Youtube is so handy! I found a simple design to put on my soaps to make a batch that was Christmas-like. These wreaths are only coloured on the top, not all the way through like most of my soaps but they do the job. I made the mistake of mixing the green with oil instead of water to disperse and it went from its usual pretty light green to more olive. (I was a little sad about that) Lesson learned.
I took a snap of the progression of the design. (Something for my soapmaking friend Linda to try??) I do need to make a much thinner batch of the colour to make it easier to work with, but it bodgied up fine! I used a skewer to wrinkle the green line then again to just run the skewer in a circle through the colours to drag them into some semblance of ‘wreath’
I used the buttermints fragrance and added a dollop more peppermint. I am sure that is Christmassy?
I’ve ordered some stronger red colouring and a Christmas Tree embed mould so that should all be fun to play with!
Today I didn’t get out of my PJs – much to the amusement of Fiona when she dropped in for a cuppa at about 4pm! Mind you, I did manage to do a slew of boring houseworky things, but it was raining heavily for a lot of the day, so outside wasn’t all that attractive. And my PJs were warm. 🙂
So, today turned out reasonably nice weather wise – only a few sprinkles of rain now and again…
I spent a fair bit of prep time this time, marking out the rows and getting all my potatoes in evenly spaced. I used tomato stakes to get the lines straight and an old broken shovel to poke in the holes
Haha – turn my back for a minute and some creature is already trying to make off with a potato!!
I ran out of the seed potatoes but had a good stash of ours from last season, so the last 20 or so could be planted
I think it looked rather neat by the end – very satisfying! I planted 99 and the bit of green is a self seeded potato that I didn’t have the heart to pull out as its growing so nicely. So… an even 100 in!
Moving along to no-so-neat!!
Yipes… my poor purple garlic!! This is what happens when I net… out of sight out of mind. Amazing that we dug this plot several times and STILL missed a lot of potatoes. Not just little ones either!
I am sure they feel much better about life now.
The white garlic patch is doing quite well…
Lots of sturdy plants. So I mulched them too!
I wanted to use seaweed but… I get distracted, busy and lazy or a combo, so going down to collect it hasn’t happened!!
The new blueberry bushes are showing a few flowers!!
Ew…. well I am sure its just mud. We connected the bore for the first time in a long time… unheard of that our water tanks are so low after winter and in early spring!!! (Normally they are over flowing) We had to run it a loooong time before it ran clear… but now thinking to empty and clean tanks. No idea what that entails or if we need some professionals!!
Hated running the water to waste but there is no where to put it – and everything is watered enough as we’ve not long had rain.
And last but not least… some baby cherry-plums starting to show up!! If the season rolls along at a good temperature, maybe we will get the plums this year rather than the birds!! Fingers crossed!!
Hello!! So… Jeff made it back from Lune River safe and sound. I got in from the soap workshop to find both him and Pip napping together on the back couch! Pip was so happy!
Jeff said he had all his finds out for me in the lounge room on the coffee table for a show and tell. By the time I got there, Pip was proudly sitting among them of course!
Anyway, Jeff had a great time. Found lots of petrified wood and some very cool pieces of agate. I need to make time to get some photos Its nice to have him home again!!
My long term compost project. Been wanting to get a third bay forever… now I have a new kind so will have to change the other two when I empty them
Luckily we have Cousin Jeff who randomly drops pallets off for us!
I am copying Fionas compost – so they are the full size of the pallets and lined with old shade cloth
I’ll put stakes at the front so I can slip down timber as a front that can be removed and all the compost accessed when needed. (Unfortunately with the sloping land things aren’t all that even but I really don’t care enough to go and dig and level the site. Nup. Got other things to do!)
Meanwhile, as I am getting creative with compost, Jeff was down the back splitting some more kindling as we ran out!! Pip was down there for some snoopervising. Hitched a ride back up.
The cool kids on the block really…
Pips got the pirate squint happening!
And lastly… soap. The ‘Shimmy’ that we cut yesterday at the workshop! Cedar and Saffron. Smells so good and I really like the shimmy effect! We had five in the class yesterday and it was a lovely day!
I am thinking that now is the time to start experimenting with Christmas soap designs…. back to google for me!!
Hope your weekend was fabulous and your new week has started well! Cheers
Look at that for a beautiful afternoon! Not a skerrick of wind either! Was a perfect day for the garden
The soil in the new garden beds had sunk a bit… as expected. It was pretty messy and it took way longer than I supposed to find and dig up all the strawberries!
Lots to choose from when replanting. Nope… I have no idea which ones are the first runners!! As usual, it was all out of control so will just have to take pot luck.
Oh and I found the Godzilla of Worms
I posted it on my gardening pages where a lively debate ensued thinking it was a variety of blind snake!! I know worms and snakes so was 100% certain that it was a worm. Plus we only have three varieties of snakes in Tasmania and the blind garden snake is not one of them. To be honest I did a double take though when I first spotted it!
I pretty much emptied the trailer of soil and as you can see… not full enough! Must get back to Sharons and beg some more soil! 🙂
So far the other little strawberries I transplanted the other week are doing ok!! Some are even flowering so I am taking this as a good sign.
The night before I went snail hunting in the tulip and iris patch… so many!! I took them down for the chooks of course the next day!
They were pretty thrilled… and despite being enough snails for everyone to feast, there was still a lot of chasing and snail-stealing going on!
The ‘bok bok bok’s get a bit echoey in the bucket haha
Another job that has been a LONG time coming is repotting my Boronia… Took a leaf out of Monty Don’s page and used the pot to make a hole in the new soil first.
Then off came the pot and into the soil it went. Hope it survives the change!!
Jeff went off south yesterday back to the Lune River (Addicted much?) Too hard for us both to go to re organise the animals and I wasn’t going back to the vet so soon… I’ve only just recovered from the last trip haha I am sure Pip has forgotten! Anyway, I’ll save a ‘me’ trip up… perhaps an Overland Jaunt??? Hopefully Jeff is having fun and finding lots more agate!
Hello!! How was your day? The weather was gorgeous here today… perfect… no wind, sunny, mild. I did some gardening but tonight I’ll share the latest soaps…
I did this soap at Sharons workshop as a demo for the people attending! Its a nice one to do as you can see the design as its done rather than having to wait for the cut!
The one below I did pre workshop so the ladies could have a go at cutting This didn’t work at all how I intended!! The fragrance made the soap thicken up so quickly, so it ended up in def. layers and clearly I missed lots in the mixing process. I don’t dislike it… maybe a bit heavy in the colour, but not what was in my head!!
Then the last couple of days I’ve put together some new batches for this upcoming market… they should just be ok cured by the time the date gets to us.
Raspberry…
Then I did a batch of lavender/peppermint which is really lovely!
And the last one I finally used my cat embed mould that I had done a while back but couldn’t decide how the rest of the soap was going to go… in the end I just went for white! Worked better than I hoped! Very cute!!
Well… an interesting day. Spent a lot of time at the bank this morning as it turned out Jeff’s eftpos card had been compromised and someone was happily fleecing our savings account!!! (To the tune of over $700 mind you!!!!)
I found this at about midnight the night before and promptly dragged Jeff out of bed to confirm his spending hadn’t gone completely haywire…
Its not something we did … like not protect our card or anything. Random bad luck. The bank lady said there are scores of people just playing the numbers and they sometimes get a hit. Of course, Jeff’s card has been cancelled- my card is ok. The account isn’t compromised, just the card.
Oh before any of the parents start hyperventilating – don’t worry… I did the hyperventilating thing last night and generally in this type of situation, all the $$ will be returned. We weren’t scammed so we had no part of the transactions to take any of the blame. Just have to wait… Sigh.
So…. this was the project I gave up on after digging potato plots. It’s a wonder anything was growing in the hothouse!! Until I look at the photo I didn’t really notice quite how bad it was!
Jeff ended up taking the kukuri to it and went the total hack. Probably better he did… I tend to snip and feel bad about pruning things… Jeff’s pruning often ends up a foot above ground!!
Plus he mowed yesterday so things are looking much nicer!! Mind you, in this warmer weather, the grass will grow as we watch it!!
I’ll share some soapy photos tomorrow… I’ve been invited to have a stall in a month at the rhododendron gardens so I’ve put a few more batches together that should get just cured enough in time! (You know… because I was so low on stocks, … snort)
Hi! Back in the garden today! Bit of a puzzle this skull that appeared in one of the raised beds… what goes on in my garden at night????
These are carrots that I wedged under a plastic container because of marauding slugs and kinda forgot about them. Apart from being a bit squashed, they are growing pretty well!!
So… todays main task was to prep the potato plot. The straw that I piled on top of the area over winter had done its job nicely… not many weeds to contend with at all!
I let the girls in – they were so excited!! I had to throw them off certain gardens but in the end they were fairly well behaved.
They got under my feet a lot as they were super keen for any worm I might dig up… I was worried I would stab one by accident! Still… as inconvenient as they are at times, they make me laugh and its hard not to enjoy them clearly having the time of their lives! (You’d think they didn’t already have a huge space to play in!!)
So, we dug. A generous amount of blood and bone – actually I didn’t think I was going to put that on today because of the wind. At best I was going to wear it, at worst, breathe it in!! But the wind dropped after a while enough to get in and finish the job
I’ll hopefully plant next week
Anyway, the fun didn’t stop there…. The top end of the garden was looking a bit like a tip…
(and yes thats Flea in the compost)
Then there was this little area
The lemon balm was super huge… considering I never planted it and don’t look after it…
I cut it right back (took some cuttings too to see if they will grow)
Its also given the self seeded leeks some space to breathe I will redo the little trellis before planting… lots of the sticks are too brittle now.
A couple of weeks ago I cut one of the leeks off at ground level to give to Sharon. Its growing back nicely! Free leek?
Last time I looked the rhubarb was all little nubs… today its got leaves! I’ve not ever really looked after it properly… so I felt a bit guilty and gave it some blood and bone and some mulch
Also weeded and gave some mulch to the little hydrangea!
The composts are going well. This one is ready to use! Lovely stuff and lots of worms
The second bay is ready to rest. I dug it through and topped it with straw then lemon balm!! This means I will finally be forced into making bay #3
Will add that project to my list. Although the third bay I want to build like Fionas… Will be more convenient.
When I spotted one of the chooks digging up the garlic, I decided it was time to herd them all out before I started finding them horrendous rather than cute.
I got them all out… I thought. Nope. There’s a feathery bum… of course that’s Flea, back in the compost!
I was going to prune everything around the hothouse but I think I ran out of oomph. Save that for tomorrow or the next day!
Its nice seeing the tulips appear! Really makes it feel like spring!
I am enjoying seeing the little bits of colour appearing everywhere!
The wind has kicked back into high gear tonight! Hope you are all doing great! Cheers!
Hello! I made it into the hothouse! Noticed not only snow pea flowers but an actual snow pea!! (That I forgot to pick and eat… must grab it tomorrow!) So… spring is totally here!
Oh, and oopsie on the capsicums. Their little houses weren’t pushed down enough and some hungry slugs got in… damn!
So I did a double whammy on them… eggshell everywhere AND their containers!
Hope they recover!!
I bought my seed potatoes… looking forward to getting those in the ground!
I managed to grab a few hours in the waning light to put a few pots of seeds together… Did I mention I can’t get my beloved mushroom compost by the scoop anymore? All the main mushie farms are now closed in Tas (Something about the big supermarkets buying from the mainland grrrrr) so the only mushroom compost is by the bag, not the usual trailer full!! Sooooo sad about that. (By the bag is a bit more expensive… ie the two bags cost 2/3rds as much as a whole trailer scoop!!) I’ll rethink my compost plan when I get planting. (Except the beetroot… the beetroot deserve the mushroom compost!)
I planted some pumpkin, cucumber, a few varieties of tomato and some basil. Then it just got a bit dark to continue…
Will look forward to getting stuck into a few tasks when the weather isn’t so dismal… sooky I know, but I have lots to amuse me indoors while the weather is dank and gloomy and I really enjoy the sunny days getting out and digging etc!
(So glad I planted that winter lettuce!! They’ve been doing well)
The soap workshop went well yesterday! 6 lovely ladies took part – all very nice, keen and chatty. Sharon put on gorgeous food as usual and there was time for me to make a demo soap with that special Taiwan Swirl design… always a crowd pleaser haha
Hope wherever you are you are doing well and your weekend was lovely! Cheers!
Hi!! I haven’t managed to get photos of the rocks with my ‘real’ camera since we arrived home… As you can see by these snaps, I sensibly didn’t take my camera out with us on The Great Fossicking Day.
Wow – we spent pretty much 6 hours wallowing in the mud!! And loved every bit of it!! The above photo of Jeff was after he washed off a bit!!
Thank goodness for gumboots and rainpants!
We found a spot where lots of other people have been digging and I guess we were pretty much working through their spots rather than digging our own new trench!! The rain had washed off the mud from the rocks on the top layer so it was easy to spot some nice pieces without digging too!
This unusual piece of agate was my best find! I hope we can polish the face of it. That square bit actually runs through the whole stone.
The colours varied too… from the reds and oranges to the blues and blacks!!
And lots were translucent!!
The ladies at the Ross Cafe that we stopped at were really interested in our little adventure, we promised to stop in on our way home and share some of the spoils! So we did!! It made us smile a lot to see others get totally excited about rocks!
Anyway, we’ve still got heaps to sort and take photos of and tumble… will be an ongoing process!
Sorry I didn’t get any other location photos – using the camera really wasn’t practical, then when we were not covered in mud it was dark!!
It was a very nice view from our little lounge room in the cottage we stayed at! It was also bliss going out each evening for dinner – no thinking about what to cook or dishes to wash!!
Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!! (Soap Workshop booked tomorrow with Sharon!!) Cheers!
Look at me…away from home but wrangling some technology on Jeffs old tablet!
We got away not at 6am
Or 7am…
Anyway, we got away and it was a lovely warm sunny day for the most part.
We stopped at Ross for a bite to eat. We were hoping to browse antique and bricabrac shops but nothing was open 😣😣
Ross is an old convict town… I’ll have to look up some history on it later before I lead you up the garden path. But I think women convicts were held here.
The town is full of gorgeous buildings and homes.
Lots of stone walls…
It also has a gorgeous bridge
It was nice to stretch my legs.. we still had a way to go.
The wind was crazy strong actually – the tablet was like a wind sock… trying to keep it steady to get a shot of the church…bit dodgy…
Anyway… onward! Bye Ross…
We arrived in Dover around 3ish and checked in to our cottage….oooo such a view out front!
Not bad, eh?
We unpacked the car and decided to go down to the digging area just for a pre fossick peek
Mostly these were chips and scraps of diggings from others… but we were pretty excited about it
Anyway, thats an on the road update…wish us luck tomorrow!
