Parsnips and potatoes.......

Overnight we have had an spectacular electrical storm-which provided some good soaking rain. It moistened the soil enough for me to harvest the remaining parsnips-and a couple of cheeky potatoes which had sprung up!

 

 

 

I also harvested another 1.5kg of strawberries- I think I may use this batch to try some microwave strawberry jam.

 

 

Telstra still doesn't have our telephone services up and running in the area-some businesses have managed to get their EFTPOS up and running and there are also some ATMs working.

 

Ah well......abck to the Dark Ages!

 

Well, that was Christmas!

We have had the most enjoyable Christmas in years!

We spent CHristmas Eve with our son and his family; with my Mother In Law and my husband's 93 year old grandmother in attendance-lovely BBQ meal and the 3 grandsons had a ball with the minimum of blood and tears!

Then our middle child became engaged on Christmas Eve to her partner of 6.5 years-they are also expecting their first child in April.

Christmas morning we catered for 11 friends and family for breakfast before the 3 hr drive to my mother's house for CHristmas tea. At her place were my brother & his 2 daughters, my stepbrother together with his wife & two boys-plus our son and his family drove up; as did our daughter and her new fiance!

With 7 children aged 8 & under it was a blissful day!

Since arriving home on Boxing Day we have been busily moving soil to backfill around the new concrete-labourious but satisfying!

Today I have harvested half a kilo of beans-plus I pulled up one of the potato plants and we are having fresh potatos with lunch!

Life is Good!

You say potatoes....

This afternoon the Husband & I spent the afternoon planting potatoes with two of our grandsons (aged 4 & 3). One of the joys of being grandparents in your 40's is having enough energy to deal with boisterous boys! ;) Husband dug the trenches, the boys and I laid the seed potatoes (well, they laid a couple each and then spent the rest of the time collecting grubs & worms to feed to the chooks!) and then we lightly backfilled.

We planted out Snow Gem, Ruby Lou, Bintje, Kipfler and King Edward varieties-hopefully in a few months we will have enough of a harvest to handle our potato needs for the winter! After last years Great Bobcat Debacle we are optimistic about our chances of gathering more than 5kg this year!