Springtime

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Spring is here, and everything is budding out, flowering, setting fruit, or has already grown at an amazing rate – as happens at this time of the year!

We will take an intentional wander around in the next week or two to specifically take a pile of garden photos, and put them up to show you all how much it has come along in such quick time.

It seems like only a few short weeks ago, that we planted out the purple and butter pole-beans that we had germinated in-doors during the cool, and already we are harvesting lovely fat purple pods off the vines.
The butter pole-beans are going a little slower, but plenty of beans have set and they just need a little more time to fill out.

The winter peas are giving us their last few sweet and delicious pods – with a couple being left on each of the vines, to self sow when they are ready…
We managed to get a good haul off them, and have enough put up to easily last us until we next have a pea harvest.

The latest tomatoes bushes all have fruit on them too, and we definitely see an up-and-coming glut happening later in the year!

We scored an amazing deal at the supermarket ( purely by accident ) when they were selling off organic beets at almost give-away prices, so home they came with us and have since been canned to add to the deep-pantry stock for summer salads etc.

Our furthest neighbours cut down a pile of trees about a year and a half or more ago, and when they did our resident kookaburras [Karl & Katey] weren’t seen around the farm for a very long time – but in the last couple of weeks – they have finally come back; and we’re just sooooo loving having their wonderful laughter fill the air once again.
We missed them a lot!

Speaking of trees, whilst we have planted a load of trees since we bought the place, and have a load more still to plant, there is a large gum that is in our closest neighbours yard, that has been growing further and further over our little home, and quite regularly drops a branch here and there, especially when the winds pick up – and one particularly large branch that has been dying off over the last 6 month or so – has been giving us particular concern.
So, last week the loppers came in and gave it a bit of a trim.

We only got the branches that had the likelihood of dropping on our house taken off and didn’t take any off the top – so whilst the whole darn thing may well come down in a decent cyclone and squish the house; we feel a lot better about the usual day to day life without those branches hanging threateningly over out head – literally! lol

We’re also not wildly keen for the whole tree to be taken down, due to the shade that it gives our house and house-yard, which keeps the place a whole lot more bearable during the height of summer; however that’s ultimately the neighbours decision being that its their tree!

We got the loppers to dump the wood chip down in the paddock, so its good that we have extra that we can use around the place, as we have been hurriedly deep-mulching all our garden-beds, trees and pathways in preparation for summer – to help with water retention, and to protect the soil.

Unfortunately – that wasn’t the only less-than-wonderful thing that they did whilst here.

There were two more things that happened that we didn’t find out about until after they had left.
One was that they chopped off a tree leaving just an 8’ stump, when they had been asked to take just one branch off said tree.

And the other was that, at some point –  we can only assume that one of the branches they had lopped fell down – and has smashed one of a pair of statues that was right at the front door against the house.

We weren’t told about this either but later found the statue hidden – in pieces – in a dark corner of our outdoor undercover area.
not.happy.jan!

We contacted the owner of the company, who did offer us restitution – however that wasn’t the point.
The point was that the guys working for him need to be honest about their stuff-ups and tell the client – not hide it like naughty children!

The bedroom wall is all but finished apart from needing a few extra screws in it, and working out the placement of the hanging hooks.

Building of the deep-pantry and bathroom walls has come to a bit of a stand-still due to the fact that the tongue and groove we have been using, not being locally available for the last couple weeks.
A tad annoying, but its not like we don’t have enough to do else-where to keep ourselves occupied! 😀

Last week we planted out kiwi-berries into a raised bed down near the hoop-house.
We are going to need to get a move-on with getting some trellis up for them, as they are suddenly growing at quite an alarming rate after having been dormant over winter.

The raspberries had also been dormant – and they too are now growing madly.
We’ve been dithering about where to put the bed for them, and finally had it in place and ready to fill – which actually involved much measuring AND a bloody compass(!!), then – when the loppers were here – they moved it!!
Not because it was in their way, but because they couldn’t be bothered driving around it! 🤦🏽‍♀️

A couple of weeks ago we had someone come in and do some drone shots of the Farm – basically so that we have a clearer record over time, of what we are managing to get done; so that on days when we are flagging and feel like we aren’t ‘getting there’ fast enough, we can actually see that we’ve really made quite a big difference to out little piece of ex cow paddock.

Spoiler Alert: no one who is renovating or farmer-ing, ever “gets there”!
You might get things ticked off your list, but faster than you’re ticking things off, more things are being added!!

A couple of weeks ago we also made two huge batches of soup.
Beef and vegetable, and chicken and vegetable.
17 litres in all!
After we were done, just for interests sake we made a list of all the ingredients on a post-it note.
On one side we put home-grown ingredients, and on the other we put shop-bought ingredients.

As it turned out, the only things shop-bought were the meat, salt + pepper.
Gotta say, we were a lil bit lot chuffed with ourselves. 🙂
Oh – and did we mention that we’ve also been pickling our radish, and making gorgeous purple sauerkraut from our cabbages?

Our zucchinis are going nuts, and have been super-delicious, and a ‘new’ Farm favourite on the menu is caulibroc rice – which we’ve made up huge loads of and frozen in batches.

Even the chooks have been back on the lay, and providing us and a few others with delicious balls of eggy goodness.

And speaking of things that grow well – we’ve also had another precious grand-baby added to the Fam, with our eldest daughter having given birth to a daughter back in August.
Eight grand-babies all up now! ~sheesh!!~
We’re exhausted just thinking about ‘em all! lol 😀

We’ve had some really good bargain scores at the nursery of late too.
So we’ve got a couple more unplanned-for trees to still be planted.
They really were too good to pass up on though!

The back fence was finally pulled down a while back, and our mate Marcus and his sidekick came and strung up a new one for us.
The top wires are still yet to be put up, but once they are we will be that bit closer to having a long free-range run for the chickens, underneath the southern tree-line.

And in closing – we had a wonderful new whipper-snipper guy turn up bright and early on Monday morning to get the rest of the fence-lines under control, before the combination of summer and the wet-season turned them into an impenetrable thicket!!

He did the most wonderful job and will for sure become a regular visitor / worker!

So that’s about it for the Farm wrap-up for this time around.
We’ll try to do the garden update photos soon – probably on the weekend.
🌿

#StrigidaeFarm
#DayInTheLife
#SeekTheSimplicity
#TheHeartOfSlowLiving
#LessIsMore
#FarmToTable
#SlowDownAndEnjoyLife
#DoWhatYouLove
#WorkAtHome
#NoFoodToLandfill
#WarOnWaste
#HomeMadeGoodness
#CookingFromScratch
#FrugalMummas

 

An aerial shot of our lil home.

Our newest grand-daughter

Blueberries

Canning Olives

Everything that came out of our garden, that went into the meat & veg soups we made.

More soup on the go.
Got a much bigger pot after this multiple-pot silliness

About to put the soup into jars for canning.

Done and dusted ready for the shelf!

After all that work, it only seemed appropriate to have a bowl for lunch 🙂

This is the new shelving that will be going into the deep-pantry

Its been starting to get hot, and Blaze is melting…

Beans have been planted out, after getting their start inside during winter.

Beans growing well and starting to flower.

Loaded with beans

Broccoli and Cauliflower ready to be made into ‘rice’.

Quick stir-fry of the ‘rice’ prior to bagging.

Caulibroc rice bagged up for the freezer.

Zucchs have been going nuts!

Beautiful beets!

Making sauerkraut.

 

Fermenting time.

 

…as we all know – every post need a bread photo!

 

Tree lopping.

 

And more.

 

Bedroom wall – needs some extra screws, and working out where to put some staggered hooks.

 

Daikon + getting ingredients ready to pickle.

 

Pickled radish. YUM!

 

Mulching, mulching and mulching!

A quick trip down the hill to blow out some cobwebs.

Glorious healthy Kale!