My own cooking challenge for myself.

During April I will cook extras to freeze at every meal. This way when I am tired, grumpy or just plain lazy there will be quick frozen dinners and NO TAKEAWAYS!

I will start tonight and be freezing portions of vegetable curries.
I froze last nights Frog Soup this morning (spinach, potato and lentil, just called Frog soup because it's green and Tot 1 won't touch spinach!)

The day The Cat decided to earn his biscuits.

Or the day The Cat made his first kill.

I wandered out into the backgarden this morning with my large cup of coffee to appreciate my domain and what did I see?

The Cat (black and named Felix by the Teen. However, The Cat keeps telling me that his name is Phoenix!) was playing with his first kill (that we know of)

It looked like a large black rat. I yelled at the Teen to come and praise her baby and she hurried out to view his trophy.

Dead. Silence. Followed by

"Felix!" and a strangled scream.

"Mum, he's killed a guineapig!"

There's no tail (or head for that matter anymore) and the fur is long and silky with a gorgeous white patch on the chest.

How/where/WHY did he get hold of a guinea pig? Was it someone's escaped pet? Will I see 'Lost/Reward' posters up at the local shops? Was it a feral Guinea Pig? Is there such a thing? Are my lettuces going to be ravaged by invading hordes of nocturnal nibblers? Should I be worried?

Ok, guilt for the Guinea Pig aside; I have bought three Inga's for the growing challenge. Now they are fast growing, nitrogen fixing 'trees' so I figured that they would be great for the soil at Wit's End. However I have since found at Daleys that they come with a weed warning. Great, so I now have the potential of invasive ice cream bean trees and Guinea Pigs!


Now for some pics for the Growing challenge to update how fast things are growing here!


The soybeans

The strawbale bed after just two weeks growth! Check out how much the beans have grown!

I have noticed a lot of settling in the mushroom compost and put this down to the breakdown of the sublayer of my own compost which I used as the base. When this lot have finished cropping I will put more mushroom compost in to top it up.

And below, just one week after planting, my kales, collards and broad bean seeds!

Been tagged!

Brazen's tagged me!



I think this is how I go about doing it:

Firstly, here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog
2. Share seven facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Seven Things :

1. I bite my nails horrendously.
2. I have a packet of henna dye in my bathroom which I am getting up the courage to use. It comes out a fiercesome shade of red on me most times!
3. When I get busy I am like a grasshopper on speed.
4. I get seasick standing on a jetty.
5. I love Japanese slippers, Gin and Tonics and Edith Piaf.
6. I want to learn to homebrew to perfection and cheesemaking
7. I don't like travelling. Even 30 minutes in a car is enough for me. I am happiest at home but I am not antisocial!

I am going to tag

Naturewitch
The Wildbackyard
Going feral (ish)

Freecycle, chocolate and plastic surgery

On Friday I was blessed to receive a bag of retro children's patterns from a lovely person on Freecycle. A week or so ago I was checking out a few of the sewing blogs I enviously view and saw that one of the clever Mums sews gorgeous clothes for Tots using retro patterns. Of course I immediately said to myself that I must go op shopping again and see what I can find. Well as you know, if you ask the Goddess, she will provide and this time she provided via freecycle!

The rest of the weekend passed me by in a bit of a mad gardening frenzy trying to keep myself out of a chocolate coma; The Tot's received an obligatory egg and bunny each but the Twenty Something Son turned up with a large box of handmade chocolates for the Ancient one. Yum and guilt with each mouthful.

Monday was supposed to bring the return of The Husband. What it brought however was Tot 2 pushing Tot 3 off of the slide. Lots of blood gushing from a gaping wound to her upper lip and a split about a centimetre up as well. Plastic surgery happened on Tuesday night. I think it's now time for me to have a nice cold gin.

The Desertification of Perth

You know that I whine and rant about the sand here at Wit's End and how I keep adding organic matter into it, mulching it, trench composting it and it still turns back after a few months into a fine grey sand.

Well I watched a gardening dvd yesterday while I was knitting my bag (yes, it's finally happening) and the presenter mentioned that soils in Perth, Western Australia have less than 1% organic matter in them.

That's scary stuff to me! Now I know why no matter how much I keep adding to my soils, it' s going to take a long time to bring them back to a nice rich state.

So Perth soils are wasting away, our food bowl the wheatbelt is dying from a huge salinity problem. The reduction in groundwater levels is causing some Perth suburbs to sink.

Going to do more knitting to ponder on this.

Gifts received

So here is the picture as promised:

Most of the recipients figured out what they are, can you?

That song by the Bangles...

Inspired by Little Jenny Wren via Goingferal(ish)

It's just another Manic Monday!

Woken up by three excited tots.

Staggered to make coffee

Mix up a batch of pancakes and cook them

Feed tots

Make Tot 1's lunch

Dress tots

The Teen helps me do the tots's hair

Shower - this takes me about a minute as I don't have TIME to take long water wasting showers!

Throw on clothes, they're clean, they're not frayed, they'll do.

Drive the Teen to school, drive Tot 1 to school

Come home and settle the other tot's down to watch Playschool

Put on a load of washing

Clean bathroom

Clean toilet

Put on the vegetable soup for tonight

Wash some dishes

Have my breakfast while typing this.

Oh, it's now 10.18am

Right, washed more dishes,

Labelled plum sauce - note to self: Never make jam at 11pm when you are exhausted Crone, you forget to add two apples to the mix and jam doesn't set. That's kind of OK this time as I use plum sauce for pancakes and yoghourt.

Bread is in the machine to mix.

Another load of washing on, go and move hose to another tree.

Coffee machine is now cleaned and de scaled (must remember to make appointments at the dentist)

Cleaned up floor where tot 3 spilled her hot chocolate

Tot's fed and lying down

Bread is in the tray proving

Another load of washing on and hose moved to a new tree

Sitting down having a quick coffee and surf. Time 12.45pm

Remembered that it's pea planting day today! Happy St Patrick's day to all with Irish connections!

Spent 20 minutes removing cooch grass from one bed. This will be mulched in a minute or two.

Time to bring in last night's washing and hang out this morning's lot.

Phew, just manured and mulched the bed with most of my trees in it. 2.00pm

Ok, just did a quick online "which Pooh Bear character are you" test

And as they went, Tigger told Roo (who wanted to know) all about the things
that Tiggers could do.
"Can they fly?" asked Roo.
"Yes," said Tigger,
"they're very good flyers, Tiggers are. Strornry good flyers."
"Oo!" said
Roo. "Can they fly as well as Owl?"
"Yes," said Tigger. "Only they don't
want to."
"Why don't they want to?" well, they just don't like it somehow."
Roo couldn't understand this, because he thought it would be lovely to be
able to fly, but Tigger said it was difficult to explain to anybody who wasn't a
Tigger himself.

You scored as Tigger!

ABOUT TIGGER: Tigger is the newest addition to the Hundred Acre Wood, and he lives with Kanga and Roo, because Roo's strengthening medicine turned out to be the thing that Tiggers like best. Tigger is bouncy and confident -some of his friends think he is a little TOO bouncy and confident, but attempts to unbounce him tend to be fruitless.

WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT YOU: You are a positive and confident person. You feel capable of dealing with anything and everything, and funnily enough, you usually ARE. You don't worry about much, and you love to go out and find new adventures.
Your friends and family might sometimes be a little exasperated by your boundless enthusiasm. You don't like to admit your mistakes, and when you find yourself in over you head, you tend to bluff your way out of things. You would be surprised, however, at how happy the people around you would be if you would actually admit to a mistake. It would make you seem more human, somehow.

So does that sound like me?

Moving right along too 2.30pm....

It's time to fight with Tot 3 about getting clothes on to go and collect Tot 1 from school. Fight with both Tots about getting in the car. Tot 1 is in a bad mood and hasn't eaten since "Forever, there's no foood, I'm hungry, there's never anything to eat!" Now my house is filled to the brim with fresh fruits, baked goodies and heatable snacks; go figure!

Get home to find that the ants have found the one spot of jam I missed on the floor last night. Sweep and mop like a crazy woman, take bread out of the oven, feed the tots snacks, sooth the grumpy Teen and have a glass of water. Is it too early for gin? it's now 5.35pm.

Dinner, baths and tots in bed within two hours, then I can get busy finishing my bamboo scarf (crochet) while watching The girl with the pearl earring.

Definatly no jam making tonight! I am however checking out cheesemaking. It would work out at $2 per kilo of cheese and makes 200kgs.

And this little piggy

Built a bed of straw :)

I am going to pour some pee from the tot's potty onto the straw bales each day as well as give them a good soaking. That way I will be able to plant into the bales, leaving a couple free to sit on and rest! I got this idea from The Wild backyard blog.

And now a few of the promised pics for the Gardening Challenge;



Rocket seedlings emerging



Soybeans!

And the bean which has decided to climb up onto the pergola

You will notice throughout my garden beds cheap tan bark mulch and pebbly mulchy things. This is because the people who lived here before put yellow builders sand on top of the native WA sand, topped that off with the pebbly mulch and /or tan bark.

I have scrapped off as much of the builders sand and mulches as possible but it still turns up like a bad penny.

They literally only planted six palm trees and cooch grass! Sigh.

Seeds and more seeds!

Just ordered some more seeds for the growing challenge. The only ones I have grown before are kale, so this should be interesting.

I have no idea what Kohl Rabi even tastes like but it kind of looks cute on farmgirl's blog.

Here's what I ordered

Mizuna, Bean, Broad - Aquadulce, Collards - Georgia Southern, Kale - Scotch, Kohl Rabi - Purple Vienna, Onion - Gladalan - Onion - Lockyer Early WhitePackets.

These are to fill my new straw bale bed - pics to come tomorrow (oh the joys of waiting for the Teen to be here to do the camera to pc bit!)

It's hot!

Uggghhhh I hate the last blasts of summer! 36 degrees of heat stopping me from gardening. I am itching to get outside as I have a stack of straw bales and mushroom compost to arrange artfully.

In the meantime I have been amusing myself with a couple of crafty things; patchwork quilting, cardmaking and gift making. I will post some pictures of the cards and gifts later in the week when the recipients have received them. I want to see if they can figure out what they are! Beads, bamboo yarn and a crochet hook were involved.

I had such fun crochetting. I made 8 gifts all up this afternoon and it reminded me of how much I love to crochet. I will definatly be doing more as well as learning to knit.

Now a question for anyone reading here: Can you felt acrylic wool?

Ok next brag moment. I had some fabric in my cupboard and decided that I just had to see if I could do something patchworky. Let me begin by saying that this is a trickier art than I anticipated. Sewing strips of fabric together, cutting them up and flipping the patterns does not automatically mean that things will line up. Lots of curses were flung around as the Crone decided that the abstract look would be the look of the day. Thank God I don't garden like I sew!

Anyway here are a couple of pictures to prove that I did it. Of course I now want to prove that I can do it properly so guess what is next on my list of to do's!


Edited to add that the fabric was found in a bag under a pile of clothes at the back of the room in The Teen's domain. She had to get fabric for a project two years ago. I think she must have failed said project because virgin fabric was waiting for her Mumma to use! I should also mention that she no longer calls me Mumma, I've been demoted to 'Mother'.

When The Husband's away....

The Crone goes through his Asian grocery cupboard and cleans it out!

Surprise surprise; out of date/code products which bear a marked resemblance to a cleaning sponge!

BUT who would have thunk that The Husband would have a stash of seeds for my growing challenge!

Mung Beans!

Now I know that you can sprout them and cook them in stir fries etc but you can also grow these just like soy beans! They like sandy soils and from bean to flower take about 60 days. I am so excited about these. Mung beans are a good source of protein and flour!

All planted now and brag pictures will follow!

Warning: REDBACK IMAGE FOLLOWS!

Ok this is war!

I have just found and killed another THREE Redbacks (edited because I just found another one by my back door!).

Yesterday I was picking some strawberries and a long thin black leg popped out and stroked my finger! Talk about having a bloody heart attack!

So armed with my thick gloves and nice long stick I went a redback hunting yet again.

Now for those of you who aren't in Australia, what follows is a picture of a redback;

Image taken from www.nikkish.net/jeff/blogpics I hope that's ok to do!

I am getting very good at 'removing' these spiders now but would love to hear some of your ideas on deterring them. I have three tots here who are into everything in the garden!

Growing Challenge.

Well I have just gone and posted at the Growing Challenge site about which growing zone Wit's End is in. We are in the Australian Temperate Zone (the perfect place for raising redbacks it seems!) and this link shows what I can plant out right now

http://www.gardenate.com/zones/Australia%20-%20temperate

So far I have planted peanuts, some soybeans, ginger and garlic. Chickpeas will be planted in the next few days.

Building and filling raised beds will be my next goal in the garden. At Wit's End the soil is sand. No matter how much compost, mulch etc into this soil, it turns back to sand in a couple of months. So the answer for me is to have raised beds and to just keep adding to the sand and hope for the best.

The raised beds will have all the usuals vegetables and I hope to add some kohl rabi for the growing challenge. I have never eaten this vegetable but have been inspired by farmgirl Susan to give it a go.

It's going to be a busy day today

• Make some more laundry liquid DONE!
• Bake a monkey cake (you know, it makes me smile every time I type that!) DONE!
• Bake some potatoes for dinner (utilize the top shelf of the oven to save energy) DONE!
• Make some tortilla dough for freezing DONE!
• Bake a batch of berry muffins
• Plant up the sprouting garlic and ginger I found in the back of the cupboard as part of the growing challenge.
• Plant some more chick peas (Yeah I know you are supposed to wait until Saint Patricks day to plant peas), another let's try it for the growing challenge!
• Do a pile of washing (which means folding tonight whilst watching House) DONE!
• Clean the kitchen and bathroom (bicarb and vinegar) DONE!
• Make the Ginger Beer Plant DONE!
• Transplant some more cabbage seedlings from my starter boxes DONE!
• Flush out the huge redback from my brag cabbage and well, you know! DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE!!!!! Method applied: sprinkle a mixture of bicarb and teatree oil over cabbage. Wait. Redbacks hate this stuff and she emerged! Quick death crushed with long stick!
• Maybe make a batch of pancakes to freeze
• Just made a kilo of Chickpea dip for less than $1. I love frugal cooking!

Does getting older mean worse hangovers?

I am sitting here at 11am on a Tuesday morning feeling very sorry for myself.

I indulged in a second glass of red last night, nothing special or unusual about that. My 40 something liver is no stranger to a good 750mls! What was strange was my reaction to it.

I woke at 1 with a loose tummy quickly followed by a severe bout of rebellious qi (aka the vomits). This happened on two more occassions and I woke to a killer headache.

I am hoping that I just have a bug because I sure as hell don't want to have this reaction everytime I pour a glass! Imagine a world without wine :'(

This brings me to my latest 'want to do!'

Homebrewing.

Naturewitch makes the best homemade wines I have ever had. I never got the time to sit down with her and watch her make her fantastic brew (I learn best by watching others do) so I will have to attempt this one for myself.

In this family we drink water, beer, wine and gin. Well the Gin is obviously out as I don't want the excise men knocking on my door, so I will start with a few simple things;

Ginger beer because it's so easy to make, Homebrew beer just because I want to make it. I have found a homebrew shop near to Wit's End, and lastly, Wine because I love wine!

Ginger Beer

Start the plant: 2 sliced lemons, 1 cup of water, 1 teaspoon of sugar, ginger and yeast.

For the next 8 days add one tea sugar and ginger every day.

To make up drink: Heat 2 pints of water and 2lbs of sugar until dissolved. Add plant and 9 pints of water. Stir and bottle. Leave residue to make next batch.


Off to freecycle to see if anyone is offering bottles etc.

Oh and on a different note: The Husband doesn't know it yet but when he is off trekking in China I will be building a chicken coop!

The Crone is revolting, power to The Crone!

Keeping in touch with friends.

I realised just how much I have relied on the internet to keep in touch with my cronies over the past year. Now whilst this has been very convenient it hasn't satisfied me on other levels.

So last night I decided that I will make some cards from scratch.

They will be individual according to recipient.

Check your snail mail this month girls!

February: A month of extremes

Well it's time for me to write up for myself what has worked in February and what hasn't.

I have realised that I have so very very much to learn about gardening in Wit's End. I never realised that pockets of my garden can reach temperatures of 48 degrees. So far I have lost;

Beans
1 blueberry
one lot of sweet potatoes
1 bayleaf tree
1 pineapple (my cut from the top and planted one)
a large bush of currant tomatoes
a row of lettuces.

In desperation I have planted a row of geranium cuttings in front of my current row of lettuces; let's see if they can protect them a bit.

My budget is still on track. A couple of blowouts in one week still divided up monthly to an acceptable amount and we are still coming in under $100 in all weeks and as low as $70 in some.

Shopping. Still managing to not shop. This is really hard for me at the moment and the constant stream of Peter's of Kensington/homecouture/gymboree junk mail needs to be blocked from my emails.

Frugal living: I am enjoying making our foods from scratch. It has been an eye opener to me just how healthy the family is now that we don't eat processed foods. The next challenge on my list is to reduce gluten and dairy from our diet as much as possible. This is to see if it helps one of our tots who is ASD. It has taken me more time to cook this way but is mainly an issue of planning.

Still having great success with making our washing liquid myself with grated soap, borax and essential oils. Love using white vinegar and bicarb to clean everything else. I may have said before that having a cleaning cupboard which can't poison my tots is the best feeling ever!

I am going to try the recipe for homemade toothpaste which is on Consumption Rebellion. E, I am going to tell the world once again that you are inspiring!

Tot's birthday: I have decided to follow the Apprentice Domestic Goddess suggestion with the decorate your own cupcakes/aprons theme for the Tot's 5th birthday. Thank you K!

Knitting: Well this challenge just did not happen for me. I will try again this month but cutting my finger put paid to so many of my projects. I found that I again got caught up in the 'click, click post lifestyle that is so easy for me to get sucked back into.

So things on the list to do for March:

Organise Tot's birthday party aprons
Get more beds organised for planting.
seriously look at summer shade protection
make toothpaste :)
Spend less time on essentially boring sites
find other ways to connect with my friends interstate.
Plant, plant plant!
Keep making cloth pads
Have some quiet time for myself.