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Saturday, March 27, 2010

The Truest Love

I know we did have folks over for dinner last night but no, these are not from that. True love is a sweet love who drops by the recycling centre on the off chance there are some champagne bottles there...............................motherload!

Friday, March 26, 2010

Autumn Edition Hoochy Mama


The cycle of hooch making is moving with the seasons. Honey & Plum wine is making way for cyser. The nice man at Number 10 Beltana Rd got very excited when the girls next door asked for a box of seconds for cider making - quickly returning with a whole box of cider apples. $25 bucks for the lot. Mix this with a $22 bucket of honey, some rain water, invite some wild roaming yeasts and off we go again! While using wild plums and peaches is definitely cheaper, you can't really argue with $2 a litre for good old fashioned no chemicals no sulfate cyser.

Today Sue and I racked this one into a new carboy. In retrospect I was glad we decided to do this on the back deck.......We still have to top it up with honey water and apple juice.

Top right of this little photo of the office/special projects/cat couch -but no bikes room is what we are calling the "Wax Moth and Fruit Fly" batch. This one is on its second ferment.

Ingredients include the honey from the wax from my last honey harvest, some wild apples, a few late plums(I think) and wild peaches. Total cost $5 for 500ml of extra honey. It took me a while to get around to making this lot - time enough for the fruit fly larvae in the peaches to hatch. And I can not guarantee it does not include wax moth eggs.......It is tasting very yummy. The wild peaches pack an almost unnatural flavour that is just exquisite. I have great hopes for this little batch.

Word around town is that the very meaty splendour like plums from the front yard make a somewhat cloying wine. The taste seems to be improving with time, so the remaining 9 bottles are under the house until further notice.

The original batches of hanging over fences lane way plum wine is improving with age also - it just gets better and better.

And finally, I crawled under the house to confirm that the demijohn (there's that beautiful word again) of ginger champagne is fermenting along nicely. The airlock is still in place and the seal is good. Fingers crossed she will continue a slow ferment all winter ready to be bottled around October.


That's it on the hooch front.

Upcoming projects include quince wine and perri (pear and honey cider). Unfortunately the fruit bats which have recently descended upon the ONC ate all the pears at Pialigo so I will have to search further afield for organic pears..............

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

ducks in a row

Dear bloggy friends

Thank you so much for all your warm bloggy hugs - you cheered me up muchly and you make me feel very special. Just wanted to let you all know that planets are all back in alignment again and the ducks are all in a row.

If I could find the camera, I would show you photos of purple potatoes, jars of pickles, sugar baby watermelons and fat chooks.

big duckie hugs

duckiexxxx

Friday, March 12, 2010

nice weather for ducks


I have been so SICK. Some sort of flu. Sound like I am coughing up a lung. eewwwwk.
I have taken the WHOLE week off work.

Its been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I went to the damaged vehicle auction with the idea of buying the honey truck back and repairing her. She went for $100 above the limit I set myself and now I have the opposite of buyers remorse. On the one hand she is just a truck but on the other hand, I LOVED that truck. It seemed so weird that she would be stolen from the front yard when I was just about to buy her - especially when she is one of about 30 cars parked in the street. What is the message in this....was it just not meant to be? Was it a sign to let her go or to demand her back from the universe? In the end I chose to let her go.......... I want to TRUST that I am beloved child of the universe but I am finding it hard to identify the learning in this one - the story of the honey truck.

I am struggling to understand this whole human being thing. There is good reason to prefer the company of ducks and chickens.

As well as the honey truck being stolen and written off, some nice person/people decided to put a rock though the back window of my work car. They didn't steal anything - the rock was still sitting on the cargo cover in the morning and all my work gear was intact. mindless.

And then, someone broke into the community garden and vandalised everything (again)

What does it all mean. I am wondering why the universe is being a bit mean, if Bruce has taken his eye off me for a moment......or if these are just random things in a random universe (which I don't believe), or if I am missing something.

sigh.

At least the ducks are happy with this rain thing. If you click on the photo you can see the rain drops on their feathers. lovely.