Category: Uncategorized

Hi!
We’ve been really lucky this week so far with the weather!
Which is a treat as Tasmania tends to turn on the doom and gloom when my parents visit!!!

I had a big disappointment… the day after my birthday my sister Rosemary was meant to arrive and spend about 5 days with us…
Some Covid19 Kerfuffle in Brisbane put them in lockdown and prompted Tasmania to impose a 14 day quarantine on anyone coming from Brissy.
So bummed. Was really looking forward to being able to catch up and do some stuff with my sister! 🙁 (Still sulking a bit haha)

Anyway, back to the lawn tea party…
Trying unsuccessfully to get a photo with my parents where we are all behaving…

Sharon took about 10 and these two were the best haha

Sharon of course was there… she took over on camera duties

Cousin Leonie (we are currently trying to plan some kind of hiking trip before winter sets in) and Margie!

My market buddy Maureen turned up unexpectedly!!! She was meant to be over west at a friends place for Easter but put that back a day to join in the tea party! I was rapt! I haven’t got a photo but she gave me a fabulous PURPLE shovel!!
On the right of me there is my lovely friend Shirley. She buys our eggs and I like to drop her in some veggies and have a cuppa and a chat! So nice she was able to be there as well

Cousin Beck and little Henry – who ate his way across the tables haha!!

And of course, Fiona!

I had the devil of a time getting the one candle lit for the cake… so funny!

And I swear I wasn’t drinking but I dropped the knife before I could cut the cake, but some fast footwork saved me from having to go in and wake my nurse!!!

Anyway, I loved my birthday and my tea party.. some of the cousins arrived later and we moved inside to catch up (Ann and Fiona did most of my dishes, bless their cotton socks!!!)

The next day we went to Fossil Bluff for Mum and Dads first walk on the Tassie beaches this trip.
I also won Lottie for the morning!

Sensible photo of my parents not pulling faces

And getting Lottie to pose!

Nice to be back at the beach

Its been great having lots of food straight from garden to plate (in a manner of speaking – I do wash and cook it)

The corn has been sensational!! So juicy and sweet!!
Generally one carrot feeds the four of us!!
Still haven’t dug up all the potatoes yet… still on my To Do List

Jeff got me these neat new moulds… bee motifs!!
So I made a batch with a honey fragrance. Smells good… but soap is soft… hope it hardens up.
Then I wanted to try a new fragrance he got me so I looked up a pretty cool design to make with it… Sandalwood & Vanilla and its scrumptious..
Attempted a gold vein! Turned out pretty fab!

I used activated charcoal for the black and worked out a more successful way to use the gold mica. Nifty!

Anyway, have been hiking in the afternoons on the Oldina Logging Trails, did beach walk with parents in morning so I’ve gotten a double whammy of sun today and feeling tired!!
I forgot my camera when we went to Sisters Beach today so I’ll pinch my Dad’s photos and share them soon!
Hope everyone has a great Easter Weekend, whatever you are up to!
Cheers!

(Not the most flattering Pip photo, but funny enough…)

Half way to 100!

What a lovely day!
I am a bit bushed tho, so more photos and chit chat later!
Had a fabulous afternoon tea party – and it didn’t even rain!

So we set up outside!!
We had plenty of food, savoury and sweet and really enjoyed catching up with people – all very relaxed!

Hoping to take my parents to one of the local beaches tomorrow, but we’ll be taking it easy on them for sure!
Hope you’ve all had a lovely day too!
Cheers

(PS…My wild hair do was probably killing my mother and Margie hahaha – messy hair just seems more ‘Me’)

Hi! Seems like I could upload the rest of the photos today with no dramas!!
How was your weekend?

As you can see – finally putting the first batch of relish together for this season. Seems a long time coming! We’re just finishing the first month of autumn!

Love my Nanna’s old scales. The best thing about them is how cool they look, the second best thing is, unlike a digital scale, it doesn’t switch itself off after 25 seconds of inactivity!!
One day I will put my hands deeper into my purse and buy some super kitchen scales (that DON’T get bored and switch off to ‘save power’)

Done.
I also made some muffins

Pip has a thing for banana muffins (no we don’t spoil him that much)
(Really!!)
(I can tell no-one is believing me at all)

And soap… something different, first I boiled up some carrots…

Do you know its the first time I’ve really looked at the cross section of a carrot closely! They are so pretty!!

I was using the carrot to make the colouring. So when I mixed the lye, I used the water that the carrots boiled in, then when it cooled a little I mixed in the pulp

When I was ready to mix it all in together with the oils, I put it through a strainer so no bits would get in… I suspect there would be mould issues with the cooked food in it… not sure

I tarted them up with some poppy seeds on top. The yellow (Which was part the kitchen lights) has faded now… there is an interesting smell – maybe its the poppyseeds, not sure as I didn’t put fragrance in. (Nor goats milk this time)
I just wanted to see how it all behaved.

It mixed up well and set quickly so I was able to unmould today quite early.
I would love to work on making a range of botanical/vegetable soaps using plants from my garden. Would be very bohemian and cool!

To be honest I am dying to have a go at using beetroot but I reckon people would come out of the shower looking a little purple haha

I’ll have to see if I can remember to get a snap of the unmoulded soap in the natural light tomorrow.

So… today – back to Oldina for a 10km hike up those gnarly hills!

It rained off and on…

The creek seems full

Lots of people were out there today on motorbikes and quadbikes

We found a random golf ball… reckon one of the crows (ravens) dropped it – probably pinched it from somewhere thinking it was an egg

And up the ugly hill we go!! This stretch is super testing!! But we got up to the top with no stopping along the way… just a bit of whinging on my part haha
Once we get to the top of this, there is a slight down before going up the rest of the way.
Its all a good workout anyway.

Thats all from me tonight… planning to head to the shops in the morning to pick up groceries I need for when my parents arrive (booked to arrive Tues) and the afternoon tea party on Wednesday!

Have a great week everyone!
Cheers

We did a good chunk of yard work yesterday… Jeff mowing and whipper-snippering, me cleaning up and moving ‘stuff’

Love getting a proper harvest of tomatoes!

The lettuce seedlings I put in are going well… starting to get swamped by the silverbeet seedlings (from the plant I let go to seed)
Not that ANY of the lettuce seeds germinated that I put in at same time!

I had some other photos from today but I can’t get them to load at the moment…
So this is short and sweet…
Off to bed!
Happy Weekend everyone!
Cheers

I had to have my camera with me yesterday as before our hike, I needed to take a snap of Jeff in front of the Rural Health Building as the muffin mixed up his meeting with a photographer… So I was the backup!

Do you think that tree looks a bit precarious??? I rush past that bit now!! Its a very very solid bit of tree.
I didn’t get heaps of photos… the day was grey and gloomy and it ended up raining.
Nice walk though!

And here is one of the photos I took – they will select one and it will go in their magazine along with the article they are doing on Jeff.
All in regards to Mental Heath.

Posing in his slick new T-shirt from his Canadian family!!

Pip is getting mightily suspicious about all the housework
That usually indicates people invading his precious little world!!

Funny little side story… at the last soap workshop, the ladies were telling stories about their cats and their crazy hunting prowess, etc… seriously, like the cat bringing in a headless wallaby THROUGH THE PET DOOR!!
And other such deeds that were more reminiscent of big cats on the savannahs.. I mutter to Sharon out the side of my mouth sadly… ‘and my cat bites his penis 🙁 ‘

I thought she was going to choke!! Made me laugh anyway.
On that delicate subject… Pip has been pretty good. I only put his collar on overnight but during the day we’ve not seen any dubious behaviour of late resulting in cry’s of pain or blood! This is a step in the right direction!!

I unmoulded and cut the pretty feathery looking soap I demo’ed at the workshop… cool pattern underneath!

The individual slices look fab!

Looking forward to doing more of these for sure!

I decided to risk it and pick a couple more ears of corn. These were much better… just that bit plumper and juicier.
I think most of them should start being properly ready when the family are here, which is fabulous
Plenty more tomatoes out there… there might be a batch of relish yet!

House cleaning and organising going along ok. We got the plumber in today because the loo had been leaking (just a seal cracked so nothing major) and the kitchen sink taps needed fixing… they needed extenders as where they are attached into the wall is ‘awkward’ and turning off the taps easily was a pain.. the cold tap dripped unless you put in a Conan The Barbarian effort into turning it off! Its so beautiful now 🙂

I put the fire on this afternoon… its been constantly pouring for over 24 hours and I really need washing done… so I’ve hoisted two loads so far up onto the drying rack… which I am still in love with… some I’ve been able to take down already, the rest can finish off over night.
Of course, having a fire on means a cat needs to be wrapped up in his especially warmed towel!! He has looked blissful all afternoon/evening

Hope your week is going well!
Cheers!

Hi !
Wow… its super windy here. Has been quite intense for a day or so now.
The market at Elliot went pretty well considering the dreadful weather. Enough people got out and spent money to make it worthwhile. (Around $230 – more profitable than staying in bed!)

(Partly set up – everyone was inside that day!)

The soap dish sets looked lovely but sadly didn’t sell anything this time around.
I am sure eventually they will. (Same thing with the facewashers and scrubbies)

Been spending time on youtube and getting so many cool ideas…

Using the bottom of a soft drink bottle to disperse the colours..

This is Oh So Satisfying to do!

Once all poured, I ran a skewer through the ‘petals’ and ended up with a very neat design

Still not 100% on the cutting – size and shape but…

(Bottom was rather cool)

Yesterday at the soap workshop I did a demo with this technique.
It certainly had the wow factor

The bottle bottom does get up and run away a bit – as it is full of air. And its also hard to pick up at the end of the process
I am going to drill holes in the feet so the air can escape and I can hopefully push it back down more easily… and attach something (screw or cord) so I can pick it up out of the mould when done.

I totally want to do more of these

Another geometric soap

Colour worked out nothing like what I was aiming at…

And this one I did as a vertical cut… the brown ‘branches’ were supposed to be slivers of gold.. ummm… seems when you mix the gold mica into the ‘batter’ it goes poo-brown
This ended up looking like tree branches with square leaves 😀

At the market a lady came up and said her cousin had left her with a stack of micas and fragrances that she wanted to get rid of… would I be interested in having a look??
Oh boy, would I indeed???

A lot of the containers and bottles were full – even the ones that weren’t still had decent amounts of stuff left in them
I was lucky enough to get all of this for $100! Actually I offered more but she was happy with $100!

Also some moulds and other useful bits and bobs.
So cool!
My supply collection is really pretty great now!

This soap was a bit of fun to create!
I ended up splitting the batch and doing it in two sections… the black bottom had to set a bit first before doing the top part. Since the mixture for the top needed to remain fluid, it was sensible to split the batch and not start mixing the coloured part until later in the process

Pleased that it actually worked!

Then there is a mishmash of soaps made with leftover mixtures

The snowflake moulds are really intricate!

I was worried half of the soap would stick in the bottom but they came out easily

And today I cut the latest two loaf soaps
The ‘shimmy’ I took to the class for students to have a go at cutting. Strange but the almost yellow part of the soap started out bright orange! Totally changed within 24 hours!
The other one is a slightly failed blue ombre… I was trying a different way but it wasn’t successful. Learning curve 🙂
Cat embed looks like a cat, so thats a win.

Have a great week ahead!
Cheers

Hi!! Meet Braxton!
He is a very lucky calf as Sharon and Paul adopted him so Jezebel had a sibling and could help drink the milk that her mother has lots of.
Sadly Braxton wasn’t wanted by the farmer (I am not sure exactly why… male and wrong breed??)
This sounds totally horrible, but he was going to be shot and discarded.
That just hurts my heart.

Look at how little and adorable he is!

That is the ugly face of intensive farming.
I am not a vegetarian, but thats just a waste of a life. Whatever is in Braxtons future, at least he is going to HAVE a life, and a good one at that!

Margie enjoying Baby Moo cuddles.

Me enjoying a smoothie at Sharons with great farm views!

(Banana Muffins)

I think I broke my promise about blogging the next day… Ummm.. I don’t even know what happened to that day!!!

Anyway, I am in Panic Cleaning Mode

So excited… my parents are booked to arrive in Tassie on the 30th March and one of my sisters, Rosemary is booked to arrive on the 1st of April!
Its been over 12 months since I saw my parents and cant remember when I last saw my sisters and families!!

My parents get to stay for a couple of weeks, where as Rosemary has a shorter window of almost 5 days.

We are so very much looking forward to it!
(I turn 50 on the 31st of March, hence a good time for people to come on down and poke fun at me for making it to half a century.)

I’ve decided to leave out the soap updates for this post… seemed like the post might end up going on and on for too long.
Lets talk veggies.

Corn!! First corn!! I will confess I picked these a bit early. Its just that everything is SO LATE and I was getting impatient.
So they tasted ok but nothing to get super excited about. I’ll just have to be patient and wait for the next lot.
I am hoping they might time themselves right for when my family is here then I can look like a champion!

Finally got what I would call a decent pick of tomatoes!!
We are loving them in the salad each night.
Jeff has also been making himself a lunch salad of tuna, tomatoes and mayo.
This was the other day, so I reckon I should be able to go out and pick some more.
They are terribly late too… Still crossing my fingers for enough to stock up on my relish … we are getting low.

We pretty much have potatoes nightly too… the patch is looking really scruffy so I think next time Jeff and I are free and the weather is ok, we should just dig ’em all up (can’t wait… so much fun!)

Carrots are a good cross between lovely, huge and straight… and downright suspect…

This one seems to be running away…

I’ve been out at Sharons today… we had another soap workshop… a few cancellations meant we were down to 4 people, but we offered them to do a second batch for an extra fee since we had a fair bit of spare time, which three of the ladies said yes to!!
So we did 7 batches with students, I did one demo batch then after everyone had gone, Sharon put together one more as she has a big soap order upcoming.

Oh… and I came home and ended up doing a batch tonight.
I need an intervention lol

Quick Pip Update?? He is not in the cone all the time. Things seemed to have calmed down a bit, but he must be going a bit senile or something because he bites his penis then howls and wonders why that hurt!!! (and bleeds!!!)
I don’t think the vet has a solution for stooopid cat!
We’ve been giving him a calming drug daily, although I left off the last few days until we had an ‘incident’ yesterday.
While we are out or he is locked in his room for the night we put the cone on so he can’t have free range on his nether regions.
This is so weird!!
Apart from that, healthy, good appetite, affectionate and currently curled up on my lap sleeping!!

So… I reckon I am done for the night.
Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!
Cheers!

Hello hello!!
So sorry… I keep trying to get back into the swing of blogging daily, but I am just not sure what has happened to my motivation!! (A question my garden is asking frequently!)
Shocker!
Anyways, last week we got out to do a loop.

We’ve been hiking the river track almost daily which has been great. Usually we do a double lap (12km) so I am sure that is doing us some good.
Jeff has taken to lugging his pack about, stuffed with things to help burn more calories.
I am happier just carrying ME!

I’ve missed coming along this track

Maybe I can convince Jeff to go back there tomorrow for our hike… the legs got a much bigger challenge on the hills

The day turned out pretty nice after a dodgy start.
Perfect for hiking

My usual fascination with the rocks

So cool

The tide was reasonably low so there was plenty of beach to stride across

Not much in the way of sand art that day…

Looks inviting…

Recently there was a big run from Stanley to Wynyard – 101kms! You can do teams or solo and you can do 25, 50, 75 or 101kms.
I was all fired keen to do the 50 but entries were full by the time I remembered about it.
Its called Gone Nuts, because it starts at ‘The Nut’ in Stanley.

My amazing friend Nardia, who has appeared in one of my hiking posts, did the full 101km solo!! It was a 6am start and she got into Wynyard at 3am!!!
I am in awe!!
The course goes through the parks, across beaches and through private property.
This section of track off the beach got hugely slashed for the event

We were pretty surprised actually… this is a National Park. This track is usually one vehicle width wide.
And then they slashed out several parking/turning bays

You can see the water station that had been left – although I am sure someone has collected all that by now.
But as you can see, thats a LOT of vegetation to cut back in a NP
We’ve not seen that done in previous years. Just some branch trimming along the narrower tracks.

And here we go… about to tackle ‘Bastard Hill’ for the first time in a while.
I don’t think the photo grasps how steep this terrible stretch is haha (BTW that name is what we call it. No idea if it has a real name but its a killer little stretch)

Time to stop and hyperventilate admire the view!

Two more significant stretches of ‘up’ and we were on the lovely undulating path home!

I have more news, Pip updates and soap photos and promise (Solemnly PROMISE) to return tomorrow with more!!

Hope your week has been great!
Cheers

Hello Hello!!
Just a quick soapy post as I was quite chuffed with my experimental efforts today.

I am getting things together as there is meant to be a market on Saturday (weather doesn’t look great tho)(Hopefully I can have an indoor spot if its soggy)

My sister Rosemary, sent me a few extra ceramic soap dishes that she made – so I am going to put them up at the market as a set for sale and see how we go!
I crocheted a length of cotton to tie them together…

I think a neat look! They are such beautiful dishes!

Anyway, onto experiment one…

Ombre – (graduation of colour tones)
I saw something on youtube how to do this so I thought I’d give it a go!

I also put in a bunny embed and I am really pleased with how the colour turned out for my first go! (Wasabi Fragrance)
Basically I split my soap mix into two – made one dark green and the other yellow… I would pour a bit of green in, then I would mix the yellow into the green before pouring again… so each time I poured in the mixture, it was getting lighter and heading towards yellow. (Did that make ANY sense?)
Can’t wait to try this with other colours. I am super keen!

The next experiment involved pre making a batch of soap to cut into shapes/lengths

Just straight colours, nothing fancy.
Then cut them into thin slices or pillars

Then… tried to stand them up in random places in the loaf mould while pouring each side with two different colours…
I ended up with a mess haha

I admit this didn’t look attractive… but…

Pretty excited about how the final product turned out once I lopped the top off and cut through! Each section was different of course.
I have enough shapes left to do another batch or two as well
This was definitely a fun one to put together…

Hope your week has been going well
Cheers!

Its a long week for everyone.
I’ve had Pip out of his collar as much as possible… supervised washing as long as he didn’t go near his delicate parts.
Needless to say he doesn’t appreciate me doing that job.
Currently on my lap… but the fire is on and his towel is re-warming up so I can wrap him up in it again when I have to get up from here.

I like doing the swirls in my new slab mould.

The colours worked out a lot more subtle than planned but I still like it.
This is the lemongrass essential oil

Using essential oils is problematic as most don’t really ‘hold’
I had gotten some more inexpensive essential oil – orange and was keen to try it out

Happily the fragrance stuck, but the new orange liquid dye disappeared!
Damn.

Pretty disappointing when I cut it
So… I tried again with another brand – brites… and yes, colour held but to be honest… I don’t really like it!!
Its not hideous, but… just not my thing
I think next time I use the orange I’ll use the saffron powder as that goes a more natural orange

Oh well… Its good to have an experiment

An old favourite fragrance.. Rustic wood and rum! It takes a while for the fragrance to calm down (starts out uncomfortably strong)
Bit of a mix with some madder root powder which gives a shortcake pink (is that a thing?) and the brown mixed in… odd but I quite like it.
Currently this is curing away from all the other soaps.

I’ve got two markets coming up. (weather depending)
The one at Elliot is on the 13th and I have enough nice new stuff to have a lovely stall.
The other one is back at the rhododendron gardens on the 17th April so I have time to make a bunch of soaps in the next couple of weeks that will also be ready for sale (Must dust off my motivation and get cracking)

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend!
Cheers
(My dahlias in my sister, Rosemary’s gorgeous vase)