Hi! Quick one from me tonight. Getting super old fashioned!! We got a side of beef from cousins – last one (sob) as they’ve retired off the farm so we feel very grateful to fill the freezer one last time!
Gosh its a lot of work – those of you who have done this know! I’ve filled and emptied the freezer three times since getting the meat – memories of having to hammer and chisel the steaks off the bottom live with a person and you don’t make the same mistake twice!!
I asked for not only the bones (for friends dogs) but also the fat too. I decided I wanted to try my hand at rendering it to get tallow… and make soap of course!!
Super labour intensive… I will do smaller batches going forth. But it did work ok! I did it in the oven as my stove top has two settings. (Nuclear and Off)(None of this woossy simmering for me)
It was messy… straining and squeezing it through the cloth! But it looked really good.
The leftover fat is in a bucket and the chooks have had a lovely time… as have the magpies and I have no idea how our local crows can still get airborne!! (Our crows are like the CIA… they do not miss a trick on this property! We are watched all the time!)
I decided to do a pure tallow soap. No other oils, no colours or fragrances either. I just wanted to see how it behaved. Gosh!! Note to self. I need my speedy pants on! The first bars poured out ok then it just thickened in a heartbeat!! Above you can see the last bars ‘poured’ (Scraped out) looking like mashed potato!! Crazy!
They are a beautiful white bar. Apparently the tallow is really good for the skin. I’d like to make another batch and add coconut oil as that will increase the lather component. Then in a month I can compare the two.
While rendering the fat is a bit of a long process… it makes the bulk of the soap ingredients free as the fat would have been discarded. (Has anyone noticed the price of olive oil? Heart stopping!!)
I am really looking forward to trying out the bars once cured. As always… its a waiting game! Hope your weekend was wonderful xx
Oh dear. The year is nearly done! I am still running about doing… stuff! The days just keep disappearing on me Today I intended to make lots of soap. Somehow… I ended up in the garden (Above Gympie in her nest as she is broody at the moment!)(The chooks got a spring clean, complete with lemon balm arrangements!)
The raspberries got netted! They still need feeding and mulching. Might do that tomorrow?? Hmmmm
A couple more beds got cleared out…
then we got creative…
One of my friends has bamboo!! So we went and cut down a heap and brought back to use in the yard. This is my future tomato patch. I want to hang stretchy ties from the top and wind around plants if and when they grow instead of staking them
Another bit of plot tidying… Followed by more creativeness
This is meant to be a trellis for the apple cucumbers
And here is a bit of reality… sob
Anyway, I am ignoring those for a little longer…
Overall things are taking shape.
Laterals ready to go! Today, my soap day that wasn’t, I started planting… stuff.
Apple cucumbers on the right and Egyptian walking onions on left. Jude gave me these excellent shelter tunnels so I will keep some new seedlings under wraps for a while.
Tomatoes… and basil under the tunnels
Jeff has ice cream eating issues and I have hoarding issues. Overall for the garden that is sometimes a good thing! Shelters for the tomatoes because I am too lazy and unorganised to harden them off properly.
Another great thing about working for Jude, is that I seem to get a lot of plants!! I put in the garlic she gave me (creole I think) Bit late in the season but its nice to have a different variety. And also oca. I have had these years ago but lost them somehow. They are a root vegetable and taste amazing baked with garlic salt….
And yep… temp fencing as I have one determined chicken and some random bunnies.
Since I found the wire and had all the stuff out, I made cages for the zucchinis too. They need to not be in their feed bag shelters anymore, but would hate to lose them to the chook or the bunnies at this point. Now they can get the full sun and be a bit protected too. The other smaller plants got re covered before I went in tonight.
The gates also got baby bunny proofed!
And up comes the rocket! Mmmmm (The carrots next door haven’t popped up yet)
Bit of a lame snap but… beetroot up but its scattered with self seeded carrots!!! Now I am in a quandary about whether to pull up the carrots or leave them On the other side of this plot is plenty of carrots so I am leaning towards clearing out everything except the beetroot…
Anyway, the days have been nicer recently… we went through a week of mad wind and cold. As Tassie is known to do…. Hopefully things will start growing well! Have a lovely weekend! (Whats left of it) xx
I’m madly gardening as well… My mental to do list is a bit much!! The above photos are the cut versions of the soaps I posted about the other… Day? Week? I’ve lost track. Surprisingly a bit crumbly with the cut but they look effective.
A last batch of Christmas tree embeds soaps from the other day… actually it was a double batch. Then today I whipped up a batch and used the end of the tree embeds to poke into these citrus and sage fragrances soaps.
I had a good response from my kind Facebook friends re the terrace house soaps so I did another batch. Pic from before windows and doors installed!
I put some Christmas soaps on my shelves at the Arty Duck last week.
It was a super slow day sadly, but I spent my time making lidded fancy boxes for my fancy terrace house soaps.
I used some of them to house my other big fancy (expensive) soaps at the Rocky Cape market last weekend and they were quite popular… ie I sold 4 hahaha. Perspective tho… I don’t often sell my ten dollar soaps!
Here is my pretty setup
(I love my banner)
Maureen’s table… With her husband Gerry’s awesome willow baskets made into hampers!
Lots of lovely stuff.
Jude was also there with her beautiful plants and veggies.
It’s such a gorgeous hall.
It was well set up and the kitchen was making scones and sausages in bread and coffee etc. Sadly the weather was a bit dismal and it kept the crowds away. We sold OK … it was a lovely day out, just would have been better for everyone’s big effort to have more people dropping in. Never can tell with markets.
Speaking of markets… I’ve been accepted to join in with the Burnie Cruise Ship Markets! Basically the council have set up the event of an area of market stalls in town to coincide with cruise ship season.
However… apparently you set up for when the ships dock… mostly 7am (I am going to die) and you stay until they head out… which is about 6pm. Quite a long day!! Not sure what to expect but will give it a go. I’ve nominated seven dates over the next three months so I’ll soon see if it’s worth my time. From what I hear, about a third of the passengers just wander around Burnie and the remaining ones do paid tours so don’t wander about the city.
Overall it means I need to be consistently making soap to keep stocked up and cured in between anything else going on! Fingers crossed!
We weeded the blueberry patch and the garden path. By the time we get woodchips we’ll have lots of places to spread it around to!
Check it out! Potatoes making an appearance!
I went into the garden today between soap batches and they’ve grown a bit more which is encouraging!
The zukes getting some sun And the rhubarb exploding in size
The pear tree had lots of blossoms. Happily I’ve noticed little swellings of pears starting to grow… luckily because the wind has been diabolical today so hopefully what is there now will hang on tight.
I am looking forward to a new batch of spiced pear paste!
(These are all just snaps on my tablet btw)(So lazy)
I had to re weed this patch… and finally planted out the strawberries that the possum ate. One or two might cark it but most look ok.
More often than not, I come back from a day working at Judes with plants! What a dream job hey? My lavender died so I am replacing it with Chamomile that I was given. Fingers crossed I can keep it going. Putting this one in the pot otherwise it would probably get run over by the oregano haha
The poor sage is hanging on by its cuticles still…
In the hot house the apple cucumbers popped up really quickly. The Lebanese cukes are still… resting.
No sign of the butternut pumpkins or luffa either… But I did prune two of my tomatoes.
(Basil from seed doing fine too) Of course, laterals went into water to wait for some roots to grow
Still staring at tomato flowers…
Snowball bush about to puff out into flower
And the cherry blossom is gorgeous.
So… soap My market went pretty well… I failed to take a camera!! A friend sent me snaps which I haven’t downloaded yet. But I’ve been trying to stock up the last few days as what I make now is the last of the saleable stuff for before Christmas.
This one smells amazing…(sandalwood and vanilla) but discolours. I was keeping that in mind and the final rich warm colours are quite lovely.
I poured some more Christmas Tree embeds. Two of which I used today.
Some plain soaps for another project which I started today…
Lovely warm colours too.
Cutting them up takes longer than you might think!! Luckily Jeff has us listening to some Terry Pratchett audio books (at the moment we are well into ‘I Shall Wear Midnight’) so I was entertained whilst working
I had to do this soap in three parts (not including the coloured chunks part) today, so I am very keen to see the results of the cut!
And lastly, but the one I am most chuffed about, started as seeing something on pinterest that I couldn’t find again for love nor money, so had to just try it and see! It was also done in two stages. Above is the snap of the first pour (using dividers to separate the three colours) The leftover mixtures to both stages I made into the ‘Kaleidosoaps’
I was aiming for terraced houses with snow on their rooves and a kind of snowy sky… I was delighted with my first attempt, and indeed I have people saying they want to buy them already! And since I cut them a bit chunky and only have ten… I will need to have another soap day ASAP! (PS I had to hand indent doors and windows on both sides of soaps haha… again… audio book!)
Ahhhh… flowers on the tomato plants in the hothouse!!
Its very exciting. Just have to make sure no mousie mouses get to them first!
I’ve planted more seeds that are in the hothouse waiting for germination. The weather is doing ok… warm, but then will slip back to some cold winds and rain of course!
I found a punnet of basil… and in the interests of oodles of pesto, bought it, and separated the clump of seedlings. I just went and checked earlier and they are all sitting up nicely! (Bottom left is celery (aiming at celery salt)
Jude gave me some Japanese Mustard seedlings so I bunged those into the soil in front of where I’ve planted some cucumber seeds.
I am also suffering from lack of pickled beetroot since I never got around to planting last season. SO… in go the seeds!
Jude also gave me a couple of zucchini seedlings which I have put in near the new apple trees
And due to changeable weather and chooks, I’ve built them fort knox
So far they are both doing really well.
We had a clean up day…
I have no real before photos.. the poor old BBQ area was such a mess again! So we pulled everything out, sorted, cleaned and discarded. Two trips to the tip later… Jeff was annoyed at how much stuff had accumulated, but I think it made sense. We started not doing dedicated trips to the tip once every three or four months. Usually its me having to drop off the household rubbish when I am in town. I am usually doing a heap of other stuff so I don’t go on a trip around the yard gathering old odds and ends to throw away like we would do with a dedicated tip trip. And things build up!
Leaves and debris get into that area a lot making things messier than they need to be. So we had the idea to shade cloth in part of the structure. Luckily for us, my Fabulous Favourite Uncle had sent us some great shade cloth offcuts and this piece was perfect for the job.
Jeff cut back a lot of the branches too and now the rain wont blow in here too much either. Hopefully it will help keep the place less manky
It was a really good job to get done – it was really bugging me but I knew we needed a full day or so to sort it out.
The chooks are laying well! I’ve been making some biscuits lately…
The trick is trying to keep the choc chips out of Jeffs tummy before I get around to making these things!
Anyway, they were yummy. Emphasis on the past tense! There is a bowl of chopped up choc bits sitting there now waiting for me to transform them. Currently a packet of choc chips cost more than buying a packet of choc chip bikkies so it doesn’t make it a financially sensible option. So I got the cooking choc bar and gave Jeff the task of chopping (He might as well take part in the whole thing.) I suppose where you are all from, supermarket prices are just going up and up like petrol? Its getting insane. A good reason for me to keep plugging away at getting the garden in full swing.
I made some jam drop bikkies too…
And in a fit of kitchen activity… some tomato sauce for Jeff who was about to run out! I used the tomatoes in the freezer that he had picked while I was in Japan!
The oregano and lemon balm is incredibly lush. I’d been out a few times with the basket and scissors to gather the oregano to dry, but its rained every time! Finally got to it yesterday!
I can’t even see in the patch where I picked it all!!
Oh… I saw something on a FB reel. Someone made a plant hanger. They’d bought some craft hoops and used zip ties, but I thought I could make it using all natural stuff from the garden… and tied it together with the flax I’d made cordage out of! Pretty excessively rustic but I like it.
Ok… enough rambling from me. I am heading back to the fire. Trying for an early night tonight as I am booked to have a market stall out at the Rhododendron Gardens tomorrow! Hope you all have a lovely weekend xxx
Hello! I’ve been a bit better making an effort to get out and hike more regularly. We went back up the Blanfordia Hill loop in the Rocky Cape NP yesterday, but these photos were from the walk before
Yesterday I tried to keep camera in bag and just concentrate on doing a brisk walk.
There are lots of sweet little wildflowers on the track now too
Yesterday I managed the track and all the ups pretty well overall… I can feel an improvement
Although right now I am baking choc chip bikkies which might be slightly counter productive haha
Jeff is still hauling about a big heavy pack. At least that helps me keep up a bit
I’ll probably have to start doing the same if I think I’ll be doing some overnight treks soon
The days are definitely improving warmth wise and the longer daylight is so nice!
Michelle from Farm It Forward Tasmania has asked if I’d start doing the guided walks again and I think its a good idea.
I’ll just do it as a ‘Pop Up Event’ so when I have time and the weather and tides match.
We’ve also been getting into more work in the yard. BBQ area AGAIN cleared out and two trips to the tip. Jeff tackled a bit of the shed too.
I don’t get tired of the views…
It still gets quite windy up the top.
Ahhhh, Blanfordia Hill… the hill that goes up five times! Always thinking you are done… but you are not!
Jeff just washed the car I am doing the last batch of bikkies, then I can go out and we can finish off the BBQ area and I plan to plant a few more things
Yesterday we saw three wedge tailed eagles!! Just soaring about on the thermals enjoying themselves. By the time I tried to access my camera they were far away
Still looks like a long way to go hey?
We remembered to time this hike yesterday and it took us two hours and twenty minutes
Jeff said its about a 7km hike. Doesn’t sound like much but thats not taking into account all the ups and downs! (OK… elevation)
Sweet little natural moss garden
I tasted a biscuit (cookie) Yum. Now to try not to guts them.
Okies, thats all from me Hope your week is going splendidly! xxx
Hi… It was a reasonably nice day today so no excuses not to put the ratty old clothes on and get out and do a few garden things. Potatoes were high on the list. I’d been putting it off as we need to clip some chook wings. We haven’t done that task so hoping that Nihon doesn’t fly in and dig them up again!
(All pics are just dodgy snaps from my tablet) The plot had been covered with straw for a few months. Very few weeds had managed to get past it so that was good
I’d considered planting directly into the straw but in the end I decided to rake it off. Probably a good idea. The underneath was pretty sodden…
A bit of fungi around too which I was pleased to see. I suppose lots of good stuff happening in the soil
Anyway, gave it a quick dig over and found some stakes to mark out my rows
Instead of digging through blood and bone and compost throughout the whole plot, this time I’ve just directly sprinkled a bit of the bnb into the holes with a handful of compost.
Best of luck little taters!
Next… removed netting from garlic (chook defence strategy) and got in and weeded.
Before and after pics give me such satisfaction!! I also mulched them… using the potato patch mulch which I am leaving off the potatoes until things dry off a little bit.
Overall I think the garlic is looking ok
Next… Carrot patch.
Most are going to seed so it was time to just pull them out. The ones that weren’t too bad I kept and will hand out at basket weaving and keep a couple for us. The rest? The cows and compost I guess. Annoyed I didn’t get to them earlier but overall they’ve been used and shared a lot so can’t be too miffed at myself.
Above are the ‘good’ ones.
Below is the one that made me laugh the most (Because I am so grown up)
Oh well, whats a gardeners life without a few rude veggies?
I removed a colony of snails and gave them to the chickens. Dug through a bit of good stuff and now I have another plot ready for action.
See the nice little strawberry plants? I had gotten these as extras for the other strawberry patch but clearly not planted. Below is what I found this morning.
Sob. Bloody possums! I scooted him off the back veranda last night but never imagined he would eat all the strawberry leaves!! So I spent the last part of my garden day netting the strawberry patch so he didn’t come back for seconds I am sure these will come good but so annoying!!
Anyway, progress progress. And I am taking my rather sore self off to bed xx
Hi! Its been a busy few days… workshop, hiking, gardening at Judes and finally today in my own garden!
I somehow kept managing not to get back to the hothouse to plants seedlings!
A nice sturdy little tomato has popped up all by itself!!
I had 4 other more established tomato seedlings to go in and a punnet of lettuce
I decided against topping up the soil in the beds and have built up this area with straw… and made nests of soil and compost
I also put some seedlings between the tomatoes in the hope I can get some leaves off them before the tomatoes do their usual out of control jungle thing because I am slack and never prune them back.
The little parsel/parcel?? plant Jaana gave me. Its been thriving in its pot. Time for it to go into the garden bed. Thought I might as well leave it in the hothouse.
I forgot to go back and plant some cucumber seeds but that wont take long once I remember. It was so convenient to turn on the tap and let the new watering system do its thing! (Thanks Dad xx)
Then… I planned to plant the sugar snap peas.
They apparently don’t climb too high so I amused myself by building a little trellis for them
I love how there is just so much usable ‘stuff’ around here to do this kind of thing.
I used passionfruit vines and vines from the native black pea.
Voila! And if they want to grow higher I can add more. I decided not to plant the seedlings out as the weather was turning ugly and thought it would be mean to put them out. Good choice. Right now its blowing a gale and raining a lot. Not that warm either! Still… its all ready for when the weather behaves.
I meant to go inside at that point but got distracted and started clearing up this area
Its a bit of a feral mess!
I didn’t get far but I did pull out a lot of stuff in a short period of time.
The sawdust mulch really kept a lot of the weeds at bay.
There is a path in there somewhere. In front of the rosemary there is basil mint gone bonkers! I suppose its more interesting than having other weeds take over. Smells amazing even if it looks disastrous!
Granny Bonnet self seeded
I need to ask Cousin Fiona what this is again as I got it from her garden and I’ve forgotten. I only noticed it out in flower today! So unusual!
Anyway, all bits of me ache so I am going to take myself off to bed! Hope everyone is doing well xxx
Hello! After some frantic cleaning and sorting, I was ready for the folks to drop in! They were only here a week but it was really lovely to see them and hang out and catch up.
Tassie turned on some fabulous weather the first day or so… It did go slowly downhill after the first day but at least we got a gorgeous day on the beach!
And another day of much more blustery weather!!
I was able to show and tell my amazing carrot growing skills!! (Don’t mind my glamorous look here haha) This carrot actually went home with them and they’ve been showing it off around the village and getting some great comments and reactions!! So funny.
While they were here, I got my Dad to help me put in the hothouse watering system! Its been on my ‘gunna’ list forever and I thought it would be a good Dad-Daughter project!
Haha…Mum stepped in as occupational health and safety officer when it came to pouring boiling water down the pipe (helped to straighten it out.) For some reason she insisted on a funnel and tongs. Dad and I were ready to just be living on the edge. Dad was probs happy… was his hands after all!
Bits and bobs ready to go… and more boiling water to soften ends to put in the elbow pieces etc
I am so excited to have this done
Its going to make life during summer so much easier! And because the old hothouse has lots of holes, Dad found the right spot to poke the connecting piece out the side so the hose wont have to be dragged in through the door
I’ve already been using it. Trying to re hydrate the soil in there which will help as I need to plant pretty soon.
I am happy to report that our firewood lasted enough to mostly keep the parents warm during their visit. So lucky that Cousin Jeff dropped off a couple of loads. Dad enjoyed reading in the lounge room with the fire all nice and cosy
When I was in Japan I bought some material for Jeff. I posted it up to Mum and she, being the brilliant seamstress she is, created three beautiful work scrubs for him, which she finished off and brought with her.
You’ll possibly recognise these favourite characters of ours from the Kyoto temple -originally drawn over 600 years ago! The little bit of black on the sleeve was put in while Mum was here using a bit of black silk that was given to Jeff by a patient when she found out that he was interested in Japanese materials/silks!! Very special.
Super cool owls
And our ever favourite dragonflies! He is definitely the snazziest nurse on the ward!
Their time went quickly but we really enjoyed a relaxing week of catching up, chatting lots, enjoying the fire (Every time I put a log on Mum would stay up later to enjoy the extra warmth haha) We only did a couple of visits – when they return with a car in nicer weather and stay longer they’ll do the rounds of the cousins. We were given some nice steaks and I also had the wallaby mince so we made some nice dinners too… and drank a lot of wine!!!!
Today the weather perked up again so I thought I should get into the raspberry patch and prune the canes and cut out the dead ones. Such a tangle!
(Oh and chop down that tree!!!)
Of course the girls had to get involved!
The snap doesn’t really show the after effect that well but it is a lot less of a mess. I couldn’t restring it properly as the clothesline wire was snapping. Its clearly had its day so I’ll need new stuff to finish that off. Plus I will need to net before mulching otherwise those feathery darlings will just kick it all out everywhere!
Here’s hoping for continued better weather so I can get more of the garden on its way! xxx
These lovely tete a tete mini daffies are out all the way now since taking this pic!
I have managed to stir myself and do several days of garden/yard work here and there. Every little patch helps in the overall goal
I purchased some new strawberry plants from the local beach market and popped them in to the bed that I cleared a while back. I basically made little straw nests and filled with some compost and cow poo.
They are sitting up nicely… although they are getting POURED on right now. Very soggy night tonight!
I made a start on the second side of the back veranda garden. It mostly entailed pulling out the cape gooseberry plants. I am a bit sad about that really… but they are too big and wild for this garden.
Small Rainbow-Appreciation-Break
I reckon a trillion cape gooseberry seedlings will pop up. Vague plans to pot some up to give away/sell and also replant somewhere where they can go mad and give me tasty fruit
Nice big pile of stuff to add to bonfire.
This is pretty much as far as I got. And still haven’t gotten back to it but happy with what I cleared out.
State of hothouse reminder…
While the suckers of the passionfruit vine are very artistic and all that… it all had to go
Pulled almost everything out. It will need a top up of soil before planting but I love the look of this space when its cleared. It kind of signals spring planting (even if the weather I am listening to doesn’t)
I also optimistically planted some seeds. Celery, lettuce, some flowers (Portulaca and snap dragon) My friend Jaana gave me a parsel plant (cross between parsley and celery) and Jude gave me this lovely polyanthus – both which are now repotted
Another plant which I am bracing myself for an onslaught of is marigolds…. After pulling out the gigantic plants, I noted a billion-squillion seeds left behind.
I’ve also planted a tray of snap pea seeds – they are currently outside getting drowned. Hmmm. Not that keen to go out and move them so with luck they will survive the night. (Before I covered them clearly)
What next? More wood moving. Awesome Cousin Jeff found another lot of dry (just soggy) wood for us so I got that under cover
Now has a chance to dry out and also periodically will leave some inside next to fire in the basket to dry quicker. Did I mention my folks are booked to come down for a weeks visit at the end of the month? Looking forward to that a lot… but very relieved to have more wood on hand as we were so close to out. Dont want to freeze the parents!!
Jude and her husband Mark are on board with helping too… while I’ve been helping clear some bush areas, instead of putting some stuff on bonfires, its gone into the back of the Triton!
Mark cut up some of the bigger bits and we’ve a small pile to cut down. And also right now there is another pile from yesterdays work efforts that Mark cut up tonight so I’ll go pick that up tomorrow if all goes to plan. (Pity its getting drowned right now)
Every little bit helps!!
I’ll get to the above sticks in the nearish future.
My two new apple trees, courtesy of Jude, got planted. I plan to espalier them but right now they are very young so nothing to tie up yet. I’ve whacked some steel droppers in as markers to where the future poles and lines will be placed. Our last apple tree is all but dead and needs to come out. This new spot is away from the old one so the codlin moth cant infest new trees and this spot seems optimal for what I want to do. (Plus Jude told me too and who am I to second guess good experience??)
Self seeded rocket that I raid almost daily for salads
and still getting outrageously large carrots
Enjoyed setting fire to things
The chooks can only come up the house side of the yard under supervision now. (Because the little darlings make bee lines for new gardens and dig them up. I and not keen to replant the strawberries etc) And banned from hothouse. They are a bit put out about that
They have such fun in ‘new’ areas
Often all you see is a fluffy butt as they search for bugs and dig up my gardens
Herding them back!!
An afterthought garden project I tacked on at the end of one of my days… I’d forgotten to go back to one of the macrocarpa tree stumps as I wanted to plant them out with pretty flowers. Seems the chives survived …. and weeds.
So… dug it all up and added compost, marigold seeds (because I have some to spare) some pansy (like) seedings and some basil-mint (I like living on the edge)
Then Jeff, in a very timely manner, arrived home from his massage with Jaana bearing a tray of violets!! Fabulous!
Hopefully they are all hanging on right now! Anyway, thats a bit of a look at garden progress. Spring is definitely early with daffies and blossoms everywhere! Pretty pretty xx
