Accidents Happen

We heat our house with a wood fire.

Like most of Tasmania.

This is our first year supplying our own wood. The last two winters we've gotten wood from Phillip's parents.  We figured it was about time we become real grown-up married people and buy our own. Also, we don't like to mooch (though I guess we did work for at least some of the wood we were given, helping split wood at his parents).

Load of wood being delivered

The cheapest way to get wood turns out to be just buying it as logs. Massive logs that you cut and split yourself. Which meant that Phillip got to buy himself a few new toys so he could accomplish this task (being that I was super pregnant, I was not going to help cut and split wood).

So, this past summer, not only did we buy about 15 cubic meters of wood, but Phillip got himself a sweet deal on an Echo chainsaw, and a beautiful splitting ax from Fiskars. He liked his new toys.

All summer, on days that weren't blisteringly hot, Phillip would use bits of spare time to cut through logs with his chainsaw, and then split them into manageable pieces for our fireplace. The wood was then to sit out in the sun and rain for a few weeks so that the sap could be washed out, then put in the shed to dry out so and we could have nice dry wood to burn this winter, unlike the past two winters where most of our wood has either been somewhat green or wet. Our (well, Phillip's) goal was to have it all done by the time the baby came. He came fairly close to accomplishing this goal, too.

Testing out his new chainsaw!

Nearly ALL the logs are cut and half of it split!

Unfortunately, things don't always work as we plan, and, on May 4th, while I was inside cleaning like the crazy pregnant woman I was, hoping I would go into labor at any moment, Phillip was outside splitting wood. Fifteen minutes in, Phillip walks into the house with a funny smile on his face.

"Boy, that was a short time splitting" I said. To which Phillip replied, "I cut myself." very calmly, and then showed me his thumb.

Apparently, while trying to dislodge the ax from a block, he managed to run the VERY sharp blade along the back of his right thumb. And, if you know Fiskars products, they're amazingly sharp (which you want. I love Fiskars. Really, I do).

Into the bathroom I dragged poor bleeding Phillip to clean and look at his thumb. It didn't stop bleeding. The second pressure was off it, it started to pour out blood again (maybe I'm being a bit dramatic with the pouring bit, but it was bleeding a LOT). So we decided to drive up town to get some more bandaids and MAYBE go to the hospital.

In the middle of this trip, my midwife, Jenny, called, to see how I was doing. I said something along the lines of, "Well, I'M fine, but we're trying to decide if we should take Phillip to the ER for some stitches..." Jenny also happens to be a nurse at a clinic, which she told us to come down to so she could take a look at Phillip, give him stitches if necessary, then take a look at me. (See why I love my midwife? And that's only one of many reasons...)

Turns out, Phillip needed three stitches. And a tetanus booster. And a note for a week off work. Thankfully, though, no tendons were cut.

At the clinic, waiting for his DPT shot post sutures

And by the time I went into labor his thumb was mostly healed so I didn't have to worry too much about busting open his stitches or hurting him more while I squeezed his hand.

Nearly all healed up, one more week to go with stitches in
(also, the least bad part of the cut goes nearly to the last thumb joint)

Unfortunately, the time Phillip had to rest his thumb to properly heal, which turned out to be about 4 weeks, and then taking on a lot of the household responsibilities because I had to sit for hours nursing a very hungry baby, as well as recover, has left us with wet wood again this year. We have a system of bringing wood in to dry by the fire so it isn't as sodden as it could be, but it still means that our fire isn't burning as hot as we'd like. Alas, not much we can do about it, and at least we've figured out ways of keeping warm without having the fire going hot. Things like, wool socks, and lots of blankets. Or, my dad's favorite, vacuuming (well, when one doesn't have to carry a baby around). 

Circle of LIfe

Last week, Phillip had a few days off work in which he borrowed a DVD from friends on how to humanely kill and dress chickens. And, after watching it and taking notes, he did it with our extra roosters.

Yes, this may sound a bit harsh to some. Why would we raise, care for, and then kill what is sometimes a bit like a pet? Well, that was part of the deal we made with ourselves when we decided to get chickens and a rooster.

There isn't much of a point in owning a rooster unless you want chicks (though ours does have a wonderful personality and roosters in general can make great "guard dogs"). And, when allowing your hens to hatch chicks, there isn't really any way to guarantee that they're only hatching females, and not males. And, when you have too many mature roosters in your flock, the hens start to go off laying eggs. Which is the MAIN reason we have our hens to begin with.

(Why do hens go off laying eggs with too many roosters around? Mostly because the roosters try to mate with mature, laying hens, not hens who aren't laying eggs. If they're being "jumped on" too much, they'll stop laying so that the roosters leave them alone. We can tell when our young hens are going to start laying eggs because the rooster starts doing his funny mating dance for them.)

Anyway, when we got our chickens the "deal" was that, if we allowed hatchings, we would build up the flock with hens so we could have plenty of eggs for ourselves and to share with a few people, and extra roosters would be for meat.

The past year gave us two extra roosters that just entered their mature stage of life and needed either a new home, or to go in the freezer.

We found no homes for them, so, as said earlier, Phillip killed and dressed them. And, as someone who has only had experience with people either shooting or axing chickens up to this point, I was quite impressed with the gentle way that Phillip found to have them killed. It involves "hypnotizing" them by holding them upside down (this works great with fussy hens too, or just any chicken, and is kind of funny), and gently breaking their necks. This also leaves the meat in much better condition than shooting or axing them.

De-feathering was probably the easiest part of the job, since, being the first time we've had to kill chickens, and these being chickens we've helped raise and nurture, it was a bit hard emotionally (also, I'm flooded with pregnancy hormones at the moment and cried when Phillip brought the carcasses in the house).

Chilling out before we put them in the fridge so the meat
can relax before cooking or freezing.

But Phillip did a wonderful job, and I roasted one the other night with some carrots from our garden, potatoes and onion. After only 2.5 hours in the oven, he was really really tender and delicious. Is there a difference in taste with a fairly fresh, free-range, you-know-what-it's-been-eating rooster and one from the store? Not really. Fresher maybe, and, well, it was a bit tastier than store-bought. But honestly not much different.

We're Off To See The Tiddly Peeps

Chickens really are not the smartest of creatures.

This summer (the hottest on record here, though they've only been recording for the past 100 years), one of our chickens decided she wanted to be a mamma again. I guess she got jealous of the other hen who'd recently hatched a brood (you can see her baby photos here).

But, the hottest summer on record, our little yellow half-silky hen decided she wanted babies.

We did not. We had enough hens (5, though 2 were/are still too young to lay eggs just yet) and two extra roosters was more than we wanted (we'll be <gulp> killing and dressing them this weekend). So we tried to make her NOT broody (broody meaning, for those of you who don't talk about chickens, sitting on eggs and trying to hatch babies).

We took the eggs she managed to steal every day. This did not stop her, and she ended up, some days, just sitting on a nest of chicken turds. Gross. And dumb, as she wasn't even laying her own eggs, just stealing everyone elses.

Phillip, at one point, spun her around in a circle, to mimic one way we'd heard about to make chickens go off being broody. You put the hen in a bag, hang the bag on the clothes line, and spin it around, making them dizzy and they supposedly forget that they were broody. Phillip only spun her around in a circle while holding her (not in a bag), so he probably got more dizzy than she did. This did not work.

We tried shutting the chicken coop door during the day to keep her off her nest of turds, but she just found a place in the hay cock to sit instead. Also, we had to remember to go up in the early evening to open the door again so the chickens could go in to roost, so that when we went up to shut them in for the night, we didn't have to carry each chicken into the coop. Chickens, by the way, get remarkably dopey at night when they go to roost. It's kind of funny to see.

We tried dunking her belly and backside in water twice a day, which is supposed to make sitting on a nest really uncomfortable. I think this didn't work because it was so ridiculously hot, and the dip probably felt more revealing than uncomfortable to the stupid chicken.

For two months, I debated with Philip about just putting eggs under her, since she wasn't giving up. No, we didn't need or want more chickens, but we had friends that did. And more roosters would just mean more chicken in the freezer at some point, and we could sell or give away hens to, well, anyone. And I had to go up to the coop twice a day to give this idiotic hen water and food so she didn't cook herself to death in the heat anyway. Might as well get something out of her sitting and my having to do more than sit in the ridiculous heat.

I ended up talking to our friends up the hill (the family of 11), and they gave us some eggs to put under our determined hen for them. And yes, she sat, like a good little mother, and hatched five of the eight eggs we were given.

We're calling this batch the Tiddly Peeps. Phillip assures me it comes from some song or another from some children's show (British, of course), but we can't find it. I still love to say Tiddly Peeps though (try it, it's fun).

Chicks pretending to be ducklings.
One day old.

At two months, we're pretty sure at least two of them are hens, which is good for the family we hatched them for. Hopefully a third is a hen. It's a bit hard to tell until the combs start developing more.

New Nuggets

We have two new baby chick!

Well, by new I mean at this point they are a week old.

Our last batch of chicks is now nearly 3 months old, was early "abandoned" by their mother, but have been fending for themselves quite nicely, and has been moved from the broody and hatching cage (where we put mammas sitting on their nests and leave them until the chicks are about a month old) into the regular coop with the rest of the hens and the rooster.

Cipher, calm as can be, hatching her chickies

Back to the new baby chicks though. Our black hen, Cipher, decided that, no matter what I did to encourage her not to, that she was going to sit on some eggs. So we stuffed a total of 6 eggs under her (3 of her own, 3 Isa Brown eggs). We were hoping the Isa Browns would hatch, since that particular breed of chicken is an excellent layer and lays pretty large eggs, but the rooster, being an Australorp, is also of a breed of chickens that lay very well, as well as are good meat chickens. Basically, we were hoping to create a hybrid chicken that was as good a layer as the two breeds and mix up the blood lines a bit (our Australorp hen and rooster are at least half brother and sister, and there's only so long you can keep up with the interbreeding of chicken relatives before you end up with a bunch of lame hens).

Nugget number 2, peeping out from behind mamma's bum

The day before Thanksgiving, we were blessed with two new peepers: fuzzy tan, as we are calling them, Isalorps.

This time, mamma hen is so calm and tame, I was able to put my hand under her to check on the other eggs or even pull the chicks out and handle them. No problems. She doesn't care at all.

Sadly, only 2 of the 6 eggs hatched. Two of the Australorp eggs died while hatching, and when the remaining two eggs were cracked open (4 days after the hatching was done, mamma was fully off the nest, and the eggs were cold), they were completely rotten duds.

But we have two new adorable nuggets, and are enjoying our growing flock.

Pretty little chicks being fed by mamma

See? TAME! I held bread crumbs, mamma picked
them out for the chicks, and eventually the little
things started climbing into my hand to feed.

Playing with my food

Our little chicks that were still in egg form in This Post hatched about three months ago now. But, because of the whole "I'm growing a person and therefore quite exhausted" thing, I didn't get to tell how the hatching went, nor post photos of how adorable the little fluff buckets were (I say were because they've been going through that awkward chicken teenager phase and are not as cute looking now).

We ended up with three chicks. Five hatched but... momma hen stepped on one right after it had finished drying (this happens. Chickens are not very bright, even the best momma chickens do this). Then, momma hen got off the nest permanently in the middle of another one hatching. So, that one died too. Or it died in the middle of hatching and she got off the nest. Either way, we ended up with three little chicks.

Phillip built a pen and cage for them to stay in, so that 1) the cats wouldn't eat our chicks and 2) the other chickens wouldn't kill the little chicks. Again. Nature. This happens. It's what they do and how they establish pecking order. That, and sometimes chickens can be jerks. Like all living things.

Mamma Hen breaking apart grain for her babies

Such cute little balls of fluff!

We were hoping all three were hens. Hens have a purpose: eggs. More than one rooster around and you have fights for dominance and hens going off their laying because they're getting too much *ahem* attention from roosters (roosters tend to pay more attention to hens who are laying eggs, as, well, this would increase their possibilities of actually reproducing. Hens not producing eggs means no babies means roosters give less "attention" to the hens. Therefore, too many roosters means you have no eggs. Which was the main reason we got our hens in the first place. So, any roosters in this batch will get the ax. It is, however, a bit difficult to see what sex a bird is. With chickens though, the rooster's comb starts to develop more quickly than a hens.

We seem to have one rooster. Which, the city-girl side of me thinks is kind of sad, because he's quite friendly at this point. And, well, they're baby chicks. They're still kind of cute. The practical side of me knows though that, if we get too many roosters because we don't want to kill them, we're feeding an animal that, if anything, will give us more trouble in the long run.

This is what happens now when I bend down to feed them

Oh well. Practicality wins out. In the meantime, we're having fun giving our little chicks a nice life of leisure. Their idiot hen mother decided that two months was a long enough time to look after them and left them to roam on their own. So, they've become overly attached to Phillip and me.

I seriously love our little chicks. They're adorable and fun. If I go out at the same time each day, they'll run up and jump on my to roost on my arms and lap No pooping on me thus far... But practicality must win out. 'Tis the way of life well, nearly everywhere unless you can afford to be picky and turn food into some sort of religion.

Please oh please don't poop on my head!

We've got another hen sitting on half a dozen eggs. Tried to stop her (I'd rather have more eggs than chicks) but, she is determined. We've decided already that nearly this whole hatching will be going into the freezer in a year (home raised free-range chicken, yes please!).

We're expecting....

Chicks!

Ok, so I might have some family members and close friends who read the post title and are a little mad about the fact that I'm talking about chickens and not babies (but really people, who breaks THAT kind of news to close friends and family via a public blog post?).

Explanation:

You may remember that last year at New Years a dog killed all but one of our chickens and our two ducks (I still get a little upset about the ducks.... they were cool ducks). A few months later, we ended up taking two pullets (young hens who had not yet started laying eggs) from my in-laws. We took one beautiful black Australorp and a half Silky half some other breed of chicken we're not sure of. Phillip ended up naming them Cypher and Hawk (but we usually end up calling them by their breed or their color and not their somewhat stupid names).

The thing about some breeds of chickens is that they can be good layers (like our red Iser Brown), good for meat (our little Australorp, though they're good layers too), and good for going broody. There's also breeds that are well known sitters (once they go broody they will not leave the nest unless you force them) or good mothers. Basically, chicken breeds are as diverse as dog breeds, and depending on what you want in your chickens, you get various breeds.

Hawk, aka, the yellow/tan one, sittin' on a whole bunch of eggs.
Spoiled girl, I bring her her own dish of food and water.

Hawk has tried to go broody once before, but outside of their shed, so we had to try and move her at night (chickens are funnily calm at night) so that she wouldn't get eaten by quols. Silly thing.... She decided she didn't like being moved to safety and got off her eggs. Which... was ok since we get to eat the eggs. This is the second time she's gone broody and she's chosen one heck of a spot to hatch her chicks again. It's about four and a half feet off the ground, where our chickens roost at night. So, chicks hatch, try to walk out of the nest and.... not pretty. Phillip is building a small enclosure to put her and the eggs in, to keep them cosey (and safe from plumets to death and out idiot cats, and neighbor's idiot cats) from scraps of wood and chicken wire. We'll move her there sometime this week since she's only got maybe a week left until the eggs hatch.

Apparently the nesting boxes I make sure are full
of soft, fresh hay are not good enough.
It must feel safer to hatch babies 2.5 meters off the ground.

Another fun fact about chickens: once they go broody, you can get them to sit on any eggs, not just their own. So, since our hens have been tandem nesting the little Silky has some Australorp eggs under her as well. We also were given a few eggs of unknown type (two were probably Australorps) from my in-laws  two days after she started sitting, and chucked those under her. (Well, next to her, because to put them under her you'd probably loose fingers she's so angry if you get near her). She (and the black one for some reason started helping) immediately started moving them underneath her.

The good thing? We should end up with a few chicks of multiple possible varieties. I'm hoping for at least two healthy hens to share with people or, well, more eggs, which we also share with people. The bad thing? Our one laying hen, little black Australorp, is still basically sitting on top of the broody Silky and laying eggs. Which that dumb hen then takes under her. So... we have no fresh eggs and will end up with a bunch of rotten and un-viable ones at the end of this sitting. The little lady has already pushed two very rotten ones out from under her, but is sitting pretty on at least seven more eggs.

Marry HAD a little lamb...

One of the (surprisingly many) benefits to living in the middle of nowhere is plenty of land and having friends who raise animals on it.

My husband's family is friends with just such an family, and we just bought a yearling lamb from them.

The lambs were delivered to the abattoirs last weekend, and this Friday, we got the meat. Came out to about $6 a kilo for the lamb (which is what the sale price is on BBQ lamb chops at the butcher we frequent).

Not only is the a free-range lamb (not sure if there is any other kind?), raised by people we know, but it's cheap. And tasty. We ate some last night, right after I'd divided up the cuts into two-person-meal sized bags and put them in our freezer. The whole lamb, by the way, will provide us with over a months worth of meals.

Back to cooked lamb, though. Neither of us are big fans. Unless it's roast lamb. Roast lamb is fantastic. Lamb most other ways I'd had before, not so much. It's just... gamey, tough, and, well, it's lamb. But it's everywhere here (the unofficial meat of Australia I think. I haven't looked it up), so I looked up and invented a few recipes, and now we quite enjoy eating lamb (which is good since, you know, we bought a whole one).

The first night of lamb was something I have affectionately titled "Goin' on down to Egypt Lamb". Because it's made with as many leeks and garlic as I can put into it. It's a funny name if you like Bible humor.

But anywho, I chopped up some of the undersized leeks from our garden (I'll be the one planting the leeks next season. Or at least making sure it's done properly by a certain husband of mine). Salted and seared the lamb chops a bit, threw in the leeks, chopped some garlic and threw that in, and then used the chops to kind of stir the whole concoction to coat them a bit with leek-y garlic-y goodness. Put in a tablespoon or so of water, put the lid on and let them cook away.

It's delicious. Unless you don't like leeks or garlic or red meat.

*Note: I am aware that you're not meant to use the green part of the leek. But these leeks were severely undersized. And we really really wanted leeks, so I caved a bit and used only JUST a little of the green bit, right were it starts to go from white to green.

Also, those mashed potatoes were full of New Zealand spinach, also from our garden. I've taken to putting it in mashed potatoes because it's a really bitter, and sometimes it's just easier to use one pot instead of two, or adding a steamer.

Frosted

Yesterday I woke up (at 8mumblessomething) to a freezing bedroom.

Typical, since we heat the house with a wood heater and, because of the way the house is built, the heat doesn't reach the back rooms very well.

But then I opened my curtain and squeeled with glee.

There was frost everywhere! It's... the closest thing to snow we'll get at this elevation. Or something along those lines. But frost! Beautiful, fully-coating, white frost! And a most beautiful sunny day too!

I jumped in my gum boots (still in my pajamas which, as cold as it gets, consists of many layers of warm clothing) and took off for a quick walk outside to snap some pictures and just enjoy the actual winterness of it, since my previous experiences of winter here have been filled with almost nothing but cold rain and damp air.

I felt like I should run inside and turn on Christmas music and start baking cookies. My seasons feel so messed up at the moment, seeing as how they're literally backwards from what I'm used to.

Our view of Mt. Roland from the chicken shed
(The house is somewhere hidden to the left)

Fall raspberries
Not nearly as good as summer ones, but still fresh,,
And the ones left are attracting some really pretty birds

My frosted rosemary bush

The neighbors horses. Some of them anyway.
They loved the cold morning and were quite frisky.
(Except for in this photo...)

Our landlord's cabin (he lives just behind us behind a copse of trees.)
His view of the mountain is spectacular.

As the sun rose higher, the frost very slowly melted from the grass and made quite a romantic mist, while still leaving trees and flowers beautifully frosted. I felt as frisky as a foal walking around the small bit of property in the cold. It was just wonderful. And even better, to come back to the toasty (front of the) house where my husband had stoked the fire before leaving for work at 6AM.

What a Stud...

The other day, I went with my sister-in-law to help her check out the "neighbors" cows (the neighbor is a family friend who also maintains the land next door as well as cares for the cows on it, though someone else pays him to do it. This is the same "neighbor" as when I watched calves pulled). He put her "in charge" of keeping an eye on the cows and whatnot.

So off we went to check out what she thought was a calf in distress, and turned out to just be a cow, heavy with calf, laying down for a bit of a rest.

And, while we were there, we checked out his horses, three mares and a beautiful stallion.

Yes, yes, stallions are unpredictable and somewhat dangerous to be around. And while I was very much on guard, this boy was just beautiful. Quite the little show pony, he was. Surprisingly walked right up to us for pats, then wandered straight over to the thistle bushes, talking to his girls, for a prickly snack.

CURRENT Events (haha, lame joke...)

Along with our large (smallish) plot of raspberry canes, we also have a nice large black current bush. Before I visited Australia, the only time I'd ever heard about currents was in books about Britishy things. Maybe this is because of my lack of getting out and seeing what's in the grocery store some times.

Anyway, currents, even when very ripe, don't taste very good. Rather more sour than I like, and a flavor that, while not unpleasing, doesn't make me reach for more. Black current jam, on the other hand, is pretty nice. 

So, with a somewhat early harvest of a little over a pound of currents (some picked a little to early because of my zeal and because our rooster seems to really enjoy eating them), I attempted jam with a new fruit. 

Turned out ok, and my husband really likes it, which is mostly what matters I guess. It's still rather sour, but sweetened with nearly a pound of sugar, not as bad as the original, uncooked fruit. I'm not perfectly happy with it, but it's still quite good.

Yup, pound o' berries with water in a pot, boiled for half an hour

Waiting...

Two full jars to store away, a little over half of one we dug into for dessert!

Fishy

Our Little Red has returned to us!

We told our landlord what happened with the ducks, chickens, and the dog encounters, he phoned the neighbor, they apologized, offered compensation (we're happy if they just keep the pup tied up), and then latter our landlord phoned us saying there was a chicken wandering by his house near the creek. Sure enough, it was our battered little chicken, missing plenty of feathers and with some small bloody marks around her neck.

Maybe when Phillip chased the dog, it did what he'd hoped and dropped the chicken, giving her a chance to skeedadle. So she's back, our rooster looks much less depressed now, and the neighbors are going to keep their dog tied up and fix the fences. I guess it's a big thing if your dog starts killing other people's livestock/animals, or wandering on their property, over here.

Phillip on the beach, thinking about jumping in

Anywho, the rest of the holiday weekend was wonderful and hot, and we spent all Sunday afternoon fishing with both of Phillip's brothers, then had his  youngest brother over for nachos (apparently he's now addicted to Mexican food, and, as I've said before, you really can't get it here. So we make do with my Americanized version, which is all he knows anyway).

New Years Eve, Phillip having me pose on the beach. Hi mom and dad!

Fishing in at the river, New Years Eve. Phillip and I joined (to watch and talk a bit) right before they left

Baiting hooks, New Years Day

Stewart's Flat Head. One of the them, anyway.

My one and only fish: a puffer fish hooked through the side. They're a nuisance fish, and pretty much useless

The dock we fished off all day. After maybe 6 hours, I got bored and started wandering taking photos. 

Old McDonald had no more hens because a dog ate them

It's New Years Eve and we spent a lovely last day of 2011 visiting a most lovely couple who may have work (of a sort?) for me, was incredibly inviting, went to the beach and picked up loads more shells, driftwood, and sunburn, and finished off at a salt-water river fishing with my brother-in-law and his fiancee.

Of course, I won't write more about this or post the pretty pictures because when we got home and Phillip went to lock up our remaining chicken and our lovely rooster, he found feathers. Everywhere. And then saw a dog with something in it's mouth. He chased it a bit, came back and got me, and we went searching for it with his block buster in hand, the cat trailing after us like the loyal little girl she is, a flash light, and a barrel full of anger.

We didn't' find it, of course, but we're now certain it was the dog that killed everything, and came back for more. Not sure if it belongs to anyone though. But if it comes on our (technically our landlords) property, we're fully within our rights to kill it if it's harassing our animals or us.

My brother-in-law? The hunter? He really liked our ducks. He thinks our rooster and our chickens were pretty nice as far as chickens go  (our rooster gets compliments from everyone who visits, he's so massive and majestic). He was ready to shoot anything here before we found out for sure it was a dog. Guess who's coming up for nachos tomorrow.

Photos of pretty day out to come tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

Berry-licious

I made my own jam.

It's nearing the middle of summer here, and the little raspberry patch on our rental property is coming along very nicely. Almost TOO nicely, as it nearly overran the rest of the flower garden, and if not kept in check, will soon overtake the entire back of the house.

I have plenty of time, however, to trim back all it's little new shoots and tie up the old ones so they stay straght and healthy. And with all this care, and the natural voracity of raspberries, we've been getting some of the sweetest, largest, most delectable berries I've ever had.

My in-laws place has a raspberry forest. You could spend all day in this patch, picking, and never finish. And the next day, more are ripe. When I pick there, my mother in law lets me keep half of what I pick if I want. The last bath I kept was over two kilos, and I have more from her in the freezer. From our own bushes, we get two, maybe three, good sized cereal bowls full.

Since our berries are more maintained due to the fact I have loads more time, and the landlord trimmed them all back to the main canes last year, our berries taste much sweeter and tastier sometimes than from my in-laws. So, since we're so over-run with all these berries, I decided to try my hand at jam making with some from the in-laws.

1 kilo of sugar = using only 1 of my kilos of raspberries. A good small batch for my first attempt.

Mmmm. Raspberries!

Raspberries in the pot. Looking slightly less tempting.

Sterilizing and heating up my jars in the oven. Just using old spaghetti sauce and jam jars, like my mother-in-law and Phillip's grandmother. Works well enough for them, and is FAR cheaper than proper canning jars. 

Sugar in the pot...

Dissolve and bring to a boil. For a while. Without burning. Until it "gells", which you can tell by either dripping it on a cold saucer, or some spoon test, or just that the bubbles look really nice and thick. 

3 jars of nice thick jam! The tops all pop back in when they cool, preserving the jam nicely. And it's nice and thick, and you can turn my jars upside down and the jam doesn't move! And it tastes sooooo good. And we still have more raspberries to eat.

Poppies! Poppies!

Last year, during my second visit to Tasmania, I saw slowly wilting fields of poppies.

And not the lovely orange ones you see in Monet paintings.

No, these were, I was informed, opium poppies. Apparently, Tasmania is the world largest producer of opium poppies. For the pharmaceutical market. 50% of the worlds market of opium poppies, in fact. That's a lot for an island state.

This year, I was determined to get photos of them.

And yes, it is very illegal to go into these fields. No I did not go into this field. I stood on the road, in the ditch, after making sure there were no snakes.

Not that I'm up on Tasmanian law, but they have somewhat intimidating signs at intervals around the fields.

Click to see a larger version. It reads: Trespassers Prosecuted, and below that, Illegal use of crop may cause DEATH.

I've only heard one story from the in-laws about some guy they found on the side of the road near their house who had fallen off his scooter or something, high as a kite, blue lips, looking dead. Turned out that he had a back pack full of poppy seeds and had been drinking a tea he made with them. Or something along those lines.

Heavy Machinery, Heavy Lifting

On various days of splitting wood at the in-laws...

The boys lifting the biggest log they could at the time to test the new log splitter

Laughing at the crrrracking of the enormous log finally splitting. The log splitter has some POWER. Using a block splitter (a type of ax-thing for those of you like me who don't know what that is), you would just bounce off this thing.

Beginning to stack the wood that was split the night before. And trying to catch up to what was being done this day. All up, I think in one and a half days (maybe 9 hours all up) we got 8 meters split and stacked. No photo of that as it's still a work in process and by the end of this day, I was too tired to think of taking a photo of what we'd gotten done.

Still early in the day, working on the pile from the day before.

I learned how to drive the tractor! No tipping, only got stuck once, and stalled it three times. Drove for about an hour. My father-in-law jokes that they're making me into a redneck. No... not so much...