Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Tuesday 9th October 2012

I have been absent lately from my blog as Ron and I took a few days off and went bush in the caravan.  He has been very stressed at work lately and needed a break, so we headed out to Emily's for a night before driving for what should have been only a few hours to arrive at our next destination.  Ron hates to stay on the more traveled (sealed) roads so we took a "short cut" (dirt road) of 40 kilometers off the beaten trap, but it really turned into a two hour trip as we got well and truly lost for over an hour.  Never mind, all in the spirit of adventure.  We did eventually at our destination of Leyburn and stayed for the night in a free camp!

The next morning we set off to meet some friends in northern New South Wales and spend a few days with them camping on a cane property.  Ticks can be a real problem on the east coast and even though I had bought our little dog a tick collar I discovered three ticks on her while we were away, so the only solution was to give her a haircut enabling me to check her more easily.  All we had on hand to trim her with was a pair of blunt scissors, but it was either her having a bad haircut or maybe getting sick.  The haircut won in the end and she didn't even mind.  I think she prefers having short hair in the summer so I am thinking I might keep it this way - but I will buy some clippers!

We came home on the Tuesday and I spent that afternoon and most of Wednesday washing, ironing and sorting.  We had plenty of it!  Wednesday was also Ron's birthday so we celebrated by having a lovely roast lamb dinner with Bec and Rana. 

Wednesday, however was a stressful day for Ron (work problems), so when I mentioned to him on Thursday that we should be up the beach fishing he made the decision to pack the van again and head back down to visit our friends - AGAIN!  We spent another three nights with them and arrived home again on Sunday.  This time we plan on being home a bit longer.  All in all it was good for Ron has he had a decent break and feels refreshed.

In between coming home and going again, I did manage to spend some time in the garden.  The seeds I had planted the week before had popped up!  This was thanks to the rain we had while away.

This is tiny rocket - the plants are more than twice this size now.



I have also had some plants come up where I have dug in some vegetable scraps.  I'm not entirely sure as to what these are, I am thinking pumpkin.

The weather has well and truly warmed up now so my English spinach is starting to go to seed.  I did pick some this morning and have plans of turning some of it into a pear and spinach salad for dinner tonight.

Spinach - the blue lines is string we have put up to keep our 16 year old dog off the garden.



Here is a colander full of spinach picked this morning along with a handful of strawberries and some tomatoes.

The Pakchoy is also going to seed so we will have to start eating that soon also.  I did take some to a friends yesterday for her family.

The tomato vine is STILL growing.  It must be getting close to 3 meters high now.  Some of the tomatoes have started to ripen so we have been enjoying the lovely summer flavour of those.  I love tomato that has ripened on the vine.  The shop bought tomatoes just don't have the same flavour.

The single chard plant that I have is still continuing to produce leaves.  I love this plant as it is so versatile.  You can have it cooked in a flan, like we did the other night, in salads, steamed, fried with some onion or even on a sandwich instead of lettuce.  I have planted some more seeds for chard but they are a long time growing so I might have to relent and buy some seedlings.

The flan we had was made with some yummy home made short pastry, then filled with the chard fried with some onion and then some sour cream and eggs poured over and then topped with some grated cheese.  I am having the last little piece for my lunch today along with some homemade yogurt and the handful of strawberries!  YUMMY!!!!!

The few flowers I have growing are all looking lovely too.  As a child I remember my mother having the entire end of a patio growing with sweat peas and I can always remember the smell of those, so this year I thought I would plant some myself.  I was hoping to share them with my mother as they are one of her favourite flowers, but she is away at the moment.  I was able to share some with a dear friend who was having a bad day yesterday.

I also have childhood memories of the paper daisies (everlasting daisy) that used to grow wild around our house so I bought some of those the same day I bought the sweet peas.  I must have been very nostalgic that day!

I love the bright sunny faces of these flowers!  And they dry really well so you can have them around for awhile.

Along with picking the spinach, tomatoes and strawberries this morning I picked some more of my beetroot.  There isn't too much of it left in the garden now so I think I will most likely pick the remainder in the next couple of weeks and make pickled baby beets.  I will also have to pickle the bunch I collected this morning.

It amazes me that even though our garden is teeny tiny I am still able to put some home grown produce on the table most nights.  As I have mentioned before there would be no way possible for us to be anywhere near self sufficient for vegetables but the thrill I get out of growing as much as I can overwhelms that disappointment.  Here's to more planting  ;-)

Take care
Andrea

A Quick Update and a Recipe

Tuesday 4th September

I got a phone call from Emily today wanting to know why I hadn't updated my blog in awhile.  I have been busy helping Ron with the business and haven't really been up to much that is exciting!

One thing for certain is I am REALLY glad that Spring is on it's way.  I hate the cold weather and dark mornings.  I love the sun rising as I get out of bed and as we get up around 5am the sun has to be up pretty early for us! L O V E  I T.

Father's Day was spent with my parents , Bec and Rana at the beach having a BBQ breakfast.  The weather was lovely.  We did spare a thought for those families of the Australian soldiers that were killed recently.  They too were someones father, son, brother, nephew or uncle.

This was the weather at 8 o'clock in the morning!  Bit tough to take.

We have our little dog back with us. It turned out that she was more ill than the vet first thought.  She had a bad tummy bug and along with a sudden change in her diet she became very ill.  We collected her from the vet Friday afternoon and at the moment she won't leave my side.  She probably thinks that I am going to abandon her again.  She lost heaps of weight over the week and only started eating again on Friday.

The above photo is Ron and Cindy having a nap on the deck after lunch on Saturday.  They were both worn out from a huge week!

I did manage to get some time to make some Mixed Chinese Pickles on Sunday.  This is a great way to use surplus vegetables.  I used turnips, carrots, celery and chili in mine, but you could adapt the recipe to whatever you have on hand.

Chinese Mixed Pickles

2 carrots

1 large cucumber

1 red pepper

4 sticks celery

8 shallots (1 onion)

beans

Pickling liquid

2 1/4 cups sugar

2 1/4 cups white vinegar

1 1/4 cups water

Combine the pickling ingredients in a saucepan, stir over low heat until the sugar dissolves, bring to boil.  Remove from heat and cool.

Cut carrots and cucumber into strips.  Cut pepper into 1" cubes,  Slice celery diagonally.  Slice shallots diagonally.  Boil large saucepan of water.  Add prepared vegetables, then remove the pan from the heat.  Leave vegetables in water for 2 minutes, then drain for several hours.

Pack vegetables firmly into jars and cover with preserving liquid.

Stand one week before using.

Awhile ago I decided to paint an old trunk white.  This trunk had been brought over from England when my grandparent immigrated just after WWII.  It belonged to my grandmothers grandmother  and is one of the few items they brought with them.  My grandfather used to keep the tack for his horses in it when I was little and I remember it sitting in the shed.  When my grandfather passed away, my grandmother had the shed pulled down and was going to throw the trunk away.  I was able to rescue it.  It is in very poor condition with all of the paper falling off the inside.  It has had, at some point in it's life, been infested with wood worm, and all of the metal on it has rusted.  I got Ron to make a base for it to sit in and help hold it together and over the years I have had it, it has been placed in many rooms.  At the moment it is living in my "reading room" (Cindy's room, as she is in it the most often) and it has a new lease on life with it's new paint!

Before



After





I hope that it will remain in my family for a long time yet, so hopefully one of my girls would like it one day.

Speaking of girls.  Emily and Dave went to an engagement party on the weekend and when I looked at Facebook yesterday I noticed that Emily had changed her profile picture.

This was taken by a professional photographer and I just love this photo of them both!

On the countdown now to Bec and Rana's engagement party!

Take care
Andrea



 

Ramblings

Tuesday 28th August 2012

Well I have arrived home safe and sound from my trip to Darwin.  What an amazing place!  The weather was gorgeous and the city so clean.  I had a fabulous time with my Aunt and loved the warm temperature.
The sunsets in Darwin are amazing and each night it got better and better.

This was the first night and even though we were a little late there was still plenty of the red glow left.

The second night found us at the Mindil Markets, which are famous in Darwin for the food stalls and craft.  Nearly everyone at the markets made their way down to the beach for the sunset.

You can see the people sitting on the beach here.  As soon as the sun had set they all made their way back over the dunes to the markets.

The third evening we were at a restaurant have dinner and this was the view!  Why would you want to be anywhere else?

We did spend time exploring Darwin which involved going on a heritage walk around the city.



The old town hall that Cyclone Tracy blew down in 1974



Government house - stands on the top of a cliff and overlooking the harbour!

We also visited Crocosauras Cove to have a look at the crocodiles!  The photo below is some baby one.  They just floated on the surface of the water without any effort what-so-ever.  There was plenty of them also!

 The adult crocodiles were over 5m long and weighed over 700kg.  They laid so still it was had to believe they were alive.  They looked just like a giant plastic replica, but I wouldn't want to mess with one!

On the home front we are missing our little dog :(  She was taken ill on Sunday and I had to take her to the vet yesterday morning where they admitted her.  She has been vomiting for the past 3 days and we don't know what is wrong with her.  It is just like one of your children getting sick and not a happy time for us at the moment.  We aren't sure when she will be permitted to come home.

I have picked some more turnips from the garden and given some of them away along with some cabbages and snow peas.

I think we have probably harvested 3 kilos of snow peas off the 6 plants.  I get a decent handful most days and we certainly have more than we can use so I am happy to pass them on.

I have removed all of the cabbages and now have some cucumber, cherry tomato and beans to plant.  I have also bought a blueberry bush and will be planting it in the garden along the drive along with some pumpkin.  The citrus trees I planted earlier are flowering so hopefully this will mean some fruit for next year.  It is all so very exciting growing your own food and most nights we have something we have grown from the garden in our meal.

I love the change of season from winter to spring.  It is as though the plants are awake again.  My wisteria has just started flowering and the vine is covered with buds.  I love the look and fragrance of these blooms and each year I get excited to see how many flowers it produces.  It seems to be more and more each time.



I hope everyone else is enjoying the warmer weather and abundance of plants!

Take care

Andrea

Changes in the air

Wednesday 4th July 2012

We are having some major life changes in our family at the moment.  Our eldest daughter got engaged to her partner on the weekend.  I can't believe she is old enough even though I was engaged at 18!  She is extremely happy and her fiance gave her a lovely ring.

Our youngest daughter and her partner are moving into a house this weekend and that is extremely exciting for them too as they had been living in a caravan.

Things have been rather quiet on the home front as I have been helping hubby quote a house.  I did however start another garden yesterday.  I love the excitement of productive plants growing and we have an area along our garage wall that wasn't being put to use.  This is an awkward area as it is north facing and gets quite hot during the summer.  I did some research and found that herbs are best suited to this type of area, so I have planted oregano, thyme, lemon grass and sage.  I also moved my rosemary from its pot along with my capsicum and a self seeded tomato, so we'll see how they all go.  I did intersperse the herbs with some everlasting daisies and sweet peas to climb over the old gate.

This area is only small but hopefully I can turn it into a productive area!

I received a present in the post last week from Emily.  She had kindly thought of me and my love of crochet so purchased a magazine for me and sent it in the mail.  There are some lovely items in this I would love to make, and I think the suggestion from Emily that she likes the milky way blanket could be taken as a hint?

The days are lovely and mild at the moment but the nights and mornings have been really chilly.  I am not a fan of winter and hate to feel cold.  I try and spend as much time as possible outside in the sunshine to try and combat the cold.  Our little dog has struggled to get out of bed too.  She curled up under the blankets yesterday morning and when I tried to pick up her she flopped back down.  I think she thought that if she couldn't walk she would get to stay there all day!

I believe she is hoping I won't notice her.

Due to the fact that I have been working in the office doing a quote I have been inclined to put surplus items in my sewing room.

This was the scene that greeted me Monday morning.  Hubby's shirts hanging up needing repairing - done.  Fabric not put away - done. Wool not put away - done.  General mess and untidiness - mostly done.

Ron is going to make a cutting table for me one day with shelves underneath.  At the moment I am using an old camping table but this is a bit low and as I am reasonably tall I have to bend to use it.  The new table is going to be around bench height so cutting out will be a lot easier for me.

Do you have a room where everything seems to land?

Take care
Andrea

Busy, busy, busy!

Where do I start?  Just when you think you're going to have a quiet weekend mayhem erupts!

Emily's smart new uniforms!

It all started when this beautiful person came home Friday night.  She bought her partner, two Queensland Blue pumpkins and two loads of washing!  She was very excited as she had gotten her uniform for work.  Emily is working for the Western Downs Regional Council and loves it!  I must say the uniforms are lovely!

I did manage to complete the dog coat I had mentioned in a previous post and it really was quite easy.  The hard part came trying to take the photo.  You know how the saying goes.  Never work with animals or children!

It does look cute though and seems to help to keep her warm.  Our house has timber floors throughout and always seems really cold in winter.  Cindy's fur isn't very thick so she really feels the cold.

I bought a mushroom box awhile ago (4 weeks) and am just starting to get some mushrooms that are ready to be picked now.  I can see plenty more coming through and hopefully we will get a good harvest from them.  We love mushrooms and hopefully this will work out cheaper than buying them from the supermarket.  I have been told that the mushroom compost is great on the garden, so when it has finished that will be going there.  I also have plans for the poly box they come in, so stay tuned to see that!

Some mushrooms ready for picking

Sunday saw an early rise to the markets.  Bec collected me on her way to the markets and I showed her where the best produce was and hopefully the best prices.  She said that so far it has cost less than previously.  She just has to see how long the produce lasts for before they need to go again. 

Emily wanted some bread to take home and as we had to put the oven on for that, I suggested that she made some muffins to take for lunches also.  She made some chocolate ones!

Emily had already taken her portion of muffins before this photo was taken, but the peanut butter biscuits were all for us.  I made these to go in my hubby's lunchbox over the next couple of weeks.  It would be so much cheaper if we didn't need to eat!

In the afternoon, after Emily and Dave had left, I was exhausted, so I put the TV on to watch Gardening Australia and work on some crochet roses from Attic24.  These are to go with another project I have been working on since last year.

I just have to keep this.......

away from this little face, as she thinks it is a play toy for her. 

I had all sorts of images of this project being strewn all over the floor when I got up this morning, but so far she seems to have forgotten about it.

Take care
Andrea

A teeny tiny bit bigger ...

Sunday afternoon, after everyone had left, I decided to expand my vegetable garden another 900mm!  I had to pull out the existing plants, dig in some compost and then a trip to my local nursery to have a look at some plants.  I didn't buy many plants, just a chilli and box basil, but did some home with some Rosella seeds (for jam making) and some spring onions.  I also planted some more lettuce, as this is something we go through!

Lettuce, with zucchini at the back and English spinach to the right.  We have peas slowly climbing up their supports and some purple beans nearly coming into flower.

This is some purple cabbage with the beetroot to the right and pak choi to the left.

The vegetables I planted a few weeks ago are doing well.  The lettuce is starting to form and my cabbage is growing fast.  I have had my beetroot, English spinach and Pak Choi all come through, so hopefully there will be plenty.  So now my teeny tiny garden in a teeny tiny bit bigger!

Last night we had Bec and her partner come for dinner (they come around once a week), so I took the opportunity to make some fresh pasta.  This is always a favourite.  I think next time I make it I will take the pasta machine down to the smallest setting as this pasta was a bit thick.  We had it with a broccoli, mushroom, spring onion and garlic creamy sauce.  Sorry didn't take a photo of it!

Fresh pasta.

 I also made a caramel tart for desert as hubby had been asking me to do that lately.  I had some of the pastry left over so I made some cute loveheart biscuits.  They got iced together this morning with some yummy lemon butter icing.

Loveheart biscuits

Iced ready to eat

Because I had the oven on to bake bread and the caramel tart, I thought I would give some muffins the go.  I read about Lucy making these for an afternoon snack for her children and thought I would give them a go.  They are beautiful apple and sultana muffins and are really light a fluffy just like Lucy said they would be.  I just sampled one.  Yummy.

Ingredients ready to go for the muffins

Muffins hot out of the oven

The nights have been getting cooler, so we have been lighting the fire in the evening.  Our house is like an icebox because of the timber floors.  Our little dog, Cindy, loves to sit in front of the fire.  Sometimes she sits almost underneath it, but then has to cool off by laying on the floor.  I am in the process of crocheting her another coat at the moment.  I made one for her yesterday, but it was a bit tight and too short.  Ron came home from work and thought it looked as though she had a boob tube on.

Cindy trying to stay warm

Take care
Andrea