Catch up of the last few weeks activities.

We feel like we haven't stopped over the last 3 or 4  weeks,  we have attended weekend  birthday events that required us camping  over a couple of days with our caravans, have been heavily involved  with our local volunteer groups with working bees at our local rail heritage Barracks accommodation, cleaning of the camp ground  facilities, and   many, many hours spent  trying firstly  to learn the process of producing our  local monthly newspaper and secondly actually compiling and  getting it to the print stage(which  we will do this evening  all being well) What a VERY steep learning curve that has been.
Along the way, we had butchered   our surplus roosters and after sitting a while in the freezer until I got time, I decided to turn them into Apricot Chicken.

I sectioned all the   roosters , added all the ingredients, Onions, Canned apricots, french onion soup,  apricot nectar,mushrooms and then divided between my slow cooker and two heavy  cast iron  baking pans I have.

After many hours of slow cooking, I removed all the bones and added more mushrooms,

Then  filled my  warm  canning jars,

Then  I pressure canned  them. This was the first time I had tried this recipe and wasn't sure how it would turn out,

I have to say, I am very pleased with the results. It will be very handy item to have  in the pantry for a quick meal with rice or pasta.

While unpacking a few more  boxes  the other day, I came across  a box in which I had safely stored away my grandmother's wedding dress many years ago.
My grandparents were married in 1919 and this truly represents the style  of the times.

It was made  from silk material, mostly hand made and hand embroidered at the neck and cuffs.
Also  with it  are the  lace hanky that  Ma carried and the camilsole that she wore under the dress, also mostly handmade.

The big question now is,  do I just put them back in the box and  continue to store hidden away, do I somehow display them to enjoy  or do I donate to a suitable museum or like.   This is something  I will have to have a good think about before making a decision.
Our summer garden  has come to a fairly abrupt end, extended heat periods with no rainfall, pretty well brought a stop to  it, we had a  good supply of watermelons, rockmelons, zuchini, cucumbers, a small picking of green beans, but a good  amount of beetroots, which I cooked and pickled.

We ended up with three batches of pickled sliced beetroots  this season which will see us through  next summer's salads and BBQ'S , there is just nothing lovelier than  home  preserved  pickled beetroot.
Hubby  has been busy building the new  enclosure  down at the orchard, he now has all those big poles up, wires strung across the top to take the mesh covering and has enclosed a smaller area for the second chicken coop to be built.

We purchased a new  coop in flat pack form from Bunnings,

and Hubby got busy and erected  it.

Hubby then had a great idea, to  reuse some kitchen cupboards that a friend had ripped out of her kitchen( but were too good to throw away) ,she had said she didn't care what they were used for, just that she didn't want them to be landfill.
He decided that the  doors would  make excellent  laying boxes, with the hinges  working in perfectly for the lid.

So, we have now moved the chickens into the new yard and coop, installed a new water trough inside the coop (in case we ever need to lock them inside), purchased one of those treadle feeders (which are amazing) for the scratch mix and pellets  and hung an older feeder we had for the powdered feed we also use.

The girls seem very happy and the four Isa Brown hens are already giving us  four  lovely eggs a day, and the light sussex won't be too long before they begin laying as well.
We are heading off on holidays tomorrow, we are doing a driving holiday  around Tasmania for a few weeks. My   family many generations back came to Tasmania as convicts and I want to see where it all began.
Our  house/farm sitters are arriving this afternoon,  hubby will run them through the things that will need attention and  hopefully all will run smoothly while we are away.
We are so looking forward to this trip, when we first  retired and moved we allocated 12 months to the renovation and  set up,  now  we have reached this point  and are well and truly ready for the break.
I will be taking many, many photographs (which will be no surprise to those that know me) and will do an update of the trip soon.
Take care everyone, until we meet again a little further down the track of life,
Cheers,
Jane.

Birthday Celebrations and Family get togethers.

This  Easter was indeed a huge  long weekend for us. It all started about a week ago when Hubby's brother contacted us  to inform us that another brother who was to attend  the long weekend bash ( with a pig in tow) was unable to make it, so Hubby and our neighbour  brother sourced another pig for the spit from our  other neighbour who raises  them.
The  brothers three got together and  butchered the pig and  popped it away into our coolroom to  chill for a few days.

The next job on our agenda was to  purchase a good supply of hay for hand feeding of our sheep as we still have had no significant rainfall  and the situation is  deteriorating.
We purchased two big bales to put out into the paddocks for the sheep while we are away on our  tasmanian holiday and the rest for  general day to day feeding. This amount of hay cost us  close on $500.00. so I hope it rains soon.

On Friday  a large group of Hubby's relatives congregated at the local showground with our caravans and tents ,

We all come together to celebrate the joint 60th birthdays of Hubby's sister and her husband.
The boys got together and  organized the pig onto the spit for dinner that night.

When it was nearly done, they also added par boiled potatoes into trays under the pig to roast.

We had a lovely night catching up the the relatives, some we haven't seen for up to 30 years.
We lit up fire drums and sat around and talked  for ages.

Saturday saw us  put a lamb on the spit,

and lots more catching up and enjoying   ourselves.

The party was to be loosely themed 50's and 60's but I think the  outfits  didn't exactly follow that theme, but were fun anyway, many just wore wigs and whatever they had on hand.

Our niece who is to be congratulated for her efforts put on a lovely dinner in the  pavillion which her children had decorated.

We even had Elvis sitting at our table(AKA Bernie, Hubby's brother)

The birthday duo cut their cake,

And their was karoke singing and laughter well into the night.
Next morning we all met up at the local small bore rifle range , which was named after my Father In Law for an  family versus others shootout which we hope will become an annual event.

Hubby's brother from Queensland was the main organizer of this day as he is an avid target shooter  and will even represent Australia  later this year in Portugal for the world championships.

While all the  shooters took their turn many others sat around outside catching up and then  enjoyed a sausage sizzle lunch.

It was then on to the trophy presentations,

There were several categories, junior, Hunter, and open,
and it was no surprise that my Brother In Law , took out the overall champion shield.

Who knows,  someone may just knock him off that perch next year as they are all very competitive in a very friendly way.
I trust you all had a lovely Easter, as we did, although it was busy, not only with this gathering but many other  things squeezed in between.
Take care until we meet again,
Cheers,
Jane.
:-)  :-)  :-).