We've run away to the. Farm...

Friday was D-day for our move to the farm, we packed up a couple of loads of our belongings and headed off. We had some serious issues with the land cruiser on the way here, seems to be a fuel sensor issue, we will be on Toyotas doorstep tomorrow to see what the problem is hopefully. We still have lots more to bring up, but we are here. We have been tidying up, unpacking, putting beds together, hanging blinds, making flyscreens and remaking the old fly screen door fom home  to fit this smaller door and repainted it, putting door handles on, putting weather strips on the bottom of the doors to keep out the bugs and snakes and spiders, changing the door handles on the kitchen cupboards to update them,  connecting the sink and gas hot water,  and just generally working really hard. We're off to bundy hopefully tomorrow to get the car fixed and get a few more things so will have a quiter day tomorrow hopefully. The house is looking good though, downstairs is mostly finished, just little bits and pieces here and there to do, and upstairs in the bedrooms is all bare necessites, and will be our next focus building the built in wardrobes and bringing our other furnishings in. I am off to Tasmania in a few days for a 2 week holiday with Mum, so everything else will have to wait until then. Damian is going to start my chook pen before then and will finish it off while I am away, so I can bring my chooks and guinea fowl back up with me when I return...yay. So, without further ado, here is our little mostly finished for now house...

(The kitchen)

(Upstairs Bedroom)

(Downstairs living area)

(Gas cooktop in action)

(Gas oven - it was absolutely filthy inside when I bought it 2nd hand, it took me 6 days to get it clean)

(Downstairs bathroom - shower end)

(Downstairs bathroom - toilet end)

(Kitchen benchtop - this was originally an ugly laminate which I have resurfaced with a stone look)

 

I doubt we will look at building our permanent home for at least 12 months, we would like to get some more infrastrucure in place around the farm first (gardens, paddock and yard fencing etc and our office and craft studio) and save up some more money! And have a bit of a rest and enjoy the rural lifestyle for a little while before we take on the workload of building a house. But in the meantime I will enjoy decorating and furnishing our abode to make it feel like home.

The country life...??

Still exceptionally busy around here. Still up to the property most weekends, which is a 4 hour drive there and a 4 hour drive back. So many things to catch up on the blog with, but time is definitely short at the moment, hence the long exodus from here.

(The "Shed", including the "shouse")

 (Damian installing the cladding along the front of the shouse)

The painting of the shouse is finished inside, and this weekend coming, the kitchen and flooring will go in, then the chippies should be back the following week to do the skirtings, arcitraves and hang the doors, then really just the plumbing and electrical final fitoffs to do, then should be ready!
We did a test run of the kitchen install last weekend, so that we could work it all out before installing the flooring, so as not to damage the flooring, dragging bits and pieces around everywhere. It was a bit like putting a jigsaw together, but it's working out. We will probably get a new benctop made to fit this exact space though, as it is different to how the kitchen was in it's original house.

(The kitchen "test" run, lots of thinking going on here)

I am hoping that our move to the country will be an enjoyable one. I am hoping that I get used to the slower pace, and things not being as up to the minute as they are here. Last weekend while painting, I ran out of paint, so went down to the local hardware to get some more. They stocked the brand of paint I was after, but as the colour was a different brand's colour, it needed to be matched. I said, very naively it turns out, "well that's ok, I will bring down a colour sample and get you to match it"....the lady looked at me as though I was speaking a different language, and in the silence I could almost hear the cogs turning and the crickets singing...and I said..."you know, on your colour matching machine??" hehehe...ahem.... She said "nooo...we don't do anything like that here, you'd have to go to Bundaberg for that"  So, it was a 45 minute drive to Bundaberg to get our paint, but we'll just have to be more organised in the future, it will happen, just got to slow down enough to get ourselves together.
A few new animals on the block, large and small, which I will elaborate more on with a bit more time...and I apologise as I have not had time to catch up on what you are all doing of late, but hopefully over the school holidays and xmas break, I can start to catch up a bit....life has taken over for the moment :)

The hatching has started...

It is very hectic around here at the moment, lots of travel to the property and building organising going on, as well as running around picking up building materials etc. Michael and I went and picked up a whole car trailer load of cladding for the shouse this morning, and when I got back, I thought I would check on Mummy hen as her babies are due today...2 have hatched out so far, 1 plymouth rock and 1 speckled sussex. So, I am waiting patiently, there are quite a few others that are starting to crack, so I am hoping most of them should hatch, there will likely be a few that don't hatch though, when we candled it appeared that 2 weren't fertile, and there has been the odd occasion where I have had to put a cold egg back underneath her as she has forgotten about it, so we shall wait and see how many end up hatching....

(the first chick off the rank, a cute little plymouth rock)

(number 2 to hatch, a speckled sussex)

 

I am hoping my week starts to settle a little now, I have so many things to catch up on, I need to get the kefir grain that Liz sent me going, and send her off some seeds, catch up on the washing and just take a break for a couple of days I think..

Look where the guinea fowl are nesting...

In my potato tower...

They're so funny...

Dreampot cooking....and a bit more permaculture learning....

I purchased a dream pot a few weeks back, and this is the 2nd time I have used it. Yesterday I cooked up a coconut ginger chicken and rice. Both the rice and meat dish cook at the same time, and after the initial heating up on the stove, the pots are place in the dreampot and continue to cook. This works very similar to a slow cooker, but doesn't use any power or gas after the initial heating, so will be a great option for when we move to the property, as we will be on solar power.

It can also be used to make yoghurt and keep things cool. They're not cheap to buy, but hopefully a good investment. It will also be good for when we next take the caravan on a trip away, as it is safe to cook in this whilst travelling, which is what a lot of people use it for.
Not too much happening here other than that at the moment, I have things I could be doing, but can't seem to get motivated enough to do them...it's starting to get hot here again during the day, and I'm not a real heat lover, once it gets over about 28 deg my energy levels drop and I would rather be inside. Probably live in the wrong place then! The late afternoons after about 4.30 are just beautiful though....great outside and BBQ weather. I am currently reading Linda Woodrow's book on home permaculture design, I am really enjoying it. Even though I have done my Permaculture Design Certificate, this gives more detailed instructions on the actual setup...Linda, where did you learn all this info from? You are so clever...it's giving me lots more to think about with regards to my design at the new property...I thought I had it worked out pretty much, but back to the drawing board I go :) Better now than after I had started putting gardens in though...

More progress...

The shed frame is up. Just waiting on roofers now to do the sheeting, then the interior walls for the shouse will be started.

Damian came down from the property on Thursday night, and on Friday we went and picked up a fibreglass shower and the vinyl, and then we went to the Ettamogah Pub for some lunch. In the afternoon I cleaned all of the windows I have purchased over the last few weeks for the shouse, while he went and picked up all of the framing timber etc to build the internal walls. Hopefully this can all be started some time next week.  The weekend was very hot here, especially Sunday, over 35 deg here, so I just chilled inside with the airconditioner on and watched Bathurst. I brought some little chickens who are living in the cage in the shed out into the shaded area of the pergola in the afternoon, and spritzed them with cool water to keep them cool.
Yesterday I purchased a cheap little site shed to go up to the property. I plan on painting it up and turning it in to our office/craft room, as we really won't have the room in the shouse, and my office equipment and sewing equipment are too expensive to just setup in the shed itself. The site shed is 5 metres long x 2.5 metres wide, so should be a perfect size. I think we will end up putting a sofa bed in there as well, and we can use it for an extra sleeping area for when people come to visit. As we plan on building our new home over the next couple of years, I wanted to have somewhere to keep my stuff, having it locked away for that long is not an option I was looking forward to. It's a bit ugly right now, but once I'm finished with it it will be nice - a new paint job, another window and new floorcoverings and probably an air conditioner and it will be all good.

At this stage things are on track to relocate at the end of the school year. The 2 older kids are planning on staying in this house and renting it off us, as we don't really want to sell it just yet. We want to keep our options open and the market really isn't real flash for selling at the moment either.  In the meatime the chickens have totally wreaked havoc in my vegie garden. Since I have confined them to a large area up near their pen, they have been very determined to get in to my vegie garden. There is pretty well nothing left except some comfrey (just) my potato towers. some shallots and my garlic and some nasturtium flowers!! I have now thrown my hands up in defeat, so I am going to heavily mulch the garden and leave it for now, and will start on my new gardens up at the new property. We won't have Michael's dog up there, so I will be able to let them free range over the yard again so hopefully they won't be as determined to get in to the vegie gardens. I think everything up there may need to be pretty secure, as we seem to have dingo's, hawks, rabbits, goannas etc so the vegetable garden design is going to need to be like fort knox, as are the chickens pen and domes. Lots to think about, but right now the main focus is going to be on getting the shouse built.

Progress

The slab was poured last Friday, all went well.

The shed construction has been started today, this is where they have gotten up to today. About 1/4 of the frame is standing.

On the weekend we did a trip up to Mt Perry, to have a little look around. We travelled through the Boolboonda tunnel, which was dug entirely by hand. It is also full of bats flying around as you drive through. It was quite interesting and very pretty.

 

 

 We had a pretty lazy day on Sunday other than that, and spent most of the afternoon lazing around with hot cups of tea and reading. Yesterday we went to friends for a roast dinner and a relaxing afternoon, which was nice. So a nice long weekend around here. Looking forward to seeing what happens on the shed tomorrow.

Farm this and that

I have been up at the farm this week for school holidays. We went out for dinner on Saturday night for our 23rd wedding anniversary. Other than that, the weekend was spent doing a hazard reduction burn at the property. Rick came over on Saturday and helped Damian get the boundaries around the area to burn done to give us nice wide fire breaks, and then Damian and I did the inner area on Sunday morning.
                                          
We had a 1000 litre water tank with a fire fighting pump set up on the ute just in case, and we also had a water tank and sprayer on the back of the quad bike. We only did about a 15 acre section at the front of the property for now, which has cleared things up so we can now see all of the trees on the ground around this area, so that we can get them all pushed up, so we can start to maintain it and improve the pasture etc for the cows. Hopefully once this is done, we won't need to burn this area again as it will be less hazardous grasses and less fuel to burn if a bushfire does come through, The previous owner of the property sold off a large amount of spotted gum on the property and when they harvested, they just pushed all the other trees in their wake over as well, which has left us with a nice mess to clean up in a lot of areas. We definitely won't be short of firewood - ever.

One thing that did surprise me was just how hard it was to get some areas to burn, and how some parts burn and others don't.
Kasey and I went looking at floor coverings for the shed on Tuesday, and we then went over to Bargara for some lunch on the beach and an icecream. It surprised me just how expensive vinyl was for the floors, it is actually more expensive than laminated timber flooring. I think I will trawl the auctions over the next couple of weeks to see if I can pick up something there. We went to the movies on Wednesday and yesterday I took Kasey and Adam (Rick and Marina's) to the Bird Park at Childers. The birds there are just beautiful

(Up close and personal with some beautiful birds)

We then went and had woodfired pizza for lunch, and then went to Mamimos for an icecream. Damian had my car yesterday, and he took it to go and get the bullbar and  UHF radio fitted, so we are now all set for farm life here.
The concrete slab is being poured today for the shed...yay...very exciting. Seeing it all starting to slowly come together. The shed will be started to be built next week, as well as the shouse...we might head back home tomorrow for a couple of days to pick up some building materials to bring back on the big trailer so it is here for the builders for when they need it. Otherwise we will do that next weekend.

(Now just waiting for the concrete)

The first guinea fowl eggs....and bargain hunting

Our 2 girl guinea fowl have just started laying eggs. I plucked (haha) up my courage and tried one tonight with a normal egg on toast for an easy dinner. It looks and tastes exactly the same...no difference except a bit smaller. I can see why they were so popular many years ago in pioneering times, as they mainly forage for their food when they need to, and lay nice eggs to boot. I don't know how reliable they are as regular layers though, so will see how they pan out over time.

(The guinea fowl eggs are the 2 middle ones, they are more pointed at the top as well, more of a teardrop shape)

Things are very busy here at the moment, I have been doing lots of running around buying building materials for the new shed house, as well as some furniture, I have been getting some great bargains. I picked up a gorgeous small silky oak dining table and 4 matching chairs, that extends to seat 6 for $100.  I plan to do a little restoration on it, but will update on all of that when I get some time. The leg carvings on both the table and the chairs is absolutely stunning.
 I am up at the property for a week or so from this Friday, so hopefully I will get time to catch up then. The shed is on track to be started next Monday, crossing fingers that they are running on schedule and don't put us off. Lots of photos coming for all of that. Just got back from picking up a trio bunk bed (double on bottom, single on top) for Kasey's room in the shed house, was $130 including 2 good innerspring mattresses, can't complain about that. I have a steam cleaner, so will give the mattresses a good going over with that, even though they both look clean anyway, but I will just feel better freshening them up and sterilising them before we use them. We thought that way it would give us extra bedding for when the older kids come up to stay.  I have also picked up numerous large windows, a sliding glass door, internal doors, an ironing centre, a couple of wardrobe shelf and drawer inserts, vanity, queen size bed and mattress with bedside tables, a dishlex dishwasher, gas cooktop and gas stove with separate grill, all the door handles we will need, 4 ceiling fans, 3 with lights,  and also a lovely chocolate colour microsuede chaise lounge, bargain of the week at $80!. It does need me to fix the spring in one of the cushions, but that is a small thing that will only take an hour of my time. We have saved about $10,000 by shopping around and buying things off gumtree and ebay, definitely worth the running and ringing around!  I prefer gumtree as you are buying at a set price, not bidding against others for the same item, driving prices up. We will need to buy the framing pine, steel, plasterboard etc new, as it is quite hard to find exactly what you need from private sellers for this type of thing. We would have to work a lot of hours to make that $10,000 that we have saved so far.

(These are just some of the items I have purchased over the last few weeks, there is also a full kitchen, oven, cooktop, cupboards etc filling up the shed, and windows in the carport. I will be glad once the shed is up at the property, so we can start to transport some up there and the verandahs down here can be empty again! )

So very busy, but a good busy.

Naughty chickens....

The chooks have been laying 5-6 eggs a day, so we have had lots of eggs to use up. I have been making up some cheesy spinach quiches, and I made up a Bacon and egg pie. I made up some shortcrust pastry in the thermomix, and lined a dish with the pastry, then lay down strips of bacon all over the base of the pastry, added in about 10 eggs, topped with a little cheese and cream, and then topped with a lid of pastry, and baked @ 180 deg celcius, until golden....

The other day I planted up some sunflowers, tomatoes and corn seeds. A couple of naughty chickens have been scooting under the gates in to the vegie garden and have dug up the corn seeds, and one of my newly planted chilli bushes. Sometimes it seems like all I do is work in the vegie garden, but don't seem to get much to harvest. They also stripped my silverbeet plants to just ruby red stalks, they have eaten half of my cabbages, and probably gobbled up the tomato seeds and sunflower seeds as well. They have also eaten half of my ornamental kale, and stripped one of my chilli bushes.They have also scratched up quite a few garlic bulbs, so I have replanted those, but don't know if they will recover in time to produce nice bulbs in a few months. So...peeved is an understatement. I have only just worked out how they have been getting in to the vegie yard, so tomorrow I will steal some rocks from our garden edging that I have been placing around the gardens and run them along the underside of the gates and see if that stops them from getting in, before I bother planting any more. I thought they were flying in, even though I have clipped their wings, but have now seen them going under the gate, they really have to squash under, but they are determined. At the moment I feel like just heavily mulching the vegie garden to keep the weeds away, and just giving up...
On a brighter note, we went out yesterday and picked up a 2nd hand kitchen we purchased from gumtree to go in to our "shouse" (shed house) It is a nice large kitchen, with plenty of cupboard and bench space, and it is a nice neutral creamy colour. We think we may end up replacing the bench top as we want to change the configuration slightly, but will see how it all comes together in the shed. Hopefully if the weather works in our favour, the shed slab will be started next week... so in the meantime I am haunting the auction centres and ebay and gumtree collecting bits and pieces along the way to fit out the shed without spending a fortune.

Cow Updates and some yummy cooking

The cows are all doing well on the property. They are in to the habit of coming up to visit each afternoon, where we give them some molasses. We have started adding a fortifier to it to give them extra vitamins and minerals they need to build up their condition and get them nice and healthy. Most of the girls are looking good, there is just one or 2 that still needs to put on a little more weight, so hopefully the fortifier will help them along. We also need to bring them in once we finally get our crush and worm them and brand them and ear tag them. Meg the jersey and the little hereford are the boss of all of the others, but they have definitely quietened down the others at the same time which is good.

We have changed our plans a little with our accomodation at the property. We have decided to build in 1 end of the large shed we are having put up next month and fit it out as our cabin instead. It will save us quite a bit of money doing it that way, money which can be put in to building our house up there instead. So the exciting news with that is that we can start fitting it out at the beginning of October, weather permitting of course.
Have been going full steam ahead with the no sugar lifestyle this last week, couldn't get used to no sugar in my tea yet, but I have graduated down to 1/4 of a stevia tablet, down from a full one only a couple of months ago, and will decrease this gradually down to nothing over the next couple of months. This will save money on not needing to buy the stevia tablets, as they are quite expensive. It seems my appetite control is starting to come back to normal, and I'm not feeling very hungry at all during the day, just breakfast, lunch and dinner, no need for snacking, so hopefully that continues. Cooked up a yummy dinner of chorizo, bacon and mushroom creamy fettucine, very yummy, and sugar free.
Recipe
Chorizo, Bacon and Mushroom creamy fettucine.

1/2 chorizo sausage chopped in to cubes
3 pieces shortcut bacon, diced
1 cup diced mushrooms
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, chopped
400 mls cream
Some cornflour to thicken if desired
400g fresh pasta
1-2 tablespoons butter
Parmesan cheese grated to serve

Melt butter and fry the onion, garlic, chorizo and bacon until slightly caramelised. Add mushrooms and fry until soft. Add cream and simmer gently. Thicken with cornflour mixed in a little water to thicken. Cook pasta in boiling water until consistency you like. Serve with some parmesan sprinkled over the top with ground black pepper.

Still de-cluttering - Photos, Magazines and Recipes

Been quite busy around here of late. Since giving up 99% of sugar, and all low fat foods, my energy is still high. It's the best I have felt in years. As a result, I have been really busy. Damian brought me home a trailer load full of rocks last weekend, so I have put those around for garden edging, I will still probably need another 2-3 trailer loads to finish off all of the edging, but it is getting there now, then just need to re-mulch everything and do some pruning,  and the gardens will be done for now. I am looking at going up to the property over the weekend, and if I do I will tow the trailer back up with me, and bring back another trailer load with me when I come back so I can keep going on that.  I am still working on the last bit of de-cluttering in the shed, and I did a big clean up in Kasey's room yesterday, and threw out 2 garbage bags full of rubbish - drawings, papers and clutter, and also donated 2 boxes of outgrown clothes and toys to the op shop. When de-cluttering the shed, I came across the start of the boxes of photos we have accumulated over the years. These just sit in boxes, never being looked at, taking up room. We aren't going to have the room in the cabin while building the new house, and I just want to clear everything out and just be able to concentrate on what needs doing each day, instead of storing and looking at stuff we don't need. So I went and purchased a good quality photo scanner, which scans photos and negatives, and I have started to scan the hundreds of photos that we have. So far I am up to 900, and I am afraid that is just the tip of the iceberg! Being just a photo scanner though, it is really quick, and is saving all the photos to an SD card. I am keeping any interesting and outstanding photos for scrap booking, and the rest are being tossed, and will only be kept in digital format. If we need a photo for something, we can get it printed from the memory card, or we can view the photos on the computer or tv. Looking back on the photos is a real memory tripper, and it is amazing looking at the changes that have taken place in our lives over the years, from when the kids were little, to building the house/s and the decor changes inside over the years, and occasions we had forgotten about, but that's what photos are for isn't it. I am going to make a couple of backup copies of the sd cards once fully completed, and will ask a couple of family members to keep a copy for us, just in case ours goes missing or is destroyed. By scanning the photos, I am also able to retouch any that are damaged in photoshop. I have also  been scanning my gardening magazines, as I want to keep them in a digital format only as well. Magazines take up such a lot of room, but I want to keep all of the information, just not the clutter. Scanning the magazines is taking a lot longer though, so it is going to take a loooonnnggg time to do, mainly because I am giving each scan a relevant name so I can archive them easily and be able to cross reference everything. Once that is done, I will publish the entire document as a PDF book on my ipad and computer which I can refer to whenever I like. I also need to do the same thing with all of my recipes that I have printed out on bits and pieces of paper, and toss any recipe books that I never use. Toni has asked me to make her up a recipe book with our family recipes in it for when she is living out of home so she can make her favourites that she has grown up with. I will probably do something up in Scrapbook Max for this, as there are a few great recipe book and card kits available that will do the job well and quickly.

5 minute Bread

This morning I made my first batch of 5 minute bread from the bulk mix I made up on Tuesday.

I took a piece about the size of a grapefruit off, and quickly shaped it in to a ball by pulling the 4 corners to underneath, and place it on a floured tray for 40 minutes

I pre-heated the oven to 230deg, and slashed the top of the loaf with a serrated knife, and placed it in the oven with a cup of hot water in a pan in the bottom, and waited.

Half an hour later, my first loaf was ready.

All I can say is.....YUM!

The crust in beautiful and crispy, and the bread inside is soft and delicious. Just perfect. Slashing the top of the loaf allowed the loaf to rise nicely, and create lots of lightness to the loaf. And it was very, very easy. Took me about 10 minutes on the first day to mix it together. It then sat on the bench for the afternoon, then I put it in the fridge where it stayed until this morning. Today, if there was 5 minutes in it, it would have been just 5 minutes, and no more. I had some for lunch with just butter, started off with 2 pieces, then...ahem...had another...then a teensy weensy small bit of the crust, as it was so nice. Talk about full now though...I also picked a hand of lady finger bananas from the tree this morning, they are now in the fruit bowl on the bench waiting to ripen.

There is still plenty more on the tree to be picked, so I hope they ripen up ok. Getting a bit tired now, didn't sleep very well last night, the dogs woke me up (again) so was awake for a few hours reading until I was tired enough to go back to sleep. Must order my spring seeds and get those sown though, might relax on the laptop this afternoon and order those online I think. Must not get carried away though, I'm not sure whether we will be up at the farm by the end of the year or not, so don't want to go to overboard on the vegie garden here until then.

Potato Planting day

Today was time to plant the potatoes. I ordered mine in from Green Harvest, and I got 6 different varieties to try, and I have decided this year to try the potato tower method. The varieties I am trying are Sebago, Nicola, Dutch Cream, Desiree, Toolangi Delight and Ruby Lou. I have purchased 12 kilograms all up, so I would like to get a 5:1 yield back at least to make it worthwhile. I used chicken wire as the frames, and put sugar can mulch in around the base and sides and filled the towers up with home made compost, alternating layers of potatoes all the way up the towers, then watered them in...crossing my fingers for a good harvest in a few months time.

                                     

The sewing retreat on the weekend was very productive. I made quite a few items, and I also repaired a skirt that I needed to replace the zipper on. This is a bag I made for Kasey for school, but I think it is probably a little small for a school bag, but she loves it anyway. I just need to finish it off with a couple of clip studs to join the top on to the bag properly.

I also made her a new lunch bag, as her other one was getting a bit past it. 

 A new sun hat for me...might make a couple more of these I think...it has a nice wide brim, so is really great for the garden.

 There is always a project that the retreat ladies give us to do, and this time it was this table runner using a special flip ruler to do the shapes, I loved the colours of this one, and it is on the table taking pride of place.

 The last couple of days have been pretty busy, I had a bit of time spare before picking Kasey up from school on Monday, so I called in to the op shop and picked up this lovely picnic basket. I've always wanted one like this, but wasn't prepared to pay the high price of a brand new one. I picked this one up for $15, so was happy with that.

 Yesterday I spent some time in the kitchen, I made these lemon honey yoghurt muffins from Linda's blog for lunches, they are very yummy, for the extra sweet tooth's around here,  I made up some lemon butter in the Thermomix (very, very quick and easy, 10 mins from start to finish) to spread in the middle to keep them happy until they get a bit more used to less sugar, which is a big focus around here right now, and Linda has heaps of healthy recipes on her blog, so I will be trying quite a few for lunch box treats. I added some Chia seeds to them as well, they look just like poppy seeds, and no-one has even asked what they are, so a bonus.

I also made up a batch of mayonnaise in the Thermomix last night as Toni wanted some to put on her chicken sandwiches for lunches, very quick and easy to make, and yummy. I was looking at the prices of whole egg mayo in the supermarkets and they charge nearly $6 a jar, so it got left on the shelf! To make this batch would have cost me about $1.00 I would think, and I know exactly what is in it, no numbers in this jar.

I also made up a batch of yoghurt, and a big batch of dough from the Artisan 5 minutes a day for fresh bread book, so it has been resting in the fridge, and I will probably bake my first loaf from that tomorrow. I used a mix of organic white flour, as well as a soy and linseed mix, and I also added chia seeds, so it should be a nice filling, healthy loaf. I also baked up a batch of pikelets for the lunch boxes as well. I have flowers coming in tomorrow to be made up for the weekend, and an embroidery workshop in the morning, and scrapbooking Friday, so still a busy week ahead.