"Spring in the air, Dave!"

says the vicar to the yokel, as he takes a deep breath of the moderate gale.
Dave (leaning on his fork and cursing the wind) "Spring the air yerself, vicar!"

We really are having yuck spring weather. I need to get into the water and it's been windy to horrid (yes, I go all solid if I don't get wet in salt water frequently enough. A shower is no substitute.)

Anyway, I wrote today, avoided frogs, and did my duty by some weeding. Another wildly exciting day. I roasted the hind half of a small wallaby whole for our dinner basting it generously with olive oil and thyme. I then sliced it off the bone and into tacos filled with fresh lettuce and tomato and chili, and added some fresh green sauce. It was fit for kings, or even really important folk.

Dancing got cancelled tonight, so my hips get a rest.

The travelling frog

See... it's been marking time through winter. But my first bell pepper is going red.

I had to go into town today, and in my usual fashion I got involved in writing, was running late, ran out, grabbed shoes from next to the door, and grabbed the bits I needed, and trundled into the great city (Whitemark. pop 170 I think) and into the Doctors to pick up a script. This is Flinders so there are a couple of folk you know in and yakitty-yak. I've got a stone in my shoe, so I arch my foot up. Off to Bill's to drop in some fennel and some olive oil. Must take this stone out of my shoe. Arch foot. Into the PO to get post and to send off a postal order for my seeds. Dratted stone! Read post, drive to pick up chicken food, park a bit far off and having crossed the road, the stone is really annoying. So I stand on one leg and pull the elastic-sided boot off... tip it upside down... and a very unhappy little frog jumps out and looks at me reproachfully. So I put him in the bushes.

He's writing a very harsh letter to the ministry of frogs.

Today was pet-food day. Oh and recapture the AWOL chicken day. One had wondered out of the 'bago, as they'd finished their food, and the front edge wasn't down hard. Fortunately the chooks are very tame, so I just walked slowly up to her and she let me pick her up and take her back. I brought them all some little bits of fish as a reward and apology. They take them from my fingers, bit pecky but it does make them very tame. I'd better feed them early tomorrow.

We minced 27 days ration of cat fish, and 21 days of dog-roo cubes cut, bagged and frozen. We like to do these in big batches so it's not an every day chore. Thank heavens for freezers. I like to live in the past but with modern conveniences.

We're having our last peaceful night for about 5...
I thought life in the country was supposed to be slow and quiet, and good for my work!

Manic monday

Well, just another manic Monday - very little actual story writing done, but 4K of writing - an interview and my post for Mad Genius club, and Monday is my baking day - I do our rolls for the week, and every second week I make a batch of bikkies (cookies) - usually Anzacs because I can do these in my sleep. This week we're having potato and oat and raisins (I cut the flour, just as the Portuguese in Mozambique did, with potato to save flour. I can grow potatoes. Have to buy flour), and potato, tomato, fennel and olive and cheese savory rolls (we alternate one sweet one savory days). I like to vary it all a bit. More website wrestling this morning but Tania is slowly getting DaveFreer.com to look like a site, which we can hopefully sell some books from. When Barbs got in we had lunch, took the dogs for a run (and they found a dead seabird... and didn't roll in it or eat it. The end is nigh.) and then went to cut some wood. And tonight I am going out with the licensed 'roo shooter, so hopefully some more wallaby for us and the dogs. We took out a batch of fish to thaw to mince for the cats, but it's in fridge, have to wait for chaos Tuesday...

Not one of immortal days, just eternal

Well, this morning we went to the taste of Flinders thing which was, sadly, a real let down. Look, the island produces (commercially) some of the best garlic, olive oil, salad leaves, wallaby, crayfish, abalone, honey, beef, lamb, garfish, muttonbirds. That's without going onto things like the home made produce or handcrafts, and the game animals. I expected - at least, to have products made from the above and raw materials (ie. local mayo and soap from olive oil, nougat from honey etc... and the raw materials on sale. This is marketing, for which I have all the natural talent of your average zombie selling zit cream to teenagers. We had the CWA doing tea and scones, some local jam (for sale not taste and buy) and Freckles and the Bakery selling... their normal produce, someone else selling pies... Some of which might be quite nice, but not exactly a gastronomic introduction to the island's treasures.

Which brought me to the rest of my day which was... marketing. Well, trying to set things up to do so. Doing all the legwork which I have zero skills at and no real grasp of, for goodreads, trying to get my webpage sorted, trying to get it so I could have amazon links on it. Trying, futilely to get facebook and twitter and google+ and linkedin and uncletomcobblysillyness all to interelate. I object to giving my time and content as free add ons, to publishers and retailers for the around 10% they give me of my cover price - if I'm lucky(books you buy in Australia for ludicrous prices... earn me 64 cents, US cents at that. Which I will get in 9-16 months time. Yes, actually, I do resent this), but if I don't do the promotion and marketing -- thank heavens for the help of some friends--It just is not done at all (and yes, oddly, for 90% of the income, I expect 90% of the cost and work to come from that 90%, not 90% from me, and 10% from them. Mr Grumpy here!) Anyway, thank heavens for Tania and O'Mike and Paddy, or my 10% share would be even smaller. I feel getting me to write the blogs is possibly something only I can do. But I can either spend time writing or on social media. Not both. And I am so _not_ a salesman. Certainly not good at blowing my own trumpet! I'm not a computer geek either that has endless hours to spend setting things up. I'm not paid large amounts, so hiring someone to do this is not a possibility (trust me, I would, if I could.). I'm a writer. If people -ie my publishers, retailers or my readers want me to write books... then no, I will not spend much time on twitter. (here endeth the grumble).

Anyway we had two grilled little zebra perch (can only be speared, which is why they're not often on the menu, despite being a delicious and not rare fish). Stuffed with fennel leaves and grilled they were utterly delectable. Life on the island is so much better than life looking at a computer screen in some city, so I should be very grateful, and I am.

Bouncing in boats

Well, we went down to Lady Barron (dodging runners on the Pub-to-pub run (Francis, what could appeal more - except better beer too))to go for a trial in my off-island friend's boat-to-be. It's an aluminium tri-hull and handles everything well but turns at speed. I was quite impressed with it in a nasty short chop - Appropriate as the seller is a butcher. We were doing about 23 knots in 2 foot waves and you needed bendy knees - but it had the free-board to let you stand. The tide-race between Flinders and Cape Barren Islands is actually terrifyingly strong - what happens when you put a few big constricting lumps of rock in front of a couple of metres of water... a few miles wide. We really ought to be able to power the islands off that channel.

Unfortunately we didn't stop to catch any fish.

Other than that I've worked a bit, gardened a little - lettuce is coming through very well, and tried a different method with squid wings and tentacles. It was very average, so I probably won't bother again. We use the tubes - both as rings and for stuffing - a lot. I tend use the wings and to lesser extent tentacles for bait - thing is they're pretty good bait for deep water flathead... good in that they catch and good in that the bait stays on. So our supply of wings is quite high, and tubes are not. So I am looking for good uses for squid wings.

Steamed fish?

What is shaoxin rice wine? Or what is it's nearest island-available without breaking the bank equivalent?

I was being very doubtful about steamed fish. My memories of this with butter and parsley - white and quite tasteless are not encouraging. One of our visitors --Young med student -- was saying how delicious it was Chinese style. I must have mentioned this to an Asian friend when we were over Melbourne some months ago - and today he e-mailed me the recipe. I believe they use wrasse (which I make fish cakes from, and feed the cats on) for it, so I'd like to try it as they're among our most common fish - but really not much good in other ways. I think I may get quite a lot of consumer resistance here from Barbs, whose mum had ulcers and liked steamed, plain, fish. But I'll try it. Once.