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Saffron and Honey.
(With the calendula petals on top)

Hello. Weekend is upon us again. Any plans?
At this stage I think we have a walk planned on Sunday.

More lavender – the colouring is rather subtle though.

A new batch of Applejack Peel. Smells so lovely. Have cut it tonight and the patterns are nice too.

This was from the batch of White Ginger and Amber fragrance.
I also made a batch of ‘Dragons Blood’ tonight. Mixed the red into the ochre – Not a bad combo but you’ll just have to imagine it for now 🙂

I made another batch of raspberry jam today with the latest two picks. (about 3lb of fruit)
Then outside to water and picked over a kilo of snow peas! Will have to call some cafes and restaurants in the morning to see if they want to buy them. I don’t fancy advertising them to chase single sales of 100gms each. People can be so unreliable about getting back to you and keeping meetings!

My carrots are getting bigger!
These, some of the snow peas, the below onion and some of my garlic landed in tonights stir fry dinner!

Now – on to some serious stuff.

You’ve probably noted that Australia is on fire.
Right now my best friend is preparing with her family to defend their home as the fire is heading their way. Her husband is group captain of a large area of rural fire brigades. They’ve got their defenses in place and a plan. I am so worried for them but there is not a thing I can do to help… which is awful.
Its terrifying stuff. You may have seen some photos.
The other day one of their local volunteer fighters was killed. A freak tornado-like wind picked up the back of the 10 ton fire truck and upended it onto the cabin. Young married chap with pregnant wife. Heartbreaking.
Two trucks were literally blown over in this manner and other firefighters were taken to hospital.

Thousands on the coast have fled to beaches to escape the flames and entire small towns have all, but been wiped out.

If you are not familiar with the size/geography of Australia – here is an interesting comparison that might make the scale of what we are going through a little clearer.

NSW – New South Wales is just one state in Australia.
The bushfire season started in September which is just not normal. Our worst months are January and February – December being our first summer month.

Our firefighting forces – paid and volunteer – are stretched thin. As you can imagine, volunteers are losing wages or money if self employed and are, quite frankly – exhausted.

Firefighters from Canada and New Zealand have been sent and I think a bunch from the US have just landed.

Google ‘Mallacoota’ for some images that look like we are going through Armageddon.

The toll on our wildlife is horrendous. I can’t even think about it properly.
Numbers like half a billion lost have been thrown about.
Wildlife carers are in full force doing what they can. My friend introduced me to a Facebook page where people are sewing, knitting and crocheting items to donate to carers.
Joey pouches are in big demand. Bags that hold animals like baby kangaroos, wallabies, possums, wombats etc.
Bat-wraps are another item sorely needed. I never knew about these things! The photos of little bats in their swags are very cute. But sobering to realise we are losing thousands of them 🙁
One that I can do and just started today is crocheted nests – for birds and small wildlife. I’ve got plenty of spare yarn – and hopefully once one is done, I’ll get faster at it.

Anyway, thats all from me.
Its going to be a rough weekend for a lot of people – it would be amazing if we could get through it with no more loss of life.

Take care all
xxx

Hello!
On the first day of 2020 I decided to pull up the white garlic patch.
It was all starting to look a bit done – and the bulbs were certainly big enough.

I was smart enough to bring the wheelbarrow down this time!

Of course, they have to be artistically laid out so I can get a nice photo to show off with!
Seriously. Pretty pleased with this lot. 🙂

I left them out to dry a bit so I could brush more dirt off, but of course there was a sprinkle of rain. So I’ve put them on a table in the bbq area for now. Will have to sort something out in the shed to hang and dry.

We are getting a few plums. Most have not even started to ripen. The birds are getting into them too – we won’t get many for ourselves.

The birds got back in and dug up the Hugelkultur bed. Sigh. Poor struggling pumpkins. I’ve renetted it.

The second potato patch is lush!

One remaining apple cucumber on the second hugelkultur bed – which is somehow growing random potatoes and tomatoes!

Galahs having an afternoon siesta waiting for the chickens to get fed again.

Blackberry from the back paddock coming in. Might as well get the fruit before cutting and digging it out!

I filled the garlic patch with all the butternut pumpkin seedlings I had! I think its too late in the season… not that there was any choice with the weather… anyway, whats the worst that can happen?

Weeded one row of tomatoes.

Time for a manicure?

Nice pickings yesterday

A few roses have bloomed. I need to cut back the rosebushes hard once this season is done.
And the day lilies are out! Love the orange!

Today I watered a lot of the garden and cleared the dining room table!! 🙂 Well… its not totally cleared but its an improvement.
I did more soap (lots to be photographed) and spent a fair bit of time picking raspberries.
More jam in my future?

Hope the start of your year has been excellent!
Cheers!

Hello and Happy New Year
I hope 2020 is a wonderful year for you all.

The other day Jeff was all fired keen to dash back up to Weld River for some more sapphire hunting. Well, why not?
It was a hot day, and hot days are wonderful if you can spend them in a river!

We found lots more little sapphires that I have yet to photograph. Nothing that will make us filthy rich, but its a lot of fun.

We walked quite a way up river this time and found a nice spot that was easy to sprawl out and fossick.
Not to mention cool off when necessary:

We saw a decent sized tiger snake on our walk back to the car! :O Annoyed I still didn’t get a photo to impress you all haha
Thing was, it slithered under a rock, the rock we were standing on ready to jump down and I had no way of seeing if it was just waiting there for me or had another avenue of escape! In the end I made an ungraceful leap for it, turning and backing up to see if anything fangy was coming. Nope. Lots of holes in embankment so it would have just disappeared into the cracks.
Jeff followed me down and all ended well 🙂

I’d been meaning to snap the rock fish – so we stopped at Derby for the photo!
Some clever clogs recognised the shape in the rock and took advantage.
The little sleepy town of Derby has woken with a vengeance in the past years.
They’ve created world class mountain bike tracks and people come from all over to use it. World championships are held here.
The place is teeming with people on bikes – lots of families, kids etc. Lovely to see.

Back home, New Years Eve was a quiet one for us.
I picked some strawberries and made us fresh milkshakes with generous amounts of ice cream in them.

Found Pip had opened my kitchen cupboards and got himself in… and wouldn’t come out until I got the camera out for a name and shame moment… little snot of course jumped out.

I had a couple of dead bananas that needed to be made into a cake… so I did that. As well as baked some bread and did two batches of yet-to-be-photographed soap.

So… what to do on the first day of 2020?
Getting out of my PJ’s would be an excellent start!

Love and best wishes to you all as we head into a brand new year!
Thank-you so much for continuing to follow me along with my stories xxx
Cheers

Hello! Another proper summers day – needed sunscreen and everything!
We did a lot of cleaning up today. Jeff mowed and whippersnipped.
Pip snoopervised

I’ll see if someone wants to collect some of these rounds of timber. We just need to get rid of the stuff we can’t use.
No burning for a good long while (I’d say we are under fire bans now and for good reason)
(As an aside I just read that an area in Victoria half the size of Belgium, is being evacuated because of extreme fire risk!!)

I didn’t get a proper ‘before’ photo with all the bits of wood and branches etc… but its much better now. Cleared and mowed.

We also hauled all the timber away from the front where the most recent tree fell.

While Jeff was mowing, I was running about moving stuff. Its a bit of a process moving the raspberry netting to work under AND keep chooks out.

For whatever reason, we’ve had too many piles of branches that have been stripped, ready to cut into fireplace lengths… so I moved and consolidated areas.

Raked up bits so Jeff could mow and tidy up more easily.
(But yes, still a long way to go.)

I’d planned for a while to get new firewood storage areas happening. Will need some more steel droppers to do the sides, but this is a vast improvement. Will be able to start stacking as soon as the next lot of trees come down.

Even the veggie patch got a good trim!

Well – its late and I need to go wash some dirt off!
Hope you’ve had a lovely weekend!
Cheers!

(Yay – harvested an onion to put into the zucchini slice tonight!)

Ew. Hobbit Feet.

Anyway… another super warm gorgeous SUMMER’S day.
The wind kicked up a bit so I went around and hand watered today.

I dug up the self seeded potatoes that are growing in a pumpkin patch. Really nice size too!

I dragged Jeff from his comfy chair to help me pick snow peas and raspberries. They both take so long so the extra set of hands and eyes was useful!

Earlier I turned my friends raspberries into jam. Had about 4lb’s of fruit

I also got all nostalgic about my childhood Sunday Roast Dinners and went out and picked some of that mint and made up some mint sauce.

I even have the old herb cutter from the second drawer from the family home. (I spotted it in the garage sale that my parents had when they moved and I snaffled it!!)

Sorry – I am not so great at food photos. And meat stuff before its cooked maybe not so appetising 😀
However – dinner tonight was fabulous. (If I do say so myself.)
I got some chicken thigh fillets and dolloped them with the pesto I made yesterday, then wrapped them up in bacon and baked.

On the side was steamed new potatoes (butter and my garlic salt) and a big fresh salad!
Oh – loving the first taste of new potatoes again! Sigh. Bliss.

And – I squeezed in making a batch of soap too 🙂 (Of course)

Hope you’ve had a great day too!
Cheers

G’day… 🙂
First of all, a quick soap update! Snap of the pattern I did dropping the colours in. I really like it but my hands itch to get in and do some manual swirling haha

Thats a kilo and a half of raspberries!
I went to my friends place yesterday and wow – their berry patch is HUGE.
What is pictured above is scarcely a third of what was picked!
Plan to turn it into Jam… maybe tomorrow?

Today I picked the first of the baby carrots. My method of thinning – wait until they are edible 🙂
I also went bandicooting for some new potatoes! Can’t wait to steam them up!

Christmas afternoon I did some mulching. And transplanted some new lettuce seedlings.

That self seeded tomato is getting so big and sprawly – oh well. I don’t need that space so it can do what it likes for now! (See why we didn’t have kids? No disciplinary skills)

The feverfew is also running riot. But a pretty riot.

The corn… sigh. Its hanging in there but all over the place when it comes to size/development. Debating on putting in another small patch as a backup.

I found this tomato plant in the carrot patch so I transplanted it. Now it looks sad! Reckon it will perk up soon.

This tomato patch now has lots of silverbeet and self seeded tomatoes.
Lots more transplanting to do at some point soon.

This was the sad looking lateral that I popped in – its really come along well considering how pathetic it looked back at the start!

I want to pull up all the onion and leek.
I think they are all pretty ready. Plus I need that plot!

Silverbeet!! Wow. Seems like everything that the birds pruned, sprung back brilliantly!

These tomatoes have done well too… they were barely an inch high when planted out!

Yay – zucchini

Potato patch

Rhubarb

Carrots and beetroot

Meanwhile, back in the hothouse – lots more self seeded tomatoes trying to take over the basil patch

Growing well – but no colour 🙁
Happily found a number of Russian Black tomatoes started

The cucumber seem like they are taking forever to get going this season!

Yellow capsicum babies

Lots of decent sized passionfruit – courtesy of Tentacular

I did a bit of weeding and watering today. Wind was too strong to put the sprinklers on. The water just got blown away!!

Foraging for sweet treats –

I raided the basil patch again and made up another batch of pesto!!

Hope you are all having a nice relaxing time between Christmas and New Year!
Cheers!

Merry Christmas!
I hope everyone had a wonderful day, whatever you did!

The above bowl of raspberries and strawberries was my contribution to Christmas dinner over with Ruby and Margie. Pretty funny – I didn’t actually know I was expected over there until last minute.
I must have missed the conversation that included those plans!

We had a lovely dinner. Roasted turkey roll and a million baked veggies. Yum.
Jeff has been on nightshift up at the hospital, so we saved him a plate!
After I rolled home I did some gardening and made some soap.
(As one does on Christmas Day)

So many snow peas! They are going mad right now!

I pulled up the last of the purple garlic too.

Check out the fabulous present I got from my sister Rosemary:

Soap dishes! Prototypes for me to test out and display my soap on!
Rosemary had taken up ceramics recently and I love the things she is making! I think they are beautiful!!

One of my friends little girls baked us these adorable snowmen biscuits to say thanks for all the fresh food!!
We barter stuff during the year and they also buy a lot of my excess tomatoes.
These tasted so good and the little girls were so adorable – a bit shy handing them over but really pleased as I was pretty excited to be given home baked goods!!

Nothing much planned for tomorrow.
I have a ton of raspberries picked at another friends place to do something with and I am eyeing off the basil that has grown back well… More pesto!

Enjoy your holiday time!
Cheers

Hello!
We had an excellent overnight away!
We didn’t leave too early – but it was a really enjoyable drive.
Stopped in Scottsdale where I spotted this wonderful blanket of pink, flowing over a fence!
Jeff got a coffee and we got directions to a park so we could sit and have a sandwich before seeking our fortunes in sapphires.

We missed the turnoff completely – got to Weldborough and had to backtrack. When we saw the road we realised why we missed it. The road sign (tiny) was only visible (just) if you were heading the opposite way!
I suppose everyone else in the civilised world has a GPS in their car haha.

Anyway, we found the Weld River and got in and started sifting and panning. I immediately found a couple of sapphire chips in my pan, so that bolstered our enthusiasm!

After a while we decided to go further up stream to try our luck there. We just walked in the water – it was lovely and warm.
A few fish – good sized trout I suspect – were seen. One came up to Jeff so close he was able to grab its tail!!

It was peaceful and beautiful in the river.
Really enjoyed our afternoon!

So… what did we find?

How pretty are these?

Here is some scale – which will only be useful to those of you familiar with our coinage haha

So – later in the afternoon we grabbed our gear and walked back to the car – changed into dry clothes on the side of the road and drove back to the pub in Weldborough for dinner.

Such a great little spot!
I don’t usually post food photos – usually because I’ve guffed most of it down before I think of a snap – but this is what we indulged in post fossicking…

Steak sandwich for me and a Moroccan chicken curry for Jeff!

Turns out the pub lets people camp for free behind the establishment! Even a block of loo’s and a shower available!! Hows that?
Much better than driving back out in the bush somewhere.
In true Millar Style… it started to rain just as we were setting up!

Its a bit of a squash in our hiking tent… well, I don’t find it too bad but Jeff has more trouble. What kills me is that I can’t seem to stay comfortable on the mattresses for more than 20 minutes before legs ache and I have to turn! Is this an age thing?? haha
Looking forward to crawling into a comfy bed tonight thats for sure!

The next morning was cold-ish. We decided not to spend the day in the water getting cold but scoped out another path to where we might be able to return to next time.
The track was pretty narrow but had a few parking/camping possibilities.

The foxglove was out everywhere. Very pretty but a real problem here as its an invasive weed.

We figured as well if we got up early enough we could certainly do a day trip, come out and sift/pan and return the same evening. Its about 3.5 hours drive each way.

We enjoyed a slow drive back, stopped at a couple of places and managed to return home to a pleased Pip and in time to do some last second supermarket shopping before tomorrow!

Hope you’ve all got a lovely day planned!
I think I shall gather strawberries and raspberries tomorrow!

Cheers

Pretty good spot for a market hey?
The weather played nice but I was daft enough to forget sunscreen and a hat!!! Yup. A touch sunburnt!
Jeff turned up with my hat later in the morning (25 Bonus Husband Points right there)

Plenty of stalls out… customers would come and go in waves – sometimes it would look almost empty, then there would be a rush of people walking by.
I sold pretty much equivalent to the other markets which was great. Just took a lot longer. I was there from 7am and packed up at 1pm. So double the amount of time.
I’d def. go again, but would wait until there was some event like mothers day/valentines day etc. Plus I need to replenish my soap stock! (yay)

Anyway – tomorrow. We have plans to go away overnight to a location a bit further east of us to hunt for sapphires! We plan to return Christmas Eve – Jeff has to work Christmas Day night and boxing day night… so this should be a nice getaway… if somewhat nerdy!

So – better get myself into bed as we are up early – again. (Sigh… don’t want this to be habit forming!)

Chat when we return!
Cheers!

So – the winds are back.
I was packing soap into some containers and looked out the window & saw this gum tree fall – happily into our front garden AND missing the trailer.
More firewood… sigh.

This was fun! More cedar and saffron fragranced soap – I experimented with dropping the coloured mix into the base mix rather than mixing and blending like I usually do! I like the effect. I think if the base mix was a little thinner then the colour would have dropped in further.

This one I really like – White Ginger and Amber!!
Such a lovely fragrance. I like the natural subtle colour too. There was some natural clay (supposedly yellow?) on sale. So I got some just to see. It suits the fragrance really well.
Pity you cant have a sniff!!

I made some more applejack peel soap – smells so scrumptious!

I found some chocolate moulds at the op shop for a huge 50 cents! These little dinosaurs are so cute. Once they cure a bit I will embed them in the top of a bigger bar of soap. Just for fun!

I didn’t unmould the lavender/peppermint one today. Just seemed a bit soft. But I love the smell… keep having a sniff when I walk by just to make sure I love it as much as I did ten minutes prior.

Anyway, I have a stupid early start tomorrow so best get a wriggle on.
First time with the soaps at the foreshore market so will be interesting to see how they go!

Have a wonderful weekend!
Cheers

(First zucchini and a swag of snow peas!)