pick-your-own

Over Xmas we headed down into Victoria to visit some good friends for a couple of days. While down South we popped into a gorgeous 'pick-your-own' strawberry farm and came home with a bounty of the freshest, plumpest, sweetest strawberries I have ever tasted in my entire life!!!

 

After eating our way through at least 10 kg I decided to try my hand at some strawberry jam with the remaining 5 kg.... It was a huge success and I made 16 jars!!!! Many of the visitors to our farm over the past month left with a jar of jam under their arm after falling in love with its taste on scones for arvo tea... :) 

 

Now, a month later, I'm down to my very last jar...

This is the most amazing strawberry jam I've ever tasted!!! I'll definitely credit its awesome flavour to the fabulous fruit that we picked. You see I have made strawberry jam before but instead of freshly picked fruit I used several punnets from the supermarket and must say the end result was good but nothing to write home about...

 

Every morning for the past 5 weeks my whole family has been enjoying jam. Be it on toast, pancakes, crumpets or muffins - you name it we're eating it, with jam - yummo!!!

So, here's my recipe....

 

Strawberry Jam

This recipe is for 5kg of fruit because that's what I had. Divide the recipe according to what quantity of fruit you have.

juice of 4 lemons (helps to set the jam)

 1/2 cup of water

5kg strawberries (green bit removed)

4kg white sugar

 

Place water, lemon juice and strawberries in a large pot. Bring to the boil, cook for 15mins. Add sugar, bring to boil stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved. Cook at a rolling boil until setting point is reached. Pour into sterilised jars and seal. Eat straight away or keep in the pantry for up to 12months (if you can)...

 

Do you have a favourite 'pick-your-own' place???

 

Crazy Weather....

Wow - hasn't the weather been all over the place this past week???!!!??

The start of the week was terrible here with a mega dust storm that blew in through every little crack of my 100 year old homestead - I still haven't cleaned all of the red dirt up yet and its been a week!!!... Then Friday was ridiculously hot with temps up in the high 40's and now Saturday it's overcast and a pleasant 25'C with a few drizzles of rain here and there...

Crazy - right????!!!??? What's it like at your place???

(view out my front gate on Sunday arvo)

 

So, with all of this 'crazy' weather about I packed my girls up and we headed into town for an afternoon at our amazing local library....

 

The Cobar Library really 'rocks'!!!

 

The quality of their books is amazing and I love the fact that they are always ready to lend a hand whenever need be - like on this particular day when my little Millie wanted a book about Autumn,

 

and my Connie-girl was in desperate need of several 'horse-y' books....

The gorgeous librarian simply smiled and helped away, for a good hour too mind you, a real sweet-heart... :)

We're so lucky to have such an awesome place to hang out, don't you think???

Facebook....

I finally did it!!!!

 

I've started up a Facebook page for my Jellywares Shop....

 

Pop on over and let me know what you think....

 

There's even a Sale listed on there, 50% off Malabrigo Finito!!

HOT!!!!!!!!

I've seen the Milo pattern around blog-land for quite some time now and have been meaning to give it a try. So, during the last few months of my recent pregnancy I got the chance to whip a couple up...

 

The green one below is made using Debbie Bliss EcoBaby Cotton (less then 1x50g ball) and I made the Newborn size. It's such a bonus that this little vest/singlet pattern comes in such a large range of sizes - by purchasing just 1 pattern I can now make Milo's for all of my kids (sizes nb, 4 and 6), AWESOME!!!

 

The only negative I found with the Milo was that because you get so many sizes on the 1 pattern it tends to make it a little 'busy'. I felt a little lost at times while knitting - but then again that just might have been my 'baby brain'... :) 

 

All in all the Milo is a super quick and easy knit that I look forward to making again!!!! 

I fell in love with the nappy cover tutorial by Dana Made when Millie was only a baby and knew that a couple of these would definitely be on the cards for Bub #3. Thanks to a recent trip to Spotlight and some seriously cute boys prints making their way home with me Tobie now has a couple of his own...

 

Can you believe how hot it is at the moment????

As I sit at my computer, tying up this post, the temperature here on our farm is well and truly over 45'C - HOT!!!

 

We were lucky enough to have a cool change here on Tuesday with it only reaching just over 30'C for the day - cool enough to venture out in the paddock, in the middle of the day, to check on some cows...

It is so dry out here!!! We've had hardly any rain for the past 6 months and could really do with some good storms... 1200+ hectares went up in flames on a property down the road last week - thank goodness no one was hurt and the fire is all out now...

 

How are things where you are??? I hope that everybody is keeping safe and out of the heat...

Happy B'Day Millie!!!!

There's this super special little girl who has an incredible way of lighting this Mumma's heart up and guess what - today she turned 4!!!!!

For the past 2 weeks, with my 2 youngest babies by my side, I've been 'hooking' away at a special blanket just for my Millie... I've been keeping it a surprise, telling her that "it's for another special little girl that I know" and yes, fancy that, "she likes EXACTLY the same colours as you do"... ***wink*** And yes, "maybe oneday I can make you a blanket just like this too"...

So, when she opened her present today she was over the moon that this special blanket made by her Mumma was actually JUST FOR HER.... (pictures of the finished blanket to come soon)

 

Millie, you are a little ray of Sunshine that grows brighter with each and every day... Happy Birthday Sweet-y!!!! 

Also, a big thank you to all of the gorgeous comments on my previous post regarding the birth of Tobie... I have been reading and enjoying each and every one of them and slowly making my way through replying to you all...

our little TOBIE.....

It feels like an eternity since I Blogged and by the date on my last post I guess you could say it kinda has been... :)
 

The ol' Blog mojo seemed to fly out the window come mid November as the weeks past my due date kept ticking by and still there seemed to be no baby in sight...

 

After many long days sitting around doing a lot of this... nothing but knitting....

My third bundle of joy finally decided to make its way into the world nearly 3 weeks late...

So on the 25th of November in the wee hours of the morning I delivered a healthy baby boy with DH by my side and my girls sleeping peacefully in the room next to my labour-sweet... 

'Tobie' weighed in at 8 pounds 11 ounces and is my longest baby by far, measuring a good 8cm longer than both my girls...

At a week old he began his trips to town with me and the girls on a Friday to help out in my Shop and proves to be the perfect side-kick, wooing in all of the customers... LOL!!!

Now at 5 weeks old I can safely say that life feels pretty amazing at the moment... Tobie is an awesome baby and I find myself falling in love with him over and over again each and every day...

And you know what??? I'm not the only one - the whole house is pretty smitten with our newest addition....

Which has made his long awaited arrival oh so much sweeter...

So, here's hoping you had a gorgeous Xmas surrounded by family and friends and that you bought in 2013 just how you'd hoped to...

 

One of my New Years Resolutions is to try a little harder to make time for the things that make me super happy and guess what - blogging is one of those things so look out 2013....

What are your New Years Resolutions???