warmer weather..

1:16 AM 2013, pollution, spring, water No Comments

The warmer weather has continued, with a brief interruption for a cold burst to remind if of winter.  It has started to dry out a little now. to be expected over winter but strange after seemingly endless rain since late January.

Don't drink the water !

A trip recently to Brisbane to visit my mother reminded me of the "weirdness" of urban living

what what what .... what ?

The pollution makes the rainwater unfit for drinking, never mind breathing it in every day... I guess you get used to the smell. not sure how good it is for you though with recent reports having "invisible" pollution linked to asthma and autism development, I guess a good enough reason not to drink it ?

Early spring ?

The flowers are still flowering, with native bees everywhere, working...  like bees I guess !

Rocket flower with native bees

the parsley is doing well

Parsley in the herb garden

Strawberries are on the table regularly for breakfast

but the pests start to come out, the Cabbage Moths are out 'n about

but the birds are fluttering

Azure Kingfisher

Iconically Australian !

Female Satin Bowerbird raiding the Cherry Guava Tree

The garden is in it's winter phase but still productive, we; wary of this early spring and have held off a little in case the recent cold snap is repeated

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New things

12:11 PM 2013, cooking, damper, garden, sorrel No Comments

Damper

We were doing some burning off the other day and Toni was inspired by our friend Steve, the "Damper Guru", to try her first.  So off she went, and made a savory Damper using her home made cheese and some garlic.

Damper

It went down a treat with her home made sweet corn soup, done on the top of the wood heater

Home made Sweet Corn Soup (cinnamon scrolls and bread proving at the same time)

Sorrel

Always learning. For the longest time we didn't really know what this was

Sorrel in the garden

It's always been there in the garden, turns out it was Sorrel, who knew ? Not us.. until now !

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time for an update

7:56 PM 2013, cheese making, cooking No Comments

Bloosoms

the winter so far has been fairly warm and the fist of the buds are out for the Peaches

Peach blossoms

Nectarines and Apples

Apple Blossoms

The Apples have never been particularly successful, I am told our "monsoon" weather pattern is the main reason, that is, wet summers and drier winters.  We'll see how they go this year as we've had a wetter than normal, albeit mild winter.

Weeds

For those interested in edible and useful "weeds" we came across this a few months ago

We've found a couple of the weeds mentioned and plan to use some in various salads etc

Dock, found growing in the Orchard

You can get a copy here if you're interested.  Interesting book.  We just wish we could find something on Fungi, as we have so many varieties on our property with no real idea as to which ones are edible.  Anyone know of a foragers guide to Fungi in Australia ?

Cheese...

is going great,

Freshly made Feta

Feta and Ricotta only at the moment. Neufchâtel is the next cheese to try.  You can read more about the great cheese factory here.  It sells well when Toni takes it to the Farmers Market and overall the feedback has been positive.  After watching her idol Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on River Cottage the other night, now she wants her own Cow... mmmm

Baking

Cinnamon Scrolls

Just before going in the oven

 were recently added to the home baked menu, love 'em !

Breads and Scrolls proving near the fire

Stored in the freezer, they are easily reheated over the fire in a small metal pan.  No Gas or electricity (even though we're 100% renewable) needed !

In fact, I am off to heat one now !  Ooo 'roo !

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Autumn is in the air

9:16 PM 2013, autum, butterfly, citrus, lantana No Comments

Autumn is in the air

We went for a quick drive up the range to Armidale check out the colours of Autumn  coming from tropical northern Australia I still find the colours gorgeous.  A couple of the photo;s are in the slideshow below.

Lantana

We suffer this weed as does everyone locally as well as lots of Australia.  So we have been spending 3 hours a day every second day for a couple weeks now on a binge to clear it.  Hard work, as we're clearing manually

Toni beside a pile of cleared lantana

Citrus

Is starting to come on, the small Silverhill Mandarin always seems prolific for such a small tree and it;s early fruiting, so they are all eaten first.  The Mandarin in the chook yard

Mandarin

and the Tangello in the chook yard

Tangello

are doing really well and we have just started to eat them, the Kumquat's will go into Marmalade.  They are supposed to b e an edible variety but you would have to be starving before eating them.

Kumquat

Butterflies

There are currently dozens of Black Jezebel butterflies swarming over the Bottlebrush flowers, gorgeous little butterfly

Black Jezebel Butterfly

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Superfixerupper Man !

10:47 PM 2013, repair, reuse No Comments

One broken spring cake form pan surround

but why do we need to fix it... because it destroys cakes ! ahhhhhhhhh save us !

Ahh, what shall we do ? I know, lets call Superfixeruper Man.. he will save us

First things first, he needs to replace that shitty Husquvarna Cap but no time right now

Superfixerupper Man gets on the Batphone and calls up Private Pop Rivet and Major Makita.  We need your help guys, the World is going to rack and ruin 'cause people keep throwing their stuff out.. we're drowning in an ocean of "stuff"... literally.

All three Super friends meet up at the Fortress of Solitude, with Superfixeruperman doing all the work.. Private Pop Rivet and Major Makita laying around as per usual !

Oh ! you have saved the spring form pan surround, Superfixerupper man, you are my HERO !

and the girls go crazy !

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after the rain

1:15 PM 2013, cooking, garden, tamarillo 1 Comment

After the rain

some minor repairs were needed and a few things didn't survive, most noticeably the recently planted new Tamarillo

Tamarillo seedling went toes up

but our wonderful neighbour Chantel provided us with another, we planted this one up on a large mound in the sweet potato patch to help keep it's roots a little drier. The orchard area can get a little damp with lots of water, which we had ! Thank you so much to our wonderful neighbour

Tamarillio redux. !

Some of the plants of course LOVED the wet, the Orange Jasmine went mad with flowers and it's wonderful perfume wafts through the house

Orange Jasmine

when life give you limes, you make lime cordial

The lime tree has gone into overdrive, producing a huge quantity of fruit, we have sold some and made Lime cordial, with the recipe sourced from Sally Wise's book Life in a Bottle with others but we have way too many.  It's a little sweet for us but previous attempts to make it less sweet (sorry for messing with the recipe Sally !) by using less sugar, ended in the disaster of fermenting cordial !  So we just squeeze more fresh lime juice in, to tone the sweetness down.

We also use them often just cut in 1/2 and squeezed into some cold glass of water.  This  was a favourite drink of ours whilst in Cambodia last year.

Sally Wise's book "Life in a Bottle" + excess Limes = Lime cordial !

Garden

the garden is on the go

Corn coming along

and the chickens are on the grow

Male = meat,  female = eggs

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Wet, wet, wet

7:13 PM 2013, floods, rain No Comments

Wet, wet, wet - January 2013 Floods

Continuing with the musical theme from the last post, wet it was... We copped some 600mm over four days (estimate as the gauge went over the top one day) from the residual of ex-Tropical Cyclone Oswald

Weather Radar Image Capture

We weren't alone though, with much of the Queensland and Northen NSW east coast similarly affected and it was apparently the largest recorded flooding of the Grafton river

The Dam overflowed

Dam, full to capacity

the creek through our property burst it's banks in a couple places and was flowing a torrent

Creek roaring with water

the property suffered some minor damage, mostly driveway erosion and tree-falls

A tree fell and I didn't hear !

though the garden has some damage and the recently planted Tamarillo that was doing really well also decided it was all too much.

and we were flooded in for several days. with the Oakey Ck causeway crossing impassable

Oakey Ck causeway flooded

but the advantage of trying to achieve a modicum degree of self sustainability and living up a slope away from the Nymboida River saw us catch up with our movie watching and book reading.

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