Yearly Roundup

It has been my tradition for the past nine years to do an end of year retrospective and I find it interesting to look back and remember a few highlights. In all of life's busy-ness it's easy to forget some of the blessings that makes life great.

There were many FAMILY highlights this year,

especially the eagerly awaited arrival of two new grandchildren born two weeks apart.

Julien is thrilled with his new sister and cousin.

I had a very exciting visit from a cousin whom I hadn't seen in decades and also from a nephew who has grown so quickly into a young man.

We had lots of house guests when we started our dry stone walling courses and we made so many nice new acquaintances.

Looking back we really did lots of hard work around the house with the garden taking on a more solid structure.

I completed the front garden and it is full of white flowers and has been blooming through every season, even the poor battered Teddy Bear Magnolias - they really are tough to survive there.

We constructed a crazy sandstone paved path, and I still can't stop looking at it!

In fact there were lots of gardening posts as I revelled in the new tulip plantings and structures and next year we hope to get some more gravel paths in...

We even had a large dump of snow in the middle of year and you can see the video of the garden in snow here.

We also had a a couple of garden groups visit the garden

and an artist came to paint en plein air too...

There were quite a few posts about the origins of the property and the fascinating finds that we dig up. You can read about these stories in...

Original Owners

Findings

and

When Time Stood Still

Amid all the usual preserving, cooking, sewing, knitting and gardening we had a couple of firsts;

We made Parmesan cheese for the first time and we grew chickpeas.

Sadly I haven't finished a couple of projects that I had hoped to have finished by now but another year beckons and I hope we will travel along together as we have into the tenth year of recipes, gardening, discoveries and shenanigans. 

Thank you for taking time out of your days to join me and comment and discuss your thoughts. Wishing you all a blessed and prosperous new year full to the brim of good things as I have this year.

xxx

In The Zone

I used to feel so comfortable and at home in this world, now everything looks exotic and strange. I used to know so many of the plants but that was more than 30 years ago. Now the scenery for the most part jars my senses and jangles my nerves.

We recently went back to Queensland to see a new grandson and family.

I used to embrace the heat and humidity but now I find like a plant out of climate, I don't fare well; my skin doesn't feel comfortable and my hair becomes listless.

This is more the palette of my spring world now and the climate I feel comfortable in. It takes a long time to acclimatise and I am sure I've arrived.

It has made me think about the plants and gardening. We can and often do, blur the climate zones within which we grow things, some survive and a rare few fully acclimatise but for the most part I sympathise with those plants out of zone that fail to thrive but we persevere anyway.

My folly of a Tahitian Lime in Campbell Town is very much on my mind. It's definitely not thriving but....it just might be acclimatising.....?

Are you like an exotic flower and struggle outside of your climate zone now?

Rose Hip Salve

Also at that same recent talk I gave, I demonstrated making a salve from rose hips.

You can find previous posts about salve making

  here

and 

additional notes here

This salve is ideal for the face but can of course be used anywhere.

I roughly chopped a big handful of fresh rose hips and then covered with cold pressed almond oil and gently infused over a very low heat till the oil had taken on the colour and smelled of the hips. I used my thermomix but some people use a slow cooker on low for a few hours making sure the oil doesn't get too warm as we are trying to preserve as much of the Vit C properties of the hips. The other method is to place the hips covered in oil in a jar and leave to infuse in the warmth of the sun over the month.

Strain the oil through a cloth lined sieve and extract as much as possible squeezing the pulp. 

Measure the resulting golden oil and add 10% in weight of bees wax. This is best grated and added to the oil to gently heat to dissolve. 

Once it is dissolved, you can also add a couple of drops of Vit E oil and pour into sterile jars and label.

It's best to use a container that is not clear and keep the salve in a cool place away from light. Always use a stick or clean finger and use within a few months.

If you prefer a scent, you can add a drop of essential oil but I like to keep the salve as simple as possible and enjoy the benefits of the almond oil and rose hip oil.

You can use any rose hips but I find wild rose hips in abundance around our road ways.

We also shared some rose hip cordial on the night and the recipe is found 

here

Stinging Nettle Pesto

Recently I gave a talk at the local garden club about food and medicinal plants foraged within the Midlands area. We have plains but also hedgerows and abundant waterways providing a wealth of material and a diverse variety across the four seasons.

Nettles are common in our area and quite a super food power packed with nutrition and health benefits and a much better choice for a "cleanse" than some of the more extreme methods. They are rich in Vit. A, C and K and magnesium, phosphorous, calcium, iron, potassium and more. They aid circulation, lower blood sugar and regulate blood pressure. Ergo, if you are on medications for diabetes and blood pressure disorders you may find adjustments and consultations necessary. Anyway, this little story is not intended as medicinal advice but as a useful seasonal food resource. It's free, abundant and good for you in as an inclusion in your diet. They do have a sting but this can be disarmed by a quick blanch in boiling water.

You can find my method and recipes for 

Nettle Hair Rinse

and

Wild Nettle Cordial

And without further ado, my recipe for nettle pesto....

Nettle Pesto

A couple of double handfuls of nettle leaves, young and tender.

1-2 cloves of garlic

50g Parmesan cheese

75-100g raw chashew nuts

olive oil to make required texture

Wash and then blanch for not more than a minute in boiling water and refresh the nettles in cold water and drain well. Pat dry to absorb more water.

Place in a food processor with other ingredients and blend until you have the desired texture. You can pulse till you get a chunky crumbly style or blend well for a creamier sauce like mix.

Use this pesto as you would a basil pesto; over hot pasta, gnocchi, fish etc or delicious as a dip for crackers and crudites. 

A Boy In Autumn Waiting

It's been all about the leaves and colours these past couple of weeks and seeing autumn anew through a child's eyes.

The excitement of new gumboots for muddy puddles on misty cool days and hand knitted yard jumpers in pure merino yarns. Beanies with pom poms on top to keep little ears warm.

Winding some new skeins into balls and choosing patterns.

Collecting leaves and taping them to paper and tracing around some.

Shapes, colours, berries, textures....

Talking about trees and their roots. Leaves and their veins. The pathway of nutrients in sap and the shutting down for winter. 

He calls winter, "The Snowy Time", the time not too far away now when his sister will arrive.

She is eagerly awaited as we revel in our autumn waiting for Aubrey.

Garden Construct and Structure

This has to be the hardest we have worked in the garden! 

Spring and summer are pretty full on with the growing but in this pre-winter period we have been attending to the structural parts of the garden - Remember...this garden just two years ago was a paddock. We have put in some vertical structures like the arches and old gates (like sbove). These give the landscape some substance in winter when most of the garden is dormant.

Over the summer we have been getting ute loads of sandstone "crazy" pavers. These are a random mix of shapes and sizes that we have loosely sorted ready for laying down the central path of the garden.

Some painting jobs are prepped; like the folding seats and a couple of arches but there is lots of linseed oil maintenance waiting to be done too on timber fences and the fowl yard.

Lots of trimming back, dahlia shifting, seed saving, seedling exchanges and vine tying. 

The bulbs!

I've planted about 100 bulbs this autumn, mostly white tulips and white daffodils. I've mixed the varieties in the same colour so that I get a lasting display over the spring between the early and late bloomers.

I've planted out violas and pansies for winter colour into spring and we have our cold crops under way and battling the rabbits. Our pasture has been improved and Neil-Not-Veal (calf) is also thriving on cut lucerne and an oat, corn, barley mix. He has grown his winter coat and is getting jolly boisterous.

Our major project over the coming months though will be a dry stone wall down one boundary side. We will be hosting classes taught by a master Stonemason/Waller from Derbyshire UK. We have sourced some lovely sandstone that splits safely like butter and should produce a beautiful traditional boundary to last centuries to come.

(photo by Valerie Carline)

This is similar to what we are working towards and daily we indulge in gate fantasies....

like this beautiful one in Ross.

Timber or metal???

To tie it in with the shed....but that's a yonder still project again!

May Days

May passed in a blur for me. Work was extremely hectic and I was getting things prepped for the Campbell Town Show. The highlight of May for me was Mother's Day which we spent at Clarendon. It was a superb day of exhibition, skill share and garden stalls etc. They are making it an annual event and I think I will too. We celebrated the day together and there was no cooking or washing up and all the ladies really appreciated that!

The leaf turning this year has been long and lustrous. The crab apple has done a full leaf drop this year so I am expecting a big blossom flush and lots of fruit. The leaves, though a nuisance for some, have been raked often and placed atop garden beds preparing for sleep through the winter. My folly, the Tahitian Lime, has been swaddled in frost cloth and we shall see how she fares in spring.

The quince thicket that provided shelter and cool relief in summer for the hens in the yard has fully leaf dropped and allows in the warming sunlight shafts of the lowered trajectory path of the winter sun. Our handsome black Australorp cockerel, acquired in late summer, is out of quarantine and in full health and minding his flock. He is very attentive to his ladies, finding tid-bits and sharing them and pointing them out. Keeping a watchful eye on their progress round the paddock and calls me raucously when I fail to come down early enough to spread the feed!

Autumn is also the time of rodents! The mice especially have been in large numbers this year, trying to move inside to the warmth. The crows, kookaburras and other prey eating birds have moved into the garden, watching and swooping. Rabbits have moved into the paddock too and we catch them from time to time. They are skun and popped into the freezer and we keep out eyes peeled for mushrooms down in the pine tree corner.

It is the time to safely light the bon-fire and clean up garden debris, young and old enjoying the cold at their back and the warmth on their faces. Jumpers and boots are our uniform now for the next several months while the snows cling to the mountains and the washing is permanently ranged around the heater. 

Great nights for knitting and here is one I've just finished for Julien.

It's a favourite pattern I use and is available 

here.

A lot of it is knit in the round and is quite quick with lot's of stimulating, yet uncomplicated, pattern changes. I use DK/8ply pure wool and 4mm needles. This was one of my entries in the show but it didn't place but I'll try again as Julien will need another one next year! You can view my project from last year on Ravelry here

Another Door Opens

As we close the door on 2016, here is a look back at the year that was for Suburban Jubilee.

If I had to sum up the year in a few words, it would have to be,

"Before And After"

Our year was mostly about renovation and they proved to be popular posts.
(Before and After - Front Room)
(Before and After - Hallway)

Not the least of which was the new kitchen finally going in at the beginning of the year just in time for the big preserving season.

We kicked some goals outside too with a major shed renovation

Saving a fortune and gaining some much needed storage space.

We built a new chook yard and a poly-tunnel.

And the gardeners loved our before and after wrap up of 12 months in the garden.

Lots of preserving from our new hedgerow; quinces, elderflowers/berries and plums.

Favourite recipes were

The (sooo easy) Date Slice from our Yarn Tour 2016

It was a very, very wet year.

We flooded

TWICE!

But no real damage done. Our dear neighbours have been heroes accommodating some of our equipment in their shed when the waters rose and we can't thank them enough. 

We lost three of our old chooks in the flood but we are working on renewing the flock. Izaac and I have purchased a couple of Black Australorp roosters who are currently in quarantine and will shortly join our girls in the hopes of some new blood. But that's a story for the new year.

Lots of knitting....

Back into soap making....

A couple of Kidney Australia fund raisers.

Lot's of cooking and entertaining.

Old school friends and family visited from the Mainland making it a very special year in the new house.

Getting the work/life balance just right!

We've learnt so much this year and embraced our seasonal life in a rural setting.

I've been grateful to the beautiful people of Campbell Town and the way they have opened their arms and welcomed us in. When pesky work permits, I am a member of the local gardening group and the singing group. We have started to forge lots of lovely friendships.

(view from the kitchen window)

Our year has been all we could have hoped for and we feel Blessed.

As we open the door on another year and another chapter,

we wish you a prosperous and healthy New Year.

Thanks for your support and friendship throughout the year.

Love T.