Sunday, 18 May 2014

Transillumineggie

We had already had a couple of eggs from the girls this morning so I wasn't expecting anything when I went to put them to bed tonight.  Spying a tan coloured blob in the half dark I put my hand in to retrieve it.  I quickly retracted it when what I touched felt more like a fruit jube lolly than an egg.  Taking a closer inspection to confirm that the cold slightly moist and squishy feeling thing wasn't a different sort of product from the chicken vent, I saw that it was a soft shelled egg.

The yolk in the centre can just be made out with transillumination
If you haven't come across one before there are several reasons chickens can throw a soft shelled egg:
  • Lack of calcium or another dietary deficiency
  • Advancing age of the chicken (particularly as mine are ex-battery hens bred for a short period of high production)
  • Heading towards off-season or moult
  • Fast transit through the oviduct (can occur if the first egg was overcooked, then the next egg was laid the same day)
  • Unseasonal hot temperatures
Having said all that a one off isn't necessarily such a bad thing.  Besides, they look pretty all lit up.

Tuesday, 6 May 2014

Potager Progress Part 2

We've been busy about the garden trying to complete and plant up the potager  beds before winter sets in.  Autumn is one of the main growing seasons here but there has been disappointingly little rain this year; although that did buy us some more time to get going on the beds.

After digging the top main bed, we've noticed the feeder roots from the gumtrees have responded by coming up through the new topsoil and sucking away all the moisture.  Luckily we hadn't done the rest of the beds before finding this out, which means that we've gone with no dig beds layered with cardboard, sugarcane or soybean mulch and mushroom compost with composted cow poo for nutrients.  We had enough cardboard left from furniture packaging to complete three main beds and one of the side beds that will shortly be planted out with strawberry runners.

Here's the run down of the beds:

Bed 1: Legumes
- Peas "Greenfeast," Dwarf beans, Snowpeas, Broad beans, with succession Peas "Greenfeast," Climbing beans, Snowpeas
Bed 2: Brassicas
- Kale "Red Russian," Red Cabbage, Broccoli, Wombok
Bed 5: Cucurbits and Corn
- Yellow zucchini
Bed 6: Solanaceae
- Yellow Roma tomatoes, French Marigold, Eggplant, 2 transplanted volunteer tomatoes from around the rest of the garden

See here for more details on crop rotation.  Autumn seems the most appropriate time for rotation so far.
Over half way complete!
The seeds are starting to come up in all the beds and today marked the first succession sowing of peas and beans as the first lot of peas poke their heads above the soil.  Unfortunately some of the seeds haven't come up which is most likely due to a couple of reasons: 1st: they're old and 2nd: they've been stored in the shed which does get hot during the day (they've since been moved to the laundry).  Here's hoping they just need a bit more time.

We finally had some very decent rain last week with a couple of stormy days with heavy falls bringing back the Colliwat Cascades, filling the tanks and creating a few ruts in the driveway.  The cold snap has arrived this week with all the mornings since Sunday being 7 degrees.  Hopefully we're not too late getting things planted.

View from across the dam

Sunday, 20 April 2014

Upcycle Projects 2: Chalkboard

You'd think you'd be spared the copious amounts of packaging that simple purchases always bring when a larger purchase is involved.  On the contrary; it seems to come festooned with even more!

The arrival of our last couch was accompanied by two large pieces of ply and a van full of cardboard from ours and other deliveries.  Although the delivery drivers were more than happy to take it all away, pondering its future potential meant that we insisted on filling our garage with even more clutter that would one day find its second life.

After this episode, our garage was evolving ever faster into that thing that every garage is: a reverse black hole. Everything that went in seemed to loom larger on travelling through the wormhole that is the roller door.  The cardboard packaging was threatening to engulf one side of the garage, bolstered by none other than our beguiling ply boards.  Something had to be done.

The idea had struck me long before, and upon a reluctant excursion to the big green warehouse we remembered to buy what would make the idea reality: a paintbrush and some chalkboard paint.


An undercoat and two topcoats later on a sunny weekend, and the project was complete.  Being the garage, a frame wasn't really necessary to improve the aesthetics but may well be added later if the wormhole should produce some suitable timber offcuts.  Hanging was easy too as it slots in nicely behind the steel.

The ultimate garden planner

Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Upcycle Projects 1: Salvaged Mirror

The 'mother-in-law,' as she refers to herself, brought down a mirror one visit that had been salvaged from someone's renovations and somehow wound itself into her garage.  She has a knack for salvaging having grown up with very little spare.  Her thrift magnet is set to super-strong and has so far attracted items such as this mirror, our hand-me-down ride-on lawn mower, spinning wheel and an array of garden tools which were otherwise destined for the dump. The mirror was initially intended for the bathroom at our old place but never hung itself; instead it sat in the garage waiting for a brighter calling.

One day, after staring at the ugly plain rear wall of the garage one too many times, eyes mesmerised into a trance by the repetitive corrugations, I decided a feature of some sort was needed to distract me from it.  The only other option was to carry a large stick with which to beat my head to break the trance.  Figuring I might need the brain cells at a later date I opted for the visual distraction technique. Open curtains (not skull) for stage entrance: Salvaged Mirror.  

We hung the mirror from a board and secured it to the wall so it wouldn't bash around in the wind and make one final grand finale by shattering into a thousand pieces on the ground.  The angle was adjusted so that when you stand in the garden up the slope you can't see yourself - just a reflection of the garden below.  The view is still a little boring but should improve as the garden grows and blooms.


Also in the pipeline is to grow a feature around the mirror to improve the aesthetics and perhaps add a water feature at the bottom provided the reflected light doesn't play too much havoc.  For now it's certainly still better than staring at a plain old boring steel wall.


Sunday, 30 March 2014

Rain glorious rain - shall we rename to Colliwat Cascades?

After a protracted dry spell which saw our tanks empty and our dam shrinking so low we had decided to stop watering the vegie patch for fear of desiccating our native fingerlings, we were blessed with two days of solid rainfall.  Unfortunately our rain gauge is still attached to the roof of our old place so we don't have an accurate measurement of the amount or rain.  According to the weather maps we had between 100 and 150mm of rain over the two days.  

It's certainly been a long time (and only the second) since we saw the dam overflowing.  This was the most spectacular overflow yet and we were also able to witness the neighbours' dams cascading over and into our dam for the first time.  Even when flooding is in the back of your mind, the sound of rushing water is so fulfilling.

Overflow from our dam
The spillways for our neighbours' dams




















It was also a good opportunity to find out how our place would flood.  We were told by the neighbours that the previous owner had renovated the driveway and put in a stormwater drain for overflow as the driveway was flooded and washed away in previous heavy rainfall and flooding.  They'd had to make do by parking at the front of the property to ensure they could get out and the driveway had been patched up with a couple of planks so as not to get bogged in the mire.  We're certainly grateful for the improvements.

Here are some afternoon before and morning after shots of the dam showing the near instant filling:
























As you can see even where I was standing for the first photos is now covered in water.

We were fortunate to have a couple of sunny days after the rain to allow things to green up, shoot off and soak in the rain.  Today the rain has come back but is falling gently at the moment.






Thursday, 27 March 2014

The bee's knees of candles please

We were buying honey at our local markets quite some time ago and noticed they had blocks of beeswax too.  Putting on my best butterfly lashes at my less-inclined-to-impulsively-buy-a-lump-of-wax other half, we left with our kilo of honey and an almost equivalent weight of beeswax.



Many months and a different house later I finally donned those fluttering lashes again and made my case for some wick and a mould.  You see it would be cheaper than buying a premade beeswax candle. (Luckily the counter argument: we never buy candles anyway, didn't come into play.)


Eventually a weekend came around that was clearly meant for candle making.  Out came the gathered supplies.  A quick search on the methods from the mould supplier and hunt around for makeshift clamps to hold everything together and we were on our way to the finished product.  To be honest the hardest part about the whole project was cutting the block of beeswax.  We ended up heating a knife repeatedly, although perhaps a wire would have been better.

Melt the wax in a double boiler or bain marie.  For the amount of wax refer to your mould supplier.
  
Fingers crossed the clamps would prevent leakage. 
You can see that top up was needed during the curing process but
we'd exhausted our wax-slicing energies at this point. 
Patience was needed over the next couple of days while the wax set.

Next time we need to make sure the seams line up a little better.  In the final photo you can see how the two edges of the mould were offset.  A full silicone mould wouldn't have this problem either.  The only other mistake was not topping up the mould while the candle was setting.  It sank a little in the base and a small crack opened up as well.  After our efforts at cutting the block for the first lot of wax we weren't about to tackle it again to top up.  Fortunately the crack is on the bottom where it doesn't spoil the final finish.  

The final candle.

In any case the candle sat on the table for a couple of months smelling divine without even being lit.


Thursday, 23 January 2014

Summer spice

Although we haven't been especially successful with growing ginger here so far due to the poor soil quality and lack of rain, there has been a beautifully fresh supply at our local green grocer.

The hot summer weather has driven the taste buds to crave the refreshing tang of ginger beer.  So much so that my more muscular half was inspired to set forth into the dark depths to forage among the carefully concealed spring-loaded traps and to peer into jars filled with mysterious substances, in order to collect the elusive ingredients and tools required to create a supreme summer elixir. (Read: managed to locate and navigate the pantry and kitchen cupboards.)  A brave venture indeed.

Quest completed, it was time to conjure the magic revealed by one of the pioneers of the homesteading movement: Rhonda Hetzel.  After many consultations with the predominant search engine her recipe for ginger beer was the most simple and well...Down to Earth really.  For anyone who has previously made sourdough, the process will seem very familiar.  I've written a summary of directions based on Rhonda's recipe.  Please see her blog post on making ginger beer for more detailed instruction. 

Ingredients for the beverage

The Plant:
Ginger, water, sugar

The Beverage:
Blossoming plant, more water, more sugar and some lemon juice

The Booze:
As above but add some brewer's yeast

The Process:
Sterilise a jar

Make the plant with 1 tbs each of ginger (fresh and finely grated or dried and powdered) and sugar (use raw to add an extra dimension) in 1 1/2 cups of water boiled and cooled

The Plant

Cover with a loose-weave cloth to guard your brew from beasties.

Feed it the same quantity of ginger and sugar daily for a week or so (ours took a bit longer to mature), stirring every day.  You'll be able to smell it when it's ready.

Once bubbling away strain off the liquid through muslin or cheese cloth. Squeeze out every last drop.

Use the solid bit with more water and a clean jar for the next batch.

Mix the liquid part with 4L of water (boiled and cooled to get rid of the chlorine or stood overnight), 2 cups of sugar and juice of 2 lemons.

Bottle and let the fizz get going again for a couple of days on the bench in plastic or glass with loose catches so you don't get little bits of glass embedded in your kitchen doors and ceiling, or blow a hole in your wall the day before a house inspection - it might scare off your new kitchen assistant and you'll have to explain your 'renovations' to the landlord.

Refrigerate when it tastes just right and enjoy.

The kind of fizzer you want - note catches in anti-explode mode




Saturday, 11 January 2014

It's raining cats and wasp nests?

We had a rather violent storm (or rather convergence of four storms) here on Monday afternoon that dumped a good amount of much needed rain.  The bottom floor of the hospital where I work flooded, we nearly lost power to the building and a couple of people in the community were even struck by lightning.  

Working late, it was night time when I was finally able to drive home but fortunately well and truly after the storm had passed.  It wasn't until the next morning that I could survey the damage.  Surprisingly there were only a couple of branches down around the place at home.  We'd had a few storms the week before that must have cleaned off the dead ones from the gumtrees already.  

There was; however, a strange grey hump shape sitting on the lawn.  It wasn't moving so it was either dead or inanimate.  Inching closer I could finally tell it was the nest that had been suspended from the underside of a gumtree branch.  I had hoped it was wild bees but looking at this it's more like a huge wasp nest.  The ants have been having fun exploring it since it made its landing.


The mothership has crashlanded
Close up of the comb

Someone's secret stash of pancakes - saving them for a rainy day



Monday, 30 December 2013

The Laurels

About a  month ago we decided to go for a country drive out to Warwick which is a few hours west of home.  We stopped in at Boonah on the way and discovered a Flying Fox colony right behind the tourist information centre where we had lunch.  As usual the noise was incredible but it was lovely to see a healthy colony in a position that for once doesn't seem to cause trouble with residents.

It was a perfect sunny day and not too hot for a gentle stroll around a garden.  This was one of the first Open Gardens I'd been to that was made by a professional gardener; who incidentally had featured in a book on Australian gardens that I'd read only a few weeks prior.  As to be expected, the garden was gorgeous and had a little of something for everyone and some thoughtful elements in terms of design, sustainability and practicality.

Old shed converted to a chook house
Herb forage for the chooks

A sheep that won't eat all your prized ornamentals

Fluffy bottomed trio of lawn manicurists

The woodland walk
Homemade garden ornaments

Stunning fountain at the formal front entrance


Ahhhh symmetry and stachys - what more could you want?
This hedge formation elongates a narrows space and directs the eye while also dividing the space into rooms in their own right

Giving sedum the boot
Walkway to the garage and backyard
Wall garden made from a pallet
Outdoor area - there are wisteria planted to grow over the pergola which is made from recycled timber as are most of the structures in the garden
Guarding the entrance to the backyard
Even the fountain is homemade








Treehouse and mini deck chairs in the front garden




Thursday, 19 December 2013

Grandad's Garden

In memory of my grandad who passed away last week in Morrinsville, New Zealand.

I took these photos of his home garden the day before he passed.  Grandad's garden still has a great influence on my passion for the natural beauty of plants and love of neat rows and measured spacings in the vegie patch.














Grandad at 82 helping us lay a path at our old place