Blogtoberfest day # 26

two weekends ago it was market day in Lawson & i got to meet the lovely Anne over at loopity-lou & i came home with a treasure, something i have been on the lookout for quite some time

isn't he awesome, he went up on the wall in the kitchen that afternoon, now he needs a couple of friends

also came home with some indoor plants

Blogtoberfest day # 18

 day 18, boy does time fly when your busy


veggie garden fence is finished just need to do the concreting on the other side
gate is on & a sand stone entrance layed. the stone we have carried around with us for about 12 years, it sure is nice to finally give it a permanent home.
now we just need the timber for the beds & some dirt & we are in business
the total so far for this adventure is $142


Chook Wire - Free
Fence Posts - Free
Star Pickets - Free
Gate - Free
Sand Stone - Free
Timber for 1 bed - Free
Corner Spikes - Free
Fencing Wire - $62
Concrete - $54
Wire Strainers - $18
Wire Clips - $8

Blogtoberfest day # 12

Vet Visit


late sunday afternoon my Sally Girl just about ripped off one of her nails
first thing monday A & J took her down to the vet, where she stayed all day
they put her to sleep & removed the nail.
her foot managed to stay bandaged until this morning
hopefully we can keep it clean till it heals.
the bill was $208

Sally on monday night, she couldn't keep her eyes open

Baking up a Storm

today i made something that i haven't made in more than 20 years

 Cinnamon Scrolls from my woman's weekly cook book & they taste as good as they look

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Brownies

Blogtoberfest day # 10

Collecting or hoarding what ever you like to call it, we all do it to some extent
Jacqui over at Life in the Dome was just talking about her collections


on thursday i decided i would start to spring clean one room a week, so i started with my bedroom
& what you may ask this has to do with hoarding well the amount of stuff i had been hanging on to is just crazy
so started the piles, 1 to the recycle, 2 to the bin, 3 to Vinnies & 4 to give to family/friends 
after my room was mostly finished  [still have to wash the curtains & clean the windows]
i continued on through the house with the vacuum.
the last room in the house to vacuum is my craft room, this room i have been trying to sort out ever since we moved in, its just crazy the amount of stuff in it, boxes that i haven't even opened as well as lots of stuff that gets dumped in here out of the way.
this room is all about small steps. a couple of weeks ago i cleaned out all of my craft/country magazines got rid of a few on freecycle but most were still sitting there, some due to non pick up. they have been added to the vinnies pile. 
my white kitchen dresser [some may have seen in earlier posts] does house my fabric in the top glass door section but down the bottom it was jamed full to over flowing with jugs, bowls & lots of other collections from my kitchen. 
the time had come to bite the bullet & pass these items on the others, you can only have so many things before it just becomes stuff to fill up cupboards. 

these are just a few of the boxes that will be finding their way down to vinnies


this room still has a long way to go
the problem is that i don't just do 5 or even 6 different crafts, the number is limit less because there is always something new to learn & have a go at & that's where most of the stuff comes from.

Blogtoberfest day # 6

what does $3 buy

well a cute vintage footstool of course

it is handmade & covered in a seventies vinyl

looks like a high school project

i thought about recovering it but i think i will leave it as it is 

Blogtoberfest day #5

Winter Warm

i purchased a Grey winter coat this year & decided i needed grey Scarf & Mitts, so over winter i came up with my own pattern for a long scarf.

i think it turned out pretty good 

the wool i used is Moda Vera* Chantilly, an acrylic milk blend

Blogtoberfest day 4

Dogwood Tree

i have 2 favourite trees & one is the dogwood, it is a tree for all seasons. 
early spring 'now in fact' it gets a beautiful flower the one i have is pink & white with a green centre.
after the flowers come the fresh green leaves 
the bright red berries are next & the change into autumn red then purple leaves
winter brings the bare branches

every cycle of this tree is beautiful & the fact that it is called a Dogwood makes it even more appealing.

Blogtoberfest day # 3

Oops i missed the beginning of Blogtoberfest again

i hope to blog every day but you know how it is................

on the Veggie Yard front, the trench was dug & the wire was put up on half the yard & the gate post was added.

Sally Girl guarding the dirt pile, nice & clean as she had just had a bath that morning

didnt stay that way for long :o)

Trench dug & wire strung

the new gate, found it up the side of the house think it use to be window bars

concrete in the trench
old fence post to swing the gate from

as for the chooks, Miss Brown & Miss White decided they had had enough & jumped the fence & let the eggs go cold. better luck next time i guess.

How Nice

how nice is it to just take a day off work, well thats what i did on monday. never taken a sickie before, it felt great & a little bit naughty.

spent most of the day down in the chook yard.

i had dug a new bed on sunday & A' added compost from one of the bays & dug it through.

the chooks went nuts for all those worms & bugs. ended up shooing them out before they spread it all over.

planted out sweet corn & made another row for butternut pumpkin, topped them off with some straw.

in the hen house there has been quite a bit of pecking going on, so late in the afternoon i did a little more fencing & moved Miss White & Miss Brown over to the Green & Red hen house. they have settled in & still sitting. when i went down to feed the chooks that morning there was a little grey chick in the nest but unfortunately it was dead.

sunday also saw two more posts in the ground for the new veggie garden.

rows three & four in the potato garden have now come up, Nicolas & Dutch Creams.

this morning i made a new garden journal, think ill sit outside tomorrow afternoon & fill it in. nothing like a new book for a new season, bring on the lists :o)

Back at last

my computer got a nasty worm virus about a month ago, took a week to get me up & running again but unfortunately all the programs i know & love could not come with me to my new & improved computer as they were so old & you cant get updates for them. so now i am trying to work all these new programs that are really not easy. needless to say there have been a few tense days & a few choice words mumbled at the screen. not liking windows 7 at all grrrrr, google chrome doesn't do much for me either.

well enough about that, how about an update on the solar

our new bill came in & went went from $520 on our last bill to $124 this bill, how cool is that.

over summer will be even lower as this bill was over the winter, shorter days with rain & cloudy over cast days. we dont generate power unless the sun is on the panels. so over all i think we did brilliantly.

on the garden front, we are swamped with yellow grapefruit & mandarins, the grapefruits i have been leaving out the front for people to take. on a side note just before i came in i went out the front to bring in the crate & what ever was left of the fruit & some crappy person took the crate as well as the fruit. next week i will have to put a sign not to take the crate, that is after i bring home another one from work.

there are happenings in the chook yard, potatoes have sprung up in the first two rows i planted & last weekend the other two rows were planted out.

i let the chooks into the second part of the run to clean it up ready to plant out some corn.

as for those girls of mine, Miss Brown, Miss White & Miss Grey are taking it in turns to sit on 8 eggs. so who knows maybe this year we will get a couple of chicks. last year their shed got flooded while they were sitting, it was a very bad 2 weeks.

as for the rooster that i was assured was a hen has decided to jump at me when my back is turned, his spurs are an inch long so a little scary. if hes not careful he will be destined for the oven.

this is what my rhubarb looks like after a month, i can already taste the apple & rhubarb crumble mmmm

today we put in two posts for the new veggie yard, curtsy of the lovely old lady next door, the area will be fully fenced with the wire concreted into the ground as we did with the chook run. the reason for this is the area is not just for garden beds it will also have a couple of residents, the quacking waddling type.

last month found us at the Gardening Australia Show, it moved from Homebush down to Rosehill. it wasnt all that great & it was a lot smaller than it was before. however i did pick up 18 packets of organic seeds from the Greenpatch stall, so it was worth the trip.

that same weekend we went to the Organic Expo down at Darling Harbour. one of the reasons for going down was to find a new meat supplier as our old one only sells to butchers in the city now. no luck with the meat but did get few good ideas, oh & lots of samples esp as we had trade passes.

Out in the Garden

spent the day in the yard yesterday
pruning, mulching, fencing off some of the lillypillies that Sally keeps pulling out
chopping firewood, turning over the compost (its looking really good)




planted out the Lemon tree i received as a B'day gift in 2007
fenced it off as Sally loves to pull out anything that has been freshly planted



the boys & i fenced off a part of the chicken yard & dug 4 potato beds
today i purchased seed potatoes from http://www.bulbsdirect.com.au/
King Edward
Nicola
Saphire
at $7.50 for 20 potatoes of each variety
also ordered a Silvan Giant Rhubarb

CD Book

i saw a picture of this on a scrapbooking site, thought it was a good idea so i made my own.
it holds all of my photo cd's in date order.

i drew the camera picture on some grey gabardine, layered on the skull fabric then 2 more lots of grey. hand stitched the lines with black DMC floss
i cut out 2 squares of heavy weight card board, layered each piece between 2 pieces of grey & stitched around it with my sewing machine.
the size of the cover will depend on the size of the sleeves that you use. i used 6X6 scrapbook page protectors. made the cover about 1/2 inch larger.
punched the holes to match the sleeves.

for the sleeves i adhered stripes of patterned paper. using stamps for the date, the film strip & the camera. cut black paper to fit each sleeve so a disk can be put in each side.
each pattered paper strip has what is on each disk

put it all together with snap rings & added the badge

Recycle This

ultimate mattress recycle

a new bed came into our house so that left us with an extra mattress.
i listed it on freecycle & someone said they wanted it but didnt turn up to collect.

so i got this idea into my head to see how much of it i could use.

take 1 single bed mattress & a pile of old Jeans
help/hindrance from my Sally girl & 1 teen boy

i cut off the top & bottom fabric

removed the top & bottom foam


cut the recycled cotton matting from the springs & cut it in half on both sides

removed the side foam
then all that was left were the springs

cut up a stack of old jeans & sewing together to cover the recycled cotton matting, making 4 mats for Sally.
the denim is easy to vacuum & wash.

Sally Girl trying out her new mats

there were 4 lots of foam under the fabric, 3 of these i used to top up my old couch

the 4th i will use to make a cushion for a bench
1 of the side foams was used to hold the cover on my couch by tucking it down the back

the springs will go into the garden as a trellis for my spring peas

all that is left is 3 side foams & the top & bottom fabric, haven't decided on those bits yet will update when i do

a Day in Town

Last Sunday 'A' & i ventured into Town
[for those of you who dont know where Town is well that would be Sydney, Circular Quay to be our destination] we dont go into Town very often we just arnt Town people with our Rail,Bus,Ferry tickets in hand we caught the Train into Central & changed for one to the Quay.


it was about 9 am when we stepped onto the platform. a short walk from the Quay found us at The Rocks where the market was setting up.
we had a lovely wonder around & then popped into the Lowenbrau's for a hearty breakfast mm cant recommend the breakfast.




then we were off to our intended destination, we had come to see an exhibition at the Museum of Sydney. for those of you who dont know the museum was built on top of the First Government House. $10 entry fee & a bright orange sticker stuck to my cardy, up the stairs we wandered.
the exhibition we had come to see was

'Skint' Making Do in the Great Depression

The New York stock market crash called BLACK TUESDAY, 29 October 1929 was the beginning of the Great Depression. 'A' & i spent a good 2 hours in there reading about how people lived/survived what they did for fun, stories that made me nearly cry, listening to radio broad casts from Don Bradman & Phar Laps melbourne cup win.

it is a very inspiring exhibition, made me even more thankful for all we have.

we live a life a luxury they lived a life of necessity

80 years ago people survived with no homes, no work, little or no food & in doing so created the 'Make Do' principle that they would pass onto other generations.
now more so than at any other time since the end of the great depression, the 'Make Do' principles are coming around again. we are becoming more about family/friends, reusing, recycling, keeping chickens, growing our fruits & vegetables, bartering & sharing knowledge.
we could all learn a lot from the people who found a way to live.

for anyone wanting to go to the exhibition it is open until the 25 July
or you can go here for some film footage
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/03/26/2857612.htm


while in the museum we also saw another exhibition called 'Up The Cross' a photographic exhibition by Rennie Ellis & Wes Stacey 1970-1971



after leaving the museum we headed back to the Quay & caught the ferry over to Manly. for me Manly wasnt the attraction it was all about the Ferry. for those of you who dont know, i lov traveling on ferries
[trains come in a close second]
as a kid a spent a lot of time in the wheel house of pretty much every Sydney Ferry as well as some of the floating restaurants.
the rock & sway of a vessel on the water is awesome.
we had some fish & chips for lunch & the ferry back to the Quay
[we did go over to the beach & i have to say i have been to hundreds of beaches & Manly wouldnt even come close to being a must visit a second time.]

for anyone who hasnt been on a Manly Ferry, they never have to turn around there is a wheel house at each end, so the skipper & engineer just walk to the other end.