Preserving production overload.

It has been a very hectic few weeks here at the farm, our list of to do jobs seemed to be ever increasing.
I had intended to update  the blog a  little more often but alas  time has just eluded me.
This will be a catch up  of some of the things that have kept us busy of late.
Firstly our long awaited  new rain water tank arrived,

And as our luck usually runs the driver announced that he couldn't turn the truck around in the allocated space and decided that Brian and his brother  needed to pull down a fence to allow him better access.

Brian did warn him to avoid  an area  that he had ripped as it would be  soft , but unfortunately  he didn't heed the warning and went down.
So out came the trusty little red  tractor and Brian  had to give him a helping hand out.

After  pulling up near the  prepared tank site, Brian  balanced the tank  with the tractor bucket on the downhill side and the driver placed straps over the tank and  gently lowered it off the truck to the ground.

We then pushed the tank onto it's  permanent position,

Brian  has since  connected up all the pipes to the new roof  guttering and it all works  well, we even had some rain a few days ago  that tested it out.
We have had a huge surplus  of garden produce  from our little garden plot, the habaneros have started  to ripen,

and one of the things that we used them   for was to dehydrate them and  blitz into a powder to be used  throughout the year.

The zucchini have also  gone mad,

So we have made 4 huge batches of zucchini mustard pickles (about 120 jars).

The parrots started to invade our quince trees a few weeks ago,  so we picked the small crop and left the fruit inside for a couple of weeks  to hopefully ripen a little more, which it did slightly.

We adore quinces and I just love how they turn that glorious peachy colour when they are stewed or preserved.
I travelled to visit  our older daughter  and the grand kids for a few days while her husband was away for work.We have a new little grandson  who is just 3 months old and is doted upon by his big two sisters.
We had a lovely few days together, attending a few activities with the kids and just hanging out together which was lovely.
One of the things we did  was a truly  lovely thing and I am very proud of my daughter and her friends who do this.
I was invited to accompany them on their annual Easter visit to one of the local nursing homes with the children to hand out Easter eggs and spend a few minutes chatting to the elderly residents.

It was so incredibly beautiful to see the faces of all those sweet elderly residents as the children interacted with them. I think this was  such a lovely thing  to do and teaches the children  that it really is good to give a little and  not to expect anything but a smile or a  thank you in return.
Around that same time  I attended a basic cheese making class that my younger daughter had given to me for my birthday. A few years ago the kids had put together and purchased a cheese making kit for me, but I hadn't got round to taking a class. It was a small group of 8 which was a nice number to be with, they were a lovely group of girls and I hope to keep in touch  with some of them in the future.
It was a fun day and our instructor Lyn  passed on the basics to us in a friendly casual manner. Lyn supplied samples of all the different types of cheese she was preparing for us to try.

We learned to make feta, haloumi, ricotta, mascapone, labne, yoghurt and a few others.
Lyn  served a lovely morning tea/lunch  which was made up of  delicious items to eat all made from the cheeses that we were learning to make.There were cheese cakes, warm ricotta pudding, sweet mascapone,dips,cheeses and crackers  and other yummy treats.

It was a most enjoyable learning experience and once back  home I got in and began making some cheese.
The first thing I made was feta,

I was  very proud of my achievements  and have made a few batches since.  One of the batches I decided to marinate the feta into  sunflower oil with  herbs,garlic, olives, chilli,

Our jalapeno  chilli have also been producing well,

Brian has always loved those sliced jalapeno  rings that you get on Subway  rolls, so I decided to try and replicate them the best I could.

We ended up getting about 3 dozen jars of these and they have  been very popular with Brian.
I also decided to make some more jalapeno jelly,

This green jelly has been such a winner, it seems to be very popular everywhere I take it.
I have made 4 double batches of it now so am finally beginning to build up a supply.
The habaneros  have also now  been over producing,

and I decided to use the green chilli jelly recipe and make a red version.
I just used about a dozen habaneros and made up the balance of the weight with red capsicum( bell peppers),

This is a beautiful jelly, sweet but with a really nice chilli kick, much more than the milder green jelly.

I have made four double batches of the red jelly as well. Our local Anglican church is having a boot sale and market day next month and I hope to have a small stall  selling, pickles, sauces, and the jellies.
I also made  some Vietnamese pickle which is a mix of  julienned carrot and daikon radish flavoured with star anise ,sugar and vinegar, this is beautiful  on a salad plate.

Yesterday I had another cheese making  day, this time I tried halloumi( I thought it may be lovely cut into cubes,and placed on skewers along with  button mushrooms and cherry tomatoes and grilled for a nice non meat option for Good Friday lunch)

We are attending a family gathering at Easter and I have been making the extra cheeses for everyone to enjoy, I hope they like them as much as we do. I am thoroughly enjoying  making the yoghurts and cheeses and as time progresses I hope to venture into more types of cheese making.
We finally have had a few showers of rain and Brian got out the mower last week for the first time in ages.  The lawn and paddocks are finally greening up a bit, but more rain is certainly needed or all will be lost as soon as winter hits..

It has been  a jam packed wonderful but thoroughly exhausting few weeks, I have had a lot of fun, enjoyed myself , produced a massive amount of jars for the pantry and for sale and  learned  a lot of new  lessons .
I am looking forward to Easter, it will be nice to  down tools for a while so to speak, and just relax and catch up with family and friends.
I will try and catch up again  before too long, but life really does get in the way, but  that is a good thing as life  is what is most important.
So Hooray  for now until we meet again down the track,
Take care
Cheers
Jane and Brian.

A Visit To Our Local Agricultural show.

Once again  our local agricultural  show rolled around.
We  are very fortunate that  we have a very dedicated team of volunteers  that  work hard through out the year to make the show the great  success that  it is.
Our  show has  a wide variety of attractions to  offer the many  visitors who walk through the gates.
There is  really strong participation in the ring events,

 Good friends of ours  had brought their beautiful Brahman  cattle  to be judged,

They had  great success  winning in many  categories  and ended  up with Champion,Grand Champion and Supreme Champion.
There was a variety of sheep judging, this group from a neighboring high school Ag class.

There was great competition in the sheep dog trials,

A great time  was had by the kids in the petting area,

 There was also the wood chop competition,

The local car club  had a great display of old cars and trucks which drew  quite a bit of attention.

Poultry was also well represented  with  great competition  between breeders .

The  bantams were  cute, but I fell in love with the Indian Runner ducks.
The local Lions club  ran the  BBQ stall, keeping up a constant stream of  rissole and steak sandwiches to the hungry hordes.

The Rural Fire Service  manned the cold drinks stall , and as it was a very hot,humid day  they were practically ran off their feet.

The  Rural Fire Service also had an information booth.

There were the usual  fun  activities for the  kids,
Dodgem cars,

Inflatable  slide,

Bungy style jumping activity,

Pony rides,

And many other sideshow attractions ,displays and stalls.

The pavillion also offers  a great days entertainment to the show visitors, with the show committee ladies working hard in the kitchen providing morning and afternoon teas  and lunches .

Inside the pavillion , the individual volunteer stewards each look after their area  and organize the  displays ready for the visiting judges to  make their decisions  on who wins each particular class.

There were beautiful floral displays,

The local public school and pre-school  were well represented by lovely paintings, collages and drawings.

We  obviously have some very talented sewers,  quilters and embroiderers  as there was an amazing display of  finished works,

There were some very clever art and sculpture ,

With such an exceptionally dry year  behind us, we did not expect to  see much in the garden  and farm produce section, but were pleasantly  surprised  to see the quantity and variety on show.  We entered a few things and got first prize  for our chillies,  honey and eggs.

Once again this year I set up my preserving display, showing the old and new  equipment used in preserving. It was very well received and many people stopped to ask questions and check it all out.

I entered  some of my own preserving into the competition and was fortunate to  be awarded  first , second and third places  for several of my entries, I was also very honored to  have been awarded Grand Champion Preserve for my green  Jalapeno Jelly.

I also entered the cooking section for the very first time,

and  was awarded  first place for my Boiled Fruit Cake,

and a second place with my plain scones.

The photographic competition  is highly contested, and  This year I also entered that  for the first time as well. I selected  18  of my favourite photos and  popped them in to the steward  the week before as required.

The  evening before the show there is an art and photographic  preview , where the displays are open for us to have an early look and see the art and photo  competition placings. It was a lovely social evening with wine  and nibbles and we caught up with many people we haven't seen for many years.

I was very surprised to see that I  received several placements in the various categories.
Over all we  were very successful  at the show this year which was a wonderful surprise  and this is  the total of the certificates we  were awarded.

Hubby had taken his drone into the show and  put it up  to take an aerial photograph of the entire showground.

I must make it clear, we do not belong to this wonderful group of volunteers, our  time is donated to other local volunteer groups, but I really  want to sing the praises of the Binnaway PAH&I Association  , they are an amazing group  of hard working, dedicated ,talented people  who  work  the entire year to make sure that our small town has the best possible agricultural show that it possibly can have,
Small  towns are struggling to keep alive and running and many have lost their  annual shows, but with the  hard work and determination  of this  great  team, ours appears to have a bright shining future. Congratulations to each and every one of you for all your hard work and generosity of time.
We have had a few falls of rain this week, with 27 mm falling  yesterday, the paddocks will look a little happier  in the next week or so.
We are keeping busy with many small projects  happening which I will update  on  over the next few posts.
So until we meet again,
Take care of you and yours,
Cheers,
Jane and Brian.