Bookweek

With bookweek coming up I asked my daughter what/who she would like to go as this year? With only a couple of weeks to plan and create (and a sore back thrown in for good measure) I wanted her choice to be something simple.

"Mum, I would like to go as Lady Morgana, from Merlin (the BBC tv series)".

Okay, not quite in the easy category but with a bit of planning we can do this.  First let's watch the dvd and see what she wears.

I sketched a quick outline of what she wore and went hunting through my fabric stash for suitable fabrics.  Leftover material from a dress I made and an old bedspread from my childhood, perfect.

So with a design in mind and a pattern of sorts (thank you Google), I took my daughters measurements and as my husband always says "measure twice, cut once", we headed off into the unknown world of Camelot.

Mercifully I  only had to unpick a couple of seams and with some creative cutting and joining of fabrics we had a finished dress and jacket.  Some finishing touches of lace and buttons from the button jar and we are both very happy with the end result.

The only purchase I made was the wide rhinstone ribbon which I made into a belt. This cost a total of $9.00.

As for the book side of the costume, we have the "Magic Tree House" series of books.

The books feature Jack and Annie who have discovered a magic tree house.  In the treehouse they find books with bookmarks at certain pages left there by the mysterious "M" person.  When they wish to go to the places marked in the book the treehouse magically takes them to that place in time.

My daughter loves the adventures Jack and Annie get up to.  The "M" person who invites them to take all the adventures is Morgan le Fay, aka Morgana.  In this series she is Camelot's librarian and witch, who is searching for lost manuscripts.  Jack and Annie help her in this quest.

Now I have to make her teachers' costume and my costume.

Enjoy

Ann
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8

Don't count your chickens until they hatch

Chickens, we have chickens.

Well not exactly yet, but we do have a broody hen and she is sitting on eggs.

I don't know who is more excited, me or Isabel.

We got 4 chooks off a friend early on this year, but a couple of months later we had 3 chooks and a rooster!

Meet Rodney 3.

Why Rodney 3?

Well Rodney (1) was a dud.  He had no sense of time, he would start crowing at 2am!! and if you ask me, he never had anything to crow about because he never fathered any chickens. Rodney (1) got transferred to another farm.

Rodney 2, couldn't handle the heat and up and died during a heatwave.

So we thought, that's it,  no more roosters for us. Until Rodney 3 changed sex!

So anyway, Rodney 3 has done his duty and we are now eagerly watching our expectant mother.

Watch this space.

Ann
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6

Sunny Sunday afternoons

I had been running around the house all morning trying to clean and tidy, cook and bake and entertain my daughter when I stopped, looked outside and thought "this is silly, I am taking the afternoon off".

I grabbed a book, some lunch, water and my camera and headed out to the swing chair we have on our veranda. It looks out over a section of our garden and off into the scrub beyond the fence line.

The sunshine was beautiful and warm on this Winter's day, there was no wind and the birds were out enjoying the sun and the water baths in the garden.

Red hot poker

I sat quietly reading with my camera ready by my side and I didn't have to wait long for the birds to fly in and enjoy the nectar of the flowers and the water in the baths.

Jenny Wren enjoying a bath in the old grain elevator

Spiny-cheeked honeyeater in the eremophila (emu bush)

Noisy Miner

The book I am reading today is "Woman in the Wilderness" a story of survival, love and self-discovery in New Zealand by Miriam Lancewood. 

It is an auto-biography of this woman's (and her partners) decision to go and live as best they could off-grid in the mountains of New Zealand. It tells the struggles and joys they faced living off the land with minimal human contact. They learn about themselves and nature.  

I am loving it. Often I wish I could live off in the wilderness or at a lighthouse, not seeing anybody and surviving with the occasional trip into civilisation for supplies.  I guess living on the farm is as close as I am going to get and living here I am living my dream.

Make the most of the sunshine, the housework will still be there.

Enjoy

Ann
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4

Tic-tac-toe

With my husband away for the day I thought what a good opportunity to raid the scrap heap and utilise my findings in the garden.

Instead of the scrapheap I found myself at the woodheap.  After some searching and a bit of grunting and groaning I manoeuvred a nice flat stump onto the bag trolley and wheeled it into place in the garden.

With some newspaper, masking tape and spray paint I painted a tic-tac-toe board onto the surface of the stump and left it to dry while I searched my daughters fairy garden for coloured rocks.

A few well placed garden benches, which I had recently inherited from my Grandma, and I had created a cosy little nook to sit and play in.

The object of Tic Tac Toe is to get three in a row. You play on a three by three game board. Players alternate placing green and blue stones on the game board until either opponent has three in a row or all nine squares are filled.  

My husband, daughter and I love to come out here and play tic-tac-toe.  The battleground rings with laughter.

Enjoy

Ann
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6

Chocolate Fruit Sticks

My 8yo loves to get into the kitchen and create.  Today she found my hidden stash of chocolate chips and decided to use them.  She had recently been given a small recipe book of her own.  She flicked through it and found the perfect recipe for the ingredients we had, chocolate and fruit.

I left her to her own devices as she knows how to use the microwave (I was close by in case she needed assistance).

She put the (my) chocolate chips in a microwave proof bowl and zapped them in short bursts in the microwave to melt them, stirring after each burst.


















When the chocolate was sufficiently melted she had great delight in dipping the strawberries into the chocolate and placing them on a tray. As it was a messy activity she, of course, had to lick her fingers after each dip.


She decided that the raspberries were a bit too fiddly so I suggested we poke them onto straws to help dip them into the chocolate and when they were set she could eat them like a lollypop.



Any leftover chocolate (whoever heard of leftover chocolate) was poured into chocolate moulds.

We all enjoyed a delicious afternoon snack. 

Enjoy

Ann

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PS - I think the chocolate had time to set before it was devoured.

2

Lemons

When life gives you lemons you make the most of them.

Our lemon tree has been giving us an abundance of fruit up to two times a year and I have been busy baking, making and preserving our harvest.

So far I have made lemon cordial, I have frozen lemon juice in ice cube trays for the off season, I have baked lemon cakes, lemon meringue pie and lemon biscuits and I have used lemon slices in my water jug each day.  And still we have plenty of lemons!

Then I decided to try dehydrating lemon slices.  I sliced the lemons into 1/4" rings and placed them on the dehydrator trays.  These were on for about 24 hours at 50°C and I think they turned out beautifully.

I use these in my water jug each day and hopefully (I haven't tried this yet) in casseroles.

I created another use for our lemon tree. It made the perfect hideaway for my daughters fairy garden.

It is the perfect little hidey-hole for her to sit in and imagine the world away.  It has a pond for waterplay, dirt and stones for creating fairy lands and smells delicious when the lemons are fruiting.

Enjoy

Ann

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6

50th Birthday

I recently turned 50 and decided I needed to celebrate this milestone with Family and Friends. We planned to celebrate with a good old country 'twiggy' and have the birthday feast catered for with a spit roast and vegie meal.

My Birthday quickly turned into an almost week-long event. My actual birthday was celebrated with just my immediate family. Then visitors arrived on the Friday night and stayed through until Monday night, camping out in our backyard and paddocks. With a bit of planning and preparation the occasion went off without a hitch and without the need for me to do much else but enjoy myself.

During the month before my party I prepared by doing extra baking and putting it in the freezer.  I pre-made meals of pizza, sausage rolls and lasagne to feed the visitors. Each time I did some baking I would make an extra cake, slice or rumballs and freeze them also. I also squeezed orange juice and stored it in the fridge ready for breakfasts.

All it took on the weekend was to take the meal or slice out of the freezer, defrost it and heat and/or eat.

The spit roast meal was catered for by a local company. We enjoyed roast pork (with crackling, Yummo), beef and vegies with gravy.

Birthday cakes were made (by a good friend), twiggy was lit and the party started. The rainy weather we'd had on the Friday night held off and we were kept toasty warm by the bonfire.

Being a quilter I asked friends and family to gift me a fat quarter of fabric (this resulted in a lot of phone calls and strange questions from my non-quilting friends).  I am going to make myself a memory bookcase quilt with all the fabric I received.  I also had the guests sign a piece of calico which I can attach to the back of the quilt.

I am relishing turning 50 and I am looking forward to the next season of my life.

Ann
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8

Chillies

My husband planted a few chilli seeds towards the end of last year and we have been harvesting a bountiful crop since then.

So many that we have had to freeze them until we can find time to make something with them. So far all we have made is sweet chilli sauce.

As the freezer bag is almost full I have decided to dry the chillies we are still harvesting.

I halved and deseeded the chillies and spread them on the dehydrator trays.  These were on 50℃  for about 24 hours (probably didn't need that long but I forgot about them, oops).  Once they had cooled down I mashed them with the mortar and pestle and put them in a container to use in future recipes.

 

Enjoying a spiced up life

Ann

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4

Dryer Balls

Living in the beautiful Mallee with our glorious weather I generally hang my clothes out to dry on the old faithful Hills Hoist.  Occasionally I use the clothes dryer when the weather is bad or I have let the laundry pile grow to the size of Mt Everest.  When I do use the dryer I am always frustrated by the static electricity build up which results in clothes sticking to each other and just being a nuisance. Grrr.

After I bit of research on the internet I found an upcycled natural alternative to dryer sheets. With a bit of tweaking to suit my ingredients I made these dryer balls.

They seemed to be working well after the first use and then disaster struck, aaaargh. Apparently I needed to secure the ends of the wool "securely".

Take two and this time I used the wool needle to darn the ends securely.

What you need:
100% wool
stockings

Wrap the end of the yarn around 2 of your fingers about 10 times, remove it and turn it 90° and wrap another 10 times. Keep repeating this until you are able to hold the "ball" and then continue wrapping tightly forming a round shape.  Once your ball is roughly tennis ball size cut the yarn and tuck the ends into the sides (note: see my above error, so make sure this is secure).

Repeat this process until you have 3 or more balls.

Cut one leg off the stockings, place one ball into the bottom of the leg and tie a knot above to secure it, repeat until all balls have been added and secured.

Put in the washer (can be with dirty laundry) and wash on the hottest setting. This allows the yarn to felt. Once washed dry the balls thoroughly in the dryer at the hottest setting.

When they are dry remove from the stockings and they are ready to use.

I added a couple of drops of essential oil (I used lavender), tossed them in the dryer.  The clothes were mostly static free and smelled lightly of lavender.

Re-add the essential oil every few loads.

Enjoy

Ann
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2

Apple Donuts

My daughter loves fruit.

Living out on the farm it is sometimes hard to keep enough fruit in the house to keep her satisfied. When our fruit trees are in season she just walks outside, sits in the tree and helps herself.

We live an hour from the nearest Fruit and Veg shop and as I only go shopping once a week keeping the fruit bowl stocked is almost impossible.  I keep a handy supply of tinned fruit in the pantry to tide us over during the shortfall.

One of my daughters favourite snacks is Apple Donuts.

I core an apple, cut the apple into slices (about 1cm thick) and spread the slices with cream cheese. To make them an extra special snack I sprinkle them with 100's & 1000's.

And voila, Apple Donuts.

Enjoy

Ann
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