Happy Wednesday !

Hello there,


Wednesdays are my regular day off and I love it.  It's like having a mini weekend in the middle of the week!  It's my day with Ava and I really look forward to it each week.  We usually do something special - craft, cooking, gardening, sometimes an outing or visiting little friends.


Today's weather prediction was for a grey and gloomy day, but instead - it was sunny and warm.  So, we decided to meet some little friends at our local park (Ava calls it her 'pink' park!) for a play and morning tea in the sunshine.  It was a great morning.


It did tire us both out though (especially as Ava thought that 5:30am was a reasonable time to wake this morning!!) and everyone was up for an afternoon rest, even Neddie! While Ava slept, I cooked dinner, mopped, folded washing, did dishes etc, but managed to find a few minutes to put my feet up, have a cup of tea and enjoy my brand new 'Frankie" magazine.  


I haven't bought Frankie before, but of the little material I have read, it's great.  Lots of articles about creative people - independent clothing designers, up cycled yarn creators, jam makers and cider brewers. I find all these subjects appealing and the kooky little phrases scattered throughout make for good humour too.  


The cider article was very timely as we have just planted 4 cider apple trees and ordered another 4 from Tasmania!  The plan is to learn how to brew our own cider - it's Phil's drink of choice!  The jam recipe looks lovely for summer preserving - apple, strawberry and vanilla - we will have to try it.  The magazine also has a page of labels for the jars of jam - too cute!


I have included some photo's (and a play dough session where Ava created a picture of herself!) from our day for you to enjoy too - Happy Wednesday!

Ava at the park

Ava at the park on the 'mushrooms'

Ned having his 'afternoon rest'

My new Frankie magazine

My view when I did the dishes.

The jam article, complete with cute stickers!

The cider article.

Feet up, with a cup of tea - deluxe!

Sounds like it was written for me!

Ava's self portrait with play dough!

Feeding time at the farm!

Hello!


Today I thought I'd write about one the routine parts of our life here on the farm - feeding time!  It's something we all get involved in (even Ned) and enjoy very much.  The sheep, goat, chooks and cows all seem to know when feed time is getting close as they hover close to their food troughs and look expectantly whenever we are outside!


Ava is always part of this routine and she really enjoys herself, the animals seem to know her and appear to be a little more careful when she is around.  Her favourite part of feeding time is giving Safari, our goat, her individual mini bucket of grain and collecting the chooks eggs.  She is also quite partial to grabbing a raspberry or strawberry if there's fruit available along the way.


It's a time to walk and check things on the property as well as the health of our animals.  It's also a great way to unwind and we really look forward to it each day.  


Here's a few pictures from feeding time at the farm today!

The buckets for the cows, sheep, goat and chooks.

The feed trough for the sheep (Safari likes to get in there first of course!)

The sheep at their feed trough

Ava gives Safari the goat her own little bucket of grain.

Safari prefers to eat in private!

The expectant cows awaiting their dinner.

Ava insisted upon a photo with the cows!

2 of our girls sorting through the kitchen scraps.

Ava in the afternoon sunlight.

Our chooks quota for today.

Ned the wonder dog and a carrot cake!

Hello there,


I omitted a very important detail from yesterdays post; Ned the wonder dog!  Ned is a member of the family and our chocolate labrador.  He has a lovely, gentle nature and is especially good with our three year old - yes, even when she waves tempting treats in front of him!
Ned is 8 years old now and is very loyal.  He also enjoys the odd game of ball catch or a swim at the beach or nearby river!

Neddie and Phil

After work today, I wanted some special time with my girl.  She loves cooking with Mummy, and as we have a glut of carrots in the garden at the moment - a carrot cake was in order.  We looked no further than our fantastic new River Cottage recipe book 'River Cottage Everyday'.  I LOVE this book and use it almost daily, for our sourdough, chocolate chip biscuits and seedy spinach salad as well as numerous other recipes.  


The carrot cake was not the usual recipe though and isn't iced with cream cheese icing, rather it's covered with honey whilst it's still warm.  I'm yet to give it the taste test, but if the aroma is anything to go by, it will be amazing! I've included some photo's of the cooking process for you.  The eggs were a complete fluke!  It was pleasant to see a smiley face in the bowl after a challenging day at work!  I hope you enjoy!

the smiley face of eggs!

Ava loves measuring out the ingredients

The finished product!

hello and welcome!

Hello there and welcome to my brand new blog!

I am quite nervous about starting my own blog, but figure that I should really give it a go, so we will see what happens!

For those of you who haven't read my profile, I live with my husband and our 3 year old daughter in eastern Victoria.  We have a beautiful 10 acre farm where we grow most of our own vegetables and have chooks, a goat (named Safari - our pet), 3 cows and 8 sheep.  We have also planted an orchard with several fruit trees since we moved here 2 years ago.

We aim to be as self sufficient, and live as sustainably as we can.  Our house was built in 2009 and is a little house built with the best quality materials we could afford.  When we built, the key factor was to build something as environmentally friendly as possible.  We chose to have a smaller home to allow room in the budget for double glazed windows and doors, extra insulation, a grid connect solar system, solar hot water, water tanks, enviro paints and quality fittings.  We did quite well really and we are so glad we considered these important factors before we started building!

Self sufficiency is something we really strive for.  However, we both realise that being 100% self sufficient is quite a challenge, so we grow most of the veggies that we eat.  Our chooks provide us with eggs (and lots of entertainment!), our sheep and cows will provide meat for us once they grow and enjoy time grazing the grass on the farm with the sun on their backs.

We bake our sourdough bread from scratch and make our pasta and own soap too. It's a constantly evolving journey for us, but one that we find very rewarding.

I hope that you enjoy following along with my blog and that we can share ideas along the way.

See you soon I hope!

Yasmin

Our goat, Safari is exploring!

Our sheep (with Safari looking on in the foreground!) and looking across our property

Planting garlic in one of our veggie beds

Our girls

Our cows (taken sometime ago, they are much bigger now!) from left to right Tinkerbell, Lightning McQueen (because he is red) and Terence - named by our three year old.