Feather your Nest Friday, 11th June, 2021.

What a week!  Our area was hit by a storm and we are going to be cleaning up for a long time.   

I still had some areas of progress but due to the storm we also had some setbacks.

I will start with the good things! 

My big batch cook up was Spaghetti Bolognese.  We had it for dinner,  I was able to give Lucy enough for two nights at her house and freeze two meals worth for our house.   Another couple of ready meals put away.

I made a banana cake as that is Harper's favourite cake to take to school.  I make it thin like a slice to fit in her lunch box.  This was my Nanas trick to maximise icing to cake ratio! 

I slice it up and freeze it ready for school mornings. 

Then I cooked up some lamb to make broth and some nice soft meat for baby food.   The next day I added a ton of veggies to make Thomas his little meals.  He demolishes it.   This time I added Zucchini.   We keep adding new vegetables.     While this was cooking I decided to get some apples on as I am still working through them.    By the end of the day I had a ton of containers of food for Sidney and Thomas and I kept some apple puree for myself too. 

I did a little bit of sewing and made some more handkerchiefs to package up.  

I got requests for more bibs.   So I went through my fabric stash and cut out a few ready to sew.  Maybe on the weekend I will start on those.  It is nice having things cut out and ready to go.  With even 15 minutes this gets things made up.

Mum and I visited Lucy and her family.   She has an orchard of great old fruit trees.  I discovered that as well as Figs, Quinces and Mulberry trees can grow from cuttings so I packed my basket and snippers.   We walked around the garden and took a collection of cuttings from each tree.  We also picked oranges and lemons!   These are waiting to be made into something now.

I was able to meet with my friend Wendy.   We have our once a month get together and trading day.  Usually I take Wendy five or six dozen eggs.  This time I let the side down a bit.  But Wendy arrived with treasures.  I am still looking through such things as silk embroidery ribbons, fine embroidery wool in the softest colours,  velvet, laces and more!   It is so nice when you have friends who know what you like and we know what they like!    Wendy also gave me a container full of her home grown cherry tomatoes.  Right now some are in the dehydrator and our dinner featured a lot of them on pizza.  Thank you Wendy! 

I had a serious bargain at the store.  A fancy brand of hand sanitiser that sells for $10 each was on special for $1.   I got a heap and gave some to the girls and added some to my pantry.

Now for the storm.  We knew a storm was brewing.   It was Monday afternoon and I was in the kitchen.   The storm hit and I stood still.  It was so loud and sudden!    I headed to find Andy in the office but already tree branches were blowing past the house and trees were falling.  I sort of froze for a minute.  I remembered how we made the decision to take two huge trees out on the side of our house.  It was a big and expensive decision.  Right then I thought how grateful I was those trees could not fall on the house! 

From the windows we could see trees down but soon it was dark and we could no longer see a thing. 

Scout began to bark and I was sure she was worried about a fox.  She kept looking down into the orchard yard and barking and looking at me then barking again.    

The next morning it was all over.   I began my usual routine and went to let the chickens out.  As I went through the gate I put my hand over my mouth when I saw a tree had crushed the chicken house.   This house is in the orchard yard!   Scout had tried to tell me!  

At first I couldn't even see the hen house.  This photo is after we have cleared a lot. 

Amazingly no chickens were killed!   They were all sitting happily under the branches.  

My heart really sank.  Besides this the mess everywhere was just awful.    And the first day we could not do much as the roads around us needed to be cleared.  This was the road I would take to go to Mums...

Andy spent a day clearing that road.  Someone else clearing the road out the front came in to check we were ok.    So our own driveway and garden have to wait.  Next we checked animals and trees down on fences. 

Everywhere you look there are branches and whole trees down.  

Because of the state of the hen house I could not lock the chickens up at night.  I caught some and relocated them to my other hen house.  Yes having another hen house was a good idea.   Not all my eggs were in one basket!    Scout had the job to guard the chickens over three nights as it has taken me today to catch them all.    I think I have lost four.  It will be a fox.   I started with 17 and I caught and relocated 13.   I am grateful we saved that many.   

Today we spent the whole day rebuilding.  Every bone in my body aches tonight!   I was on the ground cutting out a new wire flooring and being general helper.  We hauled and cut the branches, some into a heap for a bonfire and some to stack for future wood for the fire.    We made a lot of progress.   

So sometimes it is two steps forward, one step back!  

We are all experiencing price rises and shortages.   I want to share this cookbook from IKEA The Scraps Book.   Not every idea is one I will use but there are many that I will!   Some of them are brilliant!   I have studied it for ideas.  

I hope you found ways to get ahead, build your pantry and preparedness this week.   If I did not reply to you last week I hope you will understand.   If you have ideas to add to the scraps book please do!  A tip your family has used might really help someone else! xxx