Hello!! I’ve really done nothing remotely bloggable lately! Mostly just watering, random weeding, river hiking, cooking, washing up and soap making. We’ve been enjoying summer weather – although the wind returned and right now its raining a lot. But not cold. Mainland Australia is now writhing in a massive heatwave – many places in the mid 40’s (try 113F) Fires are still raging 🙁
As you can see above – I baked some of those choc-chip bikkies. I’ve been really good and not gutsing them – but I am enjoying eating them along with fresh raspberries! Really nice combo!
Tomorrow I need to get my stuff ready – weather still looking hopeful to have that market down by the beach on Sunday. I made another two batches of soap today. One cedar and saffron and tried a new method of mixing the colours in – later tomorrow after cutting the loaf will show if that worked or not. Also experimented with mixing lavender with peppermint. 🙂
Hope everyones Christmas preparations are on track and you are enjoying the moment and not stressing too much!
Hi there! I eventually got off my backside last night and put the cat to bed 🙂 I always feel mean moving him!
So… latest garden news? I started on this mess –
And so far its gone from big mess to smaller mess.
It didn’t progress any further today. I got up at 7am and let the chooks out… then because it looked so nice outside, I stayed up and was weeding the corn patch by about 8am. Right now my parents are choking and spluttering in disbelief. Honest and for true 🙂 (Yah… not known as an early morning person in my family)
One side of the herb spiral is really going great! Going to have to work on the other side sometimes soon!
Nearly time for chamomile tea!!
Picking plenty of rocket, basil and lettuce – we are having lovely big salads most nights.
The basil has sprung back quickly since I made the pesto. I reckon I’ll get another batch out of them soon!
The one remaining cabbage in the hothouse that I hadn’t gotten around to pulling out and have basically ignored… seems to be looking rather healthy! I wonder if it will heart up or go to seed? I think the latter but just waiting and seeing what will happen!
I hung the garlic in the shed today. I saw an idea on facebook about using a dish draining rack to hang garlic. I found this wire rack at an op-shop today for a dollar!! I’ve managed to fit it all in – a bit crowded but I reckon they’ll be ok!
My lazy day soaps… a batch of eucalyptus soap
And some Frangipani – although the colours are very unnatural!! 🙂 More like candy
Our power was out all day today. Such a pest. A power pole was being replaced. So, no phone, no internet, no water, no cooking… No soapmaking (wah wah wah) I did get to and make up a couple of shelves with some planks found in the shed and some book boxes. Its been a ‘gunna’ job for ages and glad I have gotten around to it. Much more efficient storing it while its curing and as a bonus they look rather pretty!
Once the power came back on I did a lot of watering. Naturally tonight its raining. I think the rain is hardwired into our bore. I take water from the bore and as a result… the heavens open!! No complicated rain dances necessary!!
Hello! Welcome to a new week! Yesterday was rather nice. Gentle steady rain and no wind. My aim of ‘doing nothing’ was mostly achieved… apart from the 6km river hike and the two batches of soap… but thats all fun so its not like chores or anything! When I got back from the hike I was a bit soggy so went out and picked snow peas and raspberries in the rain before drying off properly.
And I am being lazy now – I don’t want to get up and get the camera to download photos. Plus Pip is curled up sleeping on my lap in a blanket so I don’t want to disturb His Majesty 🙂
Today I was weeding the new garden area to try to get that last part finished and ready for the last bed to be made and put into place. Then Jeff and I went for a kayak up the river for a couple of hours or so. My arms are telling me about it right now but it was lovely out there. We battled the wind a bit going up but was easier coming back with the tide in our favour.
I cut the new soap and unmoulded the other batch – will sort some snaps tomorrow so I can share that with you. I am hoping for a nice day on Sunday – if so, I’ll put up a stall.
Hi! I was going to take it super easy and lazy today. So – I decided to fix up the hothouse.
Out came the snow peas, the table, the feverfew, took out the big trellis and brought in a smaller one.
Prepped the soil and planted out the eggplant, chilli and two of the luffa
I am pretty excited to experiment with growing luffa. If you are not sure what they are – I think they are from the cucumber family. Grow a zucchini like fruit and if left to dry, you make loofas out of them! I want to be able to put them in my soaps as a scrub! They are better in tropical areas, so hoping that the hothouse will be suitable for them. Time will tell.
I dug up most of the established self seeded tomato plants and chucked them in the failed strawberry plot.
I left the smaller ones to develop longer
I now have over 70 tomato plants in the ground – for better or worse!!
I’ve put the big trellis out and the other two luffa plants near it. I also plan to finally put the runner beans in here too – soon! Also got some goldilocks pumpkins out of their pots and into the ground. They might not get enough sun there… bit shaded by trees and if all goes well… shaded by the beans.
Emptied a pot of marigolds around the corn patch.
The compost potatoes look pretty happy! Will have to dig under them to see if I can find some spuds!! Crazy amount of worms live here too!
I did a lot of watering today too – and the most tedious part of the day is uncovering and recovering the young seedlings! Takes forever!! Still… better to give them a bit of TLC in the early days.
Collected a few snow pea pods that I should be able to get some decent seeds from. I left the vine on some of them so they can draw on the energy from the stem while they are still developing.
So – That was my lazy day. Tomorrow? Who knows Enjoy your weekend! Cheers!
Hello! I was a bit busy today, organising my family’s Christmas parcel… which is now boxed and on its way! Went and unmoulded soap with Margie and cut the loaf. The red mysteriously disappeared on the inside!! The colour showed on the outside fine. I am going to have to get to the bottom of that mystery!
Anyway, this evening I went out to water and got a bit distracted with weeding then got completely sidetracked and decided to pull up the purple garlic!
It was all looking a bit ratty and it was about time anyway. I got some good sized bulbs, a lot of mid sized, some ‘supermarket sized’ and a few small ones. I’ve left about 10 thin ones in the garden to see if they will bulk up a bit.
I also dug up one of the white bulbs from the duck yard garden to check on their progress and compare. It was a beauty!
I am leaving the white garlic patch in for another couple of weeks. They haven’t really died back much as yet so they will be fine for now. From what I can see, there are a lot of good sturdy sized ones in there so hoping that harvest will be amazing
Was interesting to compare the sizes. Purple on the left are the larger of the crop. The purple on the right are what I would call average supermarket size for here.
It was late in the day so I have just spread them out in the BBQ area for now. Will get them in the sun for a short time tomorrow to dry off a bit before working out where to hang them this season.
So – what’s the weekend plan? I am sure I can find something to do… how about you?? Cheers!
I might have over estimated the size bowl I needed for my first raspberry pick of the season! Needless to say, these did not get as far as the house! Yum
Let me introduce you to Flub. Flub is in no way an introduced pest species. (That we rescued) er… Ok… he/she doesn’t know that.
Every spring, much to Jeff’s annoyance, the blackbirds nest way up in the light fittings at the top of the carport. We’ve tried blocking the spaces off with no luck. Plus its dangerously high to get to.
So – the other day I was driving in home and spotted Flub on the concrete carport floor. Jeff got out to pick him up as I didn’t want to run him over. Sigh. No way to put him back. The great debate about dispatching vs starvation vs pest species. Of course… neither of us wanted to kill a baby bird so we put him on the hay bales and hoped the parents would find him
That was the first sunny day and I was working in the garden. I could hear him and his parents yelling a lot. Went to check and he had gone – well, got himself lost in the hay. Took ages to find him, esp as he went quiet. Me rummaging through the hay, mice darting out everywhere! Didn’t realise he was that mobile. Figured he’d be thirsty so held him under dripping tap. Some went down. Popped him in an ice cream bucket – which he promptly got out of. So got one of the boxes, put hay in it and thought that was the best I could do and he would have to take his chances!
That was about 4 days ago… we’ve checked on him and he is getting bigger and is really feisty. Looks like the parents are feeding him. Eyeroll… will be swearing at him next season when he is back digging up my garden with the rest of them! (As long as he learns to fly before any feral cat finds him) Thats life I guess. 🙂 Oh… just in case you were wondering about his name? Flub? (Censored) Lucky Ugly Bugger. That was Jeff – but I was childish enough to find it funny so it stuck. (And he was super ugly a few days ago… he is getting cuter now.)
Such a difference a few days of sun and lessened wind makes. I think my zucchini plants doubled in size!
The new rocket is going mad, the sunflowers and marigolds are going well… only the sweet peas are floundering. Couldn’t get them going anywhere this season!
A sea of beetroot! (and that rogue broccoli)
Potato plants (first patch) happily flowering and the outside snow peas are looking a little less chewed and actually producing quite well!
Despite weeks of howling wind, so many of the pear babies have survived!
The chooks are in Jeff’s bad books – after all the trouble he went to to fill in the holes – madam has dug herself out a dustbath! Its not like they don’t have the biggest dustbath space ever under the macrocarpas!!
Still reckon we aren’t going to see any of these (cherry plums) to eat. In our experience a late season means the birds will come in and eat them all before they ripen. Maybe we will get a few. Goodness knows there are enough!!
At least I could use the bowl for something! And we are eating so much lettuce!!
Bee watering station.
To finish off the day, I spent a couple of hours making more bee wrap. A local young couple have gone into making it in a big way (apparently they have a big market in Japan!) To make things really easy, they sell a ‘kit’ which is a nice big lump of the mix of wax, jojoba oil and resin – all ready to melt and put on your material! They make some beautiful wraps – they had a stall at the same market I was at the other week.
Anway, I got a heaps done and I still have half the above piece to do another batch.
Time for me to snuggle in for a sleep! Hope you had a great day too! Cheers!
Hello! Yesterday this silly small patch of garden totally did me in!! We got a beautiful day and I wanted to start making headway on clearing up the non-food parts of the garden that were looking – to say the least – scruffy!
(My driftwood collection)
This garden, sadly neglected, was mostly full of a type of oxalis that throws down roots from all its stems. Its small and fiddly and EVERYWHERE!! I had to dig up another ground cover that I planted there years ago as there was no way to weed around it. Its all in a big tub of water and I hope to replant it. The other fabulous weed in there is onion weed. It all exploded with millions of bulbs!!
I also finally took this poor little Cognata Limelight out of the pot and put it in the ground. Hopefully it can get as big as its brother on the other end. I couldn’t weed among the red rosebush. Its a nightmare. While the flowers are pretty I have NEVER come across a rose this densely covered in thorns. Like a blackberry. I’ve considered taking it out all together because its such a nightmare to work in or around…
Anyway, best I could, crawling between the rose bushes, its done. I am planning to cover the area in cardboard and mulch heavily with woodchips. If I can get the path weeded and dug, that will get a fresh load of woodchips too… in fact – we might order a truckload just to make life easier! (Its on the list)
Meanwhile, Jeff mowed lawns and threw all that concrete I dug up out of the new patch ‘Down the Hole’
Anyway, for whatever reason I was knocked out last night. I was in bed by 10pm which for me is about 3 hours earlier than usual! haha
Must be getting old! 😀
Give experiences, not things?? Had a lovely day today with Margie! Instead of giving her some soap for her recent birthday, I invited her up to make some! Not that I attempted anything as fancy as Sharons lunch, but we had coffees, cake, and toasties – I even spruced up the house 🙂
It was fun letting Margie choose what fragrances and colours to try – she was worried she was taking too long, but I agonise every time for AGES trying to decide what to do next!!
I will have to do some more pressed flowers! Its nice to have them on hand to use! Mind you, I have heaps of the calendula petals which look lovely.
Don’t they look pretty!!! (Cedar and Saffron) And below – a loaf of Rustic Woods and Rum
We have a plan to unmould and cut on Friday afternoon! Looking forward to seeing the final results!
Anyway, thats what I have been up to! Hope your week is going along well too!
Cheers!
(Picked enough basil and a new head of garlic to make a batch of pesto! Bliss. Had chicken pesto pasta and salad for dinner! Happy Days!)
Hi there! Just backtracking to Saturday when I went out to help Sharon with her workshop. She had 8 people – which is a lot to manage when you are not only teaching them how to make soap, but providing morning tea and a luncheon as well. Another friend, Darya came along to do the coffee’s and lend a hand as well.
Sharon had her tables set up with an exciting range of colours, moulds, fragrances and botanicals for the group to choose from.
During the morning, introductions are made and the basics of soap making are covered… all accompanied by some amazing cakes plus tea and coffee
See that lemon meringue pie? I did. I managed to indulge in a few pieces by the end of the day!
Sharon goes through a good solid background of making soap, explaining why some things are done, a bit about the ingredients and how they are calculated. You can use a variety of different oils but every time you change one thing – the whole mix will react differently. And there is a lot of emphasis on how to safely use the lye. Once most of that was done, the participants got to wander over to the table to get an idea of what fragrance and colours they wanted to make their soap. Sharon, in the meantime, put out the luncheon. A local tasting plate.
Dips, cheeses, pate, salmon, sauerkraut….
Not only did she bake two cakes and make a lemon meringue pie, but baked a few loaves of bread! (Darya was a whizz making the fancy coffees and was so glad she was the one cutting the bread! I was scared I’d muff it up haha) There was farm fresh home made butter too!
Gourmet to say the least and everyone was in food heaven!
Eventually we got down to the soapmaking! From here I didn’t get many shots as it was my job to run a soapmaking station – with 9 batches of soap to get through, it was more efficient with two lots going at once.
Everyone was really enjoying getting to the hands on part and creating their soaps.
The laundry was fast filling up with fabulous trays of soap!
Once the last batch was done, people had gone home and we’d sorted out a few things, the sun came out so Sharon and I sat in her garden and indulged in a relaxed hot chocolate with some pie! Sooooo good! (Darya had left a bit earlier) Sharon was exhausted – and so happy that Darya and I had come up to help out. She did a great job – worked so hard on getting all that food together and all the soaping stuff so well prepared too. (I’ve since spoken to a couple of people who did the class and they said they had a brilliant day!)
What a day! It was so much fun! I was really lucky to be able to join in and help out – as you know I really enjoy soap making and you always learn something new (like a different way to make red that I am itching to try to recreate) Not to mention I waddled home after all the food!! (Oh yes… I went home with some of that pie!! (And more goats milk in case I need to make more soap!))
Hello!! Wow – so happy! Was a totally wonderful summers day! Woke early (well – early for me) to let the chooks out and was greeted with blue skies and no wind! Yesterday was a really busy day – I helped Sharon with her soap workshop where she had 8 people attend!! Will blog about that perhaps tomorrow. I put in a rather big day in the garden and I am about ready to crawl into bed to rest the muscles.
Did I mention the other day I got my B12 shot? So… all juiced up and thinking I can do it all!
Time for the tomato seedlings to go into their new home. First… a lot of digging. I soaked the area too much this morning so if I’d used the digging machine thingy it would have just bogged up with the sticky red dirt. I had to get rid of all that ropey twitch – so that was a pain and slowed things up a lot.
Eventually – with a lot of water guzzled (by me, not the garden), the patch was ready for some tomatoes.
I was going to carefully set out 4 different patches – one for each variety. Meh – we are so far behind now I just put them in with minimum fuss. (All 35 of them)
Remember this patch where I had to circle the tiny tomatoes in red so you could see them? They’ve lived under bottles since then to shelter them from the horrible constant wind and they really have made some progress!
The carrot and beetroot are looking really really good! There are some mysterious gaps in the carrot rows, but I figure I can seed some more later in those spots. There are several self seeded tomatoes in here that will be eventually removed and one thriving broccoli.
Anyway – after the Great Tomato Planting Day was done, I took off to Ruby’s for the second time today and dug a little patch and planted 5 butternut pumpkins for her. And took her some lettuce. She was doing ok – trotted off to get me some covers for the new plants, then went walking through the sprinklers to turn them off (Reckoned she’d dry out pretty quick. 🙂 )
Back home I’ve gone and covered all the new seedlings, watered some stuff and picked some strawberries. Now I am keen to fall into bed! Hope your weekend has been lovely too! Cheers!
Hi there! Friday already! Yesterday we motivated ourselves enough to get out and do a couple of laps around the river track. We were walking near one of the embankments when suddenly I notice right next to me, slithering down to the path, a good sized tiger snake!! We both (me and the snake) got a bit of a shock. It reared up, being all fangy, and I danced away pretty smartly, dragging Jeff with me – who got into gear pretty quick when he saw the 3 ft tiger!
I foozled like the cat (goosebumps) but we stood back and watched the beautiful creature continue on its way down to the river. I was miffed I was sans camera. Its stripes were quite clear and it had a yellow belly.
If you are not familiar with the tiger snake – it lists about top 6th or 7th in the world for most venomous. (Yah – we’re proud of that) They are generally not aggressive.
Anyway – got our heart rates somewhat going!
Small onion – went into dinner tonight. They still have some growing to do but I didn’t have any onions left. (Of the bought variety)
Still enjoying the lettuce mix!
I went down to see Ruby today. They don’t have heaps of lettuce yet so I will take over a bag of leaves soon. We sat and had a cuppa in her sunny room and rolled our eyes at the weather and had a good catch up. A few weeks ago, Ruby had a small stroke. Margie rang us and asked for Jeff to come down and see her – all that was noticeable was slurred speech. Jeff did the nurse thing and did some basic checking. And a Nurse to Nurse chat. Ruby doesn’t like dashing off to the doc much. haha Nothing else was affected but she did go to the doc, so she is in good hands. Of course she is annoyed about having to sit about and rest so much. Would be nice for her if the weather got its act together soon so she can at least enjoy being outside in her comfy chair! Anyway, we had some laughs this afternoon and made garden plans for whenever the weather wants to behave!
Despite the constant wind and cold… the herb spiral is coming along. The basil is toughing it out – doesn’t look so lush but its not dead. The dill is amazing! The chamomile is looking good and the mint clearly loves its new spot. The sage is going well too. The oregano is ‘meh’ and what marjoram popped up, must have died. I’ll try putting more seed in when the weather picks up. All in all… not bad.
The tough little self seeded tomato is looking great – and has flowers!!
One cucumber plant looks like it means business! I’ve put a tie on it attached to the climbing frame so it will head in the right direction.
Capsicum flowers! Yay!
Self seeded tomatoes are appearing everywhere. Will be time for a big relocation day soon! Got some ingredients… and plan to make a half batch of pesto SOON
Poor seedlings waiting patiently for the good weather to go out!
By the looks of things – we are going to lose half our apple tree! 🙁 I just noticed the foliage today. This is the other half of the tree:
Massive difference!
The other apple tree is going along well
Oh – and an abundance of blueberries… Um… like about 6.
I checked the soil in the duck yard garlic patch – wow. Rock hard! Even with the mulch that wind has taken its toll… so I put the bore on for a good long while to give the area a decent soaking.
Well, I have a big day ahead tomorrow. I have plans to go help Sharon with a big soap workshop she has booked in. Should be fun – and you should see the FOOD she has been preparing! I am going to be in heaven (before having to waddle several more laps of the river track!) Have an awesome weekend everyone !! Cheers
