My Other Goals for August

As always, I have set myself some non stitching goals for the month as well.  Not nasty To Do type goals, but fun ones.  Pop over here to read what they were.

Let's see how I went...

1.    READ A BOOK.

When we travelled up to Chooky's we called in at Gilgandra and there was a little section of a shop selling ex-library books for the princely sum of six for a dollar.  Of course we found six we thought we could read.  We do love finding luck dip books at book exchanges at caravan parks, street libraries and op shops.  This one was a nice easy read, set in Ireland.  I have looked up the author and she has written quite a few.  They refer to her writing genre as "cosy mystery". I like that description.  It was quite Midsomer Murders style - no blood and guts.  I'll have to keep an eye out for some more of hers.

2.    TRY A NEW RECIPE - NOT JUST BAKING

Yes, we tried several and yes, some were baking.

Firstly, in the Coles catalogue, there was a recipe for a microwave Lime and Coconut pudding.  We made it.  It overflowed the pots I made it in, as they weren't terribly tall, but they tasted great. We had another go in different bowls and they worked well, but aren't terribly photogenic.

In the same catalogue there was a recipe for slow cooked sticky beef, which was also tasty, but not exactly photogenic either.

I also made lasagne for the first time.  Can you believe I have never made it. Other family members make it and bring it to events, so I've never had the need.  During the crazy COVID food shortages in the supermarket, Coles received a full pallet load of instant lasagne sheets.  They didn't sell all that well and ended up on clearance at 50 cents a pack, so I bought a packet.  Later I saw them trying to be sold at 10 cents a pack.  Anyway, my first go at lasagne was fine.  I'll have to make it at least one more time to use the rest of the lasagne sheets.

Last month I saw that Fiona from Bubz Hugz had made date and nut loaf in the cylindrical tins.  I thought that I'd make some too, as I also have some tins, but have never actually used them.  The only problem was that I couldn't find the tins.  They were obviously still packed from our move.........nearly six years ago.  Oops!

Well, Mick had a bit of a scout around and located them.

They are old ones I have acquired somewhere along the line and didn't want to stay tightly closed, so some butcher's twine was pressed into service.

The recipe comes from this lift out from a 1994 magazine.  The same one where I found the gingernut biscuits recipe.  There are several recipes that I have made over the years here, so I should try them again.

We had a success.  They didn't last very long.

We also baked several other repeats.  It is becoming our new normal to bake a couple of times a week.

3.    GO FOR WALKS

Yes, but not too many.  The weather was against us sometimes and other times we were just slack.  

One Sunday, when the weather was beautiful, we went for a walk down to the river.  There was a good flow.

You could see where the water level had been much higher.

It was so warm that we kept going into town and visited the ice cream parlour.  How nice was that.  Lots of people had the same idea, so we were all queued, keeping a good distance apart.  When we walk to the river it is about a 10km round trip.

Other times we walked up the country road behind us.  One property has loads of trees in its front paddock.  Several are coming into bloom, so something to look forward to each time.  There are also lots of little birds living there.  We noticed some red rump parrots nesting in the hollow of a gum tree too, so will keep an eye out for activity on our future walks.

It's hard to believe we are just on the outskirts of town, when you see this view.

The reflections on the full dam are beautiful when the weather is calm. So good to see full dams.

This is a picture of our river last week after the weekend of snow east of us.  As you can see, it had even been higher than when we took this photo.

This is what it normally looks like.  The tree on the left of this photo is the one in the water.  It has been wonderful to see so much water.  Fortunately, there has been no flooding, just a nice strong flow.  Our water storage dam, which was down to below 30% full is nearly full.  It went from 50% to 81% in a week!!

4.  HAVE A WEEKEND AWAY IN THE CARAVAN.

We didn't expect this one to come off, but thanks to an invitation to a surprise birthday lunch for Chooky we had our weekend away. You can read all about it here.

5.    HAVE A FRIDAY FUN DAY.

Yes, we had two.....but they were actually on a Thursday. They weren't big adventures, just getting out and doing things in our local area.

Firstly, we visited the Archibald Prize exhibition at the local art gallery.  The touring exhibition visits Bathurst every few years, but this is the first time we have actually managed to go and have a look.  There were also two other exhibitions.  One was portait photograpy by locals to reflect thier experience of COVID-19.  So many different interpretations.  There was also the Young Archies for local children.

Our second fun day was a drive out to Ben Chifley Dam last Thursday to see if it was full yet.  

We drove through the village of The Lagoon, and after several years, there was actually water in the lagoon.  There used to be a pair of black swans live there and I wondered if they had returned.  We were so surprised and happy to see them.  We really didn't expect to.  

It was so nice to see so much water in the dam.

We walked out to the  spillway.

It's not quite overflowing yet.  Hopefully soon.

We then drove to the other side of the dam which was also looking much better than at the beginning of the year.  It is officially at 83.8% full, but there will be an update in the next day or so.

6.    GO FOR A MOTORCYCLE RIDE.

I was really doubting if this would happen.  Every date that the club had a planned ride turned out to be terrible weather.  We have had some lovely weather, but happened to be doing other things.

Anyway, on Sunday, as the weather was nice, we hopped on Olga the Old Girl and rode out to visit our next door neighbours from when we used to live out of town.  It was nice to see them and notice the subtle changes in the area since we moved, nearly six years ago.  I can't believe how quickly that time has gone.

On our way home we decided to go and see if Ben Chifley Dam was full as yet.

No, it wasn't full, but boy, was there a constant flow of cars going to have a look.

I loved the stonework in the old unused road into the dam.

All the local creeks are still flowing well.  So good to see.

So, there you have it.  All goals met.  We are so enjoying having the time and opportunity to do all these things now that Mick has retired.

Time now to plan for September.

Merry Christmas

Here it is, Christmas Eve, and so far we have survived the madness of December.......so what have we been up to?

We have just happened to move into a street that embraces Christmas lights, with one of the finalists of the competition in Bathurst being just a few doors up from us.  Last year, we had signed on the dotted line to buy this house, but not moved in.  We drove past to see the lights and noticed our house in darkness.  We couldn't have that, so this Christmas we strung up a few lights out the front.

We've enjoyed going for a stroll around our neighbourhood in the nice, warm evenings looking at the lights, and thought we needed to add just a little bit more.......which required another home improvement.......

You can sort of see the garden next to our front door when we bought the house....quite bushy.

Very early in the piece we removed a big grassy plant at the back and a few others and put in a standard rose.  The bush at the front remained as it was flowering at the time.  A few annuals were added, but nothing else was done then.

That looks better doesn't it,  It will look even better when the new plants thicken up.  By the way......meet Mervyn and Muriel the Mooses (or is that Moosii?).

There you go.  Our contribution to Christmas lights.  Some icicles, our tree all lit up and Mervyn and Muriel.  That will do nicely.

I did do one tiny bit of Christmas sewing.  My Mum tends to use place mats now, so I grabbed some old scraps of Christmas fabric, probably dating from the 80s, and whipped up a place mat in a couple of hours.  Very scrappy, just sew two bits together and add a bit more and so on.  Not much measuring.  The bottom left corner is even crazy patched to use up the funny shaped bits.  No binding, just turned out  and top stitched.  It is now being used, which is good.  There is plenty more Christmas fabric in the box, so I'll have to come up with some more projects, or make us some place mats for next year.

My SSCS gift has arrived at it's destination, with Marica in Sweden.  It is such fun sending to places you would normally never have any reason to post a letter or parcel to.  I can share the little ornament now, but will have to wait until she opens her main gift before sharing that one.  

My parcel from Steffi is waiting patiently under the tree for tomorrow's present opening session.  Always a parcel that everyone present looks forward to seeing opened.

Which brings us to Christmas day.  Ours will be fairly quiet, with quite a few people briefly dropping in at various stages of the morning.  There will only be five of us for lunch, so we will actually do a proper cooked Christmas dinner.  In the afternoon we will be off to visit some friends.

I hope you have all survived the Christmas lead up in one piece as well and enjoy a pleasant Christmas Day with those special to you.

In Our Own Back Yard - Part 5 - Vege Gardens.

Anyone who knows us is aware we like to have a little vege garden.  Out of town it was a rather large vege garden that got rather neglected, so smaller is better.

When we moved into town into our little in between house we installed a couple of raised vege beds.  They were fantastic.  No bending and you saw the weeds easily.  So easy to care for.

In our new garden we wanted some more raised vege beds in the area just out the back of the house.

Once again Mick got out his notebook and scribbled away.  Firstly, as soon as we moved in, Mick placed a big bit of flat steel on the lawn and placed our fire pit on it......just temporarily.  You can see it here when they started to build the shed.

And again here one foggy morning.

The plan evolved into the idea of having L-shaped beds with a built in seat around the fire pit.  Behind the raised beds would be two long beds for the raspberries with an arch between them to climb beans up.  It was undecided as to whether the whole area would be paved, or left as lawn.  Measurements were taken to facilitate either option.

Time was marching on, and if we were going to get our veges in this season something needed to be done.  We were also going to be away at the end of September for a week, so it would be ideal to get something planted before we left.

It is handy having a metal worker in the family.  Also, it is handy having a LARGE SHED.  Happy dance.  They say "All Australian Boys Need a Shed".  Whether that is true or not, this Australian Boy certainly needs a shed. 

Starting to get an idea on how they will look.

Now with the raspberry beds in behind and some sheeting in place. While this was taking place, I was at the Bathurst Blog Meet.  It was rather exciting to go home and see how things had progressed.

Now we're getting somewhere.

The arch was a great use of what was laying around.  Mick had some steel stashed behind Mum's garden shed, including these lengths of pipe.  He remembered them when he was scheming on the arch.  Perfect.  It took a couple of big trailer loads of dirt to fill all the beds, but now they were ready to plant.

One little extra was added before the soil.  The white pipes sticking out are worm tubes.  The theory is that you put your kitchen scraps down the tubes and have worm farm worms in there as well.  They are supposed to come to the tubes to feed and then disburse all the goodness throughout the garden beds.  Who knows how they will go, but as our little worm farm often does not require all the scraps we generate, this will be another way of composting them.  Worth a try.

Look at that!  The first early planting before we headed off to collect our caravan.

Once we returned from our little trip, we planted our tomatoes, followed by the other frost tender plants.  Unlike last year, when we had no frosts after September, this year we have had more frosts since the beginning of October than we did all winter.  

We have been diligently covering the veges every night until this last week.  Hopefully that will be the last of it, but we aren't out of the woods yet in this part of the world.

The next project was to make frames for the raspberry canes.  We were lucky to have been given a dozen plants last year.  They are all doing well and we should have plenty of raspberries for Christmas.  Now we just have to plant a red current bush to complement them.  As raspberries can get rather unruly, Mick has made steel T-pieces at each end of the beds and run wires to the arch.  This should keep them in check.

So that is everything planted.  Now we just wait for the soil temperature to increase for things to get a wriggle on.

Doesn't it look lovely with the sprinkler on in the sunshine.

Finally, earlier this month Mick put on the finishing touch.  The timber on the seats.  I think he deserves a well earned rest after all that.  

The jury is still out on whether the area will be paved or not.  At this stage Mick will probably pave just under the seats out to the edge of the garden bed, to make it easier to mow and keep your feet dry.  We'll just wait and see whether the rest is paved......but it certainly isn't a priority.  That one is on the bottom of "The List".

Oh, there is still more to come.....

In Our Own Backyard

When we had our little brain snap just on a year ago (yes, it was that long ago) and decided not to build a new home but to see what was out there to buy, we stumbled upon this house on our first evening of looking on line.  We viewed it the next day and our offer was accepted on the next.  We didn't look at any other properties.

We had some rather stringent requirements.  Mick needed a big shed or somewhere that he could get decent rear yard access to build a big shed.  There aren't too many properties that fit the bill in the area we were looking in, so we grabbed this one before it slipped through our fingers, so to speak. Oh, and the house was rather nice too.

You see, the house is on a corner block, which is relatively flat, and had good side access to a large area with not a lot in it, other than the clothes line.

There was a nice, established easy care garden and a beautiful lawn.  We've never had a real lawn before.  Our first little cottage just had grass.  A lawn was one of those things we were going to get around to, but we sold before that happened.  When we were out of town we had paddock grass.  In the spring and if it rained it was green and Mick spent hours every week on the ride on, or it was dead or just plain dirt.  Quite often it was dirt as we didn't have a reliable water source for the garden.  The lawn here is just luxurious to walk on.

There is a nice outdoor living area as well.

Around the corner is a blank wall with all the services.

Why am I showing you all this now?

Well, since Easter, when we moved in, Mick has been a little busy and it looks just a tad different.

I thought I'd show you the "Before" pictures before you see what he has been up to.