At home

We have been spending quite a bit of time around home lately. It's been pretty cold but we have had some beautiful sparkly winter days. Mike has been working outside, splitting and chopping wood, laying bricks, fixing the pump, installing more solar panels and attending to various other ongoing jobs which need to be done.

I have been amusing myself with a bit of cooking. I was given a whole stack of lemons so I made my first batch of lemon butter which turned out ok. Then I made a lemon cake and a lemon slice both of which were yummy. I took the cake to choir with me and it disappeared quick smart. I didn't want it in my cake tin at home beckoning me to eat it! I also made my first batch of tomato relish which I am pretty happy with too. I cooked it for quite a while on a low heat on top of the fuel stove so it's nice and thick. It tastes pretty good too. I used the recipe in the good old 'Commonsense Cook Book'.

After all that mess making the kitchen needed a good clean. The everyday mess in one thing but grunge creeps up on you and then all of a sudden you look a bit more closely and realise there is a nasty film over everything! This happens even more here due to the two wood fires in the house. I always feel very virtuous when I do any amount of extra cleaning! Even the kettle is sparkling!

I love our kitchen. Its my favourite room in the house. I really like the timber bench tops and the Rayburn stove. I am surprised by how little I miss the dishwasher, which I loved when we were living at Warrimoo. I guess its just what you get used to.

Mt Victoria Public School has started an arrangement with Hartley Harvest to facilitate vege box deliveries. The school gets $5 for each $25 box ordered. We received our first order last Friday and I thought it was great  value. It was all so fresh! It has the potential to be a great fundraiser for the school so I hope that word gets around and the orders start coming in regularly.

There was 350g of lovely fresh beans and 3.5kg of potatoes. The apples are so fresh and crispy and the eggs are free range. So its a good deal for everyone it seems. I think it will be a while before our hothouse is in full production so its great to have an option that is so convenient and such great value.

I have finally finished all the blocks for the big quilt I am making for our daughter and her partner. I'm really happy with it and now just have to sew them all together. They are arranged in a random pattern in no particular order which is what she wanted.

These guys were hanging around up near the driveway for about half an hour the other day, just munching away on the grass. They are so hard to see when they are in the bush. There are three roos in this picture. They were quite relaxed about me wandering near them taking a photo!

Really looking forward to some Spring weather. It seems to have been really cold this year but that just may be that its our first Mt Vic winter. Keeping up the supply of wood for our slow combustion fires is a big job. The new log splitter is really wonderful and makes Mike's life much easier. We are lucky that we have so much wood laying around our property and don't need to buy it. It will keep us warm for quite a few years I think.

Our winter bushfire in Wentworth Falls is still burning and from 1 August it has been declared a bushfire danger period in some areas of NSW.  It will be summer before we know and the fire worries will return again. Hopefully the Mountains will not have another bad year.

I have been making some bibs for our grandson who goes through them at a rapid rate. I raided my stash and used some terry tea towels for the backing that I picked up at the op shop.

One tea towel had a Christmas print on it, big enough for two bibs, and the other one was red and big enough for three. They are just the right thickness for a bib so they wont take too long to dry. I think they look great and they were fun to make. Its nice to make a small project and have some instant gratification!

Thanks for dropping in!