On Go the Flying Horses, Round and Round.

Don't get me wrong, we really are loving our life here in the bush, but  there are times like the present  that we are feeling  that life is just one big crazy merry go round.
We just seem to fly from one job, activity or event into another, round and round, then repeat  , with a few extra fun things thrown in along the way to keep us interested, alert, awake and coming back for more.
I had promised to try and update the blog a little more often, but  life truly does get in the way and prevent me doing so, and because of that  this is why you get bit's of our crazy life all jammed into one.
In the second week of March  we headed down south of Newcastle to mind our gorgeous  grandson for a few days while his parents and big sister attended a wedding. We had a lovely time with him at parks, playgrounds,shops and  meeting some very friendly kangaroos.
When we met back up with his Mum and Dad  to give him back we then headed to Sydney to attend the handfasting (wedding) of my nephew and his gorgeous  bride.
It was an unusual ceremony based on pagan beliefs( I have been to 2 previous ceremonies similar to this) that was set in beautiful surrounds.

The lady on the left in black was a sign language translator as both of my nephew's parents are deaf ( my brother and his ex- wife)

It was a beautiful  wedding, the setting was glorious, the bride stunning, the reception was just perfect, and we had a really  wonderful time chatting  and getting to know  many of those unusually dressed, smart, friendly  young people. They say you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover and that was certainly true of this group.
After returning home I got busy and decided to make some chicken stock from the bones /carcasses of the chickens from the chicken curry I had previously canned.

I added my chicken bones, carrots, celery,onion water and  salt/pepper to my big pressure canner and cooked it under 10 lbs pressure for about 1 1/2 hours.
I then strained off all the solids and  refrigerated the liquid overnight to set any residual fat.

The fat is removed next morning and I filled the quart jars with it.

After, wiping rims with white vinegar, placing lids on and bands, these are then placed into the clean pressure canner with  water  to required level for my canner and pressure canned at 15 lbs pressure(my elevation) for 90 minutes.

This is the base(along with tomatoes) for most of my soup and ready meal canning.
While I was doing this Brian  replaced the  rope like seal  around the door of our wood fire.

The next job was one we have been contemplating for a while. The corner pantry access in my new kitchen was never great but  became worse after we purchased our bigger black fridge.
We decided to remove the bigger corner pantry  and replace it with a smaller  standard pantry.

Because we had  tiled up to the cupboards, when we  removed them it left an area that had to be tiled(some also had to be removed first to allow for a better finish.). Brian had never tiled before so this was a new  experience,

 I am really pleased with the finish, even though most of it will be under the fridge and pantry, at least we know it is right.
Now it is ready for me to  do some painting and  we will get  our new pantry flat pack tomorrow ready to install.
I decided to experiment with freezing some eggs, this is something I have never done before. I used  plastic ice cube trays for the first dozen eggs,

I found them difficult to get out and since then have used silicone muffin trays which  work brilliantly. ( I bag up six at a time into a zip lock plastic bag, which is a dozen eggs slightly beaten.)
I decided to try them after thawing to make a corn  and bacon  crustless quiche.

It worked beautifully and I will certainly use them again and continue to freeze my surplus eggs.
I decided to make some bookmarks to sell on my stall at the rail celebrations, so I took some panorama photographs, printed ,laminated,and added a ribbon, I think they came up all right.

We also had a lovely trip away to mind our two youngest granddaughters  for a few days while their parents attended a wedding in South Australia. They were really sweet and well behaved.
Brian got to ride "the beast" their big ride on mower, as they had recieved heaps of rain and the grass was growing in leaps and bounds.
I was going to continue on  with this post and include our huge rail celebrations, but have decided to  leave this here, as I have wash to get in and a few other jobs. The internet has not been my friend this afternoon  and has been running ever so slow,  so  I will  post the  update on that later today.
Take care everyone
Cheers.
Jane.