How to fry an egg on your forehead

Hola fellow world travellers,

If you hadn’t gauged by the title of this post it’s a tad warm on Serendipity Farm and has been for a while now. It’s 3pm and 36.1C so if this post is slightly manic, you need to take the heat into consideration (It’s “my” excuse and I am sticking with it! 😉 ). Since our insane attack on all things “weed”, “overgrown” and “out of place”, we have been laying low like Brer rabbit to avoid the heat. 2018 has been a lot warmer than our average summers and back in August 2017 I had a premonition that it might be and set about losing weight. I had put on a lot of weight over the last couple of years. I am going to put it down to the stress of studying subjects that are SO far out of my comfort zone as to be positively asteroidal and I was using food to salve my fear. I managed to get to quite a hefty weight by my birthday but having watched my sister melt away after gastric surgery back in December 2016 I decided that it might be time to pull a shrinking rabbit out of my hat and do my own decreasing trick.

King Earl, lord of all he sees has just claimed the newly cleaned steps.

When the weather heats up, the flies come out and their spider predators start to mass in the wings. This one was HUGE. At least as big as my hand.

This is a stack of plastic containers. We watched The War on Waste and it opened up our eyes to the state of landfill and how wasteful we Aussies really are and so we are going to package up our dogs meat in individual containers now to stop the waste of soft plastics back into the environment.

Up till now I have never had much luck losing weight. I lost it, it came back. Simple and depressing. It turns out my biggest problem was refusing to reduce the size of my enormous portions. Even when I was living on 600 calories a day (back in the foolish years) I would eat an enormous bowl of steamed vegetables (no starches) to fill me up. My sister was basking in praise for her weight loss and I was a bit miffed because I figured that she hadn’t really “earned” the right to bask (aside from paying a tonne of cash to have the operation in the first place) and when she told me that I should “Just eat smaller portions” I thought that was a bit rich coming from someone with only 1/3 of a stomach left! It’s much easier to eat smaller portions when you don’t have a full stomach to contend with and I decided that I was going to show my sister that smaller portions wouldn’t help me to lose weight. I was completely wrong. They DID.

This is my yarn that I bought at Spotlight for $2 a ball. I am going to use it to make socks if my circular knitting needles arrive any day soon. I ordered them on eBay and am just waiting for them to arrive to hit up YouTube university and learn how to knit socks. I love a bright pair of socks 😉

I am not entirely sure what this plant/flower is but it is apparently a house plant that someone threw out into the garden and that struck there. It’s about 8 feet tall and since we cleared out the area where it was living and it is getting regular light (and water from me) it has started flowering. It seems very happy.

I have been surreptitiously taking cuttings form the end of any lovely geraniums that I see on my walks of late. I figure they would grow well here and this lovely variety proves my theory.

I have since told my sister that my 27kg weight drop is entirely down to her amazingly good, and most perfectly placed, advice. I am not sure if she realises that she really is behind my newfound ability to survive this heatwave we are calling “summer” but she is. I started on my birthday back in August and ate smaller portions. It wasn’t even very hard to do which had me banging my head on the wall for a bit as I could have lost weight and kept it off SO many times over in the past if I had just followed this little bit of advice. I eat smaller portions of “normal” vegan food. I don’t count calories or limit what I am eating. If I want something fried for dinner I have it, just in a much smaller portion than I used to have and it has completely liberated my life.

Steve’s birthday grub. Note the sundried tomatoes, pickled jalapeno and roasted capsicum chopped up on the top. He has changed his opinion about a lot of foods since going vegan just over a year ago and will eat a lot more. It doesn’t hurt that most deep fried things taste spectacular 😉 It was all washed down with some Tiger beer and a couple of bottles of Little Creatures.

This is Vietnamese mint. It’s growing like topsy in an old fridge. I didn’t know about making wicking beds back when I planted the mint out in this old fridge and put holes in the back of it but this mint has been growing happily for years now. I have never used it in cooking but you just never know, and if I ever want to try it, it’s there 🙂

This is the view to the left of our back door. We have 2 fridge wicking beds of ancient blueberries that I thought were on their last legs but that have been sending up new canes (is that the right word?!) since spring so there might be life left in the old dears yet. I got a big handful of blueberries from them and am going to attempt to grow new blueberry plants from their seeds. Sort of paying them back for their longevity by helping them out with their children 🙂

I now walk 5km+ a day with Earl and love it which has helped with the weight loss (and with maintaining chew free furniture). If I hadn’t lost 27kg I would be the saddest panda this side of the Pecos by now. Steve just had his birthday yesterday and for his dinner we cooked the most delicious battered popcorn “chicken” based on homemade seitan that I pulled small portions off the dough and then cooked it as normal the day before (lucky really as we had a 5C spike on Steve’s birthday!) ready to be dipped into excellent vegan beer batter and fried in Steve’s little deep fryer. We added a few sliced mushrooms to the batter and we also cooked some salt, pepper and chilli tofu and served it all with a delicious salad. He was most happy with the results and we have as much seitan “balls” left over to do this over again frozen for a later date.

This is the furthest fridge wicking bed in the run in Narnia. It gets the most sun and has a mix of potatoes, basil, a grape (growing up the side of Narnia and not visible in the shot) and anything else I could stick into the soil. As you can see, in the 36C heat, it is very happy and not melting at all (unlike the photographer!) The fridge was a big fridge/freezer combo that has alpine strawberries in the other side (in the foreground) that went absolutely mental this year with growth and sending out runners. I will have a LOT of runners to plant out in Sanctuary for next year 🙂

Here are a few tomatoes and some dwarf green beans that I picked the other day. We are getting a handful of strawberries each day as well and despite melting, we are enjoying reaping the benefits of a happy garden.

This is what the last of the fridge wicking beds look like now. They are in full sun and are not protected from the possum invaders but have so far managed to escape predation thanks to Steve’s clever idea to put chook wire around the outside. We had heard that possums don’t like floppy chook wire to climb up and it seems like it might be true! We also put an old bed head that we bought from a garage sale for $2 years ago up against the beds to prevent Earl from predating my chuffa leaves. I think it fits with the industrial rusty chic look that we have going in our wicking beds quite nicely

 

I might be melting but the garden is going mental in this heat. Because I get up early and head out to turn on the drip irrigation to Sanctuary at 3.30am and it hasn’t got any overhead water like I used to have to do, there isn’t any mildew (touch wood) like we usually get. I have had to dispose of one and throw out a half drowned other baby rat that were foolish enough to try to get a drink from Duckies water bowl and fell in, but that just means we need to lay some rat baits for them to take back to their nest. I need to do this BEFORE they eat my growing crop of pepino’s. They most likely lived on raspberries and youngberries for quite some time without my knowledge as there were SO many of them I couldn’t keep up but I am onto them now so their reign of fruity scoffing shall be a short one.

Another viewpoint of the newest fridge wicking beds in full production. Note the corn. I haven’t ever been able to grow corn well on Serendipity Farm in the ground but in wicking beds they are thriving. Lets just hope we get to harvest some of them 🙂

Hree are some more ripening tomatoes and strawberries growing in one of the fridge wicking beds. They seem to love the heat.

This mental bed is more feral plants than planted. I planted red onions and dwarf beans in here but the Chinese cabbages that went to seed have grown back with a vengeance and as you can see, there are some tomatoes that have made an appearance as well. Oh well, the more the merrier on Serendipity Farm 🙂

 

We have been picking lovely big ripe and delicious tomatoes for a few weeks now. I bought the seedlings from a local man who sells them at the beginning of the season. I can’t grow tomatoes as well as he can so I don’t mind supporting him each year. The earliest tomato was the Rouge Marmande. It’s ugly as sin but absolutely delicious. I have been saving seed from them and may even give them a go next year and see if I can’t match the quality of the sellers tomato plants. It’s always a better option (in my book) to learn to grow things yourself rather than rely on other people if you can at all help it as one day they may not be there but if you have the skills and the wherewithal, (I can’t believe I just spelled that correctly the first time!) to do it yourself, you are a very lucky person indeed.

Here is the “Pinata” Honey Gold mango that I bought the other day and my ripe coconut prior to being scoffed (mango) and soaked (coconut) and planted out (mango) and put in its ziploc bag (coconut). Fingers crossed for them both germinating and growing on to adulthood 🙂

Sorry about the bad photo but here’s the soaked coconut in a zip-lock bag. We figured that the lounge room is the hottest room in the house so it is going to live in there for the duration till it cools down and we light Brunhilda and it can move alongside her till it sprouts and grows.

This is a photo of one of a Facebook friends mangoes that she grew from seed. Note the fruit! She lives on the border of N.S.W. and Queensland so lives in the ideal place for mangoes to grow but I am not giving up all hope. I am at least going to have fun trying to grow mine 🙂

I have decided that if we are going to be forced to endure these hot summers (thanks global warming 😦 ) then I am going to make the most of it. My latest (crazy) idea is to grow a coconut palm or two here. I did some research at YouTube university and found a guy in New Zealand who had grown some. I figured that New Zealand is pretty similar to us in growing conditions (aside from they have more rain) so if he could grow one, I could. I followed his instructions to pick a coconut that was heavy with water in it and then soaked it for 3 days. I just removed it from the water and put it into a large zip-lock bag where it will enjoy the heck out of the humidity in its new environment for a few months till it sprouts a shoot and a selection of roots and can be planted out. I would love to be given the moniker of “The first person in Tasmania to grow a coconut palm”. It could be my epitaph 😉

This is kale. “Hello kale”. I haven’t eaten it. It’s growing quite well along with it’s siblings but still I haven’t eaten it. Why haven’t I eaten it? Because I am not entirely sure “how” to eat it. When I work it out it will be likely too late to eat it at its best but if anyone has any good ideas about eating kale, please let me know in the comment section below 🙂

This is a babaco plant that a friend gave me a few years ago. It has overwintered in the glasshouse and then last year out in the open and aside from losing it’s leaves, it seems most happy to grow here. I am going to plant it out in Sanctuary but till I work out exactly where, it is living in the nursery part of Narnia where the pink gooseberries that I grew from seed are growing and a peach grown from seed that a friend gave me is waiting till I can work out where to plant it.

This is the one time of the year when I get satisfaction out of blackberries. These blackberries are doing double duty as possum terrifiers around the base of my little seed grown apple tree. If they weren’t tangled around it, it would have been hoovered down by the possums so they are allowed to live but I cut them back mercilessly. Then I eat their babies 😉

When I was hunting for the coconut I was also searching for a “Pinata” Honey Gold type of mango. I had eaten one the week before and it was the very best mango I had ever eaten in my life. I vowed that I was going to plant the seed and again, headed off to the internet to find out how to best grow one. The tutorial told me that I had to cut open the seed and inside would be more smaller seeds but after cutting open the large seed there was nothing…except a broken large seed. I was a sad panda. I finally found a few overripe Honey Gold mangoes in Launceston (they had been on special and there weren’t many left) and bought one home, ate it (it was just as good as the last one!) and have planted the seed out along with another kind (hedging my bets 😉 ) in this heatwave so fingers crossed they think that they have dropped into a tropical paradise and by the time they have worked out that they aren’t actually in Aruba, it will be too late!

This is my tiger nut crop growing in a very large pot along with a feral Chinese cabbage and a strawberry runner that a friend gave me of some particularly delicious strawberries that taste like Allens Sherbie sweets. As you can see, they are loving the full sun position that they are in. Hopefully I will get some extras so that I can send them to a couple of friends on the mainland who would love to have a go at growing them (Bev and Jane) 🙂 Not sure if Bev got any of hers to grow? Let me know Bev 🙂

This is the mushroom plant now. It is in a very big black pot and has gone mental. I threw in a handful of aged sheep manure when I planted it and mulched it well and it is situated in a semi shaded spot (apparently where it likes to grow) and is loving its growing conditions. Not bad for a New Guinea native. It’s in a fridge wicking bed next to my turmeric and that strange looking plant with the long greenish brown leaves is a pineapple lily.

I will have to pull up the horseradish this year and divide it as you can see, it’s HUGE. That’s a large broccoli plant behind it and the horseradish loves growing in the freezer section of one of the fridge wicking beds (the perfect place to plant the edibles that might invade Poland)

My accidental guild. Peaches, potatoes (because I had nowhere else to put them 😉 ) and peas (growing from the pea straw under the peach tree). The “P”erfect “P” guild and Earl does his bit to “pee” on it whenever he goes out into the garden 😉

I also headed into a local Asian grocery store and noticed that they had fresh longans and bought a handful. After learning my lesson about following normal website tutorials I went back to YouTube university to find out how to grow them. The universal method is to put the cleaned seeds into damp paper towel and seal them in a zip-lock bag till they sprout (it seems to be a “thang” with tropical seeds) so they, too, are waiting to sprout on my counter top basking in 36C heat and no doubt enjoying the ride whilst poor narf7 melts daily like the wicked witch of the west. Again, at least something good has to come out of this heatwave! I wouldn’t mind too much as you expect it to be a bit hot in summer if you live in Australia but it’s only the middle and we still have the hottest month (February) to come!

I am not sure if I will get any rockmelons from this plant but at least I have the possibility of rockmelons and for me that’s enough 🙂 The lettuce all bolted and went to seed but the rockmelon loves it’s sunny spot in the hot sun

I probably shouldn’t have planted a Queensland blue pumpkin vine out into a fridge wicking bed. It has escaped it’s confines and is off searching for soil to invade.

EGGPLANTS! Be still my beating heart. This eggplant plant is covered in them and is still producing more flowers. I am SO happy! With eggplants costing us $9 each for a small one in Tasmania, I won’t have to sigh heavily whenever I happen to see them in the supermarkets from now on.

This image is for Jane. To show you what the loquat trees that I grew from seed 3 years ago look like now. They languished in pots for a year then got planted out 2 years ago and they are practically unstoppable. Drought tolerant and very hardy to the max. I usually forget to turn on their water but as you can see they don’t care. They are here for the duration 🙂

Steve and I are back at TAFE in a week or so. I don’t really mind this year as we have an excellent lecturer who delivers quality tutorials accompanied by a new female lecturer (not usual in this field) who is both knowledgeable and approachable and they both teach the way that I learn best so it might be my year to conquer my fears about coding. Either way, I am going to ask questions and not expect to know everything that the lecturers are talking about the first go round. The dogs have just gotten used to us being home for the last 6 weeks and we will be back to “abandoning” them again which is going to go down like a lead balloon but which can’t be helped. We expect a couple of weeks of stink eye and several uneaten (sulking) meals from at least one of them.

Doesn’t he look wild? He used to be feral. Now he waits at the gate for us to come out and follows us meowing. If Earl didn’t live inside the house fence, Pawly certainly would!

This is an Eastern spotted tailed quoll. The other evening we heard a commotion out in the garden and headed out to see what was going on. A mother hen and her semi grown babies were wandering dazed around on the driveway which isn’t normal for hens as they nest up at night and Earl was sniffing the fenceline. I went out to explore and found 3 of the hens babies dead on the ground! I looked up (using the torch for light) into the tree above me as Earl was standing up at the fence sniffing up in the air and saw one of these fine fellows. AHA! The prime chook killer of old Sidmouth town is back! I picked up the dead babies and left them at the base of the tree for him. I checked the next morning and he had taken 2 of them away. I haven’t seen him since. I think I scared him!

We have taken to getting up at 6am and heading out for our early morning walks of late. This was Saturday’s walk and the sky was quite threatening. I thought that the forecast for “rain” might eventuate but the cloud cover burned off later in the day and we had 35.5C for Steve’s birthday! They are telling us that we will get rain on Tuesday now. I don’t believe them 😉

I am going to head off now. It’s time to feed the (stink eye) dogs who may or may not eat their dinner now as it’s very hot. We also have to brave the outdoors and head out to feed the feral cats that have become quite tame over the last few months. I hope wherever you are in the world that 2018 has been treating you well and that halfway through January, you are living, learning and enjoying your life. Catch you soon 🙂

I have 2 macadamia nut trees (one less happy than the other one) and pots of happy dragon fruit growing in this part of the garden. I also have a pot with elderberry cuttings growing in it and anything else “potted” like the pines, that we haven’t given away is in this motley bunch. The area is full of frogs and lizards and gets watered every day.

I discovered an interesting conical hole on the bank next to the tap alongside the compost heap the other week. I have been keeping an eye on this hole and noticed something moving in it the other day and saw the BIGGEST spider with huge fangs. She is apparently a wolf spider and has since added webbing to her lovely den. I don’t mind her living in this area of the garden as she is another beneficial to take care of the pest species as far as I am concerned. She often suns herself at the entrance of her burrow and scampers away whenever she sees me.