New wood burner!!!!!

Now that the cold weather has well and truly hit us we pushed ahead to install our new wood burner over the weekend. First we started by building the hearth.

Our hearth

The hearth was built was leftover tiles from my mum's bathroom, leftover quad to match the rest of the house, leftover cement sheeting from OH's mums, and we are reusing some of her grout too. All we had to buy was tile adhesive for a grand total of $35! Not bad for a few hours work. I think one in the shops was about $500. After we built it though we soon figured out that the adhesive would need 24hrs to dry, but we wanted to get it going. OH whipped up a 'hearth' made of fibro and tile offcuts. It's not pretty, but it will work for now!

It is going!

It was lovely to use it for the first time last night. It wasn't super cold but we had to let it run for 4 hrs to get rid of the smells. The house was lovely and warm this morning (a nice change) and now it is ready to put the hearth under.

Smoke coming from the (short) chimney

Now we have really made a big change to the house that we really love. It is starting to feel more like a home. I can't wait to come home one day soon and see smoke coming out of the chimney and a warm house inside. Once we installed it we went to pick some guavas from OH's mums and some pine cones for fire starters. There is still many kilos of guavas on the tree! I'm not sure if I'll make more jelly (it is OH and Grandma's favourite) but I'll have a look around for some other recipes. Might have to buy some more jars!

All of the guavas in Big Bertha

I only did one batch of it because I didn't really feel like a whole day of cooking. I cooked them in water for half an hour and left to drain for a couple hours. I then added the sugar and lemon juice and left it for a few more hours. I had the liquid with the sugar cooking for about two hours and the lemon made it set just fine. I am going to add the recipe here because I can't remember what I did last time: http://www.food.com/recipe/guava-jelly-40343. I like that the recipe had lemon juice in it. I was able to use my own lemons from my little tree! Guavas and lemons ripen at about the same time so it is a perfect combination. I haven't tasted the final product yet but from the little cooking tastes I had I think it is going to be better than the previous batch. Might have to make some more, just for Grandma. I had to ration them out last time!

The finished product. 7 jars plus a baby

I am happy with the colour and the amount I made. The last batch of jam I made (Rosella) was at the end of December! I do like doing it and the results are delicious.

Next weekend will be fixing the pool fence and odd jobs around the house. I have to get the pool fence fixed within 3 months of settlement and get it re-certified (?). Until next time!