The furniture mazurka and other dances

Well, with James and Alanna arriving tonight, we had the interesting moving of furniture dance, which was...hmm. You know, there is a lot to be said agaisnt living in a barn, but, unlike here there are no flimsy drywall/clapboard/prefab type stuff to try to avoid putting holes in. Actually, it has the plus side of making our brave young moveroos less gung ho than usual. Eh, nothing like being that age for lift-shift. The bad news is, of course that it will be no one other than yours truly and B doing the reverse shuffle.

Things are a little busy with the family here. We had a lovely weather day today, and went out floundering with Clare (M'lady backhand smash, as the terrified garfish respectfully call her tennis stroke harvesting style). We did get 8 of them and 5 flounder, and Clare speared her first two flounder. She's quite amazing. Just a few photos of the climbing at Emita, and the views and the bay.

Pads and Clare here

Clare and Paddy are safely here (See Dave and Barbs do happy dance, prance and leap in the air). Paddy has done time re-adjustment by sleep deprivation so some statements at present are meaningful to Gerbils. But we love Gerbils :-). They've both gone off to Sing Australia tonight, Clare driving. This is going to take some getting used to! Paddy hasn't got an international driver's licence (only an SA one) so he gets to be a passenge. Hee hee. I can already see people saying 'like father, like son', although he does the driving back in South Africa. (I actually quite enjoy driving these days. It's other people on MY road I detest. Have they no respect for my property? And Barbs hates other people driving her, and mine most of all. If she ever says 'drive me to the doctor' I'll know she thinks she's dying.)

I have planted some more garlic out, and am hoping to get some more on top of this. Yes, actually I do live in mortal fear of vampires. How ever did you guess. And it's the sparkly ones that really dislike garlic, I've heard.

Anyway, we're holding thumbs for a little decent weather, in the mad social whirl. Tomorrow looks half OK.

Glue-tin gluten stodge

We have a very dear friend who is modern wheat intolerant (actually I think I've met 4 friends on island who are either wheat or gluten intolerant. And I'd never met one before I came here) so I was trying my hand at making a cake with gluten free flour and xanthin gum. Do not try this in your own home unless you wish to come to a sticky end. Well, a sticky egg-beater, anyway. This is the stuff they use for special effects in horror movies. 'It came from... (suitable shrieky-squeaky music)the mixing bowl' I put the beater tines in and it surged up like some ameobic monster, slcurging its spinning way to the attack, growing as it did. "Today the beater and the hand, tomorrow Whitemark, maybe next week... Melbourne." I've a mind to turn it loose on an Aussie rules game, just to see if anyone realised what was happening, or if they all really are as confused as me, and thought players being doughed was just normal. I'm trying, but really it is very confusing game. I know now just how Americans feel about cricket.

And the end result was ghastly stodge. I've got some spelt flour coming over and I hope that's less evullll!

An e-mail in to say James has arrived in Perth with GF.:-) MUCH appreciated, as I am a worrier. So Perth, bring out your very best weather and fun, because I want them to love you.

Olives and Cat-and-mouse-astrophes.

Well we've been busy little self-suffiency-ites today. 34 bottles of Olives now bottled and ready for putting away. We picked a little later and cut all the way around this year, and the results are excellent. The olives just did their 3 weeks in strong brine and are little salty but edible already. They'll only get better.

For the record here is the method we used: cut a slit all the way around the olive, and then soak changing the water at least daily, in fresh water weighted down with a plate to keep them below the surface for 20 days. I was cautious and started adding a half a handful of salt every day afer the first week, just to muck the pH around for any bacteria. At 20 days I made a strong brine (1 cup of salt 4 liters of water, and this got changed weekly. They did 3 weeks in strong brine. At this point I bottled them, put a little wreath of herbs on top (to keep the Olives down) and filled each bottle with weak brine. The olives are eatable now, and ought to be fantastic in a few months. Before we eat them, I rinse the salt off, put them into Olive oil and rosemary and lemon juice to steep for at least a day. 34 bottles may sound a lot, but I use olives in an array of things (and you thought that was a sour cherry in your black forest cake?), and they're also very popular trading produce items.

We also did the first pine-nuts from the garden. We have 34 shelled nuts, or about 15 grammes! And it only took about an hour, one crushed finger and a blood-blister on my palm. These are NOT trading items. Don't even suggest it! Some things may be not really worth self sufficiency. I will never look on pesto lightly again. There has to be a better way of doing this... like a supermarket.

We also finally had the right tide for squid not intersecting with a howling gale. We got 34... only minus the thirty. Still 4 was a good haul and Barbs and I each got a big one, and I lost one through trying to be be clever, and got bitten by one for the same reason. I don't know why I keep doing that... The same experiment and hoping for a different result.

Of course the morning did see its own little bit cleverness. Robin cat in wee-small hours, with a mouse. MEEEEEAOW! Meeeow! (out of the side of the meowth, the front being kinda mouse occupied.) "Lookit Me! I got a mouse. I am the cleverestest! I am the bestestest!"

Whereupon Barbs opens on eye, and tells her to shut up and eat it. Of course, cat, being a cat pays no attention and lets mouse go. Squeak-squeak meeeow squeak squeak meeow, snore (the snore is from me, happily in the land of Nod during this saga.) The noise stops before I am prodded from this happy country, and Barbs returns to sleep, until I bring her her coffee, blissfully unaware that there is a mouse (a live trapped mouse) behind the door screen.

Barbs gets up and realises Robin is staring intently at this piece of wood. So she moves it. The cat, not your real-life athlete, misses her pounce, and mouse on a serious shrink dives into the hinge corner of door and part way through. Barbs yells for me (in the throes of ye culinary task of making porrige) and armed only with a stirring spoon I arrive, panting. "There's a mouse stuck under the door."

I contemplate suggesting offering it some porrige. Decide the suggestion not worth the risk of being force-fed the spoon sideways down an orifice not designed for spoons, and grab some Loo-paper instead (on account of having been bitten by mice before) Try to sieze mouse. Mouse makes herculean effort on seeing hairy man with loo-paper, lifts door on its hinges and darts past my foot, into the gap under Paddy's room door - in theory stuffed with cloth to stop this very thing as Pads is allergic to cats and thus his door is always closed, and the cats excluded. Only the cats have taken to catching mice and letting them go in the passage... and they run under the door.

So we block it up. Especially seeing as B has been vaccuuming it and airing curtains and changing linen on account of the Pads and Clare coming on Monday...

Except the smart alec cats have clawed it out, because they're quizzy. So we had three cats and moi crawling around mouse hunting in the new cleaned room.

Fiction is so relaxing after this!

Got the 3 month electric bill again. Usage is up (more freezers and maybe more cooking) and of course price is WAY up. Sigh. I dream of going off grid. I really really do.

Otherwise it's been a day of work on the book, and a hearty mutton stew for supper.

Walkies

Well, we cleared out all the pruned olive branches (there will be no sudden outbreaks of peace my garden. War to the weed!) from the pruning picking. Barbs also did some more gutter cleaning and I finished up planting the Chookabago track (I've dug over behind them assuming that a little chicken poo fresh will do no real harm. The 'bago is on a fresh piece of land every day.) I've had to take out the tussocks with a fork, but the rest is scratched over. I've put in peas, bulb-fennel brocolli, parsnips, silverbeet and even a few carrots and onions in a very long bed. It's all scrap seed collected from our own plants, so if it grows, a win, and if not - a bit of labour lost. This may be the case with the olives - if so we just won't do it again. Anyway, I can say we tried it.

The weather being better (slightly) we took the dogs to the beach for a walk. Puggle still has to stay on the lead to stop him running too much, but much joy by all. They do love the strange smells, especially the dead penguin and the news left on dog-gossip corner (a bush plainly favored for 'messages')



I got a new seed catalog. More weird things to try. It's plant porn I tell you!

And more writing...