Saturdays are Nice

Even though we are retired, and we can set our own agenda, Saturdays are nice as we meet up with friends who are still working, for coffee and a long chat and a few laughs.

Our Autumn weather is very pleasant, lovely sunny days, and still some rain now and again. Not cool enough for heating.  Enough warmth to keep the vegies growing.  I read an interesting article about the benefits of Calendulas  in a paper I brought home recently,  so I picked up a punnet to grow some.    Interesting that Calendulas are also known as Marigolds, to me they have always been two totally different plants.

Calendulas

Marigolds

Pics from Web.  Totally different flowers and leaves!

I also bought another punnet of Thyme, as I only have one small plant, and I saw a recipe for savoury thyme and parmesan biscuits (crackers) that I think will be a regular recipe, as I am always looking to use unprocessed food with no preservatives or chemicals in our household.  I use gluten free flour in baking with great results.  Thanks to Trishie from Sydney for the recipe.

We do have to get organised, as we are going to QLD, leaving next Friday, for a week or so, visiting.  Doesn't take long to load items into the RV, the longest part of it is deciding what to take, clothes, leisure items, musical instruments etc, what to take and what not to take.   Quite likely to be warm or cool weather, so more clothing than usual. We've been doing it for years now, shouldn't be a big deal!  We got two new deep cycle batteries for the RV yesterday, our previous ones had served us well for about seven years, but were done for, and we waited til we were taking another trip to replace them.

We've got a friend lined up to call in on the hens, though DH has set it all up with automatic water and feed.  He also put in a grazing frame, but the greens are growing more slowly than we expected.

The idea is that the hens walk along the mesh and pick the greens that come through, as they totally ate out their area in about three days, and this is to ensure greens at hand.  When we are home we give them freshly picked greens several times a day, but we were hoping for a good crop as our friend will only come over once a day.  We have been getting three eggs most days.

Til next time.

Blessings.

Rainy Day Again

Raining consistently today, where does it all come from..... we had so many dry years, then it rained in October 2010, and it seems to be raining very week since then.  Such a dull day and such a contrast to the gloriously sunny days in between.

Queen's birthday holiday today, which is welcomed by the workforce, but not much difference to us retired folk.  We went to our friend's place with our musical instruments and had a good music workout, then on to another couple as I had some spare seedlings for them, and home-grown lemons.

Think I'll make some pancakes, that is a good option on a rainy afternoon.

Barry is practicing Singing the Blues to include in our concerts.  I remember this one well.

Blessings,
Jan

Well into June already

Amazing how quickly time is flying by. Yes we all have the same number of hours in the day, so I suppose it depends what we are trying to do. 

We put a lot of effort into our vegie garden, with a new bed planted this week, and one on the way near it.  The seedlings in our existing beds are coming on, exciting to see the turnips forming, the first time I've tried them. I've had masses of kohlrabi seedlings, I've given away as many as I can, and still more than I can use in the garden.

A regular daily salad for us from our garden includes lettuce, kale, rocket, silverbeet, radish, bell chilli, kankong, oregano, parsley, rosemary, basil, shallot, garlic chives and nasturtium leaves and flowers.  Also we are regularly getting three eggs a day from our three laying pulllets.  Barry has made their feed and water automatic so that we can still get away sometimes, with the help of a friend offering to call in on them.

We've also got involved in our local community garden, and I've taken on producing a newsletter each month. I've just put what we have so far, March to June, on a blog, so that we can link them to the Facebook site as they are issued in the future.

It is good to be able to share any excess seedlings, and also help with the herb garden.

We had our local festival recently, and the main street of our country town was transformed for the main day, and lots of activities during the week, orchid show, crafts, many groups having a special event.

We've continued with the concerts, including a special one for Biggest Morning Tea which raises money for cancer research. They made an extraordinary effort with the setup and glorious food, but I didn't think to take my camera.

Barry led worship at a recent close friend share group, at a couple of hours notice, and this was one of the old favourites we sang, though we like to sing it more slowly and reverently.

Blessings,
Jan