Head in the Clouds – Feet in the Dirt – Page 119 – Traipsing through life in NW Tasmania

Haircut Day

For weeks now (ok, lets be honest, probably since I got here to Tasmania) Margie keeps looking sideways at my hair, sighing a bit and running her fingers through the tangled endy bits and acting all wistful
She is a hairdresser.
And the lack of attention I give my hair in her opinion borders on criminal.

This is why I have bandannas. I love my bandannas – I won’t cut my hair short but I hate it getting in my eyes, so it works for me.
Anyway… the ends were getting pretty much to dreadlock stage so I figured I better let Margie have her fun and having hair a little more manageable for the upcoming hike.
Really… I could do without returning home harbouring various flora and fauna in there from Cradle Mt.

Margie has cut my hair once before. Other than that, I have generally just yanked my hair around to the front and attacked it with scissors myself. (I really don’t care)(And did I mention I am one of the least expensive wives out there??)

There! All done! I swapped some eggs for the haircut – but reckon I should make up Margie a bit of special home made ice cream at some point.
I could have done this myself (er- not as neatly of course) but then where’s the fun in that, as we had coffee and a good long gossip!?!

I grossly under-calculated my earnings yesterday … I made $8 not $7.
People from Texas can tell me how many cups of coffee I can buy with that! haha
BUT – today was a LOT more exciting!
$49!!! How great is that?? I met a couple of the customers. One sweet old fellow was just browsing while his wife (seated in their car) and I chatted. He kept choosing stuff and handing over more money!
Another fellow bought stuff then immediately came back to get the rest of the tomatoes because his wife told him to. They really loved the Black Russian ones.
I gave him a complimentary cucumber.

And then we get to my favourite time of the day…

Vegetable Arrangement Hour

Thrilled with my chillies this season.

At this point I was thinking I needed to feed Jeff so he could go to work!

Hope your day was fabulous

Cheers

Big Bucks

Seven dollars!!! Yep – Texas is going to be awesome with all my spending money! haha – lets hope sales pick up somewhat tomorrow.

It was good to finally have enough of this and that to put something out the front. Perhaps if I can keep it up people will know to look for it. All depends on the weather!!! (and you know how dependable its been for us this season!!)

I chopped up a whole heap of the remaining tomatoes that were very ripe and made a bit of a pasta sauce mix to put in the freezer for a day when I feel lazy.
Still bundles of herbs to choose and cook with

Oh – and that ONE chilli put the whole pot over the edge heat-wise! Wow… glad I only put one in!!

Now in the freezer. Its a start.

I put the lovely little garden bowl creation that Maureen gave me into my herb patch with some of my pretty rocks sitting in the water. Good watering place for bees now.

Jeff has been giving the next door sheep the windfall apples. This is totally fine. There are only so many of them that our chickens can eat. The sheep is now trained to think it gets apples as soon as one of us steps foot in the back yard. This is also fine.
What is not so fine is when you are pottering about the garden minding your own business and one of them sneaks up and bellows “BELAAAAARGH!!”
New pants needed

Hope your day was less surprising

Cheers

Just Vegies.

Playing with my food!
I couldn’t get into my groove today. I was half heartedly doing some housework. Going to have to do it more whole-heartedly tomorrow! The days are slipping by and there is still a bit to organise before going up to Cradle on our hike.
Next step – write list.

There are a lot more chillies in the hothouse to pick. I left them for today as I wasn’t in the mood for standing about cutting and de-seeding. Maybe tomorrow?

This is a patch of thirty random tomato plants – the ones that self seeded in the hothouse that I relocated. A lot of them have fruit. We are yet to see if they ripen

I thought they would all be cherry tomatoes! Not so! I am seeing quite a variety so far!

I think this garden bed may have gotten away from me! The lettuce were in here earlier in the season. Half of it has now been taken over by self seeded tomatoes. I have a ‘meh’ attitude towards them. They can look after themselves and if I get some fruit, then yay! Not going to (as Ruby would say) break my heart over them.

The other half of that garden bed contains the relocated beetroots which are going really really well. Some big ones getting along quite happily in there! The few lettuce that are also there are going nicely and are at the point where I can snag a few leaves here and there for dinner

Still got more than enough parsley around to keep us going. And rogue potatoes everywhere!

I would say this one is about ready to dig up – but no rush, since we already have so many.

I don’t have so much of a bean arch, as a bean slump! Some repair work needed! I have gotten a couple of zucchinis off the plant in the middle, but not a lot. Random tomatoes are also growing among the beans.

Ahhh, my rhubarb! I have never cooked it before so I am completely procrastinating about tackling it!

I put in some purple carrot seeds in one part of the carrot patch. They were old, so it was a bit of pot luck. They have raced to seed.
On a happier carrot-note, I saw some tiny shoots popping up where I planted some of my first saved seed. (er… like three so the photos as yet are not inspiring)

There are still happy cheerful flowers dotted about the yard which keeps everything upbeat.

Hope everyone has had a fab day!

Cheers!

Turn your back for two seconds and zucchinis turn into baby elephants!

Ta Daaaa!

Its real!

I went into town today and got my ticket!!
I am so excited! I will go back in next week and sort out my insurance and visa.

If you missed the reasons I am escaping the Tasmanian winter for three weeks to go to Texas – here is a quick story.

In 1980 & 81 my family was flown to Venezuela so my Dad could manage a piggery that was being built and developed. At the time Venezuela had no primary produce.
It was an amazing experience – I was only 9 – 10 years old at the time. I remember quite a lot about it. Obviously a very different lifestyle to the one we were used to.

One of my sisters and myself went to a nearby school that was set up for the kids of American missionaries. I became very good friends with a girl named Wendy.

Time goes on… we left the country and as things happen lost touch. Women get married and change their names so until the age of the internet, Wendy and I remained strangers for most of our growing up years.

I started a search on and off (Google is your friend) for about 5 years looking for her. (Stalker much?? haha) By chance I happened upon one of the teachers of the school (long since closed) and sent her an email. She was friends with Wendy’s mother and I can’t tell you how excited I was to get that first email with her name in the subject title!

She got me onto facebook where we could share photos and stories more easily and I have become friends with her husband and three children – not to mention a few other of their friends too!

Wendy’s eldest girl is getting married and I jokingly asked if they needed a photographer! They jokingly said yes!
Then I thought, well… I have always wanted to meet up at some point, so if they’ll have me at this important time in their families lives, I’ll save up and go!

Happily they were more than pleased to welcome me along, so I began saving and preparing!
And now its less than three months before I travel!
I am excited and nervous! But I can’t wait!

Sorry no other photos – I will do better tomorrow!

Hope your day was exciting too!

Cheers!

Food and Weirdness

Hello! The corn is getting fatter! Happy Days!
I love being able to slip down the back to my personal supermarket and collect dinner

Stuffed tomatoes, steamed corn, steamed potato and homemade rissoles. (Hamburger patties)

I am enjoying having a lot of herbs to mix into my dishes too. I am not being frugal there!

I survived much better on the bike today. I did my half hour while the washing was on. It was another warm-hot beautiful breezy day so the laundry dried nice and easily. (And my bottom doesn’t hurt so much just in case you were wondering…)

I gave the back veranda and the sunroom a good cleaning today. I found an oddity in the creases of the camp chairs that live on the veranda.

I think its a native wasp nest, yet each room was full of colourful dead spiders.

The spiders had gorgeous colours and patterns

I like this world of ours. Always something new and fascinating out there to discover!

Hope you have had a great day!

Cheers!

Chook Drama

Hello! Midweek and the first day of autumn!! And it was the nicest day of summer ever! Go figure!

Margie dropped in today to say hello. She brought her little dog Macca, but left him in the car with the windows a little open as she wasn’t staying long.

Well… as we walked back to her car we could hear a dog barking – but not from the car! From down in the back yard. Yipes! The little snot had wriggled his way out of the car window and somehow through the fence to the back and found 11 new feathery playmates!

By the time I got into the yard, there was no sign of 10 of the birds. Just one black girl that had hunkered down, kinda comatose. I think she was trying to pretend that she wasn’t there as Macca bounced around her in delight barking at his new playmate!

It took a while, but I coaxed Macca to me and deposited him back over the fence to Margie who was looking all kinds of mortified!! (To be honest I am just glad he went looking for the chickens and not straight out our gate to the highway!!)

I went back to the chook who seemed paralysed picked her up, tipped her over and checked her out – no damage. I popped her in the coop area and ruffled her up a bit to snap her out of her frozen state!! She came to and wandered off! (chook brains!!!)

Still not another chicken in sight. It was like the aliens had been and beamed them up!!
Finally they started appearing from out of bushes and behind the big macrocarpa trees.
So hard to count them… I could only come up with 9.

It took ages – there are a lot of black chickens and they move about a lot so it was a bit of a challenge. I finally found Squeezy Chook buried in the raspberry patch. That was 10.

I didn’t think there was that many hiding places! It took me about 20 minutes to find the missing girl!
She was squashed down between the compost and vegetable garden fence and kinda nested in some of my plastic sheeting. Wasn’t moving a muscle – or feather! I had to pick her up and reanimate her as well! Then gave her a bit of bread which made things all better.

This set of photos made me laugh – I took them some bread this afternoon as a treat to make up for their fright. I had the camera sitting above the bread down at ‘chook level’ and was taking random photos without looking what I was doing! Chicken Faces are the best!

Cheers!

Chop Chop

So – I got back on the bike… bottom less sore today than yesterday so that’s a bonus!!! 😛

Once recovered I got into a few of the vegetables that have been hanging about multiplying.
Have made the first step of the BBQ sauce by making a simple tomato sauce recipe. (See below) Six pounds of tomatoes. That took care of quite a few!!

Even though compared to the amount of plants I have in, not as many zucchinis as I would have thought… but enough!! So got to work and chopped them all up

Five bags for the freezer… these can be used at a later date

Then it was the chillies turn –

Anyone want to come and stay and garden? Will feed you.

The long skinny chillies make such a good font…

Anyway, enough of that – I clearly have too much time on my hands!

I did get outside for a good long time this afternoon and enjoyed some hand watering and picking more stuff!

The corn is now eaten!! I picked the capsicum as I noticed a couple had rotted!! But I was expecting them to change colour. So I tried this one in my salad tonight and it was lovely! Must be time to make up some spaghetti sauce and freeze batches of that!

Cheers!

Tomato Sauce Recipe (Ketchup)

6 lb tomatoes chopped

2lb sugar

1/2 pint white vinegar (300ml)

2 & 1/2 tablespoons salt

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon allspice

Boil all for about 2 & 1/2 hours, then ‘mooley’ (Or blend or whatever you like to do to remove seeds/skin

Re heat and thicken with cornflour if nec.
Bottle up!

Exercise

Hello!!
I have finally stopped procrastinating and making excuses and getting on Jeff’s stationary bike trainer.
Lets not go into into too much detail about the pain in my nether regions shall we??
Seriously – thought I had enough padding… I mean that is the REASON I am on the bike!

I dragged my one and only fancy dress out of the cupboard as I am guessing I will need to put on something nice for the wedding in Texas.
I was actually dreading trying it on, but happy to find out it fit comfortably!!!! Not saying I couldn’t benefit from shedding about 10Kgs, since I am not going to be able to hide the extra bulges under bulky Tasmanian – suitable clothes as I suspect Texas will be slightly warmer!

Back to the garden – I finally wandered over to next doors paddock with a pair of scissors and brought my escapee pumpkin back to our side of the fence

I think there are about 4 pumpkins on the vines which is a slight improvement on the one single one I thought I had!

We also thought it time to take down the raspberry netting. The weeds were going sky high and there is no fruit left anyway

The chooks are loving having a new area to scratch and hide in. Every time I go down the back they are buried in between the rows!

Hope your week starts well!

Cheers

Starting the Packing Process

Hello! Hope Sunday was all you expected it to be!
We spent some time today putting our packs together to see what we need to take on our upcoming hike.
I am lucky to have been able to borrow my cousins good hiking pack and a few other useful things.
When you don’t do this kind of adventure very often its hard to know exactly what you need. Both over or under packing would have their own annoyances.

(Upstairs where we are packing our stuff is where I have my garlic hanging and drying which is the reason the floor is looking a bit scruffy in the above photo… time to drag the vacuum upstairs!!)

Some home comforts…

Fly veils – reckon will come in handy. Gaiters – very useful. One of the cooking tins and of course some knitted gear for when the weather gets a bit chilly!

My cousin, Fiona, has also loaned me her pack liner – extra waterproofing in Tasmania never goes astray!

I have various layers of clothes. Unless it starts to snow, I probably won’t need the big jacket during hiking day. You keep warm with the exercise.
I have really skimped on the clothes I am packing, however I have been generous with the socks and undies. I just think with fresh ‘foundation garments’ the start of a new day seems more positive! 😀

The majority of my extra clothes are in this compression bag. Handy item which has compacted them really well. Naturally I have left things like my rain jacket, scarf, beanie, gloves & main jacket more accessible in case the weather turns pear shaped on us.

I can’t tell you how much I hated going through the supermarket checkout buying two packs of 2 minute noodles. Me!! Who grows fresh food and cooks from scratch! Blah! How embarrassing!!!
The noodles do have a big advantage in that we can crush them down to pack a little better, and they certainly do cook extremely quickly. We will discard the ‘flavour satchels’ (shudder) in favour of adding my rehydrated meals. Along with a cup of soup to start – I think we will be eating well. (or coming home really skinny)(so its a win-win whatever)
I still have to test rehydrating my curry dish and make a couple more things.
Jeff wants to make fresh beef jerky and also some more muesli bars.
The chocolates will be a treat and an energy boost!
Wraps will be the go for lunches. We bought a pack today and I tested it out on Jeff. Thumbs up, so will go buy more, as right now they are half price! Can’t sneeze at that! I am hoping to be able to manage to pack several tomatoes (most not quite ripe)(they can ripen as we go) so we can put them on our wraps. I reckon I can fit in some relish and a block of cheese.

So…about two weeks away from the start date!!
Now, just to decide what camera gear to drag along too! (The MOST important bit!)

Cheers!

PS Some Overland Trail reminder photos! I can’t wait to get to the point of the first photo below as that’s where we turned back last visit! Looking forward to seeing what is beyond!

Potato Day

Hello! Hope your weekends have started in fine style!
We got to the potatoes today – really its the best part of the season. The thrill of discovery!

All looking quite woebegone!

The soil wasn’t dry but seemed more compacted than normal. Took a bit of effort to dig into it – we mostly used the hand trowels so we didn’t massacre too many spuds

Done for the day! I won’t say all dug up because you NEVER get them all!

Time to sort…

Its a little uncharacteristically OCD of me to sort the potatoes into sizes… but I hate scruffing through little potatoes trying to find bigger ones when I am cooking. I’ll just wash and steam the smaller ones, but if I am doing mashed potatoes I have zero interest in standing about all night trying to peel 30 tiny potatoes. Nope!