It’s getting harder to find the little splashes of colour as the weather gets colder. Spring & Summer is a mass of colour. Now I am having to work harder at finding the leftover flowers.
So in between rainfalls, feeding chickens, stocking up on wood & forgetting to put raspberries in my banana-raspberry loaf, I went and took some photos of what colour I could find.
The Salvia is fading, but still pretty.Salvia-Hot lips… makes me think of two ladies in dressesI love this Fuchsia colourThey are like ballerinas
The middle part of the Protea flower has gone fuzzy
Protea
The plant that produced the little fat red chillies has just started re-flowering and fruiting again!
Will I be able to make another batch of sweet chilli sauce?
There are other chillies – not many, but a few here and there
I really don’t know what this eggplant flower thinks its doing. The plant did absolutely nothing all year, now it wants to flower??
Eggplant – very late bloomer!I ate these
More cucumbers up and coming!
This plant won’t quit – happilyI don’t know what this is.
My fennel has popped up again all over the place! I love the fresh green, spindly ‘leaves’ and yellow flowers. Eating a whole little flower-head bunch is quite an aniseed shock!
There are a few Hebe’s around the place. Mostly all finished flowering.
The lure of learning to make lemon butter was great. So I went back down to Ruby’s to have a go! Because of her eyesight she needs someone to help measure out the ingredients, but she is certainly comfortable around her kitchen.
Ruby’s lemon tree is a fabulous beast! It is NEVER without lemons!!
I can’t wait for my poor little lemon tree to grow up! Ruby’s tree is amazing
So you need three lemons.
First step is to put into a pot
4oz butter (125g)
1lb Sugar (500g)
1 breakfast cup of water. – (225ml or half pint according to google)
Heat ingredients
Melting butter & sugar in the water
Then mix one egg with two tablespoons of plain flour (all purpose) and a smidge of water to make creamy paste.
Perfect coloured yolk!
Add the juice and zest from your three lemons into the egg/flour paste and mix well.
Add the hot mixture to the cold slowly & stirring. Then put all back into the pot over medium heat and stir constantly until mixture thickens and boils.
Was such a silky beautiful colour and mixture
(BTW at this point you are meant to panic and throw in a bit of salt – because ‘I always throw in salt into whatever I cook!’ was the answer to my worried ‘But the recipe doesn’t say salt!!’)
Salt added, stirring continues
Heat about 4 jars in the oven to sterilise while the lemon butter is cooking.
Jug ready to pour
I had a nervous few moments as I was put onto stirring detail while Ruby clambered about on a step stool looking for extra glasses in case we didn’t have enough jars!!
Sigh.
Without any major mishaps, we made 3 & a half jars of lemon butter. What I scraped out of the pot to try was really good and I am very keen to go make myself a piece of toast in a minute to try it now that its cooled!
Ruby reflecting on the daily use of newspapers in earlier years
Righto! I am speed-blogging at the moment as my super-amazing-high-speed-NBN-internet connection keeps going doo-lally on me. I may or may not get this done.
Something I was talking about with Ruby the other week got my attention. When I was talking to her about things you could buy when she was young & the amenities they had, I asked what toilet paper was like (because you have to know don’t you??)
The answer?
“What toilet paper?” (There was a Ruby-Grin attached to the answer I might add)
It got me thinking a little about newspaper and its uses.
Absorbent?
The old newspapers were cut up into roughly the size shown above and placed on a shelf in the dunny (loo – toilet – bathroom). I think I am inadvertently cringing on behalf of my bottom thinking about this. I did ask if it wasn’t a bit rough – however “That’s all you knew” so I guess they had tougher nether regions in the olden days!
The toilet was outside. Apparently there were two side by side toilets… one for adults and one for little kids. The theory was it was easier to do whatever business you had to do if your feet could be firmly planted on the ground.
There was a pan at the back that was removed and contents taken and buried. Not too far away – the less distance travelled with the contents the happier everyone felt (No-one wants to trip with a full pan do they?)
Anyway… to digress a little… I was getting right in depth on the whole newspaper thing when one of our MP’s turned up at the door to say hello. Local fellow, Brett Whitely. Doing the door knock meet & greet. (An election coming up here for those of you non-Australian readers, although I promise you, the lead up to us choosing our new Prime Minister is not half as entertaining as the lead up to the USA Presidential Race!)
Visit from local MP!
Nice fellow and we enjoyed a chat plus he was good enough to stay a bit longer and answer one or two questions I had regarding some policies, so that was good!
Mr Whitely had noticed the paperwork coming through for Ruby’s upcoming 100th birthday. You get all sorts of grand birthday wishes when you turn 100! Like from the Queen for instance!!
Anyway, back to newspaper.
I am starting to use it for more things around the house. Jeff sometimes gets a nice big bag full from a workmate whose son has a paper round – the extra’s accumulate and we especially use the newspaper over winter starting the fire.
Using just the fire ash and water with a wad of newspaper, you can easily clean up the glass door of the heater.
A bit of ash build upLow Cost CleanerSee-Through!
(There was an overnight hiatus between the photos above and now. Internet came on briefly then crashed, hence Ruby Tuesday now being Ruby Wednesday)
Newspaper was the material of choice when it came to cleaning.
Cut lunches were wrapped in newspaper to take to work or school
Wrapping & packaging – it was newspaper all the way.
A visit to the butchers in earlier days would mean your meat wrapped in many many layers of newspaper to absorb the blood/juice. No plastic or ice bricks to transport it home either. (and if you had a 10 mile journey via horse and cart its possibly you didn’t get much more than sausages, just to be on the safe side. Especially in summer!)
Draw liners were a must with newspaper
The newsprint was considered hygienic – I have read a little about its ‘almost sterile properties’ (more research required)
Shelf liners too were a ‘thing’. Not only were the shelves lined, but some of the newspaper would overhang the edge, and the housewives would scallop the edges or create other fancy patterns.
My efforts really look a bit dodgy, and with a curvy mantle, I don’t think I have mastered the proper effect!! 😀
hmmmm
Of course, school would be no fun at the end of the year if you weren’t making miles of paper chains from newspapers to decorate for Christmas!
If you missed the earlier post you can read here how to make these nifty origami bins – once full you can compost the lot if it has food scraps.
Handy and easy to fold
I also once wrapped all my Christmas presents in newspaper with the addition of a fancy ribbon.
I have changed the toilet roll, just for fun. So far I haven’t had a reaction from Jeff…
If you get stuck, at least there is some good reading at hand
Hope your day is great!
Let me know if you make specific use of your newspapers & how.
Cheers
PS – I plan to go help Ruby make some lemon butter. It’s not only ticked in her recipe book but has the additional “Good” penned in, so I am expecting grand things!
The hothouse was really looking a bit feral. It wasn’t a bad day today – the wind had died down and we got more sun and no rain! I was actually in a t-shirt for most of it!
Its really tempting to pull up everything and make things look nice and orderly. But a couple of the tomato plants are still slowly producing ripe tomatoes. And on the very cusp of winter, who wants to stop that?
Once I had gotten a bit of space I paid a visit to my broccolini- and -possibly- mini-cabbage farm
I may need some more space…
Last season I had some wonderful broccoli in the hothouse so why not use a few of my excess plants in there?
Outside I would plant them a bit closer, but in here they are known to grow hugely! Here’s hopingThese have a good possibility of being cabbage.
This tomato I didn’t know I had. It was quietly growing in the tangle of older plants. Its really spindly but has plenty of fruit! So I tied it up and gave it a feeding (kelp juice) and watering. There is also a potato randomly growing at its feet. Have no clue why, but left it there anyway
My ‘potting bench’ had all but disappeared
Disgraceful!!
Emptied pots, threw out rubbish and generally made the area a useful one again
Improvements
It was too late to clear out the top corner of the ?? whatever the hell has accumulated in there ?? so I paused to admire my progress…
Feeling much better about this
Then moved my sights to the raised garden bed out the back of the hothouse.
The tomato plant was still producing tomatoes, but something was eating them before I could pick them. So I picked all the rest of the unripe tomatoes and cleared out everything except the silverbeet, which the chickens enjoy snacking on.
Ready for more plants
Found some good fat worms in here!
Glad to see this fellow
New home for some more of the excess seedlings.
Hope they survive their new home
Mind you, I will probably go out tomorrow and see them all doing backstroke or dog paddling (depending on their level of swimming skills) because it is raining so hard out there tonight! I took a shower a while ago and the sound of the rain was drowning out the sound of the shower!
Mad
Happily I stuck to my rule of ‘when its not raining top up firewood at back door’ rule
It was a good idea not going to the market again. Well… not to have a stall anyway. I did go down to buy some wheat for the chickens and chat to a few brave stallholders I know. Most people were packing up at around 10am – Potential customers mostly stayed inside at home!
Broccoli & carrot consumed at dinner tonight. I still do minimum grocery shopping.
We are still getting nice little hauls of tomatoes and other vegies, despite being half a month off winter-proper! Despite their warm mash, the chooks are half heatedly laying, but that cucumber plant deserves a medal!
This evening we might have binge watched a TV series while enjoying the cosy fire. My hand is a bit sore because I am not used to crocheting for that long all at once!
My original rug has expanded by about 3 balls of yarn
A bit wonky but I am liking it – on the plus side its keeping my knees warm as I crochet!
And I started a new rug because I wanted to look at a different colour, and being in the middle of only a couple of projects at once is for sane people. Pretty sure I have about 15 on the go and not quite finished!
Sometime I will stop being lazy and get a proper photo or two done of my projects
Anyway – time to share some of the photos from our beach fossick from yesterday that got side tracked by my Not-Quite-Ambergris story
Short sharp drop to the beach
Once over the railway line, we got down to this little rocky beach just past Penguin.
Overgrown and not a hive of human activity
Even though the rocks weren’t up to scratch compared to my favourite ‘rock beach’ there was still enough to see and admire
One perfect urchin
It was (again) the rock colours and textures that really took my fancy.
It was clearly a penguin landing area and nesting site. Plenty of penguin splatties in evidence (their poo makes quite a splash in case anyone needed to know that) Also Jeff saw one at its burrow entrance! I missed it because I was busy playing with rocks.
Tangled undergrowth, great penguin habitat
We finished up the day sitting at the beach outlook at Penguin, scoffing hot chips and being mean to seagulls by not giving them any.
Hope your weekends have been excellent
Cheers
I love hot chips!!!I actually really like seagulls…Disgruntled Gull – no chips!
So – because it wasn’t actually raining today, we drove up to Penguin to see if we could find another rock beach where we could look for more examples of jasper.
We didn’t quite find what we were looking for, but we stopped by this other little beach to see what we could fossick for.
Well, Jeff found this weird stuff
Spongy weird thing
Well, I got thoroughly over-excited and thought it could possibly be ambergris! Have you ever heard of it? Basically its whale vomit or whale poo. Why exciting?? Well.. its worth about $20 per gram – the tip-top fancy perfume people use it in their processing! Not kidding.
Huge piece
Well… I had my collecting bags so I popped a couple in bags to bring home to research. And Holy Cats did it stink!!
Double bagging needed
The one major snag – besides the pong – is that ambergris is not allowed to be traded in Australia because we have a law that prohibits the sale of products from endangered species. And since ambergris is from sperm whales, well… its a blanket no-no. (But from what I have read, no-one has been willing to prosecute for someone picking up random whale sick)
Quite a few of these on the beach
Anyway, the trip home was epic. Jeff was all for taking a photo and leaving it at that, where as I had hatched 10 wild schemes for selling my ambergris all before we hit the front door. The car stank. It was cold, we had all windows down AND the heater going flat out! Jeff was grouchy and I was trying to explain about paying mortgages and clandestine meetings on beaches involving the swapping of whale vomit for a duffle bag stuffed with cash. (we are watching a kind of spy/espionage series at the moment and it may be rubbing off)
Sadly, even though what we found looked so much like a lot of images online, it didn’t pass the ‘hot needle’ test, and a nice fellow from New Zealand emailed me to tell me it was a kind of stinky (yeah I knew that bit) sponge. He also asked “Are you in Tasmania by any chance?” 😀 Clearly he has had people message him before all hopeful!!
Now I have to dispose of my ‘samples’ I thought it might make good compost, but the look on Jeff’s face when suggested means I will have to find a different place for it.
So far, after four and a half years of living here, the hike over the Sisters Hills between Rocky Cape National Park and Sisters Beach, really rates as my favourite day out. It’s not a well known, much traversed hike – more likely find local people than tourists on it – that is if you see another soul at all!
We first went because my mother was insisting that we had to do it before she fell off the twig or went all doddery on us 😀
So we got a bunch of family together –
Motely looking crew!
Ranging from kids up to 70 something, off we went! Packed picnics, water bottles – and jackets etc, because even though it was summer this is Tasmania & it does weird things with the weather
Starting point
Firstly you have to go up a bit…
Show-off kids taking the leadBringing up the rear
Once we got a bit of height the views started getting pretty good.
Overlooking the rocky coast
Sometimes it got a bit swampy
I wonder who dragged a plank all the way up there for our convenience?Hikers stretched along the invisible trail
Tiny flowers bloomed along the path
Family snap – my Mum in the middle, with cousins Ann & Fiona
Suddenly we found ourselves overlooking an amazing rocky shore landscape – which was phase two of the hike!
I always feel there should be some sort of dinosaur lurking in here
We got down to the bottom where there was a unanimous decision to break out lunch and sit down for a while.
Should have brought cushions, but regardless… lunch tasted wonderful!
Sated, we all started the long, and at times challenging scramble over the rocky landscape
Often getting to each little cove, meant a hike up into the bush again to then come back down to the shore
Not really much of a path at times!And back to beach levelSoft sinking rocks on the beach, followed by scrambling up and over rocks
The colour and formation of the rocky shores were fabulous – but presented a reasonable challenge to cross at times
When we reached little sandy beaches it was quite a relief on the feet – the sun even came out once or twice!
Bliss
The beaches were full of shells, coral, rocks & seaweed to fossick through
I love collecting beach treasuresI have a jar of these pink shells …
The landscape is pretty wild looking to me
But so beautiful
Fabulous colours & textures both in the water and rocks
When we reached this point overlooking the beautiful long stretch of beach, we were all very keen to get down there and take our shoes off
Hiking across those sands was a dream after a few hours on the rocks!Sand between the toes
A final walk past and over rocks…
Seriously – after several hours of hiking over rough terrain a walk that seemed straight up was a bit mean!!
We were slowing down by this point!
Once at the top it was brilliant to look back over our footsteps and see where we started way off in the distance.
Last views
So – if you come to visit, pack your hiking boots and raincoat – we’ll probably drag you along on this adventure!
This smiley random man knocked on the door this morning asking if it was too cheeky to see if I had any sweet chilli sauce for sale!! He had bought some at one of my market stalls a while back, had run out and apparently once tasted, going back to store bought just wasn’t an option!
By law a street address is required on labels, so he knew where to drop in. The great thing was he bought FOUR bottles! I just made 20 bucks and didn’t even break a sweat!
I figured if he was cheeky enough to come directly to the manufacturer, I could be cheeky enough to get him to pose for a photo! 😀
That started us off on quite a chat as he was interested in photography and travel too!
Jeff earning some pocket money
The new neighbour offered Jeff $50 to mow his paddock! I tell you – the Millar’s are rolling in it today! 🙂
The weather continues its soggy behaviour. I am still collecting water (old habits die hard) and often use the barrels that are around the yard to hand water potted plants. Saves a bit of electricity as the pump kicks in when the taps are turned on, plus I like hand watering.
One of my water catchment management systems…
My cider vinegar experiment seems to be going along well…
Fermenting nicely
I got hit with the apply smell as soon as I opened the cupboard door! It also frothed up nicely when I stirred it!
I figured I had better try that apple cake recipe myself and see how easy/hard it was.
So much of my kitchenware is rather old fashioned! matches up nicely with my recipes!
Adding the bicarb soda into the cooked apples to watch it ‘frizzle’ was pretty excellent!
Taking frugalness to the next level
One thing that caught my eye about Ruby’s cakes, was her use of butter paper as a tin liner. I am a massive fan of baking paper, because I haven’t got the hang of greasing a tin well enough to get a cake out in one go. But it isn’t that cheap. I have been saving my butter papers to make use of in cooking. I don’t really think I will save a squillion dollars, but every little bit helps, and I love reusing things that normally get thrown in the bin with no second thoughts.
Yay
That was todays success!! Turned out perfect!
And below was todays failure
Ow.
I have spared you the image of the gaping cut and blood. My other finger only just healed and I tried to cut this one off!! Damn that knife was sharp! I was cutting apples for the dehydrator. One slipped and I went to catch it with my knife in hand… ok – really I don’t know how I did it, but my live-in nurse patched me back up with a lot of eye rolling and a promise to buy me a tube of crazy glue.
By late in the afternoon after finishing up in the kitchen (I also did a spag-bol for dinner using one of those containers of tomato, garlic etc packs I made a while back) and feeding more mash to the spoiled chickens and fussing about with this and that, it was really nice to sit down to a hot chocolate and a slice (or three) of that Chocolate Apple Cake!
Break Time
Here’s hoping for a break in the weather tomorrow so we can enjoy getting outdoors properly for a while!
Cheers
PS there is a really cool little “Visit Tasmania” tourist video I put on my facebook page, just in case you want to get all inspired to visit. 🙂
I had a lovely afternoon catching up with a friend – also a ‘down the road- across a couple of paddocks-neighbour’.
I got a message that a tray of brownies had just come out of the oven, so I really put my skates on to get down there ASAP!!
A fancy coffee and a still warm brownie!!!
“Have another one” “Noooo – I am trying to walk off some of my excess muffin top you know?” “Oh go on” “A small piece…” “Sure” “mmm… maybe the middle sized piece!”
Cindy and her family are planning on heading off on a Grand Adventure at the end of the year! They bought a whacking great bus and are refitting it into being a motor home & spending a year travelling around Australia!
A beauty of a beast!
I hadn’t been introduced to the bus yet or seen the progress so it was pretty impressive to go in and check it all out!
I think I was drunk on brownies by the time I took this wonky photo
The roof of the bus has been raised and it really feels incredibly spacey inside. The little kitchen seems very workable despite being compact – well… it seemed bigger than I expected to find in a bus with full sized stove and good sized fridge!
Kid space
The kids bedrooms have good space for their things, privacy curtains and are separated from the main bedroom by the bathroom and shower – small but impressive spaces.
Two large drawers will be under each bed
I must say I am a little envious about the disappearing pantries!!
Two hidden pull out pantries! Divine!Testing out the front seats of the bus!
Such an upcoming adventure for them – will look forward to following their progress around the country!
In Other News.
Its still Raining.
And Blowing a Gale!
But the last two mornings we have started out with the sun throwing colourful sparkles from the chandelier in the hallway
Cheerful start to the day
Today in a fit of extreme optimism I put a load of washing on… Then as it got closer to finishing, the clouds also got closer… so I chickened out (rightly so) and hung them under cover on the veranda.
Maybe when the rain stops for more than 30 minutes I’ll give the back a clean up.
Its actually amazing how far along dry you can get the clothes even on a wet day. They didn’t take long to finish off in front of the fire this evening. (We don’t have a drier so there is no choice about just shoving them in one to do the job.)
I also made the chickens a pot of mashed potato – mixed with a bit of milk and some other leftovers
The purple potato is a pretty addition
Pip decided he needed a taste of course
Weird cat
The chickens scarfed it down like no-ones business! The new girls are yet to get into the swing of things when it comes to gobbling up scraps, but I am sure they will get the hang of it soon
Warm Mash – Happy Chooks
Our girls lay fairly consistently – even through winter. Granted, we don’t get three foot of snow (Actually we get no snow) but even other local chickens don’t do as well as ours I hear… might be something to do with the warm food and general spoiling? Or maybe we have just been lucky.
Never short of eggs!
I sold three dozen yesterday.
I sell ours to family/friends at $4 per doz. which I think is a really good price. Supermarket ‘free range’ (FR eggs are often not exactly that free range either) can be up around $7-8 per dozen.
What do people pay for free range eggs around your end of the world?
Time for me to snuggle down in bed – going to grab a Terry Pratchett book and read while listening to the wind and rain howl outside.
The occasional extras can be seen on my facebook page
Cheers
PS Pip was so happy I got out the clothes horse again – his sleeping place of choice in the cooler months – on the top rack of the apparatus, right in front of the fire! I got loud purrs, kneading paws and several concussing level head-butts!! 🙂
As I dashed into see Ruby this afternoon the weather had gone from on again-off again sun to completely off along with a drenching downpour, and icy winds just to round things off!
I found Ruby in her lounge room, rugged up with the heater on knitting, as cosy as could be!
I didn’t stop for a cuppa today – just caught up on news of her weekend travels with Margie as they visited several friends & overnighted with family in a posh rental house! 🙂
More from “The Recipe Book”
I promised you the Chocolate/Apple cake recipe, and Margie was kind enough to write it out for me! I think I will have to cook this tomorrow. The weather isn’t going to let up its current behaviour, so will be stuck with indoor tasks.
Chocolate Apple Cake
4oz butter (125gm)
1 cup sugar
1lb apples (cooked) (500gm)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
4oz plain flour (125gm)(all purpose flour)
2 tablespoon cocoa
1 cup Self Raising Flour (self rising flour of course)
1 level teaspoon bicarb soda (baking soda)
Seriously!! Translating English into English!!
Anyway –
Cook apples with a little water until soft
Sift cocoa & flours together
Cream butter and sugar (Apparently Ruby pops the butter and sugar in the oven as it begins heating to soften it for easy beating)
Add vanilla essence
Stir the bicarb soda into the apples and while all is ‘frizzling’ (A Ruby word) add creamed butter and sugar. Beat well.
Add half of the flour mixture at a time, beating well.
Put in 8″ sq tin (or equiv.) and cook at 180C (350F) until cooked. (Skewer test)
I’ll let you know tomorrow if I can do one as well as Ruby can! (Doubtful)
I am aiming for this perfect
Have a great day & if you want to see my salvia dancing in the wind, head on over to facebook to see my dodgy time-lapse efforts!
Cheers – I am heading back to my fire! Its a bit icy this evening! The weather page says its 7.9C (46F) but they also add that it feels like 1.9C (35F) I won’t disagree! I am totally going to turn on my electric blanket too! 😀
