Tychus

This is my sister's partners birthday present. I forgot to give it to him when I saw him over 6 weeks ago - yes I am that slack. I have made one before for Dave, the pattern is easy, quick and looks good. It's from the online knitting mag Knitty, www.knitty.com

Happy to say that he should have it this week, if I remember to pack it! (I did and he did!)

We got worms!

Not the nasty ones! We finally got our composting worms happening now that the frosts are gone (crossing fingers). We don't have a worm blanket so we are using dampened newspapers. Bit exciting.We had to move it a little further back so that the sun is fully off it by 10 am. Thats at the moment, so I will keep an eye on it as summer comes on, dont want fried worms. This iris is in the fairy garden, it is so beautiful. Happily the weeds you can see in the photo are now gone!

Primulas - Dave's favourite
Strawberries are flowerring - go go go!

Cheese & Bacon Puffs

Firstly let me point out that these delicious treats are in no way healthy, however the portion size is small, so working on the 'a little bit of what you like won't hurt you' theory these are okay for treats. Also they are super easy and quick to make. If you like cheese and bacon rolls you will like these as they taste just like the top yummy bit! Mum gave me the recipe and she was given it by Aunty Wilma so its origins are unknown but I imagine its a pretty generic recipe.

Cheese & Bacon Puffs
1/2 cup milk
1 lightly beaten egg
2 cups grated cheese
1 cup diced bacon
1/2 finely diced onion
1 cup SR flour

1 teaspoon mustard

Combine egg, milk in large bowl & mix well. Add cheese, bacon, onion, flour & mustard & mix well. Drop rounded teaspoons of mixture onto baking tray. Cook in hot oven 200 deg for 15 mins or until golden brown. Serve warm or cold.

Yum!

Weeding

When you don't think you have anymore jobs to do - there is always weeding! i spent about three hours today doing just that. All the vegie gardens are done and part of the fairy garden, if i can spend an hour in there after work this week I will be good for at least oh....three or four days!

Remember how I took over the strawberries? Well i'm not bragging or anything (not much anyhow) but not only do they look fabulously healthy but they also have fruit on them! I wonder how long it will take Dave to notice...??

I also planted a small pot of petunias today, I know have a few spotsof colour in the backyard, its manageable and easy to replace and the potz don't need weeding - perfect!

Check!

Another project checked off my list! Ages and ages ago I started this for Wesley as he really likes this video game and it is really hard to make things for a teenage boy that he will actually like! I just have to frame it.

Both my cucumbers and zucchinis are up, with frosts predicted for this week I will have to remember to cover them before I go to bed.

Here is the dwarf peach tree. I love how it looks and I am hoping we will avoid leaf curl this year.

Might go find some other project to do.... or finally finish!

Bannerama

Today is sooo cold! It feels even colder after a couple of weeks of absolutely gorgeous days. Hopefully this is Winter's last hurrah.

So after reading about half a dozen online tutorials on how to make a banner I decided to bite the bullet and just do it. My triangles are 8 inches wide and 10 inches long.

This one is about 3 metres long and is going to hang in Amelia's room as soon as I can find the drawing pins to hang it up hence why it is laying on the carpet at the moment. I LOVE this pig print that I got in Toowoomba! The rest of the materials are leftovers from other projects like skirts, bags and purses, it makes it pretty cheap and the bias binding was only $3.30, it makes it a cheap yet really nice gift.

Happenings

Yesterday was Wesley's 14th birthday - yep 14! I told him I am too young to have a fourteen year old but he assured me I was wrong - gee thanks Wes! Its really hard to get pictures of Wes as he is camera shy. He had a great day and got gifts that he loves.

The other news is Amelia passed her grading and is now the proud wearer of a yellow belt!
Couldn't resist a few bargains in Target today, got Wes 2 t-shirts for $2.70 each, a 2 pack of baby jumpsuits for $3.88 and 2 toiletry packs for $2.48 each of which one will be Amelia's teachers Xmas gift.

Speaking of teachers, here in NSW we are having a teachers strike tomorrow. Wesley's high school is closed and only about a third of the teachers at Amelia's are working, unfortunately one of them isn't Amelia's. Its a massive inconvenience and makes it VERY hard to feel sympathy for the teachers.

Harvest

Guess what I picked and pickled today???? Not hard to guess beetroot is it? Ha! Ha!
I got these jars out of it and I used a different pickling mix than I did last time, this one has cinnamon in it and all spice - I left out the cloves as I'm not that keen on them. This is a bit sweeter than the usual.

I also harvested all the broccoli and some of the cauliflower. I blanched the lot and now can't buy any more freezer stuff unless I turn on the big freezer and I don't want to do that as we haven't had the seals redone on it yet and the frosting up drives me nuts! We also picked some carrots both orange and purple, though I couldn't use some of the purple ones as they were affected in the same way as the parsnips. I only have a few more things to pull from that garden and once they are out I will give it a good build up and deal with the too much nitrogen issue.

We also picked peas, spinach and celery! It was pretty fun. Wes helped me do some weeding and Amelia planted her sunflowers. I could have had a sleep in that warm afternoon sun. It was a struggle not to just lay down and snooze!

Ashford

Yesterday we headed off to Ashford for a picnic with Mum, Dad, Uncle Ronnie and Megan. We went out to MacIntyre falls again, though this time somewhere must of had some rain as the water was really muddy.

The wattle was out everywhere and it was looking really lovely.

We stopped at Lemon Tree Flat on the way home and the kangaroos were having afternoon tea!

A couple of them had joeys in their pouches. I was hoping that one would poke its head out but it was not to be.

I took these pictures of Mum and Dad's garden while we were waiting for them to get back. They turned the wrong way at a T junction and after a while when they hadnt seen our dust they went all the way back to see if we'd had any trouble. Lucky for us (unlucky for them) we had turned the right way. The turned up about 45 mins after us. For the record apparently Dad was going to turn the correct way and got shouted down! :)

Us relaxing on the verandah. It was a lovely day had by all!

My first Pea

Here is my first picked pea. I picked it on Friday afternoon. Isn't it glorious?


I have picked some more today, so the pea is not so lonely anymore. Wesley tasted garden peas for the first time today and now loves them! So I had alot more then what I have now - I know better to put myself between a growing teenager and food!
It makes you wonder how many other foods on the "yuck" list would make it to the "yes please more" list if they tried the home grown type.