Rumballs

Today we made "Rumballs" (or as in today's batch "Butterscotch Schnapps Balls"). They are so easy to make and so delicious to eat and great for little hands who love to help in the kitchen.

The recipe:

1 packet Marie biscuits
1 tin condensed milk
2 tsp cocoa
2 lidfuls of Rum (or other alcohol)
coconut

Mix all ingredients together (except the coconut)
Roll into teaspoon size balls
Roll in coconut

Eat, refrigerate or freeze for a future occasion.

The alcohol is optional if little hands are helping or eating, but for me personally I always add it as the alcohol content of each rumball would be negligible.

A handy hint when rolling the rumballs is to have a sink full of warm water nearby.  The rumballs get very sticky and hard to roll, washing your hands occasionally makes the job a lot easier.

Today I decided to freeze the rumballs. I used a re-purposed meat tray (I'd run out of plastic containers).

Enjoy

Ann

4

Crochet Blanket

Well these cold nights are certainly good for sitting in front of the heater and crocheting.

After a family member announced their pregnancy I thought of what I could make for the baby, I procrastinated for so long that I have only just finished the blanket and the baby is now 2 weeks old!

I made a granny square blanket using up remnants of 1/2 finished balls of wool.  I reversed the colour combinations (green with orange and orange with green etc.) and included blue and pink as I didn't know the sex of the expected baby.

With a couple of different border ideas and colours the blanket is finished and ready to go to the newest member of our family.

With any left over wool I knitted a ball.                 To make this I cast on 16 stitches and knit 60 rows of garter stitch, although if or when I make another one I will knit more rows (I am a tight knitter so it ended up rather small).  Make 8 of these strips.  Join the ends of two strips together to make two rings.  Before you make the 3rd ring weave the strip between the two rings and then join the ends.  Repeat for each subsequent strip.  It requires a bit of fiddling to get the last two strips in but it is well worth the effort.       

Enjoy

Ann
©

17

Children's Baking

This morning Isabel wanted to do some baking, "lets make a cake Mum, with blueberries in it".

At 8yo she is almost independent enough to bake by herself.

So out came her recipe sheets to choose what cake to make, "chocolate doesn't really go with blueberries (today) so we'll make plain cupcakes".  I prepared these a few years ago, I typed up her favourite recipes and laminated them for protection.

Isabel has her own baking utensils.  I was fortunate to win this "Joseph and Joseph" baking set a few years ago.  The colour references in her recipe refer to the measuring cups from this set.

So with a little bit of help from me Isabel prepared her cake batter following her recipe sheet.  She used the microwave to cream the butter and sugar, and had lots of fun cracking the eggs (pretending she was on Masterchef). I showed her how to use the digital scales to weigh the ingredients that couldn't be measured by the cups.

Of course the best bit about baking is the licking of the bowl, spoon and fingers.

With a bit of help she put the cupcakes in the oven and then she did the cleanup, putting the ingredients away, doing the dishes, wiping the bench and vacuuming the floor.


















I helped get the cupcakes out of the oven and we put them on a wire rack to cool.

The icing was cream cheese and icing sugar and of course it had to be blue because of the blueberries.

With the decorations added we sampled Isabel's creation and they were delicious.

We had leftover icing which I put into a container to freeze for future baking days.

I hope you enjoy these ideas. 

Spending time in the kitchen with the kids is a great way to see their imagination and creativity come to life.  Don't worry about the mess, messes are fun to clean when everyone is involved.

Ann

©

4

Lavender

I love the smell of lavender and I have a big bush in my front yard to enjoy when it is in flower.

While it is in flower I take advantage to harvest the flowers and dry them to use in craft and other household activities.

I cut the lavender leaving a long stalk, tie about 20 stalks together and hang them in my garden shed to dry. When they are dry I harvest the buds and store in an airtight jar until needed.

To date I have not made anything with my harvested lavender, but I am sure with a bit of help from Pinterest I will come up with something soon.

Keep watching this space.

Ann©

6

Honeysuckle wreaths

Pruning is one of those jobs you either love or hate.

I love it, it gets me outside and I take pride in shaping the structure of the tree so that it will bear a bountiful harvest.

Apart from pruning our fruit trees and roses I also occasionally tidy up the honeysuckle. Especially when my husband threatens to pull it out.

While I was pruning the honeysuckle from our front veranda, I thought what a waste to burn the prunings. What could I do?  Mmmmm...I know, lets make wreaths.

I grabbed a long branch, rolled it into a circle about 30cm diameter and wove the remaining end around the circle.  Grabbing about 3 or 4 more branches, I repeated the weaving with each individual branch until I had what looked like a wreath..

I hung them in the garden shed to dry (the leaves fall off during the drying).  I'm not sure what I'll make with them when they are done, I'll leave that for another post in the future.

Enjoy

Ann

©

2

Frosty Morning activity

Brrrr, these frosty mornings are a bit chilly.

What can we do to make the most of the frosty weather?  My daughter came up with a crafty idea.

She picked some flowers and put them in a bowl of water, then left the bowl out overnight.

After staying snuggled up under my blankets for as long as possible we got up the next morning to see how the flower decoration worked.  Brilliantly clever!  Seeing the flowers preserved in the frozen water made my daughter laugh with delight.  She thought it was very pretty.

So simple to do.

Enjoy

Ann

©

6

Biscuits

Today we did a bit of baking to tide us through the school holidays (well to be honest these will only get us through the first couple of days).


This recipe makes a lot of biscuits and what I do with any extra dough is to roll it into logs, wrap in baking paper, label and freeze.  When you have unexpected visitors (or you get the munchies) you can take the dough log out of the freezer, slice into biscuits, put them on the baking paper they were wrapped in and bake in the oven.

Today we made Choc-chip, cornflake and sultana, jam drop, and milo biscuits.

Recipe

500gm butter or margarine
1 tin condensed milk
1 cup sugar
5 cups SR flour

Cream butter and sugar, add condensed milk and flour.  Roll into teaspoonful sized balls and press down with a fork.  Put on greased or baking paper covered trays and bake in moderate oven (180°C) until golden brown.  Let cool on tray before transferring to wire rack.

 Enjoy

Ann
©

2

Introduction to Diva Farm Days

Let me introduce myself

I am a Mum of one and a farmers wife of 26 years and counting. I also moonlight as a farmer, domestic goddess and child entertainer, all from the safety of my own home.

We live in what we consider to be one of the most beautiful parts of this country, the Mallee in North West Victoria.  Whenever we journey this great big country, we admire and love where we are, but it is always nice to return home.

We share our farm, which is a business and a lifestyle, with lots of sheep, 2 kelpies, 1 bitzer, 1 cat, 3 goats, 6 pet lambs, 3 chooks and 1 rooster.

I love to cook, crochet, knit, scrapbook, quilt, garden, upcycle, handmake, read, play piano and occasionally I find time to clean.

My blog name comes from a mixture of our initials.  When I first moved to the farm my Mother-in-Law was a big help to me.  While making my first batch of tomato sauce she was my go-to when I had a problem, (by the way the sauce turned out delicious).  I made labels for the bottles and after a bit of working out I came up with the name DIVA.

I hope you enjoy reading what we get up to.

Ann

©

8