Busy weekend

Its been a busy weekend

• split loads of firewood
• stacked the firewood
• weeding
• moved barrows of soil
• planted out seeds
• cleaned the chook shed
• washing, ironing
• cooking

Back to work tomorrow for a rest!

Jobs, jobs and more jobs

I've got a 3 day weekend, due to a RDO on Friday so the to do list is getting longer!

Friday is going to begin with walking Zane to the bus stop then off to his school for assembly before heading to kinder to move a pile soil to their vegie patches. Then its back home to do some work on the vegie beds, all the tomato and zucchini plants are coming out and a major weeding job is required.

I will be getting a load of soil and compost mix delivered later this afternoon for the vegie beds and am planning to go to the neighbours to split a load of wood that we cut week before last.

Also have the job of sorting out my seeds to see what I have and what I need to order, 3 of the smaller beds should be ready to plant out this weekend or next, the larger bed might take abit longer.

We still have not had any eggs from the chooks, cant be much longer to wait. Lisa has been letting them out to scratch around the garden most days and they are loving that!

I'll post some photos of what we get done over the weekend and let you know if the to list is getting short or not!

Busy day

So far today I have picked 7 1/2kg of damsons, 3kg of blackberries and about 5 kilos of windfall apples. Started a batch of damson jelly, its currently straining and will be finished of tomorrow. Made a batch of blackberry vinegar, that should be ready for straining and bottling next weekend. I'm currently making a batch of damson cheese - never made it before so not quite sure what it will be like and cooking a batch of blackberry and apple to go in the freezer.

Also had friends around for lunch, cleaned the chook house, entertained the kids and done many loads of washing up, I will be going back to work on Monday for a rest!!!

Korumburra Show

Today was the day if the show, we headed down earlier to check if we had won any prizes!

And we did quite well

Prizes included

Lemon Butter
Plum Jam
Chutney - Zucchini chutney
Potatoes
Any other veg - a squash
Plain scones
Date scones
Baked slice

The boys also did well with Zane winning with chocolate crackles and a trophy for best entries in the junior cooking class, Quinn scoped first with his decorated potato.

So we ended up with 11 prizes between us all!



Chook Coop Mark 2

Yes I know its been awhile but I have now nearly finished the chook coop!

Some very hot weather had delayed things along with having visitors, this week I had a extra long weekend and was able to finish the frame, concrete a gate post, erect 3 cross beams and do about 90% of the wire. A couple more hours on the weekend and I should have everything finished, except for the gate! As I still am unsure on what I am doing with this!

Here's some photos.



There is a market in town on Sunday and I hope to get 3 birds there, though we are having some hot weather forecast so I might delay getting the birds if it looks like it will be very hot all next week.

Vegie patch

Anyone for zucchinis ?(or courgette if you prefer) I have quite a few! I bought a punnet each  of zucchini  and button squash seedlings, not expecting all the plants to survive. Well they did!

I planted 2 of each in an outside bed, and 3 of each within the netted area. The outside ones are going great and I am picking 2 a day, the ones in the netted area are a little behind - partly to do with the poorer soil, but that's another story, and are now starting to produce.

Even with giving some away and trading some we are still eating zucchini or squash with every meal!

I will be picking the last 2 cabbage at the weekend and digging the last of the spuds, some of which will be going in the local show the following weekend. We are still picking kale though the sprouting broccoli has now finished. I picked the first tomato the other day too!

 

 

I've also been making some jams, jellies and chutneys to varying degrees of success. First attempt was a wild plum jelly, tasted very nice but didn't set too well,  next came plum jam - a great success, also zucchini chutney which is beautiful.

 

 

 







 Today I have also made some lemon butter and lemon cordial

 



As mentioned above we have been trading vegies, well mainly zucchinis and squash, and getting goats cheese and some smoked ham in return. The boys are loving the goats cheese, and Quinn liked the ham even though he knew where it came from - the next door neighbour's pig that he was feeding up until a few weeks ago.

Local Agricutlural Show

Saturday week is the local agricultural show, yesterday Lisa and I spent the day going through what we were going to enter. We ended up planning to enter 25 different classes, including some of the following

Potatoes
Rhubarb
Zucchinis
Novelty Veg
Plum Jam
Lemon Butter(Curd)
Chutney
Scones
Date Scones
Baked Slices
Apple Pie  - the big one! $100 prize money for the best pie
Chocolate Cake
The boys are also doing a few including
Lego
Edible necklaces
Chocolate Crackles
Decorated Eggs

I'll post an update with some photos after the show, hopefully with some prizes!