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It was as windy as all getup here today. Keep looking at the gums looming over the house hoping their roots are holding on tight.

Regardless – it had to be an outdoor day. Too much kitchen time not enough garden time. There is a lot of work to be done – I am sure I will get around to it! 🙂

The corn stalks weren’t really properly dry, but they are messy and providing slug/bug homes so I had to do something with them.

So I reduced them from this –

to this –

Lovely scraps to be put in the compost! Very pleased we bought the little mulcher – such a useful tool for this place!

Still plenty of food other than tomatoes. I took time to enjoy hanging out with my ever growing zucchini!! I am curious to see just how big it will get. Was quite awkward trying to get the selfie – lucky I am not too precious about scrounging down in the dirt!!

While I was lying back in the vegie patch, this is the view that myself and (Insert name for zucchini here when I think of one 🙂 ) were enjoying in the sunny afternoon –

So besides madly oversized zucchini’s, I have pumpkins –

Heirloom capsicum (these were an accident as I planted ‘normal’ capsicum and got these instead – and I am totally converted! They taste SO good!!) They also change colour from green to yellow to orange and then red! But edible from yellow –

One struggling eggplant –

My beautiful runner beans! They haven’t made it up and over their arch yet, but I live in hope –

Living on the beans at the moment is quite a colony of very cool little bugs. I don’t think they are doing any harm, but they are really pretty.

There were also little family groups!

I suppose they are all very cute until they start munching their way through your garden!

To finish the day I did eventually have to get back into the kitchen. Due to tomato problem, I made tomato soup for dinner. Have no clue where my recipe is for it so I just had to make it up, throw in what I thought should be in there and hope for the best. Happily it turned out pretty fab (if I do say so myself) and even better I used up a stack more tomatoes.             Happy Days!

And to round off the day with apples, I made an “Apple Slump” A wonderful old fashioned recipe from my Great Aunt Ruby (who is 99 years old!). Its not fussy or pretty but it tastes great and is a good recipe to have on hand when apples are in season. (I will post a ‘how to’ recipe for this at a later date)

Aaaaand – I totally forgot to feed it to Jeff before he went to work!         Bad Wife!

He said he is looking forward to it for breakfast!

That rounds off another day from Norwich House!

Cheers!

PS The stall is on the up & up – I got $9 today!! 😛

 

 

I had never been to Steamfest before, so I rang my friend Margie and asked if she wanted to go for a drive into the country with me to check it all out. (Husband on nightshift so he is no fun during the day)

I got a yes from Margie, so up we went.  Of course, being all grown up, the first thing we did as soon as we got through the gates was get ourselves onto the teeny steam train for a ride!!

We parked ourselves in the First Class Carriage for the trip up –

 

And then braved the elements and soot in the open carriage on the way back –

Lack of husbands on this trip meant a guilt-free dawdle through the craft halls – I immediately found some beautiful hand spun and dyed merino wool which I purchased… later to be made into someone’s birthday or Christmas present I reckon!

After some exhausting browsing and chit chatting (its quite amazing how many people you bump into that you know when you drive an hour from home!) we (Margie) spotted a small sit down tent area where the lady was serving scones with a cuppa of your choice.  In need of fortification, we immediately sat and ordered some wood-fired scones!!  I am sorry to say there are no photos of those little clouds of delicious-ness because we scoffed them before I thought of getting my camera back out.  But I did get a photo of the very cool oven they were cooked in:

A bit further up the track we found a sight worth seeing – a squadron of primary school kids having a tug-of-war with a steam roller! Not something you see everyday and there was great excitement each time the kids managed to pull the engine in their direction! (I do suspect some mechanical help may have played a part)

There were really interesting, working machines everywhere.

It was great hearing them fire up the engines and seeing the process of the wheat being separated out and the remaining hay baled.

It was a different way to spend Sunday and a lot of fun. A small escape from the kitchen with its waiting kilos of tomatoes!

The afternoon brought the sunshine back and once home it was nice to sit on the back veranda with a cup of hot chocolate, enjoying the view and listening to the delicate sounds of cows bellowing in the nearby paddocks!

Ahhhh – that’s the life!

Cheers