Quiet weekend at home - not!

Another busy weekend for us. I had some of my old school friends over on Friday night for dinner, I made homemade gnocchi and a creamy mushroom and leek sauce. We had an unexpected visitor - a 10 month old dog who was scared by the fireworks and ran almost 2km to our house. Luckily we were able to find her owner quickly. I also played a soccer game on Friday night. First time goalkeeping in a loooong time. I had a great time, and I still have some of my skills!

OH visited his Mum last week and came back with heaps of awesome produce. One haul was a heap of guavas, so we made a lot of guava jelly.

It smells a bit funny to eat but it's very tasty. He also brought back about 12 cups of rosellas, so we made a bit of jam too.

We've still got 2/3rds of it left so we have grand plans for a bit of cordial. I also made a very basic soap from soap flakes, water and vanilla essence. It's hardening now and we'll see how it goes. It almost seems too easy!

We also ran around on the weekend to build a cool new seed raising area. It's 3x1m so it's pretty big! We used almost all recycled parts, except for the roof and screws. I am worried that it is too exposed but we'll see how it goes. Sometimes its good having an OH who did carpentry for a bit.

I've also spent my free time digging a big hole in the yard. I convinced OH to plant out the Rosellas, and as we don't get much frost here hopefully they fruit before the lease is up. The patch is going to be a permanent flower garden to bring some bees to the garden. I will post photos of it when it isn't just a patch of dirt! This long weekend we are heading off to my parents farm, hopefully the weather is good. Time to relax a bit I think. Have a good week and long weekend!

Market time!

What a busy weekend!

Today we went to the Green Day Out in Brisbane to try and sell some of our old shop stock. We sold everything half price (what we paid for it) to try and get rid of some stock. We sold more than 60 items so we made a pretty big dent in the stock. Here is our stall.

And here is our lovely spare bedroom with heaps more space. The clothes and market stuff now fits on the 3 racks and in a box.

It is a really great event and an awesome simple living resource. I bought an electric yogurt maker which I'm really keen to give a spin. It seems really easy to use and I can make dairy and non-dairy yogurt. I also got a preserving starter kit which has things like jar tongs and lid lifter. Now I just need some food to preserve and a good book and I'm ready to go. I also got some bicarb so I can make more cleaning products.

Yesterday I noticed that there was a heap of rio in the skip bin from the construction next door so we grabbed it to make a trellis. We put it up next to our peas. We haven't had much luck with trellis' staying up and being tall enough for our plants. This one looks good and sturdy.

Our seedlings are also plodding along, but we haven't been able to plant at the beginning of the month like planned. They just haven't really got past the small adult leaf stage and are really struggling. We also learnt this week you need light coloured shade cloth rather than green for letting enough light in. Oh well!

Hopefully we can plant something soon other than peas!

A Weekend of Microgreens and Dishcloths

Last weekend was lovely. Saturday was weeding and knitting at OH's Dads, and lots of homemade pizza and red wine for dinner. It was nice to have a few drinks (and many more laughs!).

Woke up with a bit of a sore head on Sunday, but after a slow morning of reading we headed off to OH's mum's house. OH and his mum are planning on growing microgreens on a fairly large scale, so Sunday was spent preparing. We built a large worm farm from something that was intended to be a dog kennel (???) but it is totally perfect.

There is a bucket going down the hill for worm juice. We are planning to put a table/bench thing on the plain steel bit on the side. We also did a trial run of some different potting mediums, like coconut fibre, seed raising mix and worm castings. It will be interesting to see which one works the best. We also tried 3 different types of seed to see what happens.

In between all this work I managed to finish 2 dishcloths. 

It's been a while since I knitted last but I seemed to pick it back up quickly and I was quite surprised that I finished 2. Now I need to find a needle to finish it off. I think the weave (?) might be a bit loose, I guess I will see when I try to clean something. Might use smaller needles next time. Here is a nice photo of a sunset I caught last week while on a walk.

This weekend we are going to see a concert on Saturday night, and trying to sell the rest of our shop stock at the Green Day Out in Brisbane. We had a good day there last time so hopefully we will be able to get rid of a bit of it. Have a lovely week!