Puppy Dog Eyes

With the unseasonably warm and sunny winter days comes rapid growth of the winter vegies.  I had a harvest day this week and was pleased with what I found beneath the soil.

 Much peeling and dicing ensued, then a quick blanch and a good long drain on towels.

 Then into little freezer baggies goes my stash of carrots, turnips, swedes and cabbage.  Plus two big jars of pickled beetroot.  That's the end of the turnips and swedes, but there are still plenty of small beetroot that need more growth before I pull those.  There are still heaps of carrots in the ground, nothing I love more than pulling a carrot whilst outside and munching on it after a quick rinse.  Same with the sugar snap peas, they never get to the frozen status, in fact they rarely even get inside the house!

 I love seeing my freezer like this, chock full of frozen vegies and serves of stews and stocks. 

 I made a batch of toasted muesli, thanks for the reminder Lesley!  I love homemade muesli and I am big on crunch so it has lashings of crunchy stuff in it such as slivered almonds and pepitas.  I refrained from adding fennel seeds, did that once, big mistake - too strong and you needed teeth like a horse to chew it!

 With the warm August our new fruit trees are a little confused.  Look at the almond tree, it has burst into flower and looks so pretty!  I've had this tree in a pot for 3 years and every year its roots grew threw the bottom of the pot into the ground so it got repotted into huger and huger pots.  It's a very strong grower.  We were worried that breaking off those roots that had gone through to pot would hurt the tree, but no, it's been in the ground a couple of months and you can see by the blossom that it is a very happy tree.  :-)

 One of the nectarines is at bud burst too, it's all so exciting!

 Whilst I was wandering the property I came across Brutus having a siesta.  He is HUGE, the biggest roo I have seen.  We don't see him very often, our place is filled with mums and bubs, but he wanders in periodically when he's feeling amorous.  I think he has the most beautiful eyes, puppy dog eyes.

But we have mucho respecto for this lad, I reckon he could rip a person to shreds if he felt like it.  So we keep our distance, and so does he.

 Steve's wonderful construction work continues.  He can be seen digging stuff, cutting stuff, measuring stuff, thinking about stuff and building stuff most of the day.

 Look at this corner that is finished, isn't it gorgeous!  I put the plants in yesterday, throwing caution to the wind.... we don't have the fence up yet to keep out the roos and rabbits, so these may well become a tasty snack, but we'll cross our fingers and hope there is enough good grass around for the hungry mouths instead.

 That same corner but looking from the back of the house.  I can see in my mind what I want this to look like, with various sizes and colours of plants, with some cascading over the edges.  I'm going to plant some diosmas on the top level, where the white sand is.

 Things are going slowly in the sewing room, with the sunny weather the garden beckoned.  Nonetheless my father-in-law's quilt continues.  I didn't have a piece of wadding big enough so ladder stitched two pieces together.  Neo supervised.  Neo also stole that reel of white thread a number of times and nicked off with it.

 Then he was fascinated with the scissors and kept whipping out a paw and trying to drag the scissors onto the floor.  Pain_In_The_Arse!

 Despite Neo's help I managed to make quilting decisions and started marking out circles.  This was the first attempt at quilting circles, I like the contrast of the circular quilting to the square piecing.

 Neo finally got fed up with being told off and having things taken off him, so he fell asleep on the ironing board.  He's so cute when he's asleep :-)

 If you go to the loo at our house, don't be surprised to see this under the door.  Neo is the toilet sentinel, he stands outside waiting, and if you are in there long enough he starts poking his paws under the door.  Weirdo.  One could say that I too am a weirdo for having a camera in the loo in the first place, but these sacrifices must be made for that perfect blog photo....

Did anyone see that massive moon over a few nights last week?  It was beautiful, and lit the outside up like it was dawn.