After the Storm

And as suddenly as Wilma arrived, she has gone.  This morning is bright and clear and still.  The water is reduced from torrents to trickles.  I plugged in the freezer and she beeped cheerily at me and started up.  Phew.

I would have been really upset to lose a freezer full of food.  On top it has six homegrown roosters that we harvested the other day.  It has our rabbits, chicken stock, homegrown beef, wild pork, duck, homegrown veges......it's our frozen store cupboard that we could live out of for weeks. 

When we bought a big chest freezer we made the decision to spend a little extra and get a Vestfrost and we've never regretted it.  You can see how thick the insulation on it is, it makes it very economical to run.  It has a viewable thermostat and usually it runs at -18 degrees Celsius, this morning when I plugged it back in, it was sitting at -12.  Still absolutely solid frozen even after at least 15 hours with no power. 

I was contemplating a morning of squeezing, rearranging and giving away.  Now I'm breathing a sigh of relief and am grateful that I don't have to.  Instead, we will be working out a plan to clear behind our house.  With having our sewerage system installed there, using it as a storage area for miscellaneous junk and letting it get overgrown, we almost lost a valuable appliance and the food stored within.  It's time to get prepared for next time.

Cheese making with Wilma

So a very good friend of mine initiated me into the secret society of cheesemakers today.  And it really wasn't all that hard.  But you have to have patience.  The recipe* reads something like:  heat your milk to 37 degrees, add the culture, wait 30 mins, add rennet, wait an hour and a half, stirring three times, pack curds into moulds, leave overnight.....so that's the stage I went home!  Pip is draining the curds overnight and then putting it in a brine solution tomorrow.  Then magically, we will have feta!

It was the perfect day for making cheese - raining.  The tropical low that is coming down has not been downgraded, she is still officially Cyclone Wilma.  It was ominously still this morning when I went for a walk and the clouds were the most amazing crimson.

It started to rain about ten this morning and it's gradually got heavier and heavier until it was hosing when I got home with the kids in tow.  Only to find a torrent of water pouring under our house from a blocked drain behind, making a large puddle under the freezer that we have in the last open bay of our shed.  The electrical plug was under water and the freezer had shut off. 

I set to work and my boy and I cleared as much as we could,  then hubby arrived home and got stuck in too.  We managed to redirect the flow and clear the ditch but whether the freezer will be ok or not, well, we'll have to wait until the plug dries out. 

The photo above is taken hanging out a bedroom window.  You can see the water pouring off the overflowing water tank and the stream flowing along the ground is the full drain (which usually doesn't hold any water at all) that was previously mostly flowing under the house!

*I don't have a copy of the recipe so please don't take that as a full and complete set of instructions, you may just be a tad disappointed.

Drill, hammer, bang...

Look what's been happening at our place! 

We are so excited to see it finally happening.  Back up more than a year ago and you would have found us clearing and flattening the shed site, using the topsoil to create a wonderful vege garden, and securing a contract with a shed building company to build us a shed and a verandah.

And now our plans are finally happening.  After a few back and forths with the council, a bankrupt shed building company and more than a year of waiting.

I'll admit to having a celebratory glass of wine tonight.

But we've just heard about the gnarly tropical low (downgraded from a cyclone) coming through tomorrow and over the weekend.  Here's hoping it doesn't pick up the corrugated iron sheets and fling them around!

A few rainy day pictures

It's raining here today.  Pouring in fact.  So I'm just sharing a few pictures I've taken over the last little while.  Can you see the cheeky bunny stealing chook food?  We had a bunch of half-wild ones born a while ago and one day they all got out.  We managed to recapture most of them but this wee one has continued to elude us.  But he's semi-friendly.  I think he's living in the chook enclosure because he always seems to be there when it's food time, but I know he can sneak out through the fence too. 

Did you ever read 'My cat likes to hid in boxes' when you were a kid?  Wild Puss crammed himself into this box for a wee cat nap today.  Can't say it looked very comfy!

And these two made me laugh so hard I just had to take a picture!  They are a couple of my chooks done with a recipe my MIL shared.  You rub salt and pepper and turmeric into the skin - I added dried mixed herbs too - and then stand the chook upright and cram a jar of beer/cider/wine up it's bum.  Roast for about 45 mins to an hour depending on the size of your chicken.

I think they look like a couple of old ladies at a show day.  They've taken their little fold up stools and they're sitting down for a wee rest and a gossip about who won the chutney and pickle section!

By the way - they tasted delicious!

Quilting Goals in 2011

Last year I made quilts for lots of people; my MIL, my FIL, my son, my daughter, my nephew. And I didn’t mind that – the deadlines were a great incentive, I learned a lot and had fun doing it.  But this year is all about ME. I’m going to make whatever I like. If I end up giving it away to someone, well, that’s fine, but I’m not going to start a project with that end goal in sight.


I also want to sort out a few of my WIP’s. They are kinda hanging over my head a bit, so every week I’m going to do a little bit towards at least one. I’m not going to put any expectations on myself about finishing any, but a little bit here and there will all add up (I’m hoping!).

So this is my first ‘do what inspires you’ project. I had washed these batik squares together because of the colours. When I saw them all laid out for ironing, I just had to put them together. Then after a glass of wine one night, I glanced over at them and the tree flashed into my head.  But the tree was a bit big so I'm adding some extra squares.

A friend at our quilting guild made a fabulous wall hanging where the elements were all outlined in black. It gave it a real Hundertwasser look and I thought it a stunning effect. I’m outlining the tree in white as it was a bit tonally similar to the background. I will cut out leaves from the green linen napkin and maybe outline them in white too. I’m having fun with no pressure.

And as for my WIP, I have these three little bassinet quilts on the go for the maternity ward. Today I sat down and finally quilted the third one and chose bindings for all three.   Little steps and they'll get finished without me even noticing!

I'm particularly pleased with my free-motion quilting on this wee one.  Some wise person once said,"Practice makes perfect."  You know, I think they were right.