Breakfast - its a funny meal

i realised about a year ago i was skipping breakfast so i went all goody goody and started having low carb high protein breakfasts. Read: eggs, tomato, mushroom fry up. That got too hard, so i switched to the diet shakes we sell at work. you know, just add water, shake and go. i ended up sipping them all morning and while they are low calorie, simple and packed with vitamins (even Chromium for combating sugar cravings) i feel that they cant be good for me long term. They probably have tonnes of flavours, sweetners, anti-caking agents, preservatives. Totally artificial.

Sooooo..... i was browsing the cereal isle and Woolworths and its all crap! mostly. Its either sugar disguised as food, highly processes grains until "thankfully" they dont resemble grains, or its HUGELY overpriced. for something that you eat almost everday (Pancakes on sundays) i dont want to be paying $6-8 a box.
I guess i should be eating porridge, its down home goodness. BUT all carbs, especially when you need as much brown sugar and cream as i do, to get it down my gob.

SO i ended up making a batch of home made muesli (which in hindsight is probably really expensive, made of nuts, sesame oil, golden syrup and dried fruit) but the plus side is, the portions are controlled at 1/3 cup.
I cant eat much more than that anyway as its so rich.

In the end I'm just wondering what people do for their first, often rushed, meal of the day AND WHY?????

Yay camera!

back in business

also in other news,

our sheep escaped last night.

took until 11.30 this morning to get them back. thankfully a lady 3-4 blocks away called the council to say they were in her driveway. they crossed a railway, princes highway and a creek to get there. stupid sheep.

Mount Barker council considers itself a rural council so i did have the help of a council officer usually involved in dog and cat catching. he was on his own though - friday before a long weekend. usually a team of three should do this stuff but he had himself, me and max a very old very tired retired border collie who i'm dog-sitting and who i thought could "sit, stay" at any gateways if we needed an extra "man"

we found a house that had a secure yard and the lady said she'd tolerate them until i came with a trailer. they didn't go in there, they ran across the creek footbridge instead. then across the main street. then across the rail line. sigh. pack into the 4wd and track them down. by now they are on Burns st and Gary (council dog catcher) reckons they are smarter than i give them credit for.

they prove him wrong pretty quick by nipping up a side street and racing down a long driveway. turns out the guy who lives there kept sheep, had them penned in a little raceway and had a trailer with cage!! awesomeness.

by this time i've been standing in the rain for at least half an hour. but we get them home, Gary does the manly trailer thing down the drive and farewells me and max.

i bought a bottle of wine for both Gary and sheep-guy-with-trailer.

Note: dont share sheep in two neighbourly backyards when your neighbour has kids that

a). chase sheep until its gonna taste like leather and

b). leave gates open.

MARKETS! YEAH!!

I F***IN' Love the Central Markets

I found pine nuts for $35 a kilo - so i bought a kilo. Beat that price anyone and i'll buy another!

Every item at the markets has a story attached to it. i love that the produce is described right down to who grew it, where and what variety it is. Rather than Coles - Pears $xx/kg. These all have "Packham Pearsm, D.Smith of Lenswood Adelaide Hills $xx/kg"
i love that. the cheeses have descriptions of style and taste

I love the fact that if you walk around long enough trying samples, you dont really need lunch or dinner! Haha. Apples, yoghurt, nuts, cheese, salami, pears, grapes, choc coated coffee beans everything!

I love that that if you are around late in the day - last half hour - EVERYTHING seems to be $2.

I love that i can take a trolley and go nuts with bulk purchases from Goodies and Grains.
I like the little tiny Nana Buns stall tucked away in the alley that do Custard, Vanilla, Red bean and coconut flavoured buns. I like bubble tea. I like the buns with streusel on top sold at the Grote St end for $7.50.

I like buying clothes from Global Village and smelling like incense that i cant quite pin point when i wear them.

in short. I F***KING LOVE THE CENTRAL MARKETS

Camera issues

As you can see there have been a lot less photo's lately. Thats because of flat camera batteries and renovations BUT i finally found the charger and soon we'll be up and running again.

"Interesting" Names that I see daily.

Heres a selection for you....

Harleigh, Tarhlia, Darcy, Tallara, Anezka, Caitlyn, Cheyenne, Levi, Sienna, Brock, Alanah, Briony, Seth, Tiahna, Zahavah, Ieuan, Jye, Tania, Jorja, Saphiah, Kiara, Petria, Xander, Anjali, Zaine, Veloneika, Staskia

I'd like to name my child a traditional family name that has meaning to me. I see names like this in the next generation CONSTANTLY! and i think these poor kids are going to be spelling their names 3-4 times to people for the rest of their life.

I understand some of these are lovely and just novel whereas others are simply "Epiy'nnee-Raii" type names. This is a very controversial and personal topic - i'd be interested in what people have to say about it.

Justified - no not Timberlake

HA!

seems i'm not the only one pissed.

http://earthgarden.com.au/portal/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=7&thread_id=3240&rowstart=0

hard lesson to learn but at least i didn't get ripped off with only a small stick to show for it.
Going to try this Perry's place and hopefully make a day of it.


Lesson to be learnt here - pity we lost the membership fee but i'll keep ordering seeds and the catalogue will prompt more Perry's purchases.

ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY

i guess you notice I'm angry.
We diligently placed an order of soft fruit, potatoes, orchard trees, hardware and seeds with The Diggers Club - an organisation i have been very impressed with - heirloom products, organic and ethical.
This was May15th, all ready for spring planting by the time it would have been processed. A friend went in on the the soft fruit bulk purchase.
I reliably rang up time to time, listened to the exhaustive phone recording to keep track of our order. tried one time to wait for an operator but since i'm at work during office hours, i get interrupted and cant wait out the hold time.
Since a friend recieved her order (placed after ours) earlier, i made sure that i was going to talk to an operator.

They had accepted our money but no order was registered.

So i had waited 3 MONTHS for bloody well nothing.

I'm so annoyed. my own fault for not checking up earlier. Surely, the transfer had account identifiers that let this know it was from a Ward household! would have been nice to be notified that there was a problem!!!!! I've missed a whole season - I'm now a year behind in the soft fruit. Potato's set back, strawberries set back, fig tree, etc.

I'd love to try Garden Express recommended by a friend , but as i know it Diggers is unique in its ethics. I dont want to spend the money locally - bad i know - because i wont get the same quality and value.

Hindsight - i did a lot of things wrong, not enough identifiers on the banking transfer, didn't ring to confirm the day of, didn't check progress earlier, gave the benefit of the doubt to a retail company (never a good idea, i know) and i ordered online. Stupid net space - orders get lost. I have the reciept at home i'm damn sure. I wonder if i could make a fuss and get some recompense.

Unfortunately for my pride, I'll have to go back to them and try again. I'd love an alternative company to fall back on and give my business to, but none i know of. Contact me if you are better at live plant heirloom ordering.

ANGRY!!.....

Ducksville SA

While at first i was diappointed that the camera broke down first thing friday, it turned out o.k. the most interested parties were there on the day and as Jimmy kindly pointed out you cant document and publish anything we did that day because the RSPCA would come and bust down our doora nd send us off to jail.
As i understand it these things are o.k. in isolation and individual cases, but encouraging it and publishing it is not.

So basically,

heres the MA+15 content, in purely text format:

4 ducks were killed very quickly and easily, and nobody lost any fingers.

i cant go into detail here, but a few things surprised me - things that no-one tells you expect. I'm happy for people to contact me if you'd like more detail before attempting this kind of self sufficiency.

they were hung upside down while we went inside for morning tea.
poppyseed cake and muffins - YUM
3 were dry plucked and this worked very well. the last one was colder by the time we got to it and so it was scalded - i believe the water was too hot and as the feathers were removed, the skin broke - this loss of integrity means the bird cannot be roasted whole. I dont recommend the scalding method - just pluck them as soon as possible, while there is still some natural warmth.

again more surprises as i had to clean the birds, secateurs work really well. but there is more to it than most descriptions allude to.
More detail available on an individual basis - there are some pointers that people need to know that i shan't describe here.

Finally the meat was used in Friday nights curry and the bones in making stock along with celery onions, carrots etc. Curry was nice - bird a bit tough - maybe because it didn't hang long - i'll have to look into that more but stock is untried just yet.

Happy hunting ( lol)

Drumroll please

Well its duck day tommorrow. little nervous.
boxed each duck individually today - we need a better quarantine system than cardboard boxes. It also means that i cant easily include water with them without them knocking it over.
the idea is to take away food for 24 hours before and give them just water before they are dispatched.
Sigh.. i need to say it and stop using avoidance words. Kill. We are going to kill four ducks tommorrow. there i said it.
Handling them today was odd. they fight and poo on you so you dont feel that nice towards them, but have lovely new soft, pristine white feathers. quite pretty. until the stink!
the females are a bit small, but meat is still meat. thats the difference - we are raised to believe that whole meat birds should be a certain size, like a roast chicken at woolworths, but thats an artificial size and actually too big. it feels convinient and value but how much is kept as leftovers, how big are the portions per person. king size? Hopefully one female duck will do one meal for 2 people when combined with stirfy vegetables or mash and steamed veg etc.

its a dark meat which will take some getting used to but that doesn't mean its a bad meat. just different. i've really enjoyed the duck i've had a restaurants and in take away curries and if anyone thinks its inferior to chicken - grow some balls and have a taste. you'll change your mind, especially if it becomes more readily available and cheap (ie. home grown)

thats my 2 cents today.....

More Frost No. 2

So cold last night that the dog kennel was moved to the verandah and I (silly girl that i am) boiled the kettle and tucked a hot water bottle in under the carpet of the kennel. stupid hey. i guess i could say i didn't want Loki howling and keeping me awake but it was more sappy than that. Frosted beans this morning. even up in the raised box next to he verandah, top of the block. not happy abou that.
wonder if coriander, celery and strawberries are frost tolerant?

Frosty

This morning was cold!
It was handy, i could see the pockets of frost, especially the orchard and next to the chookpen. Unfortunately the bok choy, broad beans, cabbages and brocolli dont look so hot.
Had to break ice on the chook water bucket.
we'll soon see what survives the frost. even as i walked to work the footprints left from yesterday we're little frost pockets because they was little traps that the sun hadn't got into yet.

What to write about....

Well. there is not much happening at the moment. mid week and all.
Need to ring a man about a chook, still.
Almond is blossoming. Mulberry is fruiting. Chickens laying. Cabbage getting bigger everyday.
oh, my herbs sprouted a few days ago. cant remember what i planted. Probably celery, mustard, dill, fennel and lettuce mixture.
Clock ticks closer to D-Day. gettting ready to say goodbye to ducks that are still lovely, white and stately. i was hoping they'd be uglier by now. sigh. what comes around....

Geese gone to a better home. no really, they're at Sanderson.
Contemplating another lamb to share with neighbour, Twelftrees of Lobethal and our freezer. probablem is.. our freezer is still full of mutton. AND needs to accomodate 7 ducks in one week.
Anybody want a whole, fresh, country killed duck? Bananablue have 180g duck breast for $9.00 and two leg packs for $11.00. That makes a whole free range organic duck worth about $35.00 by my calculation. lol. just kidding. Checked and the average price is $13/kg conventional for frozen whole duck.


Really liking the new Woolworths ad. has anyone noticed it? the kids with avocado's. obviously people are growing more food at home and they now acknowledge that. Interesting.

Mail Order Food

I'm still waiting on a Diggers club order placed mid May.





I rang them and i was told Mid July for the cane fruits and potatoes.


It's been so long that i have a new catalogue now and want to place a new order. Does anyone else order plants and how long does it take?





The garden paths are now heavily mulched with pine mulch thanks to My Lovely Husband and the chook aviary is thick with gum mulch thanks to the collossal efforts of Warwick and Jimmy. (and Kiahs chicken was greeeeaaaat too). That should stop my morning slip and slide as i let the chickens out. Although - in hindsight .......nah - slip and slide paths would not have been a good idea when i stop and think about why they were slippery.





Sunday - not that productive, knitting, washing, folding, pancakes and "High Tea" complete with cupcakes, scones, china and muscato. mmmmmm yum. Thanks Jane!

Successful day

well 90% of the gum tree is gone but the cardboard boxes are still there. oh well they go under compost as i turn it each time.

Great day yesterday

• turned compost
• planted 3 more asparagus
• weeded driveway
• weeded house
• chipped up gum tree
• mulched chook aviary

O.k. now that i review it doesn't sound like much, but turning that compost was HARD!

Also the surprising factor was i had more and fatter worms on the driveway than anywhere else. Strange. Oh and yes i did weed the house. Had so many big tough weeds growing out of the concrete!

Sunshine and Granola-pops

Fabulous.
Today is the first day in a very long time that i could comfortably (in flannel pyjamas and fleece dressing gown) sit out at the verandah table and eat my breakfast! I'm absolutely stoked. Spring is coming - eventually

I have to conclude that Sunshine has a profound effect on my mood.
That and automatic timer switches.
oh and electric blankets.... Soooooo energy efficient (apparently) when compared to heating a whole room before bed.


i still dread the electricity bill, guilt free 100% green power but consumption is still consuption, and more so now that the heater is set to come on at 5am and again at 5pm. ...we'll see.


I have just heard that today is mulcher day!
there goes half a gum tree and (hopefully) a tonne of cardboard boxes from the shed.

Died tommorrow

Had a customer remark that she absolutely loves living in Nairne - she moved here a few months a ago expecting to buy vegetables from peoples houses (??) and told me that she is so happy since she moved out of the concrete jungle that if she died tomorrow she'd die happy..

strange.

Kar Kar Island Donuts

Recipe found in a 50c book at Flinders Street Church book table.


Ingredients

1 & 1/2 Tablespoon Yeast
1 Tablespoon Sugar
2 cups lukewarm water or milk


1 tsp salt
3/4 cup warm butter
5- 5&1/2 cups plain flour
1 tbs milk powder (if water used above)
1/2-3/4 cup sugar
1 egg


Method

Combine yeast, sugar, warm milk/water. Stand in warm place for 20mins

Stir in remaining ingredients. Knead. Cover. Keep warm to allow mixture to rise and double in size.

Knead well. Roll out on a floured board. Cut onto rounds like a cooked scone. (or half as think and put 1/2-1 tsp of jam in the middle of one. Top with a second circle and press edges together.) Stand to rise again.

Deep fry in hot oil. Roll in sugar and cinnamon.

Cannibalism

Well in typical Nairne Funny Farm Fashion.. (i should patent that phrase)

I get home from work with 10seconds of daylight left and rush down to let the loyal chickadees back into they're shed for din-dins and nesting. Find that the large ducklings (4) had been out with them all day and are still alive (not cat-napped)

One duckling had a bloody bum and one other duckling had very suspicious red colouring all over its beak. I sat and watched and it turns out to my horror .....

CANNIBAL DUCK!!

So (sigh) let the good birds in to roost, GRAB Cannibal Bill and stick him in the verandah yard.

Go inside, rug up and have a stiff drink. Stupid duck cheeps for an hour or so before realising that yes i do hate him, gives up and settles.

Later in the evening we had to do something 'cos the neighbors cats have neglected their duty and left him alive. He has two weeks to live and i dont want to be taking him in and out of a box each morning and night so My Lovely Husband rigged up a division in the shed, to separate the bugger. So he's on the Naughty Step for now. Husband had to brave cold, wet, sticky, dark shed but thankfully i was able to reward him with Cauliflower cheese, fish fingers and home made deep fried jam donuts.

Job well done.

Just Beginning

Damnit

Now i have Facebook, Hotmail, Google and Blogger as well as being in various forums.

When will it end!

The thing is i have nothing interesting to say.
Just a little proud of my garden - the mess that it is and like to get photos on every available medium.

Hopefully, you guys can move (very slowly) with me as we get closer and closer to permaculture and sustainability.