life at home

Well what a whirlwind the past few weeks have been. The whole world is in turmoil from the COVID 19 virus, and how devastating it is proving to be.

I will be posting regularly about our life and what we are doing during this time in our history.

Our situation is better than a lot of others. Phil is still working at the moment, but I have stopped my cleaning work.

As the restrictions started to set in there was a lot of panic buying, and the supermarkets shelves here are still pretty empty.

I have mostly stayed at home, only venturing out on the rare occasion, usually to pick up newspapers for my parents once a week. I put on my mask and go to the newsagent, get the papers and if need be, I pop into the grocery store nearby. Usually for fresh fruit and veggies, but even that is probably going to stop soon.

I have enough stores to last about three months. Could be more.

I have gone back to basics and started baking bread once a week using Wendy's recipe.

I pick up specials when available.

 

Doing some reading for keeping costs low.

Our chooks are not laying well at the moment, which is normal for this time of year. This mama turned up with another batch of little chickens. She does this really well! A lovely surprise to greet me when I went out to feed up and collect eggs.

I was gifted some bags of walnuts. I have kept one bag and given the rest away to family and friends.

Stewed some apples I picked up on special.

Used the cores and peelings for apple scrap vinegar.

A week later, it is fermenting nicely.

A gift of peaches from my daughter.

My mum had an eye appointment last week, and she brought me down some tomatoes and capsicums. It was such a lovely day so I set up afternoon tea outside. Keeping the social distance of course. I have the hand washing station set up at the front door to remind us to wash hands before entering.

Outside in the patch the amaranth has gone wild!

I am being more reliant on the veggie garden for food.
These are seven year beans. I planted a few seeds to provide shade for the patch with the added bonus of harvesting beans. As it turns out, the bees also love the flowers.

I have planted radish seeds.

Broccoletti.

Carrots seeds starting to appear.

I planted a climbing spinach and it has really taken off, winding its way up the weld-mesh.

 Green tiger tomatoes.

Volunteer tomato plants from when it rained. I am keeping them watered.

Another volunteer tomato plant.

Harvested some of the beetroot.

Pickled them and placed in storage.

White figs. These make delicious jam.

They taste good too!

This is the salt bush I planted in spring last year. It is doing well and hopefully by the time the heat gets here next summer it will be tall and bushy enough to shade the corrugated iron.

I am working on this project at the moment.

Using spare raised beds I already had here, I am going to set up an area to grow more food. This is where our swimming pool used to be. We were going to do it up into an outdoor area, but for now I will be growing food here instead. It is located near to the kitchen, so in a good spot.

I baked a chocolate depression cake and it is delicious. No egg, milk or butter, so good for the budget, but not the waistline! This cake is soft and moist. Recipe is here. Back in the day I guess this cake was served without icing, I just used my normal chocolate icing.

Use it up vegetable stew in the crockpot.

There was enough to make twelve meals for the two of us. We had two servings for tea.

Then I made eight pies.

And two meals for Phil to take to work.

I also baked two sourdough loaves. Delicious with the stew.

Old fashioned apple roly poly for sweets.

With homemade vanilla custard...yum!

On the sewing machine I am attempting to make face masks using Phil's old work shirts. They are made of good quality fabric and the mask can have a filter. After watching a video that Grandma Donna posted as to what is best to use for a filter, I came up with the idea to use weed matting because it is not woven and is waterproof, so any droplets wont get through and most importantly it is breathable. I am using garden wire for the nose shaping, and elastic that goes around the back of the head for more comfort.

Mother Nature is still providing beauty for the soul.

An amazing dust storm hit here a couple of days ago.  While other areas got rain, all we got was dirt, and lots of it!

The sun still rises and sets each day, so we are taking each day as it comes.

With winter fast approaching Australia needs to get on top of this virus as soon as possible, and if everyone stays home like we have been asked to do, we may have a chance of "flattening the curve".

Please take care and stay well everyone.

xTania