Olive Trees taste good, so does rabbit!

 One morning last week, I looked out of the window and spotted our neighbour's sheep in what I thought was his paddock. I could see the new baby lambs and went out to take a photograph. As I got closer, I saw they were actually on OUR side of the fence! (must need new glasses!) AND they were happily nibbling on the newly planted olive trees. Frans and I chased them back to the other side. They didn't even notice the electric fence! Our grass and trees are obviously better as they have visited a number of times over the past few days. We have also noticed that the trees have been gnawed along the stems. Rabbits! Tell tale droppings have confirmed that we have too many nightly visitors that are helping themselves to our trees. I've since wrapped strips off cut up feed sacks around the stems to hopefully stop the damage.

These little babies are twins. They play and jump around the paddock. So lovely to watch.

So back to the rabbits...

Well, two of them are going to be pie!

Frans has learned to skin and gut a rabbit in quick time. They get left to hang overnight and then I get the job of cutting it up. No point in being squeamish! It's food. Delicious, low food miles, and free! And don't worry, those t.towels are not for kitchen use!

I jointed the carcasses, and layered them between baking paper and popped them in a zip lock bag (my favourite kitchen helper!) There was 2.5kgs of meat. This will provide us with a family feast when we next have an big group of visitors!

We're coming to the end of our Summer and Autumn veggies. I pulled up a big basket of beetroot this week. We had a delicious vegetable lasagne with home grown veggies and home made ricotta cheese. 

My brother Lionel visited us for a night (quick visit!) and I shoved a big fat free range chook into the wood oven. The stove has been burning 24/7 for a couple of weeks. Many pails of wood will be hauled into the kitchen in the next few months. There's something about the warmth in the kitchen that a wood stove pumps out. It says 'home'!

One of the last chores for the season is seed gathering. I'm drying dill seeds in these packets. I pick the drying flowers, bunch a few together and put them 'face down' into a brown paper bag. I leave them for a couple of weeks then make myself a cup of tea and sit outside in the sun and wriggle all the little dried seeds from the flower heads. I will use the seeds to grow more dill next spring, but even better, I have a big spice jar full of these aromatic seeds. They are delicious sprinkled in a potato salad, fish or in a salad dressing. 

The sunflowers are also coming to the end of their splendour. I've cut the heads off the stalks and will dry them. Then it will be another cup of tea in the sun activity... breaking the seeds apart. Some will go into seed bags for next season, and the rest will be given to the chooks. They LOVE the seeds!

There are so many different varieties and sizes of sunflowers! This is a BIG one. Can't remember the name, but the stalk grows to over 2m!

In between working in the yard or the kitchen, I'm madly working on Sara and Stephen's wedding quilt. It's not going to be finished on the day, but I'm hoping the top will be done. I am making it all by hand. I started off doing all the hexagons myself. Since I began, I've had a few helpers which has been great. There are a few local friends who are adding their workmanship to the quilt, as well as my Brisbane friend Michelle Steel who made a huge pile of these little babies! I lay all the completed 'blocks' out on the tables at the Saturday Birregurra Sewing day. It has grown since this pic was taken. I have a few more to go.... 

A close up of the blocks. Sara chose the fabrics. I love the retro feel the quilt is taking on. Here you can see where she played with the fabrics and also some ideas of what the finished quilt will look like! 

And so it seems that no week is complete without a little tractor action! We bought some hay last week and our good neighbour Graham moved it to where we wanted it. 

And you can see Frans directing the traffic here.... And you see that pole just to  the right? Well it is no longer there! Didn't need it anyway Frans said....

And a beautiful sight as I say goodbye this week...

We had visitors a few days ago. Three magnificent peacocks. Well, one peacock and his two hens. They wandered away from Graham's place and found that our shed roof was a cool place to view the world from. An hour or so with 4 people  chasing them around our yard, we finally got them back where they belonged. 

Have a great week!

Slow winter days....

Now that we are in the grip of an Otway Winter, we're taking it a little slower on the farm. Most days it rains. And it's cold. The lawns don't need as much mowing. The garden is dying back. However, some chores are ramped up. Frans is hand feeding the cows twice a day. He started off by rolling a large bale of hay into the paddock to let the cows graze as they would. But they made such a mess of it. They dragged the hay all over the place and pooped in it and then didn't eat it. So he has resorted to eeking it out to them in managable chunks. At $45 a roll of hay, we can't afford for it to become paddock mulch. It is more cost effective this way!  More time consuming, but then again, he's getting up close and personal with the girls every day. They are now less shy and will eat out of your hand.

Early morning mist. This is the view looking down our driveway towards the front gate.

Frost!

The cows in the top paddock. Early morning. Cold and frosty.

Looking down the long end of the property. The dam is full. We have had a LOT of rain.

 In a couple of previous posts I've waxed lyrical about our Rayburn wood fire stove in the kitchen. We lit it at the begining of June and it kept going for over a month. I had a little trouble regulating the heat in the oven. Usually it got too hot so I would open the door. But we then noticed that some of the fire bricks that line the inside cavity where the fire gets lit were cracked. Some had chipped and even broken. Then one morning a we found a big chunk of brick had collapsed into the fire well. We had no choice but to let the stove die down so we could investigate. What Frans discovered was not good. Most of the bricks were damaged. This could account for the irregular oven temperatures and the fact that he would get up most nights around 2am to add another log to the fire to keep it burning. We needed to replace the bricks.

Firstly Frans had to source a new set of bricks. A local business could order them for us. It would take a week. Mind you, these bricks only had to come a few hundred kilometers. I ordered something from Holland and received it in 4 days! But we won't do there. He removed the old bricks. Cement dust and ash floated around the kitchen. Once the bricks arrived, they were laid out on the bench to work out their placements. When I say bricks, I don't mean the square things you build a house with. These are funny shaped pieces of fired clay that fit into each other. There is an order to remove the old ones, and an order to replace the new ones by. Each brick had to be cemented with air dry cement. Then the entire fire chamber had to be sealed. Frans is meticulous, so this task was long and laborious. But it was finally done. He then took another trip to town to get the fibreglass rope that sits around the opening on the top of the stove. We waited 24 hours for the cement to dry then he lit a small fire in the oven to aid the drying process. We'll light the fire properly this afternoon, and if all goes well, we'll be cooking dinner on it tonight. A side benefit of all this messing about was that the electric stove was moved out of the way. We could clean behind it and as a bonus we found an old spoon lying between the cobwebs and dust bunnies! To be honest, I never move the stove. Maybe I should do so more often!

I missed my regular post last week. I wasn't feeling too crash hot. So I took to my bed. No, I didn't. I just wanted to say that. Instead I did do a bit of knitting. I wanted to get a move on Frans' jumper. I thought it would be a good idea to get it completed before winter ends. It turned out ok. He's happy with it which is the main thing. There were so many changes to the original pattern, but hey, it finished!

Is that a chocolate roll??? Mmm.. no, probably just the shirt underneath...

The back. One thing that really annoys me is when you knit with a good yarn and you're half way through a row and there's a join! Aaagghhh!

Between the rain and gloomy weather, I made it into the garden to start pruning the roses. I'm doing a dry run this year to see what flowers are going to be blooming at the end of October. I've pruned half my roses. The second half will get their chop at the end of the month. I've planted loads of bulbs and will see when they bloom. For Sara and Stephen's wedding next year, we are going to grow our own flowers. So this is the run up to see what we'll have at the end of October. We have a lovely neighbour who lives on a farm down the road. She's a keen gardener and has over 600 roses! I thought I had a lot to prune with my 60 odd plants. She has kindly offered her garden to us for the wedding flowers as well. So we have a back up! Peonies. We want to grow them too. They will have to be purchesed as root stocks and be planted in the next month or so.

This round garden bed looks lovely when all the roses are blooming. Now it's pretty ordinary.

And I'll leave you this week with a little piece of Australia! Our neighbour Graham looks after a few farms around the district. He told Frans that on one of the farms there is an old kangaroo buck that gets into one of the paddocks and then can't get out. He's big. Very big! He can't get under the fence and he's too old to jump over it. He usually hangs around in the paddock for a few days till he gets enough umph to jump over the fence again. So a couple of Sundays back Graham came over and told Frans to get his camera. The buck was in the paddock. So off they went to find him.

And this week it was Nala's birthday. She turned 14. I gave her a delicious lamb bone which she burried and dug up a number of times during the day. She charged around the yard with the energy of a two year old. Then she collapsed in front of the fire! I did have to wash her face before she came inside! This is a 'before' the end of the day shot!

Till next time.... Ooroo!

Birthday week!

Well, I didn't do much last week. It was my birthday you see. Being outside was not an option as it was cold and wet. In fact, some days it was raining sideways! Our paddocks are already sodden. Good for the pasture. 

Back to my birthday... I was spoiled! Frans cooked a delicious dinner for me. We had our friends John and Norma around to share his culinary efforts. Jamie Oliver to the rescue! We had rolled fillet of beef wrapped in herbs, mushrooms and proscuitto, served with roast potatoes and creamed spinach. And I have to add, that he cooked this meal on the wood fire stove. Genius! Norma provided dessert. Wonderful sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce. Not a calorie in sight of course! Thanks to everyone who called, emailed, FB'd and sent cards! Half way through the day a little car drove down the driveway and a lady hopped out with a big basket of beautiful flowers. What a lovely surprise. Thanks Sara and Stephen! Sara gave me the cutest little egg cosy; the little chick below, and the sweetest little heart pins. I put them to use immediately to block a woollen jumper that I'd finished for myself.  My dear mother in law, Riet, sent me a surprise box. It was filled with old wooden cotton reels. What fun!

Frans loves his biscuits. Last night he opened a packet of Tim Tams. It felt rather light when I picked it up. He assured me he'd only had a couple. Try six! He also loves Anzacs. I make them for him often. I thought I'd make something different last week. Sara has been talking about peanut butter cookies for a while so I gave them a whirl. Mmmm...... my efforts are visible below. I'm not fond of making sweet stuff. Can you tell?!



I've just completed a couple of knitting projects. This one is for me. Pattern can be found on Ravelry. I liked this pattern as it stated it was 'made to fit a grown-ass woman'! My kind of pattern!  

Another little project that has just come off the needles is this little jacket below. Another Ravelry project. If you're a knitter or love to crochet, then this site has oodles of great projects. Many of them are free. Patterns are simply downloaded. I'm not sure who is going to get this one yet... 

My next knitting project is a jumper for Frans. He's been asking me for ages to knit him one. My objection has been the long sleeves I'd have to knit! However, I gave in. The yarn was purchased.  I had been collecting mens jumper patterns from everywhere thinking one of them would be fine. But he is a fussy man!Didn't like the rib on one, didn't like the collar on another. These sleeves are too 'floppy', these shoulders too droopy! Oh boy. We finally decided on a pattern. I am now knitting at every opportunity to get this one done. 'Man' knitting takes a lot longer! Here is the pattern.

Knitting in the car. This is the main road going through Colac. As you can see it's very busy! Not...

And now for the next BIG project. I offered to make Sara and Stephen a wedding quilt. I took her to a lovely quilt shop in Melbourne. Actually, it's my favourite shop. It's called Patchwork on Central Park in Malvern. Sara spotted a quilt that Lyn had on display. Of course she fell in love with one that is going to take a long time to make! Below are some images I gleaned from the internet of English paper pieced quilts made with a diamond shape. I don't know who made them unfortunately. But arn't they stunning? This is what she wants. Just as well I have a year to make it!

While we were at the store we picked out a bunch of lovely fabrics. I ordered the papers from Brigitte Giblin who does beautiful stuff with paper piecing. The papers are 1". Slightly smaller than the images of the quilts above.  

Here are just some of the lovely fabrics Sara picked out. She doesn't want the quilt to be too 'girlie'. So there are some blokey designs scattered amoungst the fabrics.

Sara had fun grouping her fabrics and sorting them by colour.

The sun is shining today. The garden is calling. Have a good week, what's left of it!

Last week of Autumn and what we got up to...

In a small country hall a little way from us, a couple of friends and I, (Norma and Wendy) took ourselves off to the Great Australian Morning Tea a week or so ago. This is an annual fundraiser held all over Australia to raise money for breast cancer research.

A welcome sign at the door. A gold coin donation was the entrance fee.

What a spread was waiting inside the hall! The country ladies of Irrewillepe had outdone themselves. Besides the lovely cakes and sandwiches, there were beautiful quilts to admire. A table groaning with cakes, preserves and farm veggies was tucked in a corner of the hall. No-one left without a bag of goodies. Lucky door prize time and Norma picked up a huge hamper of Natio products. I won a prize too. A bottle of wine. Nice.

Crafty stuff

I've been experimenting with empty feed sacks lately. They make great shopping bags. They are tough, waterproof and rather nice. Well, I think so anyway. I will be putting them up on our Etsy store in the next day or so. In the mean time I'll share some of the styles with you. Let me say, getting photos of the bags in the back yard with the chooks as props is not easy. A chicken doesn't know about posing in a shot, so I had to be quick!

Horse bag. I have these in red/grey and also a gree/grey version. No, we don't have a horse. I was given these bags by a friend.

This one is my favourite.

If you want to add a touch of 'country' to your city shopping experience, then you need one of these bags! I can promise you that you will receive may compliments! I use one for my library books and I always get comments, good ones of course, when I use it. How much you ask? $15 plus a few bucks for postage. For this you get an upcycled bag that gets a new lease of life!  

And now for a lesson in farm reproduction....

While I was out being a photographer/stylist, the farm animals were doing their thing. In particular, the ducks. I have to say that duck sex is not pretty! The drake is aggressive and the poor duck literally just lies there while he hammers her head with his beak, pokes at her eyes and generally beats her into submission! What will the outcome be? Fertilised eggs we hope! I'll keep you posted.

Pumpkins

This past week I harvested pumkins. I've learned that a basket of pumpkins requires a huge growing space. Valuable vegetable patch real estate. Will I grow them again next season? Definitely. I grew two varieties. Butternut and Italian Zucca. However, the Zucca seeds have given me two different varieties in one packet. The round green ones and the oblong ones. The vegetable bed looks quite sad in this dying state. But this is exactly what it has to look like before you pick pumpkins.

I'll be making soup and roasting these babies!

After pulling out all the spent vines, I then dug over the long veggie patch. You may not get as excited as I was, but looking at this soil makes me smile. There are lots of earth worms in it. A good indication that the soil biology is healthy.

The bed on the left has been planted with a few different veggies. Turnips, parsnips, carrots, beetroot, brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, broad beans and some garlic.

The bed on the right is where the pumpkins were. The soil is ready for the next round of planting. It's going to be.... GARLIC! Lots of it!  

I received another 5kgs of garlic from Kym at Farm with a Future. I spent a few hours separating the cloves in each bulb. I'm not sure if there's an easier way, but by the end of separating nearly 2000 cloves, my fingers were sore and ponged! I planted around 650 cloves in the left garden bed (shown above). My back and legs were a tad sore by the end of that little excersize! And I've still got another 1600 to go. We've got some visitors coming for the weekend this coming long weekend.......

Visit to the big smoke...

This week I also visited Sara in Melbourne for a couple of days. She had some hospital appointments so I took her. I know the way by now. Our first appointment with her specialist was rather stressful. I missed a turn and ended up in a long line of traffic going the opposited direction to where we had to go. I was driving Sara's little Yaris which is a manual. I can drive a manual. Well, I used to be able. So you can imagine how many times I stalled, restarted and waved hands of apology to cars around me. I decided to do a 'U' turn in the middle of the traffic as there was a little gap in the centre island. Big mistake. I misjudged the turning circle of the little white smartie and ended up having to do a 20 point turn, scraping the bottom mud guard at every turn. So I feel I have now gone through a right of passage to get us to the hospital without ending up in Sydney! Sara's tests went well. She has another specialist appointment later this month.

While I was in Melbourne, we took the opportunity to have breakfast 'out'. We ate at a lovely little place called Porgie and Mr Jones in Hawthorne. Best coffee I've had in ages. So I had two. My breakfast was folded scrambled eggs with holy goat fetta, and Sara had Swiss cheese melt with kassundi. Delish. The service was good and I'd go back anytime. We parked around the corner and I couldn't resist taking a few pics of the cute little houses that line the tree lined street.

And look what I bought while I was in Melbourne.... the cute little Tony Biaco flats on the right. Op shoping is the way to go! $5 for my new shoes. I also bought a pair of gum boots for the farm. Yes, I like red shoes!

Free stuff is good stuff!

A couple of weeks ago Frans and I went to the council in Colac to find out where we could get free mulch. We'd heard that the council had a spot where you could go and get this stuff. Why pay for it if you can get it for nothing! Well, they didn't have any. They suggested we stop and ask a truck driver when we saw the tree loppers chopping branches or trees. Mmm.... ok. Then as luck would have it, the power company came to our neck of the woods. They do an anual pruning of trees close to power lines. We happened to have some trees on our fence line (on the council side) that had to be cut down. Good wood too! Frans was determined that we would get some of this good stuff. The rules have changed in Victoria and you can now gather wood from the side of the road. Frans didn't want anyone else to get 'our' wood! So once the trees were down, he and I drove down into the paddock with the trailer and set to cutting up the logs with a chain saw. Now bear in mind I remained in the paddock, while Frans climbed over the fence to the road side to do the demolition work. A fence. Electric. As he sawed through tree trunks and branches, he would pass the bits over to me. Of course it goes without saying that a couple of times I leaned a little too close to the fence. And yes, ZAP! Electric shocks aside, we were happy with our haul. The next day, the power company boys were back with huge chipper. They proceeded to mulch the branches that they'd cut. And guess what! Yep, we got all that lovely mulch. They backed the truck down the driveway and dumped it beside the willow tree. Lovely free, sweet smelling mulch!

And finally...... Winter has arrived! I lit the Rayburn last night for the first time this year. I have given myself a rule. If I light the wood stove, then I can't use the electric one. So I cooked a roast chicken dinner in the wood stove. It was delicious! Today a pot will go on the top to get a hearty country soup going. It's raining outside. Perfect wintery weather for staying indoors.

Have a wonderful week!