Spring

One of the things I've found about growing your own veges is that even when there's not much ready to be picked , it's usually enough. It's a gift to be able to walk outside to the garden and pick fresh just what I want to use tonight. We"ll be having the peas and potatoes with dinner, and the eggs for breakfast.I used the last of my basil to make some pesto today as well as cooked a couple of cakes for the freezer and made some Vegemite and cheese scrolls. It was so good to get back into the kitchen and garden. An assignment I've had to do has consumed me  - thank goodness its all wrapped up and finished. There's not enough hours in the day sometimes.

        

  I've just started getting organised with planting seeds. Thank heavens the little greenhouse has magical powers, lol,  as everything grows at a crazy rate in there, so it won't be long before the summer veges are up and running.

Spring has arrived here in the valley; lovely temperatures in the high teens/low 20's last week and mid to high 20's in the week coming up. Woo hoo! The blueberry tree has to be netted this week as the berries will begin to turn soon and I'd rather WE enjoy the fruit than that awful bird that stripped the tree bare in the first two days when we moved here. I think I only got half a dozen blueberries last year!

The fruit trees were fed today and the gardens fertilized and watered well. The garlic has gone mad; I didn't lose a plant so I'll probably have more than enough for us and some to give away.I really want to ramp up the amount of herbs I have in; I love cooking with them but have stopped buying them from supermarkets. I think I've mentioned before the farm-gate shop about 15 minutes from here. You can buy fresh seasonal veges, fruit, milk, butter, cream and yummy preserves and you can go into their herb garden and just pick what you want.
That's the thing though, if you want fresh and best buy seasonal. I still get annoyed when I see cherries in the middle of the year and refuse to buy them. We can think we're lucky and spoiled for choice because we can buy anything at any time of the year but the price we pay is its usually sub-standard produce with very little taste; not to mention the flow on effect it has on our own farmers when the fruit/ veges are imported.

I'm trying to get us to a place where anything we have to buy is fresh and local. For instance, I love strawberries but there is a guy who grows them en masse here and he lets you pick your own. To me that's ideal - its lovely fruit, I don't have to do the work with them and so can put something else in that garden and I'm supporting a local industry. It's a win win!!!!!

Happy Birthday to me ......and everyone

What a busy time it is at the moment. My birthday just gone, my youngest sons next weekend, Fathers day the following Sunday, the next day is my daughters birthday and the day after hers is my eldest sons partners birthday!!!! Oh and in case we get a little complacent - Christmas is just around the corner lol.

A few weeks ago Kim and I went to lunch in a little village not far from here. It has a lot of yummy eateries and trendy little boutique shops; just right for a weekend browse. We wandered up a tucked away alley and I saw the most beautiful set of wrought iron gates. About 2 metres at their highest point, they just looked like they should be opened to lead to some place very special. I told Kim we need to build a secret garden in the back corner where the folly is and these gates could be at the beginning of the path.

We've decided to run with the secret garden idea; enclosing it about with a bird-friendly hedge. The path will be extended so it goes to different areas in the garden with plantings so that it disappears and reappears making a few small "rooms". I thought we could cover the path in glass bits; I don't know what its called; but it's smashed up glass that's been tumbled so there are no sharp edges. It looks really pretty in the sunlight and will add just the right look in the "secret garden" :) Amazing just how an idea can grow! Unbeknownst to me, when I had gone into town to have lunch with a couple of friends for my birthday, Kim had woken up Mark who was on night-shift and they hooked on the trailer and went into the village to buy me the gates!!!! Evidently they had it all planned and were waiting for me to leave. Not the first time they have done some sneaky planning! I had asked for a pink wheelbarrow for my birthday (the one we have is huge and I have trouble pushing it when its full) so got the shock of my life to find the gates leaning against the shed when they led me outside on my birthday! Bless their little cotton socks - they carried the gates down to the folly and stood them in place so I could see how they looked in situ. :)  I was very spoilt by family and friends but the best bit was hanging out with everyone.

 Tonight we'll be making our choices from the Geenpatch catalogue for our spring plantings. Time to get moving. I can't wait to get the seeds in and get sorted for the summer. Here's hoping it won't be as wet as our winter!

       

A Magic Moment.

This morning as I walked onto the deck on my way to the clothes line (yes the sun was shining.....woo hoo) a rainbow lorikeet landed not 6 feet away. I stopped in my tracks so as to not scare it and it gave a little tweet and waddled toward me, chattering away, seemingly unafraid. Sadly the dog spotted it through the window, barked and scared it off. But that brief moment was such an unexpected gift. 
     

How many wonderful things there are to be grateful for in this world?! How many unexpected gifts however brief?!

Today I'm glad about : lunch with my dear friend Heather. She's funny and caring, honest and wise and my life is better for knowing her.

                                 : the sun shining so I got all my washing dry. (gotta lurve that sun!!!!!!!!)

                                 : talking to my husband and each of my 3 children. There are not enough words to say how much I love and admire them.

                                 

                                 : flannelette sheets. :)

Actually the list is pretty well endless, now I think about it. An attitude of gratitude is a handy thing to have.

And an occasional magic moment with a rainbow lorikeet helps too. 

And Again.

And still it rains; with an occasional little peep through by the sun (VERY occasional!) I have to go into town today for a hair appointment and am not looking forward to it at all. The council has been doing road works all over the place and with the torrential rain there are holes everywhere!

A little taste of sunshine this morning.

So pottering about in the kitchen and checking the girls haven't drowned in the coop; that's about the sum total of my days at the moment. Feet up in front of a fire of a night. Very quiet here in Eden. :)

 PEANUT BUTTER CUPCAKES.

90 g butter

1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter

1 1/2 cups brown sugar, lightly packed

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

2 eggs

2 cups S.R. flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

Grease a muffin tray and set oven at 190c. Beat butter and peanut butter together, then gradually add sugar and beat until light. Stir in the vanilla, then the eggs one at a time. Sift the flour with the salt and add alternately with the milk. Spoon into the tins, filling half full, and bake for 20minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Makes about 24.

WET, WET,WET.

Oh well ,what the heck, lets have some more rain. We've had enough of the mild, warm winter days. NOT!!!!

Standard uniform on the east coast.

Its a horrible night; cold, windy and wet but we're tucked up inside with the fire going. I was complaining about how it seems to be getting colder instead of warming up. Mark says his dad always use to say "When the days lengthen, the cold strengthens."  I've never heard that saying but it certainly seems to be true at the moment.

The next day.

Well was going to play hell with a stick this weekend, but i'm flat on my back with a bulging disc so that puts paid to all my plans! This will be ,by necessity, a very short post; I'm typing 1 fingered, right handed and laying down. lol - not the easiest thing to do!

I'd like to say I will use this time for deep thinking and musings........perhaps I will. At the moment I'm just tired, sore and bored out of my brain! :)

Thursday.

Had a wonderful few days away in Mudgee seeing where Jordan lives now. What a beautiful place! Quite cold in the morning - brrrrr - ; Jord must be becoming acclimatized though because it doesn't bother him too much and he's always been a cold frog. We're looking forward to going back again, its a very historic area as well as having some very fine vineyards. :)
                                     
Well the rain has stopped for a while. The ground is starting to dry out a little though there are places around that are still quite soggy underfoot. There's not much one can do outside when its pouring but we aim to take advantage of the sunny days we're having at the moment. I can hear a ride-on somewhere close by so someone else is getting to work as well.

I picked the first few sugar-peas a couple of days ago  - and ate them immediately lol. Is there anything better than picking something and eating it there and then? The first lot of potatoes are up and the rest of the veges are struggling on with wet feet. :) The gardens have been pretty water-logged but being raised beds they don't stay too soggy.We were flooded in for a day or two last week; Kim wasn't able to get to work. It went down fairly quickly but the roads are a mess with pot-holes everywhere.

                                     The first wattle in flower on the property.

                                      Bon's favourite place on cold days.
                         The rug in family room is a nice place to catch the sun.

I'm off to bring up some wood for the fire tonight. We're expecting a lot more rain next week so it will pay to get a fair bit up close to the house and under cover. A bit of grocery shopping at some stage, housework and a recipe for ciabatta bread (which I love!) that's been waiting to be tested. I'll give it a go to have with dinner tonight.

I'm really looking forward to the week-end. Kim and I are whipping out to the vineyards to pick up a special present; Jordan will be home; Scott and Rae will be dropping in as well. Sadly Mark will be at work through the day but gets home around 8pm so we'll see him at least. I'm going to do a bit of painting over the week-end too. Lol - no not walls; watercolour. I haven't picked up a brush since we moved here and I miss it so much - so this week-end I've given myself permission to do what I want - painting it is!!!!