Too hot to handle!

It is soooo! hot here at the moment and tomorrow is going to be another 40 degrees day. I'm not a summer person I rather like Autumn or Spring.

Goodbye 2012 and Hello 2013

Good bye 2012 and Hello 2013, these are some pictures of the last 12 to 18mths of my life. Today we decided to rearrange the kitchen in our little cottage to make more bench space and food storage, with one of my daughters coming back home along with her partner and my grandson life is going to be very cosy until we finish building our new house. Did I mention both of my daughters are expecting, one in February and the other in April, this will make me grandma to six beautiful grandchildren. I will post pics of our small kitchen renovation tomorrow.

Back to Blogging

Time Flies When You Are Having FUN!!

I have been away from my blog for quiet a while, life has been so busy,  but life brings changes and now I am back. Life is still busy but a different kind of busy which I love  and hopefully I can share this busy fun life on my blog. Life has taken a turn and without the pressures of having a mortgage to pay I can pursuing my dream of sustainability.

What is your weekly menu like?

I wasn't going to rave on how busy my life is but I just can't help it!
Just how much can you fit into one day?
If we didn't need sleep the days would roll over each other.
My daughter, partner and grandson will be moving back home with us at the end of October as the granny flat they have been living in since our house burnt down is needed for our friends daughter. So we ( my hubby, and good friends) have been frantically adding two bedrooms, a bathroom, hall and verandah to our little demountable we have been living in since May.

Hubby has also been doing the last few things, such as tiling bathrooms, decking, bathroom fit-out, plumbing etc on the Church which is getting close to completion. As well as making furniture for our customers and finishing off one of our neighbour's extension, he is in need of a holiday. As a requirement for lodgement of our plans to council I as an owner builder have to complete an Owner Builders Course online, so much fun, I have about 60 hours of reading :)

I had a great long weekend, one day it rained but the other two I managed to pant strawberries in hanging baskets on our deck, prepare seven beds for vegetables, plant celery, beetroot, spinach, Chinese vegs, tomatoes, capsicum and carrots. My seedling in my plastic glass house are coming along nicely, I think I have done well considering my veggie patch is surround by a construction site with mounds of dirt and old water tanks. Ok that's enough whinging for today :)

What I wanted to mention today was what I heard on the radio the other day, a lot of people these day only have 3-5 recipes or meals they used in their weekly menu. Imagine eating the same few  things every few days. I suppose there is a number of reasons why people do this,  lack of cooking abilities, maybe they werh never taught how to cook or learnt a variety of recipes, lack of imagination, laziness or maybe with the vast options of take away meals these days people prefer the quick and easy option. I thought about my meal options and I was pretty impressed with myself, I think I could go for months with not cooking the same thing twice. How about you? Do you cook a variety of meals or do you rotate the same meals every week? Do you teach your children how to cook? Have you passed recipes down to your children? Do you have recipes that have been in your family a long time? I would love to hear your point of view :)

Take Care

Goodbye Scooby!

Very early Thursday morning we were awoken by a cry outside our window, which at present is near the sheep yards and at first we thought one of the cats had caught a rabbit but after a while I went outside with the torch to investigate. I saw our precious scooby dragging himself on the ground crying in pain, my heart just sanked, I knew he was in bad trouble and I couldn't do anything for him. He had either been bitten by a snake (this was about 3.30am so not sure if snake would be out) or he had eaten fox bait so I knew he was in trouble. I picked him up in a blanket and carried him to one of our sheds out of the cold and patted him for awhile then I left him. In the morning I knew he would be gone. We have been excavating the site for our house and we had to move a camellia tree that was near the old front verandah and we thought we would transplant it and bury scooby underneath it. I posted about Scooby a few years ago when he wandered off the street into my shop as a kitten in town, he was such a beautiful big cat.
FAREWELL SCOOBY :(

It is ready to start

The house has now been demolished and what building material that could be saved will be used in other building projects on the farm such as accommodation for my milking goats and storage sheds as well as an extension on our demountable. We will be making the demountable into guest/tourist accommodation later when the house is finished. My son is coming up in a few days bringing two excavating machines as well as his boss to excavate part of the house site. This house is going to be a lot bigger than the old one and we will be having verandahs right around the house, which I can't wait to sit out on a warm summers night or in the sun on a cold morning.

We have a new dog to our herd, my son unfortunately does not have a large enough back yard for this girl so she is staying with us a for a while. I will have to show you a photo of her, she is as dalmation cross and she is very large. I have to keep the little dogs a way from her, being a pup she is too boisterous when she plays.

We have been busy doing fences, looking after lambs, making furniture for our shop, looking after children and gran children, and getting ready to start to build this house, I will show photos of its stages of build later. I'm also hoping to get my veggie patch booming this year as I am wanting to have enough to feed ourselves as well as our kids and grand kids, the price of food these days especially meat is crazy. I'm waiting for my one of my neighbours to finish shearing his sheep to come and shear mine and pick up a couple of older lambs to kill for our freezer. I know some of you might not like the sound of that but when you can produce and look after your own sheep with care and know that they are not full of chemicals and you can appreciate the quality and taste you know you and your family are getting the best.

They Have Arrived !!!!!

I had a great day milking goats and sheep on Saturday as you can see below all the girls were lined up ready to go. I was eager for as much information as I could as I knew I didn't have long till my goats had kidded and I would be up to the arm pits with goats milk.

The Girls all lined up for milking

Well as you can see from the picture below I am now in panic motion as one of my goats kidded on Monday and I think the other one is not too far away. I stayed home on Monday as we had quiet a few farming jobs to get done namely fencing and bringing the sheep in the house paddock as they had started lambing and to my excitement my first kid was born.

Baby born 1/8/11

He didn't take long to jump to his feet and mum was up eating and drinking straight away.

Up on its feet

After all the excitement of the day the reality hit when I started thinking I only have a week or so before I will start my morning ritual of milking the goats then storing the milk in my single fridge and start making cheese. I have written a list and am now running around buying the necessary equipment needed for my adventure as well as a second hand fridge. I will keep you posted as I stop to take a breath.