Rainy Days

It's been raining on and off the last two days, so we've spent a lot of time indoors. DD made this flower out of paddlepop sticks, all her own idea, although I suspect it was sparked by our flower collages a few weeks ago. I'm really impressed at her craft work lately, she's coming up with a lot of ideas on her own, and has the manipulative skills to turn them into actual objects. She also made some letters out of the paddlepop sticks, although she messed them up before I could take a photo.

We were really glad to see this rain, as it's the first we've had since the last lot I wrote about, over a month ago! Very unusual for spring.

I know, I write about the rain quite a lot. But when you're living simply, it really does have a big effect on your life. And not in the annoying 'I'm going to get wet walking from the car to the shops' kind of way either. We rely on the rain to fill our water tanks so that we have fresh water to drink, shower and wash with, and to water the garden. Nothing makes the garden grow so much as a good soaking from the rain. Somehow, it's totally different to being watered with the hose or a watering can.

The rain inspired me to spread the rest of the sugar cane mulch around the front garden. It's well and truly soaked now, as is the ground underneath it, so hopefully even if we have another dry spell, it will stay wet, meaning I will have to water less, and what watering I do do will be more efficient. I hope it hangs around long enough for me to get some more mulching done, although I have so much else to do in the next few days, not sure how that will go.

It also inspired us to jump in and do a job that has been needing to be done for a while, digging a channel down the side of the house to drain some of the water that usually collects there. A good half hour in the rain, and we had improved things substantially. And of course, both DH and I needed a good shower! DD had a ball playing in the rain while we worked though.

While we were out there, DH cleared the gutters again, as they were overflowing yet again, even though it was only a few weeks ago that we cleared them last. We were debating over whether the cost of professional gutter guard was warranted, but after seeing that, it's definitely necessary, so we'll organise that on Monday.

Today I also managed to knock over another few jobs that have been on my mental to-do list, making soap, and making yogurt.

This is my second attempt at making soap using the tutorial on Down to Earth. The first lot was definitely usable, although not exactly pretty. I think my biggest problem was that I was stirring by hand, and after more than 20 minutes, had still barely reached trace. That was solved though by my wonderful sister (who will have some soap delivered to her in a few weeks) giving me her old stainless steel stick blender. One of the seals was gone, making it unsafe for blending food, but still fine for soapmaking. I reached trace so fast I was staring at it thinking it couldn't have happened that quickly, and wondering if I'd done something wrong!

This time I used a slightly different recipe also, listed here, which cut out the rice bran oil, and used copha instead of coconut oil (which is very hard to find). All up, it would have cost about $15. I would expect there are at least 15 bars of soap here (I'll find out tomorrow when it's set enough to cut!), so that's a pretty good price for this quality of soap. It's also totally unscented, with no other additives, very very hard to find in the shops! Now just to wait impatiently for it to cure (up to six weeks, if we can wait that long!), then we get to try it out.

I'll post more about the yogurt experiment tomorrow, it's still... what do you call it when yogurt is making itself? It's not really cooking, is it?

Garden Post!

Finally, as promised, here is a garden update post. After a very slow morning in which we managed to lose a lot of time doing nothing much at all, we got out to try to get things sorted. This was the front garden at about 11am this morning. And tonight, it looks much the same, minus a few sugar cane bales that were moved around the side for potato cages. Most of our work was in the side garden today, but before I get onto that, I'll post a few more pics of what is going on here in the front garden.

Here's some corn coming up in the first no-dig bed in the front garden. Not as good a strike rate as I had hoped for unfortunately. I planted 2 or 3 times this many seeds. Hoping a few more will come up yet, otherwise I'm going to have to replant into the spaces.

These little Johnny Jump Up's provide a nice bit of colour, if you ignore the weeds...

I'm building up quite a collection of potted plants around the planter box. It's easier to keep them all in once space to water them. There is loganberry and a youngberry (I think) in the big pots, my male and female kiwifruit in the red and blue hanging baskets, some red kidney beans in a punnet waiting to be planted out, and some pigeon peas yet to come up in the other punnets.

And finally, this is the raised bed I built. The sides are 10 bales of sugarcane mulch, 3 on each side, and 2 on each end. I then filled it with alternate layers of lucerne, Searles plant food, compost, sugarcane mulch from the chookpen, and manure. It's already started sinking a bit as it all breaks down. Hopefully this will be a really nice place to grow some of those nutrient hungry plants.

So far I've planted some watermelon seeds in it, and they're just starting to pop up.

And along the front fence, the sunflowers are getting ready to flower. They're about as tall as DD now, and I think I'm going to have to stake a couple, (or tie them to the fence), as the wind is pushing them over.

I was planning on writing about the side garden, and posting a few pics of that, but it's late, and I really need to get some sleep. But it does give me something to write about tomorrow!

More Potatoes

Not exactly the promised photos of the garden, I know, but we had another hectic day. DD had her 4 year immunisations today, and though she coped with it like a trouper, DH and I were pretty stressed about it. Afternoon was spent playing with an occasionally grumpy child, so not much was done. However, this bucket of potatoes is at least garden related, right?

These are the last of the potatoes from our first potato plot. We planted 25 potatoes originally, and this is probably about half of the total harvest. I'm pretty happy with that. Hoping we can get by without buying potatoes now until the next patch is ready to harvest. Then there will probably be a bit of a break before the next (as yet unplanted) lot. They're currently chitting in the laundry. I really do plan to get into the garden tomorrow, so hopefully there will be some photos soon.

Not a Garden Post

I had a plan to write an update post on the garden today, but we had a bit of an emergency with an ant bite, and before I knew it, it was too dark to take pictures. And we all know there isn't much point writing a garden update post without pictures, right? So instead, I looked around for something inside to take pics of. So here you have today's impulse purchases. 6 half metres of cotton fabric from Spotlight, all ready for 6 new skirts for DD. I just have to wash the fabric first (to preshrink, being 100% cotton), and I'll be ready to sew. The fabric was marked down to $5 a metre (from $7 a metre), so that makes it about $2.50 a skirt. Pretty affordable huh?

Then all I need is matching shirts. I've been debating what to do about these, since ribbing is a bit of a pain (and very hard to find 100% cotton ribbing, especially in the right colours), when a bit of a Google led me to discover a binding foot for sewing machines! Just like having a little bias binding maker attached to your sewing machine foot, so instead of ironing your binding, you sew it instead! Nifty. I've ordered one (or maybe two...), and hopefully they'll arrive soon, although maybe a week or two, since they're coming from the US. Then I should be all set to make some nifty t-shirts to go with these skirts.

DD has been a busy little bunny too, drawing these beautiful dinosaurs. I wrote the names on them for her. A big improvement over her first dinosaur drawings back in February. I especially love the big smiley faces. Obviously these are friendly dinosaurs.

And inspired by our visit to the Amberly Air Show on Saturday, she's also been making paper planes. She made this one all by herself, DH giving her instructions, after watching him make one. Her manipulative skills are just improving in leaps and bounds lately.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get some garden photos taken, and give an update on what is happening outside. Unless I get sidetracked...

Sewing Spree

After discovering this free pattern a week or two ago, I've been itching to try it. Unfortunately gardening, and all the other sewing I've been doing hasn't given me a chance until today. DH was away for the day, so DD and I got stuck into some sewing. (Or rather, I sewed, she played around me, although she did help choose the colours.) This pattern is very simple, and makes up really quickly. I made these four skirts in only a few (interrupted) hours. They look really cute on, and I'm sure will get lots of wear. I'd definitely recommend this pattern for any new sewers wanting something easy, yet professional looking.

While I was on a roll, I had a go at this tutorial for pillowcase dresses. As usual, I was making it from memory, so didn't follow the tutorial exactly, and I decided to do the thread through ties rather than the elastic and ties she used in the tutorial, but the basic idea is the same. These two dresses are actually made out of pillowcases! And they look surprisingly cute (and non-pillowcase like) on.

So in one day, using only material I already had, I made DD four new skirts, and two new dresses! And given my material stash, I have plenty more sewing days like this ahead! I wondered for a while if I would have the time and materials to be able to make all our clothes this year (well, mine and DD's, I draw the line at men's clothes, too difficult), but I'm off to a pretty good start. I can't see it being a problem to make our entire wardrobes. Well, I am making an exception to my t-shirts. 100% cotton interlock is very hard to find, and when you do find it, it's not cheap, so I'm buying my shirts second hand at the op shops.

In amongst all this sewing, I have been working on my spring garden, but it's not quite ready for photographs yet. I popped up to the old garden up the paddock this afternoon though, and harvested these. (Well, the eggs are from the chicken pen, and I actually took them out of the fridge, as they were collected this morning, but I've really been looking forward to adding the eggs to my harvest photos, so here they are.) We had the potatoes and peas for dinner, along with a pumpkin we harvested a week or two ago. We're getting closer and closer to a truly home grown meal!

Chooky News

We added some more shadecloth shade on the side of the chook run yesterday afternoon. I know the shadecloth doesn't look too tidy, but it's really just a temporary measure until the plants get growing I hope. Down this side I planted some more nasturtians (since they grow really well, and the chooks love them), the last few seeds of last year's packet of corn, some wormwood (herb that's good for preventing worms in chooks) and some carrot and lettuce seeds. I planted these quite close to the fence, so that hopefully the chooks will be able to peck at them through the wire.

In the corner, where that cheeky magpie is, I planted what I think is a liquid amber tree. My mum has one, and I love the autumn colours. For those overseas, nearly all the trees here in Australia are evergreen, so we have very few visible changes in autumn. Hopefully this will bring a bit of a seasonal feeling to our place next year. It will also have the advantage of providing the chooks with shade during summer, but letting the sun in in winter. Once it grows anyway.

The pen has been quite a bit cooler with all the work we've done on it, which is gratifying. Still hot, but then everywhere is right now. Hopefully not so hot that they'll cook though. The few times we've been out in the hotter part of the day they have seemed fine when we get back.

Our one chook who has been laying lays an egg most days (missed once since that first egg I think), and it seems we have another one, maybe two, laying as well. The last two days we've had an extra egg. It's surprising how different the eggs look. With supermarket eggs, you get a whole box looking just the same. But seems that isn't the case with backyard chooks, even if they are all the same breed. Our first layer lays small, pinkish/brown eggs, very round. The egg we had the other day was more orange, and with a more elongated shape.

I find it very funny that I can't tell the chooks apart, but I can tell their eggs apart!

A Plan

Well, I spent so long drawing up this plan in Photoshop, that I'm now too tired to really write a detailed post. So for today, you'll have to just enjoy my drawing mastery, and hopefully I'll have more energy to write tomorrow.