Head in the Clouds – Feet in the Dirt

Hi!! A bit of blue sky peeking through late afternoon!
The rest of the day was mostly dark and gloomy – but very little wind or rain so it wasn’t a bad day to be out hauling wood about.

Jeff cut up a stack more wood and I moved and stacked most of what he had worked on before.

We will have a bit of work splitting ahead of us too:

Jeff made a temporary boardwalk out of the pallets!! Seriously.. the walkways are treacherous underfoot at the moment!

I also thought it was high time to give the poor chooks a clean bedroom. So out with the old pooey hay and in with the fluffy fresh stuff

Someone got comfortable pretty quick in the nesting box.
Mind you… it didn’t take the rest of them long to work on kicking a fair bit of it back out the door!! Pests.

The compost bay got a nice big top up of straw and chook poo. I then added in the latest load of coffee and it really smelled quite fantastic!
I also think its about time to set up compost bay #2 and leave this one to break down and do its thing.

Most of the white garlic has sprouted!!
It will be good when it is all along far enough to be mulched and then I can pretty much forget it for a few months.

Of course I couldn’t help stop and admire the purple garlic patch. It looks so perfect 😀

The rhubarb that Jeff mowed (eek, I know!!) looks like it will all be fine. In a couple of months I am sure they will all spring back with a vengeance!

My one broccoli that is developing is much too slow for my liking! I know its doing its best…. but… Maybe I should dowse it with some worm wee.

Surprisingly – still getting capsicum off the outdoor plants in mid winter! How does that work?? Its not for me to question. Its for me to say “Thank-you garden, this will go nicely in the spaghetti Bolognaise sauce tonight.”

We had a bit of a look at the timber in the spot for the raised beds. I need to make them a little wider, but that shouldn’t take too much effort. (Famous last words)

Oh – the latest batch of soap – the espresso actually did go ok. It just took a bit longer to firm up. And wow – it looks like chocolate fudge.
I have to get out to Sharons and purchase some more milk. I am totally hooked and need to do more!
Hope your weekends are really fantastic!
Cheers

Yup! We got to Bunnings today.
Its treated pine but with a nice dark stain so a bit different to the normal look.
We’ve gone for slightly shorter lengths – I can make it work in the area and it made a fair difference on the $$ (as in over $70 better)
They were pretty heavy.
We bought 4 of the 3mt lengths and got the shop to cut them into 1mt pieces – they are the side pieces and it was easier to get them in the vehicle. (Plus we don’t have to cut them at all now.)

I am looking forward to actually building them. I hope its as straight-forward as my imagination says its going to be!!

Luckily I took Jeff into town to collect the coffee grounds! The little bin was full to the brim! No way I could lift that myself into the back. I should have gone in Monday but somehow the week disappeared.

So… here is some of the soap I made solo.
The light isn’t great, so the colours aren’t quite right, but nevertheless… you’ll get the drift.
This batch has almost a mauve swirl… I thought it was going to be more brown, but the clay colours do different things.
The fragrance used is ‘Rustic woods and Rum’
It was so strong when I first did it. Happily its calmed down and I really like it now.

This batch’s fragrance is Meyer Lemon. Its quite a sweet scent.
I am liking the swirls.

I tried out putting a loofah in a couple. I will have to do it slightly differently next time but it wasn’t too bad

The batch always has a bit more than the one set of moulds can take.
So I have some random extras. I like the dragonfly pattern 🙂

I think I made a failure tonight. I was so keen on it too 🙁
Espresso. It wouldn’t reach ‘trace’ for ages and the cheap little hand mixer was about to blow up I reckon. I finished using my other one and it seemed to go ok… but its not setting as fast as the others have done so sadly it might be a washout – without the soap!! I used a better olive oil – pure virgin cold pressed, but I wouldn’t have thought it wouldn’t work!
And I am out of goats milk. I’ll have to get in touch with Sharon!
I am not daunted. I am keen to try more.
Should smell the library! No more old book smell… haha. (Which is a bit tragic really)

Hope your day has been great!
Cheers

Hi!
Back out actually doing some work! Yay.
Jeff got through a lot with his chainsaw. We’ll move that all down to the main pile and do some splitting sometime.
We also worked our way through burning a bit and sorting out pieces to keep or put through the chipper

We got rid of one pile and made another!!!

Cough cough – smokey! Luckily the wind (low today) was blowing across the paddocks so hopefully we weren’t annoying anybody too much.
Bit sad not to have marshmallows…

My Mum (the pyromaniac) will be jealous. 🙂

Got one barrow load of fluffy tree bits and dumped them in the entryway of the chook pen.
Makes a fabulous difference. If the weather is ok tomorrow, must make the effort to get more of this down onto the slippery muddy bits.

Have you noticed that so far, I’ve done NOTHING that I said I was going to do yesterday??
In the spirit of going off course – I got to and wove the little garlic fence I’ve been wanting to do for ages.

I was pretty chuffed at its final look.

Now I am all fired keen to get enough branches piled up to get the chipper going and I can put the woodchips on the path that is currently mud.

Hope you’ve had a lovely day too!
Cheers

Hello!!
Sorry to be so neglectful of you all!
I am still kicking about but didn’t have a lot to say 🙂
The weather has been brilliantly feral – so the camera hasn’t been out much, nor have we really done anything super blog-worthy!

I am just decorating this post with some random photos from 2015.
I have actually been working quite intensely on a project that I finally sorted out today.
But I can’t tell you what it was yet! Its hopefully going to be all finished in a week or two, then I can share.

Jeff decided today he needed a new tattoo (as one does)
Its quite big and it took ages – that is he was gone for three hours longer than I supposed!
Someone is a sore boy right now!!
I have been amusing myself also by making my first couple of solo soap batches.
Perhaps tomorrow I might get a snap of the ones I did.

Sharon brought me around some goats milk and I have enough to do one more batch before I need to go get some more. I also need to buy some pure virgin olive oil too – the one I have is part virgin and part refined. Honestly.. I have no idea what that all means but it will be good to see if there is a difference.
I also would like to buy some coffee beans because I am dying to try out the espresso fragrance. I wanted to add some crushed beans as an exfoliate (??) and pop a bean in the top of the soap just for fun.

Jeff made a bit of a start on cutting up the tree – just waiting for a decent day to get out and really get our teeth into it.
The ground is super muddy and slippery underfoot – especially in the areas we walk to more often – like to the chook coop.
I am going to collect a lot of the needles from the tree to lay down on those areas. It worked in one spot – time to sort that out before someone falls in the mud!

So did anything gross happen to anyone today?
I put Pip out on his lead for a little while when the sun came out. He was super interested in sniffing one of the crocs (garden shoes) that was out on the back veranda.
I thought maybe a stray cat sprayed??
So – clever me picked it up… (this story doesn’t have a happy ending)
yah… some rotten cat dexterously FILLED the shoe with wee. And I tipped it on myself.
Sometimes country life is just not glamorous!!!

Anyway – you can all stop laughing now.
Fingers crossed tomorrow we get to buy that timber and make a start on the raised beds so I can make the back area look less like a rubbish tip zone!

Hope you all had a super weekend and a great start to this week!
Cheers!

The rocket is going great! This is the lot that has just self seeded from the last plants. I like easy gardening!

While I work out the best way to do the raised beds in the new patch, I got in today to the main veggie patch to sort out a few garden beds.
First, the pumpkin patch.
I pulled apart two of the straw bales that I conditioned but didn’t really plant anything in… I moved the broccoli from one since it was going rather slowly.

Feeding the soil! Lots of lovely worms in it and its all breaking down beautifully. Should help hold back the weeds in spring too.

Onion and leek patch – slow but still sitting up nicely.

I’ve left the silverbeet in (chard) as I want to see if I can get some new seed.

The ravens are still going mad out there – but today I got extra entertainment in the form of the beautiful Black Cockatoos! They were flying overhead and mucking about in the trees yelling their heads off about something!

I keep apologising to them all about taking their lovely trees away!

Slowly getting all the tomatoes out. Untying all the string is the annoying bit. I could cut them but I am being frugal – will run them through the wash and use next season.
The tomatoes went to the chooks. They are going ‘funny’ as they ripen and they don’t taste great anymore. Giving up.

I didn’t mulch this bed, but weeded and pulled out the snow peas at the end of the plot.

I will be pleased when the tree is done then I will have a safe place to put up my garden shed which means all my garden stuff IN ONE PLACE!!

The pear tree got a bit of a prune – just the bits that stuck out making it hard for me to walk by.

Somebody needs a wing clipping!! She flies over the pallet fence, trots around the front yard and then into the garden via the top gate (which we are learning to keep shut now)
No mystery where the tops of my lettuce have gone!!

I found some snow pea seeds on the dead vine… so I’ve put them in the ground in the hothouse to see what happens over winter. You never know your luck right?

The brassicas I put in the hothouse are finally starting to take shape!

And those manky tomatoes I moved the other week into the hothouse? They are starting to look rather nice and get a better colour!

All in all… happy to get some garden jobs done!
I keep saying little by little don’t I?
Two months until spring people! Eek!
Cheers!

Hello!
I hiked 10kms with Jeff yesterday!! I rather felt that in my legs!!
I didn’t get any photos as I was just happy to get up to the top of all the hills!
We are still dithering about the timber for the proposed raised beds. Not a cheap affair so not rushing just yet.

Warrick, the Tree-Guy came back today and cut a lot more off our trees.
Sob.
Nah – its good to keep going with this. Will be happy to have it all done.
Not a lot of huge stuff came down this time. And the added bonus of not double handling it as its all on our property, not out on the highway needing to be moved in!

At least we have a bit of a system going now that we’ve done it once.
If the weather plays nicely we should get through it in a timely manner.

Its amazing the sheer volume of branches up there. Bringing down the last big ones will be a bit scary!
Still… thats for Future Lisa to worry about.

Happy to see all the purple garlic sitting up looking fabulous!

And check it out! Broccoli starting!

I am not sure I should have really done a winter veggie patch, but oh well… its here now.

The cabbage is looking rather nice too so I probably won’t have too many regrets.

I picked some beetroot too and pickled that today. I did it in little square chunks as I was given some home made goats milk feta cheese – and beetroot-feta-rocket salad is fabulous, so I am excited to make some up. (The rocket has reshot so it seems I have plenty of that!)

Pip continues his winter hibernation in stages of five warmed towels per day. Currently curled up under my windcheater because I was too lazy to get back up and re-wrap him in a fresh towel!!
Spoiled much??

Hope your day was wonderful!
Cheers!

Hi!
And the beautiful days roll on!
Back on with the gardening duds and into it.

Wow… at the deeper end I had to remove half a meter of dirt – and rubble and concrete!!
It’s reasonably level now.

I thought this section wouldn’t be as severe…
Ha! Not quite half a metres difference, but not far off it. Still coming across lots of rubble and concrete to slow things up a bit.

I dug up a lot of pegs today. Plastic. And the usual crockery and glass

I was a bit disappointed to finish all that dirt removal and fail to find a marble… then what do I see peeking out of a mountain of dirt?

Yay – new marble!

You know how normal people dig holes??
I dug UP a hole!!
I had just finished leveling the first area and moved up to the second.
Walked back down to see this:

It went down a fair way too! I got a stick and poked it in (This is Australia after all, so I am not silly enough to stick my arm down there!!)

I could have measured the length but that would have been sensible, so below photo from my fingertips to end of stick is how deep I got it down there!!

Nothing grabbed the stick or hissed at me or did anything untoward (slightly disappointed) so I just filled it up with the readily handy dirt and moved on to the top section.

I’ve created a building site.

All that rubble and concrete is going to go ‘down the hole’ (the not-septic-hole) but by the time I was finished this afternoon I was done in. I had no intentions of picking all that up today!!
I had to save my strength to top up on the nights firewood!

I think the rounded thing on left of photo above might be the septic pipe… Didn’t dig further to investigate haha (Call me boring…)
So! Tomorrow I can trot down to the hardware shop and see about getting some timber!
I’ve decided that we need to build these raised beds first and fill them so they are nice and stable then I can build onto them, back fill up to them and complete the rest of the garden.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll take a break from digging 🙂

Hope your day was great!
Cheers

A new day in the garden… & a new marble! 🙂

Yesterday was a bit of a run about day – then finished up by photographing my young cousin all dressed up for her school leavers dinner.
She looked gorgeous – but I forgot to ask if I could pop a photo on here, so you’ll just have to imagine the blue sparkly dress for now 🙂

So… today – another stunner of a winters day! Back to my digging.

I progressed to the end of the strip! Then I was all fired up keen to get both ends level. One half will be higher than the other but I have limits on how much dirt I want to shovel out.
Finding concrete put a bit of a go-slow on my plans.

Yay. (not)
Back out with the sledgehammer.

It was probably an old path. Its pretty thick too!
I am not sure how much I will remove – the lower part I have to remove all of it because that section of raised bed has to be dug out lower to get it level as I am not really interested in building a retaining wall.
The section between the two stakes on the left is going to be open as a path so it might not be nec. to remove. Not sure yet. The raised bed on the upper side doesn’t have to be dug as deep to level out so again… I might not have to get that bit out either!

Now that all the matted grass and concrete is up in this section, I should be able to level off the area for this raised bed. Tomorrow. (That is if the weather keeps up with this magnificence!)

I dug up a LOT of ‘stuff’ today. Above is the selection of the more interesting bits. Mostly it was a lot of glass. Still waiting on coinage or jewellry… 😀

I also dug up a lot of curl grubs! So I put them into what my niece calls ‘the happy chicken bucket’

The chooks got two lots of these grubs today (and a damaged worm)
Should have heard the happy ‘chuck chuff chuff’ noises they made as the gobbled them up!!

As usual the galahs came in for their afternoon snack too.
So I put some seed in their bowl (which someone knocked off and broke the edge off!!!!)(Not sure whether to blame chooks or possums.)

Eventually I had to come in.
Was pretty pleased with dinner tonight.
All home grown veggies, with lamb chops that I got yesterday – swapped for my BBQ Sauce (How fab is that??) along with my home made relish and home made garlic salt.
The lamb chops – from a local farm – were divine!! Lucky us!

Hope you’ve had a great day too!
Cheers

What a lovely winters day!!
Even Pip was enjoying rolling about in the sunshine!

Time to get cracking on this slightly ambitious garden idea.
First, removing the rocks, bridge and cement edging.

I quite like the bulked up wall here now haha.

This huge piece of timber along the steps was NOT going to come quietly!
In the end I had to whack it with the sledge hammer.
Satisfying.

Jeff helped me get out the cement edging and then assisted with marking out the whole area.

I got slightly further than pictured with the grass removal from the bottom future raised beds area.
Clearly I have a lot of digging to do and a vast amount of leveling.

The sloping angles are not going to be my friend… But hopefully will be worth the effort in the end.
Jeff thinks I am mad for starting this now.
Oh well… keeps me off the streets. 🙂

As usual… dug up a fair bit of ‘archaeology’
I think the marble was the best find. (Still waiting to dig up something significant one day)

Eventually the chill of the late afternoon drove me to finish up.
There were still chooks to feed (and the galahs), had to top up the firewood for the night and sort out dinner. (Not to mention a bit of a sit down and a hot chocolate followed by a blissful shower!)

Hope your day was full of sunshine too!
Cheers

Endless criss crossing of tracks in this area!
It was chilly but mostly sunny so we got out for another walk.

I made a point today of collecting a whole heap of rubbish photos (not that I am sharing here because its too depressing) and at some point I might annoy the council about it.

I wish we still had the deposit returned on cans and bottles. Even if it didn’t stop cretins from throwing them out on the sides of roads, at least there would be groups of kids/clubs collecting them to raise money.

We came across one site that had a household lot dumped. Fish tank (broken) microwave, carpet, car jack, chairs, a naked headless Barbie… Half of it had been set on fire too. Trying to imagine how people think this is ok!

The steeper roads/tracks were a bit slippery still but mostly the going was ok – we did a bit over 6km again and worked up a fair sweat getting back up the main hills! Steep as!!!

The pine plantation areas often have a number of great fungi… mostly they are about done but we spotted a few.

I love these ones (Amanita muscaria ) Straight out of a fairy tale book.

And speaking of fairy tales – how cool is this?? A fairy ring!! I have never actually seen one before.
Did anyone else read about them in childrens fairy tales?

This one was made up of the coral fungi. I was careful not to step inside it as I didn’t have time to be kidnapped by pixies today.

I didn’t get much done in the yard today. I did clean the fireplace out and put the ash on the second Hugelkultur bed – and topped both beds with some of the cow poo. It was like icing a cake with a shovel… didn’t smell as good though! 🙂 😀

Oh – and in very exciting news, my main soap supplies arrived today! Lots of moulds, dyes and fragrances!!
Nearly got everything now!! Can’t wait to get making some more soap!!

Have a lovely day!
Cheers