SOLD!

A picture says a thousand words!

Now the fun really begins.... packing!

A for April. A for ACTION!

The pitter patter of tiny feet..... Yes, we have another baby in the family. Well, we call the Eckerts family! Emma and Jed welcomed little Valeenah into the world on the 11th of April in Brisbane. She's absolutely beautiful. Well done Em! No drugs!

Here is a little pair of booties I made to match the two little jackets below.

I'm addicted to the BSJ pattern. It's an all in one knitting project. The stripes add wonderful designs to the jacket. 

The jacket below was crocheted. Quick and very cute! 

To add to the BSJ obsession, I made this little orange sunshine number for my friend Janelle's little grand daughter to be. She's due in a few weeks. 

Summer Harvest - all gone!

These are the last of the tomatoes. Boy, did we get a bumper crop this year! There were also a decent number of zucchinis, spring onions and one lonely cucumber! 

Oh, and let's not forget the small handful of my first batch of potatoes. I need to work on the growing technique. Horse feed bags (from my friend Fi) just didn't give me a big enough harvest. So I'm looking forward to seeing what I can grow in proper garden beds on the farm. 

FARM

Speaking of the farm... Frans and I took a drive down there a couple of weeks ago. On our way home we stopped off at Moriac, a very small Victorian country town. I just loved this ute! No, I won't get one for myself, but it does make you think 'pure Aussie outback'! 

Below is a picture of the farm we DIDN'T buy. It was set on the side of a very steep hill. And smack bang in the middle of the Otways. ie. High fire danger. Very pretty, but not for us.

The view below is a snippet of the Great Ocean Rd. We will be about 20 minutes drive from the sea. Perfect!

And the preparation for moving to the farm continues. Our home is up for auction. It's just a tad stressful! Lots of changes in the Hillege household are happening to make this dream come true.

 

One of the first changes, was getting rid of our old telly and replacing it with a big flash number. We have been wanting a flat screen for ages, but didn't have any reason to buy one as ours was perfectly ok. But, a more modern piece of technology looks better in the big lounge. Hopefully prospective home buyers will think so too! Now we just have to get rid of the old one. They're worth nothing. And you can't drop them off to the charity shops. They don't accept electrical goods. So it will sadly either go the tip or end up stored in a shed on the farm. Just in case... Here Frans is playing with the settings, getting it 'just right'.

And we've started packing. We have hired a storage space to store our boxes and excess furniture. We have decluttered the house and it's looking like a show home. Rather empty..... But that's the way you have to present it. 

And the biggest change this month has been the saddest one.....  Our little bird has flown the nest! Yes, Sara and Stephen have found a lovely old art deco flat close to the city. They moved in last weekend. She's become house proud instantly! It's been such fun watching her find a spot for all her goodies that she's collected over time! 

And some jobs are just better left to the men! Here is Stephen and his crazy mate Johnny, putting the bed together. 

And something to end this post with.... Many years ago, I visited my lovely sister Marie in Pensylvania, USA. She lived in the most beautiful spot on a lovely old farm. I took a walk one day and passed a farm with this really cool sign. I loved it. And I wanted a farm with a sign! Well, we're getting our farm. Now we have to find a suitable name for it. So we're starting to throw around ideas. And my dream is getting closer... I'm hoping to have a groovy sign up by Christmas!

And here is our new farm entrance. It definitely calls for a sign!

Willow Farm? Freedom Valley Farm? New Hope Farm? Hunter's Farm? any ideas?....

What we've been up to!

Well, I've been a little slack on the blogging front the past few weeks. The reason.... we've been busy!

We have been cleaning up our place. Painting, fixing, planting, shining.....

We are selling our lovely home in Melbourne. We're going to auction on the 7th of May.

And this is where we are going:

Gerangamete. In the Otways.

Doesn't this new home look devine? We have always wanted to live in the country. And now we're making the move! It's exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

We hope to be moving to the farm around the begining of August.

Looking back

A few weeks ago my Sister in law, Josie, sent me a disk with some of the Hillege photos. What a treat! So here are the kids of the Hillege clan. Arn't they a handsome group! Back row from left: Hans and Andre'. Front row from left: Lee, Frans, Pauline, Bernie and Josie.

 This was when the Hilleges became South Africans. Back row: Josie, Pauline, Papa, Mama, Hans, Andre' (looks just like his son Chris!). Front row: Lee, Frans (isn't he cute!) and Bernie.

Frans with his little dimple 

Mum Hillege. Doing what was neccessary and what she enjoys.  

Frans on his new trike. The invention of colour film! 

It's fun to look back. How everyone changes, but still stays the same.

Lazy Sundays....

We had the most beautiful weather this past Sunday. Frans and I felt distinctly lazy and spent most of the day on the front deck reading and watching the world go by. The bees were buzzing and the breeze was soft. Nala couldn't even be tempted to chase the neighbourhood dogs as they passed our front gate. She was as lazy as we were!

We DO love sitting out the front.

I read a little fiction, checked out some new recipes and dreamed of travelling again. And just to make sure I didn't waste an entire day doing nothing, I worked on a new little SBJ (Surprise Baby Jacket) for my little friend Emma's baby. The baby is not here yet, but will be in a few short weeks, so I'd better get a move on and finish this little jumper!

I have finished the little quilt I started last week. Here is a close up. I really like it. It's happy and bright. Perfect for Emma's baby girl.

I made a 'Mommy' bag to match. Somewhere to keep the nappy creams, pins etc..

I also finished a little quilt for my friend Janelle's little granddaughter, Lily Joy. She's not here yet either! But I'm getting a move on. So many babies! So many thinkgs to make! So much fun!

Here is a close up of Lily Joy's quilt. She's going to be a little farm girl. So I chose some lovely reproduction blocks to make up this little quilt.

And this is the back.

As you may or may not know, Frans LOVES biscuits. Especially ANZAC biscuits. Whenever he goes to Safeway, he'll come home with batch of their home baked cookies. This morning he showed me a recipe from one of his shooting magazines. So I thought I'd give them a go.

It was really easy...

This is what they looked like after coming out of the oven and cooling down for a bit.

Can you spot the difference? Safeway on the left, Ami on the right. I know which ones I'd prefer to see in my old biscuit tin......

Mine!

And here's the recipe. -Courtesy of Hunter Magazine. (I doubled it and got out 40 reasonably sized biscuits)

Ingredients:

1 Cup plain flour

1 Cup sugar

1 Cup rolled oats

1 Cup coconut

125g butter or margarine

1 tablespoon golden syrup or treacle

2 tablespoons boiling water

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Method:

Mix the first four ingredients in a bowl. Melt butter and golden syrup in a saucepan, add water, then bicarbonate of soda and pour over dry ingredients. Mix well. Roll into small balls (about walnut size) and flatten on oven trays. Leave some room around each biscuit as they will spread a little. Bake at 150deg for 20 mins. Cool on the trays for a few minutes, then remove onto wire racks to cool further.

Tip: If you want crunchy biscuits, then let them cool completely before storing in an airtight container. If you like your biscuits chewy, then place them in an airtight container before they are totally cooled down.

Enjoy with a cup of tea!

Feb flew by fast!

Well we have finally found our rhythm again. It's taken a few weeks to settle back into our every day life! There are chores to be done and fun things to do in the kitchen.

I bottled a batch of onions. There is nothing more delicious than some really sharp cheese and a great pickled onion! Add a slice of home made bread and you have a ploughman's lunch.

I've experimented and bottled some beetroot. I'm not sure if it will be a success. We'll open a bottle in another month or so and give it a taste test. My grandmother used to bottle beetroot. It's one of the memories I have of her. It was delicious.

It rained a lot in February! Melbourne had flash floods. Victoria is flooding. There is water everywhere. Our Summer has been short. February usually has an average of around 8 days where the temperature is over 35 degrees. Well we only had 4 days like this this year.

Lazy Sunday afternoon.....

Our garden has provided us with lovely tomatoes and flowers this Summer. We have picked close to 20kgs of tomatoes. All sizes and varieties. We've eaten Italian bread salad, bruschetta and beautiful salads. I've oven dried a batch of tomatoes too.

Another lovely weekend with our friends John and Norma. This is how we spent a few afternoons... Wine and conversation. Just perfect.

A drive to Warnambool meant we had to stop at a local patchwork shop on the way home. Here the men are waiting patiently for us....

And then we had the 'event'! Stephen was finally getting rid of his lovely locks. He and Sara raised money for the Leukemia Foundation's Shave for a cure charity event. We had a bunch of people over. Got some snags going on the barbie and then the action began.

Stephen has some very supportive mates! They all had a go at shaving his head!

Then Sara got her hair sprayed pink! Here is Johnny. He showed no mercy!

And the final result! A very different looking couple from half an hour before!

Frans and I decided to make some boerewors. South African sausage. What a mission. It takes ages to prep the meat.

The first stage is the mincing. Add all the spices.

Second stage is sending the mince through the skins. And viola! 8kgs of sausage meat.

And then I decided to see what the potatoes were doing in the bag I'd planted them in. Well, as you can see... not much! I have another bag which I'm leaving for a few more weeks. Hopefully I'll get bigger potatoes and maybe a few more! And the garlic... what a sad story.... Three tiny little nuggets! The shallots are better. I have a good harvest of these. And lots of tomatoes. So all in all, this Summer has been fruitful. My friend Sue bottled some lemons and gave me a bottle. Preserved lemons are great in Moroccan cooking. Or in salads. If you havn't tried them, then I'd reccommend you have a go. Delicious!

And finally, I tried my hand again at making my own pasta. I have tried a few times and I've always got myself into a sticky mess. But this time I followed a few rules and the result was SUCCESS! And it tasted good too! It was good to see how the Italian aunts did this. So thanks Zia Lisa and Zia Emelda!

It's amazing what you find when you clean out an old fabric suitcase. I started making quilt squares about 12 years ago when we were living in Brisbane. We had painted Sara's bedroom and I was making a quilt for her bed. But we ended up moving. And the squares were put aside and forgotten about. Well, I pulled them out this week and ironed them. There were enough blocks to make two little baby quilts. So I got stitching again....

The quilt is finished. I'll put up a photo of the finished project next time!