Feather your Nest Friday, 3rd April, 2026. Happy Easter!

This week has been a continuation of last week!  Thankfully with a weekend in between.

So I will jump right in...

My basil was ready for another trim... this was the fourth harvest and better than the first tree.  I left some growing for other recipes.

I made up a huge batch of Pesto.  One container is for my younger daughter Lucy as she will he here tomorrow.   We are having an Easter Saturday brunch.   My goal (or one of them) is to send her home with a meal, eggs, pesto and whatever if left from our hot cross buns,  scones and jam and cream etc.

Somehow I ended up with a kitchen of preserving/freeze drying/jam making/candied figs and chocolate and they were all sticky...  and to this I added getting ready for tomorrow.  I can't count how many times I cleaned up the kitchen only to be back to square one!  I just worked on one thing and then another.   But also I had this feeling.  My original "feeling" goes all the way back to the end of 2016 and I decided to act on it in January 2017.  That is a decade ago!   This feeling was in my stomach and in my bones that I should build a pantry and we should become more self reliant but for a reason... because of something coming.  Ignoring it didn't work.  

My whole blog pretty much covers what I did next. It led to us getting out of the city and building a whole new life. 

In Jan 2020 that feeling was stronger (and we all know how that turned out) but I never once thought THIS is what I've been preparing for.  If anything there were a lot of lessons in it but we jus kept going.  

Fast forward to now...  it has been the same conviction and we put so much effort into everything from water to a trustworthy community.   But on Monday and Tuesday I felt different.  I was going, going, going and the feeling was keep going,  don't look over my shoulder, don't look up just keep going.

I could see myself in my minds eye looking over my left shoulder and felt don't do that!  Don't look back! It made me think of Lot's wife!  

So some of you will think wow that is a weird overshare.  But there will be others that understand. 

So get on with it I did. 

If you remember last week I was given the big box of produce.  

I freeze dried celery first.  Half a celery = one jar.   One of these went to Mum's pantry.

Then cabbage was next.

While these were going I turned the big cauliflower and most of the broccoli into two large cauliflower cheese bakes.

Then I did red cabbage...

My friend gave me seedlings and I got these planted.   My broccoli and celery are growing well too.

I have almost ripe pears in the fridge to get to.   But also Chloe's fig tree was covered in ready to pick fruit.

This tree is huge!  Well there are no lengths we won't go to...  the boys made up a cage to be lifted by the low loader so they could pick the top of the tree.  Me,  I stayed on the ground and worked my way around what I could reach.

Maybe the theme of the week is sticky but buckets full of huge fat purple figs were harvested.  We can do this all again in a couple of weeks as there are still lots of green ones! 

Then... 

I got some in the slow cooker to make jam...

Another lot made fig paste.

I put blanched almonds into the jam.  This is beautiful.  My Dad and I used to compete to get the almonds.

Also I candied figs and dried them out to dip in chocolate.  They become chewy and delicious.

Tom helped me dip the candied figs in chocolate.  We had chocolate from here to next week.  I forgot photos of these but they will be on the table tomorrow so I will try and take one.

Last night there was a huge moon.  I think it was the Strawberry Moon?   It was amazing!

Chloe is also on the job and expanding a new veggie garden.  Today was a big day over there.  And a day of Autumn sunshine. The kids had a beautiful day too.

Ike is two months old.  He really has grown and I think he just wants to get into the action with the big kids.

So that was my week.  I am hoping tomorrow will be great fun for the kids,  delicious for the adults and lovely family time.  Mum and I will have all Grandkids/GreatGrandkids at once.  😊

How did you build up your nest this week?   How are you managing fuel and food prices?    What are you doing differently?   Tomorrow we give the kids all warm winter pyjamas...  not a lot spent on chocolate but more on something that will last the whole winter.  Remember it is Autumn here in Australia!

I will do a few more things in the kitchen and then call it a night!xxx