Feather your Next Friday, 28th October 2022.

This week I had a long list which was kind of daunting.  I do love crossing things off a list though!  

Number one was to get my fruit cakes made for Christmas.  I did it over two days making two double batches.  That was 20 eggs and 4 kilos of fruit.  Many times over the years I have had various themes at Christmas for my wrapping and gifts.  This year the theme is "use up all the odds and ends of ribbons, papers, cellophanes, boxes...."   

One batch was cooling and I got the next lot of fruit soaking to make the next day. 

I stuck to my plan to make more smaller cakes.    One was larger which is for us and guests and I got nine all up.

My next goal was to organise a place for the freeze drier.   I have a room that is a kind of entrance room and it is going to become a food preserving room.  To do this I had to move so much!   It went like this:

Empty a large set of shelves in the laundry.   These held all my laundry products.  So I moved these supplies all into a cupboard elsewhere.  Doing this I reorganised everything and lined them up so I can see exactly how many laundry powers and liquids I have,  stains removers and general things like cleaning supplies.    Finally the shelves went out.   Then I mopped the floor and cleaned as you do when furniture gets moved.

Step two... the ready meals freezer went into this space then same again clean the space,  mop the floor and so on.

Step three... a table of all my plants and stuff I can't help but collect also had to be moved out.   Then again cleaning and mopping etc.

Now I have a clear space waiting for a long stainless steel work bench that will hold the freeze drier.   And the freight centre in town rang me and said my freeze drier has arrived!  This is so exciting!   It is coming together!  I hope by this time next week I am all set up.

I have Broccoli ready to harvest and it is the best I have grown so far.   

Of course I don't want to harvest anything right now as next week I might be able to freeze dry it.   But still I needed to harvest Broad Beans as they are getting away from me.

We sat outside shelling beans like old timers.  

Even after using 20 eggs in cakes I still had a lot of eggs so I made a big Impossible Pie.   It was really delicious.

I moved the Ducks into bigger premises and also Quail.  I have one lot of chickens that need to be moved as well so maybe over the weekend I will get to them too.  I need to stop hatching chickens for a while but I am glad now that I know I can do it at any time it is needed for our own flock or for anyone else.  I am pleased about that.

We continued to get rain and the weather is cool as if Spring just went away.   Things have grown so much it is just incredible.  I thought the coolness might slow things down but the rain is so good for things and they have shot along.  I am amazed.  Growth everywhere.  We are grateful!  

So it was a good week.  My list is whittled down so much which feels great.   The weekend is going to be quieter which is just what we need.  

How did you build up your home,  pantry or garden this week?  I hope you found some good deals out there and things that helped. xxx