Making a start on our orchard.

It's a  lovely time of year here on the coast, the winter is on it's way out, although we are still getting a few windy cold nasty days, overall though  it's not too bad.
We have had regular visits from  a family of magpies , singing and chorkling loudly and beautifully  for the small  bits of minced meat that I throw out to them. they have become so cheeky they even come inside the house if I leave the back sliding door open for too long.

Someone else has just discovered what I am actually throwing to the magpies and now demands her little tidbits  as well, she doesn't chase the birds so I  alternate treats now between her and them.

As I was so happy with the final result of the last batch of laundry gel that I made up at the farm, I decided to make another batch here to use on the coast as well, and this time I also made fabric softener as well.

Hubby returned home from his normal  work away with his  bags full  of dirty work clothes, so I put it to the test.

I was quite pleased with the final results, all the  clothes were clean and smelt wonderful, much better than they usually do. Hubby was very pleased with them as well. He has often complained about the strong detergent smell his clothes  had when he had worked in them all day as he got hot, but now there is none of that.
We paid a visit to Bunnings to select some fruit trees for our soon to be new orchard up at the farm .
We had decided we had to make a start this winter as we would lose another full season if we didn't.
So, went to Bunnings, our outdoor/garden/everything store and made a selection of 8 bare rooted  fruit trees ready to plant out immediately.We had originally decided that we were only going to plant dwarf trees for ease of covering for protection from the parrots  and pruning and picking. But once there I  made the  executive decision to go with the standard  sized trees( I hope I have made the right decision.)

This is what we selected. Most were self fertile, requiring only  the one tree of that variety and some were dual grafted  for self fertilization also.
We will probably add more  to this later as well.
We already have a mature apricot,2 apples,a ruby grapefruit,a lemon, a mulberry ,2 new figs and a new grapevine,and a dwarf pomegranate.We have also purchased a standard size pomegranate since as well.
On the way to the farm  , just a short distance from out gate, we spotted this fellow crossing the road, but by the time we stopped and got out with the camera, he was already burying himself deep into the ground. We have seen a few echidnas up there  now.

We transported the fruit trees  up to the farm carefully and without injury to them  and Brian got busy with the old blue tractor and ripper and started ripping rows to break up the ground to make it easier to dig holes to plant the trees.

 After digging nice deep,wide holes and a little prep work to the soil we planted the fruit trees  the distance apart that we had decided upon.(8 ft).
That night, we did a bit more research and  most of the  information    indicated  to us that we had indeed planted our trees a little too close together.
So the next morning we did a little rearranging of  them into an alternating grid pattern, so that they now became roughly  16 ft apart. We think this will work much better.

We then erected a temporary  fence around them just to keep the sheep away from them until we can return and build a higher , heavier duty fence which will also do double duty as our winter chicken yard, after we put up a small  enclosed coop. The chickens hopefully will help with weed and pest control.
While we were there Brian also  managed to put the  door onto the large chicken run,we were given a good metal mesh  security door by some friends who were renovating their house here on the coast, and as it didn't fit any where on the house we decided it would make an excellent chicken run door.
Mr fox will really have to work hard to get in there now !

My very handy man also  unpacked and finished   off my new laundry tub that will   be up in my new laundry up the back. The plan for the next visit is too do the plumbing and electrics up there so it is up and running and we can begin to  gut the old laundry and turn it into my new walk in  canning pantry.

While we were at the farm,  it  was the 38th  anniversary  of my father's death so I rounded up a few flowers from the garden, added some wattle that I found flowering along the road to to town  and took them out to the cemetery to his grave.

On our return  from the cemetery, Brian  stopped off at our neighbours property where he had noticed a tree across the fence  along the main road, and released it off the fence with the chainsaw. He had spotted  it earlier when he went for a walk to check the neighbours property as he is away at the moment.
We only had a few short days at the farm, but accomplished quite a bit.
After returning to the coast, we were surprised to see how much our two raised beds full of potatoes had grown, they are just  growing  in leaps and bounds. I just hope that they are producing as well under the ground as they are above it.

Now that the  prospect of my new walk in pantry is starting to come to fruition, We went back to Bunnings last week and purchased 5 sets of metal shelving to line the pantry. They are 1200 mm long, 470 mm deep and 2010 mm high, each shelf has a weight capacity of 150 Kgs.

I am really looking forward to having a fully  dedicated canning pantry. I have never had a proper pantry and  already planning in my head how wonderful it will look when all the shelves are full of  my  many jars of canned goods., t will be great to also have space to keep all the empties and other canning equipment which is currently squirelled away all over the house and shed.
It may be many weeks before we get back to the farm as we have some very important things happening here over the next month or so. Brian will be turning 60 and we are expecting a  new grandchild  in the next few weeks also.
So until we meet up again,
Take care,
Cheers,
Jane.

Sweet and Tangy Tangerine Marmalade.

Last year when  our tangerine tree was full of ripe fruit I got in and made  marmalade the traditional way, sliced up the fruit on my mandolin, added sugar and boiled the heck out of it until it jelled.
It  was  average, but it has all been eaten so can't have been too bad.
We aren't as a rule big marmalade eaters, but that being said I won't waste the fruit either, and can always give it away.

This is what I picked of our small tree, which was all reachable  from the ground. We have had a few frosts which has sweetened them up, some years we don't have that and they are very tart to say the least.
So I selected about 24  of  the larger ones first and gave them a good scrub to remove any dust and mould, which we get here a bit on the coast sometimes.

After that I  got my potato peeler and removed just the thin orange  peel( not the white pith) off most of the fruit( adjust the amount depending on how sweet/bitter you want the marmalade.

I then placed the peel into my food processor and chopped up until it was a lot finer. (my advice  after doing batch 1 was to microwave this peel for a few minutes to soften it a bit  before adding to the  jam pot )

I then cut all the  tangerines  in half around the middle and removed the seeds(reserving any juice to go into the pot.

I then removed the flesh from the skins( a tedious but worthwhile job) You need to have about 2 kgs of flesh)I also put this into the food processor before adding to the pot.

In the pot I put the peel,the juice,the flesh, 2 tblspns lemon juice, and 2 kgs of CSR jam sugar (sugar with pectin  incorporated into it)
This was  then heated slowly while   mixing  the ingredients until combined thoroughly and then bringing to a boil and boiling rapidly for about 10 minutes.

After this time, I turned off the heat and let it sit for a couple of minutes before  filling  clean warm jars(no need to sterilize jars if water bathing for 10 min or more)
The rims are then wiped clean with paper towel soaked in white vinegar, warmed lids and bands applied and then they are placed in the water bath of hot water ,covered by a couple of inches, brought to the boil and maintained boiling for 10 minutes.

After the allotted time was up I turned off the preserver,removed the lid and let sit for a further 5 minutes. I then removed all the jars out onto a towel covered  bench out of  the draught  to allow to cool for 24 hours.

I stll had many more tangerines so I decided to juice  a pile as well and can that.

Citrus juice must be heat treaded before placing into the jars and then water bathing. You have to heat the juice up to 190 Deg F (about 88 deg C) and maintaining this temperature for about 5 minutes. You then pour the juice into warm/hot jars and water bath 15 minutes.

I got 7 pints of juice which will come in handy, but at least now if someone offers me  citrus, I will gladly take and juice and can where as before I would kindly decline as my limitations were marmalade alone.

I also made  a second batch of marmalade, putting into pints as I had ran out of smaller jars here on the coast( plenty at the farm though) But I decided to add  chopped naked ginger(same as crystallized but with less sugar) to the second batch for  a slight variation. I do prefer to have ginger in  the marmalade I eat, we love ginger with  lots of things.
This should be a nice amount for us, with a few give aways this should last us the year..
Who knows what next year will bring in the way of citrus, we only have a ruby grapefruit,a lemon and a lime up at the farm until we plant more.
I would like to plant a mandarin and a good eating orange, that would probably do us.
All I have to do now is pack these jars away in the cupboard.
So until we catch up again down the road I hope you all take care,
Cheers,
Jane.

Sheep playing hide and seek.

When we are away from the farm we always keep the sheep down the front where the fences are good and the sheep are more visible to our next door neighbour who keeps watch for us when we aren't there..

While we are there we often let them into the house yard to eat the grass, they may as well have it in their bellies instead of us mowing it.
Tilly loves the sheep, she gets so excited when  we go to do anything with them, she watches from the verandah when they are in the yard and if the put a single foot too close she hunts them out, they are only allowed( according to her rules) in certain areas.
Once we arrive, we usually open up the back gates and let them up the hill behind the house, it is a steep  rock face with 4 WD access only but plateaus off up top with about 10 acres of neglected bush  for them to wander around in.
On our last visit they didn't  wander back down much so  the day before we had to leave we went up to  locate them and bring them back down the front.

We head up the track with Tilly racing ahead of us like a crazy dog,  she used to run up and disappear   and find us later, running crazy all over looking for rabbits and wallabies and roos"s, but now she is old, she only goes up the hill once or twice a visit, it knocks her around too much these days.

We wander around looking for the sheep, and when looking at the photos later I find this pic of me taking photos(sneaky man...I had handed him the small camera to hold  for me walking up the hill,as it is steep with loose stones, and  if I slipped I needed to have at least one hand free)..

We finally found those  cheeky sheep, in a little  grassy hollow ,nearly right at the back of our property.we gathered them up and walked them  back towards the road for what we hoped would be  an easy  wander back down the hill. But they had other ideas, they gave us the right royal run around but  we finally got them back down .

While we were up on top I took a few photos of the outlooks from there from a few different directions.

The photos above are looking north toward the Warrumbungle mountain range.The top one overlooks our house down below .

And these two are looking west.I am so in love with  our surrounding landscape, I wish I could paint, I would spend every waking minute up there.In the meantime the camera  has to do.

The top  pic is looking down toward our house as you decend on the track, and the other is just a bit of the rock face I love, We have often seen  wallabies  camping  up there at times.

While we were at the farm we got a call from another neighbour who is a  part timer like us, worried that he wasn't able to get there as planned and that he had his sheep locked into an area too small to stay  in for the exteneded  time, he asked  if hubby and his brother would check on them and open gates or do whatever was needed.
They did as requested   and  found the sheep were in urgent need of drenching, and that it shouldn't be delayed until  the neighbour returned, so the brothers 2 got together and did the drenching. They work well together and love any excuse to  hang out  together and chat.(as do us girls)

As we were leaving the following morning, we  stopped down  the front to take this photo of the sheep, laying around, relaxing and  just looking so content. A nice way to leave them until we return again soon.
take care everyone until we meet again.
Cheers.