Well hello there! Friday! And it turned back into winter today! Howling wind, rain and it was COLD. I was just getting used to some warmer weather!!
Yesterday I planted out my zucchinis… bet they aren’t impressed with todays weather! They are all covered though and hope they don’t have too much shock with the change. Thought I was safe weather wise. I should know better haha
I messaged the seed company about my butternut pumpkins. I planted them on the 19th Sept and one finally came up – I wanted to know if they had issues with them or were just slow. Basically they were surprised at their slow and no show performance… And sent me some different pumpkin seeds to make up for it. Aaaaaand – within two days I see 7 more plants emerging. How embarrassing!! I have emailed to confess. I am sure they won’t mind – because for a pumpkin… thats a long time to get going. Even the eggplant was up well before them!
I ate some more snow peas today 🙂
Little cos lettuce!
The feverfew is beginning to perk up!
Yesterday I made an apple, rhubarb and raspberry crumble! I had never made a crumble before. Turned out rather nice! Then today I made a long overdue batch of sweet chilli sauce!
Over the past little while I have been adding to my soap collection. Above is frangipani.
Burnt sugar
Was pleased with the mix of colours here
Yesterday I did a double batch of the vanilla-rosewood. Blah on the colours. Didn’t work out how I wanted it to. Oh well… can’t win them all I guess. Maybe someone will like them. The heavy mix of colour wasn’t what I was aiming for
This one is ok 🙂 The loaf was interesting. Not what I was after but wasn’t quite as horrible as I imagined it was going to be.
Oh – yesterday I sold a couple of dozen eggs to a random someone who stopped by the ‘stall’ and another couple to other people I knew and another dozen to one of my regular customers today. Couldn’t have them out today because of the dreadful weather. My cousin, Abbey, dropped in 7 dozen eggs from their place for me to add onto the table! Hopefully the weather will calm down tomorrow so I can put them out. Hope your week ends well and you have a fabulous weekend planned!
Hello and welcome to the middle of the week! I took ages to decide what to do today – I should decide the night before then I wouldn’t be swanning about in my PJ’s procrastinating for too much of the morning!
Time to prep a corn patch.
Isn’t that red soil delicious? I reckon I can fit a lot into this spot. I just have to research further back in my photos to see when I planted the good patch of corn last year. You might recall I did three – the first was ‘meh’ the third was half eaten by cows and the cobs didn’t pollinate…. but the second was brilliant.
Right. Next. I had ideas to make a garden bed in here for the zucchini’s. I had absolutely zero intention of digging this up at all. Its full of twitch and weeds and I didn’t want to fight it all summer. So… cardboard!
And who needs to go to the hardware shop for timber when you can throw some logs into a vague square shape??
Time to pull apart my last conditioned bale of straw. Transplanted two of the lettuce and the one parsley.
This bale was the most scrumptious thing! Full of worms and their castings and rotting straw. Made a brilliant first layer for the new bed.
I very much need to make a few more of these conditioned bales up for the future… will keep an eye on the markets so I can stock up as soon as I can!
Topped with the soil/mushroom compost mix and edged with heaps of seaweed to slow weeds even further. A nice addition to my eclectic bunch of garden beds!! I didn’t plant the zucchini seedlings today as it was getting late and cool. I reckon best put them in early on a nice day. I am also thinking to stab a hole in the cardboard where I plant each one to give the roots a chance to delve down deeper… not 100% sure.
I took the netting off the garlic now that they are bigger I doubt the birds will nip them in half. I had to weed a lot along my woven fence but now it all looks rather nice.
Jeff painted up this nice bright sign! So I put it out today with eggs and some rhubarb. Sadly no-one stopped! Never mind. Sometimes it takes a while for people to remember or get used to things out for sale. I have a couple of people wanting eggs tomorrow so thats good. We literally have dozens!!
So – fairly productive… hopefully plant some things tomorrow. Lets see what the weather brings! Cheers!
Alrighty! Where to start today? Not a bad day – a sprinkle of rain then pretty warm and sunny.
Yesterday I bought myself a few punnets of more established basil – I am fully determined to make as much pesto as humanely possible this season.
So I pulled up all the lettuce that was going to seed in the middle of the hothouse and dug in a bucket full of mushroom compost – and planted a punnets worth.
A few tiny ones I put into pots which I will try to nurture along a bit – either for me or for sale or swaps.
I also bought a couple of more established Black Russian tomato plants for the hothouse. I immediately took the lateral of this one before planting.
The snow peas are going along well. Lots of flowers! Lots of crunchy pods developing!
Outside, the first potato patch is looking ok – most are up. (Really really really need to get onto the second patch)
The spring onion was getting pretty manky so I gave it all a haircut and will wait so see some regrowth
Oops on the asparagus!! Cut all that back and harvested some good ones. They are in a glass of water now and plan to add them to tomorrow nights dinner
Time to sort this patch… and the last of the beetroot
A couple had started to go to seed so suspect those ones to be a bit woody but the rest should be ok! Going to do some more pickles when I get in the mood for another kitchen day.
I am not so much ‘crop rotating’ here as simply swapping ends. The carrots in the half above – Have put in the usual long orange ones and also three rows of purple.
Dumped a barrow load of mushie compost into the half where I planted the beetroot.
Very woebegone Feverfew. I dug it up from the hothouse and popped it in the new garden section. It may or may not survive… I do have so much of it appearing everywhere so I can try again if this fails.
I dug up the hothouse potatoes to make way for the tomato plants. New potatoes are on the menu for tomorrow night too!
First herb in the spiral! A little sage plant given to me by a friend!
Pretty lettuce
And look who is back!!
Check out the size of that butt!! haha Not so little anymore.
Little Moo always still gets up to come over for a snack and a pat.
The apple blossoms are appearing!
Such a pretty time of year! Always something new blooming!
Hello! How is your weekend going?? A lovely iris appeared out of nowhere – didn’t plant it, haven’t had it before. I love spring. Seems there is always something new and random appearing.
I didn’t drop in last night because I slightly overdid things yesterday and was so tired by the time I got home that I couldn’t think of anything to talk about! I went to the markets with Fiona – well – it was the annual Tulip Festival where they have a much bigger market set up in the park near the wharf as well as the street blocked off – as well as the beachside markets!!
Because Fiona and I don’t do things normally – we parked at the river track on the highway and hiked the 4km or so into town. Then spend ages checking out stalls – all the way up to the beach market! And back. Of course by the time we were done and walked all the way back to the car I suspect it was well over a 10km course of hiking/walking. We were out nearly 6 hours!!! So much for me thinking we’d ‘Pop into the markets’ We had a fabulous day! I got in at 5pm and had something like 30 minutes to shower, change, smarten up and get back down into town to celebrate a young cousins 21st birthday! (Jeff, coming off nightshift was still sleeping!) It was a great night – and slept like the dead last night haha (Shopping is so exhausting!)
So – today! I was totally in the mood to get that herb spiral started! Got my high tech measuring gear out so I could make a nice circle then started hauling rocks about.
Jeff came out for a bit and helped barrow up from the back a couple of loads of rocks – pleased about that!! Mega heavy!!
Pretty nice circle! The string is great. It would have been really wonky without the guide
Pip was out snoopervising.
And off I go, bringing up barrow loads of soil and compost!!
Well! Not too bad! A bit of a groovy pattern if nothing else! Really looking forward to planting stuff in there. I’ll read up in my book about which herbs go where and get onto it. It will take some time to establish but hopefully it will all work well and look awesome when everything has grown in.
I took some time to pull out the strawberries I killed and replant with the ones I dug up from Sharons place. I think (hope) the other ones died because I left them to hike for a week not realising we wouldn’t get a scrap of rain and forgot to tell Jeff to give them a watering!
The brown ones you can see have a little life and hope left in them… Fingers crossed.
Taa Daaa!! First snow peas from the lot I planted in the hothouse a few months back!
The Geum has just started flowering!
Hope you’ve all had a fantastic weekend too! Cheers!
Took myself off to see Sharon and Lottie today! Their goat finally kidded!! Twin baby boys and wow… soooooo adorable! So I had heaps of baby-goat-cuddles today!!!
These little chaps were barely 24 hours old! They were just getting the hang of what to do with their legs. No doubt in a day or so they will figure out how to bounce!
Will be smiling for a week! They were so soft and small
They will also be bomb-proof with Lottie about!!
Sharons fabulously energetic daughter is a real farm kid! Covered in dirt and into everything. She loves cuddling the kids, but then spent the rest of the day pretending she was a dog haha.
The kids get up and run about, have a drink, then wear out quickly, so there are lots of naps too.
Isn’t he gorgeous???
They both ended up getting little red jumpers as the wind was a bit cold. I didn’t get back to a shot with them both sporting their clothes
Sharon and I had a really good catch up – talked a lot of ‘soap’ stuff (of course) They also have a lot of extra raspberry canes and strawberry plants which I got to dig up and bring home!! Yay!!
Rows and rows of berries!!
I have to add I have severe trellis envy
Sigh. Another project to tuck into my brain for later. Won’t share that with Jeff for a while hee hee
I’ll plant some of these into my patch but also share them. The strawberry plants will be handy! Mine kinda died (most of them – think they suffered lack of water while I was hiking)(Jeff did well with all the garden I just didn’t think about the strawberries as I assumed it would actually rain while I was away. It didn’t!!)
Anyway – home again, did the garden/chook duties (I still have to brave the rain to head out to lock them up for the night – blah!) Did a quick lap around the river as I hadn’t done it for a few days.
Weekend is not far away (again) Is it just me or is time just barrelling on by? Today I did some menial housework stuff before escaping out to the garden. So many choices of what to do…
I actually wanted to start building my herb spiral but then (sensibly – sigh) thought I should define the areas with a path. Since we have a lot of wood lying about…
Not interested in fighting the weeds in here. So I have used the cardboard (So happy to have a big stash of it thanks to Cousin Beau) and a thick layer of straw. Sprinkled with blood and bone and watered in heavily. I’ll slowly add compost, manure etc… as I don’t have enough soil to top up with new stuff.
The herb spiral should sit in the area with the bulging bit on left! My plan is to make it with rocks. Must go on a scouting mission to liberate some rocks from somewhere. Not sure what I will put on the path itself but I am sure something will come to mind. I’d like ground spreading smelly herbs along the sides perhaps… with a formed path in the middle…
Anyway, I am pleased with the days efforts as its looking less and less scruffy and really taking shape. I am getting impatient to plant everything out!
The lovely tulips are about done.
But don’t worry. You are about to be inundated with cherry blossom photos for the next couple of weeks! (Fair warning!)
As I type, its been pouring out there! Much needed soaking so I hope we get some more overnight. OK – its later than I thought – we’ve changed over to daylight savings time and I am struggling with getting to bed at a civilised hour. I do love staying up late but there is so much to do I don’t want to be sleeping in too much these days!
Hello all! I had a fabulous afternoon. Fiona invited Margie and myself out to her place to have a go at making Bee Wrap! I’ve been wanting to have a go at this for a while (my never ending and continually expanding ‘To Do List’)
First things first – Frankie was shrieking in the paddock as bottle time was a bit tardy in her opinion.
Little Fatty charged up the paddock and sucked back her bottle in 30 seconds flat!!! She is still adorable. Fiona has had a bit of a run with her – was touch and go with bloat. She’s been getting injections etc so keeping fingers crossed that she will be on the up and up. Was a close run poor Frankie.
Anyway – down to business! Always nice to find another way to cut back on plastic, which apart from the coolness of bee wraps, is very attractive to me!
We chose our materials (I had some from Japan that I bought years ago with this in mind. Finally today…)
Aren’t the owls super cute?? 🙂
A mix of bees wax, resin and jojoba oil
Fiona pounding the resin into smaller bits!
Basically you heat the material in the oven, then paint on the mixture – one side only, then pop back in the over (only short two minute stints in the oven)
Once you take it out – you grab a corner in each hand and wave it about to cool off before putting it on a cake rack to dry. We did two coats on each of our wraps.
Of course, there was coffee, lunch, cake, more coffee and catch ups during the afternoon!! (groan – I now owe myself two laps of the river haha)
We definitely want to do this again – Margie and I will get some supplies and probably precut/iron the materials. I was super excited tonight because I peeled an extra potato so I got to wrap it up in my bee wrap to store in the fridge. Its the little things 😀
Sorry – hard to see scale here – and they are folded in half twice! The owls and dragonflies are about 30x25cm and the green patterned one is about 36cm square. (Big enough I hope to fold over a bowl if I want to put one in the fridge.)
On the soap front – buoyed by my success at the market the other week, I really want to stock up before the Christmas markets. So since getting back from the Overland, I’ve made four new batches of soap. The green one is ‘Kentish Rain’
Of course more espresso because it smells so amazing
I tried a new fragrance called ‘Cinnamon Sticks’ I had mixed results in the celtic knot mould – one especially didn’t come out cleanly. I soaked the bottom in warm water and the last one came free much more nicely. I also tested out the new horse head moulds which look fine.
And lastly because it was super popular – I did a loaf of lavender! I have to make sure I order more of that fragrance.
Anyway – I reckon I will have to get back into the garden. The weather is warming up beautifully so I need to do some WORK!! 🙂
Hello! Back to the backyard 🙂 I’ve taken it off and on easy since returning. Fitted in a few laps around the river to keep up the good form! (Pleasingly I’ve lost 5kg since that terrible afternoon on the hospital scales haha)
I’ve come back to the pear tree out in beautiful blossom.
I hope we get some pears again this year. The first ones we got last season were so big and juicy! I think we got 5 or 6. 🙂
The rhubarb is really filling out! Margie dropped in the other day and I was able to send her back with a few sticks!
I’ve seen a few potatoes peeking up through the dirt. I’ve actually hooked up the bore again and given things a good soaking the last couple of days. No rain (unusual for here in spring) and the wind means that things are reasonably dry
The outside snow peas are doing fine. I can’t wait to see them climb up their new ‘climbing frames’ In the hothouse I have lots of flowers on the snow peas – and I noticed today my first actual nearly ready to pick snow pea!
In the hothouse, seedlings popping up everywhere. I am going to have to get a wriggle on to get the beds ready! Above are the golden nugget pumpkins. A new sort for me – seeds were given to me by a friend 🙂 (Thanks Irene!!) Funnily enough the butternut pumpkins haven’t appeared at all!! Until today – I finally saw one small unfolding sprout. Hope more appear soon. I planted 10!!! (Destined for one of the Hugelkultur beds)
A lot of tomato seedlings up. Thinking of giving each variety their own bed this season…
Runner beans. I only planted them for fun during one of the workshops
My cos lettuce sitting up nicely! Its so reliable!
Lots of sunflower seedlings popping up – love the beret.
My zucchini will be ready to go out soon – thinking I should build their new bed ASAP!!
The little tulip patch is still a lovely riot of colour! Not sure the transplanted iris will do much this season… will have to think of something smaller to cover the ground once they are done.
A few of the thyme bushes are flowering
The new lettuce patch looks a bit scraggly… but I know I just have to give it time. It will fill out. I’ll mulch when they are along a bit further.
I’m keen to nurture a few more varieties to make the salads look interesting
Yesterday I got to and made compost bay number two!!
I had to relocate a lot of parsley. Not sure why I was worried as it really is popping up everywhere
The smaller plants should go well but in my experience often the bigger ones just race to seed when replanted. So… some I have planted and some are now living in a bucket.
I took the netting off the leek and onion patch. They are looking rather robust!
The ornamental flowering apple blossom tree has just started to put out flowers too
Well – thats a bit of a garden update. I’ll be taking myself off to bed soon. Legs are feeling it today. We did a lap around the river earlier then spent all afternoon in a grand tree clearing effort. We burned the two big piles. I moved a lot of wood over to the cherry plum trees, either to stack or left to split. Jeff went over the fence and cleared stuff out of the neighbours paddock.
Hello! My fourth day on the track – after my terrible nights sleep, it was nice to know there were no crazy inclines awaiting me today. Lots of people were up and out early as the vast majority were planning on taking the ferry out from Narcissus Hut. As usual – I was content to go slow while the bulk of the hikers were gone. Putting on the socks and shoes that morning was unkind. Cold and wet as they had no chance to warm up or even part way dry the afternoon before.
Another great day! The camera was in my pack until I hit the open plains heading into Narcissus.
It doesn’t take long for the feet to warm up, even if they are wet. Still found lots of new mud puddles to wade in.
My feet (toes) were beginning to send messages to my brain. The sealskin socks that I had been wearing were now wet on the inside so it was like walking in little swimming pools. Plus they were starting to rub the tops of my toes. I decided to take some time at the hut to change socks.
At the hut there were a heap of people. Its always a bit of a shock to go from solitude to crowds. I dried my feet and put tape around the rubbed toes and pulled on the dry socks. I knew they wouldn’t be dry for long but was fairly confident that it would help stop the rubbing. The hike down into Narcissus was 9kms. I planned to immediately take off again and do an extra 5kms to Echo Point to stay my last night. Here was the ‘issue’ I was going to be walking out a whole day early. Since both Jeff and I don’t have mobile phones…. hmmmm
A lovely lady offered me her phone to call Jeff. Unfortunately I could only leave a message – which went something like this: “Hello! This is Wife. Because I am so super, I am walking out Thursday, not Friday! See you soon!” Because of dodgy reception it cut out after that. Now to cross my fingers he SEE’S the message machine flashing.
It was around midday and I was heading back out. Peace again.
Having done this track with Fiona, I felt by taking 5kms off the total 17.5km around the lake, I was going to be a happier person tomorrow. Its ‘undulating’ No mountains, but it winds in and out of the forest, up and down.
I like the first bit with the wide open stretch.
Still a totally happy camper 😀
It wasn’t long before the camera went away again. Its all a bit the same with the mottled light, mud and trees. It was a tough 5kms! It took about three hours to reach Echo Point Hut! It was more like an obstacle course than a track. So many trees were down – clearly the rangers haven’t gotten to this part of the track. In some cases I had to take my pack off to get over or under trees, sometimes it required going a bit bush to get around then find the trail again (which isn’t actually always so straight forward!) One huge tree obliterated the path and it took me some time to work out which direction to go to pick up the right trail again! It certainly was an interesting afternoon!
Eventually I made it to the little rustic hut. It sleeps about 8, with nice little camping spots around and big bins to store your packs and food in because of the night time marauders. (Furry food stealing inhabitants.)
There were only five of us staying in the hut – and a few outside camping.
We all hung out on the pier earlier when the sun was out and a couple of mad hikers jumped in the water!!! Brrrr
A fantastically peaceful spot.
The trees on the shoreline look like they have had rough lives!
The best thing about Echo Point Hut was the little coal burning fire! Not much coal left in the bin, but we got a bit of a fire going and the cabin was oh so toasty!!
It was the best nights sleep on the whole track!
And guess who was up for sunrise??? Shocking.
I don’t see many of those 😀
Clearly we were in for another super day! I didn’t bother with making a cup of tea – just some water and wolfed down a muesli bar, packed my gear back up and trotted off. Back to tackling the last 12km
While there were still some trees down here and there, not quite as heavy going as the day before
Mostly on my mind was wondering if Jeff got my message or would I be forced to camp at Cynthia Bay for another night?
I walked out at 11.30am! Only three and a half hours, so better than I thought.
and
No Jeff.
Damn.
I bought a drink and used the change to call home. No answer.
Damn.
Left a message, then hung about ringing periodically and chatted to various people coming in on the boat. Some of my original hut-mates were most surprised to see me there ahead of them haha.
Finally at about 3.30pm when I was just getting ready to ring the cousins to investigate, Jeff turns up looking super harassed!! My first message all he could hear was “I’m super garble garble garble Friday” Sigh. Got my other message at about 12pm and panic drove all the way down (3 and a half hours)
Mind you – he was also super impressed that I walked the whole track in five days and it was lovely having big hugs and catching up. We drove into Queenstown to grab something to eat then headed home while we filled in the weeks adventures to each other. The shower that night was blissful and it was wonderful to sleep on a mattress that didn’t run away on me! Pip was also a happy puddy cat and I got lots of loves and purrs and schmoozles. Life is certainly great!
So – feels all a bit surreal now I am back to ‘normal’ Very glad I followed through with my idea. Sometimes its good to step out of your comfort zone just to see what you can do! Thanks for following along Cheers!
The new day dawned and it was another perfectly gorgeous day! As usual I let most people bustle about and get on their way before I managed to get changed and have brekkie.
Todays hike is an 8.6km hike up to Pelion Gap and down into Kia Ora Hut. The climb to Pelion Gap was about 300mt. I was feeling it!!!
Pelion Gap is where you leave your packs to go mountain climbing if the mood and weather takes you. I had decided no side trips up mountains while I was on my own. I didn’t put in a day pack anyway.
I do love the darker forest paths where you have to navigate tree roots, mud puddles and rocks. Makes things nice and interesting.
I tell you – I was puffing and panting a bit!!
Finally, after many stops, I emerged out to the saddle between Mt Ossa and Pelion East.
The happy face of someone that knows its all downhill from here! Easy now to step up the pace – esp on the smoother duckboards.
I was enjoying the sunshine and being surrounded by snow covered mountains.
It took quite some time to get down into Kia Ora Hut… always longer than what I think it is!
At last it came into view, so I sat down for some lunch and made some new plans. There was a father and son already at the hut – everyone else was mountain climbing. And it was only 11.45am!
Seven hours is a LOT of time to kill when you didn’t have room to pack books or board games. (Assuming 7pm is an ok time to go to bed haha) Another 9.6kms to Windy Ridge and the Bert Nichols Hut. Hmmmm. No worries. Back on with the pack and off I go.
The mud puddles were still in abundance:
A lot more evidence of the storms that went through the area too
Lots of shaded green tracks
After about an hour, I came out onto the old Du Cane Hut. There is a nice big inviting platform in the sunshine – so time to give the shoulders a rest and soak up some vitamin D
It required a lot of willpower to get going again. So comfortable!
From here I put away the camera as it was pulling on my shoulders a lot – the extra kilo and a half begins to tell after a while. I met some people at one of the waterfall junctions and climbed to the Du Cane Gap with them! A LOT of people were at the Bert Nichols Hut. But its huge so plenty of room to find a spot to sleep. I had managed to catch a cold (how annoying huh?) so sleep that night with a totally stuffed up nose was pretty thin. I think I went through half a roll of loo paper – most of it elegantly stuffed up my nose!!!
Someone kindly gave me some meds the next morning which really helped over the last couple of days! 🙂
Be back tomorrow to wrap up this adventure!! Cheers!
