I am a strawberry!!

Thats what the GHIU said to me this morning! Yesterday as planned we went to Splash Planet in Hastings. The day was half overcast and half sunny and I spent the day watching lots of people going a red colour and thinking how stupid of them...while all along i in my tee shirt top wass  eing saved. Also we were in and out of slides and indoor pools etc. But when we came home the top of my head was so sunburnt and my face was so red. I hoped that the redness might be a it residual and might go overnight, ut this morning it was still there and my skin is so sore. Add to that my lips are swollen and look likde trout lips that celebreties get after plastic surgery. Then I discovered   (Advice dont read if skeemish) scabs,  yes thats correct on my scalp. im hoping that they are there after brushing my hair delicately last night, ut maybe grazing the sore surface or something. It asolutely appalls me that I can be so dumb!!  So i took it easy today, kept out of the sun and heavy rainfall wearning are forecast for tomorrow.
I shredded all the poopy straw from the coop on my garden and now need it to rain. I LOVE chicken poop...its the most exciting fertiliser. I know..Im strange!
Happy sunbathing to you all
Cherry

Chooks..yes! Again..

Its all about the chooks lately. This afternoon after lunch we all got in the jeep and spent the rest of the afternoon at Waimarama beach. it was glorious. the girls used their boogie boards to surf the waves , sam the dog swum out deep with the GHIU. I even got in swam around a bit and got a sunurnt head and arms..But it was just the best afternoon.

Then we came hoem and spent a few hours watching the chooks, watching the cat watching the chooks, stalking the chooks and then attacking the chooks! The chooks thought fought back and sent the ruthless Gingy on his way!!

As if that wasnt entertainment enough GHIU and Old macdonald herself(Alex) dug up worms and slugs and feed them to the chooks who jumped up and became quite obssessed with them. Today we had three eggs, spread throughout the day. So someone wasnt pulling their weight!! Actually we are surprised ecause we had een led to belioeve that after a new home they could go quiet at first. Maybe we are lucky!

I spent some Money today. I actually bought on line Living the good life by lionda Cockurn. I have SO wanted to read this book both napier and hastings libraries didnt have it. I found it on a NZ site the credit card was unfortunately just there staring me in the face, and , well... Still Im sooo looking forward to its deliverance.

The next photos are of Gingy in the chook enclosure and the worm fest.

happy Chooking

love Cherry

Chook fever!

Everyone is crazy about the chooks. They are never without an audience and special seating has "arrived" around their pen for the crowd to congregate on!

The top photo is my view from my bedroom as aI type away here,. pretty good huh!

They are scratching around, eating lots of weeds, grass and some scraps as well as their wheat and pellets. It is wonderful to see this knowing that only two days ago they were in tiny battery cages, not knowing anything natural. Sparrows have been funny to watch as they fly around after the chhoks feed and at first the chooks would duck for cover as they flew overhead! Then it rained and one just sat outside obviously unaware of rain and what to do! we helped her inside-poor drenched looking thing!
We have got one more chook. She belongs to GHIU and he named her Christmas...as in thats what meal shell be supporting if she doesnt perform.But we have had six eggs since their arrival . It is thrilling to find the eggs..like Christmas presents!  I know that the novelty will go aaway buts its pretty neat right now.
With lots of chooky love

Cherry

the farm comes to Flaxmere!!

Introducing....Shelley Henderson

Henrietta and helen Clark henderson.

Well great excitement this morning at the "good life farm" Our three chooks arrived. Thick as two planks they might be but they already have shown their different personalities. Georgias henrietta is very quiet, placid to a fault infact, Alexs Shelley is quiet but prefers to roll around scratcing at pretend dust bathes, and my one..well she is fiesty and nasty and quiet the fiend..hence her name (its ovious i was never a fan of Aunty helen!)  Shes already tried to fly out at me and annoys the others y stamping over them and stepping in their water. As they are quite busy we thought wed let them out tonight of their enclosure for an hour or so. A man went into a big shed and got them for us and now i wonder wether this was in fact a big factory arn as they are not behaving as I have seen battery cage hens behave. The girls are beside themselves with excitement and Ginga has made several attempts to get into the cage and when he did get in he played with Henrietas tail feathers!

 

This is where the eggs will be tomorrow (hopefully) currently you will find only a golf ball there!

Other news is the girls had their prizegiving ceremonies for their lirary awards. And, crikey the mayor was giving them out!! Mayors in new Zealand dont often have are feet ut the prizegiving was in a marae..

Im a bit dissappointed with my redone door. To compensate i made this wreath and then inspired y a country craft magazine crafted this heart to go with it.

Happy crafting and chook keeping to you all

Love Cherry

The urban farm life begins...

GHIU has been busy measuring, cuttting, sawing, hammering and has made most of the chicken coop already!!! Of course I have been busy too.................

Its such a good feeling squirrilling away things, especially when the raw product has been in the freezer for YEARS! Straight from my freezer and from Aunt Daisys cookook for your veiwing pleasure..

happy bottling everyone-

Love Cherry

Plans in the making

Today i was mowing the lawns..actually mostly Alex was mowing and I was watching..Anyway I was walking around this triangle of lawn against the olive trees and the pool and i suddenly thought..Chooks!!
You can see it too cant you!? Its perfect for a couple of laying hybrids. And friendly ones too so I can graze them around the other parts of the garden. I dont know why i didnt see it before!! We are going to erect a temparary fence from left over chicken wire in the shed and build a small chook house for laying. I cant wait. I even rung up the local battery farm:-(  and chooks are 18 for layers.

As for other things of a more crafty nature.This is what Ive been working on since Christmas. it is a quilt adapted from Cheri Saffiote. I love primitive especially at Christmas but am well and truly over this now!!  It features both stitchery and applique and then around the edges i am just finishing it off with some Christmas greenery...

Really want to get it finished now!!

This morning i made some Blackberry pickle from Aunt Daisys recipe book that I got from the library. Its a classic!! Full of recipes . I want a copy!! Im not sure how the pickle will taste though. It only made one a half jars, but it may all be thrown out after the first tasting. Tomorrow im making some relish from the same book. Again just a small amount. I found some MORE frozen tomatoes in the freezer!! Goodness only know how long those have been in there!!

Happy homemaking to you all..

Love Cherry

Cooking

Today was a baking day. I have had blueberries, raspberries and boysenberries in the freezer since 2008!!  I thought i should at last use them!! These muffins taken from a recipe from the Simple savings website is divine. It uses custard powder and has the best taste. These muffins were wolfed down by all but Georgia who has an inexpicable dislike for berries! Now I only have blackberries collected wild in the freezer ut the GHIU isnt so keen on using those in this recipe!  I do have to use up a fair few litres of them though!

So then I thought I should bake some ANZAC biscuits but didnt have any bake paper. using my old Aunties tip I was able to use up some of the stock take of butter paper in my freezer. A great frugal tip this one!!

The other thing that i have got since Mum went into the rest home is her very old Tala. It is the greatest measuring tool and has measures inside very just about every cooking ingrediant as well as old measures  such as pounds, oz and litres..to name a few. I know that you can buy these new nowadays as it is an old thing that has come back but I grew up with this model and knowing how frugal my Mum was I imagine she had this one from the very eginning of her marriage (which makes it abouit fifty odd years old)

The weather is still hot..just beautiful really. i am tying down the strawberry runners in the garden to make more plants for next season. Other than that everything esle is in a state of still growing (tomatoes ) strongly or growing but not very convincingly (water melons, rock melons and capiscums) Oh well you win, you lose. Its always a process in learning.
When the GHIU came home we packed the girls and the dog into the four wheeler and headed off down to the river. The girls loved swimming downstream, up stream (against the strong current) and hanging off the dog (lucky him..)
We are slowly planning our few days camping probably at mahia as the sea is gorgeous there but MOKO is not there this year (See this blog this time last year to learn aout the wonderful Moko). He is in Tolaga Bay now and has had to be highly protected after the pulic got a bit carried away and some loons weent after him  :\
Im off now to do some calming quilting Im patching together a quilt designed upon Cheri Saffiotes two ghour quilting projects book. Id like to get it finished actually but as it has lots of applique and stitching it willtake a while. Im going to finish it before I start anything wlse though, although it wont be quilted immediately..Ill just add it to the pile!!
happy quilting
Love Cherry

Christmas scrappin'

One of my main objectives this holidays is to work on my scrapping and I did hope that A: I would have spare money to do that and

B: The scrapbooking things would all be on sale..sadly neither of those things happened. However I have collected enough supplies to get started on my stash of photos and as Christmas was the most recent I have started with those and redone a botched old one (above). Im working on a mini alum that is very individual.i love the things that other people do but Im not sure if mine will look that rilliant. i have to remember that the photos are froma recent trip away and a bit hit and misss so not the best quality anyway!

I love to scrap but tire of it quite quickly and need a bit of  substancal break, whereas I can sew and sew for hours days on end (Guess who just downloaded the latest blogger features with strikethrough feature!!!)

 Im so full of excitement for the new year. GHIU and i are scouting for some land to uy and put a old removable house upon. It is scary but at the same time it feels the right thing to do and I can not think of much else. Even Christmas which generally keeps me excited for a while afterwards has paled into significance and all im thinking of is the land in 2010!!  Its a majoy birthday for GHIu who I wont reveal except to say that he was born in a 0 year and he looks at least ten years younger than his actual age. (Im looking for an aging portrait hidden away somewhere!)  Anyway I feel like all the stars are aligning i just need to take a deep breath and dive in!!! Let us know if you are in the hawkesd Bay and know of such affordable cheap land available to future Tom and barbara Good landowners!

The simple pleasure of bottling

Arnt these labels cute?? For the first time I bought the Homegrown magazine and have vowed to continue to uy it. This one was on tomatoes and it is a POWERHOUSE of information and has these free labels to boot!!

My peas are finished and my lettuces are doing great growing things in askyscraper direction. ut my tomatoes...it is there time to shine. As well as a few surprise seld seeded one in the front garden my Romas are looking healthy and gorgeous tho still green in the back garden. In fact they are positively triffid like! I am so looking forward to cutting them in half putting them in my underused dehyrator and storing them in olive oil as sundried tomatoes with a touch of garlic and rosemary. In this mood of tomatoes and preserving my GHIU reminded me that for the past five years we have several kilos of frozen tommies at the bottom of our deep freezer in the shed.!!! I immediately got to wprk and made two batches of pasta sauce using them. I used 10 kilos in all and there is now room again in the freezer (Interesting how much fish ait and UFOs I found in there as well!!)

Arnt they pretty??? Up the top is the strawberry and plum jam. We have so much jam now that Im going to go easy on it this season. I will put most of my energies into bottling the peaches and the pears instead, but they are a while away yet.

I have found this great new blog which I am going to visit often. It is frugal in nature and full of great tips , recipes and inspiration. You can find it here. This lady is also a designer. How di some people get all the talents? I love to sew and quilt and craft but I could never actually make something up from my head!

The weather has been unbearaly hot, flies are constant nusiances and we seem to be always out of flyspray and automatic ones seem to give up quickly..batteries?? Spray?? I give up..

Its such fun to read the American blogs ans see the snow and read how they are all copnquering the cold right now. it just seems surreal over here with the humidity and heat!!

happy bottling.

Loce Cherry