The mug-rug winners are...

The winners of the mug-rugs were drawn this morning and the winners are Meg from A Hopeful Nature and Pauline from Happy Retiree's Kitchen.

Have you heard of Black Garlic?

I opened up an email recently from Bush Christmas which starts on the 27th November and in it was an interesting article by Budgee Garlic and Herbs about Black Garlic which I had never heard of before. As Budgee Garlic and Herbs is at our Farmers Market each Saturday I called in there and asked if they had any for sale as it sounded quite fascinating.

A pleasant surprise, a good book and a giveaway

Each morning I follow the same ritual and after breakfast walk around the garden and work out what needs a bit of water and TLC and I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I was greeted by a new hollyhock flower on a plant that I only put in just a few months ago as I wasn't expecting the new plants to flower until next spring.

A couple of reminders

I am sure most Aussies would know about the Aussie Backyard Bird Count 2019 which starts tomorrow but, if you don't and would like to join in, I am sure you can still sign up. It is a lot of fun and I find it really interesting seeing what birds visit our backyard especially at this time of the year when the noisy Stormbird arrives and the neighbour's Parrot Tree is the party venue for hundreds of parrots and don't they make a racket from dawn to dusk!

A Mug-rug Giveaway

As I mentioned in my last post, my very crafty and generous friend Judy, has offered to make a couple of mug-rugs for a giveaway on my blog. She is very talented and we both used to be the moderators of the craft forum on Rhonda's Down to Earth Forum when it was still running.

The Winner is.....

Thank you to all who entered in the Christmas giveaway for two beautiful potholders made by my friend Judy. All names have been put 'in the hat' and the winner is kepc.

A Christmas Giveaway

I have mentioned before that I have some friends who are really talented and creative when it comes to sewing, quilting, craftwork, crochet, knitting and so on. One of those lovely friends has asked me if I would like to have a little giveaway on my blog and she has made a couple of beautifully made potholders which would be so very useful in the kitchen or to give away for Christmas.

 

Family Friendly Mulberry Cocktail

Have you ever heard of a Mulberry Cocktail? No...well neither had I until I was looking for some recipes to use up our mulberries and came across Mulberry Cocktail in the Queensland Country Women's Association Cookery Book with recipes from the original 1959 QCWA Cookery Book. In the Introduction it says 'The QCWA Cookery Book reflects very much the era in which it was compiled. Recipes tended to be hearty and wholesome, nothing was left to waste and recipes of ethnic original were few and far between. The instructions in many instances assumed that the cook knew exactly what to do, as they were often very scant in detail'.

Pasta Making Workshop and Giveaway Winners!

Our Simple Living Toowoomba group will be presenting a Pasta Making Workshop on the 26th July. The son of Ron and Jennylyn Philips (who demonstrated how to make various cheeses in our first workshop of the year), will be presenting this one and it would be a good opportunity to bring along any interested young people you know to give some support to Joshua. It is so good to see a young person learning these skills.

What a fun swap!

At the moment we are winding up our most recent swap on the Down to Earth Simple Living Forums. This swap was all about learning a new skill or challenging ourselves to improve a skill we may already have or even resurrecting a craft we may have tried many moons ago but had given up on. Well, the swap partners were matched up and we all got busy with our swap items and then waited patiently for the postman to deliver our surprise and my swap item was well worth waiting for.

Jaboticaba Jelly

As I mentioned in my post about The Bizarre Jaboticaba Tree, we had lots of fruit to use up which needed to be used up quickly as it should be eaten within a couple of days of picking. I had a look on various blogs for recipes and it seemed that it was commonly made into jelly, jam or wine so I chose to make up a few bottles of jelly even though I had never made jelly in my life before.

1st anniversary and giveaway!

Well...who would have thought I would have so much to say! Tomorrow it is the first anniversary of this little blog and to celebrate I am having a giveaway of four Australian wildlife books written by my 'old' classmate, Coleen Heathwood. Coleen is not really old but we did leave school back in the sixties.

Saying goodbye to autumn

With only a couple of days of autumn left I thought I would take note of what is growing in the garden at this time of the year as I usually forget so it will be good to have a record for future reference. It has been an unseasonably warm autumn and except for an icy blast from the south during the first weekend in May, most days have been 20 degrees Celsius or even warmer.

...AND THE BAND PLAYED AMAZING GRACE

 A classmate of mine, Coleen Heathwood, who has had four books published sent me this poem she wrote recently after attending the Australian Celtic Festival at Glen Innes. About a hundred pipers paraded up the street and stopped in front of the Town Hall, played a few songs and then a lone piper played Amazing Grace which Coleen said, sent goosebumps up her spine especially when the rest of the pipers joined in. She saw an old man in front of her wiping his eyes with his hanky and she was deeply touched and out of that moment came this poem. 

Do you ever have a ' blah' day?

Do you ever have a blah day? I have one now and again but Tuesday's was a beauty! I'm not sure if it was from lack of sleep due to someone snoring or the sound of the wild wind which has been making the doors and windows rattle at times during the last few days but I woke up feeling like I had run a marathon although I never will actually experience what that feels like I am sure.  Blah days are days when you just want everything to run smoothly so that you don't really have to tax your brain too much and you wish for moments when you can just sit down with a cuppa and relax. It's not a day to be challenged to solve someone's problems or even your own but it didn't take long to sense that it wasn't going to be a very relaxing day.

                           

The book giveaway winners are......

The names of all those who entered in the draw for my friend Coleen Heathwood's books, 'Like a Lizard Lapping Dew' and 'Bargara Spur-Winged Plover', have all gone into 'The Hat' (literally) and my son has drawn the names of the two winners. Drumroll....................

 

Do you like giveaways?

If you read the web version of my blog you may notice in the sidebar where the crafty blogs I follow are featured, that several of them are currently having giveaways. The majority of them are the blogs of young mums in the US but some of the giveaways are open to international readers as well .

Wildlife everywhere!

I don't usually take a lot of notice of the wildlife around here although I do look out for snakes during the warm weather just in case any of them are lurking around in the back yard. Our resident Blue Tongue Lizards have given me a fright on more than one occasion when I thought they were snakes. Lately however, I have seen a number of birds for the first time and the most interesting of them are the Tawny Frogmouths which have a nest in our neighbour's pine tree.