Slowing Down....

As the pace of 'life' round my home starts to slow in the lead up to Autumn I'm glad to be finding little snippets of time in my day for blogging again...

 

This week in the home schoolroom we have been embracing the joy that Autumn brings to our family - a crispness in the air that lightens our daily load and entices us to dig the earth again in preparation for our cool season vegetable growing. 

Autumn would have to be my most favourite Season of all!! I have trees that surround my farm house and come the end of March (start of April) their leaves turn a heavenly shade of gold that over the weeks progresses through the shades of reds and purples, til finally turning brown, symbolising the start of Spring - I love this process and long for it to begin as soon as the days become that little bit shorter, towards the end of February, a true sign of the changing of the Season!

above : : some secret Autumn 'leaf-y' knitting 

above : : collection of Autumn-y shades

 

And although it's still WAY too hot to be wearing layers of hand-knits, just yet, I'm finding that I'm still able to sneak little snippets of hand-knitted goodness into my everyday!!! 

With the slight change in weather the hours we are able to spend in the morning light, busying about our daily chores, is slowly extending and the littlest members of our family couldn't be happier - Summer, you have been hot and dry and cruel this year and we are well and truly ready to embrace Autumn!!!  

And what better way to celebrate than with an evening revisiting a favourite book (Amanda Soule you are a constant inspiration to me as a mother - thank you!), sipping sweet tea and planning some new Autumn/Easter outfits for a freshly washed and very well loved dolly, right?!

And tonight I'm doing some essential March garden-bed planning and seed ordering! - I'm thinking out side the square this year and am planting a few varieties of vegetables that would normally be grown in other Seasons (I'm such a rebel)!

And lastly - I couldn't help but share a picture of this super sweet little Valentine of mine...

Isn't it just the most perfect little necklace, ever?!

Made-By-Hand : : A Blanket cont....

I'm playing along with Christina's 'Made By Hand' meme again this week.... 

I've been slowly making progress on my Xmas blanket for Tobie....

 

As much as I wanted to go with the ombre of blues I ended up sticking with my 3 original shades... 

 

And love it all the same. This is such a great project to work on when I need to unwind - sitting on the front verandah, watching the world pass me by, with my kid-lids at (and around) my feet... 

 

Tonight, I'm keeping the menu for dinner super easy - we're having 'fake-out'!! Hot Chips and Burgers... 

These are the best chips ever and so simple to make that I find myself whipping them up for my family at least once a week and they all love them, a lot!!!!

I peel (but you don't have to) and chop 3-4 large potatoes. I'm lucky enough to have some gorgeous spuds that I purchased at the latest 'Dubbo Farmer's Markets' in my pantry at the moment and they are simply dreamy and super creamy!!! But, any old spud will do! 

Line a dish with baking paper and add your chopped spuds. Drizzle over 2 tablespoons of olive oil, sprinkle on some salt and cracked pepper and add a small handful of freshly chopped Sage. Mix well and bake for 30mins in a hot oven - approx 220'C.

 

You'll end up with something that looks something like this...

 

The spuds end up super crunchy and the sage goes all crispy and yummy. These are super delicious by themselves or serve them with some salad and some protein and you're on to a winner...

And just because - today in the schoolroom we worked on tessellating patterns and I'm totally loving my Connie girls interpretation of this unit....

Her creative mind blows my mind... 

So....

What are you crushing on at the moment?

Are you a fan of 'fake-out' or do you prefer to buy the real thing?

Are your kids blowing your mind at the moment also?

HORRIBLE!!! (and a 'winner' too)

The view from our schoolroom window yesterday was HORRIBLE!!! There was dust and wind and all manner of things YUCK happening out there that made for a good excuse to be inside for a change - that's my Connie girl peering out the window...

 

But thankfully by the end of the day the wind had stopped and the dust had dropped and we were able to get out and enjoy a few of the things we love... Playing in the dirt and tending to the girls (our chooks) and counting all the new baby calves (yes, we have loads of them 'dropping' at the moment - more on that later) and poking about in the garden and dotting on baby kittens, I could go on and on....

 

And a bike ride to finish off the day was just perfect...

Today in my garden I'm noticing how much these gorgeous 'brown mignonette' (I think that's right) lettuce have been growing... These seeds were saved from a friends garden years ago and are a real delight to see popping up in mine this year.

And I'm super excited that my heirloom grape vine cuttings are finally getting some legs!

 

Last, but not least, the WINNER of the little give-away I was running last week is Tracy from Sunny Corner Farm....

Can you please email me your address Tracy and I'll pop your favourite 'Dotty' washers in the post tomorrow when I'm in town... :)

up to my elbows...

The end of last week saw me pack my little family up and head down the road for a quick road trip... We travelled a whopping 846km in less than 24hrs, on a mission collecting supplies for the farm - we had hay and steel and chook feed and thankfully after a stop in at a gorgeous nursery some olive trees! I've been itching to start an olive grove of my very own and now I am 3 trees closer to that dream (not many I know but it's a start, right?)...

Today, after being cooped up in the schoolroom for far too long, I hit the yard with my 3 kid-lids, determined (and excited), to plant my overgrown tomato plants which I've been growing from seeds for what feels like FOREVER!!! 

It felt so good to get up to my elbows in this rich soil... I like to scatter my vegetable patch throughout my garden and have approx 20 different beds on the go at one time. I do tend to spell certain beds at different times of the year though, and this particular garden bed has been empty since March - all that's been added is loads of manure and home-made mulch...

 

And yes, that's a HUGE cow pad right there next to my hand - simply gorgeous garden food!!!

 

Do you irrigate your veg?? I've found that drip irrigators seem to be the most efficient in my garden and I simply move them around from bed to bed as I need them - they're super cheap too... What works for you?

 

I have oodles and oodles of old galvanised rain water tanks in numerous sizes and this past week has seen me cutting some of the smaller ones up to make 8 of these little garden beds...

 

Today I added some tomatoes and next week I'm planning to scatter some basil plants (grown from seeds) round the outside too...

 

One thing my Miss Millie loves more than butterflies would have to be worms...

Yes, that's right, she loves WORMS! Every time we're out in the garden she can't help but get something to dig with and off she goes, collecting so to speak... 

 

And when she's through with that she plays on the grass with her cats...

 

And although this gorgeous girl of mine just loves to be out doors exploring her environment she also simply loves school and today she couldn't get enough of her 'spider' craft from the book 'Hide, Spider'...

 

Lastly, I hosted a little 'Spring Washer Swap' here on my blog back at the start of the month and today I was lucky enough to receive my parcel from Jules...

I was super spoilt with 2 washers and 2 packets of seeds and can't wait to use them all!!! Thanks Jules!!

Holidays...

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if my little family lived near a town, where when holidays were over kids toddled off to the local school while the Mum (and Dad's too in some homes) got the chance to organise the home again after a hectic holiday. But then I remember that my family lives on a Sheep Station, 70km's from any school with no access to buses, so school for us is done here on the farm and that sometimes means that actual 'holidays' so to speak are few and far between... 

So this weekend I didn't feel as guilty as I normally would when most of my time was spent doing very little as I readied myself for another Term of Home-schooling here on the farm... I mended busted knees in my eldest girls favourite pants...

 

Watched as DH taught the girls a thing or 2 about fencing...

 

Finished off a batch of Tomato Relish, with label writing help from my girls of-coarse...

 

Made bread - lots of bread. 

 

Picked oranges from our tree,

 

and made the sweetest orange juice I've tasted in a long, long time...

But most importantly I chilled out, a lot!!! And it felt really, really good... What did you do this weekend?

Naked Spaces....

I've been working through my bag of yarn-y scraps of late, hooking away at some super cute crochet doily's to adorn some naked spaces in my home... 

The pattern I'm following is a freebie by the amazingly talented team at 'Purlbee'... I'm using a mixture of 5ply cottons, straight from my scrap bag, and a 3.5mm hook... These are perfect 'mindless' crochet projects which take no time at all to complete...  

This past week we welcomed a new member into our family, meet Sally....

She's made herself right at home and is spoilt rotten by each and everyone of us,

especially the littlest one's in our tribe....

Can you believe that Tobie is already 5 months old??? Where has that time gone???

And it's Term 2 already - wow!!!! - Connie's school desk is a wool bale today - not a traditional schoolroom I guess but a place to learn all the same, right?? 

So while Connie works away on her Maths, Millie helps me take a few more yarn-y pictures for my Shop.... Mmmmm, ravelry red...

And later on today we might just get a chance to spend some time with these cuties too...

An afternoon ride sounds just perfect - what do you think?