Very Horsey Day

Something weird is going on with Blogger, but I'll battle on. Sorry if this post ends up looking disorganised.

I had a super day today. I went out to the Butcher horse paradise and today was farrier day. There were three farriers working for several hours trimming hooves and hot shoeing. Johnny has decided that horses have stinky feet. I'm not so sure about that! I guess they do walk in some pretty nasty stuff, including their own poo, and the hot shoeing does involve lots of singed hoof and smoke. I know most people wouldn't think much of ferrying horses back and forward, and filling troughs, but it was my idea of heaven. I was sent off to use my horse whispering skills on Dolly, who belongs to the neighbour, and is apparently a real "bitch" of a mare and hates being caught. Armed with a bucket of food and a halter I was sent forth by Emily. I used my usual strategy, which always seems to work, and had her caught within about a minute. I think it was mostly the bucket of food, but she was so good for me and even snickered at me later on when I appeared. Dolly had her hooves trimmed and was then taken to the diet paddock because she is obese. She never gets ridden and was bought as a pet, but her nature is apparently not pet-like at all. I thought she was quite sweet once I got her settled. I guess she needs lots of cuddles and handling. Unfortunately she runs away from her owner.

The most exciting part of my day was my first Zanny ride. Viv took her for a spin first because she hadn't been ridden for ages. She does have a head flapping habit that is a bit disconcerting for someone who was thrown off by Sam (who was doing the same thing first). But we got along just fine. Viv took me on the lead rein first, then the lunge, and then, once I'd got trotting, on my own. It was great fun, even though it was a bit scary because of the head. She is very responsive, requiring the softest aids (instructions given with the body)and very gentle hands. I loved her trot which was very smooth, although I had to watch her speed and slow my rising to slow her. Viv didn't have any advice about my position, and said I looked great. Emily was pleased too. Yay! A bit of sad news though. Zanny was thought to be pregnant, but we took her over for a scan after my ride, and she unfortunately isn't now. Maybe she was and reabsorbed the foal. We'll never know. Anyway, she is being raced over to the West Coast for another date with her husband because apparently her follicles indicate that tomorrow is the day for action. Hopefully I'll get lots of rides in over the holidays. Viv says a few more rides and I can come and ride her independently.
The vegetable garden is busy growing well, although my lettuces look positively puny compared to the huge iceberg lettuces growing in pure rotted horse poo that I saw today. I seem to grow great onions here. These are my biggest yet.

The Three Sisters (plus weeds and single spud) garden is racing skyward, and there's already a pumpkin forming. I have to remind some of the beans where they should be going.

The tomatoes in the greenhouse are merrily forming fruit. They should be ripe soon.


Raspberries! It is worth having a jungle of raspberry bushes in the corner to be able to pick bowls like this.

Miss Dog! Stop eating my raspberries!

My dear Monty, I miss you so much. Gertrude Jekyll is planted on your grave. She is utterly beautiful and a fitting tribute to the sweetest boy ever.

I've only got one delphinium and it looks gorgeous at the moment. New Year's resolution- get more delphiniums.

And finally, Johnny found these very cool snowflake cutouts. Starwars snowflakes!

Poor Johnny just fell of his bike and has a grazed knee. He is having a great time with his bike and now he has the wound to prove it. I think I'll be getting a new bike soon so that we can go on adventures together. Shame it isn't a horse, but Zanny seems to like me, and lucky for me Viv and Emily are very happy to share her with me.

Very frustrating blogging today, but I think this post is ok. I hope the changes to the blog post writing template are not permanent because I will not be pleased.

Busy Bees

Wow, what an amazing husband I have! He has been making me four new raised vege plots to add to my current seven- yes, that's eleven raised vege patches all for me!!!! Plus I have the border gardens. I call it the Vegetable Empire. The new beds will be sunnier and are arranged to look more like a potager. As you can see in this photo, we still have to paint the fence and make the garden along the back look pretty. We have decided to make sure the backyard is beautiful by summer this year.

Here are the fabrics that I got at Primroses on Wednesday.

I absolutely love spotty fabrics and thought these two pieces would come in handy. The upper two pieces of floral fabric reminded me of Cath Kidston fabrics. It is heavier and more textured than the usual quilting cottons. I got busy today and made myself a new bag.

I used a pretty vintage green flower button with a red centre as a trim. It is a perfect match, but a little bit small.

I almost lined it with two soft green damask serviettes (napkins), but when I ironed them the pattern was divine lily-of-the-valleys and I thought they were far too pretty to be lining. So I used this navy gingham instead. It doesn't quite match, but I'm happy with it. There is a pocket on the inside and one on the outside.

I like the ric-rac trim. Believe it or not I've never used it before and I did such a neat job of sewing it on. My new bag went on its first outing tonight with my lotus cushion quilting project inside, which I worked away at while visiting Mrs. CT.

I'm quite excited because Miss S is coming to visit tomorrow. John is going to work on my raised beds. He says he wants to get the job done tomorrow. I can't wait to see them all beautifully planted up.

It is the last day of the holidays tomorrow. I think I have made the most of them, even though I'm sad they are almost over. I feel like I really discovered my passion these holidays.

Harvest Season

I love autumn, with the warm, fresh days, noisy birds, and treasures to be found. Last week I took a trip to the Nelson area, to the family farm. What a perfect time to go as the weather was perfect, and my little nephew was still a wee man (6 months old) and utterly delicious. I hope he stays as sweet and good natured as he is now. It seems daunting to think of him growing up.

While I was on holiday I helped my gorgeous mummy plant some of her daffodils. I have a pile to plant in my own garden too. There were edible goodies in the garden, and things to be made, plus a wander around the farm revealed treasures to be harvested.
Here is the vege patch, newly built last spring. I was very impressed with the vast swathes of beans and the enormous basil plants. Mum's reached at least 50cm high and my tiddlers are only about 15cm. Mr B is not that keen on beans so would be very pleased my plot has limited quantities.

Take a look at these amazing shallots! I must grow some this year. The onion family has done well in my garden to date. Clearly not as well as Mum and Dad's ones.

Mum was busy boiling up a brew of tomato sauce from an old Edmonds recipe book. Just like me she cooks her smelly pickles and sauces outside on the side burner of the barbeque. Stops the vinegar smell getting through everything in the house.

Sorry to say I haven't got a picture of the finished product as I was whisked away to Nelson to stay with my sister and family.

This sight warms the cockles of my heart. Curling up by the fire is one of my greatest pleasures. Even better if I've got a good book and a cat for company. Thanks for the firewood, Dad!

I love to hunt for food when I'm out and about. Driving back from Nelson to home I spotted masses of apple trees and other fruiting plants on the side of the road. I could just imagine Hugh F-W leaping out of his landrover to harvest some wild food. I was in the company of a less enthusiastic scrumper so had to window shop instead. Fortunately I had these beauties in my possession from the farm. Walnuts.

And sweet chestnuts.

I can sense a few nutty recipes being tested. I have to do a bit of baking for school lunches tomorrow. I thought I might make soup for tea and try making bread again. Unfortunately Miss Dog found my last loaves rising merrily into plump cushions and decided to help herself. No ill effects from the raw dough either. Her furious father made her stay outside for most of the evening. Hopefully tomorrow will be a success. I've got lots of school work to do, plus a whole pile of red cabbage salting currently to pickle. And the weather is so glorious for bike rides, doggy walks and gardening. Needless to say school is going to be a rude interruption to harvest season.

Inspired again

Here I go again. Back with the blog. I tried a special blog about our new town, but have decided that my heart lies with Poppies and Daisies. Blogs are so inspiring. Reading about the creative adventures of other people makes me excited and gives me a "can do" attitude. Since it is over a year since you have heard from me, I had better share some of my current interests.

• Vegetable gardening. Oh, to grow veges to feed the nation.
• Dahlias. Wow they give a lot of colour for no effort (especially when passed on to me by my lovely neighbour).
• Cooking my own produce.
• Embroidery. Still creating gardens out of thread.
• Biking. Mr. B helped me fix up my old bike and I have started exploring the village.
  

On the "Still into it but could do better" list

• Playing my 'cello.
  
• Knitting and crochet- yes winter is coming.
  
• Sewing. I have the Cath Kidston Sew book.


• Creating art.'


• Making my house lovely.

These very orderly and well behaved vegetables are now a vast mass of green. Any ideas on what to do with spinach and rainbow chard to make it delicious to less than enthusiastic husbands?

My most special man. We have had some dramas, but you are still with us. He is rolled up like a cinnamon bun, and twice as delicious! Soppy mother!

And a special tribute to my darling Merlin. 11 or 12 years old when he finally died quietly. Here he is on his last weekend, and looking surprisingly good. He is actually buried exactly under the spot he is sitting in the photo. He is now fertilising the flowering cherry tree that he loved to sit under. What a special man he was. He had lots of cuddles and scratches around his ears and along his back. He never went hungry and was only ill in old age. XXXXXX Mr Bunny.

PS. Sorry if the layout is a bit rough.

Holiday Heaven

Here I am making my second attempt to blog today, after the shift key got stuck down, which, according to the ever-patient Mr B, was the reason why the computer suddenly flicked through pages and lost my work. Grrrr. We couldn't find the draft anywhere, even though it said it autosaves. Anyway, onto less mundane matters. Here is the giant bite I took out of Dirt Mountain today. That is six wheelbarrows worth of soil extracted for my Digging for Victory campaign.


And here are the very appreciative baby leeks relaxing before starting to grow VERY FAST so I can eat them up in leek and potato soup, and other newly discovered leeky concoctions. These little treasures were leftovers from Mrs CT's own vege growing crusade. Check out her Canterbury Tales blog from my list.


These other beauties are today's Christmas voucher purchases. Mr Cucumber is my first ever cuke and I'm hoping I'm not too late getting him in. He cost the same as a supermarket cucumber, so even if he produces 2 fruit I'm in profit. I love cucumber in vinegar. Mad on it. Also featuring here are spinach, lettuce mixes and tomato food.


Take a look at this divine rose, a housewarming gift. It is Charles Austin. I had him in my first garden. He has a tendency to grow very tall and leggy, so I will have to exercise judicious pruning to keep him civilised. Mr B's dad was a fantastic rose pruner. He had his roses in perfect order year round.


Can you believe I actually got on the phone and invited people around for tea last night. They weren't exactly a scary bunch, just Mr and Mrs CT and Mr and Mrs Ferg. I put my new mixer to good use (thanks Nanny!XXX).


Can you guess what I'm making. Here's a closer look.


It could go two ways. But here's another clue.


Yum! Meringues. Much better than my last lot, which turned out like a bunch of saggy bums. Wrinkled and flacid. Here was another success of the evening. Even though I made enough grated carrot to serve a herd of hungry racehorses.


This was my twist on Jamie Oliver's carrot salad. It has three carrots, finely sliced mint and parsley, bottled red pepper (I'd use a chargrilled one if I had a freshy), sundried tomato and toasted sesame seeds. Onto this I put a lemon vinagrette made with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic smoked salt and pepper. Sorry Mrs CT, amounts are totally random depending on what you've got, but next time I would do less carrot and throw in more herbs.

Aren't these inspiring. Free range lemons. I picked these from the cottage garden on Mum and Dad's farm. They are lovely and juicy. I was given a lisbon lemon for Christmas (thanks Fisherman Jim). I'm going to put it in the corner where it can grow huge and I can easily cover it to protect it from frosts. I must find out if it is especially susceptable to frosts.


Finally, a look at my pantry door, with the very special present I got from Mrs So Tread Softly. I guess I'm going to have to take the Christmas treasures down sometime soon. Sigh...

Return from Who Knows Where

Here I am, after a very long absence. My excuse? Building a house, selling a house, moving house and working. But now I'm back, and better than ever. The new house is fantastic- more of that to come as things change around here. But a sneak peek of Miss Dog on the deck. Mr. B built that with his own two hands, and help from me, his trusty sidekick.

I'm going to paint the table and chairs a pretty blue, I think. When I sit on the chairs I am rather concerned that the flimsy folding action is going to fail brutally and send me to the ground in a heap. I'll have to get Mr. B to cast his eye over them.

This is my nemesis. Dirt Mountain. Actually it is the source of lovely soil for my garden. It is much bigger than it looks in this photo. It looks quite tame and petite compared to the enormous pile that greets me when I look into the back yard. I moved two wheelbarrows full today to cover my spuds. They are growing well, even though I put them in late.

Things were fine in the vege patch in my two week absence while on holiday. All thanks to my water timer. These are fine looking examples of my vege growing skills.

I decided to make use of leftover building materials to give my purple king beans something to climb.

These are my pride and joy. Civilised and orderly tomato plants doing what they should. I have 6 Moneymakers and 6 cherry tomatoes. Who wouldn't be thrilled to come back from holiday to find these wee beauties?

Today I happily purchased a new electic mixer and a mini vac sucker with my Christmas vouchers. By the way Nanny, no problem with the voucher. I got the most powerful beasts that I could afford. My new mixer has a stand and bowl so I'm looking forward to making a pavlova. Maybe I will tomorrow. I blew up my old ones making lemon curd cupcakes. Who would have thought the dear cupcakes could have caused blue sparks and voluminous puffs of electrical smoke? Mr. B got busy in the kitchen and made his first batch of cheese while I weeded the veges- mozzarella - utterly delicious. Very creamy and sweet. Not too much of a kerfuffle, except for gathering the items required. He might start his own foody blog, so I won't steal his photos yet, just in case.

I'm off to work on my current embroidery project.