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Hello!!
Its early afternoon and I am happily in my nightie doing pretty much nothing. Got the fire going so all is right, so far, in my little world today 🙂

Just dropping by to share some photos of the hike we did up Mt Roland.
I am still feeling several aches from our day!!

We really picked a beautiful day to head out there!

Icy icy…

I think ice can be so pretty…. just adds an extra element of being cautious when hiking though.

Basically I had my camera away until we reached the first rest point – I was feeling the pinch of the ‘upness’
Then had to tell myself off a bit – no point carrying a kilo of camera up if you are going to leave it in the bag!

I took lots of ice photos at first because I was all excited about it haha

Stopping to look up every now and again was nice too!

This time, lots of time was spent looking at the ground for safety reasons!

Can’t get a better winters day hey? And no wind!! Bonus!

I think if I had known about the ice I would have grabbed Jeff’s old hiking poles. I am not good with poles and the idea of carrying them irritates me – but the extra stability on days like this would be a huge advantage.
Jeff took up with the poles because of his knees (and his ability to fall over on a flat surface) and has found them brilliant

Going up I need to stop a lot!! Still, was nice to take the time to pause and enjoy the ever widening views

End of the trek coming up into view!
With a few obstacles…

I admit I had to go cross country a couple of times!

I even got ahead of Jeff at one point!

Interesting pinkish colour to the rocks up here

This is the bit where we have to boulder-scramble to get to the trig point

Clouds were half rolling in but we still got some gorgeous views!

I was having trouble with the connections with my lens on the camera – not cool getting to this point and the camera not working!!
Then I accidentally got a photo of Jeff…

😀
Once I got it working again I managed to get a ‘couple selfie’

The sun was so bright – for me it was more of a squinty not a selfie…

Time to carefully boulder hop down

I had the camera packed up for most of the downhill hike… it was a challenge with the ice, but apart from a couple of slides/stumbles, neither of us fell down! Once past the icy tracks we had to pick up the pace as winter means the sun disappears quite early.
I did have to stop and get a snap of the pretty greenery though…

And not that you can in anyway tell how big Mt Roland is from this spot – but here it is, bathed in a winter sunset!

So – That was our trek! So great to get out on a ‘real’ hike. Not just one for the sake of exercise.
I better go get dressed – I think there is some shopping to do and a visit to the post office. I probably want to collect some more firewood before it decides to rain again!!

Take care everyone!
Cheers

Hi!!

Jeff suggested a hike up Mt Roland (which we hadn’t done in ages) yesterday!
The weather has been so amazing.
Wow… Ouch on the legs and feet!!
I tend to gloss over in my mind on how much hard work it is getting up to the trig point!
Not to mention this time we had ice on the path to contend with!! That made the going a bit trickier. So easy to slip. Wasn’t always easy to find a safe place to put the feet!

17km – we were hiking for 7 hours. We were having to move our butts at the end as we were racing the sun to the horizon!
Thats the drawback of winter hiking. 5pm and its about dark!

I’m planning on a slow Sunday to go through the photos so I can share properly

Anyway, was fabulous to get out to a ‘real’ hike!!
I am certainly feeling a few aches but nothing too dreadful considering!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend planned – although I know a lot of people have to hunker down again – we’ve had quite the Covid 19 surge in Australia, especially Victoria. So far Tasmania hasn’t had much happening there as the border is still pretty much closed generally (Harder to sneak in when there is a large body of water in your way)
Distressing watching the numbers in the US soar lately – please everyone do everything you can to keep yourselves safe and healthy! xx

Take care!

Hi!

I couldn’t resist trying another polka-dot soap.
This time I used some small dowels – and the last of the straws.
The dowels worked fine… I think I need more dowels/straws than I first imagined

Plus – I should get a little more scientific and measure out each 6cm block to arrange the dot displacement better haha

My friend Sam suggested pink and yellow dots on a cream background! So I thought I’d give it a go!
I think its rather cute!

I’ll tidy the edges when they harden up a bit.

The last slice was a lot longer so I cut it into three bars instead of two.
I’ve been watching soaping videos again so I am keen to try a couple of other ideas!
The days are still beautiful – so we are outside, keeping up with the hiking!

Hope you are all having a great week so far!
Cheers!

PS – Pip waves hello…

Back out to walk off the excess!
Found a newly fallen branch where we park! Had to move it off the track before we could drive in.
Glad we weren’t under it!!

Turned out to be a rather nice afternoon – great to see some blue skies!
As you can tell… I took my camera along to get a few snaps today

The below downhill track is pretty slippery!
Like hiking on ice!
Still… eventually we made it down in one piece

Down near the river steam was rising out of the bush! Looked pretty cool but failed to capture it in the photos… Oh well

Some of the offshoot tracks looked a bit… damp.

Checking out the river area

The big Man Fern still standing!

Enjoying some easy hiking on the flat area

The track up here is really rough… I can’t imagine taking a vehicle up or down! (Clearly someone is having fun!)

Anyway – I put the camera away to concentrate on this bit of ‘up’ which had my thighs yelling at me by the time I got to the top!
Jeff is in there for scale but still can’t quite capture the effort required haha (Was super steep!)

So – we only did about an hour out there today. Hoping tomorrow to do a couple more. Got a few things on my ‘to do’ list.
Once I get procrastination out of the way!

Hope your weekend was great!
Cheers!

Hello!
Jeff and I have managed to hike daily since we decided to remove the ‘iso muffin tops’
Today was a good couple of hours up and down the logging tracks of Oldina.
I thought it was going to rain so didn’t take my camera…
Not a drop to be seen! (Of course)

A few pretties in the garden.
And my hothouse lettuce are going along pretty well!

The potatoes are reaching for the sky!
Poor things looking for more light I suspect… but they look happy enough

Really have to pick these… will have to buy a few as well.
We are out of sweet chilli sauce – which is a bit sad really…

And check out Tentacular! He needs a severe haircut

While doing various end of day tasks, I find this madam out in the wrong side of the yard!
She often is!! And she knows exactly where to take her feathery butt when I tell her off. I just open gates and through she goes!

The girls are laying pretty well, despite it being winter

I’ve got one last silverbeet in the garden (that just self seeded) that I get to feed to the chooks every now and again, so they are happy with some fresh greens

Happily we are still foraging fresh greens for us too

The cape gooseberry really is over reaching onto the herb spiral!!

Oh – during our walk we found some timber offcuts. Looks like someone helped themselves to a tree and did some milling.
The leftovers looked like the outside of the tree…
I am not sure how dodgy it is that we decided to ‘clean it up’ and add it to our stash of firewood!!
Its really green – heavy stuff! Will have to wait a season before using.
We often see evidence of people helping themselves to wood. Pity we can’t just go into the areas where they are harvesting wood to collect the stuff they just end up burning or left there to rot. Apparently its hard to get a permit to do that.

Its also all a bit long for our fireplace. Eventually we’ll need to cut it in half.

Speaking of fires…
So cosy of an evening! I’ve got another load of washing happily hanging up on the new hoist! Its so convenient… and because its rather high Its not really in our face as laundry hanging about (so to speak)

Hello from Pip.
He likes to sit on the chair headrest behind where Jeff sits. Just to keep Jeff company I think!
Mind you, right now he is wrapped in a warm towel, snugged up in his new pet bed which I picked up yesterday which is all nice and soft and squidgy!

And check this out! I found an orange calendula!! Dunno how I got one of those!
I’ve stopped wondering deeply about a lot of the plants that appear. I just say thank-you and enjoy!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!
Cheers

Hello!
Another amazing sunny winters day here today!
We even got out for a hike this afternoon! (We want to keep this up better as the lazy slothing and chocolate bikkies are beginning to show as muffin tops.
Well… more like bread tins…)

Anyway – so cool re my polka-dot soap! Cut it today and totally want to do this again.

I might use pencils or thin dowel next time… A bit of experimenting to get the right reusable tool!

They’re quite a big soap too. But I like the substantial chunky look 🙂

Harnessing my husbands new writing skills further!
I might like to put these in a shop somewhere one day – but I don’t want to plastic wrap them.
This seems a rather attractive way to be able to label them – plus somewhere to stick a price on (on the back of course! Wouldn’t want to mess up Jeff’s good work!)

Jeff even came up with a monogram for me!
And a bit of my never ending supply of washi-tape to stick it all together!

Anyway – best not get to bed too late!
More hiking and less muffin top planned for tomorrow.
Cheers!!!

Hello!!
How was your weekend?
I thought our markets were starting back up today so went down for a look – Nope. Not a soul or a stall in sight!

Never mind. Probs for the best. Tasmania hasn’t had any new covid 19 cases for weeks now but Australias numbers are on the rise a bit fast.
The Victorians were being naughty – sadly lots of suburbs have been put back into lockdown and their travel out of the state limited.
I saw something rather funny – a request for Queenslanders not to smuggle Victorians into their state !!! If we were looking from the past into the future and seeing that request… what on earth might we think was going on???

And all my friends from the US – please please please keep a low profile and keep yourselves as safe as possible! Its alarming watching the number of new cases skyrocket!! 🙁

Today… after the non-market I came back home and made use of the three overripe bananas I was saving.
They are now cake!

Jeff has been practicing his handwriting skills in a new notebook I bought to put all my recipes in!
That has been on my ‘gunna’ list for ever and ever.
I found this sweet notebook – then gave Jeff a job!

I like the way the pages have little flowers or butterflies too…

After finishing the banana cake, I had a go at making passionfruit butter!!
I’ve not done it before so I’ll test it out on my toast tomorrow morning and if its ok I’ll get Jeff to add the recipe to the book and share it with you!

I think its basically lemon butter with a passionfruit twist!

I made up some lye and started a new soap – bit of an experiment.
I glued myself to youtube the other night getting new ideas 🙂

If all goes to plan the weird thing below should turn out to be polka-dot soap.

And I am pleased to report that all our clothes came down off the rack this morning nice and dry!
Still super excited so did some more laundry.
I did put them on the line for a couple of hours of sunshine before hoisting them…
Still have that folding and putting away issue to sort out…

Hope your weekend was amazing and Happy Fourth of July to my friends in the US!! (Possibly slightly late but the thought was there!)
Cheers!

Paul dropped in today to help up install our laundry hoist!!
Was so great!! He brought a ladder that was tall enough for our ceilings and sorted us out with getting it all up and working!!

Making sure all the rope is run through the right pulley at the right points

Threading the dowels in

Some adjustments here and there – just making sure I can easily reach to hang the clothes for the first knot tie-off at the wall.

Perhaps I could even up the dowels haha
Anyway, was super keen so did a load of washing which is on there now drying away – I rushed because I was excited so didn’t arrange the clothes in the most aesthetically pleasing manner – and no, not my knickers dangling there on the end haha.

Its reasonably heavy to hoist up with the wet clothes – but I am not short of a muscle or two. And the whole thing didn’t break so… yay!
It sits so high so nothing is hanging too low to be a pest.
I let it down a little while ago to check how things were going. Happy to report there is evidence of drying!!

Sometimes if a winters day is really sunny, I’ll part dry on the line outside. That will make it quicker to finish off inside. (And lighter to hoist)

Hope your weekend is going well!
Cheers

The resident snoopervisor – I started working in the carport and he was out on the back veranda – He didn’t like that at all. Got in touch with his Inner Siamese and set up quite the howl!
So I brought him over so he could see what we were up to 🙂

So what were we up to??
Sharon’s husband Paul offered to come over and help us install a clothes hoist similar to the one they have.
As you know we don’t have a dryer – line drying or heater drying is much more common in Australia than the US – actually its more unusual to find people here that use a dryer over a line.

So far so good…

We’ve put together the bones of it. Paul will instruct where the next holes are best to go and will help with the pulleys – We’ve got a really high ceiling in the lounge room and the idea is to be able to load up the rack, then hoist it out of the way. We have the fire going nightly so might as well make use of it.
Well… we do already but this, if it works, will make it a bit easier and a bit more out of the way!

There are 5 rungs – about 2 and half metres long.
Excited to get it happening!

Then there was Ruby’s sink project… I had something else worked out but in the end we went for mega simple
We cut the pallets down to the right height and simply rested the lip on the pallet edge

Jeff screwed the back panel in and one at the front.
We didn’t end up needing side panels – this finished up being really sturdy

I will put a bucket underneath to catch and reuse the water after washing veggies.
Next step is to get a tap and attach with some polypipe etc so I can just hook it up to the hose and use it easily.
Not to mention probably paint it some obnoxious colour/s!!
But I’ll wait until summer for the painting part.

I am sure the front bit will also be handy for me to hang things on or place things on the shelf bit… who knows!!

The horrible weather didn’t really materialise… so time to put off all the excuses and get into another patch.

As usual the twitch slowed me down and I wanted to quit and head back to the fire long before I got to this point. Had to tell myself not to be so pathetic and get on with it haha
Lovely big fat worms everywhere!

Finally done and topped with straw so it can sit and be happy until needed in spring. Reckon this will be the new corn patch, while the one above can be for potatoes.

Speaking of potatoes…

They are just rocking along in the hothouse!!

Had to get another box of spuds out of the shed for the pantry…
Potato salad…. (they are starting to grow!! But I just knocked off the sprouts. Still taste good!)

Found a few more capsicum for our salads…

These are called ‘Mad Hatter’ Bit small and fiddly – not fleshy like other capsicum but sweet and the bush produced well once it actually started!

We’ve been pretty much without an internet connection the past couple of days – more agonising time wasted on hold and people asking me to turn things on and off and unplug and replug stuff to no avail. 4 hours of my life I won’t get back only to be told ‘we’ll monitor it for 24 hours’
Sigh.
Amazingly it all came back today. I’ll reserve the celebrations until end of weekend haha.

Today I went back up to Sharons with Margie for a foot treatment, lunch and a catch up. Always so refreshing and relaxing!
I took her a basket of veggies and some of the precious garlic salt!! 🙂

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Cheers!

Hey there!
Remember I topped up the potatoes?
Two days later:

I need to go take a snap today to see what they are up to and fill up the pot I reckon.
The other pot has some growth too

I did a stir fry the other night and asked Jeff to go pick a couple of carrots!!

Haha – thats nearly a kilo of carrots right there!

Nothing startling happening around here.
I went up to Sharons yesterday and helped out with a workshop. First one in eons.
Was a lot of fun. Nice group of ladies- baby shower party! (I didn’t take my camera 🙁 )
Reasonably nice day here today – slothing a bit though. Thinking I might even do the dishes then see if I can drag Jeff out to do a project.
That will be hard. Nice and cosy in here with the fire going 🙂

Hope your weekend was great!
Cheers!