In the Kitchen...........

What a busy week we had last week!  Australia Day last Wednesday saw Pete and I head to Lake Hume in the boat for a bit of fishing and enjoying some time together that didn't involve a whole lot of work!!  It seems all the time together in the past months has mostly been working on getting things done around the house or helping Dad at his place.

We had a great time out on the water with a few bites and we both caught a few fish, although most needed to be thrown back - but we did end up with 3 keepers which was a nice couple of feeds!

 

 Anyhow, the vegie garden has been supplying like its making up for us not having a vegie garden for the past 4 yrs!!!  I spent all day Thursday in the kitchen getting a bit of our produce made up.  Since it looked like rain, it was a tad cooler than it had been the previous few days (at least to syart with it was lol). 

 I managed to get cucumbers pickled (a first time for this), a new marmalade recipe I've had for some time from a friend (thankyou Lyn), and the usual tomato relish, and plum jam to add to the strawberry jam I'd made last month.  

Lyn also asked me about my Japanese maple that I have planted out in the front garden so I said I would share a photo of it here on the blog ..... it was in a pot for the last couple of years keeping watch over Scruffy who is now buried beneath the tree (we just kept the pot but cut off the bottom of it before popping it into the ground. It's a rather busy garden now as things have grown well over the past couple of months and the little blue wrens are beginning to visit now.

But back to the kitchen .................  after spending all day Thursday standing on the hard floor tiles (I did have a kitchen/bath mat I was using to stand on, but let me tell you - its old and I had no idea it was as thin as it is till I had to stand on the tiles for so many hours of peeling, cooking etc etc) - It was time for a new thicker kitchen mat!!!  A trip to Spotlight didn't produce anything significant so I decided to

have a go and make my own!!!  One size 12 crochet hook and a pile of yarns that don't get used for anything much at all (or are left over from other projects) ...... and I have a nice squishy mat for the kitchen floor!!!  I was lucky to have some chunky cotton yarn in my stash left over from some big cushions I did a year or two ago and this made a big difference to the squishyness of it!!  I think I could use with making a few more of these but will either have to find some more of the chunky yarn as a base or cut up some old t-shirts to use.   I haven't blocked it yet, so it's looking a bit out of whack, but I really wanted to just be able to stand on it and figured I can block it into shape when it has it's first wash!!!  I need to make one for in front of the stove top and another to have to swap over when this one is in the wash as I figure it may take a bit of drying time!!

Now I had hoped to get this post written up on Friday ..... and then the weekend ....... but - internet issues with my laptop - not the phones so it wasn't the modem this time, but my laptop would not connect to the WIFI or any internet and went on strike from Friday till just now - having had to take it in to get checked and waiting with the tech for 15mins before it decided it was even going to start .........oh dear!  Yep, its a few years old, it was cheaper one at the time purchased from Office Works which I later regretted to no end as after the purchase there is no assistance with anything going wrong!!!  So I came home with a new laptop which I'll work on setting up later this evening - for this post I already have photos saved so......... and it's suddenly connecting to the WIFI now, but it's s l o w ...   I'll be treating it nicely while I get all my files and such transferred or saved.  Anyhow, I best keep moving with other things to do ......... catch you soon!