Saturday 19 November 2016

You know I like to try my hand at growing our veges from seed - quite unsuccessfully so far...

So, I reckon one of my challenges is that I don't have a green house to protect them and keep them warm as they start of - so my Honey has built me one!!  :-)
















I was expecting a rough knock-together, but I should have known better!  This one is gorgeous, don't you think?

So I have already put it to good use by re-potting the heirloom tomatoes I started last month. 













This year's seed-raising experiment has been to start them off in soil blocks.  I am certainly finding it is easier to keep them moist so hopefully that is a good thing.  They don't seem to have grown any quicker but I do think next year will be the year I get going great guns!!!

Friday 18 November 2016


So we missed a few weeks of feeling well enough to do much, so there is some catch-up to be done.  It is starting now-ish thankfully J.



We celebrated a belated BOO! in early November.  The kids are keen on Halloween because of the treats, dress-up time and decorating/crafting opportunity – all good things to enjoy.  Since our kids are the only ones on our street we confine our trick or treating to our own front door LOL!  It is still great fun and we were very happy to take advantage of a pupil-free day to do some fun Halloween decorating.

  



















You will find almost everything via this post – so much I loved (bat template link, skull print out, jar labels) so I downloaded and enjoyed J.  The kids were very happy to have responsibility for the ink distressing of the labels and bat cutting out.



Some people noted the scariest thing of all in our display – the C – e – l – e- r – y.  My kids knew immediately what it meant though – it gives me the creeps – YUCK, YUCK, YUCK, YUCK, YUCK! 



Each year we love to carve a pumpkin and we have gotten in the habit of trying to carve a famous “Jack”.  It is so much fun – I hope you recognise this year’s inspiration!
 





















Ooh, and friendly spider tablecloth inspired by this one J.



Our other yearly tradition is to eat our “Jack” and I was keen to roast the pumpkin seeds and see how yummy they were.  Verdict – yummy seeds J.   This was our very first year of a “proper Halloween pumpkin”, so it was a bit of an unknown how Jack himself would taste.  Verdict – roasted Jack Skellington – yummy too!

Thursday 17 November 2016

School holidays have long gone, but they did involve a fair bit of yard work, as I promised the kids ;-).

Piles of sticks for bushfire cleanup.  We will run these through the mulcher (we need the mulch more than the environment needs the wood smoke from burning the piles).
















Strawberry patch planted – this involved sifting the sand to get the gravel out (yeah, that was pretty heavy, hard work); adding compost and mixing it in, then planting and watering/settling in with seaweed brew.  The strawberry plants were gifted to us from our neighbours – thanks so much Sue and David J!













And while we were there with the seaweed brew, I used it (in combo with some fish emulsion) to add some lovely nutrients to the fruit trees.

Because I love photos of our flowers for bees, here they are:













The bees are also loving the leek flowers. 

 













We are pretty happy to be providing for our food producing friends J.
I will stop looking at card blogs after I upload this.

Still inspired by the Double D challenge and followed links to this fun card so I had a go at doing something similar :-).


Don't you just love getting up quite early in the morning and finding two beautiful Christmas cards posted on blogs in your inbox??  :-)

So I was inspired to join in the Double D Challenge again.

Who could resist when you see such a beautiful card as this?

And I took my layout inspiration from this gorgeous one :-).

Here's my quick card. 
















Getting excited for the red and green and sparkle to come :-).