Bread and butter cucumbers.

We tend to celebrate happy hour a lot(maybe too much) when we are up at the farm, not so much here on the coast.
People tend to pop over up there for a cuppa  or  a drink, and I just can't resist putting out a plate of nibbles. I  tend to  sway more to the cheeses and pickles,olives ect and most of our friends and neighbours  seem to enjoy those type of snacks too.
One of the most popular ones is bread and butter cucumbers. I got the recipe from my next door neighbour Stasia, who is  Polish, she  and her husband Rolf who is German  have shared some wonderful recipes  and food with us over the last 15 years or so that we have been neighbours.
We planted a small raised bed of bush type cucumbers this year and they have produced very well, this is the third batch of bread and butter cucumbers that I have preserved from them.

For this recipe, I slice up 4 kilos of cucumbers on the mandolin and also slice up 2 kilos of onions and add to the cucumbers in a plastic or stainless steel container, I then add  1 cup of salt in total(I divided my cucumbers and onions into two containers, so adjust to what ever you decide to do)
I set the containers aside and leave to soak overnight.
Next morning I drain the cucumbers and onions and rinse them under cold running water to  reduce the saltiness, and pack them into my freshly washed mason jars.

In a large stainless pot I then  make the sweet brine solution, this consists of:
10 cups of white vinegar,6 cups of white sugar,3 teaspoons of celery seed,3 teaspoons of yellow or brown mustard seed, and 3 teaspoons of turmeric.  This is brought to the boil, cooled a little and poured over the cucumbers.

Once  the jars are full, I then de-bubble and adjust the liquid height leaving a final head space of about 1/2 inch. I wipe all the rims with a paper towel soaked in white vinegar, place lids, that have been simmered onto the jars, and cap with  the bands to finger tight.

Once this is done, I then place all the jars into my trusty electric water bath and  adjust water level so that the jars are covered by a couple of inches of water, place the lid on and set to hold boil. When it reaches  boiling point, I hold it at that level for 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes has elapsed, I then turn off the  water bath preserver, remove the lid and let the jars sit for a further 5 minutes. Next I remove all the jars out onto a towel covered bench to protect it and the jars from heat shock.

 When the jars have all made that lovely popping noise, you know that they are all sealed, but you must wait  24 hours and then remove the bands.

After removing the bands, washing them and storing away until the next preserving job, I then washed the jars, and will  soon label and date them and store them away with my other delicious preserves in the pantry.
This makes over 40 pint  jars of these that I have preserved this year, I am fairly sure it will be the last as our cucumber garden is on it's last legs, and we will probably now only pick fresh eating cucumbers until the end of the season.
We have had a really productive  year here on the coast, and hopefully next year we will have a more established garden up and running at the farm as we  spend more  time up there and less down here.
These  pickles will be popular fare over the Christmas  holidays and my supply will quickly be eaten into.

So until we meet up again,
Best wishes to you and yours,
Stay safe over the holiday period,
Cheers,
Jane.

The old Blue girl

When my husband refers to "The Old Blue Girl" it usually either means our old blue cattle dog {Tilly} or he means the other love of his life, the old blue Fordson Tractor.

She is about as old as he is,and we bought her off the local town Progress association cheaply  as it was becoming a burden for them to  find  volunteer drivers for her to do slashing and mowing, as they needed to have the appropriate training and certificates to operate it in the town.So the council now does all that work for them.
We use her for so much, there is rarely a visit to the farm goes by that she isn't brought out for  some work.

We used her to rip all the trenches down to the bore that we drilled, and up to the generator with the aid of a big old heavy single ripper that we borrowed off friends in Dubbo. Then after all the pipework and electric cables were laid we borrowed a blade off one of our neighbours and filled all the trenches in.

My husband hooks up the old scarifyer in the above photos and drags it around to break up the earth to plant a bit of feed or grass, this old piece of machinery was on the property when we bought it and has been very useful.,It's not the greatest way to do it, but serves the purpose for now.
Every time I hear him on the tractor ,I take my camera out, and if caught photographing him I usually get a cheeky smile or a slightly rude gesture telling me to go away.

I think he just loves to drive around his little farm, wishing it was bigger. I often say to him to slow down, to take it easy, that he's on holidays... but he reckons it's like he is on holidays ,and he loves working on the tractor.

We have done so much with the old blue girl, pulled tree stumps, carted rubbish, carted the water cart when we are burning  rubbish, Carted  these huge loads of rocks, which were every where in our house yard. We use her with a jib on the back as a hoist when we are  butchering the sheep or pigs, and she is used regularly for getting loads of firewood from up on the hill behind the house and dragging around all the fencing materials as my husband has renewed most of the fencing on our place and added a few new ones.

We had a very  tumble down unused and messy  old chicken yard with some old sour plum trees,and when we had a very good old friend visiting we took advantage of the extra hands to remove the posts. I always hate to watch when he is  pulling posts or stumps, as I have a real fear of tractors  as they can be very dangerous if not handled sensibly,but he has worked with them most of his life.
Unfortunately  at some point all machinery needs repairs. While doing some work the tyre was staked and had to be replaced, and as there had been an ongoing issue with brakes my man  had a big day of repairs. Thank goodness he is handy with all that stuff other wise it would cost a fortune in repair bills.
And last but not least the tractor is a social vehicle, . The  final photo is one I love, my man and his brother next door were busy beavering away on  slashing the grass down on both of  our places, and he seemed to be taking quite a while longer then normal when I looked out and found them chatting away over the fence, their respective machines parked nearby...and they reckon that women can talk, you should see and hear these two together. They are good mates, and that's good !!!

So here's hoping the "Old Blue Girl" is around a while yet, I don't mind sharing my man with her and I hope that their relationship lasts for many years to come.
So until I  am back next time,
Cheers to everyone
Jane from Aus.

Let's take a step back and start at the beginning.

Way back in 2003.
Just thought I would post a few older photos to see how far we have come.
The photo below shows why we fell in love with our little place.
One: it was close to where we both originally came from.I grew up only three miles away, and still share a common boundary with the neighbours I grew up with,only now on the opposite side of them.
Two: it was in our price range.(Which was a major factor influencing our purchase)

And three: the amazing view from up above the house towards the Warrumbungle mountains in the distance, I never tire of that view(even though  I have to climb up the hill to see it.)It truly is my favourite place,up on that big rock. Until next time,Jane.