Saturday 31 March 2018

Happy Easter

I just wanted to wish all my readers a very Happy Easter.  In Australia it is a four day holiday over Easter and, as it is also the start of the school holidays in Queensland, many families take the opportunity to go camping, visit family, drive to the beach etc. and I pray that you will all be safe on the roads.



 I have been reading how some of my favorite bloggers are so productive lately but unfortunately that is not the case around here as some days the most I seem to achieve is keeping my eyes open. LOL! It only takes a few sleepless nights to make one feel quite lethargic and certainly not motivated to do all the chores around the house that need doing.





Still...I did manage to make some soap yesterday which I cut this morning. I used cow's milk for the first time in this batch and also added activated charcoal for the darker colour. The fragrance oil I used in the darker soap mixture should turn it even darker eventually. More on that in another post next week. I think I will call it Chocolate Milk Soap as the fragrance oil is Rich Chocolate Fragrance Oil from Brambleberry. 



 I also got up early today and dragged myself off to the farmers' market for some fruit and a few veggies. I buy a pineapple each week from a couple who are there and I cut the tops off and plant them so have a little row of pineapples growing at the moment. A friend of mine told me about the Moringa they also sell there and, as I had never heard of it before, I bought a bag of it to try it out. There are a few articles about it on the internet so check them out if you are interested. Moringa: Really a superfood? by Wellness Mama is also an interesting article. It tastes a little like rocket and has a bit of a bite but is quite nice to eat.




I have also experimented some more with the Deep Dream Generator and quite like this one of a kookaburra on our clothesline....



...and especially this version of an old photo of my granddaughters taken when they were little.



I took the odd photo trying to get a good snapshot of the beaded hearts I have put in some of my potted plants. I have attached them to chopsticks with a pointy end but, even though I take them out of the pot when watering the plant, some of the chopsticks are going mouldy which would be because of the rainy weather we have had. So I must remember to bring them inside during rainy periods in the future.


I was reminded on Nanette's blog Stitch and Sow  that it is one year since Cyclone Debbie made herself felt in the area where she lives as she had rushing water running under her floorboards one scary night and thankfully she survived. You can read her account in the blog post Mud and water as far as I can see

Those who are new to my blog may not have seen the photos I took in one of our supermarkets in the aftermath of the cyclone which incidentally didn't hit in our area although we did get some rain. The photo above was taken in Coles of an empty shelf on which there was a sign saying that supplies were unable to get through as there was flooding around the distribution centres. I was amazed that this happened as we live not far from the Lockyer Valley which is referred to as Australia's Salad Bowl' and there was no flooding down there. Obviously they weren't the suppliers for this supermarket so I wonder where they sourced their tomatoes from. 

At the time of writing ex-Cyclone Iris has turned towards Australia and is working her way up the Queensland coast and is going to bring more heavy rain to the already drenched Tropics unfortunately. I know Townsville locals were hoping for rain this year but I think they have had enough for the moment and the city can now lose its nickname of  'Brownsville'. 




Stay safe and have a happy and holy Easter. 











18 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Happy Easter to you too, Nil. You are probably just waking up on Easter Sunday I would imagine.

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  2. Happy Easter (Resurrection Day) to you, too, Nanna Chel ;) Your soap looks great and the greens you bought make me want to take a crunch. They look a little like cress to me?

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    Replies
    1. Happy Resurrection Day to you, Mary. The greens actually look a bit like a weed I pull out in the garden.LOL!

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  3. I love seeing your soaps, all different, all so homely and inviting.
    The rain is predicted to begin again tomorrow...yes, Brownsville is most definitely Greensville at the moment, with a mighty explosion of more Dengue mosquitoes. :-(

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    Replies
    1. Jenny, it looks like the cyclone could reform again. I do hope you don't get more flooding up there.

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  4. Happy Easter to you, Chel. Your chocolate-y soap looks amazing and I bet it smells fantastic. We've had very quiet days here at home. Lots of gardening! Unfortunately, the scrub turkey got to my sweet potatoes a day before I did. We had a lovely Easter lunch here today with my husband's parents and so it will be leftovers tonight. Meg:)

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    1. Meg, I hope you and your family had a wonderful day. We had a nice lunch at the golf club with my sister followed by a quiet afternoon. None of us needed to eat dinner tonight.

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  5. That soap looks so good, I could eat it. Chocolate soap, is certainly appropriate for the long weekend. I hope you enjoyed your Easter with family. We enjoyed the traditional Easter egg hunt, followed by the obligatory blacklisting of chocolate, for the rest of our lives.

    Although, under the surface of our shenanigans, we remember the real reason behind Easter. :)

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    Replies
    1. Chris, every time I go into the laundry where the soap is I smell chocolate :-) It is a nice scent. Not sure how the menfolk like using chocolate smelling soap though. Ha ha!

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  6. Replies
    1. Thanks Liz. I hope you are enjoying the Easter break.

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  7. Happy Easter to you & your family, Nanna Chel. Your soap looks fantastic! I love the little beaded hearts too, did you make them?

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    Replies
    1. Yes I made the hearts, Karen. I got the idea from Meg's blog and attached a chopstick to them to use in potted plants. They look very pretty.

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  8. Easter wishes for you Chel at the tail end of it. I think making soap is being pretty productive, and sometimes getting just one or two chores done is enough :) I really like your beaded hearts too, they look so pretty in your pots.

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  9. A belated Happy Easter Chel. I love your soap!!!! It looks so much more like the tiger stripe than I have achieved so far. The thought of soap smelling like chocolate is wonderfully decadent.Today might be the first day of no rain in ages. Given how much I was looking forward to rain only a couple of months ago, I wont complain. I am thankful for a large shed in which to hang clothes for drying.
    The rain, heat and humidity have given all the seeds I planted a boost and most have come up. Heres hoping the wind doesnt dry them out too much and I end up with a decent harvest.

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  10. Hope you had a lovely Easter weekend Nanna Chel. We went camping with family (like half of Australia i'm sure) so I'm just catching up after a weekend off line.
    I've never heard of Moringa - I'm going to go check it out. Nice work on the pineapple re-growing too.
    Cheers,
    Laura

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  11. Nanna Chel,
    Belated Happy Easter to you and yours. Looks like the rain is in for now, much better than the heat I suppose.
    -Shiralee.

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