10 green bottles...............

..............hanging on the wall.... no, there's only eight and some of them are brown. But these bottles remind me of the old song the kids used to sing as we traveled along in the car. Drove me to distraction by the way ! Think about that for a while....the things our kids did that drove us to distraction....funny how they convert to happy memories 45-50 years down the track. LOL

These are some of the bottles of lemonade cordial that we made yesterday with the bumper crop of fruit we had on our tree. Now just add a couple of ice cubes and some soda water and you have a very refreshing drink.

The bottles I purchased at a garage sale quite a long time ago for 50cents. A real bargain. They work perfectly in the Vacola preserver, I haven't even had to buy new rubber seals for them yet. They are used only for this purpose each year.

Pears and Quinces

I wouldn't win any prizes in the local Country Show for my fruit packing skills (LOL) but they will taste great which ever way they drop into the jars. Click on the pictures for close up. The first two jars are pears with other fruit added. I'm really looking forward to trying the second one, lemonade slices added. Nine jars of each type of pears and seven jars of my favourite, Quinces. Last year when I preserved quinces, I cooked them first because, as you all know, that when Quinces are cooked for a long time they take on this glorious orange colour. It was a big mistake to do that because they all broke up in the jars, even though they still tasted yummy. So, putting on my thinking cap, I decided to place them into the jars raw, as you would do any fruit and leave them in the preserving pan for several hours. Not good for the power bill though. UGH!!

Then with the skins and cores from the quinces....five jars of quince jelly. The pulp waste goes to the chooks, they have to eat too. No waste around here.
Next project ...... lemonade cordial. That wont take long, I have a helper to squeeze the lemonades, only he doesn't know it yet.

I'm surprised at...

......the interest in these strange flowering bulbs, here is a picture of one that has just begun to poke through the soil.

And one that is beginning to show its colour. It appears that the millipedes have been nibbling, darned pests, nothing, it seems will get rid of them.

Here is one in bloom , on a stem about 6 inches long. As the flower fades the leaves will slowly emerge looking like two long Ox tongues, hence the common name Ox tongue lilly. Botanical name Haemanthus Coccineus. (thanks Cathy) They like to be in a crowded situation in the garden where they seem to thrive. Mine have yet to reach the crowded stage as I have given so many of them away over the years and this is all I have left. Any one wishing to have some of these, look out at country weekend markets, this is where I got mine. They are hard to find in a garden nursery.

The sun rise this morning....looking east from our house toward the Mad Gnomes place (see the solar panels on their roof) If you click on this picture to enlarge, it looks much better.

Red sky in the morning....Shepherds warning. It does indeed look like we will get a little of that wet stuff that falls from the sky today. Fingers crossed !!!

Look at what I "found".......

.......on Ebay !!!! a beautiful skein winder. The first picture shows it folded up when not in use.

Next is how it looks ready for use.

Lastly, here it is being used. Winding some alpaca yarn that I spun a couple of years ago. Having this winder means, no more whinging about aching arms, aching from them being outstetched while holding the skein (from, you know who) no more twisting around the back of a chair because you know who complains too much about his aching arms. LOL Now I can do it from the comfort of my armchair !!
Having searched for one of these for a long time, I was very happy to "win" this never used one. They were common many years ago but since the commercial yarn has been wound into balls ready for use they are hard to find. Would you believe that I can remember when the only knitting yarn available was sold in skeins...not balls. LOL

4 weeks old

Here is the little calf born 4 weeks ago, just starting to put on a bit of beef, so to speak. We still have to supplement his milk as his Mum only has milk in one quarter, and she is as skinny as a rake. Mumma cow hardly ate anything for almost 3 weeks and we thought we would lose her but she is picking up , albeit very slowly. She will only eat her hay if it has molasses poured over it.
This is the Mumma cow that had extremely severe mastitis, poor thing. I feel for her. The vet says she will be dry from now and will never regain her ability to feed except for from the back left quarter. Probably some of her teats will fall off!


If you hear I have died from shock it will be because the vet's bill has arrived. LOL

A Happy occasion.

Here we are at Peter Lehmann's Winery celebrating my dear friend' Hilda's 87th. birthday. On the left is her husband Jim, Hilda. myself and Popeye. A delightful day and lunch enjoyed by about 40 people,(friends and family) which was prepared by Hilda and Jim's daughter Ayleen, who is the Chef at Lehmann's restuarant. Lovely people, true friends. Their friendship is treasured by both of us.

This picture was taken on the 7th. of January 2010 and has been a long time coming. First of all I had to wait for the picture to come via email to me and when it did it was HUGE. Only one persons head could be seen on the screen at any time. Then....me being so "savvy"computerwise....I had to work out how to save it to my pictures, then upload it to Picasa and crop it. Yay!! I did it.

Now, fessing up. .....The reason I had to rely on someone else to send me the photos is....on the way to this party we stopped at the Herbig tree at Springton (previously Blogged) and I used up all the spare room on the memory card and didn't have the instruction booklet with me, so I didn't know how to delete some of the old pictures............lesson learnt !!

Two things I now know how to do !!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhh! Tomatoes !!!

Wouldnt' you know it............if you want to read my blog about tomato puree, you need to scroll down and read the 2nd bit first.......its all to much for me !!