot are going so well now… finally stocked up on my beloved pickled beetroot!

The corn is growing steadily too…

Things got a bit windy the other day… so some staking was in order!

A couple of new things on the soap front…

I trialled a ‘mantra swirl’ which was rather nice.

(used the orange essential oil)

And a slab mould soap using Kakadu Plum… it got messy as the mixture thickened too quickly, but the old chopstick swirled in the right way rescued it nicely

This really makes such a pretty pattern

And the I did another loaf using the oatmeal, milk and honey fragrance… used bubble wrap to make the honeycomb effect and sprinkled on some real oats

Well, thats all from me!
Big day of driving tomorrow… and hopefully slip in a beach walk in the morning!
Hope everyone’s 2022 is starting well.
Cheers

Christmas Day 2021… and off we go. Thinking the peak at the back is where we are heading. We started out at Taylors Flats.

Everything started off nice and meandering… and flat-ish

Path ran parallel to the Leven River, so the sound was soothing

The track at the start was lovely and ferny

The weather was gorgeous… hot summers day.
We started out a bit late as we’d been on the phone doing Christmas Greetings to our Canadian Family.

Not that it mattered. Had no schedule to stick to

Got to this little stream… and there it is! The start of ‘up’

Doesn’t look too bad in the photo (From the comfort of my chair)

Merry Christmas Husband..

The track was easy to follow…

Once we moved up and away from the river, things got scrubbier and a lot hotter

Don’t forget to turn around and see how far you’ve come!!
This also shows things getting a bit steep!

Jeff is so much fitter than I am!!

Sweet summer flowers out everywhere

As we got nearer the top, there were so many more

Loved the colour of these leaves

Its like they are on fire.

That bluff still looks a long way off

Here we go… some good rugged tracks!

And looking back – these were hard on the legs and feet coming down

Still looks far far away…

Small rocky outcrops peeking through the bush

Again just turning to look back

You can see the flowers appearing more along here

Views…

Bigger views

Fluffy flowers (Sorry… sum total of my knowledge of the flora)

Red poker like flowers on spikey bush! (More fabulous clueless plant naming)

OK, yes. Its getting closer but that still looks like a lot of walking yet to go

Views are getting better and better

At this point we are keeping an eye out for a lake that is meant to be up here!

Its pretty hot and I am certain I am going to jump right on in

Heading downwards for a short stretch which was a relief to my legs

How pretty is this area?

Love the little wildflowers everywhere

And yes, I am putting in all the photos 🙂

Views AND flowers!

Where is that lake??

Seriously… has to be close now.

Lake!

Welcome to the most northern glacial lake in Australia

Actually its a glacial tarn… Anyway, see the lines on the water above?? Thats the wind ripping through the saddle and it wasn’t warm!

Beautiful though

Black Bluff looming over Paddy’s Lake

So… with the wind and temperature taking a bit of a dive and the water being… not warm, we woosed out of the swim and just paddled and wet our hair and filled the water containers

So beautifully refreshing!

Hey look! Jeff got me new hiking shoes!
They got a small workout before doing this trek but are lovely and comfy

And new socks…

OK…. What with the time in the day that we had left, we decided not to continue up to the top. We’d had a great day already so, time to head down.

A few dried strawberries to pep me up.

Easier to enjoy the views on the way back.

Burst of yellow at my feet.

Wouldn’t mind returning to get to the very top, but this wasn’t disappointing at all!

Of course… somehow I found some deep mud.

Such a great way to spend Christmas! Even if the cheese ham and relish buns were a bit downscale from a roast turkey… we were quite happy!

Cheers!

Fun with a sledge hammer

The outside run of the chicken coop is in a sorry state…

Its been falling apart for a while – so I decided to give it a helping hand

Cutting all the old rusting wire off… carefully around the wisteria !
We plan on rebuilding it with some of the milled timber.
We will use the round treated pine posts as they are still in good nick, as well as the tin.
The timber is mostly rotted and bound for the ever growing bonfire piles

Er… slowed up with a bit of necessary weeding!! The duck yard is a mess!!

I am going to have to take out the post you see at the front right – it is the post for the duck yard gate but its going to be too hard to work around. (Its concreted in so I might need some of Jeffs muscles to help)

The tin is buried a bit so I had to get the pick out to break the soil at the bottom. I didn’t have gloves so I’ll have to get back to the front lot of tin when I continue as it was a bit stuck. Some of the screws were a challenge! They’d been painted over so I had to break the paint seal to get them started on their journey back out of the tin and rotting wood!

I think this was a solid start. (Jeff was sleeping today)

I’d like to get a laserlite roof on this part of the chook run – will give them more shelter in the soggy weather and will stop the yard from becoming a quagmire in winter.
Oh… also smaller bird wire so we don’t feed as many sparrows.

The Inspector

The rewards!

On another note… check out the lovely Christmas presents from my sister Rosemary!
She has been making these fabulous cat vases… and I was lucky enough to get a pair… Cat and Kitten!

I love them!! Was nice to get some flowers in their tails today!
And from my niece I received this beautiful painting!
How gorgeous are the colours!
Its sitting in the sun room while I decide if I like it there where I see it when I walk in daily or if I can find a different great spot on the wall somewhere!
I adore home made presents (I am actually wearing a nightie right now that my Mum made me for Christmas but I don’t have a photo…. but it is super comfy. I love nighties!)

Well, thats day 2 of 2022 done!
Have a great week everyone
Cheers!

Happy New Year to you all!!
Lets hope 2022 brings some really good stuff.

I’ve been too lazy to get around to post processing our Christmas Day hike, but above is the view from not quite the top of Black Bluff.
We actually didn’t summit as we left slightly later than planned.
Was a lovely lovely day out regardless… along with a bit of hard work!! (As mountains usually are)
I’ll aim to work on the photos this coming week.

More raspberries.
I’ve made more jam… I think I need to get into the kitchen tomorrow and make more instead of just filling the freezer

There is a little progress in the hothouse… some cucumbers making a move

Looks like a sunflower about to come out.
And I gave the tomatoes a really good pruning… some of the leaves were crazy big. Airflow will be better now and I tied them up better too

Random lillium

Carrots sitting up nicely

Couple of little zucchinis happening

Lovely hydrangea flowers out now

Excited about the beetroot

Lots of nice ones in there

Today I went out and pulled up the white garlic!

It looked ready…

A really decent harvest again

I put them out on the lawn to dry off a bit first… but of course being Tassie, might have been stinking hot for a fortnight, but garlic on the lawn?? Time to rain
So back into the wheelbarrow and under cover for now

I’ve bandicooted a few potatoes too… they really haven’t grown up into lush plants this season… but boy oh boy dont the new spuds taste Ahhhmazing!!

Now, the tomatoes need to get a wriggle on then I’ll be in heaven!

I’ve been obsessing about banana muffins lately too

We ate all of the above so I made more today… but put raspberries in them this time
Its well after midnight now and I am trying not to eat any otherwise I’ll need to hike more

I’ve started hiking with a pack now in prep for the Overland later this month.
Jeff has almost been daily hiking with a full pack all (last) year… so he will be able to skip across the wilderness.
I’ve got plantar F in my heel so I hobble a lot in the mornings and after I get up from sitting down esp. if I’ve been hiking or standing about in the kitchen for too long…
Going to make the hike interesting.
(Imagine someone hitting the base of your heel with a hammer… thats the first thing in the morning feeling!! Erk.)(I suppose thats why they invented anti inflammatory pills)

Anyway, off to bed for me!
I hope everyone really finished the year well and has wonderful dreams and goals for the new year!
Cheers

A very Merry Christmas to all those celebrating!!
I hope you have a lovely day whatever your plans… small or grand!

We dipped back into winter early in the week… so I put the fire on. It makes me happy.
It makes Pip happier

Bliss hey?

I’ll take a moment to show off my fabulous lettuce patch!!

And since we have eggs and raspberries galore… a pavlova seemed in order too (We took it to a Christmas party)

So many raspberries at the moment!

Takes an eon to pick though!

Tomorrow (Christmas Day) Jeff and I plan to do a bit of a walk and take a picnic!
Weather is meant to be good so… fingers crossed all comes together.

Warm wishes to you all
Cheers!

Starting on a sad note tonight.
I found Flea dead under the bushes near the raspberries this afternoon.
I am really upset 🙁
Yesterday I fed her some raspberries and told her that was because she was my Favourite Girl.
I don’t know what happened. It could have been a snake bite although we’ve never had that problem in the past. She had also had respiratory issues for quite some time… not super bad… wheezy, but everything else she was trundling along fine with. Eating, healthy weight, keen to dig worms etc.
I’ll miss her so much.
I know its part and parcel of having chickens… but I don’t get used to having to say goodbye.
So, goodbye Flea – thanks for all the laughs you funny little chook! xx

The weather has been amazing… really hot.
I did fit in whipping up a batch of soap… Sweet Meyer Lemon fragrance, along with dried and crushed zest from lemon peel as a scrub and some dried lemon slices on top

I liked the effect.

Ugh… we’ve put this off for so long.
I had to put my foot down and decided to make a concerted effort to start to make sense of this area.

Jeff slashed a lot of the tall grass and weeds down along the fence line as well as building up the burning piles.
I dug up a heap of massive thistles among other weeds

It was super hot so we called it quits before getting sunstroke but it was good to really get our teeth into it.
Lots more to do but seeing the progress makes things seem achievable.

We wont be able to burn anything for quite some time now that its summer. But at least it can be ready.

Something pretty… collecting calendula petals.

Two kilos of raspberries picked yesterday – there is more down there but this took me an hour and I needed to come back up to cook dinner!

I do hope your week has been going well
Cheers (and tears)
xx

Where to start… okies. Only one soap photo, just made a double batch of the dandelion soap so I am nicely stocked up all at once.

Moving on to basket weaving! I wanted to try using some cord and yarn, so I made this!

I reckon I’ll just muddle along making baskets then when I want to give someone a present I can… put stuff in the baskets?? 🙂

One of my cousins called me the other week – planning on a small family get together.
Would I bring the scones?
Eeek.
Um… I’ve never made them but I had a couple of weeks to practice so I said yes.

So I did a test run.
Not bad but a bit floury and a little doughy… but edible (mind you the chooks LOVED them.)

So I got on to youtube to watch the technique… I know you aren’t meant to over mix them – I was too light handed with the first try
I didn’t get a second run at them so just made them up earlier today before the afternoon tea. (The pressure!)

They worked out really well!! And even better? They tasted great and my lovely cousins were all very enthusiastic about it so I am feeling like the Scone Queen tonight and I fervently hope Ruby is peering down saying well done! (I didn’t really bother making scones mostly because I’ve been surrounded by other talented scone makers)

I made use of half of my raspberry harvest from yesterday and made some fresh jam to take along too (as well as cream of course but I didn’t make that, only whipped it up)

Garden… time to plant out the poor remaining zucchinis

Reminder… this is them in their little pot!

This is the desired plot

After a clean up and a ton of twitch removal…

This plot is now more desirable

Um… and I forgot to get a photo of the transplanted zukes… I’ll try to do that tomorrow! Poor things were too big to move I would have thought, but anyway, they are in now and they immediately wilted and sagged and whined and complained.
Today they do seem like they are sitting up reasonably well.

The struggling tomato patch (with smattering of potatoes)
I got in and weeded the area… and pulled up several plants that really were just not happy.
Put in too early and were stressed by wind and temperature changes (like the snow week!)

I do hate pulling them out but I figure they are never going to thrive.
I had another whole pot of nice seedlings to replace several of the sadder plants

Trying to keep up with a decent amount of water and so far the new transplanted tomatoes have bounced back pretty well.

I need to cut the fennel back or dig it out… overshadowing the original zucchini plants… that are doing quite well.

Nice fat strawberries!

I went down to the raspberry patch with a modest sized bowl… and quickly realised my error!
I needed a much bigger container!
Always a nice thing!

Snow peas coming along steadily now!

And I pulled up all the purple garlic. Not as big bulbs as usual but a lovely harvest nonetheless.

Yesterday late afternoon, I went to change the water around and I got a bit of a fright at the strawberry patch!
A tiger snake in the netting!!

No drama… just in the top ten of the worlds most venomous snakes and me prancing about in crocs…

The poor thing had gotten herself enmeshed in the strawberry netting – I hadn’t secured it down properly after Jeff last mowed.
We (Jeff) tried to help her untangle but weren’t getting anywhere, so we called the snake people

Mum, Dad and Daughter (Kate, Scott and Miah from North West Snakecatchers) were all in on the whole act and it was interesting to watch. I suppose it was easy to get her under control as she couldn’t go far and were able to cut her out.
Happily no damage. Miah sexed her and pretty sure female hence my use of ‘her’

Now named Bronzy (We all agreed she was gorgeous but Miah was pretty keen to keep her and gave her a name)

Check out Bronzy’s spectacular colours!! Easy to see how this snake got their name.
Bronzy was pretty chill and non aggressive over all… she was probably tired. Although having been around the garden a lot I would say she’d only been stuck for half of the day,

Time for Miah to do her thing… Bronzy needs to go into her bag

She will get relocated… perhaps down at Oldina (you know… where we hike weekly!!)(Next hiking day… hey there Girl! You look familiar?!)

And into the bag goes Bronzy on her way to a new home
They suspect she was passing through (surrounding paddocks being mown so everyone is probably upset who lives in the paddock!) but not great to have a female living here as during mating season, she’d attract the fellows.
Much as I like the animals, we’re just not that keen to have a squadron of them on our back doorstep

Well… thats all the fun and excitement from Tassie
Hope everyone had a splendid weekend and that it was snake free and full of scones!
Cheers

First up… Poor Pip.
A trip to the vet to get teeth cleaned. He ended up with three extractions.
I gave him a couple of ‘chill pills’ before going in so he was more docile – esp handy the night before as he wasn’t allowed food from 7pm.
(Siamese are pretty vocal about this sort of indignity)
Anyway, after me fretting all day I get to pick up my cat (who growled at the lady who picked up his carry box haha), who looked like he’d been in a bar brawl.

Oh he was so happy to get out at home. We got loved and schmoozled and kneaded and loved again!! We tried to feed him slowly – he was so hungry
Basically by the time he went to bed that night he’d pigged three tins of cat food! (and surprisingly didn’t puke it all up again)

Back to his old self today although he is on pain meds for a couple of days and we’ll need a check up in a week to make sure he is doing ok.

Check it out!! First raspberries!

A basket full of oregano

A few more strawberries

Another lot of oregano into the drying nets

Since that bit of warm weather, the lettuce has really gone ahead. We are eating nice big salads each night

I am excited!! Tomatoes!!
And these poor tomatoes that never got transplanted…

Not sure what to do now!! The weather was so bad for so long. The tomatoes I put outside are woeful. This bunch has at least one tomato growing

Hothouse snow peas..

Again… not got a plot ready then the weather has been a bit up and down… this pot of 4 zucchinis is a bit desperate to get out

Cherry plum trees are laden

So many!!

The pear tree has a lovely lot of fruit on it

The outside snow pea patch has suddenly got lots of snow peas.
Better go pick them tomorrow!

Hello Pumpkin!

And hello carrots!

The beetroot is coming along well too

And… some pretties

Flowers in that new area are doing nicely

Unknown name above, but below the portulaca are budding up and starting to bloom

Sweet little flower

And really pleased to see the hydrangea looking happy!

Hope you are having a great week so far
Cheers!

Hi there…
The nice weather had been continuing, so I took a deep breath and started work on the side garden… which was in a pretty sad state

I thought it would be less overwhelming to just start on the top part.

I think I took out about 3 barrow loads of weeds

A glimpse of further down in this patch…

I am ignoring that for the second…

Jeff helped me get one of the bigger milled timber pieces and shored up the edge so I could get rid of the ugly plastic bits and fill with woodchip

Many many barrow loads of wood chip later…

I might see about putting in a cape gooseberry in the back corner there. They grow big so it might hide that water heater without me having to do much

It inspires me to get off my butt and continue down into this patch further.
Plus like in other spots we’ve done this, weeds that pop up are easier to spot and pull out!

I also planted our corn!!!! Why here?? I dunno. Because I could??

Hope you are all having a fantastic weekend.

Cheers

First day of summer today. And it was a pretty nice day… even hot!
Anyways, just a bit of this and that from the last week.
I picked more dandelions to infuse into oil since I liked the first dandelion soap so much… I’d like to recreate it. (Pip thinks this table is his current snooze spot)

I did a bit of craft work with a cereal box as I want to box these soaps up ‘fancy’ (but keeping up with recycling)

I’ll get Jeff to handwrite on the front (Dandelion & Goats Milk Soap) then will paste a printout on back of all the good stuff in this bar)
And seal with one of my cool stickers!

Ugly soap!! Haha and oops. The mixture thickened up too much for the design I wanted to do and I should have just changed my plan on the fly.
Never mind.

I liked the top.

I had to stock up on lavender and peppermint…

Pretty pretty!

I’ve also finished my basket… I haven’t gotten a snap of the actual finished product but its not a great deal bigger than this:

I was pretty happy with it in the end. I enjoy the relaxing process of creating it.

I am trying a new one now using some of my stash of yarn and winding it around a thicker rope. (I’d like to make some as soap display bowls or for a gift pack… but it can’t take as long as the above to do to be practical)

Last Saturday was the Uniting Churches annual big Flea Market. I love it. Set up the evening before and stroll in in the morning ready to go.

I’d kept a lot of my new designs aside so I could have the baskets full of mostly new stuff… and I loved the look!

I kept my layered soap up the back… I have a bit of a ‘thing’ about kids coming up to the stall… snatch a soap, wipe their snotty noses on it then slam it back into the basket. Then proceed to the next soap!!
I put up a sign this time to handle with care and supervise children haha – actually only had one little snotty octopus this time – he threw one on the floor.
Happily the mother bought it. (one of the more $$ ones and I hope she likes peppermint!!)

Anyway, it was a great market and I sold really well.
I was lucky and my market neighbour was a friend of mine from basket weaving classes

Jude had a fantastic table full of gorgeous and interesting plants, fruit and veg and some excellent eco products.

And the best thing about a country church market? Someone gives you a cup of coffee and some fresh made scones!

Bliss!

The very next day I had organised another Anniversary Bay Loop hike and this time seven people turned up!

Down on the beach we found an echidna!

S/he was the subject of many photos before we moved on

We had a beautiful day for it… even got quite hot!
I dipped my feet into the water which was lovely

I am enjoying showing some local people this walk.

Anyway, fingers crossed this weather will keep up and no more snow!

Hope your day has been great!
Cheers