Rodent Control Officer

My eldest son has been telling me how they keep catching mice in the flat (brand new 5 bedroom house actually) he is in.  This time of the year those little buggers want to live in doors.  So today his girlfriend and I went and got a cat!!

I found this gorgeous Red head who was in need of a new home all for free on trade me.  Flicked a quick text expressing interest and next thing we were off with my cat carry cage.  He is about 2 - 3, just been de-knackered, micro chipped, de-fleaed, immunised and all ready to embark on his new career as the Rodent Control Officer. He was called Ginger Nut, but now nutless and nameless, with a number of new names floating about and yet to be voted on.

What ever he ends up being called he will get plenty of love and attention.  I bought him some food, toys, and a indoor potty.  Hopefully he will catch the odd rodent!

Planning another garden and got me a job.

Last weekend me and TOF went for a drive to Matangi a quick drive out of Hamilton into the country.  I had won an auction on trade me for some retaining blocks, 50+ to be exact for $20.  We borrowed a mates trailer and headed off.

At the gate to the place we were picking up the blocks was this huge fella.  Love to have him chilling out in my back yard!!  We loaded the trailer twice and ended up leaving the big blocks behind.  It was an afternoon of loading and unloading but it is going to be great building walls in the garden out the back!

A selfie with my stash of blocks!!

This should keep me busy out the back for ages, just need to move them out there  now!!

Spotted this very cool Dinosaur skeleton letterbox.  The letter part was in its mouth.  Then there was this cute little Church that would make the perfect little home for me and TOF, with all our pets.  The unfortunate thing is it is still in use. One day I will find one that is begging to be lived in. This weekend I am off to  pick up another win of TM, bulk lot of bulbs!!  Dafs, Hyacinths, and Jonquils. They are going to be randomly planted out the back in all my little gardens.  Have another area of lawn that is going to be barked.  I pruned a branch of my big old Idesia tree to make the edging like I have on the other side of the lawn. I am going to be a busy bee!!  Oh and I have gone and got me a job.  2 afternoons a week so only 6 hours in total in the office of a sign writing place, doing the accounts.  Pretty stoked because I can still keep my Monday gig, play amongst the op shops, visit my friends and pretend to be a housewife!!

*Have a fabulous weekend*

Beetroot and Seed Cake

I had some Beetroot that I had pulled out of the garden a few days back.  Not enough to bottle so my dilemma was what to do with it. So I googlized things to do with Beetroot and also just happened to watch good old Hugh Fern-Leaf-never-grow from River Cottage make lots of things with Beetroot.  So armed with a recipe and my ingredients I was off to Build me a cake.

First I weighed out 225g of self raising flour, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.  This was all sifted into a large bowl and set to one side.

Next I was to get some Madagascan or Muscovy duck or something like that sugar. Buggered if I knew what that was but it started with an M and I didn't have any so I used castor sugar.  Ok so in my blender went 225g castor sugar with 180ml of sunflower oil.  Blend together then add 3 egg yolks one at a time and blend each time.  The blender is such fun, pulse, pulse, Bleeeennnd!!  Make sure the lid is on tight.

Add the juice of half a lemon. I realised while doing all this cake construction how I seem to have all my grandmothers old baking tools.  Like her solid as a brick you know what lemon squeezer.  Pretty sure I was using her old wind the handle and hope for music sifter too!! Oh yeah, BLEND!!

Grating Beetroot is farking messy work!!  And I had red fingers for a wee while there.  Anyway, you need 150g of raw and peeled grated beetroot and this is what it looks like.  Add this to the blender and, all together now, BLEND!!

Next you add 75g of sultanas and 75g of mixed seeds.  I used pumpkin, sunflower and linseed.  I have walnuts which I forgot to use, they aren't on the recipe but I think they would be tasty.  Back to Blending again. 

Now you add the brightly coloured mixture from the blender to the dry ingredients that have been waiting patiently on the bench.  Mix gently with a wooden spoon.

Remember the eggs, well you beat the whites until they are nearly STIFF!!

Add the Stiff whites to the wet Red stuff!!

It is so not like me to follow instructions exactly, but then again it is so not me to bake a cake that I have never made before.  But at this point you have to fold the egg whites into the cake mixture with a metal spoon.  Something to do with air I think?!  You fold this until all is combined in a happy relationship.

Pour the cake mixture into greased or lined loaf tins.  Place in the your oven at 180* for 30 minutes.   Set your timer!!

You now have half an hour to do what you want.  Like hang out some washing, do the dishes, check things on your computer and plan a new garden!!!

When the timer goes off you must return to the kitchen. 

Remove from the oven, cover with tin foil and put back in for another 25 minutes.

When these come out of the oven you let them rest covered for about 15 minutes before turning  onto a cooling rack.

Make some lemon drizzle with the juice of the other half of that lemon you used at the very beginning and probably cannot find, and some icing sugar.

Drizzle over the top of the loaves and top off with Poppie Seeds!!!

Ready with a freshly picked bunch of garden flowers to go for a drive in the country for lunch.

And here are my two guinea pigs taste testers!!  Sue and Liz, also Joe was there but wouldn't join in with the picture taking.  This went down well after a fabulous lunch of mushroom soup and tasty farm bake bread.

I think it is safe to say it was a success!!  But lets not tell TOF that I can actually bake!

Where was I?

I was all over the place, that's where I was!!

One place I was at was on Wednesday I did some helping at the SPCA Op Shop.  One of the lovely ladies lives in the country and had brought in a bucket full of freshly picked field Mushrooms!!  I knew TOF would be beyond excitement if I took some home and HE WAS!! Mushrooms on toast for his dinner if I remember correctly.  So many that I gave some away and froze some. Even got given some butter nut crunch lettuce plants that have been planted out with the silver beet and beetroot plants I went and bought.  I grow the silver beet mainly for my girlies as a thank you for all the lovely eggs they give me. They also helped in the garden after I had pulled out the last of my old beetroot plants by way of rotary hoeing for me only as a good chicken can do!!

I do love all my girls!!

My mate Oscar has been keeping me company today while I have been photographing more things to go on trade me.  I have furniture and clothing to list today so I best hop to and get it done.

Enjoy your weekend and keep happy and well.

:-)

This post unfortunately has been edited so smaller than originally due to a request to have pictures removed.

Rain, Chics and Man Bag!

On the weekend the Sky fell over and cried so hard that it RAINED!!  We so needed the rain, so THANK YOU!!  Thing is due to it having been the most perfect summer and very hot and dry the poor ground is rock hard like concrete so  all this rain just sat merrily on top.  We had puddles on our back lawn and mini flooding out the front.  The drains haven't drained anything for quite some time and our one had even grown some wild plants.  Some people might even call them weeds!  So my Koru garden was under water for a big part of the weekend, but all is well now and back to normality.

Today I went for a little drive to Karipiro just out of Hamilton past Cambridge, to collect two new girls for the chicken coup.  The small one is a Peking Bantam and the other one is an Araucana cross but she will lay the colourful eggs for me.  $10 each off Trade Me!!  Pretty stoked as they popped perfectly into my cat cage, traveled quite well, and are settling into the coup with the other girls.  There is a lot of discussion going on in there at the moment but I am sure they will sort it out.  They are females after all.  So the Bantam is called Coral, after my God mother who passed away a few years ago.  She is the grandmother of my god daughter and the mother of my good friend Leonie.  I don't think any of them will mind and I am sure Coral would get a good old giggle out of having a chook named after her.  As for the other one well she is called Mrs Wickham, Dorothy, or Dot for short.  Named after my lovely old friend Dot who passed away last year at the ripe old age of 96.  All my girls are named after good old birds that have passed on.

Last but by no means least, the Man Bag!!  Retro Vinyl over nighter for $5 from my local salvo.  Hopefully TOF will be impressed with his new over night bag.  

* Toodles *

Tiara day and a bit of crafting

Darling Sarah my favourite Misfit announced it to be Tiara day on Friday.  Of course one had to don ones Tiara even if it was a mini one.  Last night while wearing my Tiara I had a strong desire to be crafty!!  Living in a household that is male dominated which means SPORTS on TV on a Friday, I disappeared off into my bedroom.  Armed with wooden beads in a range of colours, cords, and my pottery discs I had made I got creative.  I put the TV on in my bedroom and watched, well listened to the new season of "The Voice" Australia.  I am  a lot like my dearly departed dad in the way that like him when I make something I don't usually make only one!!  Here's the proof.

I am pretty stoked with the end result too.  I am keeping 3 of the pottery ones, already given the red and white heart one to a friend that visited me today, and the necklace I made with the Buddha is so being kept.  And I still have more to make if I want to.  May take the spares into work on Monday and try and sell them or put them on Trade Me.  Speaking of which, I listed a couple of Crown Lynn pieces today that I picked up for only $1 each, featuring Disney characters, with in a few minutes the first bid was on.   Ching ching!!

Forgot to tell you that the book fair was brilliant, but I only came home with two books, at $3 each.  One is on English Heritage from the Air, and it is amazing, loads of fabulous old castle ruins and such stuff.  The other one "How to be a gardener, secrets of success" by Alan Titchmarsh.  I have watched a TV series by this man and loved it so why not I thought.  At $3 a book it would be very easy to be reckless but I did have limited funds, and I am more than happy with what I came home with.  There is another book fair later on in the year so maybe I will tuck some $$$s away for it.

Hope you all are enjoying a pleasant weekend.  We have RAIN and lots of it so it will be indoor activities for me tomorrow!!

* Toodles *

I sort of frocked up today

I fell in love with this dress coat top thing last winter but it didn't quite do the double breasted button up thing.  So I was pretty dam stoked when I slipped it on this morning and it fitted properly!!  Off I went to do the grocery shop, and a trip to a shopping mall to have a mocca with a friend who has a crappy job in a mall shop.  I so couldn't do it, I would rather starve!!  Not one shop in the mall enticed me in it's door to even browse through the endless over stocked racks of the same dam thing but in a different colour.  My outfit today was a combination of second hand and old favourites.  Pretty much how I roll.

While doing my photo shoot out the front I noticed that my Ranuculars or is it the Anemones have sprung up!!  Well it is one or the other that has joined in with popping out of the soil to join in the growth thing with my Freesias. Exciting!!

I made another batch of dog biscuits for Oscar.  Somehow I have misplaced my recipe but no worries, I made this one up.  Sort of remembered what was in the last lot and the quantities, but added a spoonful of peanut butter and a crushed up weetbix. Oscar seemed to enjoy them so that is all good, they are after all for him as he is the one with the allergy to beef products.  They are looking pretty good in the jar, maybe too good, so they have been labeled as Oscars Biscuits!!

Tomorrow I am planning to go to a Book Fair that is held every year at the Waikato Racing Club, which just happens to be very near where I live.  I have a list of books to try and find and a small amount of cash, so with a bit of luck and guidance from my guardian angel I may well have some books to bring home with me.  Then bugger me it will be the weekend, and the forecast is for rain, so perfect timing for a spot of book reading really!!

* Toodles *