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Hello!
Sunday and my fellow was back at the markets today so I was able to pick up some straw at long last! Barry even dropped them off for me so hows that for service?? They are really heavy and tightly tied.
I am actually keen to try out some straw bale gardening, so will use three of these to make a start… maybe put them in position tomorrow? I figured down along the inside of the new fence would be a good place.

Added bonus would be thwarting chooks who are doing their best to dig underneath!
After the market I dropped in on Ruby and Margie to do a quick show and tell on all the lovely things I got from my raffle prize. Happily they have also taken the cushioned kneel aide too!

I made a good start on using all that seaweed we picked up the other day!
First around these two tomato plants.

The good thing when you are fussing about and fine tuning your garden, you tend to pick up on the ‘problems’ and sort them out. The white cabbage moths are fluttering about – I have found a few grubs here and there but happily not too many in the grand scheme of things.

The Duck Yard Garden is a bit unkempt! My unruly tomatoes really needed some discipline! To be honest, despite lack of high end care, they are all growing rather well and I think nearly all of them are bearing fruit!

Much more orderly! I can step between them now and see what I’ve got! I cleaned up a little around the pumpkins too.
I got rained on a lot but it wasn’t too cold.

I found two plants with these tomatoes on them I don’t recognise them at all!! Most of the plants in here are self seeded. So I would assume to see tomatoes that I have had before.

They are stripey at the top and very pale below… and grape shaped! Looking forward to trying them when they are ready!

Megumi came down and helped weed and mulch as well. She quit when it rained but went up inside to cut up those beetroot and we have made another batch of pickled beetroot tonight!

This is looking neater!! I’ve almost used up all the collected seaweed!! I really should sort out the hothouse and use the rest of the mulch in there. Maybe I should use the straw in the hothouse though… good to dig back in as mulch. The seaweed grass hasn’t got as many nutrients as the kelp.
hmmm

Still staring at my potatoes – longing to go digging frantically in here! 😀

I am glad I didn’t manage to dig up all the dahlia bulbs!!

Anyway, not a bad days work.
It was rather nice to come in to a cup of hot choc and a bit of that vanilla slice I made the other day!!
Hope your weekend was great too!
Cheers

Hello!!
Well!! Quite the day out today!
Ruby and Margies church had a Garden Tea fundraiser today.
So Megumi and I went along to enjoy and support the cause.
Guess who didn’t take her camera??? haha How weird is that?

Anyway, the home with the gorgeous garden is opposite the church.
It was set up with tea tables, a wonderful eclectic collection of tea cups, a stall where you could buy plants, a stall where you could buy some ‘stuff’ (bricabrac) a place where you could get raffle tickets, a chocolate wheel and an organised treasure hunt.
They also had a group of ladies singing for entertainment!

We enjoyed our cuppas and plate of sandwiches and sweets – and decided to join in the treasure hunt.
Megumi and I teamed up – there were 13 clues/riddles and you had to work out each one and find it in the garden. When you found it – it would have a letter on it.
Once you found all the letters, you had to unscramble the final words to get the solution!!
It was a marvellous way of going through the garden very thoroughly! We must have done about 20 laps!!
The clues were too difficult to translate properly for Megumi, but she was great at spotting random letters, then I fit the object to the clue instead of the other way around. I was able to explain some of them to her as we went along, but all in all it was good teamwork because we finished first!!
Only two others completed it correctly. (The answer was REDBACK SPIDER)
However – the prizes were then determined by a draw. I have a classic history of not winning chance draws, so had to laugh when our paper came out third of three!!
Still, we got a lovely pot and a bottle of wine! And it was all a heap of fun.
We had a go at the chocolate wheel and won no prizes (They had several rounds with the chocolate wheel) Is this an Australian name? Jeff hadn’t heard it called that. Its a spinning wheel with 60 or so numbers on it – they sell all the numbers as tickets and once all sold… spin the wheel to see who wins. Prizes often chocolate… hence name.
My Dad was a super expert at this game!! He was ridiculously lucky at getting his number spun up. So much so that people would actually GIVE him their money to buy the tickets for them. He was THAT level of ridiculously lucky! haha

Anyway, we stuck around for the raffle since it was coming up. We had been across the road to the Church Hall to show off our Treasure Hunt Prize to Margie and Shirley who were working so hard in the kitchens, making up plates of food and doing dishes!
We got back and settled in waiting for the draw. I viewed my purchase as simply a donation to a good cause.
So I am just sitting there like an idiot when they are calling out “LISA”
I honestly thought there would have been another Lisa!! Eventually when no other Lisa materialised, I put up my hand and said “I’m Lisa…”
The fellow had to read out my phone number to confirm it was me. hee hee

How great is that?? What a fabulous barrel of ‘stuff’ There was wine and a lovely soy candle melt thingy (plug in and it glows and melts your scented soy wax) – but mostly the things inside were garden related! A new set of hand digging tools, netting, spray bottle, sprinkler heads, plant food, a cute terracotta pot, gloves and a soaker hose. Very excitingly there was a $50 Bunnings Voucher too! (Big garden and hardware shop)
There was also a gardening aide to help someone kneel in the garden – cushioned with handles. Since I am still at an age where I am happy wallowing about on the ground and can get up fairly easily, I’ll take it over to see if Ruby would like it or Margie. If not, I’ll see about giving it back to the church to find it a home where someone can make good use of it!

BUT – the day is not done!
They did one more round of spins for the chocolate wheel. I bought the last two tickets for Megumi and I. I got Megumi to hold them and took out a little Japanese lucky charm that she had given me and theatrically rubbed it over the tickets for luck – we were both chuckling … until the first number up was Megumi’s!!! So funny! I made her go up and choose the prize – which was that gorgeous hanging pot of flowers!

What a lucky day!

Finished up home doing a round of watering and picked a few fruit and veggies – a good amount ended up on the dinner table and really… the corn is gorgeous!
I hope your weekend starts as brilliantly as mine did!

Cheers

Ouch!! 25 feed bags full of seaweed dragged up the beach and through the scrub and flung into the car. Feeling it tonight! Megumi helped fill them but was in no way strong enough to lift a bag. Where as Amazon-Me seems to be able to take two at a time. (Wasn’t built delicate haha)
Anyway, it was a good job to get done as I still need so much mulch!
I didn’t get a lot put on the garden yet as Beau came in to visit so it was a nice catch up with him. To be honest it was fab to sit down to a cuppa and relax!

I did get some lettuce moved. COWS!!! They’ve stuck their big noses over the fence and gulped a couple of mouthfuls of the new seedlings.
Before they all disappeared I thought I better do an emergency transplant.

This bare patch needed something. All my other lettuce has raced to seed. It still might be too warm for them, but it won’t hurt to try.

Decided I will empty and move that raised bed – to somewhere out of cow reach.
And would you all like to pause for a minute of mourning for my corn??

Half the plot gone. How sad is that? Next season I am going to arrange a hotwire for this plot.

I need to get back into my hothouse!! Marigolds are NOT meant to get that big!! All leaf and no flower! I put them in thinking they would just do nice little flowers and attract bees, not fluff out thinking they are in competition with Tentacular!!

I also picked some gorgeous big beetroots today! Need to pickle some more!

Hope you have all had a lovely day!!
Weekend is here! Enjoy!

It always pleases me to find weird veggies – my tomato has a long nose!

Today there was a lot of mucking about – doc visit, making appointments, picking up meds, post office, sorting out the ride on mower (just got it serviced as we want to sell it) etc and not very exciting. 🙂
Then I needed to make up the vanilla slice as I had bought the cream for it a few days ago and I am determined NOT to let it go off while I procrastinate about getting in the kitchen!

Look what I picked! They were probably just a squidge early, but they tasted lovely. These are from the first patch which looks a bit sad but seems to have reasonably nice ears of corn!
Making up for the third patch which we’ve now lost HALF to the bloody cows! They have pushed over quite a long way. Going to have to get a hotwire if I think I am going to make good use of that yard for food growing. And have a word to the cow-owners!

I got these lovely fat cherry tomatoes off the plants at the back of the hothouse…. self seeded and running amok.

I actually made a bit of time to get in and trim and tie them all up and back so I can see where to pick!
This was in between crazy cold rainstorms today.

It’s gone back to winter! We’ve had the fire on the last two nights and its SNOWING up in the mountains!
I didn’t get out much today simply because of the off and on again blasting cold winds and rain. So weird.

I did get to pick a bit, so dinner tonight was rather nice with lots of home produce.
Might have to wander off now and indulge in a passionfruit!

Hope your week is going well!
Cheers!

Hi!! How’s your Monday? All good wherever you are I hope!
This morning Megumi, Margie, Chris (Friend of Margies) and I drove into Burnie to check out the art gallery. There was an exhibition of photographs we were interested in seeing. Actually… there turned out to be three, so it was pretty nice checking out some great images before heading to a coffee shop for a bite to eat and a drink.

Arrived home to find that Jeff had made a massive start on stacking all that wood he chopped. We need to clean up the whole area if we think we are bringing down that stand of Macrocarpas.
So Megumi and I put some garden clothes on and got into it as well.

This is why we need a wood chipper.

Jeff kept loading up the barrow and Megumi and I kept stacking.

See how much fun it is?? haha

It drizzled a fair bit but we got all the split wood stacked. Still a LOT more to do but this is now out of the way which is great. I didn’t get a final picture as once we went inside, it just bucketed down!!

Anyway, I am looking into wood chippers. Renting them is not that cheap – $180 per day… I did find one for $245 per hour… wow.
With the huge clean up ahead I am now looking into buying one.
Its either that or a million trips to the tip. (I’d rather have the woodchips.)

Good carrots and wonky carrots! I made up a veggie mix tonight for dinner that I put on pasta. I had to use tinned tomato… but a lot of the other ingredients were from the garden not tins!
Weather got a bit chilly today – I briefly considered putting the fire on, but in the end was totally tough about it!

Hope your day was great!
Cheers

Hello there!! I spent all yesterday making up a batch of the plum-Worcestershire sauce – its a big undertaking. Its an old recipe I got from Ruby and its been about 2 years since I made it last. I think it made up well over 7 litres of sauce!! I was running back and forth to the stove all day… it comes to the boil VERY slowly but I am paranoid since the time I left Jeff in charge of it and we had a boil over – in among other things there is 5lb of sugar and 3 tins of treacle. Tell me that mess didn’t take an eon to clean!!!!
So now I am – careful….

I made a very sad discovery. Three or so rows of corn eaten by the cows. There haven’t been cows here in a year and I just didn’t think of the proximity to the fence when I planted. I know better now but I was still sad.

I put this up as a deterrent – just hoping its enough although I think they got all they could reach. Now they are busy pruning all the bushes further up the fence line. But I am not lovingly attached to those.
The corn has had a rough few days! The wind!!!
I found this stalk snapped off on the ground.

I got Jeff to come out and help me attach some shade cloth on the new fence. Sadly it doesn’t improve the look, but might just give a little wind protection.
Once we do the finishing touches on the fence we might put up a permanent and nicer looking windbreak with some new shade cloth.

So… tomatoes. We have a few.

The patch of tomato lateral plants is going along fabulously

More cherry tomatoes than you can point a stick at…

A few red ones here and there

Now the weather needs to warm back up so they can ripen!

The three watermelons are getting a little bigger!

Here’s an odd thing… one of the pumpkin vines turned up its toes! I followed it back to the plant and found it had rotten off!! ?? I haven’t had that before. Shame because there was a nice pumpkin at the end of that!

Lucky I have a few more growing

I need to look up what capsicum I planted! I want to know when they are ready for picking!

When my niece Emma was here she planted a heap of flowers for me (Including the sunflowers that were eaten by Little Moo)
They have come up beautifully and its a real pleasure to walk by this spot in the garden!

Today I went back to the fire trails in the forest with Jeff for another hike… avoided the straight down gravel paths… Megumi came along too! I didn’t take the camera, but I did load up my pack for the first time. Only put in 11kg as I thought that was enough to start. We did 6km and it was all pretty comfortable. My shoulders only started telling me about it quietly near the end of the hike, so thats good. See how they feel about it tomorrow!! 😀

Hope your day was great too
Cheers

I joined Jeff on a hike this morning – he has found a new place to test out carting his pack around. I don’t think I was in the best of moods – I would prefer not to be woken with ‘I’m going for a hike want to come?’ kind of questions. Thats way too much pressure before I am fully functioning.
(Did I ever mention I am not a morning person?)
So… we get up to the top of this long stretch – and I think I am doing well because I hadn’t stopped and its steeper and rougher than it looks here.
So happy (not) to realise it was a false summit and I still had this to go:

Mutter mutter.
Some parts of the walk like this were very exposed with the logging that has been done and a real mess… not the usual aesthetic dream we hike through.
Other parts were quite pretty.

Sadly, a lot of this area is neglected and unkempt. It used to be a great spot to come down to with the family for a picnic/BBQ. Now the main road is barricaded off – not sure why? Something to do with the logging?
A lot of it is now a festy pit for dumped burned out cars, general rubbish & graffiti etc
Its a real shame, because it used to be so lovely!

Some of the downhill stretches of the hike I did not enjoy at all. Probably because I fell over on my face and scraped my knee. (Graceful huh?) Not because I was being clumsy but because the surface on some of these very steep areas were loose dirt and stone over a hard surface. So think hiking on marbles.
I don’t mind the tougher hikes and uneven surfaces, but its hard to navigate if your feet just fly out from under you.

I am not sure how many kms it was – but at least I worked up a bit of sweat and we need to be hiking much more regularly since we are a month from when our Overland hike starts. Very glad I wasn’t carrying a pack today though!!

And it seems like the blackberries are about ready. We should go down to the local school near Ruby’s that was closed down. Its overrun with blackberries – if the season has been good for them there should be quite a few available!

Back at home we changed the grit on one of the tumblers. This is a bunch of rocks Megumi and I chose a few weeks ago for tumbling

So much fun washing the grit off to reveal the prettiness below

They are looking good…
We put a new finer grit in and popped them back on the tumbler.
Can’t wait for the final polish stage!

And lastly – I dug myself three potato plants. I found three that were looking decidedly almost dead, so I indulged in my favourite garden pastime!
Not a bad haul!
Hope you’ve had a great day and no scraped knees!
Cheers!

Starting to pick up more passionfruit – this was a nice big fat one and tasted so good!
No doubt I’ll have to start looking into passionfruit recipes soon!
Had my chicken-pesto pasta tonight and I am pleased 🙂

Not much else accomplished today.
Got the quote back for removing our big Macrocarpa trees, and while its not cheap, its certainly not the ‘lets sell the house’ horror I was expecting.
Now I can work on a plan!

In the background, I’ve been working on another rug. This time its going to be for my Canadian Niece. 🙂 Apparently she loves blue and has a blue/sea themed bedroom.
Its already a nice size and I like the colours. The lighter colour is actually a lovely silvery grey – just a bit hard to get the right shade in the snap!
This is me getting super ready for next Christmas!!!!

Hope you are having a fab week!
Cheers!

Hello!
After the wind howled all night, the rain arrived and blew in sideways and pretty much kept it up all day! (And this evening!)
I am sure the garden is enjoying a good soaking.
A couple of the chooks are sensible and stay in the coop… the rest are all a raggle-taggle-bedraggled bunch!!

Watching Little Moo on a quest for that last sunflower!!

I was fairly lazy today. But I did manage to go out and pick enough basil to make a batch of garlic pesto.
I am very much looking forward to tomorrow nights dinner – planning a chicken-pesto pasta.

Not much else to report unless you want to hear about kitchen cleaning??
No? OK. Thats me signing off!
Have a lovely day!!
Cheers

This little pest is broody!
We’ve had a couple of nights where we only had 9 out of the 10 chooks roosted. Searching in the dark for a dark hen with all the rubbish and bushes we have is not bound for success.
The first night she was ‘lost’ the following day I was feeding them and counted 10 – so figured one of them just got stuck somewhere.
Then we only had 9 roost again.
A daylight search yielded better results

So many tree cuttings that are piled up and need to be dealt with! I found TWO nests with eggs – that broody chook is diligently sitting on.

I don’t know who is responsible or how long they have been there…

Sigh. Never mind. I’ll test them all and probably use them to cook up/scramble and feed back to the girls (bit gross sounding haha)

Anyway, yesterday I spent the day at hospitals. Had to rush early by my GP to get an urgent order for bloods for my calcium, then swing by pathology at Burnie to get them taken, then off to LaTrobe to the hospital for a scope and biopsy of my stomach to get results of why the B12 isn’t absorbing
Naturally I was last on the patient list so it was a long day waiting about. No dramas with the procedure and I amused the nurse by trying to talk before coming out of the anesthetic. I usually wake up talking non-stop! 😀

Today was restful… I planned a proper sleep in without the thought of anyone else being here to entertain or make sure they were ok. Wandered about the house half dressed and all that kind of excellent stuff!!
I even got a fellow to come in and see the Macrocarpa trees to get a quote on removing the lot (gulp)(That is NOT going to be cheap, so it will be a – remove trees or sell house situation!!)
(Yes I got fully dressed for that)
The winds are fierce tonight – which now always makes me a bit nervous thinking about those massive trees.

Basil cuttings going well! Reckon I can plant these! Will wait for the mad winds to die off first though. I think I have enough basil to make a batch of pesto. Looking forward to that!!

We have three small watermelons started! I still don’t have high hopes but hey… its a start! Fingers crossed!

Overall the garden needs a lot of clearing up in between the patches, but I am still enjoying the amount of food we are picking and that will soon (hopefully) be ready to pick.

I am really glad I built those extra little raised beds! They are easy to manage

Jeff needs to get in there with his mower I think! 🙂

I visited Ruby and Margie today. Was able to pick some plums so I can get onto a much needed batch of plum-Worcestershire sauce!
Margie also cut my hair since it was getting impossible to get a comb through the ends! I am a lot less scruffy now!

Anyway, thats about all the happenings today at Norwich house.
Hope the weather isn’t too extreme where you are!!
Seems to be a bit mad all over the globe right now!
Cheers!