SNAKE in suburbia!

Not quite on a plane, but still as shocking!

Taking the garbage bins to the kerb yesterday afternoon, I saw the long grass moving wildly from where we just moved the bins from.

Is it a worm? Have I finally lost my mind and am now hallucinating? No it actually was a snake! Albeit a small one, definitely a baby, no maybe more than that, a toddler snake?!

It was about 30cm long which is long enough for me to have a freak out and do that little dance when you think it will run over your feet (I wasn't wearing shoes!) and scream to my boy to 'do something with it!'

So my macho (hmm little exaggerated as he also did the little dance and he was wearing shoes!) man came over to investigate after telling me it must be a worm.

By this stage it had freaked out enough by seeing us and was looking for an easy escape. It had started down a crack in the concrete. Lyndon very hesitantly grabbed its tail to pull it back out of the hole. We hadn't thought about what we would do when it came out of the hole, probably throw it wildly in the air would be my guess, but it didn't come to that because ..... IT'S TAIL CAME OFF! Like how a lizard sometimes loses it's tail. Yes that's right we dismembered the snake.

Well the screams were almost deafening, very much like you hear at a 5 year olds birthday party. Yes and that high-pitched too! Lyndon wildly threw the snake tail and it landed in the garage and continued to wiggle. It was quite surrealy to see it keep wriggling like that when the snake was still in the hole.

We reasoned with each other that it could grow it back like a lizards and continued in our quest to put this potential monster back into the wild (if we could actually get to that point), so Lyndon once again grabbed hold of the now stumpy and bleeding end of the tail and started bringing it out backwards. Oh my god, I can't even write this.........ANOTHER PIECE OF ITS BODY BROKE OFF!

So that was it, we knew we had killed the snake by ripping it apart. We looked from the bloody snake pieces to each other in disbelief and realisation at what we had done to this poor creature at the beginning of its snake life. The pain we inflicted on it. Oh my goodness, my heart wretched like I'd seen a human die in front of my eyes. It was the most horrible feeling.

We both walked off in different directions and in silence still shocked and disturbed at what had happened. I started silently weeding my gardens and Lyndon went into the garage to work on his bikes.

So I'm officially apologising to Mr Toddler Snake for contributing to his death. I didn't think the snake would kill me but I still had to have it gone, and look at the consequences of that. Oh and I'm sorry to Mama Snake who I hope won't hold a grudge against me and come looking for me while I sleep.

My life for the next month....

This will be my life for the next month....

The 25th September is a LONG way away and I will be working my butt off the whole time. I have looked at my calendar and so far do not have 1 day off the whole month! Lucky I love it!

If you live in or around Brissie, come check out some fabulous events, that we have been working tirelessly on for months http://www.brisbanefestival.com.au/

So.... that means I will be a little absent here for a while. Don't worry I manage to sneak in a little time every few days to check out everyone else's blogs, but will only posting intermittently myself.

Have a lovely September!

:)
Kim

Gardening...finally!

We moved into our new house a few weeks ago. I was so thrilled to move from our unit into a house with established garden beds. See one of my previous posts on my unit/balcony gardening here.

Over the past few weekends since moving in I have dabbled in gardening a little, but not as much as I would like, due mainly to unpacking (ewww), being sick and under the weather (also ewww) and then this weekend going camping (not ewww at all!). We went to Neurum Creek Bush Retreat, which was beautiful.

Although it did happen to be some doggie spectacular event going on and we were the only ones there without a pooch or taking part in any of the activities (it was totally fine by me to lay next to the creek and read rather than throw things in the water for my dog to jump in and get!). If you live within a few hours of Caboolture I suggest you go check this place out. Only thing though, don't expect many nicetties from the staff that check you in, I found them to be very rude and uninterested! If I worked in a beautiful location as they do I think I could probably pull out a smile!

Anyway, I'm getting off track, I wanted to talk about gardening.

So I potted around a little bit these last few weekends and I wanted to show some pictures and also show what needs to be done!

Lemon tree with new buds

Plants still needing to be transferred into the garden

Some garden beds still to be prepared

One garden bed with Bush tomato in front, bro

ccoli, carrots

, potatos, and one transplanted tomato at the back

Second prepared bed with lettuce and a flower mix to attract beneficial insects

Spring has sprung! (on my lime tree)

Mulberries starting to form (IN MY BACKYARD!)

One of the beneficial weeds in the lawn (probably the only beneficial one!)

My seeds are actually sprouting! I must be doing something right

Luffa seedling - it's HUGE!

Even my pumpkin seeds, that I saved myself, are sprouting. Good signs!

Well that's the tour of my backyards so far. Hopefully I'll be able to bring you some more pictures soon.

How was your weekend?

Using it all: pumpkin

We have been actively trying to not create any waste when we make our meals. Our latest success has been with pumpkin.
My other half decided to cook a very delicious pumpkin soup with beans blended to add thickness to the soup.
That was dinner. Then instead of throwing the skin and seeds in the compost (which in itself I thing would have been considered 'using' it all up) we then made pumpkin chips from the pieces of skin (which I officially love!) And are currently drying the seeds to eat as a snack (very good for u according to my naturopath). So that's one way of using the whole pumpkin. What do u do with pumpkin or do 'use it all up' with something different?

Books: the frugal way!

This is my ever growing list of books on hold at the local library:

Small strawbale : natural homes, projects & designs Strawbale homebuilding Steen, Bill. Stephanie Alexander's kitchen garden companion Alexander, Stephanie,  Herbs for Australian gardens : a practical guide to growing and using organic herbs Woodward, Penny. The herbal medicine-makers' handbook : a home manual Green, James, 1940- Nourishing traditions : the cookbook that challenges politically correct nutrition and the diet dictocrats Fallon, Sally. Handmade home : simple ways to repurpose old materials into new family treasures Soule, Amanda Blake. The creative family : how to encourage imagination & nurture family connections Soule, Amanda Blake. The gentle art of domesticity Brocket, Jane. The new complete book of self-sufficiency Seymour, John Choosing Eden : the real dirt on the coming energy crisis Langman, Adrienne.
What a treasure trove! Cost to place a hold and have the book delivered to your choice of library within the Brisbane area is 80cents. Not bad!
I can't wait until I receive that email in my inbox to say they are ready to pick up! Some will take longer than others, for Amanda's (aka Soulemama) 'Homemade Home' I am 7th in the queue so could be a long wait, but all of the others I am the next in line so should receive that email to say they are ready in the next few weeks.
Oh how very frugal!
:)
Kim

Using it all up with mangoes!

Last weekend at the farmers markets I couldn't walk past the fabulous aroma of MANGOS!

To my they epitomize summer in Brisbane. Yep I know it's not summer yet, but that beautiful tropical smell is hard to walk past.

I bought a couple and after having one with ice cream (best combo ever), I made up some orange and mango cordial.

Very simple standard recipe that you can use on any mix of fruits that I read on Rhonda's down to earth blog.

Juice your fruits and weigh. I lined a bowl with muslin cloth and scrapped all of the mango flesh into it, then squeezed all the juice through the cloth into the bowl. This left a lot of the flesh in the muslin cloth.
Make the same weight of sugar syrup (which is a mix of half sugar, half water heated on the stovetop until the sugar is dissolved)
Then just mix them together and pour into sterilized jars.
The cordial will stay fresh for at least 1 week like this, otherwise add a little citric acid (which you can easily find in the  baking section of the supermarket) to keep the flavours fresher for longer.

I used the juice of 2 mangoes and 1 orange, and this gave me about 500ml of quite nectar-y tasting cordial, very delish!

But then I had the leftover mango flesh that I didn't want to just throw out. So I whipped up a mango cake to use it up! I didn't follow a recipe. Just added flour, sugar and milk until it was the right consistency and poured it into my ring tin then into the oven until it looked just about right. Easy, no fuss!

All that was remaining of those mangoes was the skin and seeds, into the compost and each and every part of those mangoes was used productively.

Do you have any great recipes for 'leftovers'?

Lost my mojo

I have completely lost my blogging mojo. No, I lie, I've also lost my housework mojo, actually I think I have actually lost my do-anything mojo.

This last week I have felt so flat. I think a combination of moving last weekend, being the week before 'that' time of the month and having a stuffy headcold is doing my energy in and throwing my emotions all out of whack. Absolutely drained is a pretty good term for how I'm feeling right now.

It also doesnt help that next month going to be ridiculously intense for me. I work for a festival and next month is THE festival, so this whole year we have been working towards the 3 weeks in September when we (somehow) pull it all together. So just thinking about that is not doing much to increase my energy levels at all.

Today my headcold kicked into overdrive and has knocked me out. I slept for 4 hours in the middle of the day today, now that is very unlike me.

So I have been upping the vitamins to try and kick whatever this rut is in the butt! I'm taking valerian to help me get a deeper sleep, a zinc, B6 and magneisum mix for the dreaded PMS, and LOTS of cups of tea and hot chocolate just because I'm in need of comforting. I am seeing a naturopath tomorrow to see what they suggest also.

What are your natural remedies that you swear by?