Just peachy!

 

I love late summer flowers. Dahlias and Gladiolis are popping up all over the garden, I'm so pleased as I have a new found love for them. They remind me of my Nan who loved Dahlias. I, for some strange reason, did pull up a whole heap of bulbs and tossed them away when we first moved in here. I have no idea why but I'm so pleased most of them still thrive out there.

Rat damage

There has been an invader in the orchard. Pesky rats have been chewing their way through the start of our summer crop of peaches. I'm not putting up with that at all - we have hardly any fruit this summer (codling moth has got just about our whole apple crop) so I got out there on the ladder, a big deal for height-a-phobic me, and put plastic bags (with lots of holes cut for air and moisture to escape) around each and every ripening peach. I'm happy to say that we are now enjoying beautiful big juicy peaches, and the rats are no longer beating us to them!

 

I'm loving the water lillies that have graced our pond as well, it must be a fairly healthy environment at the moment as we have some baby goldfish to go with our other six guppies in there at the moment. Obviously when a school friend of my big girl dropped off a couple more goldfish for us one must have been a boy! The girls are loving seeing these baby fish and really enjoy feeding them.

You can even see one of the baby fish (little brown thing) if you look closely enough.

The husband has always liked to drink Lemon & Barley water as a thirst quencher, but at $5 a bottle when we go through it quickly it seems a bit pricey. So he googled a recipe the other day and made some. About 50c worth of barley, a bit of sugar, water, lemon and there you go. Plus the chooks loved the left over barley once it was strained off. Homemade Lemon & Barley - much better for us too as sugar isn't the main ingredient anymore.

Recipe here

It's been a weekend of getting ready for school again. After 7 weeks finally school is going back tomorrow.  I've loved most of the holidays but being a working parent means that the last two weeks have been a bit of a juggle. Bags are almost all packed and baking has been done.

Have a lovely week xxx Kylie

Such Fun!

I've started a Ripple - and I'm loving it!!!! Using Lucys Neat Ripple Pattern I'm doing a pattern of 7 (I think) colours, and it's going to be a blanket for my big girls bed. It's such a relaxing little thing and I'm loving how fast it is growing.

I don't know how many Miranda (BBC programme)  fans there are out there but as I'm standing in the pouring rain at my elder daughters Agriculture Day at School (Lamb and Calf Club) today all I could think of was Miranda's Mum saying "Such Fun" (I know a couple of you will get that).....

Anyway, we didn't do so well in the ribbon stakes (although she did get one for Merit) but it was a good experience (including standing in the rain for hours). Cool little crafts done in class  - vegetable animals, flower arrangements, decorated biscuits and so on.

Righty-ho, back to the ripples.

Have a great weekend  xxxxx Kylie

In all my years of baking....

It suddenly struck me on Saturday that in all my years of baking I had never made a sponge cake. What?? I hear you cry, but it's true. So this was my very first attempt.

We have a slight oversupply of eggs right now, thanks to our 7 lovely laying ladies (well 6 - one is in retirement and we can't bear to do away with her) so anything that uses up eggs is on the menu.

I had no cream, and the youngest one can't have dairy anyway, so I made a mock cream filling but added some yummy fresh strawberries to get that summery feeling going.

 I really don't think I did too badly at all.

The garden is in full spring bloom - the Bees seem happy this year which is a great thing, somewhat helped with all the blossomy goodness around.

 

The vegetable garden is also growing nicely, if those chooks will stop escaping from the orchard!

It's school holidays so we took a quick day trip down the road to Auckland to soak up the fabulous Rugby World Cup atmosphere. And what a fabulous atmosphere it is. So many happy faces, so many nationalities. It's a really wonderful thing for the children to experience.

We did the touristy thing and headed up the Sky Tower as well. The girls loved it - and I don't think I was quite as queasy as I was last time I was up there (it is rather high and I am very afraid of heights). My girls have no fear and the eldest now wants to bungy jump. She is only seven though, so another eleven years and she may be able to ;) )

Oh I must share the wee remedy I made for my lovely husband. He had really cracked skin on his knees so I made a "Healing Salve" with Almond oil, beeswax, Calendula, St Johns Wort and Tea Tree. It's completely fixed the problem. I love making these remedies that really do work!

It's been a really busy few weeks. Crochet and watching the Rugby World Cup has occupied most of my evenings. Only a few more days and I should be able to do a big reveal of the Giant Granny Square blanket....

Have a lovely week  xxx Kylie

Kiss me over the garden gate

My girls are in love with the name of this gorgeous Heirloom annual, so the seeds are in the fridge chilling for a couple of weeks before I plant them.
http://www.about-garden.com/a/en/2455-polygonum-orientale-kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate/

I've had some seeds arrive that I ordered online to get my Spring seed planting a kick start. I'd saved a fair few seeds from the garden last summer as well so I should be pretty set.

I've planted some in seedling trays but I really need just slightly warmer evenings before I tackle the rest of the seeds.

I've gone for a very electic mix of seeds - from Vegetables (Celeriac, Rainbow Carrots), to medicinal herbs (Motherwort), flowers and and Bee attracting plants (Bergamot), and many more that I haven't listed.




I was reading littlewoollie's  blog yesterday and she was talking about her chickens laying very odd sized eggs - I'm having the same thing with ours. One of out older hens laid an egg the size of a quail's the other day. It was very odd inside (possibly she's getting a bit old to lay now??) The girls thought it was pretty funny though. We've had a couple of bigger than usual ones as well.

Mmmmm the Chicken, Leek and Mushroom pies I made for lunch earlier this week were divine - will be making those again for sure. Amazing what you can throw together when you think you have nothing left in the cupboard or fridge.

Anyway, a certain Rugby World Cup has been taking over our wee nation this last week or so. The hubby is a huge rugby fan so my girls have been right into it as well. I made them All Black cupcakes to kick off the action last week - they were a bit of a rushed job but the girls loved them.

We went to a game here in our little city the other night - Canada vs Tonga. We have no affiliation to either team but everyone was loving supporting both teams and we were all dressed in red. My lovely friend Leah (from whydidntanyonetellme ) sent me a photo that she had taken of us on TV and I was actually sending her a text message at the very time I was on TV.  Here is another photo of just me that shows how crazy I looked that day!!  Such fun!


Must go and get dinner on for the kidlets and us now - yay it's the weekend. Time to get some baking done (it's the little ones 4th birthday on Sunday, I really need to get the party food organised) and I'll try and get the crochet hook back out!

Bye for now  Kylie x

Ta dah - Yummy Cowl

I'm really happy with this. It's not a huge cowl but I'm not a big person so I didn't want to be swamped. It's in Grey, so really not putting much colour into my world but it's a colour that I like on me.

Cowl Pattern   (US crochet terms)
I did a foundation chain of just over 100 stitches. You could do as many as you like to make the Cowl as long as you think will work for you.
Crochet into second chain from hook, *1dc and 1sc in this stitch, then miss one chain. Repeat until end of row. Chain one and then repeat for the next row. Keep  going until it's as wide as you want - I did 11 rows.


I've doubled it over to wear it - and it was comfortable to wear all day today, and never got in my way at all which normal scarves have a tendency to do.

If you like the look of this, feel free to use this pattern but please link back to here if you do :)


I thought I'd share with you one of the lovely parts of living in the country. While out doing my nightly chores (feeding the chickens etc) I get to watch the new lambs jumping around like crazy (I call it the 5pm nuthouse) and the Cattle settling down for the night.

 
Fresh out of the oven are some yummy chocolate muffins for the lunchboxes and morning tea at work will hopefully put a smile on everybody's faces tomorrow.

More crochet to do... Tea Cosy time again.

Kylie xxx

Special treasure

I've been having a bit of a linen cupboard sort out today, and I came across my Nan's tablecloth. Oh the emotions that washed over me when I re-found this. Every single morning this table cloth was laid on her table and removed for each and every meal. It's only now that I appreciate why she loved it so. Even 17 years after her death I am sure I can still smell the comforting smell that was Nan and Grandads house on it. I just wish I had a table that would fit it - but mine are just too large. One day I'll have a special spot just for it, but until then it'll remain my special treasure.

I made some yummy Rice Bubble Slice the other day. Big girl and the Chief gobbled it up. Little one wasn't so sure about the idea of cereal in her baked goods (what does she think Afghans are made from then I wonder?). I thought it was pretty good, and so so easy!

We got two new chickens to join the flock the other day. We had 5 but only one laying at a time, and I resent paying for eggs, so we got some good egg producers. Brown Shavers - well known for their egg laying prowess (we've had them before but these are the best condition ones I have ever got). This is the best shot (above) of one of them - they were a bit camera shy over the first few days.  The old girls look a bit grumpy about their new pen mates don't you think?

And after a bit of a full on, at a times stressful, week I needed a little luxury... My lovely soap lady - www.justsoaps.co.nz  - dropped off some bars to keep us stocked. Her soaps are amazing! They are all natural - including the amazing fragrances. I have such super sensitive skin on my hands that I can't use anything else. These bars last well longer than the horrible chemical filled commercial ones. Don't you love how they looked all stacked in a pile? My girls certainly love smelling them when they arrive.

I've also found a terrific product for my girls who LOVE sprinkles on anything (well, what child doesn't? ) - natural colour ones! I'm not a huge fan of artificial colours so this really made me happy. Don't you just love them in all their colourful goodness.

I made a crochet pot mat this week, it was just a random design that I experimented with but it sure does the trick. Have been busy though making a whole heap of hats for friends babies now that the winter has hit us.

First little frost for the year - only a light one but it's certainly cooler in the mornings!

 Off to a musical with some friends tonight - can't wait!

Have a lovely weekend  xx Kylie

Sunshine Sunday

After a few days of heavy rain we have had a lovely day today, the sun was shining when I got up this morning - just the ticket to motivate me. And get some of that pesky washing dried!

So I've been a busy little Bee.

Our lovely neighbours have a Kiwifruit orchard, so at this time of year we are given loads of Kiwifruit. The girls love them but we can only get through so many. I usually try chutney or jam, as well as giving some fruit away but I found a recipe for Kiwifruit sorbet the other day that I just had to try.

Easy to make too, just a few photos from the process.

I made our favourite Lemon Cordial  (recipe from NZ Gardener - can't find it online but you may be able to search for it) - really yummy.

Do you remember the Macadamia harvest from last week? Well we put the Husker into operation and husked the lot of them within minutes, a job that used to take us hours!!

41Kg of nuts, all we have to do now is to dry them before we can crack them.

We've made a few things with some that we cracked already, Sweet and Spicy nuts and Macadamia Cookies.

I've also made a couple of new things today - Natural Vanilla Extract (made from Vodka and Vanilla Beans). The longer they are left the better the flavour is. I've heard of it lasting years, you just keep topping up the Vodka and replace the Vanilla when it breaks down too much. I didn't have enough Vodka left (its not a drink I really like, but I did use it in a couple of Summer cocktails), so will have to top it up more when I pick some up next time I go to town.

And I also made some Witch Hazel Toner. My skin is a bit funny at the moment - I think it's from being stuck inside so much.... I hunted out a few of my natural remedies books and a good toner for skin prone to oily patches was made from Witch Hazel, water and Lavender. Mix together, store in a dark place and dab on cotton wool before using with the cleanse and tone routine.

It's a long weekend here thanks to Queen's Birthday so I have the girls home tomorrow as well. I have a few ideas of what we could do tomorrow so watch this space.

Bye for now - Kylie x