Diesel has severe arthritis :(

Diesel had had sore legs for some time now, and he went in today for desexing, and to have xrays to see what is going on with his legs. He's only 6 months old, but his bones are as bad as a 15 yr old labrador....severe arthritis....poor little man....don't know what we're going to do.....lots of research coming up....

Today...

Just got home from going out to dinner at the Sports Club. We haven't been for a long, long time, and the food was really, really nice. I had a beautiful seafood laksa, absolutely yummy. We will definitely go again as the standard of food was great. We had a really quiet, lazy day today. I spent most of the day reading and catching up on blogs....I have started a new Christmas blog so I can keep track of that, as well as a birthday blog so I can keep track of those...it will allow me to put all of my ideas and lists in 1 place, with a current to do list etc etc...I have a couple of apps on my ipad for this, but find them too hard to navigate around, so the blogs will be much easier, and I have made them private blogs so only I can access them, so that family can't see what I'm doing and ruin the surprises! We have had the fire gently burning away all day, and I bought a new stovetop kettle a couple of days ago, which has taken up residence on top of the fireplace, so that we get free boiling water on hand for cuppa refills...it has so far saved us many, many electric kettle uses so it should pay for itself in no time at all (it was only $10 from KMart) I actually have a nice quiet start to the week this week, nothing too much in the diary at all...yay...I have a preservation coming in the morning, but that's about it until a wedding at the end of the week...this will be the quietest week in soooo long....absolutely lovely. Actually, I think Kasey has her sports day on Friday, so Friday morning will probably be at the school, but it's nice to sit in the sun and watch the kids on sports day, but I won't be able to stay all day as I will have the wedding to prep....so the house is lovely and quiet, Toni just went to bed, Kasey is in bed asleep and Damian is asleep on the lounge (how unusual!! not! )  so a bit more time doing some reading for me, then off to bed....oooh...nearly forgot to add...we've been getting a few eggs over the last week and a half or so, seems like just 1 of the girls is laying, but we have about 8-9 fresh eggs, so hopefully the others will start to come back on as well soon....they have been off the lay for months!

Comfrey salve

Damian has had a really sore back for the last week or so, and after reading the post by Christine on the Slow Living Essentials blog about making up a comfrey salve, and it being great for bones and joints etc, I decided I would use my new found knowledge and make some up.  I have been learning quite a bit about herbs in the permaculture course, and in particular about the many benefits of comfrey, as well as learning quite a bit about natural herbal remedies in the skin care course I did last weekend.  It was quite simple, I picked quite a few large comfrey leaves while at the farm on the last day of the course yesterday, and put them in a saucepan with 600mls olive oil, and heated gently for a couple of hours until the oil had turned green. I then strained the oil, and squeezed the goodness from the leaves back into the oil, then I added 50 grams beeswax and heated until the beeswax was melted, poured into jars and waited until set.  Hopefully it does some good for his back, and if so I will use some on Diesel, as he seems to have quite sore legs as well.

Permaculture Design Certificate - Done!

I finished my Permaculture course yesterday.....we had to do up a big design project of a property, I used ours, and do a presentation on it. It was great to do this project, as it cemented all of the learning we have done over the last 3 1/2 months.  Lots to do to bring all of the elements in to our property over the next couple of years. Learnt so much over this time, so it has been a great experience. I want to further my learning now in some of the elements I want to bring in, such as beekeeping, herbal remedies etc so lots of things to look forward to expanding my knowledge base with. Met some absolutely lovely people, and we have started up a facebook group for our PDC group, so we can all keep in touch and encourage each other on our journeys to bringing all of our new found knowledge to life on our properties.

This is the concept plant drawn up for our property, this is only a very small part of the project we had to complete, there is another 11 A3 pages of information, drawings etc to go with this. 

I want to try and now keep Thursday's as a day to dedicate to learning, and also as personal time for me...will see how that goes... lol....this is the lovely group of people that I went through the course with, all very diverse, but we all have similar goals in the grand scheme of things.

This weekend.... natural skincare and Glandular fever....

It's been a busy weekend for me, I have spent all day yesterday and today at a natural remedies and skincare course, making medicinal vinegars, herbal wine, tinctures, etc, and then today making up yummy face creams, scrubs, massage balms, lip balms etc. Had a great time, but  I will touch a little more on that later in the week with photos etc. I have just gotten back from taking Toni to the hospital, she has been quite unwell for a few days, and her glands have swollen to an absolutely huge size, and have gotten much worse today still, and the swelling has now spread to her jaw, which is what was worrying me, as I didn't want to wake up in the middle of the night with her having breathing problems. She had blood tests yesterday, and is due to go for an unltrasound tomorrow. The hospital accessed some of the blood tests from yesterday, and it appears she has got glandular fever. We are still waiting for one of the blood tests to come back to 100% confirm it, but everything so far is pointing to it, they are 90% sure that's what it is. Even the lymph glands on the back of her head have swollen! I took her down to the Wesley, and I can only say what a great hospital they are,  the doctor spent so much time with us, accessing her blood tests etc for us, and fully explaining absolutely everything, and answering all of our questions with such detailed answers. It is quite expensive to go to their emergency dept, but having spent many, many hours in public hospital waiting rooms over the years, it was well worth it. Unfortunately, for glandular fever, there really isn't anything they can give her for it, we just have to manage the pain and nausea with medication. She is suffering quite badly with nausea and headaches, so I think she's going to be in for a tough time with it all.  Anyway, I've finished my cuppa now, and I'm starting to feel pretty tired, soI'm  off to bed.

Cupcakes

I went to my first cake decorating class yesterday. I have started off with cupcakes, as it had a lot of techniques involved, and lots of decorating elements that can be transferred to bigger cakes. Quite expensive to do the class, so will only be doing 1 every month or 2 to get some more techniques under my belt. But had a fun day, and made some yummy cupcakes, and think I did quite well for my first attempt.

All of the decorations were made on the day, and the leaves and roses on the rose cupcake were all completely handmade, as were the little tiffany bows on the bow cupcakes,  the flowers and butterflys were made with a special punch. The aim is to eventually be able to add wedding cakes to the wedding flower side of things that I currently do. There are lots of beautiful classes that I can do, so I am looking forward to expanding on my skills. So, will have to go shopping now to get some tools to start off with....bugger, I hate buying things :)

An update....

Things are still very busy around here.....lots of things to catch up on after our week away at Easter, and I was away last weekend as well on the scrapbooking retreat at Kilcoy, so things are only just starting to settle down a little bit. I was wandering around the vegie garden this afternoon after I let the chickens out, and while there certainly isn't much planted up there at the moment, a few things are ready or very close to being ready to harvest. I didn't really plant too much over summer, and I haven't had much of a chance to plant too many things yet as it's been very busy, and a bit too wet to plant some things out.  I am going to ask for my Mothers Day present to be a helping hand to get the vegie garden planted out this Sunday, and everyone can help me weed it and mulch it and get it all planted out for winter.....looking good in the garden at the moment are:
some lovely eggplants, these are the first eggplants I have ever grown, and they are coming along quite nicely

I am going to try and make up a yummy lasagne with this, or I will make them into fritters.  Also, this year is my first attempt at loofahs...I have 5 quite mature ones on the vine at the moment, with a couple more coming through, I did plant these late so I wasn't sure how they would go, but they appear to be going very well

The nasturtiums add a nice bright touch, and are great for the soil and as a companion plant, and the girls are following me while I wander around hoping for some yummy treats

The Queensland Arrowroot that I planted a couple of weeks back has got some new shoots and is looking very healthy, and my Cassava bushes are also starting to sprout quite nicely

I also picked a few bananas off the tree to try and get some to ripen, they have been on the tree for months and are showing no signs of ripening. A lot of people that I have spoken to with banana plants are saying the same thing this year with all of the rain and cloud cover we have had, it has made the bananas take ages to ripen. I am going to pop these in a paper bag and if they ripen ok, then I will pick some more and try to stagger ripen them so that we have an ongoing supply rather than them all ripening at once.

I didn't realise how much sap comes out when you pick the bananas off the branch, I had it all over my jeans and my fingers, and the ladder! Very sticky and I now have big brown blotches on my jeans. It's starting to get quite cool here now, so I think it's going to be a cold night. We'll have to start lighting the fire soon I think.