Planning – Dinner and Dressing

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Posted on September 8, 2013

As you may have guessed from my lack of posts recently, I have been rather busy both physically and mentally. There is a lot going on at the moment and I had dropped the ball as far as menu planning went. We have still been eating meals – almost all cooked at home but I have been throwing them together without a lot of thought.

Today I decided that I needed to refocus and get organised. Here is the plan for the week

Sunday – Beef stroganoff with mashed sweet potato and green beans

Monday – Stuffed mushroom slice with coleslaw

Tuesday – Sausages and salad

Wednesday – Chicken and green bean stir-fry

Thursday – Nachos with refried beans and guacamole

Friday – Cheese omelette with bacon and avocado

Saturday – Rissoles and salad

We have green beans and avocadoes from the garden and the remaining fruit and vegetables that I need were bought this afternoon. By having a plan I make sure that I use the food on hand, wastage is reduced (hopefully to zero) and I can do some preparation the night before.

The other thing that I like to plan in advance is the clothes that I am going to wear. Here in south-east Queensland we are into some seriously warm weather with the maximum temperatures forecast for this week ranging from 26C up to 32C so my footwear each day will be my very comfortable strappy sandals with a small heel. Here are my planned clothes for the week.

Monday – white cotton drill 3/4 pants and blue/white striped collared shirt

Tuesday – sleeveless cotton dress – black with white spots

Wednesday – skirt – cream with black spots and black sleeveless t-shirt

Thursday – Pink/red/white floral, sleeveless dress

Friday – skirt – navy with white spots and white sleeveless t-shirt

It can still be cool in the mornings and also the office is air-conditioned so I will wear a red 3/4 sleeve cardigan with all of these outfits as required.

I will try to take and post a photo of my outfit each day.

What do you plan in advance?

Other Stuff

Sustainable House Day 2013

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Posted on August 27, 2013

Sustainable House Day 2013 is an opportunity to check out a variety of dwellings in your area with sustainable features. You can check out the website here.

We have chosen to be involved and are included in this list. If you are in the area and would like to see ‘The Castle’ in real life please come and say hello.

I am looking forward to being able to show people some of the features of our house and garden which reduce our impact on the environment and invariably save us money at the same time.

Chicken Castle

11 Comments

Posted on August 25, 2013

We have been working on a new chicken run for a couple of months now. The end is now in sight and at last I can show you that we are really making some progress.

The chicken wire is unrolled and attached temporarily to the top wire in several places. Obviously, it still needs to be tensioned and attached but we have a much better idea of how the finished product will look.

I hope that by this time next week our chickens will be firmly ensconced in their new home.

We have assembled the coop which we bought online. It was easy to assemble and I think it will be perfect for the girls.

I Can Grow Carrots

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Posted on August 24, 2013

This probably seems pathetic to many gardeners but I have finally managed to grow some carrots. It is a crop which has eluded me for the best part of 30 years of growing at least some food crops.

Some of my earliest memories are of the carrots growing in my grandfather’s vegetable garden. Carrots were one of the vegetables that my parent’s grew also.

So why is it so difficult to grow carrots? The seed is very fine and can easily dry out, blow away or be taken by birds. Whatever the reason, I have been unable to even get them to germinate previously. Then there is the issue of the soil. It needs to be a bit on the sandy side, well-drained and definitely no rocks or you can end up with some strangely shaped carrots. Mind you, I was so desperate to at least have carrots growing that I could not have cared less about them being misshapen.

When I sowed carrot seeds a couple of months ago I covered them with a few layers of damp newspaper until they had germinated and this seemed to do the trick.

These are the carrots I picked today. They are really just a few that I pulled to thin them out. They are still smaller than the beans that are also from the garden and I can almost hear my grandfather telling me that the soil is too rich in nutrients as they have all gone to the tops. I know, I know……..but at least I have carrots. I am so proud of myself. The beans and carrots were eaten for dinner.

We have been busy putting the strainer wires up for the fencing on the chicken run today. Tomorrow we hope to attach at least some of the chicken wire and also assemble the coop which we bought. It is currently still in the 2 flat pack boxes in the garage.

I am looking forward to the day when the fencing is all done and the remainder of the raised garden beds are built and then hopefully I will be able to concentrate on improving the results of my vegetable gardening efforts.

Guest Room

6 Comments

Posted on August 20, 2013

Hello Again!

I think I have caught my breath. The last week has been a bit of a whirl with Air BnB guests, family visiting, Izz’s birthday and planning a trip to visit an ill relative as well as work and all of the routine stuff around the house.

We also managed to fit in a small project last weekend. We hung the timber blind which we bought for the guest room and I am really pleased with the result.

It is something that I had been contemplating for quite some time but I had not been able to convince myself of what the best window treatment for the room would be. I mentioned to The Duke that I thought the timber blinds would be good after one of our guests suggested that a window covering would afford a bit more privacy as the window overlooks the verandah. The Duke promptly found that Spotlight were having a half-price sale on blinds that week so we procrastinated no longer.

When we bought the blind we were a bit unsure about the size but discovered that for and extra $20 you can have them cut and made to measure. All you need to provide is the inside width of the window frame.

I will show you more of what I have been working on in the coming days.

In the meantime, here is the moonrise this evening. It looked spectacular as it rose over the trees.

Busy

4 Comments

Posted on August 18, 2013

The title says it all. I am very busy at the moment, juggling lots of balls in my life so something had to give. It is the blog. Normal service will resume when I catch my breath.

Wardrobe Workhorses & Wishlists

8 Comments

Posted on August 13, 2013

This week the weather has turned warm, even hot by some standards and it is officially still winter.

Many of my clothes are suitable for most of the year depending on how I wear them. However, the warmer weather has made me stop and think about what new things I might consider buying this season. I have 3 good pairs of shorts and probably enough skirts but it might be time to get some new tops. Other than that the 2 main things on my wishlist for summer are sandals and a hat. My current sandals are well-worn and have been repaired. They will keep going for some time yet but it would be nice to have a new pair to wear to work during the summer months. The hat that I crave is a straw one in a dressy style. Since I am not tall, I find that I need a hat with a straight or slightly upturned brim or otherwise I end up looking like a mushroom. I have a fabric hat which is fine for travelling and beachwear but I would really like one that I can wear with a dress in the city.

That is enough about my wishlist, now for the workhorses.

These are some singlet tops that I bought at Uniqlo when we were visiting Japan in 2009. They are some of the most versatile items I have ever owned. I wear them as singlets in winter, pyjama tops with boxer shorts, tank tops in summer and even to work as a camisole with a skirt and cardigan. The lace edging and straps are actually elastic lace and they are really comfortable. When these wear out I will definitely buy more or possibly make some if I can find suitable elastic lace.

Having items of clothing that do double or even triple duty will be very useful when I come to pack when we travel overseas. I am hoping to travel as lightly as possible. Do you have any particular ideas that have worked for you?

Demolition Derby

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Posted on August 11, 2013

We have managed to get a bit more done in the garden this weekend but is has not been all about building. Some of it has entailed destruction – namely demolishing the original vegetable gardens.

This is what it looked like about 2 years after we moved here. These beds served us well but we are now working on a revamped plan. So far we have built 3 raised beds and eventually there will be nine of them in a fully-fenced garden area.

You can see some of the old beds in the enclosure in the background of the photo above. Below is what it looks like now.

You can see the posts for the chicken run in the background. That will share a common fence with the bottom of the garden enclosure. The string line on the left hand side marks the eastern boundary of the vegetable garden enclosure. As well as the 9 raised beds I plan to grow herbs in beds along the fence line nearest to the house and asparagus and rhubarb on the eastern side. I do not want these in one of the raised beds as they are perennials rather than annuals. There will also be chilli bushes and blueberries nearest to the front boundary as well as a screened area for the compost tumblers. We have one tumbler at the moment and will probably get a second one as well as keeping one ‘open’ compost bay. I am quite keen to clear up the ‘Steptoe & Son’ arrangement that is there at the moment with a cut down rainwater tank as well as a rusty 44 gallon drum.

We put in 4 more posts for the chicken run fencing so next weekend we should be able to attach at least some of the top rails and the strainer wires. Because the fence is 1800mm high in this section we will have three horizontal wires. One at the top, one close to the ground and the other in the middle so this should prevent any sagging of the fencing wire. We are using heavy gauge chicken wire as our plan is to make sure that the chickens do not get out nor any unwanted guests finding their way into the run.

Our original plan included incorporating a coop into the run but it all got too complicated so we have opted to have a ready-made, freestanding coop situated in the run. It will be something like this.

Keep the Clutter Out

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Posted on August 8, 2013

I have previously written about the importance of stopping clutter coming into your home. Decluttering is only one weapon in a multi-faceted approach to keeping your home clutter-free.

One one the biggest culprits is mail. We have eliminated most of our mail by having a ‘No Junk Mail’ sticker on our mailbox and opting to receive as much information as possible electronically.However, today we actually received 4 pieces of mail Here they are.

There are 2 local publications – The Range News (newspaper) and The Hinterland Times which is more of a magazine format. I always read them to keep up with local issues and then they will be recycled. The item on the top of the pile is the first piece of election advertising material that we have received. It was read and then went straight into the recycling. Finally, the large yellow envelope was the most interesting piece of all. It was a bundle of brochures and information from the company where we purchased our solar panels. We contacted them to see if they could provide some literature for the Sustainable House Open Day which is coming up at the beginning of next month.