It's Been A While

It's been a wee while since I've written a post.  So much has happened and I have so much to say that I'm almost lost for words (I bet those who know me well are shaking their heads in disbelief as they read this).  A lot has happened since I last wrote. I was toying with the idea of doing a lot of separate blogs but settled on doing just one.  And there is only one place to start.  That's with a few words about my lovely Mum.

Very sadly, Mum passed away earlier this year on what would have been her and Dad's wedding anniversary.  She was just a few months short of 91. Up until the last two years or so, when my sisters and I were helping her, Mum was still living independently in the home she and Dad shared for many years until he passed away.  It goes without saying that we miss Mum and Dad very much. But we take comfort in lives well lived and in imagining them somewhere together, sharing their love with each other and keeping an eye on their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  There is much more to say about Mum and Dad but I am going to leave it at that.  Those who knew them know how amazing they were and how lucky we were to have them as our parents.  We are who we are today because of their love and caring, humour and good grace. They will always be an inspiration for us in everything we do. 

                                                

This is one of my favourite photos of Mum.  She's just about to enjoy some raspberries we picked from the garden in our new home.  Mum would always say things taste better when you grow them yourself.  And I think she is right. 

Some of our friends gifted us plants to go in our garden, to remember Mum by. I can't think of a more perfect way to remember Mum, both as we're planting and every day we get to see the beautiful plants in the ground.   P & C gave us a magnolia (which I know Mum would love) and my lovely work colleagues gave me a gift voucher to a local nursery.  My sisters and brother and I are going to make a day out and choose a plant each.  Mum used to love a visit to the nursery.  One of my favourite memories is a day out my sisters and I had visiting nurseries with Mum, followed by lunch, sitting in the sun at an outdoor venue.  Lovely.  My lovely girlfriends gave me a huge bouquet of flowers which cheered my house up for several weeks.

G gave us a Eucalyptus nicholi, or willow peppermint. He said he was wandering around his favourite nursery, struggling to choose a plant, and a puff of wind came along and blew over just the one plant in front of him.  So, he reckons (and I believe him) Mum chose the plant.  And because he is such a lovely man, and an amazing friend he came over to help us plant it:

  

We've put guards around it (all salvaged from our local tip) so the cows don't eat it!! When it's grown a bit, we'll be able to see it from the house and from one of our favourite spots to sit with a cup of coffee and enjoy the garden.

One thing I did get to share with Mum was our plans to retire from work, which she was very pleased to hear about. I suspect mostly because we plan to fill a lot of our time with gardening.  Mum was a passionate gardener and spent many hours in her garden, building up the soil, planting a whole array of veggies, natives and other ornamentals and making friends with neighbours while chatting about gardening over the fence.   We have finally retired, yay!! It feels like the right decision and the right time, although I really will miss my job and my colleagues.  And we have been spending a lot of time in the garden (more anon).

    

This is a pic of my empty desk on the last day at the office.  I hope whoever sits there next can touch type because I literally wore the letters off the keyboard.  They'll inherit a great view and lovely colleagues, and I wish them years of pleasure sitting there. 

To celebrate our imminent (as it was then) retirement, R and I met with four of my friends from the office at a local cafe in Bunbury, called Sears. They make the best egg and bacon sandwich and their poached eggs are perfect, plus they're really nice people. And yes, that is a plug for Sears....but I digress.  As R and I were walking across to Sears we could hear a lot of laughter going on.  When we arrived, these three were standing with their backs to us.  Then they turned around to do the big reveal.  I laughed so hard I cried.  What a hoot, although it is a bit weird seeing one's face plastered across t-shirts.

They didn't want us to miss out though and gave us both t-shirts and hats to wear:

The back of the shirts say, "This Legend Has Retired" and the hats say "My Retirement Hat" on one side and "I'm retired" on the other.  

The folks at Bunbury gave me a lovely morning tea and said many kind things about me which I will always treasure.  I also had a morning tea and lunch with my colleagues in Fremantle who also said many kind things about me, which I will also treasure.   And I was showered with the most generous and lovely gifts as well from both workplaces. I felt very spoilt and very overwhelmed. And I learnt some things about myself that I didn't know.  Who knew one had to retire to find out stuff about oneself. 

I do have very mixed feelings about leaving work. I have made some amazing friends and I did really love the work I did.  I will miss the work and hope to keep in touch with my friends. 

Now on to the many other things we've been up to, that I've been meaning to write about for ages and haven't gotten around to for a whole bunch of reasons.  First up, homemade ginger beer.  I have fond memories of making ginger beer as a kid (although, I don't think I liked drinking it) and Mum was very partial to a glass. So, I decided to get out my Country Women's Association (CWA) cookbook which Mum and Dad gave me when I turned 18.  I believe all my sisters got one, and perhaps my brother too.  Dad's Mum was one of the founding members of the CWA in North Dandalup and appears on the Women's Memorial (which I think is a list as opposed to a physical thing you can go and look at) at the State Library due to her efforts.  Their recipe is really easy to follow and doesn't take much time at all. It starts with sugar, ginger and sultanas which become a ginger beer plant.  When it's bubbling along happily, add water, strain it into bottles, let it sit and you have ginger beer, complete with bubbles.   I'm pleased to say the ginger beer was a resounding success (by all accounts) and didn't explode.

We are very lucky to have eight acres of glorious land in the South West. Thankfully five acres is given over to paddocks which our former neighbour keeps his cows on. I suspect they'd be a lot of work otherwise.  Because we don't have to worry about the paddocks, and because we're retired (did I mention we're retired??) we've got plenty of time to garden and potter about the place, doing things that need doing.  

One of those things was to build some new steps on the verandah.  The previous steps were very deep, too deep for me and definitely impossible for elderly Mum's and height challenged friends.  We had scored some limestone blocks for free (from the local tip) and used those to create new steps. They're still a little deep but much more comfortable to walk up and down the previous step.  I'm quite chuffed that we managed to make workable steps that also look good.  Especially as we didn't have a clue what we were doing.  Turns out it wasn't as hard as we thought it would be. Although, I'm not making any claims that the steps are properly engineered and built but they've stayed in place and have created a nice spot to sit with a cuppa on a sunny day. 

This is the before photo.  Tricky to even see the step due to the agapanthus which we had to remove first.  That was a big job!!  As much as R would like to get rid of many of the agapanthus (they run the entire length of the drive and right along the verandah) he has changed his mind after digging these ones out. 

You can see in this pic that we've created two levels of step.  before there was just the one, bottom level, so it was a massive step up.  

The first year we were here (which is five years ago now, my time flies!!) we planted a bunch of native plants in the bottom pen (as we call) it.  All tube stock.  We've found natives survive much better if they're planted as tube stock.  And they're way cheaper to buy so we can put many more plants in.  Anyway, one of the first ones we put in was this banksia.  It's now taller than us and full to bursting with flowers every season.  We hope the red tailed black cockatoos enjoy them. 

The first year we were here Mum gave us a maple tree to plant.  Sadly, it didn't survive. Partly because the barrier we put up to keep the cows away from it, didn't.  We improved the barrier and tried another maple, without success.  We really wanted to put another maple back in, because Mum had chosen the first one for us, but it seems like they just don't like it here.  So instead, we planted a liquid amber.  Allegedly they do really well, and it has survived so far!!  Our lovely G helped us plant it. 

Many blogs ago (okay, I'm exaggerating, I haven't written many blogs) I wrote about a quince tree that was well and truly root bound when we purchased it from a nursery.  We weren't at all sure that it would survive, let alone produce fruit.  But produce fruit is just what it has done. Lots and lots and lots and lots of fruit, and then some more. There were so many that honestly, I was heartily over the darned things by the time I'd finished doing something with them.  I made quince jelly (which R has already hidden so I can't give it away), slow roasted quinces which I froze, ginger poached quinces, which I preserved using the Vacola and quince chutney, amongst other things.  It was a lot of work and I'm sure, once I've recovered from the trauma, I'll enjoy them along with R.  Anyway, after sorting that lot you can imagine the response my lovely sister L got when she offered me some more quinces on a visit to the farm!! 

Since we've moved here I have gotten into potted plants, specifically indoor and shade plants.  It all started with the gift of an indoor plant in a lovely art deco style pot, from my lovely eldest sister, E.  To which I (very rudely, sorry E) declared that she must be crazy because I've killed pretty much every single indoor plant I've ever attempted to grow.  Well, this one survived.  Perhaps the light is better in this house. Or maybe I've been paying more attention to how to look after them. I am not sure.  But one plant has grown into about ten (including an African daisy which I'm particularly proud of) indoors and several on the verandah. I guess I've got the bug.   Here are some pics of the ones on the verandah and the African violet which lives inside, on our breakfast table.

 

   

These next pics are of a lovely, small hakea that we've planted on the bank near the olive trees.  It flowered prolifically this year for the first time.  We're always super excited when one of our plants flowers.  But I particularly love the hakeas.  More of those will be getting planted I'm sure. 

I'm running out of puff, I think.  Just a little bit of steam left to tell you about the mushrooms that came up under our chestnut tree.  R found them and came inside and told me to grab my camera because there was something he was pretty sure I'd really want to see. And he was right.  Look at these lovely beauties. All red and white spots, just like the ones in children's books.  

 

  

Sadly they're an invasive species that out competes the native funghii.  Which meant we had to remove them all.  In some countries they eat these mushrooms but they're hallucinogenic and can kill you to boot.  We decided to bin them. And there were literally kilos of them.  Some of them were a good 40 cms across and weighed over half a kilo on their own.  It was an easy job. I did feel sad picking them, even though I know it's the right thing to do. 

These beautiful irises were originally planted by my Great Grandma on the orchard where my Mum grew up.  R and I went for a walk into the old orchard, or at least where it used to be (it was acquired by the Government because it was in the catchment area for the North Dandalup Dam when it was built) with Mum several years ago.  Mum wanted to show us where she grew up.  We had a lovely walk in and were very surprised to find the irises along with some garlic and a flowering fruit tree of some kind (which has since been removed).  We dug up two irises and a few garlic bulbs. They were duly planted out when we got home to Mum's and have now been divided and shared around. These are the ones I put in our garden. It feels very special to have these, they're a lovely reminder of Mum, that walk and her stories of growing up on the orchard.

  

Just before I go, take a look at our beautiful wisteria.  Gotta love a wisteria in flower right. Smells amazing.

As Peter Cundall would say, that's you're bloomin' lot. I'm off to bed now. Got to get a good night of rest ahead of tomorrow's gardening adventures. 

A Loveliness of Ladybirds

Every couple of months we have to read our electricity meter and send the details to Western Power.  Imagine our surprise when we opened the meter box to find a loveliness of ladybirds.  Loveliness is the noun for a group of ladybirds.  How apt!  

We're more than happy to have these particular ladybirds as they're native to our part of the world.  They do a great job keeping aphids and other insects under control.  Go ladybirds.

How Excited Were We....

How excited were we when we saw this beauty.  Initially it was sitting in our fig tree but moved into the nearby wattles when we arrived.  

                                                

It is a Boobook owl.  We hear them often at nighttime, but we've never been lucky enough to see one.  They have a distinctive hoot and are often called mopokes because of their sound.  We're really hopeful the fact that it was around during the day, and didn't fly away completely when we turned up, means it was just too stuffed with figs to move and not that it was unwell. 

Still excited!! 

Figs, Figs and More Figs

This year we've had an abundance of figs on our trees which, much to our surprise, the birds haven't discovered.  We both love figs.  But there's only so many figs two humans (with the help of three cows and a small number of birds) can reasonably eat without turning into a fig.  We stopped weighing the figs we picked when we got to 23 kilos.  We gave away many kilos of figs and then set about doing something with the rest.  This included drying the figs, wrapping them in prosciutto and grilling them (those were seriously delicious and are highly recommended) and making jam and chutney.   I also discovered a fabulous recipe for a Fig and Raspberry Crumble Cake which I made to share with my lovely sister and her family when they were moving into their new home.  My mother-in-law was lucky enough to score one as well.  Which made R doubly happy because he got to have a share of both. 

The first few figs were picked from the tree we planted last year.   I'm always so excited with the first fruit off any of our trees.  We ate several straight from the tree.  I don't know what it is about eating a piece of fruit straight after it's picked that makes it taste so much better than one eaten an hour or so after picking.  But it's true for all the fruit trees we have.

This is the first basket we picked from the tree near the bottom paddock.  This is what 8 kilos of figs look like.  R decided to throw the damaged fruit to the cows in the paddock.  Turns out they love figs, more than plastic even. Every time we went anywhere near the fig tree they would rush over and start mooing at us, demanding their share.  I'm pretty sure if there wasn't a fence between them and the tree they'd have eaten the whole lot. Probably all at the same time.  Imagine the stomach aches from that!!

These figs were turned into fig and ginger jam.  Figs are probably one of the easiest fruit to turn into jam. They require very little effort.  All I did was chop off the stems and then cut the figs into halves.

Then I added sugar, finely chopped ginger (I used Buderim's Bare Naked Ginger), some lemon juice and rinds, water and stirred until the sugar dissolved. 

Then I brought it up to the boil (isn't the foam a glorious colour) then turned down the heat and let it simmer for half an hour or so.

Eventually it got jammy enough to put into sterilised jars.  They were labelled and R has already hidden them so I can't give them away.  Anybody would think there will never be another jar of fig jam made in this house again. Honestly!! 

Drying figs is just as easy.  Once the stems have been cut off and the figs halved, it's just a matter of spreading them on the drying trays. I'm lucky enough to have a Sunbeam Ezidry and, following their instructions, I set the temperature to 55 degrees celcius and let it do its thing.

The figs in this pic have been drying for about 8 hours.  They took about 24 hours to be fully dried.  We did some for a shorter time so they're softer. Those we keep in the fridge.  We also soaked some in sugar syrup overnight before drying them.  I read that gives the figs a much softer finish, which it does but they don't taste as nice.  Drying really intensifies the flavour of the fruit.  I'm looking forward to using the dried figs in my next batch of homemade muesli. 

The Fig and Raspberry Crumble Cake (Fig & raspberry crumble cake recipe | Good Food) was probably R's favourite thing to do with the figs.  We also used raspberries from our garden. It is very satisfying being able to make things from produce we've grown.

Anyway, what makes this cake so good is the layers of fruit.  Some of the figs are chopped up small, and along with a third of the raspberries, added to the cake batter.  Once the batter is in the tin, a layer of halved figs and more raspberries goes on top.

On top of that goes the crumble and .....

Another layer of raspberries.

I was really surprised that the raspberries kept their shape during the cooking process.  The end result is a lovely, fruity but not too sweet cake.  Perfect with cream (or ice-cream in R's case) and a cup of good coffee or tea. 

We're still picking figs.  I'll be kind of glad when there aren't any more to pick.  Although I bet I will still pull a sad face when the last fig comes off the tree.  

I wonder what we'll be picking next.  I predict quinces closely followed by apples. 

In The Kitchen

Last year was a super busy year for us with very few weekends at home.  Which meant that our veg patch got completely lost amongst the weeds. We were forced to stay home for a couple of weeks when we got Covid for the first time.  And we were not very sick at all, just fatigued and contagious and at home.  Every cloud as they say.   After a couple of days feeling miserable and sorry for ourselves (I know, pathetic right), we decided we'd make the most of our time and get out into the veg patch.  We weeded and hoed and dug and sat a lot in between.    Over the course of two weeks, we managed to plant tomatoes, peas (snow peas and regular), beetroot, lettuce (which bolted in no time at all), zucchinis, pumpkins, beans (which promptly got eaten by something), broad beans and capsicums.  Needless to say, we felt very satisfied when we had neat rows of vegetable seedlings where there had been knee high weeds.  We also managed to give the fruit trees a good mulch and feed and put in some alyssum to attract the pollinators.  

Normally we'd share a lot of our produce by leaving it at Mum's for my lovely family to pick up.  That didn't quite work out this year so I've had more produce to preserve than usual.  Of course we stuffed ourselves silly with the fresh fruit; apricots (all four of them), endless nectarines, peaches, three types of plums (Santa Rosa, satsuma and president), gooseberries, cherries, mulberries, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. And loquats which we're particularly pleased with because we grew the tree from a seed from our tree in Greenmount.  

But I digress, we had a lot of produce to preserve.  I turned nectarines into chutney and jam, made some cakes which had pureed nectarine in the batter and still managed to give some away.   We had spare peaches which I dried - they turned out surprisingly well, sweet and tasty.  I also dried quite a lot of tomatoes and bottled some as well.  Peas and beans got frozen.  Although I ate most of the regular peas straight off the vine.  I love fresh peas.  

Most of the tomatoes are Roma.  To preserve them I just washed and chopped them, stuffed them into Vacola jars, added some water, a little salt and lemon juice.

  

 

 

I didn't take photos of the jars being stuffed with tomatoes.  But I did take a photo of the box of clips that are used to hold the lids onto the jars and of the preserver.  I mean seriously, I've got to plan these things a little better, I think. It wasn't until I sat down, feeling satisfied that the tomatoes were heating up in the preserver, that I thought that a photo of the processing would be good for this blog.  Sheesh.

  

This is the jars all lined up on our kitchen bench after spending 90 minutes in the preserver.  Those jars are all now neatly lined up in our hall cupboard (which masquerades as a pantry because it's the coolest cupboard in the house), waiting for winter when they'll get turned into spag bog or something else equally yummy. 

Drying tomatoes is a lot less work than bottling them.   The tomatoes simply get washed, halved and then laid out on the drying trays.  Then the temperature is set to 55 degrees and they're left for many, many hours.  Well, those that don't get taste tested along the way that is. 

Drying the tomatoes really intensifies the flavour. Once they were dried, we divvied them up into containers and put them in the freezer to increase their longevity.  When we're ready to use them, I'll thaw them out and we'll just use them straight away or I might put some in oil with herbs.  We'll see. 

We only had a few peaches to dry but it was well worth the effort. I just put them in with the tomatoes. On a separate tray of course. 

Of course, no blog about produce would be complete without showing off some of that produce.     This year we grew a variety of capsicum called Candy Stripe. It's easy to see how it got its' name.

We had plenty of loquats, blueberries and managed to get a wee bit of lettuce.

Oodles of snow peas, way more than we can eat but they freeze well.  We're still picking zuchinies;  green, yellow and the cream and green almost stripey ones. 

Our raspberries have done really well this year.  Nothing to do with us I'm sure.  Just good luck. We've treated them the same way this year as we always do. But we've had bowls of raspberries to eat. Yum.

We've just started picking our figs.   So far we've been eating them as we pick.  If we manage to beat the birds to the figs in the bottom paddock, we'll soon have a glut.  Fig jam might be in order methinks. Or maybe Fig Bakewell Tart.  Or dried figs.  Figgy pudding (does that actually have fresh figs in it).  The possibilities are endless.