We might be in lockdown here in Melbourne, but I'm not sure where my week has gone. We have lots of spare time on our hands even with the small amount of work we still have. Maintaining a clean home, putting food on the table each night and growing a garden are no small tasks. Maybe I just feel like nothing big or remarkable has been achieved this week.
Still, we a grateful and blessed for the life we lead and even more blessed to have a decent sized backyard to enjoy during these challenging times.
Here's what we got up to this week -
* Baked four loaves of wholemeal bread with extra goodness. Used recycled bread bags to store the bread in the freezer.
* Baked a batch of pumpkin scones using the pumpkin we were blessed with.
* Gratefully received 12 roti breads from a cleaning client who made them fresh while we were cleaning their home. They have a roti bread machine on their kitchen bench and the husband sat there making them for us.
* Gratefully received a container of pumpkin soup from Megan who dropped it off for us. We'll be having it for lunch today with some of the roti breads.
* Saved the washing machine water, drink bottle water and shower warm up water to reuse around our home and garden.
* Picked kale, silverbeet, lemons, lettuce and spinach from our garden.
* Darren mowed the lawn and gave some of the clippings to the chickens to enjoy. The rest of the clippings went into the compost bin.
* Baked ANZAC biscuits and choc chip biscuits using homemade dough from the freezer.
* Froze leftovers of honey mustard chicken.
* Turned electronic standby lights off and turned the doorbell off each night.
* One of our chickens started laying eggs again. The other chicken has been a freeloader for more than 3 years.
* Pruned a wayward lavender plant and kept some of the flowers to put in a vase.
* Dried the washing on the line when we had milder days. The rest of the washing was dried on clothes horses over ducted heating vents.
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| Baking day |
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| From our chicken |
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| A blessing |
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| Our roti bread blessing |
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| From the garden |
Good morning Wendy, the sun is shining into our living room, our best money saver for power. I'm sure the 'semi retired ' chook is earning her keep in bug catching and entertainment value. Our last bantam lived over twelve years and when she died we really noticed many more caterpillars and bugs in the garden. I'm in awe of your budgeting and I'm trying to get ours down each month,thankyou for the inspiration. Stay safe over there.
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Some very nice things in your week Wendy. Even in lockdown you stay busy, productive and cheerful. xxx
ReplyDeleteYour creativity is inspiring, Wendy!! I saw that sugar was on sale at one of our grocery chains for 99 cents/4 pound (1.8 kilo) bag with a limit of 5. So I spent $3.96 for my 20 pounds of sugar to add to my pantry!
ReplyDeleteI’ve harvested 3 more quarts of green beans and frozen them as well as about 6 quarts of blackberries from our bush this week. About 15 cucumbers, 6 big tomatoes and about 3 pounds of cherry and pear tomatoes! A very good week indeed! I canned 6 pints of sweet pickle relish using about 4 cucumbers, onions and peppers from the garden and it looks like I will be canning another 6 jars on Monday because we can’t keep up with eating all of these! This time of the year for us- late summer is the culmination of all the gardening work we do in the Spring!
On the business front, I’ve quilted 6 more quilts this week, am just about to finish a king size quilt on Monday and still have 9 lap size and 1 more King size quilt here waiting to get quilted! My daughter/business partner is starting to come down twice a week and will continue to do that indefinitely while we have the volume of quilting work jobs on hand! That will give me time to focus on other things I need/want to do while letting her earn wages from the quilting she will do! Win-Win! The income has allowed us to hire out some bigger projects here at the house without going into our savings!
Dave and I worked on laying more of our free brick pavers in the patio area. He laid, measured, leveled the pavers while I cleaned off brick pavers and carried them to where he was working. Then I shoveled and carried buckets of sand over to the patio so he could smooth it under where the pavers would be placed. So basically- he was the craftsman and I was the day laborer!! Lol!!
I also transplanted my pea starts along the wire fencing around the garden perimeter. They are looking terrific and I’m hoping for a nice harvest!
I weeded and cleaned out areas of my raised beds where needed to discourage bugs.
Stiff and sore, but totally satisfied with a week of work and fun with Dave and also my daughter, Alisa!
Thanks for inspiring me to use what I have to create useful and tasty things!!
Gardenpat in Ohio
HandmadeinOldeTowne.com
Sounds like another good week for you. That’s great.
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