New Gardening Techniques

I've been a bit busy lately but now I finally have something worth blogging about.

Due to the problems with making gardens where I now live I've decided to try Micro Gardening and growing Microgreens. I scored a few bargains along the way to achieving this.

These cost me $20 all together. Not sure what I'll do with the seed distributor as I don't have a paddock to hand sow but eventually I'll have a gardenhose to use the attachments with. There's a perforation in the base of the wheelbarrow but I'll ask SO can he repair it for me. Handy him being a welder by trade :)! I bought some linseed oil for the tool handles too.

 Above: The cress seed microgreens when I sowed them - 30April. The container on the right ended up in the compost as I left the cover on it but it had a thin covering of compost sprinkled over the seeds which became mouldy. The one on the left only had a covering of potting mix.
Below: The remaining container a week later - 7 May.Sorry for the blurry photo but it was taken indoors on an overcast day.

Above: The Micro Garden with dwarf peas and baby carrots at the eastern front corner of the house.

Below: I'm classing the stawberry strip at the front of the house as a micro garden because it's about a 1/4 of the size of one I used to have!

Above: A barrowful of old mangey geraniums and weeds that I cleared.

Below: A future micro garden. The objects scattered across it are mandarin peels to keep my cat, and other local cats, from doing their "business" there. Thanks Karyn, the citrus peel deterrent really works :D! This garden will be planted with snow peas and probably a row of baby carrots in front. More work still needs to be done on it.

Thanks everyone for tolerating my infrequent posting. I'm still developing routines here and I've had computer troubles so can't access photos and other information.

Happy Gardening,

Robyn XO

Nearly back in the saddle...

Well, sometimes things go arse up on you when you least expect it. Sometimes it's meant to happen that way as it gives you a new appreciation of life when it feels like you've been given another serve of what your horse did previously.

I've had an interesting 5 months where I've travelled from the north coast to the Riverina of NSW and settled into a rental house.

For the first 2 months I lived out of various places - pubs, youth hostels, my car. As I wasn't disabled, dependent on drugs, a recently separated mother and had no intention of staying in the Sydney area the Dept of Housing didn't want to know me. I was homeless unless you count sleeping in a car you own, in a council park by a river when you have used all available funds and are waiting on the next unemployment payment,  a kind of home. I was back in the area I grew up in so the river and surrounds were familiar. Being homeless turned out to be a new experience though. Homeless doesn't mean hopeless, stupid or poor. Some of us are just a bit broke sometimes :P.

I'm now back in the town I lived in 25 years ago....where I bought my first house, where I started raising my eldest 2 kids. It's a bit bigger now but the people are still just as friendly and the countryside looks much the same.

My cast is off, I'm doing physiotherapy and I should be able to ride my horse, hopefully, at the end of March. I was fortunate enough to be able to bring my best friends, the horses, dog and cat with me. Can't wait to throw a saddle on my horse, take the dog and go for a ride then have a hot shower afterwards and curl up in bed with a book and my cat. It's not quite the same without riding the horse.

Cheers,
Robyn

Broken, tired and bored......and it's only been 6 days :(

For those of you who don't already know I stood at the wrong end of my temperamental mare last Sunday (6 Oct) and was kicked. The kick itself bruised me but the landing broke my left upper arm and bruised most of my back.

Well, the short version is the horses arrived where they are supposed to be and are doing fine but I'm still stuck here due to disorganisation that may not have occurred if the ex had let me move out by the end of October, which is what I was aiming for, instead of trying to rush me out earlier and putting extra stress on me.

At the moment I'm broken, tired, sore, drugged to the eyeballs and bored shitless as I can't do much.

I'm also looking at another 10-12 weeks of this....with no craft of any kind that I can do, most of my books packed and difficulty even dressing myself or making a cup of tea I'm going to be climbing the walls before long.

Soooo, that's my pity party for now. Hopefully after the permanent cast replaces this temporary one, sometime next week, the prospects of amusing myself may improve.

At least I'll have company after I move as I'll have the smaller animals around - my dog , cat and the cockatiels.

Cheers,
Robyn xo

Neglected Blogging

I was just flitting around catching up on some blogs yesterday and today and I realised that I've been neglecting my blog followers as I've been spending more time than I should on facebook and also posting pics on facebook instead of here.

                                                                                                            

My new resolution is to post here FIRST from now on and link to fb as I can do that and just link relevant posts to fb, not the whole blog. It's wonderful how much freedom you can have with the internet if you just do some research on the privacy settings.....and have family or friends check to make sure you've set them properly! I'm not an IT whiz but I do my best :).

So here's a roundup of photos I've taken since my last blog post as photos say more than words can. I won't do captions as the photos themselves will give viewers their own thoughts/feelings about what they see.......and it's Sunday and I'm feeling too relaxed to do the "journalist" thing today. They are roughly in date order from 6 August to yesterday (17Aug).

ENJOY!!

Small comment on the horse and rider - she broke this thoroughbred in herself - it has taken her a few months as she is her Dad's apprentice. He was given to her as a registered yearling that the owner did not want to keep, he's just turned 5, and she's done a magnificent job making him into a quiet riding horse. Her next job - making him a stock horse.

Cheers,

Robyn xo

Hot process crockpot soap making

Last week I rendered my first lot of beef fat into tallow. I did it on the wood stove and, as it was fat from the beast we had just slaughtered, it cost me nothing but my time. About 4kg of fat became around 1400ml of tallow or approximately 1000g. The trimmings and leftovers became part of the next 3 feeds for 8 hungry 6 week old puppies :). I strained the tallow through cloth but I didn't need to skim it or clean it in any other way. I'll be doing this again as it's quite easy. I've also discovered grass fed tallow starts out yellow and turns a creamy colour unlike the white lard in the stores!

I've been wanting to try soap made with tallow for a while as it's supposed to be harder than that made with vegetable or olive oils. I've also been wanting to try hot process soapmaking so the soap can be, theoretically, used sooner.

The recipe I used is:

Copha                                 250g

Rice Bran Oil                       400g

 Beef Tallow                         350g 

      Water                                  380ml(g)

  Lye(in the plastic container)  142g 

       Lemon Myrtle essential oil    12  drops

and I prepared it mostly like I would if I was making cold pressed soap with the only difference being the cooking at the end of the process.

Melting the oil/copha/tallow 

   

Combining the melted ingredients. I then poured in the lye/water mix slowly while stirring gently but I was unable to take a photo at the same time.

After using a stick blender to achieve heavy trace

Halfway to cooked

Almost there

Next morning - the soap set in the mold

Bottoms up to cut

Finished blocks of soap averaging 136g each. They are still a bit spongy so will need some time to dry out and will lose a little weight in the process.

I think I'll need to cook them on a higher heat next time as it took quite along time on low. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for these to harden compared to cold process. From what I've read they should have been useable as soon as they are cut but I think the elevation here coupled with the soft rainwater used may have some effect on the hardness of the soaps.

Another three challenges to cross off my to-do list - rendering fat, making soap using tallow and making hot process soap :D.

 I'm on a roll!

Thanks for dropping by,
Robyn xo