Almost Ready...

As we wait for 1 last Header (Harvester) part to arrive the anticipation grows as our crops etch their way to being ripe for 'stripping'.... In just a matter of days Harvest will begin and if all goes well these tiny little seeds will be our meal ticket for the next 6 months...

We've watched paddocks of bare red dirt turn to lush green pasture which then finally hayed off into golden wheat fields and have waited patiently as the months passed by in the process. We're so thankful for the rain that fell just when we needed it and for a mild start to our hot Season that has shone just the right amount of Sun.... We've been lucky enough to dodge the locust that are ever so present on several other parts of our farm...

And now, with all fingers crossed, we hope for a successful harvest..... So if I'm a little distant over the next couple of weeks it's because this hectic time has engulfed me and my little family as we work hard 'round the clock to get our precious grains of gold to the silo's... Hopefully bringing with it some festive cheer for 'Darling Downs' Station....

Frumpy??!!????!!!!

Last night when I asked DH what he thought of a new skirt I'd made I never expected the response that I got, actually I'm still pretty disappointed.... I guess I can be grateful for his honesty. I'd of hated him to tell me I looked gorgeous if he never really meant it but when he told me I 'looked frumpy' my heart sank..... WOW!!! When did I go from the 'sexy' woman he married to a 'frumpy' wife???

I stewed on his words all night (because I'm good at that) and this morning when I woke decided to wear the new skirt regardless... Hell, I don't mind looking like a frump if it makes me feel good....

What about you??? Have you been called 'frumpy' lately????

Are You Like Me????

Sometimes I think about a blog-post that much that I think I over think it, have I lost you yet??? LOL!!!

(new skirts we're making in sewing classes at 'Jellywares'.)

I even sometimes lay in bed at night thinking of the words that I'm going to write to go with the gorgeous pictures I've taken that day, I think, think, think those darn words right out of my head and by morning all I am left with is pictures and no way of writing how they make me feel...

(1st sewing class project)

So for the rest of this month I'm just going to upload my pictures and let it flow from there... Sometimes there may be words but then again sometimes there might not....

Are you like me???? Do you think too much too???

Roller-Coaster......

This morning I got up before the Sun, jumped into my car and headed to town for the start of my working week at 'Jellywares on Marshall'....

Life gets pretty hectic around my place and for the past week I don't think I've even had the chance to read 1/2 of the emails that have hit my inbox let alone reply to the the few that I have....

As of this morning, at 7:30am, my Inbox total hit 876 messages, can you believe it??? Well I almost can't!!!!

When did I become that person who barely gets the chance to reply to her emails???? When did I loose track of the hours which somehow blend into days, and eventually turn into weeks, yes that's right, WEEKS!!!! Weeks of to-do lists with way too many things not done on them and way more things that REALLY need to be done..... *sigh*

So yesterday with an ever growing 'to-do' list we threw caution to the wind and had a picnic instead....

We left dishes on the sink and washing in the machine, sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather that this time of year brings.... And after that, we picked flowers....

Lots of flowers and then, when my littlest bundle was plum-tuckered out, I cleaned off the kitchen bench and hung out the washing........ And you know what???? Every single crazy second of this roller-coaster life that I live is what keeps me jumping out of bed in the morning, excited to start each new day, anxious of what it might hold....

Tea Anyone???? What about a Swap???

Today in a class we put the finishing touches on these little beauty's (tea cozy-s made using Noro Iro) and it got me thinking....

How do you like your tea???
Do you drink it brewed in a pot or are you tea bag kinda girl???
Do you use loose leaf or bags in your pot???? Do you play around with flavours or are you always drawn back to the classic 'black tea'???

Do you go to the trouble of brewing up a whole 4-6 (or even 8) cup pot just for yourself or do you like using a little 1-2 cup pot????

Do you drink your tea black or is white more to your liking??? Honey, sugar or simply nothing at all, you're sweet enough as it is??? LOL!!!

I love a classic tea brewed in a pot with loose leaves, white with 1 and I'm won!!! But, if a pot's not handy Tetley tea bags make a great substitute brewed in my favourite mug...

With all of this tea talk I'm now off to brew a little pot up for myself and with that in mind was wondering if anybody would be interested in a Xmas Washcloth Swap. The theme would obviously be Xmas for the washer and 'Tea' for little gift to accompany....

Leave a comment if you'd be interested and I'll forward the details via email.

A Little Question.....

The candle making was a huge hit last night with my little haul of wax making a 7cm round tea light sized honey scented dream.... The only thing I'll change next time is how I rushed the cooling/setting stage of my candle making by popping my mould into the freezer... As you can see in the pic below, it caused my candle to crack... But that's only effected the aesthetic appeal as this little beauty smells like heaven in a pot when burning away on my bedroom dresser.

I've been trying to grow passion-fruit for the past 3 years here on the farm and finally this year all of my hard work has paid off.... My vine is absolutely loaded with fruit and I'm now dreaming of all the delicious passion-fruit recipes that I'll be able to create once these babies are ripe...

So here's my question..... How do I know when to pick???? Will they turn brown and wrinkle up or do I pick them green???

Have you grown passion-fruit before??? What was your favourite recipe to use you bounty of fruit up??

Golden Harvest!!!!!

We have about 12 wild bee hives on our farm and DH has been watching this one in particular for the past couple of months, waiting anxiously for the perfect moment to poach a little honey from it.... When DH said this morning that today was the day, I was nervously excited!!!!! Thankfully he had done his research and knew exactly what to do. Smoke makes bees gorge on their honey leaving them feeling euphoric, mesmerised enough for us to grab ourselves just a little of their golden goodness....

With a steady stream of smoke hovering over their hive it only took a couple of minutes

and our bees were revealing their bounty of golden goodness.... So we broke off just enough honey to suffice, not being too greedy as we might come back here for some more one-day...

WOW!!!!! Look at this golden stuff....

As pure as pure can be, liquid GOLD!!!!

I just had to have a taste...

But a lick wasn't enough..... ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!!!!!

And even after all of this sucking with just a little squeeze, look at what came dripping out....

So with my honey haul in hand we headed back to the homestead for a bit of extracting....Now I've never done this before but thanks to my handy 'salad spinner' I was able to extract 250ml from my haul and it only took just under an hour....

I even added the tiniest bit of honey comb to the top, just because... *wink*

I'm now off to have a go at making a candle from my left over bees wax....

Have you ever harvested wild honey before??? I can't explain just how incredibly rewarding it is and am so looking forward to our next harvest in a month or so...

Honey carrots are definitely on the cards to accompany dinner tonight.... :)

Counting Stripes.....

Miss Connie really does love when it's time to send sheep off to market and we usually find her right here...........Propped up next to the loading ramp, anxiously waiting to 'help' count the sheep onto the truck. 34, 22, 13, 17, 103.... For some reason her numbers just never seem to match Daddy's and for the life of me I don't know why... *wink*....

Thanks to the help of my Mum, and her fantastically fast knitting hands, this stripey 'mini-shawl' was finished in less than 24hrs....
It used just under 2x50g balls of Heirloom Alpaca, a 100% Australian product, gotta love that!!!! I can remember when stripes used to scare me, the thought of changing colours not to mention those oodles of dreaded ends to sew in at the end - EEEEKKKKK!!!! That was until I learnt to knit my yarn up as I go along, what a genius idea..... How do you work your stripes???

Cotton Runner Kit...

Cascade Luna is an Aran weight Peruvian Cotton and is great to use to add texture to a simple pattern. I currently have 2 'Cotton Runner Kits' to choose from in my shop and they are each available in 3 diferent colours: 711-plum, 738-cream, 755-apple green.

$10 Kit Includes : : 2 x 50g skeins of Cascade Luna and Cotton Runner Pattern.
$12 Kit Includes : : 2 x 50g skeins of Cascade Luna, 4.5mm hook and Cotton Runner Pattern.


Kits are only available at 'Jellywares on Marshall'. If you'd like one posted out, leave a comment and I'll forward you the details.

Honoured.....

Where on Earth has this past week gone???

It feels as thought I've been running around in circles like a crazy woman hoping that eventually everything will fall into place... Well thankfully after a very long and exhausting day yesterday DH and I hit the hay nice and early at 8pm (yes that's right the sun was still up... sigh). We woke before the sun this morning, loaded our truck full of goats and I sent DH down the highway on an 18hr return trip leaving me and the girls behind to finally get things together...

You see, I was very honoured to be asked by Landmark Russell to cater for their latest clearing sale, to be honest I absolutely jumped at the chance to take 'Jellywares on Marshall' bush.....

So on Friday night I cooked up a storm and we headed to Windera for the day on Saturday to feed a tribe of hungry farmers. We had roast lamb/cheese/relish & egg/lettuce sanga's, Anzac biccies, choc-brownie slice, lolly bags, chips, lots of icy cold drinks, tea & coffee, and of-coarse snags & onions on the BBQ.

My girls were very well looked after too with little Millie going walkabout with a dear old friend and Miss Connie trying her hardest to keep the Landmark office girls on their toes (thanks for your patience Gail, Jodie, Ellie, Jackie, and little Brook-y)...

We had the best time and are very hopeful that the gorgeous Dave and Gail will ask us to do their next sale, whenever it may be.....

On the home front, Little Miss Connie has been rather preoccupied of late playing Mum to a new poddy lamb...

She makes her Mumma so proud, the way she cares so tenderly for her precious little treasure, Jessie, getting her milk just the right temperature and making sure she drinks just enough is just too sweet for words..... *^_^*
So with the house now clean and the washing up to date I set to boiling some water to cook the girls some pasta for dinner. Thoughts of melting vintage knitting needles came to mind (don't ask me how) so I hit the knitting needle stash, found 10 great candidates in a variety of colours and chucked them into the pot....
After about 10 mins, boiling away rapidly, my needles resembled a well cooked string of spaghetti. I bent them around my fingers until something a little like this,

and this,

and this,

and lastly, this was created.....

Man this was fun!!!!!! I am so itching to give some other kind of melted knitted accessory a go now, got any ideas???????