It has been a good week and I've been busy as a bee keeping up with produce. 🐝
I had a few days where I wasn't well. I fell in a hole. Not literally, just too tired and achy and all the things. This set me back a bit but there was nothing I could do about it.
Now, from past things that have happened I found great comfort in the verses about time. Basically God can redeem time you lost. Maybe you lost years to depression or bad choices or goodness knows what. Scripture says that this can be redeemed and in my life I have found this to be true over and over.
In this case I was sure my sick days meant I would not get much done this week. But now it is Friday evening and really there is no real sign I was sick at all! Somehow the time was certainly redeemed.
My first mission was to use the last of the pears. I sent a friend a tray of Figs... and she sent me back the most beautiful huge Quinces. Nothing smells as heavenly as Quinces! So the first thing I made was Quince and Pear jam, half and half.
It turned out so well. I made it in the slow cooker. It is pink and smells amazing. And it tastes beautiful. I got eight decent sized jars from this first round.
Next I baked two trays of Quinces in the oven. They are just cut in half, cored, some water and sugar and baked until pink. Absolutely beautiful. I took one tray over to Chloe. I lived on Quinces... first with custard them with yoghurt.
At the swap table I got heaps of big cherry tomatoes. Today I took jars and boxes of onions to both swap carts.
With my tomatoes I made a tray bake for Chloe's family and then I froze two bags for similar bakes later on.
My friend gave me three Capsicums .... I chopped two and froze those and kept one for eating during the week.
She also gave me two large Eggplant and these beautiful rose plates! I just love them!
The jam and baked Quinces are so gorgeous that I hunted around the kitchen and fridge and have just enough pears to make another batch of the exact same jam... which I hope to do tomorrow. Then that is every pear used for the season.
With all this produce and jam making the chooks have been loving all the cores and seeds etc. They are thriving on every bit!
Today I made a little box of a dozen eggs, a few passionfruit, a few onions, a mini bunch of parsley and a jar of the jam for an old lady at church. Well, she loved it. Gifts don't have to cost anything really. I was very touched this week when I listened to an old Jordan Peterson interview. He was talking about encouragement and so many people get none and never even a kind word. He knew it so well that he began to cry talking about it. And he said even one sentence of encouragement can mean the world to someone. He is terribly ill now and I think so much of him. Also if you have never seen it his wife Tammy was dying of an incurable cancer and she was totally healed. You can watch this on You Tube as it is amazing. Now I pray he can be healed too.
Anyway small gifts of help and small gestures of care... there are ways and means!
My container garden had turned into a massive mess but I was getting things planted. These seedlings went in this week plus seeds.
Still, I had issues I was stuck with such as some containers that never do well and needed to be moved to new spots. Some that needed to be topped up with compost... a general out of control hell scape. haha
Yesterday my helpers were here for the day. I explained what needed to be moved and they made it look easy despite these being huge containers. Now they will get the rain... and I have concluded no amount of watering anything does what rain does. I filled one of the empty beds with Parsley seed as I have a ton of that.
I have Basil to harvest and broccoli which is getting quite huge.
This help was a great boost.
I am now working on a blanket for Chase. It was already started and I didn't have enough wool in the colours I wanted which are dusty blues and greys. My friend turned up with her op shop finds of huge balls of pure wool. Take a look at the perfect match! I am set!
This will be a single bed blanket. Big enough, I hope, to be kept always.
Tom came and his little brother had requested Honey Crackles. So we got going. I heated the butter, honey, sugar mix and Tom said "Nana I can handle it from here." Which he did as we have done this a few times. While he worked on them I did other jobs in the kitchen.
We left them cool and I covered them with a cloth to transport them home with him. He insisted he took them inside and left them covered so he could surprise everyone after dinner. I was asked to zip it and not give the game away!
Yesterday was the feast day of Saint George. Tom gave three adults a complete lesson on Saint George and I was amazed as I didn't know half of it! So I learned a lot and he was proud we all were like "really!? wow!"
On the way here Tom noticed a big branch down. He told my helper about this and off the went. You can see his blue shirt... he is in there having a great time picking this huge branch up.
In the mail I got the most amazing gift. Thank you so much! My favourite verses... complete with Bluebirds too.
It is exquisite. I love it so much that I am going to get it professionally framed but first I need to find a frame I think is right for it. I am going to have it in my kitchen where most of the work is happening.
This was such an uplifting and toughing gift. How perfect!
Now a little story. My friend knows there is no fence too high, no one I won't ask if I see fruit being wasted. So when this tree was spotted (while they were out on a drive) she thought mmm.... ok I am going to do it! They drove up the driveway to the house and asked the lady would she mind if they picked some Quinces? The lady was very nice and said yes! and that she had no idea what to do with them and so they just fell.
I am pretty sure if I had seen this tree I would have practically crashed the car looking!
This is the bagful she came home with. They are enormous and perfect. I said five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ this is what to do! Many years I have had over 100 kilos of produce from doing this! Many times I end up friends with the people and take them back jam or a pie. Take opportunities!
So on food an opportunities.... I am blessed with reports from so many of you. This week fuel prices came down here somewhat which was great. However rationing has not been ruled out.
I listened to a speech from the head of the EU. It was fascinating. She said fuel of all kinds will probably need rationing and also food. She said everyone would need to eat less. I will refrain from giving my opinion on these unelected people with power over so many. Then she said this would include phones.
Phones.
What? How? Why?
During covid in our neighbour state Victoria people were told by the government not to talk to their neighbours, even over the fence. And to dob in people seen talking to their neighbours what's more. This does not sound like it could possibly be true but it is. Loneliness and isolation are two of the worst things for mental health and happiness. Yet this happened.
The next day after hearing this about phones my English friend messaged me. She had already been warned to expect fuel rationing and already told to expect food rationing. Heating oil had already become unaffordable. But now they were being warned that they could have PHONE rationing.
Even me... who feels like nothing would shock me anymore... well, I was shocked. I asked her where she had seen this and what was the reason given?
It had been on Great Britain news and the reason given is that the phone business uses a lot of electricity. So there you go.
I share this because the whole world is affected. I heard Cambodia and the Philippines have terrible fuel problems. Many countries are. I am sure many reading are feeling the pinch with food rices, fuel prices and even travel restrictions. We just can't be well prepared if we have no clue. I really appreciate you letting us know what you know. In Australia the general trend is that whatever is happening in the USA or UK soon happens here. We can basically count on it. Mind you in covid we excelled and maybe were the worst with some particular restrictions.
It was a great week and I have plans for tomorrow as I am just dying to get the next lot of jam going. Good thing I have so many jars. We also have the opportunity, in about another week, to pick a third round of figs. I cannot use this many figs although I could make jam.... but I can share and trade with them. I can contribute to the swap tables. So I m pretty sure we will have another harvest.
Have a rest, appreciate all the good things of the week and make new plans. There is nothing like a plan that comes together!xxx
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