This Moment

 A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.  Inspired by soulemama at www.soulemama.com

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Enjoy your weekend!

Under the Weather

It was 'Under the Weather' day at our house today.  Ava has inherited a rather nasty cough and I seem to have picked it up too.  Fortunately we were both able to spend most of the day at home and despite us both feeling pretty ordinary (Ava spent some of the morning lying down on the couch), we had a good day.  Ava did some art with Maisy (her favourite mouse) and a new book arrived in the mail, which always brightens the day!


I made chicken soup to soothe the cold.  I tried making it in the slow cooker, which I haven't done before, and it worked quite well.  No-knead bread (again) with rye flour this time and it was really tasty with our soup for dinner.


Hopefully we will feel better tomorrow and the wild weather (it's blowing a gale and thundery outside!) will pass.

In the Garden

We have really been enjoying the sunny Spring weather here and taking the opportunity to spend more time outdoors.  The planting season is certainly upon us and we have been busy planting out the last of our heirloom apples from here.


Our veggie garden is also really starting to flourish and we have been planting lots of heirloom beans, corn, tomatoes, peas, carrots, radishes and lettuce seeds from here. We have found their seed really suits our climate and we have good success with our seed germination rate.


The broad beans, ruby chard and brussel sprouts are certainly coming along nicely and the flowers that we have planted as companions to deter bugs, are really adding some colour to garden.


The chooks were out scratching around for a tasty treat and Neddie looked on as we were planting.  As always there's washing hung out on the clothes line and things are definitely drying fast with the Spring Equinox winds!


Ava was very helpful with the planting, although she was pretty excited about making a 'snow angel' in the dirt!

Weekend in the Kitchen

It was a productive weekend in the kitchen.  Ava and I made Seville Orange Marmalade from this book.  It was certainly worth the effort.  It's delicious spread on the homemade no knead bread we made from this blog.  Sunday wouldn't be the same without our pancake breakfast.  We had a great weekend.  How was yours?

This Moment

 A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.  Inspired by soulemama at www.soulemama.com

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Have a great weekend.

Ava in the Garden

Our gorgeous girl is quite the photographer!  She took it upon herself to capture some stellar moments in the garden earlier this week.  All the photo's in this post have been taken by Ava with the exception of those in which she appears (snacking on a freshly picked carrot is too hard to resist!).  


Our veggie garden has started to flourish with the onset of Spring - rain and warmer weather. Phil and Ava spent some time after work planting our bean and pea seedlings (raised from seed in our greenhouse) with a frame to climb up as well as some corn seedlings too.


We hope you enjoy Ava's photos too (excuse the finger over the lens in a couple of the pictures - Ava hasn't quite figured out that she needs to keep it out of the way!) 

This Moment

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.  Inspired by soulemama at www.soulemama.com

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Have a fantastic weekend.

Roger's Return

A few months ago, some very kind friends of ours offered to lend us their Dorper ram to breed with our girls.  We graciously accepted their offer and transported Roger (the ram) from their farm, to ours.

Earlier this year, we decided to add to our menagerie with some Dorper ewe's that were advertised in the local paper.  We had read many articles about sheep and were keen to go for a breed that is easy to maintain (no shearing!) and good for meat production.  Dorpers certainly fitted the bill and Phil arrived home one day with a flock of ewe's in the back of the stock trailer as a surprise!  Since then, we have watched them grow, fed them and they have developed into placid, friendly girls compared to the wild (and woolly!!) sheep they were when they first arrived.

As we plan to build up our numbers and breed lambs for our own meat consumption, we needed a ram and our generous friends came to the rescue with a loan of Roger!

Roger has a beautiful nature - gentle, kind and a real gentleman with our girls.  He has spent a few months on the farm and last weekend it was time to return him to his rightful owners. I was a little sad to say goodbye to Roger, but hopefully we will see some of his offspring in the not too distant future!

He seemed quite happy back on 'his' paddock and I'm sure he isn't missing us at all, with 10 new ewe's for company!

This Moment

 A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.  Inspired by soulemama at www.soulemama.com

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

I hope you have a great weekend, see you next week.

Homemade Pasta

A little while ago, we decided to give pasta making a go.  Our plan was to make all our pasta for a year!  We have managed this, with only a couple of exceptions.  


Making pasta is so much easier than I initially thought.  I had memories of cooking classes at school where failed attempts resulted in a gluey, floury mess with the end product resembling play dough rather than anything edible!


I had a pasta machine that was given to me years ago for Christmas.  It was sitting at the back of the cupboard and had barely been used.  So we dusted it off and started making pasta!

We are lucky to have a good supply of eggs from our chooks as well as a fantastic Kitchen Aid mixer that makes the job quick and easy.  It's as simple as 4 eggs and 400 grams of plain flour (I use the Tipo 00 pasta flour, but normal flour works just as well) into the mixing bowl.  

Mix the eggs and flour until combined.  If it's too dry add very small amounts (a teaspoon at a time!) of water, or more flour (again little by little) if it's too wet.

Then knead (I use the dough hook attachment or you can do this by hand) until smooth and silky - about 5 minutes.

Divide into workable portions and start rolling!

Set the pasta machine at the thickest setting and gradually work through until it reaches your desired thickness - I usually go to 6 on our dial.  You may need to dust with flour along the way!  You can also roll out using a rolling pin if you don't have a machine.

Then cut the sheets into your preferred pasta shape.  You can use a knife or the pasta machine cutter.  We like the tagliatelle cutter and use this most of the time.

We then use our clothes horse to hang the pasta until it's ready to cook.  

Voila - the best tasting pasta I've eaten!