kiwi cuttings - plants for FREE

OK, so I did a little research. Yes, I know, I am meant to be writing a report for someone....so naturally my attention turns to anything but........

Looks like Diggers WILL be selling Issai again later this year. Hooray!
But I am gunna make some for free.

These nice people here at The Walden Effect say it is FINE to take soft wood cuttings in Summer. Well, it is almost still summer.....so here we go. They say SURE you can stuff around with rooting powders, propagation trays, heat mats and misters, OR you can just whack them into jars of water and see how you go.

So this is what I have done. I did add some VRM XLR8 Bio (link downloads brochure) for good measure, to help out compete bad fungi and help with root establishment. I also added a little rooting gel...........



Will keep you posted.

upcycling a down dog yoga mat

So like the other night on the way back from cyd - ann - ee I just happened to be at my dear friend Rose's house around the time I was due to have a VIPC*. Anyhoo, I got to sit up at the flight deck Rose's office space with my phone, (not the scary phone), some pens, my note book and a BFGoS** and my giddy aunt - above me was the most clever home made pin board a duck has ever seen.

So of course I had to make one just like it....but red. Rose you see is outrageously artistic and stylish and her place is full of up cycled and re purposed amazingness.

So, if you have a dead yoga mat lying around....you just need a cheap white canvas and a $2 bottle of kiddies red acrylic paint. Paint the canvas. Try not to let the chickens walk on it while it is drying. (trust me). Paint it again once you have wiped off the the dirty chicken foot prints. Cut up the yoga mat to fit and glue it on the back and voila! Ok, perhaps in retrospect you might glue the mat onto the canvas first.

Anyhoo, I LOVE the colour. FORM and FUNCTION and COLOUR. My favorite.





* Very Important Phone Call
** Big Fat Glass of Shiraz

return of the pink chair

What do you think?

me like.

Lacuna Sabbath

WELL that was a bit hopeless. While I did very much enjoy all the attention from you lovely things out there in the internets, and WELCOME all you new folks from Marla's gratuitous vacuous and obvious slow day at the farm gaping hole of content, it's not like you were very helpful in helping a decision to be made. Whoever says internet polling is the rising star of social research has rocks in their head. In the end we had 7 votes for green and 7 votes for pink/deer/zebras/birds and one mutinous vote with the cat for the status quo. (Thats YOU Jonesy)

So we go for PRICE, which then makes the decision very easy, because the Echino fabric is somehow 1/4 of the price of the Surface Art fabric. So I ordered it on Wednesday night and it arrived TODAY and it is more lovely than I could ever imagine and there is enough to make me a skirt or perhaps even a frock or a bag or something lovely because Ms Duck, one only apparently needs 2 1/2 meters to cover a chair, NOT FOUR.

And darling Rhonda, may I ASSURE you the deer and the bird are dear friends, and the bird is either:

a) a wee bit tired while traveling in the same direction as dear deer, so is buming a lift (thats FUNNY, get it?) and dear deer is just saying "of COURSE my dearest friend, hop on board"

or

b) The dear bird is busy eating fleas and lice straight off dear friend deer's derrière, for which he (lets call him Bambi) is truly grateful.

Thats my story and I'm stickin' to it.

In other news, the Wild Plum Melomel is kind out of control at the moment too. I came home from work yesterday a bit hot and frazzled but a buzzy sneaky peaky glass of this stuff soothed my ruffled feathers just nicely.

Its almost time to take the fruit out methinks.

Thank you so much for visiting my silly blog. It is a worry, because I was / am a middle child and well, am / was completely STARVED of attention growing up so ANY attention turns me into a monster and well, I is just tellin' ya.

Duckie xx

help from the internets

Hello my lovelies - I was wondering if I might be able to borrow some style advise..
You know how I am looking for a new office chair, well of course, the beautiful universe provided me with a new old free office READING chair instead. (who am I to question?)

Anyhoo, here is the old chair - just a little moldy but it is super comfy and small and wont take up very much room at all.


But I can't decide which fabric to cover it with.......

This:(I have a skirt in the same fabric, so I could read camouflaged)

or this:
Preferences?

Welcome home Selina

Yay. Here she is. All new. With a detachable basket don't you know. Selina passed her health and safety check with flying colors. She has new white walled tires filled with gue to stop them from puncturing, a newly tightened bottom bracket, a newly trued front wheel, adjusted derailer and shifters, new cables inside those lovely white casings and she rides and shifts and steers like a dream.

Total cost:

Selina: $20

Tires, basket and a general lovin': $200

She is too much fun to ride. I couldn't resist a few laps around the block in my skirt and boots. Thats the thing I love about Selina. I can ride her in whatever I am wearing - no special shoes or lycra.

I am thinking I will sell my road bike.......but keep my mountain bike because thats just too much fun as well. Selina is going to change my world, replace all those short drives whether I am in my work clothes or not, to pop down to the community garden to pick veggies, pop up to buy the paper...........

No more two sets of clothes to commute in. No more hunched over looking at only the road in front of me. No more having to change into my cleats and then hobbling around at my destination in my bike shoes. From now on I am fully clothed in my civilians, up right lookin' out at the view!

I love you Selina.

Lacuna Sabbath

The Lacuna Sabbath came a day early today. I bought new shoes!

I took the lovely Selina in to the bike shop. Mal from Mal Adjusted thought she was delightful and he is sure they can easily fix her up.

We agreed she was a delightful color. I have been waiting on the phone call to say there is something expensive wrong with her, but it has been very quiet.

And in other news, the nice boys from South Pacific Hydroponics knocked me up an excellent stand for this big old flouro light the biggest hippy gave me. I can adjust the height of the light as the seedlings grow. This is very cool.

So in went some eggplant seeds.

From Franchi Italian Seeds: Melanzana "Violetta Lunga 2" and Melanzana "Prosperosa". From Phoenix Seeds: Eggplant "Diamond".

I don't know what it is about the Franchi seeds. They are imported from Italy. But the QUALITY is outstanding. Every time. No matter what. And you get HEAPS of seeds in each packet. They are worth every cent. They are my guilty delicious pleasure.

The Diamond eggplants are a Ukrainian variety. I didn't have much luck with them last year, my eggplant and capsicum seedlings got a bit damp and didn't thrive. So I will give them another try this season. Regular viewers will recall that Mr Duck is Ukrainian, so I like to pay homage to the mother country by growing Ukrainian and Eastern European varieties. The Ukrainians KNOW THEIR VEGGIES. This is why we have Black Russian and Black Krim tomatoes and 1000 varieties of beetroot.

I also put in a few swift and Siberian tomatoes. These are very early bush (determinate) varieties. Both around 50 days. My personal challenge is to have the first tomato ripe for Mr Duck Herder's birthday on 23rd November. You never know. These are not the main crop of course. Just something for fun. Its always a bit of a competition at the community garden to see who can get a ripe marty before Christmas.

I could only fit 1 1/2 seedling trays onto the heat pad, but I reckon the temperature should be OK for everything to germinate. I have been using the special projects room a lot to work in, so the heater vent is open in there, and the drying cuppboard is in there as well, so the room is pretty warm. It sure is a good use for this huge old light fitting.

OH, if you would like the contact for Phoenix Seeds, you need to ring or write to them for a cattle dog. The number is (03) 6267 9663 or PO Box 207, Snug, Tas. They have an excellent range of unusual veggie and herb seeds.

That is all.

Oh, I can't help it. These are my new shoes.

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!

gotta love that life thing

Its been an interesting time with the humans lately. For example, one of them pinched the Mountain Man's honey truck from our front yard on Friday night. And then this morning at the farmers market everyone I bought anything off seemed to be just radiating joy. The olive oil man was happy, the bread girl was happy and the honey man wants my recipe for saba. We talked, or at least I listened while he told me about everywhere he takes his bees and which trees flower where at which time during the year. I think he enjoyed having a listener (and customer) who appreciated the incredibly hard work and heavy lifting in being a commercial beekeeper.

And I had a moment at the recycling depot while happily scrummaging around in the skips for empty champagne bottles to put my saba in. It would appear folks on this side of town drink 397 beers for every bottle of (cheap and nasty) champagne.

I realised I have crossed a line between relatively normal and completely loopy when a car pulled in and instead of thinking "oh, how embarrassing, these people are going to see me rummaging about in the bins" I immediately thought "oh, goodie, I wonder if these people have any champagne bottles"



I am the cat lady. and I am only 39.


In other news, I made another batch of honey plum saba. This one using big fat purple plums from the prune (splendour I think) in the front yard. These are beautiful meaty plums, probably the best I have tasted for eating fresh and I hesitated to put the last bucket full into the saba, but then, lets face it, its really value adding and thats a good thing right?



The saba continues to impress the neighbourhood. A bottle was consumed with the girls next door yesterday afternoon, and well, we all had to have naps afterwards. It packs a punch. Two glasses helped greatly to ease away the surprise that someone would take the gorgeous little old 4WD ute I was in the process of buying. I mean if Bruce doesnt want me to have the truck of my dreams, at a great price then who am I to argue? Luckily it was still insured.


And for those with an interest in the feathered goings on - Big Fella is definitely embracing the whole gender spectrum. She has gone clucky but gets off the nest in the morning to pretend to crow then gets back on the nest to try and make babies. *sign*

And finally, I got off my but and bottle some tomatoes today. They are coming in thick and fast now. Some of the tomatoes are so big (the black krims especially) that one tomato almost fills a No20 jar. Soon it will be time to start making relish. yum yum.

Carolyn and Hugh from across the road have invited us over for drinks this afternoon. They promised they had lots of empty champagne bottles for me - yippee. saves me going through their recycling bin when it goes out tonight.

I am lucky to have such beautiful alcoholic ( celebrative) neighbours.


that is all.

29 bottles of jam on the wall...

So if your gunna get hot, you may as well get REALLY hot. This morning I got up early and picked almost 3 kg of blackberries and spent most of the day (after a most enjoyable airconditioned brunch with da family at A Bite to Eat) cooking up two batches of blackberry and one batch of plum jam.

All in all 29 bottles. It looks like 3 didnt vacum seal, so I will rebottle and then put them through the vacolla again tomorrow. The rest are all fabulous with little sucky down lids.


The biggest hippy found me a whole basket of second hand jars with perfect lids at revolve and I ended up buying some lovely ones over the internets.






While on the one hand the temperature got to 34 degrees inside today before dropping to 33, outside the temperature was over 40 so I guess we can't complain too much!



Does anyone remember Michelle Shocked's Strawberry Jam song? Get out the giutars (YEE HAAA)



Saturday morning found me itching

To get on over to my grandma's kitchen

[And what you gonna do, honey]

The sweetest little berries was cooking up right

And then we'd put them in a canning jar and seal them up tight



We were making jam

[What kind?]

Strawberry jam, that's what kind

[Aw, the good kind]

Yeah, if you want the best jam

You gotta make your own





We have Smucker's, Welches, Knotts Berry Farm

But a little homemade jam never did a body no harm

A little local motion is all we need

To close down these corporate jam factories





We'll be making jam

Strawberry jam, mmmm-mm

If you want the best jam

You gotta make your own

(Make that jam Doc, show 'em how it's done)





Yeah, we have a little revolution sweeping the land

Now once more everybody's making homemade jam

So won't you call your friends up on the telephone

You invite 'em on over, you make some jam of your own





You'll be making jam

Strawberry jam

If you want the best jam

You gotta make your own



(Go on Jerry, let the jelly roll)

(Jerry's makin' jam)

(That's Mark O'ConnorHe likes jam too)

[Aw yeah, as sweet as strawberry jam, honey]

(Uh-ha)



Saturday morning found me itching

To get on over to my grandma's kitchen

Where the sweetest little berries were cooking up right

And then we'd put them in a canning jar and seal them up tight





We was making jam

Strawberry jam, that's what kind

If you want the best jam

You gotta make your own





Aw, one more time

Oh, makin' that jam

Yeah, Strawberry jam

If you want the best jam

You gotta make your own

I love blackberries

One nice thing about all this hot hot hot weather - the blackberries are coming along nicely. My picking rate has increased to 2kg / hour as more and more berries ripen.

The love affair with blackberry jam continues. Call them a weed. Love 'em or hate em. But I LOVE 'em. Today I made almost 2 liters of jam using a new recipe. Easy peasy not too sweet chunky cooked in a few minutes and processed in the vacola.

Blackberry Jam

Ingredients:

1600gm blackberries

24 grams citrus pectin**

800 gm sugar*

Method:

Wash and sort blackberries.

Place in large saucepan. Mush up a little with wooden spoon.

Add pectin

Bring quickly to boil.

Add sugar, bring to boil again and hard boil for 1 minute while stiring

Pour into clean jars

Seal and process in vacola. ( I process EVERYTHING in the vacola for one hour starting with cold water)

Yum.

But I am out of jam jars and there are still so many more blackberries out there.......

*basically half the weight of whatever fruit you have.

**Pectin quantities as per instructions on packet (in this case, 8gm for every 500 gm fruit)

delish!

Whats this? Is it a bottle of Cornwall's vinegar? oh nooooooooooooooooo!

Its a delicious bottle of home made elder flower cordial freshly made and gifted from Sue next door.

What a lucky duck herder I am!

I never realised how pretty those vinegar bottles were....

long time gone

We return to our regular broadcasts after a longish sojourn in Condobolin. Work is BUSY but good. Spring is WONDERFUL. Life is a bit of a WHIRLWIND and it is tricky to maintain the stillness.

I am still pleased as punch with my socks. They have survived hand washing AND machine washing, which pleases me greatly. Thank you so much for your happy comments and general agreeance that rainbow crocheted socks are a fine fine thing to have in one's possessions, and even better caressing ones feet and peaking out from one's boots.

I took these photos last weekend, and only now found time to pop them up and out into the internets. Behold my individualised toilet roll seed raisers. (Don't worry, Mr Duck Herder and I are not responsible for this much toilet paper use! I have a flotilla of signed up toilet roll holder donors) I had a peak this afternoon, and can happily report the zucchinis and cucumbers are definitely up, and with tomatoes in close pursuit.

I know a fellow who uses this method, but first dips the rolls in beeswax to make them last, before planting the plants out roll and all when ready. I skipped the wax treatment and will see how they hold up.

This is much quicker than sprouting seeds in trays and transplanting to topped and bottomed 2l mild containers ALA Linda Woodrow so fingers crossed that I am onto something. (frugal elegance AND expedience)

And these clever little things are recycled recycled coke bottles. They originally had onion seedlings in them - purchased from a farmer at the farmer's market. Now they have a second generation of onion seeds, and also some asparagus seeds.

Whilst in Condobolin I finished a beautiful spring scarf - again from my stock of lovely Noro self striping wool - which I LOVE and have worn every day for a week, but which for some reason, no one has yet commented on......I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or maker, perhaps.......

will get a photo of that one soon as well.

Anyhoo - a well earned day off tomorrow. Next lot of chickens should be hatching out over weekend. Fingers crossed for some successful faverolle hatchlings - they have traveled so far those little eggs - all the way from Proserpine QLD.

Taa muchly to everyone who said nice things about my sox *swoon*