Preparing for 2018's Winter Chills

Last year I made a version of Fire Cider for the first time. I was disappointed at the time to find that the horseradish I had planted didn't grow very well so I planted the root again and hoped for a better outcome this year. I have two plants in the ground and one in a large pot so I firstly had a look at the one in the pot and wasn't terribly happy but there was enough of the root to use in a bottle of Fire Cider. I still have to dig up the roots in the ground which hopefully have grown larger and will make up another bottle using the recipe from last year but will add horseradish as well.

The productive compost heap

Sometimes I wonder why I bother planting seeds when I see some of the produce that turns up in the compost heap without any help from me. The other day some pumpkin vines in the compost died off and revealed a huge Queensland Blue which had been growing underneath them. Mind you, I can't even remember the last time we had cooked up one of these pumpkins but have a vague recollection of a neighbour giving us one a couple of years ago. I never buy them as they are so huge and are hard to store with all the wildlife around the place.

Costa at the Show

Most Aussies would be familiar with the name 'Costa' when they hear it mentioned. For overseas readers, Costa Georgiadis is a popular presenter on the equally popular TV program 'Gardening Australia' and he is often a guest speaker at various gardening events around the country.  He is currently in our city for a few days to speak at our Toowoomba Royal Show so a friend and I headed out to the showgrounds for his presentation.

T-Shirt Yarn Necklaces

As I have mentioned in a previous post Workshop on Finding Meaning in What We Wear, our Simple Living Toowoomba group was fortunate to have Jane Milburn show us how she upcycles fabrics bought from the Op Shops. Jane had brought along some of her outfits including a T-shirt yarn necklace which looked rather easy to make so I thought I would do a bit of experimenting with the yarn cut from my old gym T-shirts.

Chocolate Milk Soap

My latest soap making experiment has now been named Chocolate Milk Soap. I was intrigued by the Creamy Cow Milk Soap on the Soap Queen where the soap is brought to a thick trace and is then 'plopped' with a spoon into the mould and thought I would give it a go.