hot smoked mackerel

I went for a dive here and set my little net, and didn't get a lot - but there was one yellow-tail scad - mackerel

They're common enough at this season - we get huge shoals feeding on the galaxias, with predatory fish feeding on mackerel beneath them - this isn't something I'd had within 40 feet of the shore in about 3 meters of water. typically a schooling fish, so I was surprised to get one.

I filleted and salted it.

Left the salt on for about 20 minutes - I normally aim for 3 for frying. Rinsed it off, patted it dry and ground tassie mountain pepper onto it. I let it airdry for a bit and then hoy smoked over some gum saw-dust. It was less golden than I liked - a bit too dark. I served it on buttered cous cous with morrocan salad and little black-skinned tomatoes.

Not too bad, really. Total cost half a cup of cous cous and a little salt.

The Teeny-Tiny home

Well, the process of strangling new home building with red tape continues apace. Honestly, the entire exercise seems to be designed to make it as difficult and expensive as possible - for no benefit to the new home owner. We'll still get there but the time line keeps growing. So does the expense. Most of building money is now going into things like the septic system (which is a prebuilt unit a monkey (even me) can install - but needs a $90 an hour plumber) and its soakaway which -once again - has multiple possible and effective solutions - but one permitted one (far from the best one), which involves importing stone - an expensive exercise and unnecessary. Putting in a fire tank - although we have a permanent waterhole which is easier to use, getting the track gravelled and so on.

So one of my friends pops up a picture on her sidebar on facebook showing a 'tiny home' built on a truck. I was amused (it's a mobile home, and therefore not subject to all the endless crapola, unless you actually plan to take it on the road, which would make it subject to road regulations.) so I sent it on to Barbs.

So guess what I am doing next? :-)

The reality is that living on site will cut our traveling time, and our expenses (no rent to pay, no fuel and wear and tear to-and-fro) by a lot, enabling us to build faster, and save the money needed for the sea of relentless red-tape. And at the end of the day we have a little one-room place on the back of an old Bedford as guest lodging.

Anyway, as you can see, the clearing goes on. I've brought back two loads of wood as well as taking a load of corrugated iron scrap and old timber and poles
from the tip for the orchard and pig-sty. We had some little adventures there as Barbs wanted to see what I'd done and got to the steepest part of our 'circular' drive and got into the slithers with the trailer. All fun-and-games until someone gets killed as they say! Anyway, no lives lost. The grass is very slithery.

Had the NBN guys here today, saying they could do nothing - the service is just intermittently rubbish - but they did point out that I am going to have dramas with getting the internet satellite dish put up at the new place. It isn't simple ever. But we go on.