Clarence

For those who haven't met him, this is Clarence. An old old man. He lives outside on the farm and is the last in a long line of ginger farm cats.

Pumpkin!

I have a baby pumpkin! Only one, but that's better than nothing.

Autumn already?

I can't believe how quickly summer has disappeared. We are using the heater, Boo is miserable and wet, and the mornings are increasingly dark. Brrrr. Thankfully we're off to Texas and San Francisco next week for some springtime fine in the US of A - I'm not sure it will actually be warmer, but it will be nice to leave this place behind for a couple of weeks. Plus, I can pick up some more gin duty free on the way back. Heck, I may as well get some on the way there too!

The photo above is the asparagus outside our kitchen window which now has berries on it - so pretty covered in morning rain.

Small parts of the garden still have little peeks of flowers - most of which are actually on the lettuces which went to seed.





Ah, flowers.

Gardening, baking and sewing... all in one post!

The cold weather has set in this week, making us wary that summer is definitely over. Which is not only bad because of the temperature, but we also set ourselves a deadline of finding a new house before we had to light the fire again and it looks like that isn't going to happen. In an attempt to overcome the chill, I picked what's left of the flowers in the garden...some hydrangeas:

And a few sprigs of lavender for the bathroom:


And feeling rather adventurous today, I baked something new and sewed something new (who says I'm not living on the edge?)!

I baked a lumberjack cake (which is kind of an apple cake with a buttery coconut crust on top):

I googled it, but couldn't find out the origin of the name..

But far more exciting was today's foray into sewing something which any decent sewer should have in their repertoire, but until now I have avoided making......a sock monkey. So called as each monkey is made from one pair of socks..I chose red and white knee-highs for my first attempt and am pretty happy with the result.

He is currently unnamed (any suggestions welcome). Although I'm not going to make a habit of it, I think I will make a couple more to give to little people (like the little people who got sheep last year).

Swings and roundabouts

We have both felt a little flat since the Coast to Coast. Matt is back at work, while I have no work to go back to. I also took a peruse around the garden to find that all my lettuces went to seed while we were away, and the pumpkins seem to be coming to naught, with plenty of flowers but no pumpkins to speak of. And on a far more serious note, I had run out of gin. Made all the worse by the fact that after wanting some tall glasses for ages, I found a great set of six for only $5 in Greymouth last week and brought them home to find the gin-well was dry. What good are tall glasses without gin? What am I expected to do with them - drink water out of them? juice?

Then Toby came to visit, and brought this bottle of Tanqueray... a variety of gin I've not tried before, apparently made from the 'finest botanicals'....yummo, I was off again.

In the ensuing 24 hours, while the boys went to Akaroa (and took Boo, which really freed up a little time for me) I: sewed five fabric shopping bags (which I may even attempt to sell which shows how much I don't want to go back to permanent work), made some jars of beetroot relish from the remaining beetroot in the garden, made some zucchini pickle from some zucchini that Dot donated from her garden, and baked a batch of gingernuts for the boys upon their return. Phew.


It's amazing what some high quality gin can do to a girl's productivity.

And, to compensate slightly for the lettuces, my cherry tomatoes (which I had all but given up on) have finally arrived!

What a legend.

Well, the epic event is over...it was pretty harrowing (for me as well as Matt), but he did it. After starting on Kumara beach (on the west coast) at six in the morning...


...he rolled into Sumner (on the east coast) 15 hours and 56 minutes later...

...with a 55km bike, 33km mountain run, 16km bike, 67 km kayak and 70km bike in between. He was amazing - he came in 100th out of 190 starters - nearly 50 people didn't even finish.

He said the fruit cake was great.

Bring it on...

Well, the car is packed, the kayak and bike are on the roof, and we're ready to go do this thing. I've been feeding Matt up this past week with lots of carbohydrates (heaps of pasta and potatoes) and a fair amount a baking including gingernuts and oaty apple loaf:


I've sent him off to work this morning with more pasta and some chocolate brownies. It's raining today for the first time in ages (I think summer is nearly over) which is great for the race (the more water in the river the better for kayaking), but not so great for the two nights camping in Kumara beforehand.

And of course, I haven't forgotten the fruit cake.

I have to say I'll be glad when all of this is over, it feels like I've been living with a teenage boy for the past couple of months - he's hardly here, and when he is, all he does is eat. I'm constantly washing his sweaty t-shirts and socks, and the bathroom smells vaguely like a boys lockeroom.

Okay, bring it on.