Roses and Lavender

Oct 06, 2016

Just because..... Its pretty and smells nice and makes me happy.  These are the reasons that we live where we do and live how we do.  Just because.

Winter Potatoes

Oct 06, 2016

Well, here we go again - the seasons have come around but this year we had a wet winter.  Not flooding but consistently moist.  And it appears that we planted potatoes in April and totally forgot about them.  I'm a bit pleased about that because the Victorian floods seem to have inflated the price of potatoes to nearly $3kg (thought I'd put that in there for historians in the years to come). So having relocated the potato patch that we forgot about, gave no attention or water, we decided that

Put the kettle on love

Aug 27, 2016

Andrew, put the kettle on love..........I have always told my children that NO MATTER what happens, your first action should always be to put the kettle on.  Boyfriend left?  Dog died?  Just lost a leg?  World apocalypse?  No matter what - always put the kettle on. This give you a chance to turn away from the others in the room (in order to get your facial expressions into a properly sympathetic mode), busy yourself about a purposeful activity while others run around in panic and get something

Onions is onions

Jun 15, 2016

To know one's onions.  As sure as eggs are eggs.  Two fabulous and interchangeable sayings that are probably unique to the English language. But is any meal complete without onions?  I have to say no, both from a culinary aspect and from a nutritional aspect.  Onions contain sulphur which allows the body to use amino acids.  So therefore, all meat meals need onions.  And virtually everything else. Luckily they store so well, both dry stored and  pickled. But I read on the internet (where

Rosellas, obviously not feathered

Apr 07, 2016

For all the Victorians out there, rosellas grow on a bush. For all the hipsters out there, you know when you go to a very special cocktail bar and they offer you "wild hibiscus in syrup" with your champagne cocktail (making it that lovely shade of pink that ladies like so much), that is also rosellas.  Baby boomers may remember the ultra-trendy red zinger tea that we scandalised our WW2 parents with.  It was based on dried rosellas. Rosellas or wild hibiscus are an extremely traditional

The Decade of Olives

Mar 19, 2016

I have a horror of nurturing fruit trees that don't overwhelm me with abundance.  I expect to drown in peaches or wade through citrus as the seasons go. So when hubby planted the olives, I expected great things of them, notwithstanding the fact that every one told me we a) weren't in a Mediterranean climate and b) it was too humid here, leading to peacock spot disease and c) just don't because we just don't. That is what we like to call a "red rag to a bull".  Don't tell me what I can and

Snake by-pass

Mar 19, 2016

Its been a bit quiet at the ranch while we struggle with the monsoon season.  Not that it is bringing any downpours.  This time last year, the river was in flood and I could quietly and dishonestly tell work that I was flooded in and have a day at home.  Of course, hubby was actually flooded in to work.  Imagine having to sleep at work.  But me and pets were snugly enjoying wet season 2015. Not so this year.  We just have to endure the endless humidity and sticky high temperatures with no

Autumn in Oz

Feb 09, 2016

Not quite autumn yet.....actually we've only had the occasional relief from the wet season humidity and heat which they say gets worse every year.  But pumpkins are so quintessentially autumn in the USA that I thought it was nearly close enough to have Halloween/ Great Pumpkin fantasies. I love pumpkins.  They just sort of hang around down the paddock and grow madly when its wet and sometime later in the year when the snakes have gone to bed and we are adventurous enough to venture into the