Home made laundry powder

I had heaps of washing to do yesterday, and I ran out of laundry powder on the first load....so instead of going down to the local iga to buy some, I thought I would finally make laundry powder. I have had the ingredients sitting under our laundry tub for the last 2 years or so, just always seemed easier to use the bought stuff. It honestly only took 5 minutes to make, I whizzed it all up in the thermomix instead of hand grating the soap, which made things easier. I also used my hand made soap, which made the end result not quite as dry and fine as if I had used laundry soap. I finished all the washing using this mixture yesterday, and the end result was really good. Even the white socks which get a bit grubby around here, came out really well.

I used:
4 cups grated soap (laundry or handmade)
2 cups borax
2 cups washing (lectric) soda
1/2 cup powdered oxygen bleach (to give it a bit more oomph for the farm clothes)

I will try to make some laundry liquid next time, as I think it will be much more economical to make. I will post about that when I make it. Damian and I spent the weekend working on the soon to be craft studio...I will post some photos about that in the next post, it is coming along really well :)

A growing family...

We have recently found out some wonderful news...our son and his partner are expecting their first child...a little over 12 weeks along now.

Bub is due 29th January. Very exciting. I still think I am too young to be a grandparent ;) Congratulations you 2, we are very happy for you both and can't wait to meet our first grandchild xx

I'm not really liking 2013 a lot at this point in time. Money seems to be very tight everywhere, jobs are scarce, and changes are being forced upon us whether we like it or not. Damian's paid employment finished up on Monday which leaves both of us not currently in paid employment. We have been trying to re-establish our own business again since moving here, and we will be pushing that fairly heavily now. He has a few jobs in the pipeline which should come to fruition, but I think things will be a bit tough over the next little while. The positive though is that he has so much to do here at the farm, that he may now have the time to do them, and I am well and truly over being a single parent for the last 3 years while he has been working away. I have been busy in the kitchen today so far. I still have a lot of lemons to use up, so this morning I made a batch of lemon cordial, I drink way too much coke zero, so I want to change over to something else. There is a lot of sugar in cordial though, but it is very refreshing.

I have also made up a batch of anzac style meusli bars for lunchboxes, much cheaper and better for you than the bought ones. The recipe had a lot of sugar in it, so I cut back on that by about 1/2 and they are still quite sweet, so will cut it back a bit more next time.

And I also finished off a big jar of nutella on Kasey's sandwich this morning, and I have had recipes in my files for ages on how to make it, so I finally bit the bullet and made some....oh my goodness....YUM!! I used this recipe.

It is so decadent, and just delicious. It cost about $10 to make about 1.2 kilos of nutella, but I think if I can source the hazelnuts at a better price, I could do it much cheaper, as I had to buy them in small packets at the local supa IGA. I only used home brand dark cooking chocolate, but I find if I add a tablespoon of good quality cocoa to this, that it improves the taste of the cheaper chocolate into something really yummy. I will definitely make it again. I also used home made condensed milk, I don't buy that anymore either, and I use this recipe.
I purchased a cheap little greenhouse at the Reject shop a couple of weeks back, so I am going to put that together and get some seedlings up and running and get my vegie garden going a bit more seriously to save some more money. We are heading down to Brisbane tomorrow for an 80th birthday celebration for Damian's dad on the weekend, so I am hoping to pick up some point of lay hens while I am down there, so that my egg supplies don't dwindle too much with no layers left. Damian and I have been discussing ways to ensure that a fox does not get in the pen again, so we are going to secure their current pen even more and we will look at a more professional setup for my different breeds over the coming months, once I start to get them re-established again, but that will take time.Anyway, got some work to do, so I had better go and do it.

That's 3 isn't it??

I am hoping it is the 3 bad things and that the bad stuff is over for a while. Last Thursday was a terrible day for me. As mentioned below, the majority of my chicken and guinea fowl flock was killed last week, over 40 birds in 1 day...not sure by what as I was away from the farm for a day and night, and when Damian returned to the farm the next day, he found them all. There were about 10 birds still there, about 5 inside the coop and 4 outside in the yard, all dead, the other 30 odd were all gone. I am assuming a fox, perhaps a pack of dogs or a dingo family?? I don't know, I haven't seen anything at all while I have been at the property for the last 6 months, but they have obviously picked up when our dogs have been away from the property and taken advantage. To say I am devastated is an understatement, I have lost light sussex, speckled sussex, silver spangled hamburgh, silver laced wyandottes, australorps, white leghorn, plymouth rocks, pekins, frizzle, maran, araucanas and anconas, pearl pied and lavender guinea fowls...all in 1 go...I have 1 neurotic ancona rooster left who sleeps on the roof of the coop, and 4 guinea fowl. I have lost all of my laying hens, all of my lovely, lovely girls, and I had some absolutely gorgeous natured girls growing up. I have a baby maran pair and a baby araucana pair left that were in a separate cage in the shed. About 15 minutes after Damian rang to tell me, I reversed the ute in to a little yaris that had zipped in behind me while I was reversing and smashed her back window and put a small dent in her rear hatch. Even though she wasn't there when I started reversing and she came in behind me and then stopped it is technically my fault because I hit her, I had been holding it all together for the sake of Kasey as she was upset enough about the chickens, but when I reversed in to this other car, I just lost it, and was in uncontrollable tears for about 15 minutes or so. After all that had calmed down and I made sure this other driver had organised for a repairer to come and fix her back window and had translated details over the phone for her as she was Japanese and did not have very good English skills, I had a doctors appointment and asked the doc to check my ear which I have had a perforation in for the last couple of years. I felt that I might have had an infection, but she advised me that I have a fungus growing in my ear, and due to the hole in my eardrum I can't have drops to fix it, and so I need to have the surgery I have been avoiding to fix the perforation and the surgeon will need to do something about the fungus as well during the surgery. The car and the surgery I can deal with, but losing my chickens has absolutely knocked me for six. From the beautiful girls who would come running and walk around with me, and jump on my feet and want to be picked up and cuddled, to the gorgeous plymouth rock rooster who thought I was his girlfriend and would do his little dance beside me every day, my gorgeous silver spangled hamburgh rooster whose tail feathers were getting so long and grand, and my beautiful little black araucana hen, she loved to be cuddled...gotta wonder what the point is sometimes...

All gone...

Damian just rang to let me know on his return to the farm today that in the last 48 hours since I have been in Brissy that all of my chooks have been killed by something. Over 40 chooks and guinea fowl, all killed  except for 1 rooster who sleeps on the roof and a couple of guinea fowl...I can't believe it...

Yeasty things and cranky chookens

This is day 2 of my sourdough starter....it appears to be doing it's yeasty thing

I fed it with a little more flour and water today, so we'll see how it looks tomorrow. I have some cranky chookens at the moment, they were all locked up today until about an hour before dark when I let them out to free range to keep them safe from the resident eagle...my plymouth rock rooster was cranky, I still have the mark on my hand where he bit and decided to hold on until I smacked him...naughty boy...
Does anyone have a surefire way to get rid of this eagle...other than a 22??

Predator birds, and farm goings on...

I lost my adolescent light sussex rooster yesterday to an eagle. The eagle was an awesome sight...I didn't realise he was even around until he came back for a 2nd hit and all of the chickens and guinea fowl were carrying on and squawking, I went out to see them all running for cover to hide, and then I spotted the eagle, and the remaining pile of feathers, this was all that was left.

The rest of the chooks obviously saw what he did to the little rooster, and now realise they have to run for cover in an eagles' presence. I am hoping that they now know the drill and that I won't lose any more. They have never encountered an eagle before, so they didn't seem to realise it was a threat, but they do now. Our new bull has started to get to work on the girls, the jersey seems to be the first that has come in to season since his arrival, he has been hanging around her all the time, and trying to mount her, she isn't quite ready yet, but I don't think it will be long.

Hopefully in about 9-10 months I will have a cow to milk. I will need to start to work with her after a few more months and try to get her tame and used to coming in to a stall etc. as she hasn't had a calf before.
I started to make a sourdough starter last night, I am hoping it starts to ferment soon.

I haven't made a true sourdough bread before, so it will be a learning experience. I finished drying the large pick of chillies that I got from the track in to our property, I got quite a large jarfull, so hopefully that will see me right for chillies for the year. I also juiced up the 50 odd lemons from the neighbours tree, I think I ended up with about 15 cups of juice, which are all now in the freezer waiting for use.

I did use up 1/2 a cup of juice today, I made this yummy lemon loaf with lemon glaze, it's very nice, I didn't cook it long enough though, it's quite difficult cooking cakes in my George Foreman benchtop oven, as the heat is so close to the items being cooked it burns the top but doesn't cook through. The skewer came out clean, but after I took it out and it cooled, I realised it wasn't completely cooked so I did lose a little of the cake out of the centre, never mind, it is delicious anyway.

 Damian will get around to connecting up my gas oven soon I hope, then I can make a decent cake again.

Lemon Loaf

INGREDIENTS

· 1 1/2 cups flour
· 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
· 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
· 1/2 teaspoon salt
· 3 eggs, room temp
· 1 cup sugar
· 2 tablespoons butter, softened
· 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
· 2 teaspoon lemon extract
· 1/3 cup lemon juice
· 1/2 cup oil
· zest of one lemon

Glaze:
· 1 cup powdered sugar
· 2 tablespoons whole milk
· 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract


DIRECTIONS

1 .Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9 x 5 loaf pan.
2 .In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
3 .In a medium bowl, combine eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla extract, lemon extract and lemon juice with a mixer until blended.
4 .Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and blend until smooth. Add oil and lemon zest and mix well.
5 .Pour into loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. (It took an hour in my oven). Remove from oven and pour glaze over it, then cool in pan on a rack.
6 .Glaze - whisk to combine, pour over top of cake.

I also planted up some garlic bulbs today, I still have to do the other half, but I need to get another foam box from the local IGA and then I can finish planting them up

They are now covered in dirt and watered in, so now I just need to wait for them to start to sprout.

Everything in my little veg garden temporary setup seems to be coming along really well. I am finding this small garden quite easy to manage as I don't want to take on too much there at the moment. So, I am on the lookout for a couple of alpacas to add to the farm. I have been wanting them for a few years now, and now that I have a hungry eagle to contend with, my chooks need a guardian, and from what I understand the alpacas will do that for me...and hopefully they will keep an eye on the 2 little dogs as well, as that is worrying me with a big eagle around. I am working on finishing off doing the mulching in the garden area around the house, hopefully I can get that finished over the next few days. I have also found some lovely new little Australian farm blogs thanks to Liz over at Eight Acres, and I am enjoying having a read through those, there are some very inspiring people out there.  The newby chickens are enjoying free ranging, I have a feeling I may have lost one of the adolescent guinea fowl to the eagle as well, I can't find it, I am hoping that it turns up

They young ones are also starting to work out the feeder and large waterer as well, I place a stopper in the feeder during the day so the smaller ones can feed without risk of them being caught until they are heavy enough to lift the lid with the treadle feeder on their own,

The little wyandotte pullet is growing fast'

Newby araucana's and guinea fowl are getting bigger

And the newbies are all learning how to use the big drinker as well

It makes life easier when there is just one feeder and drinker to worry about filling up rather than different ones for different chooks. The new adult wyandotte rooster has also settled in well, no major fights now and he has his own little girl followers

And I also managed to get some little maran chickens, I have been waiting to get these for a while now, they lay very dark chocolate brown eggs

So, now that it looks like I may have lost another bird today, I think freeranging may be off the cards until I can move this eagle on :( or get some protective alpacas....we are also getting there with our little Bichon Frise Stella, she is now about 2.3 kgs, and we had to have her baby teeth surgically removed on Saturday as they weren't coming out on their own and were all going rotten and her breath was really bad. Unfortunately, not having had the proper diet at her previous home has not given her teeth the right start, but now she is getting a healthy and mixed diet hopefully her adult teeth will fare much better. Even though she is still quite small, her frame is starting to fill out now, and her bones can't be felt like they could when we first got her, she still has a way to go, but she is getting there and starting to really come out of her shell as well.

Anyway, I'm off to look for alpacas :)