It’s Daphne Time

Our lovely daphne bush near our back door is in full bloom at the moment and the fragrance when you step outside is divine.

Yesterday, I picked just three blooms to pop in a little vase and initially I didn’t really smell it.  However, when I came inside after being out today the room was definitely daphne scented.  Who would think that just three little flowers could be so strong.  Mick said that it stinks, but he was joking.  He loves the daphne as well.  We have planted a smaller cultivar near our front door recently, so we hope it grows half was well as our first one.

Being daphne time means that it is also hellebore time.  

I do love these gentle colours that appear in late winter.

All our different violets are blooming away, along with the polyanthus.

We have several jonquils, but the daffodils are a little way off.  

We divided some very crowded old fashioned frilly daffodil bulbs in summer. Mick has been popping them in here, there and everywhere, yep even throughout the vege gardens.  I don’t think they are going to flower this year.  Hopefully they will be back to their usual selves next year.

The garden at the side of our shed was getting very overgrown, with some of the things we planted being lost as a result, so it was time to get in and tidy it up, ready for spring.

That looks a lot better.  The irrigation has been moved to the back and Mick will add some more micro jets at the front, once he gets to the shop.  I’m sure some of the things we dug out will come up again to fill the blank areas.  We have taken a hydrangea out of a pot and planted it here, where it should thrive.  The day after we did this a good friend gifted me a rose in memory of Mum, called “Mother’s Love”.  It has now been planted in this garden as well.

While Mick was digging things out, I was planting seedlings and runners into little pots for the church fete in the middle of October.  That should give them plenty of time to either settle in or die.  I hope they settle in.  I potted up 40 pots.  We have some other things in various garden beds that also need thinning, so there will be some more pots prepared soon.

It is currently raining gently, which is always good for things to get growing, coming into one of the nicest seasons of the year.

Making a Start

I seem to have made a good start to June.  We’ll see how long that lasts, but make the most of it while it does.

Firstly, as it is now winter, it was time to update the little shelf in the kitchen to a more wintry theme.

We had our first really good frost this morning, down to -4 degrees C.  No, I didn’t go out and take a photo.  I stayed in where it was nice and snug.  Mick had cut back the dahlias and other plants that were going to get zapped during the week, which turned out to be a good thing.  There is one plant, next to the clothes line, that stinks after it has been frosted, and it was on the nose this morning.  It will get trimmed back a bit before too long, but it is wise to leave some of the old foliage there to protect the new growth when it comes through in early spring.  That’s when everything will get a good tidy up.

The first sewing job I did was to make the two Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  Other than some five inch squares I bought from the Sewing Basket at the Sydney Quilt Show last year, my orange scrap tub is nearly empty.  Hence, one same fabric being used in both blocks.  Never fear, I still have plenty of orange fabric, it just isn’t in small scraps.

Next it was time to tackle the fish (pardon the unintentional pun).  Everything is appliquéd down on the blocks.  I just need to embroider the eyes on the tiny tropical fish.  They are way too tiddly (oh dear, another pun) to attempt to appliqué.  We’ll see if I get around to getting the filler blocks cut and the flimsies made.  That is a job for another day, at this stage. The colours in this photo a way off, due to the poor lighting.  They don’t look pinky/orangy like they appear here.

I have made good progress on the crochet rug.  This has been taken along to my crafting groups, as well as being worked on while we watch the Isle of Man TT motorcycle races on Mick’s laptop.

The main body of the rug is now complete and I have completed the foundation round of the border.  The border will be fairly simple.  What exactly it will look like is still a mystery, as I am making it up as I go along.  The rug is nice and long, although I feel it could have been a tad wider, but it is what it is, and the border will help.  Mick is rather happy with how it is looking.  

In the end, I only used one and a bit of the extra balls of yarn that I bought when we were away, so two and a three quarters left over.  It sounds like the starting point for another rug, for donation.

I have sort of made a start on my Chookshed Challenge project.  I have watched a YouTube tutorial to refresh myself on the construction method.  I have hunted out some fabric for the pocket linings and binding and I have bought some zippers.  I still have to hunt out the interfacing and then I will be ready to start the actual construction.

Some time ago I bought an iron from a store and when I tried it out the steam setting spat water everywhere, so I returned it.  I wasn’t given a refund, rather a gift voucher to use in the store.  It has been sitting there for some time.  I have been thinking for a while that I would like an enamelled cast iron shallow lidded pan, so went shopping with the gift voucher.  In the end, with the current discount, I only had to add $10.  I was pretty happy with that.

It is a nice warming red in colour.  It is also rather large and I had to find somewhere to store it.

I thought that it would go well in our lovely old lead light dresser.

However, that wasn’t going to work…..but I thought a solution could be reached.

There is quite a bit of space above the electric frypan.  Time to sweet talk Mick…….

Pretty much straight away, that was yesterday, we went to Bunnings to buy the supplies for a new shelf on both sides.  That will work better for our plates and platters as well.  

Ta Da!  This afternoon the new shelves were installed and work a treat.  He did a great job.

Meanwhile, the pan got its first test run tonight.  It was also a new recipe, Normandy Chicken. Definitely a success.  Obviously, the meals on YouTube and Instagram dish up into a fresh pan before taking a photo, as they never have any burny marks up the side.  I’m keeping it real.  LOL

That about sums up what has been happening here in the last few days.

Other May Happenings

May was dominated by two things, firstly, Mick’s Mum’s passing and our short trip to Queensland.

So what else happened during the month?  I had to have a bit of a think.  I must say, I was fairly prolific on the blog post front during the month, but a few things slipped through the cracks.

Back at the start of the month the main service for the Bicentenary of the local church took place.  It was well attended and the weather was beautiful.  This altar cloth is brought out on special occasions.  It is over 100 years old.

We spotted a sweet little spiders web in the garden one morning.

I changed my little shelf over from Easter to Autumn.  Very simple again. Now it is time to change it to Winter.

I did read two books.  The first was picked up in a book exchange at a caravan park and brought back childhood memories.  I had one of these books when I was a kid.  It was rather amusing reading this book as an adult in 2025.  It depicted a sweet innocent time, where everyone is nice and the world in which she lived was rather idyllic.  In reality, I don’t think the world in the 1920s was quite as depicted either.  I do hope it was so, at least for some.

The second was an audio book to listen to as we travelled along.  Mick found the story telling to be too detailed, but I felt that it was often quite relevant to the context.  Yes, if you were reading an actual book, you could skim over some of it.  Overall, I really enjoyed it, as I have any of hers.  I see in today’s paper that she has just released another book.  I’ll have to keep an eye out for it on the library website.

I actually tried two new recipes.  The first was the feijoa muffins, which were definitely a success.  The second was a Massaman curry, which was also a success, but no photo.

There were  couple of Chookshed Zoom sewing days, which were very enjoyable, and helped me progress my crafting projects.

This time last year we were on the Isle of Man watching the TT motorcycle races.  This year we are not, but are watching from the lounge room.  Sadly, there has not been a lot of action, due to poor weather, which is rather ironic, as the previous five weeks were fine and sunny.  Fingers crossed the weather improves for the racing this week.

And that about sums up the month. Quite a lot going on.  Let’s hope June is a little calmer.

A Walk Through the Garden

Someone has just celebrated his birthday.  I baked a lemon drizzle cake for him, using our own lemons.

The weather has been kind of crazy here lately.  We are towards the end of May and we still haven’t had a frost.  We were very close, right at the start of April, but not really even close since then.  It has also been rather dry.  We have had bits and pieces of rain, but not a lot, so quite a bit of watering has still been happening.  With the latest weather event that has caused serious flooding all down the east coast of NSW, we have received just 12mm.  That was rather lovely, as it was nice and gentle, so all soaked in.

Anyway, let’s see what is happening at the moment.

Firstly, our lemon tree in a pot has had its first decent crop of lemons, with fifteen.  The last couple of years we have only had a couple.

We are starting to see some of the winter flowers emerge.

I love the faded colour of the hydrangea blooms as they fade. In addition to these, the daphne is budding up nicely.

There are quite a few summer flowers that are still hanging in there.  Some frosts will put paid to them.

We also have some colour in the pots on the back verandah.  Inside, the zygocactus are budding up.  They will be a hot pink.

Not much is happening in the vege patch.  The rainbow chard is still going strong and surprisingly, the strawberries are still putting out the occasional flower and berry.  That won’t last for much longer.

We have done a tiny bit of planting.  We have put in a lot of onions and planted out a bulb worth of garlic cloves.  If you look closely, you can see a few of our weedy little onions and at the bottom of the photo you can see the garlic sticking its head out.  These were only planted a week before the photo was taken, so we were a little surprised to see how quickly the garlic have emerged.  The rain we received over the last day or so will have done them the world of good.

So, that’s where things are at present.  Most things will now go into hibernation until the ground warms up in September.

Feijoas

One day, while I was helping out at the show, Mick sent me this photo.  We had planted a couple of feijoa plants a few years ago, mainly for the nice bird attracting flowers, and they hadn’t done a great deal, so this was a nice surprise.

It appears that only one of the bushes has produced fruit, but that is plenty for us.  There are still more to harvest a bit later.  Actually, harvest is a loose term, as you wait for the fruit to fall to the ground and just have to pick them up.

Firstly, we had to try eating them straight out of their skin.  Yummo!  We had quite a few.  Then it was time to start looking for recipes and ways to use them.  I read that they are good on porridge, so I tried that and yes, very nice on porridge.

There are loads of recipes for cakes, desserts, slices and muffins. As we were rather time poor, I ended up just making my usual muffin recipe and substituting the banana with mashed feijoas.

Ta da!  Feijoa and walnut muffins.  They were a success.

The remainder had to be prepared to use later, so the flesh was scooped out of the skins and frozen in one cup quantities.

I look forward to trying a different recipe next time.

A Bit of Stitching and This and That

Now that things have settled down a bit I have actually been spending some time in the sewing room.

Firstly, my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks have been made.

Then, the block I had to finish for Betty’s group quilt, that I started at her house last weekend.  It will get popped in the post tomorrow.

I have also been working on the Chookshed Challenge project, but that can have its own post tomorrow.

What else have we been up to?

The vege garden has been pulled out for the season.  It looks rather bare, but also much tidier.

Most of our tomatoes this year were self sown and ended up being small ones.  The last were mainly stewed up with onion, garlic and basil and frozen to use during the year.  Some are in the fridge to be used in the next week or so.

Our asparagus is only a couple of years old, so wasn’t eaten as yet.  However, it has just had a second flush of growth, so we picked a few spears and enjoyed them with our breakfast the other day.  They were so crisp.  Rather different to store bought.  I can’t wait to start picking some more next season.

I read a book yesterday.  My usual binge reading style.  Half way through I realised I had read it before.  Oh well, I couldn’t remember the outcome, so finished it off.  It is now being donated, so I won’t read it a third time.

The weather has been rather nice here and is starting to have a little bit of an autumnal feel to it.  I feel so much for all those affected by Tropical Cyclone Alfred.  You don’t expect that sort of weather system to be located so far south. We were preidicted to get about 30mm of rain today, but that has now been reduced to 0-20mm tomorrow.  We’ll see what eventuates.  A little rain would be very welcome at the moment.  What a land of contrast we live in.

That about sums up what I have been up to.  Hopefully, I will continue to spend more time in the sewing room in the next week or so.