Head in the Clouds – Feet in the Dirt

Hello there!! I spent all yesterday making up a batch of the plum-Worcestershire sauce – its a big undertaking. Its an old recipe I got from Ruby and its been about 2 years since I made it last. I think it made up well over 7 litres of sauce!! I was running back and forth to the stove all day… it comes to the boil VERY slowly but I am paranoid since the time I left Jeff in charge of it and we had a boil over – in among other things there is 5lb of sugar and 3 tins of treacle. Tell me that mess didn’t take an eon to clean!!!!
So now I am – careful….

I made a very sad discovery. Three or so rows of corn eaten by the cows. There haven’t been cows here in a year and I just didn’t think of the proximity to the fence when I planted. I know better now but I was still sad.

I put this up as a deterrent – just hoping its enough although I think they got all they could reach. Now they are busy pruning all the bushes further up the fence line. But I am not lovingly attached to those.
The corn has had a rough few days! The wind!!!
I found this stalk snapped off on the ground.

I got Jeff to come out and help me attach some shade cloth on the new fence. Sadly it doesn’t improve the look, but might just give a little wind protection.
Once we do the finishing touches on the fence we might put up a permanent and nicer looking windbreak with some new shade cloth.

So… tomatoes. We have a few.

The patch of tomato lateral plants is going along fabulously

More cherry tomatoes than you can point a stick at…

A few red ones here and there

Now the weather needs to warm back up so they can ripen!

The three watermelons are getting a little bigger!

Here’s an odd thing… one of the pumpkin vines turned up its toes! I followed it back to the plant and found it had rotten off!! ?? I haven’t had that before. Shame because there was a nice pumpkin at the end of that!

Lucky I have a few more growing

I need to look up what capsicum I planted! I want to know when they are ready for picking!

When my niece Emma was here she planted a heap of flowers for me (Including the sunflowers that were eaten by Little Moo)
They have come up beautifully and its a real pleasure to walk by this spot in the garden!

Today I went back to the fire trails in the forest with Jeff for another hike… avoided the straight down gravel paths… Megumi came along too! I didn’t take the camera, but I did load up my pack for the first time. Only put in 11kg as I thought that was enough to start. We did 6km and it was all pretty comfortable. My shoulders only started telling me about it quietly near the end of the hike, so thats good. See how they feel about it tomorrow!! 😀

Hope your day was great too
Cheers

I joined Jeff on a hike this morning – he has found a new place to test out carting his pack around. I don’t think I was in the best of moods – I would prefer not to be woken with ‘I’m going for a hike want to come?’ kind of questions. Thats way too much pressure before I am fully functioning.
(Did I ever mention I am not a morning person?)
So… we get up to the top of this long stretch – and I think I am doing well because I hadn’t stopped and its steeper and rougher than it looks here.
So happy (not) to realise it was a false summit and I still had this to go:

Mutter mutter.
Some parts of the walk like this were very exposed with the logging that has been done and a real mess… not the usual aesthetic dream we hike through.
Other parts were quite pretty.

Sadly, a lot of this area is neglected and unkempt. It used to be a great spot to come down to with the family for a picnic/BBQ. Now the main road is barricaded off – not sure why? Something to do with the logging?
A lot of it is now a festy pit for dumped burned out cars, general rubbish & graffiti etc
Its a real shame, because it used to be so lovely!

Some of the downhill stretches of the hike I did not enjoy at all. Probably because I fell over on my face and scraped my knee. (Graceful huh?) Not because I was being clumsy but because the surface on some of these very steep areas were loose dirt and stone over a hard surface. So think hiking on marbles.
I don’t mind the tougher hikes and uneven surfaces, but its hard to navigate if your feet just fly out from under you.

I am not sure how many kms it was – but at least I worked up a bit of sweat and we need to be hiking much more regularly since we are a month from when our Overland hike starts. Very glad I wasn’t carrying a pack today though!!

And it seems like the blackberries are about ready. We should go down to the local school near Ruby’s that was closed down. Its overrun with blackberries – if the season has been good for them there should be quite a few available!

Back at home we changed the grit on one of the tumblers. This is a bunch of rocks Megumi and I chose a few weeks ago for tumbling

So much fun washing the grit off to reveal the prettiness below

They are looking good…
We put a new finer grit in and popped them back on the tumbler.
Can’t wait for the final polish stage!

And lastly – I dug myself three potato plants. I found three that were looking decidedly almost dead, so I indulged in my favourite garden pastime!
Not a bad haul!
Hope you’ve had a great day and no scraped knees!
Cheers!

Starting to pick up more passionfruit – this was a nice big fat one and tasted so good!
No doubt I’ll have to start looking into passionfruit recipes soon!
Had my chicken-pesto pasta tonight and I am pleased 🙂

Not much else accomplished today.
Got the quote back for removing our big Macrocarpa trees, and while its not cheap, its certainly not the ‘lets sell the house’ horror I was expecting.
Now I can work on a plan!

In the background, I’ve been working on another rug. This time its going to be for my Canadian Niece. 🙂 Apparently she loves blue and has a blue/sea themed bedroom.
Its already a nice size and I like the colours. The lighter colour is actually a lovely silvery grey – just a bit hard to get the right shade in the snap!
This is me getting super ready for next Christmas!!!!

Hope you are having a fab week!
Cheers!

Hello!
After the wind howled all night, the rain arrived and blew in sideways and pretty much kept it up all day! (And this evening!)
I am sure the garden is enjoying a good soaking.
A couple of the chooks are sensible and stay in the coop… the rest are all a raggle-taggle-bedraggled bunch!!

Watching Little Moo on a quest for that last sunflower!!

I was fairly lazy today. But I did manage to go out and pick enough basil to make a batch of garlic pesto.
I am very much looking forward to tomorrow nights dinner – planning a chicken-pesto pasta.

Not much else to report unless you want to hear about kitchen cleaning??
No? OK. Thats me signing off!
Have a lovely day!!
Cheers

This little pest is broody!
We’ve had a couple of nights where we only had 9 out of the 10 chooks roosted. Searching in the dark for a dark hen with all the rubbish and bushes we have is not bound for success.
The first night she was ‘lost’ the following day I was feeding them and counted 10 – so figured one of them just got stuck somewhere.
Then we only had 9 roost again.
A daylight search yielded better results

So many tree cuttings that are piled up and need to be dealt with! I found TWO nests with eggs – that broody chook is diligently sitting on.

I don’t know who is responsible or how long they have been there…

Sigh. Never mind. I’ll test them all and probably use them to cook up/scramble and feed back to the girls (bit gross sounding haha)

Anyway, yesterday I spent the day at hospitals. Had to rush early by my GP to get an urgent order for bloods for my calcium, then swing by pathology at Burnie to get them taken, then off to LaTrobe to the hospital for a scope and biopsy of my stomach to get results of why the B12 isn’t absorbing
Naturally I was last on the patient list so it was a long day waiting about. No dramas with the procedure and I amused the nurse by trying to talk before coming out of the anesthetic. I usually wake up talking non-stop! 😀

Today was restful… I planned a proper sleep in without the thought of anyone else being here to entertain or make sure they were ok. Wandered about the house half dressed and all that kind of excellent stuff!!
I even got a fellow to come in and see the Macrocarpa trees to get a quote on removing the lot (gulp)(That is NOT going to be cheap, so it will be a – remove trees or sell house situation!!)
(Yes I got fully dressed for that)
The winds are fierce tonight – which now always makes me a bit nervous thinking about those massive trees.

Basil cuttings going well! Reckon I can plant these! Will wait for the mad winds to die off first though. I think I have enough basil to make a batch of pesto. Looking forward to that!!

We have three small watermelons started! I still don’t have high hopes but hey… its a start! Fingers crossed!

Overall the garden needs a lot of clearing up in between the patches, but I am still enjoying the amount of food we are picking and that will soon (hopefully) be ready to pick.

I am really glad I built those extra little raised beds! They are easy to manage

Jeff needs to get in there with his mower I think! 🙂

I visited Ruby and Margie today. Was able to pick some plums so I can get onto a much needed batch of plum-Worcestershire sauce!
Margie also cut my hair since it was getting impossible to get a comb through the ends! I am a lot less scruffy now!

Anyway, thats about all the happenings today at Norwich house.
Hope the weather isn’t too extreme where you are!!
Seems to be a bit mad all over the globe right now!
Cheers!

No photos from me today!! I know!! Shocking!
We put Megumi on a plane this morning and she is spending the week with Rachel in Ballarat. She should have a lovely time and I am very ready for a break.
Sloth week coming right up!

Anyway… for those of you not in Australia: summer has been brutal around the country. Severe drought, one of our MAJOR rivers (The Darling) just about dried up due to mismanagement/irrigation etc. (Well… they are still arguing whose fault it is and why and blah blah)
Temperatures have been record level… days on end of 40 plus degrees (103F) I think Adelaide reached about 47 the other day!! (over 116F)

North of the country is currently suffering insane severe flooding!!!

Oh, and Tasmania is on fire! 🙁

Today our area was under a reasonably heavy blanket of smoke from a 350ha fire west of us.
Further south of that fire, there is another 8,000 ha burning.
East of the Cradle Mt National Park there is at least 50,000 ha on fire.
South west there is another 30,000 ha burning, and around Hobart there’s about 60,000 ha still burning!
(ha-hectares. Not sure what unit of measurement people use around the world but if you think better in acres, times the number by about 2.5)

Anyway, its a shocker right now!

Bedtime for me!
Hope everyone had a lovely weekend!
Cheers

Hello!
How’s the weekend going?
I didn’t get properly moving until early this afternoon. Took a while to get the kinks out haha
Then I got madly enthusiastic and built my new compost bay.

Time for this mess to GO! Celery and parsley becomes an absolute jungle when they go to seed! Plus still getting those purple potatoes that I don’t want popping up everywhere and lets not talk about the weeds.

I’ve decided to reuse the pallets we started using for the raspberries then gave up on.

I want three bays (like I wanted last time but didn’t quite get around to it) but doing one was enough for me this afternoon. Three of the holes were quite easy to dig – one was so hard! In the end I got a steel dropper out to break up the ground!

Layered with cardboard then I moved all the chook-poo hay that Jeff cleaned out of the coop the other day and topped with the remaining coffee grounds and mixed up and watered.
Shall I explain how lovely it was moving dry chook-poo hay in the strong winds today? No? Imaginations working fine? Good.

I should have taken the photo AFTER I mixed it up. That coffee looks like dinosaur spew!! 😀

Anyway… that area is much neater and I can now work on filling that compost bay and hopefully getting on to putting in another two.

Corn update… the first patch still looks anemic and sad, but it does have a number of ears developing, so I am optimistic we will get something edible off it.

Meanwhile, the rabbit/chook ravaged patch is (in my opinion) magnificent and there are plenty of cobs developing too… some stalks have three!!

The third patch is also looking really healthy and glad its a few weeks behind the second patch. Who knows? I might for once get this stagger planting thing right!

I have a huge butternut pumpkin patch – and one butternut pumpkin!!

The little raised patch with the pumpkin in it have really started a good number developing

Happy big beetroot! I am scoffing back heaps of the pickled beetroot nightly!!

Quite exciting to see little capsicums forming!! They seem really pale but maybe its the variety. I can’t remember what the seeds were now!

The tomato lateral patch is rocking along!

No shortage of rhubarb!!

And our potato patch is starting to wind down. I suspect another month before we do a proper harvest. Looking forward to that immensely!

Hope the rest of your weekends are fabulous!
Cheers

Well… Little Moo was returned to the paddock next door, and has taken a big liking to my sunflowers!! Little Rotter!

Neatly pruned the tops of pretty much all of this patch – they were about 5 minutes away from flowering too!! 🙁

Butter would not melt…
Lucky he is cute! He still galumphs up to us when he sees us in the yard so he can say hi and get a scratch.
I did try to feed him some of the fennel. I thought the strong licorice taste would make him wary of eating anything else on our side of the fence…
Ha! He just guffed it down and looked for more!!

Luckily the sunflowers I transplanted into another garden are looking good so at least I should be able to enjoy a few soon!

I officially gave up on this strawberry patch. They didn’t do much good this season so I am going to start with brand new plants next season. I spent a fair bit of time pulling everything up and sifting through the dirt for the oxalis which has taken a bit of a hold in there.
I am considering removing the rocks and putting in some raised beds here instead… (not for a while though). Now that its cleared out I might just pop some plants in that need to get out of their small pots and make use of the area for the remainder of the season.

Then while I was in the clearing out mood, I decided that the fennel and the herb garden in general was just an eyesore so…. out it went.
It took a lot of effort to dig those fennel plants out! The roots are pretty solid!
Megumi came out and did some weeding down the fence side of the garden so its all starting to look a bit less like snake habitat!!
Not sure what I will put in here… at the very least it should be smothered in mulch!!

Pleased to get in and do some more gardening of the cleaning up type.
I didn’t get photos, but while Jeff was out in the car, I cleaned out the carport that was looking very scruffy. The old and VERY heavy washing machine has been sitting there at an odd angle for 12 months, so I moved it into the corner tidily and cleaned up all other junk in there too… mostly it was accumulated leaves and dirt that made it look so shabby!
I don’t think my back is thanking me for the appliance relocation effort though.
Especially when I did a river hike afterwards.
Sometimes I am not very clever!!
Oh well… hopefully it will be less grumpy with me tomorrow!
Hope your week has ended well!
Cheers
PS The blueberry ice cream was mmmmm 🙂

I had a bit of fun yesterday pottering about the garden picking stuff!
I found the cherry tomatoes ripe on the vine thats growing in with the raspberries!
I didn’t realise I had so many cucumbers!! Gee they are expert hiders!! I thought there was only one growing.
I didn’t actually need the carrots or potatoes, but its too fun digging them so I figure I deserve to indulge 🙂
The beetroots are beauties!! We made them into pickles today. The kitchen smelled a bit strong but I feel happier with a good supply of pickled beetroot!
Again I have been slack with the camera – so nothing else startling to share.
Just cooking up some produce, running about watering – attacking a few weeds. Some other mundane unbloggable events like housework, shopping blah blah.
Hope everyone is having a great week!
Cheers!

Hello!!
Well… we’ve spent a quiet day today, nursing a few aching muscles!
The weather forecast wasn’t entirely accurate… and while half our hike was in cool and pleasant conditions… after lunch it deteriorated into feral.
Megumi is never going to go out with us again!!

We started in fine tour guiding style by providing a local wombat to hang out on the path with us…

He/she wasn’t at all fazed by the excited humans watching it eat and scratch its bum on the boardwalk!! So funny

Clearly this wombat has been there/done that and is quite comfortable posing for the camera (would have helped if I didn’t have the fisheye lens on but hey… can’t win em all!!)

Onward

Still happy

Its always nice to get into the little rain forest area with the stream and waterfalls running beside the path

And we continue steadily up.

Its enjoyable walking through the scrubby bush with the mountains looming behind!

Sign of a dry season… the lake is rather low and we could walk into the boat house!

We rested here, ate a muffin and talked to a group of Japanese tourists!!

I finally pointed out to Megumi where we were going!! 😀 (ie UP)
(But slowly)

As usual… the views got better – but the wind really started to pick up.

Fantastic effort! Got to the top of Marions Lookout – at least we got to see Cradle Mt while we ate lunch.

Doesn’t seem like a proper Cradle Hike without my lovely Cuz, Fiona!!
Jeff – looking like a mad professor, took my bandanna because his ears were hurting from the cold/wind.

Megumi enjoying her sandwiches overlooking Dove Lake

The plan after Marion’s was to walk over the plain towards Cradle then go down the Horse Track… basically a big loop.
We didn’t get far before:

No more views, but a temperature drop, sideways rain and plenty of wind!!
It was hard going – I was a bit worried about Megumi as she wasn’t used to this kind of weather nonsense… especially being actually out in it!!
We debated which way to return but stuck to the original plan.
I enjoy this kind of mad weather but when you have someone new with you its not the best way to introduce them to the area. You want to show it to them in the best way!!

The camera got put back in its dry bag for quite some time… I finally got a bit of a break in the rain and snapped some of the pretty moss.

By the time I finished mucking about Jeff and Fiona were lost to sight and Megumi was a little way ahead…

We all caught up again for a drink and rest on the lee side of a large boulder to get a break from the wind.
The view was murky…

Literally five minutes later…

Such a fabulous place!!

It was great getting back to the car and going to the lodge to get hot drinks, something to eat and sit by the fire!! Very cosy!
Quite the adventure but I suspect our poor guest might decline the next offer of ‘do you want to go hiking with us?’ !!!

Hope everyone had a great weekend and stayed a little drier than we did!!
Cheers!