Pip isn’t waiting for winter… probably looking for rabbits. We’ve also got a young black cat hanging about the back veranda! 🙁 Its very cute. I think chasing moths of which there are heaps at the moment I’ve left some food out… not sure if lost or feral. Pip has spotted her/him and is MOST intrigued. I hope its got a warm safe place – and hopefully hunting mice!
Poor Flossie! What a time to be moulting! She looks pretty dreadful! Makes me want to dress her in a warm jacket, but I suppose let nature do its thing.
Fungi are out at the moment. Haven’t been anywhere to go properly seeking them out though. This is just in the yard
Time to collect some carrot seeds? I’ve not really done this successfully before… Perhaps its time to try again!
It was a bit breezy out there, so here are a couple of dodgy purple flower photos. No idea what the above is but below is the salvia
And I did a double batch of soap with the Japanese Honeysuckle fragrance…one with lacy bottom and one without.
Super dodgy lighting – sorry. These will look a lot prettier in natural light rather than under the tungsten light! Anyway, I just needed to add in some standard bars for my market stall as they were all getting a bit fancy and of course, then the price has to go up a bit. I need to make sure I keep up making some of the $4 bars (Bargain hey? haha)
Hi! Nothing notable happened today. We did sit out in the garage while it poured rain and split a heap of kindling (Lets be honest… Jeff did most of it. I am much slower. Even being careful I still managed to somehow get a bit of wood flipping back either side of my blade to smash into my hand!! (Now sporting two lumpy bruises)) (Not to mention straining a muscle/tendon in my finger/hand opening the fridge door last night, so I am feeling extra klutzy right now haha)
I went down to feed the girls a snack, came back up and they are all in the backyard! Cheeky snots. Didn’t realise the big gate was open. Opportunists! You can see the day is a bit dismal looking (This was about 2pm) We did get out for a short hike around the river – kitted up in our rain gear. Got more sweaty than rained on!!
Also on my list was to pick the remaining tomatoes. Well… I quit after filling the bucket. Too lazy to go find another bucket plus it was cold and raining so… time to enjoy the fire.
The lettuce is starting to flounder. Still got enough for dinners. If I was smart I’d sort some hothouse space and put some more in. (Smart and motivated…. hmmm) Anyways, nothing else monumental to report from today. Hope everyone had/has a good Monday! Cheers
Cat TV!! Pip engrossed in watching little mousie mouses dash across the screen!!
Hi hi! How are you all? Lets catch up on some news… First, the garage sale…
Sad really putting out the last of Ruby’s things for a garage sale. But a year down the track and many things have been passed on to family and put into use elsewhere – so it was time to tidy up the last bits as much as possible. Settlement of the home is later in May. Very happy news there though – the lady who bought it with family is going to LIVE there, not develop the area for units etc or knock anything down! So relieving for Margie!
Of course… the dealers turned up an hour and a half before start time What a bunch of obnoxious individuals! Let me add Rude, arrogant, pushy, belligerent, entitled and just generally gross.
Hindsight being 20:20 I would advise anyone having a garage sale to absolutely stick firm to your prices with no haggling for the first two hours. Those vultures are only there to beat you down in price on good stuff they know is saleable at a profit to them. If they want it – they can pay for it. If its decent stuff and sensibly priced, its highly likely it will sell later on to the usual normal garage sale visitors at asking price or close to as those people will want to be using it themselves.
After the pond scum had left, we had heaps of really nice people coming in to look around and buy and chat. It was so much nicer! Maureen dropped in with her home made Kiss Biscuits for us (Cookies) and Shirley came in with a plate of fresh scones with butter and jam! Sooooo good! Spoiled or what? Lots of stuff has now been moved on – lots of the smaller leftover bits and bobs packed away and stored with a relative who is planning a joint garage sale later on this year There are still some bigger pieces to move along which will have to be dealt with this week.
Before the garage sale Jeff and I bought Ruby’s bookcase I am so happy… finally after TEN years, my beloved Biggles Books were freed from their boxes!
(Blog interspersed with lazy Pip images haha)
On the soaping front… I’ve been wanting to get some silicone impression mats to put at the bottom of my moulds to get some fun designs on the bottoms of the soaps… I have been hesitant of buying online… size, price blah blah
I found some ‘rubber lace’ in one of the local material shops and thought I’d give it a go… I got a metre of it and can cut to size.
I popped the soap out and was like, damn. Did not have high hopes for getting the now slightly embedded lace mat off the soap without making a mess…
However…
How great did that turn out???!! So happy. I think its a great way to tart up the plain unscented/uncoloured bars of soap, so I’ll spend some time cutting the ‘lace’ into sections to fit my moulds.
Even better? A single silicone impression mat runs at about $15. I got a metre of this for about $5 (Frugal hey?)
I had a market at Elliot yesterday… because it was Mothers Day today (Happy Mothers Day to all the awesome Mums out there!!) I put together a few packs in case people needed a ready-to-go present.
I got to use the sticky labels that Jeff made me… very exciting.
I was looking for a different box but spotted these with the see through top…
Perfect for the fancy star soaps! (Sitting on the crocheted facewasher and scrubbies)
And did a different box set
Sadly it was a super quiet sales day. I did sell some soaps, but no packs (sob). Never mind. With markets you definitely win some and lose some Happily there is the local Uniting Church fete next Saturday and I’ve usually done quite well there, so fingers crossed!
Pip sitting on the coffee table to eyeball me about getting his warmed up towel and wrapping him in it!
We are all enjoying the cosiness of our nightly fires!
I hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend and you can be as relaxed as Pip Cheers!
Haha – look at this mess! Twas once a potato patch!
I can’t believe I’ve managed to put off for so long digging the remaining potatoes. Not as big of a harvest as other seasons… well… some in part due to me scruffing into the plot for 2 months longer than normal. Also even though the season wasn’t hot… it was windy so I reckon I didn’t water enough up this end.
Some good sized ones in there…
Fast forward and done!
There are still a few rogue patches of them around here and there… like this lot near the bottom of the corn patch
While I was grubby… I decided to pull out a couple of bales of straw and bed this plot down for winter.
Straw complete with some dogs vomit fungi haha (and ew)
Carrot patch is being nibbled on still…
I pulled up a carrot for dinner and then forgot to cook it!
A couple of the beetroot have grown huge!
I also need to run about with a basket SOON to get more of the tomatoes. First I need to finish sorting out the others I’ve cooked and half made into sauce!
Grabbed the ripe chilli’s – time also to make the sweet chilli sauce!
All this stuff is interrupting my soapmaking!!!
Something for the salad at dinner tonight!
Dont forget to comment if you would like a chance to have a Ruby Rug… And its really sweet those concerned about shipping overseas… I am happy to do it… (It might go sea mail if its really exe, but it’ll get there.) Might even have a sneaky bar of soap in it too…
Hope everyone has had a great weekend (Will tell market tales later) Cheers!
Hi! Been keeping pretty busy – popping down to Ruby’s place to help Margie. We are planning on a two day garage sale at Rubys’ home to move on the last of the furniture and bits and pieces. Its a bit hard… seeing all the familiar little items being put on a table for a few dollars.
Margie has been working hard sorting all the really special stuff which has been sent to family or kept etc.
So… there were a bundle of partly completed rugs… this one fully finished… Margie had put the lengths together and edged it. The others we might see about using for ‘yarn bombing’ a local tree – just too much work to fix up the dropped stitches and put together as we are not sure who would really want them. All the family has gotten their Ruby-Rugs already.
Ruby got a real kick out of being a little famous via Mavis’s blog and Ruby Tuesday. She enjoyed hearing your comments – got a real chuckle out of it all being pictured and written about.
Margie said I could take this knee rug and give it to one of my lovely readers as a memento if someone was interested. Keep in mind this was probably one of her last lots of knitting efforts – which she did pretty much blind, so while its not perfect – I think its just amazing she was still doing this almost until the end!
Comment below if you are interested. If more than one person puts up their hand, I’ll do a draw so its all fair and square. Hopefully I won’t have too many problems in getting it posted out to the winner (We’ve had a few postage restrictions due to Covid of course)
Anyway, I am off to bed soon – I posted up on FB about the garage sale and have been swamped with messages of people wanting this and that even before the weekend… which is a bit of a relief as I was worried after all the effort not many would be keen…
Hope you are all doing well and have a wonderful weekend planned! Cheers!
Hi! Got out and did some work outside for a change. My, the weather has changed quickly and its so much colder!
Cousin Jeff dropped off a couple of loads of firewood – even though we’ve got a heap of the macrocarpa, its good to mix it with something else.
Wood Inspector
Today we got it all stacked.
Latest veggies:
Still haven’t dug the plot up properly…
Corn is nearly done…
So glad I planted those extra lettuce seedlings
And here are some bad photos of salads. I am not much for arranging things and getting the right light and settings for the dinner photos… I more like throw it together so I can get into eating!
I separate the pickled beetroot, capsicum and feta because Jeff isn’t a fan The potato salad looks unappealing but it tastes oh so good!
This morning there was a frost warning. I don’t think we got it but it stirred me to get out and get what tomatoes were out in the main garden! And the last of the corn! 🙁
I reckon I’ve got enough in there to do the bbq sauce!
I also picked the butternut pumpkins! Looking forward to some roasted or some soup
The beetroot and carrots here were for Lynn – she lives down in one of the local beach communities and often drops in to buy our eggs.
On the soaping front… How cute are these stickers? Jeff surprised me by organising these. They arrived in the post the other day. Will look all fancy pants on my bags and boxes!
I also got a bit crafty…
The slab mould produced soap too big for the cheese cutter and I am not so skilled at cutting with the knife. So I bought a plastic place mat and cut my own divider set! I forgot to take a photo of the soap IN the mould – basically I make the soap up and do the design then drop in the grid to separate it. The soap came away beautifully today so I am pleased with my efforts
A single batch either makes big chunky soaps (above) or much smaller thin ones (Below) –
Ideally I should make a batch and a half for this mould.
Okey dokey… remember the beetroot soap that… um… went white?? I experimented further… I’ve been dehydrating beetroot and made it into powder.
Because the chemical process of the soap making killed the colour… I made some plain soap and let its cure for about a week (less) Took a bar and tried to rebatch it by melting it back to oil so I could put the colour in
Um… its very, er… rustic isn’t it?
Melting it down was a pain and not very successful – ie it didn’t go back to liquid form. It also killed the lovely purple quickly but so far has retained a lovely oatmeal colour The texture is interesting…
So… there is a LOT of mucking about and work in it to get this. Its been a fun thing to try out but as a saleable product its probably just too involved Although if I wrap a bit of twine about it and do a bit of spruking about the home grown beetroot in it, maybe people will snap them up?? (Its a stretch I know haha)
So… back to normal soap! I wanted to make some unscented soap for the lady that sold me all those fragrance oils and colours etc. She said she really liked black! So… Activated charcoal with blue square surprise! I sent her a photo and she loved them – happily blue is her second favourite colour! I will follow up on this idea with the black with interesting embeds!
OK… my back is now explaining its bedtime and that it moved a lot of wood today so get off this chair and scoot!! Cheers!
Hello!! Gosh the days kinda disappear on me lately!
My parents went home 🙁 It was such a lovely couple of weeks, catching up and trotting out to beaches! So glad the weather was mostly really nice to them! I sent them home with a dozen eggs, various preserves and baked a loaf of fresh bread for Dad who just LOVES it.
So… I set up my gazebo and attached the proper sides that my lovely cousin Marilyn gave me for my birthday. I had a market at the Rhododendron Gardens and I knew the weather was likely to be a little iffy that day. (And yes, Cousin Jeff has been by with wood that I need to stack!)
Inspector Pip. It all fit so I kinda knew what I was doing before trying to nut it out at the market itself.
On the upside… this was one of my views on the day!! On the downside… it was quite the walk from the car to my spot! On the upside, there were volunteers to help carry my gear. On the downside I lugged my gazebo down and didn’t have to use it…
On the super dooper upside??? This is where my market stall was!!
Queen of the Castle or what??
Plenty of space for people to walk in and check things out and a spot for me to wrap the soaps
Nice to have lots of space to put everything out!
It was a gorgeous place to spend the day.
Do you know what was even cooler??? The little lake had a resident platypus or two that popped up and showed off for all the visitors and me for the whole day!
They are so funny!
Fun Fact: In the spirit of dangerous Australian Animals, did you know these creatures (the males) have a poisonous spur behind their hind foot? Apparently its a kind of pain that even morphine cannot dull!! But they are cute…
I really really must go back to the gardens and walk around properly. They looked so pretty from where I was.
Sales were ok… I sold about $280 worth of soap. The stall price was a bit higher though than other markets. I think because the stalls were scattered all over – it didn’t funnel everyone to the stalls, it was like people had to stumble on them by accident. Still… I had a really nice day out. Had my own little picnic with me, met lots of nice people and enjoyed watching the platypus!
Hello! The other day my parents spent a couple of nights over at a cousins place, so Jeff and I went for a bit of a hike up in the Sisters Hills.
Funny gloomy old day… hard to see where the sky met the ocean. What at first looked like smoke was just a sea mist clinging to the hills
A few little flowers out here and there… think my lens or something was smudged tho !!
Its more of a challenging hike – some good ups and downs over the span of about 10kms (slightly less) over three hours
We didn’t do a loop, just kept hiking until we estimated we had enough light to get back to the car
Cute little flowers
Heading back…
The rain didn’t really get going until later that night
Small banksia flowers
Little pink blooms
Back home… time to pick a bucket or two of tomatoes
So many!
Well, A bucket and a box
I raided some other areas of the garden too… those little lettuce seedlings are a good size now
The apple cucumbers that I put in insanely late have actually produced a few fruits!!
(With apples and eggs) Oh and of course the nightly corn
Mum helped me with the tomatoes today.. washed them as I cut them. I’ve got another lot sitting there with onion which I will make into another batch of relish in the next day or so.
There are others to cut and cook… and pick. Would love to make up a lot of BBQ sauce soon too.
And on the soap front!!! Experiment. Cut the side out of a plastic tray and used it to pull through the soap mix – nifty effect.
Hilariously not beetroot coloured, but beetroot soap. The purple water went brown in the lye then as the soap cured in the first day… to white! (Poppyseeds mixed in) I’ll have to try a different approach for getting more of a beetroot colour.
And an attempt at a new technique… I was aiming for teadrop… Someone has suggested wizards hat or Aladdin’s Lamp
I do love this design… keen to have another go
Quite a variance between the bars.
I did a market yesterday at Elliot… was a cold day, cold wind, rain etc. So had my table inside this time. Did quite well for a more quiet day again… (About $230 in sales, so worth getting out of bed despite my misgivings as it was SO warm and cosy under my blankets)
Anyways, thats a bit of whats been happening here. Parents are booked to head home tomorrow 🙁 Seems like the two weeks has flown by! Good news, Rosemary AND Emma are looking to come down to visit end of May if all goes well on the Covid front! So yay!!!
Hi!! The weather has kept up its extraordinarily nice manners, so we drove west to the beaches out there. Along the way on the north, the sea was like a mill pond… Not so much once we were west! I could sit and watch those waves crashing all day!
Hello to the Birthday Boy! Nothing like a stroll on the beach and a picnic on your birthday!
This area has many midden sites – you can imagine for many many years, the Aboriginal people sitting here enjoying the bounties of the seas!
It was a little windy and cooler – although I warmed up quickly in the sun
Waves!
Parents rugged up a bit more than me
They were loving it all!
The scenery here is rugged but beautiful
Lots of kelp…
We headed down the opposite way from our initial start so we could spend some time walking on the beach
Thats where you find the serious kelp!
Foot and hand for scale!
So tough and leathery!
Strolling on
Jeff annoying the birds…
More seaweed
And more
I paddled and got my pants wet…
Up into the small dunes …
I love sand dunes
And here is Mum, also loving the sand dunes…
Getting in touch with her 15 yr old self!
I ‘scampered’ up the one at the top end to get the photos (does one scamper when one is 50??? In reality it was a bit of a slog through the soft sand!)
And the best and safest way to come back down is on your bum!
And great fun was had by all!!
Oh look… more seaweed… with all of Jeff for scale this time
Monstrous stuff
And teeny tiny seaweed
Love it here
Endlessly crashing waves
A little climbing….
All in all we had a great day out! Hope your week is going along well too! Cheers!
Yesterday we popped down to Sisters Beach – keeping up with the lovely sunshine while it lasts
Wore the parents out a bit… ended up strolling for about 4kms!
Sisters is such a pleasure to walk along with its big expanse of white sand
Having a cuddle and a laugh with my Mum
Dipping feet into the water
Wasn’t really cold either!
There were a heap of cute little sea snail trail artworks on the beach yesterday!
And my favourite coloured rocks
Dad took lots of these photos… I pinched his phone to take a few snaps too because I was daft and left my camera at home!
Cool ripples in the sand
And brilliant blue skies
Back at home… the food keeps on coming along!
I made a batch of tomato sauce (I did beetroot pickles yesterday) We’d run out of sauce. Jeff likes this one… nothing fancy added. This should keep him going a while
These funny little things are capsicums! I’ve looked up a recipe for red capsicum relish so I might give that a whirl…
Did a quick pick of the tomatoes and our daily corn ration… its still amazing and tasty… just loving it!
Carrots and potatoes… still haven’t gotten into that potato patch to dig the lot up!
And lastly… chillies!! I’ll cut and deseed these and wait for more so I can make up the sweet chilli sauce! We’ve been without it for so long – am excited to see such lovely chillies growing in the hothouse.
