Opp shop finds

 Today powercor turned off the power as they were working on the lines from 9am until 3 pm what a pain I have to do some opp shopping. My father bought this tiny suitcase and I found these wooden cotton reels. The tape measures are fiberglass made in England

 They just don't make things like they used to , these beautiful little pop up novelty needle books

 

 The permaculture Home garden I already have this book and its awesome, but I will sell this one and a recipe book put out by Sovereign Hill will be sold as well.

 This beautiful vintage costume jewellery bracelet

 While putting things away in my ebay room and sorting through some items I found this, a local nursing home cook book

 With some awesome local advertisements in them

 I love this one ,when I was child Dad would take me down to Bills bookbarn and I would swap all my comic books

 Two shillings this is a oldy

Finally the power is back on the kids are home and its make your own pizza night, and I have heat, oh and I can finally use the computer yay

Snippetts of my home

                  Home is where the heart is

 My therapy I bought this piano 30 years ago I just love it.

 Allways a melt burning in the burner, this is my favourite oil burner

 By George she`s got it, finally I worked it out, its rough but Im happy

 Little opp shop finds

 My Mothers teddy bear collection sits on my stairs

 An old suitcase at the top of the stairs

A painting but not sure where it came from

 My Mothers sister Aunty Betty painted this plate on my wall

 I have a hoarder in the house Miss Indy ,this is just a little part of her room of trinkets ugh

 I love this chair another opp shop find

 An ebay find

Yes yes Im getting to it, I know its not spring but I have to remind myself to clean every corner of the house, as hoping to have a garage sale somtime soon

What a weekend

                              What a weekend

Well once when I had commented what a weekend it would of been all the exciting things that I had done, this weekend the house had been ridden with gastro and quite a violent one at that.
It all started with my son having a pain in the stomach , I thought he was just faking it so he could jump into my bed , oh why not hop in snuggle up is your pain better now darl...... all of a sudden he went to get out of bed but got his foot stuck in the blanket and then vomited all over my carpet uuuugggh, I can do most things but cleaning up spew is not one, worst of all India had a friend sleeping over and it was 11pm at night and Tyler tucked up in his nice clean room while Im in the stinky room, the weather is freezing I cant open the windows and struggling to clean the mess, oh dear.
The next day Indy is now sick so both kids all weekend couch swapping not wanting any food [thats a sure sign of sickness as they eat me out of house and home usually}.
So my big plans of getting anything done or going anywhere was out the door.
Now to top it off I have the bug after sitting for three hours in the doctors surgery to get a certificate for work. Im now snugged up keeping warm and wanting this dreaded bug to be gone out of my house so I can get something constructive done.

At the moment Im like this

Miss TownMouse`s country house

                        A walk in the bush

 This property was left to me by my late Mother it is beautiful Australian bush 5 acres of gumtrees, my father resides here at the moment he just loves the place, I must admit the air was so clean and crisp here this morning when we went for a bushwalk. The gardens are a bit run down since Mum got sick she was a keen gardener and at the moment I just don't have the time to tidy them up , but will get around to it.

 My favourite tree

 A foxes den, Dad said 2 foxes come out of here about 5 pm everynight

Jam Melon

                                    Jam melon

I don't know much about these and I have never seen one before.
My friends Mother rang me up and asked me if I would like one to make jam with so I took the challenge.
They were kind enough to drop this half of melon over to my house.
I have saved all the seeds to try planting this in the spring.
There were a few different recipes on the net but the one I went for was Melon and ginger jam and I was very happy with the result as I love ginger, but if your not fond of ginger there are other recipes you could work with.

1 kg jam melon {prepared weight}
250g preserved ginger diced
1 kg sugar
juice of 6 lemons
1/4 teasp cayenne pepper

Preparation
Peel and chop melon , chop ginger and add sugar place in a bowl over night... do not miss this step

2. Transfer melon mix into a pan and boil until melon is transparent. Add lemon juice and cayenne continue to boil until setting point is reached.
Bottle in sterilized jars.
This jam is lovely with a little kick

and yes Im a very messy cook.

Home made sauce

              Tomato sauce

The weather here has turned quite cold, too cold to be getting up at 5.30 am for dayshift
On the bright side its only 7 hours until I can escape to get home and get stuck into getting things done at home.
My tomato harvest this year has been wonderful I had been picking then cutting them and putting them in the freezer, and the freezer was just to full so its time I made my sauce.

I really need to get a larger cooking pot , as after getting all the tomatoes out and the pot was overflowing I had to transfer some tomatoes to another pot, Im really terrible at writing recipes as I do not measure anything, so all I can give you are the ingredients and approx. measurements.
2 kg tomatoes chopped { I had 6 kg]
500g apples chopped
500g onions chopped
1 1/4 cups white vinegar
400g sugar
1 dsp allspice
1/2 desp ground cloves
2 dsp salt
1 pinch cayenne
2 pinches black pepper

I just boil all this up then blend with stick blender
 and then pour into sterilized bottles

 

Now I just need to make some home made pies and sausage rolls, as the sauce is delish.

 

Opp shop find

                  Todays opp shop find

Vintage tea towels all pure linen, not sure what Im going to do with them as yet, sell or sew something from them.
It must of been somebodys collection there were more still at the opp shop I think I may go back and get them, collected from somebodys travels. I remember going on holidays and we would allways bring back presents from towns we visited like fridge magnets, tea towels, rulers and pens, vintage tea towels seem to be a thing of the past , I don't know anybody who collects them now, oh and I forgot teaspoons I remember somebody collecting teaspoons, I often see those in the opp shops, somebodys treasured collection.