Private: 13th February 2007
February 13th, 2007 - Posted in Blackball, food & drink - by Sarah|
Loads seems to have happened since our last blog. Having a house, garden and kitchen has enabled us to to do some things that we’ve been dying to do for ages (make beer) and has also forced us to do some other things that have kept us busy (make a bed).
First a bit of admin. We’ve created two new blog categories:
BEER – Brendhan’s beer is making good progress so far but won’t be ready to drink for another 3 weeks or so. He has started a beer blog for anyone interested in the geeky details of brewing.
CHICKENS – Chickens have occupied a fair amout of time too as you can see in the 2 ‘chicken updates’ added earlier today.
NB If you just want to see one of these you can use the categories selection tool on the right to select the subject you’re interested in.
Back to what we’ve been up to…
Having our own bed was a real milestone. No offence to the generosity of those who have put us up since we left Warriston Rd 8 months ago but there’s nothing to compare to your own bed! Sarah made our own king size futon type base and bought a natural fibre futon mattress to go on top… it’s fantastic.
Brendhan planted the other half of the round veggie garden with seeds and filled another corner with seed potatoes and some black turtle beans.
Veggie garden after three and a half weeks.
Everything is growing really well and we’re spending a few minutes every day weeding and squishing caterpillers.
Our compost is also doing well. We’ve got two big bins for for kitchen waste and a huge pile that was from our original clearance of the veggie garden. It gets turned (by Brendhan so far) once a week, when it starts to cool down, and has halved in size already.
Our compost heap after clearing the veggie garden.
On the day that Brendhan made beer Sarah made a batch of Ginger Beer from a recipe in a magazine. However, we didn’t have a pot large enough for the full quantity so had to halve everything. Being Sarah, she didn’t quite follow the recipe but put the full quantity of lemon juice in. The result is nice and drinkable but definitely not GINGER beer.
LEMON and Ginger Beer.
Sarah has been busy in the kitchen making cakes, bread and hot cross buns. She’s also had her first attempt at making Wensleydale cheese. We won’t know for a few weeks whether it’s worked as it needs to rest for a while to let the flavour develop.
First attempt at Wensleydale.
Brendhan built emergency defences for the veggie pa-tch when we noticed that the wild chickens from next door were showing an interest. (For those who have never been near NZ a Pa is a Maori word for a fortified place.) Sarah added the notice – just to make sure.
The Veggie Pa.
For entertainment we’ve been re-watching some of our DVD collection and have also made it to the cinema a couple of times to see The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine. Both really good but totally different – one a gritty drama and the other a black comedy. Both recommended.
We’ve also both signed up for an evening course in Hydroponics at the Tai Potinui campus in Reefton. We had the first session last night and while the theory side may leave something to be desired it looks like it will be very hands-on so should be interesting. We came back home with seeds and planting medium to have a go with.
Brendhan was away this weekend fetching his Capri from Wanganui so to keep busy Sarah made another batch of Ginger Beer, this time following the recipe and making the full amount. It’s even been bottled in glass so looks like the real thing. We won’t know if it tastes like it until Thursday when the first bottle can be drunk.
Real Ginger Beer.
Our project room is also in full swing and we’ve been making contact with Building Officers, engineers and architects.
The project wallboard.
It’s looking fairly positive for our straw bale house at the moment despite there not being another in the Coast region. Brendhan is off on a NZ Strawbale course next week to make some contacts and find out more about the NZ sepcific requirements and solutions.
And finally, last but not least, tomorrow is the big day – we take possesion of 139 Camerons Rd. We’ve not decided yet when we’ll move on as there are many factors at play and we have another 2 months of lease to go here. In the meantime there’s lots we can be getting on with…
on February 17th, 2007 at 6:41 am
Thanks for the update-most entertaining and interesting.
The salad patch is obviously progressing,and the bottling plant is working well-there may be a market for lemon and ginger beer.
Separate comments left re eggs and brewing.
We now know what hydroponics is , for which many thanks.