A mixed bag from the last three weeks.

This post is just a catch up of our crazy life over the last three weeks, a bit from the farm,a bit from here on the coast  and a bit from down south in  Wollongong.

The last few days at the farm, hubby decided that we really needed to clear up a bit up in the shed and as there was very limited storage and shelving, we decided to clear out one side and replace it with two sets of the  metal shelving that  had previously reserved to complete my pantry when the time came. We figured we could purchase more for that purpose later when they were needed.
We put all the  stuff out on the lawn while we erected the metal shelving.

It started to rain so we very quickly packed all the stuff onto the shelves and will sort it more when we are up next. The plan is to build a second  of shelves set further down the wall and put an existing bench that hubby has to place between them under the window.

After returning home to the coast, our lovely next door neighbours gave us another 

two big buckets of oranges to juice, so we got busy and canned that.I heat treated the juice for 5 minutes at 88 deg Celcius,filled and capped my bottles(they are 500 ml bottles) and placed into my water bath, covered with water, placed lid on, brought up to boiling and held at that temperature for 15 minutes.

We then headed to Wollongong, to await the birth of our third grandchild, that was to be born later that day. We are extremely proud to say we now have our first  totally gorgeous precious grandson.We were there to look after his big sister for the week that Mum was to be in hospital, freeing dad up to be with them both.
Unfortunately our little sweetheart had some major health issues and had to be transported  urgently by NETS to the NICU at Sydney Children's hospital and was there for two weeks before being transported back to Wollongong and now finally back home  with his family.
He is now doing wonderful and although needing  many follow up visits to specialists he is really good.We were really shocked at how quickly things can happen and how scary it can be.We are so very proud of how our daughter and son in law handled the situation.
While we held down the fort there hubby completed a few jobs and helped out where ever he could, he completed building a ping pong table that my son in law had started doing,

We did some gardening, clearing an area that  needed clearing, and scoring these two big clumps of clivia's that my daughter didn't want.(they will be lovely to plant up at the farm ) We also spent a fair bit of time sitting out on their  front deck admiring the view up the escarpment and listening to the ocean in the not too far away distance.

On one of our many trips up and down the highway to Sydney to see our precious little man we called in to the Bulli Pass cafe and  lookout to admire the stunning views over Wollongong and found some  friendly feathered  fellows as well.

Once our little man had been transferred back to Wollongong, we then returned back to our place and caught up on a few jobs  here as well.

Hubby got on with finishing  building  and painting his new bee box.
We  went and picked up a new  power inverter that we had ordered previously.

This 4000 watt inverter will replace our current 2400 watt inverter which we will now use to run our cool room and when that's not in use will be a good backup for us in case of lightning strike.The larger inverter will make a huge difference to us, it means we don't have to be quite so careful with the loads we place on the system.
We had been concerned that the  two big raised beds of potatoes we had planted may not produce  anything as they had not flowered(we had always been of the understanding that flowers were needed to produce a crop),but after  voicing  my concerns on my face book canning page, many people assured me that it was not always true)
So today we decided to do a test dig of just two plants.

Guess what we found .!!!

SPUDS...!!!!
lot's of yummy  beautiful spuds.We will leave the rest for a few weeks yet, as they haven't died off properly yet and they were still small  potatoes forming on the roots of the plants.
Looks like we will get a wonderful crop when we  finally dig them, this was 2 of about 50 plants.
It has been a crazy ,chaotic ,exhausting few weeks and this post only skimmed across  a bit of it.
The only thing that is important is that our beautiful baby boy is going to be okay, everything else pales in comparison, he was certainly being looked after, and I can't give enough praise for  all  the hospitals that  he was treated at, and the brilliant staff, they are just marvelous.
So until we meet again,
Take care,
Life is  precious,
Cheers,
Jane. :-)  :-)

Building Chicken Heaven

When we were up the farm last time  our friends from the coast came up to  help with a few jobs and we decided that it would be a good time to put together our chicken coop that we had previously purchased.
So we dragged all the flat packed boxes up to the big new chicken yard and the men set to work.

They unpacked each box searching for the  detailed instructions on how to put this  little  hen house together but alas the instructions were very minimal and nothing was numbered or lettered.

So they laid everything out and hubby just started working his way through  by looking at the photo of the finished product and got it started.Bit by bit they managed to work it out.

It was frustrating work, but it finally started coming together, by lunch time the hard working men decided that they had earned themselves a beer.

The Old Blue Girl kept a close watch on proceedings and stayed close in case the  men made a mistake or needed an extra set of hands(or paws).

They  then attached the laying box( I have always wanted a  cute coop like this with external access to the eggs in the nests.)This coop has three nest  spaces in the box.
Next the roof and the slide out cleaning shelf was added, with the help of their blue assistant.

And then Quality  Control stepped in  to inspect the coop  in the form of our beautiful  15 month old granddaughter who also was visiting us that day.Firstly the door, then the ramp.

 After a few important phone calls on Nannies mobile and helping her Pop  with a few last drilling jobs, we all sat back and admired our beautiful new coop.

We are really happy with the final product, I think it is just the cutest chicken coop and can hardly wait until we move and  get our poultry. We are going to build a second coop in the orchard and are seriously thinking of purchasing another of these.( now hubby knows how it goes together the  next one will be a breeze ) .
We still have to  create a few  barriers to turn any water run off away from the coop.
So until we meet again,
Take care everyone,
Cheers,
Jane.

Pantry Progress.

We headed west again to the farm, armed with a list a mile long of all the jobs we intended to do, knowing full well we probably wouldn't get half of them done.
We passed by many beautiful paddocks that were  a sea of glorious yellow canola, such a stunning sight at this time of the year.
When we were about 25 miles from our property we noticed a thick column of smoke rising into the air.

As we traveled along we were trying to work out where the fire would be, but as we got nearer home the smoke looked closer and closer to our area.

turned out to be about 3 klms from our place, a farmer was burning off stubble and it got away. It burnt a fair area of their property, but luckily no property or people were affected.

The sheep greeted us  with enthusiasm as always, knowing that Brian will give them some hay, this  time we were greeted by four tiny  new  faces.
The next morning  another ewe had a beautiful baby lamb, she was a new mum, an another ewe was trying to bully her and take the lamb off her  for herself(even though she had no milk to feed it)

We separated the mum and bub to give them some bonding but unfortunately she rejected the lamb and we lost it overnight. We learnt a valuable lesson, in not leaving the lamb so long without taking it and  bottle feeding.
We had brought up with us 5 sets of metal shelving to eventually build  and put into my  soon to be walk in pantry after the laundry fixtures are moved up to the shed into the new laundry room that is in progress.We decided to  empty the old cupboard and erect  the first  shelf unit.

We were extremely pleased with how easy they were to build and how great  all my canning jars looked on them. e decided to build a second set, so I emptied another cupboard and moved our small freezer to make room for them.

We very quickly filled up the second set as well. This makes an excellent storage area for all my canning jars, equipment and other  things that I use in the kitchen.

We have decided that we will put four sets of these shelves in the pantry, and instead of the fifth set we will put our larger chest freezer that we have on the coast. That way everything  will be close at hand when I need it. The fifth set we broke up and added an extra shelf to the untits and will do the same top the remaining  units.
We decided  that we would add a watering system to our orchard that we  started last visit. Brian buried black poly irrigation tubing and added a spray at each tree, and then hooked this all up to a  battery operated timer to water the fruit trees at regular intervals   even when we are   back on the coast.

We plan to add another 6 trees to the orchard soon, and will expand the watering system al

ong with that.
Our neighbours had given us a bag of oranges, they said they were not good  eating oranges and would only be fit for juicing or marmalade, and  as I already had made enough marmalade for our use, I decided to juice them and can it.

All citrus juice must be heat treated by heating it to 197 deg F (or 88 deg c)  and maintaining that temperature for 5 minutes, before pouring into hot jars and water bathing for 15 minutes.

I only had 7 pints of juice, so I water bathed it in a  stock pot on the stove instead of using my big electric water bath preserver. We will just drink this juice or use it to make fruit punch, I hope to do many more juices and cordials and syrups in the future, this  area is all new  to me.
We have had a really busy time, and I will show  more of it in another post. The satellite  internet service doesn't always want to co-operate   here at the farm, and what would take me 20 minutes to post on the coast has taken me  nearly 90 minutes tonight,so I will leave it there.
So until we meet again,  which will be soon I hope !
Take care,
Cheers,
Jane.