days like this

today I am loving......

EVERYTHING.


I kidnapped my little niece again today. We zooshed out to Bungendore to ride Thomas - the Duchess' lovely little welsh mountain pony.

Now the Duck Herder had a blissfully girls own adventure childhood with an abundance of ponies in the paddock. Not having children of my own, I LOVE providing little Lara with a taste of what it is like to have a pony for a friend.

And Tomas and Lara were just made for each other. Tomas recognises Lara now and wickers when he sees her. The cutest thing was the first time he did it, she thought he had growled at her! I had to explain it was his way of saying "Hey there little girl, I recognise you! - did you bring me some apple and are we going for a ride?"

Today I led Lara on Tomas while the Duchess lead Morris the little miniature pony. We went out for a long walk through the pine trees, chitter-chattering all the way. After the storm a couple of days ago, all the flies in the known universe have hatched, which was a little tiresome. But Tomas looked so sweet in his new pink and purple fly vale.

Lara is still gaining her confidence. She is though, a complete natural with a perfect seat. It won't be long until she is game enough to go off by herself. That will make me quite happy, because it is a little tiring running along beside Tomas as they trot along - with Lara rising perfectly to the trot. We even got up to a canter today - which the Duchess found quite amusing - watching the duck herder running her 37 year old heart out alongside this little cantering pony!

Small girls and ponies - is there anything more perfect in the world?

I am not sure who has more fun - Lara getting to go for a ride on the most perfect pony, or the Duchess and I, killing ourselves laughing at the cuteness of this tiny slip of a girl trotting up the paddock on this tiny, perky little pony.

And what about the afternoon?

• Big batch of rhubarb and apple muffins
• Lots of pottering in the garden planting butter beans, borlotti beans and some peas
• potting up seedlings and sewing more seed trays.
• Coffee and muffins with the girls next door talking gardens, plants and cats
• A little more pottering in the garden.

Well, that's it for Saturday really.

lotions & potions

Here are today's experiments:

Only Good Things Moisturiser plus Borage for Courage!

In one saucepan:
150mls freshly made rosemary and parsley tea
10mls Glycerin (5% of total liquid plus oil)

In a double boiler or saucepan in a saucepan with water:
30mls olive oil
15mls jojoba oil
5mls borage oi
5mls emulsifying wax

Heat contents of each pan to 70 - 75 degrees

Slowly poor water mix into oil mix, whisking as you go.
Keep whisking
….. and whisking
When cooled to 45 degrees, add essential oil or fragrance oil and rosemary tincture (for preservative)

When mixture starts to thicken, poor into clean containers.

Review:
so far so good. feels divine! Have one scented just with lavender oil, and one lot scented with Dewberry Fragrance Oil. Have sent one bottle off to Mother in Law for comment.

All up, this batch cost: $3.40. The most expensive ingredient was the jojoba oil - $2.10!
Using more olive oil instead of jojoba would bring the price down to $1.35 for 200mls.


Only Good Things Shampoo

In a clean shampoo bottle:

100mls rosemary & parsley tea
100mls castile soap
fragrance oil
1 ½ tsp olive oil
½ tsp glycerine
essential oil or fragrance. (this time I used tropical coconut fragrance oil)

Shake up!

Cost for this one: $0.93 for 200mls.

Only Good Things Conditioning Rinse

Well, after some experimentation, I have moved on to using AVC in the shower as an after shampoo rinse. The good thing is that if you get it on your face and body, you don't have to use toner when you get out!

In the interests of not pouring cold water all over you at the end of your shower, try keeping the correct amount of ACV in a container in the shower, and filling up the rest of the bottle with warm shower water when you are ready to rinse!

Put 1 – 2 tbs ACV in a 200ml container.
After shampooing, fill rest of container with warm water. Shake briefly and then pour over hair. Rinse again briefly under shower (just a little)

Conditioning Rinse: $0.25 / wash.

Review: read for yourself! Although truthfully, this relates to the previous batch.

Useful Links:
Horse Supplies Direct: for bulk ACV - and lots of other goodies like Kelp Granules, Cod Liver Oil, Liquid Seaweed - all good stuff for your feathered friends and gardens.

Heirloom Body Care: for bulk raw ingredients and lovely things.

more lacuna sabbath

I think it is going to be one of those reflective days. Just what the Lacuna Sabbath is for.

I am wondering how the little rocketeer is going - there hasn't been a peep out of her since last week - the busy work week leading up the the big painting and moving in to her new little apartment in Brissy. I get all teary with pride when I think about this clever young woman. The Rocketeer, Couragnaut (aka Pa Kettle & Mountain Man) and I worked together in an amazingly fraught work environment - the work itself should have been (and to some extent was) exciting and important, but the whole experience was overtaken by the madness (narcissistic personality disorder) of our supposed boss. As a team, we tried many strategies to manage the crazy person, get stuff done and try and made things functional, but in the end, the whole thing descended into pear-shaped bananadom. We all managed to limp out of there alive - mostly.

Our shared experience of the whole ordeal has forged a formidable triangulation of strength, mirth, resilience and the deepest love and friendship. An incongruous trio - but lovely non the less.

And now Pa Kettle and I get to see her bounce up the ladder and zoom though her life with much pride and wonder. We are very fond of that little person.

Coming soon: updated shampoo & conditioner recipes & a first attempt at hippy herbal natural moisturiser............

Lacuna Sabbath

*yay* This lacuna sabbath will be a double cellebration - a day of mooching AND rain - the real stuff, overnight. hooray! Must have been the 6 bales of straw we left stacked out in the open that brought the storm on. Will remember than next time.

While daylight saving was not designed for dairy farmers, I think it will be of some benefit to rooster owners. Maurice is starting to drive us a bit nutty with his very early crowing. (watch out Maurice!)

Having completed an early morning mug of tea holding inspection of the garden, I can report the following:

• Despite late frost and many bare branches, there some some mulberries ripening up (mostly out of reach).
• Marionberries (or are they kerriberries?) are doing very well indeed. Fluffy chickens have stolen all young fruit within fluffy chicken reach (not very far) but happy to share.
• There are good signs for a modest raspberry harvest
• Avocados - complete disaster. Will replace with hardy berries and perhaps one more kiwi.
• Kiwi vines - lots of flower buds on male vine. So far, only a few on one of the females. Hopeful, but not holding breath.
• Nashis - the earlier budjump problem has resulted in a no-nashis-this-year year.

Something has eaten my young dill plant. Other herb plantings are going well. Parsley lovely but older stuff going to seed. Brandy wine tomato seedlings going well. Have put some more seeds in to get a second round. Silver beet coming along well.

Reasonable for such a young garden methinks. It is good however, that we are only playing at being self sufficient, and that there is money for food!

Amelia the youngest duck is sitting very tightly on a little clutch of eggs. Second week in I think. I have pulled out most of the eggs so that we do not suddenly have 23 ducks in the backyard. She is AMAZINGLY aggressive - much more than her lovely mother. I am most impressed with her clever instincts. Clever Amelia.

More reports as news comes to hand.

Bianca

Yesterday was meant to be a very happy day with the return of the working girls (Bianca, Charlotte and Gretel) from their mobile chook run down and the community garden back home. Everything was going well - I went down early to get the girls. When I let them out into a run on the back lawn, I noticed that Bianca was not looking well. I didn't notice anything when I went to pick her up at the garden, and she was perching the night before, but she was very not OK now. Her undercarriage was very distended and she was having trouble walking. Her usually jaunty tail was touching the ground. I couldn't feel any eggs inside her, but her cloaca was very enlarged. She was eating however and still managed to struggle up to me whenever I went to check on her.

Anyhoo, by the afternoon she was no better, perhaps a bit worse, flopping over on her side and she did not perch. She smelt sick. Joe came over to help relocate their big chook run home, and we agreed that she had probably prolapsed, and would probably go down hill very quickly. So Joe did the deed and I held her while she died, stroking her and telling she what a lovely chook she was.

I had been increasingly worried about her - all three had gone off the lay early in winter, but she had not come back on despite the array of treats, fresh greens, comfrey and supplements, which was very strange.

Poor Bianca. Wonderful layer of enormous white eggs. Bianca with the lovely pearly earlobes. Bianca who slept in my pockets when she was little. Naughty, bossy, scratchy Bianca.

Oh for the love of a cross bred chook!

Lacuna Sabbath

Just to prove I am a flexible free range chook and that my hours really are stretchy and ribboned, this Lacuna Sabbath was spent working in Goulburn - a series of meetings in my favourite cafe - the Greengrocer which combines all my favourite things in one shop, in the town of my birth, served by lovely people. The Greengrocer combines fresh local produce, a bike shop specialising in TREK bikes, fabulous fresh healthy food and great soy lattes. What more could a free range chook want? I mean, if you have to have back to back meetings, I can't really think of a better way to do it.

did I mention I love my job?

Other news, tomorrow we are off to Narooma for a wedding, staying the night in a little eco-motel on the edge of town.

And, this may only be of interest to Sherdie, but the biggest hippy and I have moved offices - we have lost our veggie garden car park with the worm farm and compost bin, and are now making do with a veranda! I need to clean up one of the worm farms to put up there. Naturally the biggest hippy has already planted a new herb and salad garden in pots, and furnished the veranda with second hand rocking chairs and coffee tables. The new tenants in our old digs have strict instructions to water the garlic and to maintain our record of not letting an ounce of organic matter leave the site. Naturally we will be back to harvest in a few months.

So even though I only go into the office once or twice a week, it is lovely to know it has all the mod cons - you know, like a newly fixed blue teapot from ebay, lettuce, parsley, oregano, coriander, thyme and micro-livestock.

A duckie has gotta have standards.

working from home

Tuesday and Wednesday I went in to my little office in Queanbeyan to catch up with some colleagues and in theory, to work like a Trojan on the business plan.

Well, it was lovely to have cups of tea and chats with people, but the computer systems were playing up, and the server was soooooo slow. At one stage it took 45 minutes just to open an XL spreadsheet.

By late yesterday I could feel the stress bubbles starting to rise! I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about work - just like I used to. This was VERY battery hen like and most un-free range chook like. The tutti fruiti time decree is that night is for sleeping, not worrying about work.

This morning I woke up early, meditated and 7.30am found me ploughing away from my home office, up to my armpits in business plan. Suddenly it was 11:00am and perfect time for a cuppa and a trip out to see the chookies. I then jogged down to the community garden to let the big chooks out.

After a quick bite to eat and some more chicken love, I got back into it working solidly through to 5.00pm, where I stoped and zipped into town to buy some more chook food.

I got HEAPS done. HEAPS and HEAPS and HEAPS. It suits me so well to work from home. I just need to remember that next time I start feeling frazzeled.

I am a free range chook living in tutti fruiti time again! yeah!