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Hi!!
I started this post, then got distracted.
Its late (surprise surprise) and we are not long home from our jaunt up to Launceston to pick up the three Japanese boys who are staying with us for a few weeks! (Taishin, Daisuke and Shonosuke)

Yesterday the sun was shining and we got out to do some garden work… mow, take down netting and make the garden at the back veranda look nicer.

I took some time to collect the billion celery seeds

All I could smell for an hour or so was celery!

I got a bit over keen and dug up a good bucket full of potatoes

It’s so close to the time where we can just dig the lot up! Can’t wait!

Today I picked a few more veggies and made the start of the vegetarian lasagne that I am planning on doing for dinner tomorrow night. (ok… at this time of night lets call it tonight)

Hope your Monday was fabulous
Cheers

Hello!
What a mad life we sometimes lead!
I’ll have to make a return with the rest of the story on the snake escapade over the weekend. Happily tonight was quiet and relaxing with no reptiles.

So… Chris from Estonia (Who we met up Cradle Mt) dropped in for a couple of nights to enjoy seeing a little bit of Tasmania’s North West coast. At the same time, Manami from Japan, who was staying with other cousins, was dropped off to us the last couple of days to join in some hiking and sightseeing! It’s been wonderful meeting new people and hearing about their travel adventures, learning a bit about their lives and where they are from.

Of course I had to take them on a walk down to my favourite place, Anniversary Bay for a look!

After a gloomy start with the weather, the afternoon turned out really well.

Manami had to be back to our place to be picked up by my cousins, but we had enough time to all get into the garden and pick food, dig potatoes and eat a few things straight off the vines.
I cooked up a nice big dinner and we were also joined by my cousin Beau & our boarder Kirrily so dinner was a fun affair.
(Snake excitement was the after dinner entertainment…)

Today Manami was dropped off back here this morning and we went out to Stanley to climb “The Nut”

The weather was spot on today! So perfect for showing off the area!

The views were just beautiful all the way around and my international visitors really enjoyed it up there

We had time to slip into Black River Beach for a walk around… and a paddle!

Just fabulous to cool the feet off and slosh through the water!

I resisted picking up a million shells… but there were plenty on the beach today!

I’ll share the rest of  the days photos with you tomorrow night!
Right now I need to put the cat that is literally doing little kitty-snores on my lap to bed and then take myself to my bed!
All that sunshine!! So tired!

Cheers

Hi…
Its so late again and my plans for an early night were thwarted.
I had a few photos and a short story to share but that will have to wait.
But here is a teaser from the unexpected events of tonight:

CAST:
Cat on lead
Angry possums
8 Sleepy Chooks
1 tiger snake in the chicken coop!
Cousin Beau
Boarder Kirrily
Chris from Estonia
Cousin Beaus friend with shotgun

ACT 1
Relocate chooks from coop – acts of bravery and heroism from Norwich House Home Owner (me in Jeffs gumboots)
8 trips into coop to pluck unhappy chickens off their roost

ACT 2
To Be Continued

Are you on the edge of your seats??

Totally never a dull moment around here! (I had to explain to Chris not to expect this level of entertainment tomorrow night!!)
I’ll catch you with the full story in a day or so!

Have an awesome day

Cheers!

Hello!
Welcome to insane-ville!
I had some garden update photos but since its 1.30am and I haven’t managed to post process them because I got caught up with ‘stuff’
So… I am doing a flying visit to my blog.

I spent most of the day pulling the pantry apart, cleaning, sorting and putting it back together again.
I am a happier person even though I was stuck inside.

Tomorrow we have a ‘random traveller’ (Hi Chris) hopefully arriving tomorrow for a couple of nights. We met Chris climbing the Cradle Summit a few weeks back and invited him to Norwich House if he got this way before our other guests arrived.
Also a Japanese lady is being dropped off at our place for the day tomorrow to join in on any hiking adventures that might happen.

Oh – I did manage to bake a cake.

A brief escape outside to enjoy the garden – the self seeded tomatoes here are total champions!

Anyway, best get to bed if I want to be a sane host that can string a sentence together!

Hopefully catch you again soon

Cheers!

Loving our fresh corn!

Hi – just mundane stuff today.
Was time for the BBQ area to be cleared out and sorted again.
I didn’t get it quite finished because it took so long to wash out the spidery grotty pots!
I figure I might put a few bundles out the front for sale when I put my veggie tables back out the front.

This area is too easy to put stuff in when you are in a hurry!

I have some more things to sort in there, but the really time consuming part of the job is done.
Finished off the day with a tasty vegetable mix over pasta. And a bit of leftover apple slump! Never going hungry around here thats for sure!

Enjoy the week ahead!

Cheers

Hi there!
Sorry for the none appearance in the last couple of days. I seem to be getting out of whack with everything!
We did get out for a walk – as you can see from the above photo. I thought it would be a great idea to take my new boots for a test run (hike).
And… because I am an idiot, I thought the very best idea was to just put them on and do a two hour hike over Anniversary Bay instead of taking them to the supermarket… or down to visit the chickens… or a lap around the kitchen.
Oh yeah… didn’t take bandaids either.
You can work the results out for yourselves! haha

At least we remembered the fly veils… the flies have been really sticky lately.

OK… so, yesterday the weather kicked up a fuss and we woke to howling wind, rain, a drop in temperature and no power for over 10 hours.
Yay.

My most recent corn patch was being flattened, so between rain squalls, I set up the netting over the patch just to give it a little bit more of a wind break

Today I got back onto the relish that I started the other day – since the power seemed to be staying on. So nice to have a full batch again ready to scoff into!

Oh and check out the mealworm gang!! I have lots that have turned into pupae!! I still don’t know exactly what I am doing yet, but so far so good:

They wriggle a bit when you poke them

Then, every now and again I pinch off a cos lettuce flower bud and empty out the seeds. Not something I could sit and do in one hit… so many and so little and fiddly. So just a few here and there every now and again and I should end up with a nice collection of seeds.

So … Timeline?
Wanna hear whats on the go? (Feel free to skip to tomato photo at the end!!!)

This weekend we are taking on a boarder. My cousins girlfriend needed a place to move to, so we thought we would put up our hand. We have thought about renting a room for ages, but… procrastination set in and also working out how to get someone that is not an axe murderer. (And who loved Pip)
We cleared out her room of our ‘stuff’ dusted, pulled out furniture, vacuumed, mopped, removed spiderwebs etc etc. Its about done and hopefully comfy.

In 10 days three Japanese boys arrive and stay for about three weeks although we are working out how to get them over to my friend in Melbourne (Rachel) for a few days as well and the cheapest options for them to do it. (The Bass Straight can be an expensive bit of water!)
Room upstairs is about half ready. Lots of ideas in my head on where to take them and things to do! (and cook!)

Pretty much the day the boys fly out, my business partner and his wife from my Canberra business are coming to stay for a week!! Can’t wait to see them as they haven’t seen our place in Tasmania yet!

The day they are planning on leaving is the day Jeff heads off on his Overland Trek.

Today I got a message from another Japanese friend to say her daughter and cousin are coming to visit in April.
9th – 22nd and want to also squeeze in a visit to Rachel in Melbourne/Ballarat and my sister Rosemary in Brisbane.
Mind you… on the 14th April is when Fiona and I head off on our Overland hike!!

I think that is about it without the obvious inclusions of the normal things to be done in the garden/kitchen etc etc.
Not scared.
Time to install that revolving door??

I am really looking forward to seeing everyone and playing tour guide.
Never a dull moment! But I will be a happier person once I get the housework under control!

Hope everyone is having a splendid week!
Cheers!

So – these poor old much abused boots have just about had it. While I am happy to keep gluing them up and throwing them some polish once in a while, there is not much I can do about the tread.
AND – I am now booked in to do the Overland Track again mid April so I thought the smartest thing to do would be to treat my feet to new boots!

Doing the good wifey thing and spending Jeff’s paycheck.
I do get my money’s worth out of these though and they can hack a lot! I feel the walking will be a bit easier with more grip and a bit more sponginess – the inner sole was pretty cactus too in the old ones.

Well… thats my shoe shopping done for another 2-3 years!

Anyway – Mega excited about tackling the Overland again. Jeff is going on his own later in March while I look after Pip, the chooks and the garden.
Then Mid April its his turn to babysit while I trot off with Fiona for our jaunt! Fiona has never done it before so I am really looking forward to sharing it with her. Plus she goes at my pace!! (Not rushed… lots of rests on those uphills!!)
We booked now as on our starting date (14th) there were very few places left. They limit the amount of people starting each day.

If you didn’t catch the stories of last March’s Overland hike – there is a category for it you can take a peek if its of interest to you!

Thats all from me tonight!
Roll on Friday!

Cheers

 

Cloudy night…

Hello!
Precious little from me today.
I did some dishes. Some laundry – even went out on a limb and folded some up!!
Rescued from drudgery by Fiona who seemed to think doing a lap around Anniversary Bay would help stretch out the kinks from the Cradle climb.
Got to be better than laundry right??
It was good to walk it out a bit. Some of the steeper climbs were more testing than usual, but without the massive boulders, it was a much more manageable hike.
Shock horror I didn’t take my camera! The sea was a stunning colour today – but you will just have to imagine it.

Dug up some lovely new potatoes, a carrot and picked a heap of cucumbers.
Even managed a little weeding in there somewhere!

Tomorrow I will have to knuckle down to some real work!

Cheers!

Well… we got the full east side of the house painted today!
Very satisfying to get a big chunk of the job done.

The back veranda is next on the list. First up we had to clear everything off of course (amazing how I can pile up ‘stuff’)
Once clear we could give the walls a good wash & scrub.

It was also a good chance to plant out some things that had been lurking in pots for too long and throw away rubbish etc. What goes back onto the veranda after painting has to be clean and nice!!! Good plan.

Remember these little guy that I planted 3 weeks ago? Check them out now!

They even have fruit!

The other self seeded tomatoes in the corner are pretty amazing
Not much effort on my part and they look fabulous!

Some new potatoes for dinner and a couple more apple cucumbers as well (and the first tomato from the herb garden tomatoes!)

I even squeezed in enough time to put together an Apple Slump for dessert tonight!
Not a bad way to finish the day
Cheers!

Hello!
Just for something different I thought I would try to breed mealworms. Great source of protein for the chooks… even a saleable thing if I get enough!
My best mate suggested it to me as she has just started some too.
Its all pretty easy in theory:
Step one. Buy some mealworms.

Three containers with holes in the top.
There are three stages to the lifecycle. Larvae, pupae and adult – oh and lots of eggs (hopefully eventually) too
I want each stage kept in different containers.

They get rolled oats as food and bedding and slices of veggies as moisture and food.
It was both kind of fun and slightly creepy fishing out all the worms from the container. They pretty much dived right into the oats and disappeared.
I had two live adults too! They look a little lonely in their box.

So… now I just have to wait until they spin little cocoons and try to keep them alive!
Pretty easy it seems. Cheap to start up and they don’t bite. Whats not to love??

In other news… we started to paint the house

We’ve been meaning to for a couple of years now. Especially the sides of the house not under the veranda’s protection.
Thought we would start with the easy bits to get the hang of it.

Clearly we started with a washdown. Looking quite grotty!

We managed to get around to painting the first section late this afternoon. We chose a slightly darker cream than what we had. Mostly I wanted to make it look like I had actually done something when viewing the slight colour change.
Might need a second coat tomorrow. We shall see in the morning.

We are also thinking that we will paint the trim/edges/window frames dark green in the Federation style. Might be a while before we get to that point, but its an idea.

In garden news – I got a see-through tomato!

A few more zucchinis are on their way:

So many lovely tomatoes waiting to change colour!

And I am much happier with my latest beetroot patch compared with the original one I planted. All up and looking good!

Cheers!