Gardening and Crafts

I've been a bit busy over the last few weeks as I was involved in an online craft swap, had gardens to prepare and plant, did some cutting out of items I need to sew AND found myself a part time cleaning job :D! I've started baking my own bread again and am slowly stocking up the freezer but you've already seen plenty of pictures of cooking in the past so I won't bore you with those. Oh, I bought myself one machine whilst looking for a completely different type of machine *roll eyes*. Mi bad!!

As there's been a lot of typing going on with other interests and job applications I thought I'd just do a bit of a photo journal this post - with captions.

Gardening

The peas and carrots are progressing.

Strip garden at front of house is planted to dwarf kale and rocket (roquette/arugula).

The garlic has popped up and the extra kale is potted.

Crafting/Swapping

The DTE "Learn a new skill Swap".

 My swappee, Alison's, gift to me. Two knitted cotton dishcloths, a blue one with my initial on it and a white one with a horse head on it; 3 lovely cocoa soaps; a tub of body butter and a sinus stick.

My gifts to Alison.

A cut out card.

The outside of a stand-up card. 

Inside of above card.

A pop-up card.

Inside of above card.

 

 A shaker card.

 Inside of above card.

Machine Purchase

This is the machine I bought for $100, hardly used......when I was supposed to be looking for a whipper snipper to help tame the garden!

These are the accessories, besides the foot pedal and protection case, that came with it.

The photos of the items I have cut out will have to wait as I need to sew them together first!

Hope everyone is enjoying their cooking, crafts and gardening :D!

Cheers,
Rob XO

Riverina DTE get together

Yesterday I travelled down to Rutherglen with Karyn and Matti to meet with other “locals” who are members of the DTE forums. It was all very exciting meeting people in person who you’d been talking to online for weeks/months/years. There was a total of 8 adults and one cute little addition :).

These are a few of the items some of us brought to swap.

There were also handmade cards, a plastic bag holder and fresh free range eggs. 

We had a lovely lunch and a big chat – I think the café people were starting to wonder if they’d ever be rid of us! A few of us went for a little look around the town afterwards before returning home.

Members of the forums will find a photo of the attendees and their names on this thread at the DTE forums.

Cheers,

Robyn xo

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