Saturday 2 March 2024

What Else happened in February

We had a few days out doing things but the majority of the month was spent hanging around home, which was nice.  

As the weather was hot and fairly dry, it was also good to be at home to keep the garden going.

We were harvesting lots of veges.  This as one day’s haul.  Our tomatoes continue to mainly be a failure this year, but we are starting to get some on the self sown plants, which are funnily enough, mainly yellow.  The beans had finished producing, then started to flower again.  They are now producing more than in the initial crop.  We are pretty happy about that, as our freezer started playing up and we had to throw a lot of the first lot out.  At least they are good in the compost.

Early in the month we went out to a mate’s place to  pick blackberries.  Unfortunately, there weren’t a real lot and they were quite small.  We still made some jam, by bulking them out with some apples, which is a trick Mum used to do. 

While we were in the jam making mood, we picked some rhubarb from our plant that was going crazy.  To that we added some frozen strawberries that needed using up and made Rhubarb and Strawberry Jam.  It is really nice.  That counts as my new recipe for the month.

We did get to pick a few more blackberries later in the month and have just frozen them to add to pancakes through the coming year.

I managed to read one book.  It was written by my cousin.

At the start of the month we went to Oberon to visit their show, which is always a nice day out.

One of my friends had a stall there. 

There were the usual exhibits and also a quick shear competition, which happens to have the best prize money in the southern hemisphere.  We only watched the intermediate shearers, so the gun shearers would have been quite something to see.
Bathurst was the venue for some more car racing during the month.  We have hosted the 12 Hour Internationl Race for a few years now and it is growing in popularity.  This year we then hosted the Supercars 500 on the following weekend, as the event was cancelled at short notice in Newcastle.  We popped into town to check out all the cars for the 12 hour when they were on display. The driving seat and instruments look just a tad different to the normal run of the mill car.  The Supercars don’t come down town.
This Ford van is an electric concept vehicle they are taking to the various races around the world.  Apparently it is good for 300kmh down the main straight of the racetrack.
Valentino Rossi, the famous motorcycle racer, now turned car racer, was in town. Mick had to pose in front of his car.  We queued for ages to get his autograph, but he left when there were only about ten people in front of us.  Oh well, it wasn’t meant to be.
We spent a rather lazy day on the Sunday, watching the race on TV..
What else did we get up to?  We had a quick trip to Orange one day and they had a massive thunder storm while we were up there.  We followed it all the way home, but we only got a couple of mill at our place.  It made for some stunning scenes.

Our other outing was to visit the Winburndale Dam, but I will do a separate post on that one.



6 comments:

Jennifer said...

You have been having a fun time! Tamworth Show is on this weekend, I had hoped to get along to see my quilt hanging in the patchwork section, but it's been a bit too hot for comfort. Those jams look good, my Canadian friends make freezer strawberry jam.

Jocelyn is Canadian Needle Nana said...

What great outings you two have! I love marketplaces to tour around and always find something to buy. Your garden is so productive! When I see yours, it makes me want to be growing food too. We just had a thunder and lightening storm here in February very unusual. Is your weather doing strange things too?

Jenny said...

Fresh garden produce and home made jam, yummy indeed.

Susan said...

More busy fun times - love your jam labels!!

Maria said...

So good there are many fun things going on close to where you live…..
Great garden harvest and you got some nice jam.

Michelle Ridgway said...

Your garden bounty was great despite the heat...I have given up on tomatoes here as the humidity gets them each time. Your jams sound delicious. The show sounded great. My hubby loved Valentino Rossi until Aussie Jack Miller arrived on the scene xx