Lessons

This afternoon Fiona dropped in for our much talked about crochet lessons. (We talk about it when we hike!) Another cousin, Phil, also dropped in, so there was a good deal of chatting, a few cuppas and luckily I had just baked a tea cake! All very social!
We eventually got on to the crochet – Fiona did really well. Its a matter of getting all your fingers in the right places as well as learning the stitches… tension will come with practice.
We got far enough through the lesson that she could see how the pattern was working (We were doing one of the granny squares that you keep adding and adding to until you have a knee rug (or a bed spread if you are REALLY keen!))

This morning I finished off the ceremony part of the wedding photos:

Sneak Peek

Next lot of photos to post process are the family shots… and there was a LOT of family, so that might take until Christmas (Just kidding – hopefully)

I have got to get these done so I can play with my travel photos!!!

Cheers

A non-incognito photo of Fiona having a fun afternoon hanging out with the Millars!

What’s on my Needles?

Gloomy days seem nicer in front of the fire with my crochet hook or knitting needles… today was one of those days.
Its currently pouring so there is a good chance tomorrow might fall along the same lines!
I have a number of partly finished jobs on the go!

I had forgotten I had started this one!

This was the one I was doing at the airports and on the aeroplanes between here and Texas – still haven’t gotten back to it!

New yarn so I had to start it to see what it looked like!

Plus some cosy-cuffs

I finished the mate to the colourful one tonight… but they all need sewing up.
I think I have that black & colourful one sold to a friend. Better get stitching soon!
Hope everyone has had a peaceful day

Cheers

Frugal

I mentioned a few posts back about super-budgeting.
It bugs me how the hot water part of the electricity bill is separate from the ‘normal’ power. We have solar panels which helps, but not with the water side of things. Getting a solar hot water system really isn’t cost effective for us – just doing the basic math… we probably use about $400 per year’s worth of hot water… so a few thousand dollars to install a system would take too long to pay off. So we didn’t even really look at it.
So… recently taken to heating up my washing up water on the fire to do the dishes!!
I do my dishes by hand anyway – and its really not that difficult to leave a pot of water on the fire, so its ready when I am to do the washing up.

The frosts are starting to set in lately and the tomato plants at the back door are starting to feel the effect. I thought I should take a bunch of laterals (suckers) and see if I can get them producing roots for a nice early spring start to get a bunch of cherry tomato plants going!
If you have not grown new tomato plants from laterals… click here to see my post about how to do it. So easy to get free plants!

The latest Photo Challenge is just wrapping up… well, that is all the albums are ready for photos but we are waiting on stragglers to submit images so we can move along with the voting! So nothing different to normal!
Anyway, I spent most of the day with the wedding photos, so below are the last few days subjects with my submissions!
The voting is tough as usual… so many great photos and cool subject interpretations!

Cheers!

Day 7 – Camouflaged
Day 8 – Locks and/or Key/s
Day 9 – Urban Decay
Day 10 – Small

Pikelet Recipe

Just in case someone wanted to know how to make up a batch of pikelets, here is the recipe I use:

1 cup self raising flour – sifted

pinch salt

1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda

2 tablespoons sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup sour milk (add a teaspoon vinegar to fresh milk or do what I do and just use normal milk!!)

1 dessert spoon of melted butter

Mix all ingredients into a smooth mixture. Dollop spoonfuls of batter on a heated non stick fry pan – flip and cook until golden

Serve hot with butter and your choice of jam etc… or just butter!
They are good cold too.

Wonderful for afternoon tea… but not so smart to eat almost a whole batch at 10pm… just so you know 😀

Gardening At Ruby’s

Two days in a row – sunny skies!
It rained heavily all night and I was sure I was going to be sitting inside by the fire, crocheting & post processing photos!
Nup!
Figured I would go get a new gardening view and catch up with Ruby…
I caught her at the clothesline!

Margaret & Ruby’s family from Western Australia made a surprise visit (Margie knew… Ruby didn’t!) which thrilled her!
Margaret’s washing machine had a slight breakdown so Ruby to the rescue and getting some of the laundry done while the other machine was being fixed!

I decided to tackle the side fence which was really worrying Ruby – the grassy weeds had gotten a bit too enthusiastic

Fast forward three and a half hours…

I don’t want to whinge too much but wow – am I ever sore tonight!! And my cuticles are ruined!!
Those grassy things hang on like you wouldn’t believe! I am not a lightweight, but I was at times putting all my weight behind those clumps and they wouldn’t shift!
Too hard to dig into because they are intertwined with the jasmine or whatever the climbing plant is… so it was lolling about in the mud (yes I got rained on for a while haha) trying to separate the bits and pull them out!!

Going to have to raid a few of these to make some more raspberry jam!

It was VERY nice to head inside and have a warming cup of coffee… a bit of cake and a catch up chat with Ruby and Margie!

Ruby still has some food in her garden… lovely big beetroot that she has either been roasting or pickling

Mini cabbages that look lovely and healthy

A few flowers around the yard give a nice splash of colour within the often grey days.

Hope everybodys week started fantastically!

Cheers!

Plopped herself down in the sunshine declaring after all the laundry that she had ‘given herself the biscuit’ (Translation = wore herself out!!)

 

Garden Beds, Raspberry Canes and Pruning

Check out that sky!! Is that a perfect winters day or what?
AND it lasted!
I woke up to it absolutely bucketing down and figured I would be inside all day, so I went back to bed!
When I got up again, I had no excuse to be inside.

Time to clear out another garden bed! The chooks got the silverbeet and were pretty happy about that

I didn’t really feel motivated enough to empty the soil out and line the bottom of the bed – plus I figured the soil would be harboring weeds anyway… so I just lined the top with a thick layer of newspaper and dumped a few bags of seaweed on top of that.

Here’s hoping the weeds will be stopped or slowed and there will be a lot less work when spring comes. I also figure I might just poke a hole in the newspaper to plant seedlings rather than pulling it all up. Will be interesting to see if that helps or hinders!

Another thing I have been itching to do is to prune back the Lion’s Ear

I was really hoping I could turn these into some kind of hedge but have had to wait a couple of seasons while they really filled out before cutting them back.
Lions Ear, or Leonotis leonurus, is a pretty hardy plant. We have one out the front and it self seeds easily. The smaller seedlings are really easy to transplant – and hard to kill! You can also prune it back to the nub and it will spring back in a single season!

Anyway – I think so far so good! Plus I didn’t have to buy anything, just used what I had to make a hedge. Time will tell if it works out.

Took a few wheelbarrows of weeds and clippings away today!

Then I thought I should make a start on the raspberry canes which are looking a bit scraggly.

I only got to one side today. There is a lot more to be done – transplanting, tying back up and weeding.

Its a start!

Eventually I will get this and a few other prunings through the mulcher

All in all, not a bad Sundays work!
Hope your day was great too!

Cheers!

 

Enjoying while I can!

The Back Paddock

I used this one

Hello! Friday is done and dusted!
Apart from some mundane shopping and a few other things, I had to get a ‘Fence’ photo for tomorrows challenge subject.
That was meant to be an easy one! I passed SO MANY amazing ones on my USA road trip but wasn’t smart enough to ask my friend to pull over!
I did a bit of a drive up the Calder Rd but found nothing to my liking.
So I jumped the fence (a non-aesthetically pleasing one) and went into the paddock behind our house to see what I could find.
Sigh… nothing like I wanted. Oh well… make the best of it.
Oh – and don’t touch the electric fences!! haha

Overgrown a bit!
Rich afternoon light!

I couldn’t pass up trying a few shots of the hay shed while I was out there with my tripod

Just for fun… these are each actually five shots at different exposures merged into a single shot.

I need to do more of these types of shots – but its called ‘not being lazy’ and actually carry a tripod and spend some more time setting up rather than randomly snapping away!

I’ll wait until I have my USA shots under control!

Anyway, almost time for bed. I was a bit naughty tonight. Jeff went to bed crazy early so in a fit of loneliness I made a batch of hot buttery pikelets and scoffed 3/4 of them!! (and washed them down with a hot chocolate!)
I now have Pikelet Regret.
They were good but now trying to work out how far I have to hike in what kind of weather tomorrow to make up for that!

Cheers!

Another Indoor Day

I am looking a bit anxiously at our dwindling wood pile… indoor days use up more wood than normal. Often if we go out for the day we will let the fire go out then restart it in the early evening.
Cousin Jeff, who supplies the firewood, met with an accident the other day – a leg broken in a couple of places!! The poor bloke! We went over to see him at the hospital before his surgery and he was pretty miserable with the pain. (He put a good face on it, but nurses know – Husband Jeff certainly knew!)

Pip spent a lazy day while I worked on the wedding photos and the challenge photos.
Today’s challenge subject was ‘Repeating Patterns’
I convinced Jeff to help down at the beach the other day with some rope, sticks and some patience –

Tomorrow is day 5 – Subject ‘Board Games’ I scrounged about and located my Harry Potter chess set and had a mini photo shoot inside trying to get the arrangement right

It took about 20 shots… mucking about with the arrangement and camera settings! In the end I was pretty pleased with it.

The day ended with a rather nice sunset, but since I was still in my indoor clothes (ok – I was still in my pj’s) I didn’t venture out far to get any spectacular shots. (I am sure the neighbour and the passing traffic might have been amused if I had)

 

I hope everyone had a great day too!

Cheers

Winters evening, warm sky

A Little Sun and a Little Gardening

I kid you not… clear sunny morning… absolutely gorgeous. I put on my gardening clothes and within 60 seconds I was being rained on!!!
So I went out anyway and soldiered on!!

I picked the jam melons from the dead vine and salvaged the seeds

If next season behaves itself I am hoping to grow a number of these – they sell well with the older generation on the market stalls

Mash, scraps and yogurt for the chooks – a couple of eggs in the nest today! Yay

Some of the garlic is shooting up nicely! Very pleased to see that!

Time to pick the remaining runner beans

There are a lot… (More seeds than I will need – hopefully give away/sell extras where I can)

The bean arch has broken down – sadly my beans never managed to grow up and over which was disappointing!

Really it was time to pull it all up so I can start again (time to browse pinterest for ideas I think!) and get rid of whatever weeds I could while the weather didn’t go completely feral!

I didn’t use any digging tools today.. just concentrated on what I could pull out by hand and in particular anything that was flowering or had seed heads

I got quite the pile of weeds!

I still need to get into the above garden with the fork and dig through it for twitch

A fair improvement but still a long way to go!

Jeff picked up a lot of newspaper from his work mate so I plan to line the paths with it and dump that seaweed onto it

Still getting nice handfuls of produce here and there!
Eventually I got too cold to stay out so had to quit, stock up on firewood and come inside and keep the fire company (and do photos and knit a bit!)

Hope everyone had a fabulous day!

Cheers