I planted some broad beans in spring this year in order to put some nitrogen into the ground where I intend to plant strawberries next year. I was doubtful that they would even grow, to be honest, as I didn't tend to them much and only watered them when I had the chance... but they did. And unlike frozen broad beans which I hated as a kid and refused to eat, these are surprisingly tasty, even raw.
As I couldn't eat all of them in one go, I gave half of them to my mum. I will definitely be planting this super easy crop again this coming spring.
Mum and I also had the opportunity to pick some fruit from a mini orchard in a friend's backyard today. It was wonderful, and while sitting on the picnic rug in the shade of the fruit trees I had an overwhelming desire to live somewhere with a little bit of land (ideally flat), that had an already established orchard, a veggie garden, room for the kids to run around in, and isn't in the heart of suburbia. I know I have discussed this before, and I know that at this time this isn't a realistic goal for us, but a girl can dream can't she?
I'm not sure this picture really captures the dark purple colour of these beautiful plums, but I tried.
Anyway, from this little excursion Mum and I picked a bunch a delicious plums, some massive lemons, a few nectarines, and a heap of rhubarb. I even saw a baby rabbit. At first I thought it was a snake, and so I pleasantly releaved when I saw it bouncing away.
2.5kg of rhubarb - tied up in 500gm bunches.
I'm thinking I might make some more Rhubarb and Strawberry cordial. Yum!
Here is Nicholas surprised by the size of the hardware store.
I am now another year older. I'm not sure I am wiser for it, but I do know that I spend more time feeling tired than I did the year before. This obviously is mainly from having a child who refuses to sleep during the day. His refusal to sleep wears me down. I start to feel crazy and impatient. I am constantly praying for patience and love, but it is difficult.
I was told a lot before having children that it would be hard work, and naively I thought I would be fine. "I understood what hard work was," I would say to myself. "I've had numerous jobs throughout the past years that have been extremely physically demanding. I can do this!"
During uni break one year I worked at a single person's quarters in Kambalda, Western Australia (where I grew up), in the middle of summer. We started early to beat the heat, but even at 6 a.m. you could feel the heat, and it only increased throughout the day. This was hard work. It was physically demanding - scrubbing floors, showers, toilets, changing beds, carrying linen - and all in the heat. Afterwards I would head home for a shower and spend the rest of the afternoon under the air conditioner.
After I finished uni, I worked various jobs which demanded me to be on my feet for hours. I would work at Coles in the morning from 5 a.m. - 2 p.m., then drive across town and work in the pool as a swimming instructor for the next three-four hours. Usually by the end of the day, and certainly by the end of the week, I was exhausted. Daniel would drive home in the evening, and I could barely hold a conversation. I would lean my head on the door, and feel the exhaustion wash over my body. I felt weak. However long and tiring these days were, I could cope, because I knew that at the end of it I would get a break and a chance to relax. Alone. Without anyone demanding anything from me. I also knew that the next day I would feel refreshed because I would be able to have a full nights sleep without any interruptions.
Before I became a parent I thought I knew what hard work was. I was wrong! Nothing could have prepared me for the daily exhaustion I feel as a parent. For the loneliness of motherhood I often feel while Daniel is at work. For the never ending list of chores that need to be done, and the never ending demands of a child. I thought I would be fine, but in all honesty I am constantly struggling. Sometimes it is even too difficult to even think about leaving the house. I know I am not alone in these feelings, but sometimes it feels that way.
This is why I am so blessed to have such a wonderful support system around me who I am so thankful for, because without them I just wouldn't survive. I have my Mum and Anne (mother-in-law) who are constantly there if I need them. Plus, I have awesome friends who are only a phone call away, and less than a five minute drive commute. And they are all extremely good at making me feel very special on my birthday.
I spent the morning and afternoon with these friends as we shared cups of tea, pizza, cake and chips. It was relaxing and just what I needed after a few difficult days. Shelley even baked me the best birthday cake.
Isn't it just wonderful!
As a child my mum used to bake cakes like these for our birthdays. However, I never asked for this cake in particular. It was just a bit 'girly'. I do remember my sister's having this cake though.
Nicholas and I before blowing out the candle!
In the afternoon Shelley and I went for a walk. It was super cold so we rugged the babies up and headed out.
The walk didn't last long before it started raining, but thankfully, we came prepared!
In the evening my parents, Daniel's parents and my sister came over for dinner and dessert. Nicholas even joined in the fun, refusing to go to sleep while everyone was here.
It was a great day and very relaxing. Thanks everyone for being there for me and helping me through the difficult times of parenthood.
And a song about babies that don't sleep... just for fun.
I finally had my own Stampin' Up party today. It was fun. Most of us made a few cards. I always feel inspired and creative after going to one of these parties. I just wish I had more time to sit down and create. Here are a few of the cards that we made (sorry the photography is a bit rubbish).
If you know me, you will know how much I love fruit. I love baking with it, turning it into jam and chutney, eating it fresh, dreaming about it (this has been happening the last few days), and now I love dehydrating it. That's right folks, I finally splurged and bought myself a dehydrator for my birthday, and I love it. My birthday isn't until the end of the month, but having had it on layby for a while I couldn't go another month without having it in my life, especially because if I did it would be too late to dehydrate some of the fruit.
So, I have been experimenting. I made mango, and greengage fruit leather. I hadn't had fruit leather since I was a kid and had forgotten how great it tasted. I also had a go a drying apricots, greengages, grapes and pears. All of which turned out quite well. I am also keen to dehydrate some vegetables, and herbs and spices in the next few months.
Mango fruit leather before it went into the dehydrator.
I was blessed actually this summer with kilos of greengages from a friends tree. I didn't think I was going to taste any fresh greengages this year after my cousin sold her house, but thankfully this has not been the case. So last night Daniel and I stayed up stupidly late cutting greengages in half, as well as boiling, peeling and blending them together in order to make fruit leather.
I also had the opportunity to make some Greengage and Orange Jam which I have been adding into my porridge on a daily basis. I tried this first time last year and loved it, so I thought I would make it again.
This is what I did:
Greengage and Orange Jam
-2kgs of greengages
-2kgs of sugar
-juice and rind of 2 oranges
-juice and rind of a lemon.
After washing the greengages, I halved and pipped them and placed them in a large pot with the juice and rind of the oranges and lemon. I then let it heat up and continue to do so until the fruit was very soft and the skin had started falling off the plum. This only took about 10-15mins. I then add the sugar and stirred until it dissolved. After this I let it simmer until it reached setting point, and then put it in steralised jars.
I'm not sure if this is the correct way of making jam, but this is how I have been making it for the last few years and it seems to work so I just stick with it. Do you do it differently?
Nicholas was being super grumpy again as I made jam, so I carried him around with me as I prepared the jam. He doesn't really look like he is enjoying it. Oh well!
Well, it's taken a week but we have finally finished eating all the cherries we picked from our Rent a Cherry tree, that I won, last weekend, and they were just delicious. The tree was full of massive cherries which were shared between the Jolly's, my Mum and us. It was such a splendid day, even though the weather was a bit overcast, and a real delight to share it with others.
When we arrived we were shown to our tree and given a brief history of the orchard.
Once everyone had arrived we began picking (and eating).
After all the hard work of picking and eating cherries, we sat down for a relaxing BBQ. The orchard provided the BBQ equipment, a table and chairs, and even toys for the kids. All we had to bring was the food, drink, picnic rugs and ourselves.
And the beautiful view from the orchard once it had cleared up a bit.
This, I must say, was the best prize I have ever won. It was a fantastic and relaxing day for all involved, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in renting a cherry tree next year. I definitely I think we will be renting one next year. I'll give it to Daniel as a birthday present :).
Nicholas has been super clingy, whiny and awake this week. He is only having two 45min sleeps during the day and then will go to sleep for about an hour in the evening before waking up for an hour or two and then heading back to sleep. If we are lucky he might sleep for a few hours before waking up and needing one of us to go and resettle him. It's been doing my head in, and I am exhausted. I think he might be teething?
To help the situation, I decided that I would spend the day at my parents' place with my Mum and Aunt, so I didn't have to be left with Nicholas by myself all day... meaning that what could have been a really stressful day, because every time I left the room or even turned around Nicholas would cry, turned out to be surprising stress free. As a bonus, I was even able to have a quick nap in the afternoon to rejuvenate for the rest of the day.
Like I have mentioned previously, I love going to my parents' place to
get away from it all. It is peaceful, quiet and beautiful, especially on
sunny days like toady.
And even though Nicholas was super clingy, he was happy enough to sit in
his chair (in front of me), eating, just for long enough to prepare everything I needed in order to cook up some apricot
chutney.
Here are the apricots - picked fresh off my parent's-in-laws tree.
Here is a the kilo of onions I cut up in halves and quarters, and then put in the food processor to cut up more finely. I refuse to spend ages cutting up onions. It is so time consuming. This is my Mum's food processor. A bit more advanced than my own, but I use mine for everything I can - cutting up onions, mixing banana cake muffins and dip, chopping up vegetables to make Nicholas puree - I love it.
Adding the sugar - sooooo much!
And the chutney before we spooned it into jars - YUM.
I am so glad the day turned out to be productive, and that I didn't stay at home and mope about!
Unlike last years bumper crop of apricots (many of which were discarded because of mould from the wet weather), this year we only ended up with a bowl full of apricots.
Last years tree. Looking at it now I realise that we were quite lucky it didn't break!
Even so, the bowlful we do have is full of fantastically sweet apricots. Much better than the ones at the shop. And the best thing is that even Nicholas is at the stage now where he can enjoy them.
How exciting! Four little nashi pears :). Can't wait till they are all ripe.
Near the end of last year I entered a Christmas giveaway on Platinum Ridge's facebook page. All I had to do was like, and share their page and this put me in the running to win one of their rented cherry trees. And surprisingly, I actually won. I was/am so excited. Basically, it means that I will get to pick all the fruit off a specific tree that they allocate me in their orchid, which could bear about 10kgs of fruit.
So next weekend we will be heading out to Glaziers Bay to pick us some fruit. In anticipation of this Daniel bought me cherry corer for Christmas because taking the pips out of cherries by hand takes a super long time.
I'll be sure to take some photos of next weeks expedition to share :). Also if you have any cherry recipes that you love, I would love to hear them, as I will be inundated with cherries next weekend :).
