Learning something new ...

I love learning new things.  It's especially great when the raw materials are from your garden, you go to a friend's to learn, children and grown ups learn together, you share some food and you come away with something very pretty!

Freshly harvested harakeke leaves (flax leaves)

Flax flower

Close up of flax flower - so easy - when you know how!

Raranga, or flax weaving, is a traditional Maori custom.  They used it for the everyday to the ceremonial and there are lots of traditions and customs that go with it.  One tradition I learnt today is that each time you try a different type of weaving the item you make should be given away.  So the flower in the middle is my second attempt, on the right is Maia's first attempt (she didn't want to give hers away at all!) and on the left is my first attempt at simple weaving - which I have to find a recipient for!

If you're interested in seeing more images of flax weaving click here.  So many beautiful things to make so little time to do it!!! x

EDITED TO ADD:  The flax flowers are actually called putiputi and there's a tutorial over here if you fancy making one.  xx

The little buggers got them .......

no, not the girls ...... the birds!

Back here I was confused that we had strawberries ripening in winter.  Well the birds couldn't believe their luck and had them!  Serve me right for waiting until they were totally ripe! x

It's a mystery????

The toadstool may well have been magical, but this is just a mystery!

Today is the 3rd day of June.  

That's the 3rd day of winter in NZ.  

It's been cold.

We've had frosts.

It's been raining, heavily, for the last few days.

And we have two tone strawberries!!!!! x

PS Have you been to Garden Mama's blog.  It's one I used to read, and have rediscovered now I'm back in blogland, and loved for its calmness, photography and sense of joy.  An added incentive?   She's running a wonderful giveaway - but be in quick, time's almost up!

From the garden ...

Fresh from our garden we have beetroot and carrots and yams kindly given by a neighbour.  I've never had yams before, in fact I have never seen yams before, so that will be something new to try tomorrow.  I'm new to growing veggies so was very pleased when everything grew this year.  We had tomatoes, runner beans, dwarf beans, peas, rocket, lettuce, courgette, beetroot, carrots and strawberries.  The only thing that really didn't grow at all was the spring onions.   The first lot of beetroot we harvested I roasted with balsamic vinegar and then mixed with local feta and mint - absolutely delicious!!!!  These beetroot are now much bigger so it'll be interesting to see how they taste.  Especially this one:

Our plum tree had lots of blossoms and lots of fruit but they took so long to ripen that the birds got them first. I think Maia was the only one of us to have a plum from our tree.  Our lemon tree was moved, ultimately for it's own good, but I don't think it liked it very much!  We've had some blossom on it since the move but no fruit yet - fingers crossed!

The other fruit tree we have is the feijoa.  This is a prolific producer but I don't really like them - luckily Craig and the girls do!  Having said that I made some delicious feijoa muffins last year and we just looked up the recipe after tea tonight.  Craig said he couldn't believe that it's been a year already since we had them last.  There's something very reassuring about celebrating different seasons with the foods and looking forward to the harvests.  I can tell you that I'm already looking forward to next January/February when we can go and pick our own blueberries again!

We've also saved some seed this year.  Don't you just love Maia's label "MAGIC BEANS MAIA APRIL 2010"?!  Being new to growing veggies I have once again been absolutely amazed at the whole process.  You take a small seed/bean etc and then they grow.  I love seeing the first shoots of green and wondering what the leaves will look like.  They then grow and,  hopefully, bear fruit and will then give you seeds to plant again the following year to bear more fruit.  I know this isn't rocket science and I know that this IS what happens but it amazes me just the same - it's just like magic!!!!

Definitions

The little grubs definition of peacefulness:

a few days away at the beach with no phone, no mobile reception, no computer and no TV - absolute bliss!


The little grubs definition of frustration:

wanting to work on the garden (I know I should be planting garlic and strawberries already) but being faced with this:

Probably more frustrating is having actually cleared some beds and planted some lavender only to find it looking like this:

The little grubs definition of delicious:

handmade granola atop stewed apple with greek yoghurt - yum!

For the definition of craftstipation click here!

Outside at last!

The rain stopped, the temperature increased, the sun came out and so did we!



The girls soaking up the sun! Have a peek in the carport and there's a blue floral sheet hanging out to dry. My $2 bargain today - destined to be a little girl's dress and some bag lining I think! We reused some beer crates from the tip as planter boxes for some little pohutukawas. I need to find some sacking to cover up the rather nasty black plastic which is lining them!

From our garden today. Unfortunately I don't like feijoas but Craig and the girls do so they are ploughing through them. Having said I don't like them the feijoa muffins I made last week were quite edible (in fact so edible I had 3!). The lemon tree is only small but is full of fruit at all different stages of ripening. I still get a huge kick out of being able to go into my garden and pick a lemon - there's not an abundance of lemon trees in the middle of England! So what to do with all the lemons? If anyone has a good lemon curd recipe then I would love to know - I think that would be a winner in this house. Many thanks.

Small celebrations and a giveaway ...

The world seems to be getting more crazy each day, in fact I don't really like to watch the news anymore because it seems like all there is is bad news and the bad seems to be getting worse than ever, if you know what I mean!

So I have decided to celebrate the small things, I guess a way of counting your blessings. Here goes:

1) we started in our garden today and went from this:

to this:

with plenty of these:

"long worm mummy, looonnnnnngggg!"

"this is mummy worm, mummy"

one very relieved worm back in the soil!

with none of the threatened rain:

2) Cassia wet her knickers today, but on the wooden floor not on the new carpet!

3) What's better than finding one of these?

Finding two of them of course! And for only $3.50 each they were a fantastic buy for my little girls. I had thoughts of repainting them but that can wait because they like them just the way they are.

4) Having an idea and trying it and it works! I wanted to crochet an egg shape. When I googled it I came up with lots of patterns but they were for 3D eggs and I just wanted 2D so I took my heart pattern and figured out the rest. It only took 2 attempts and I had an egg shape! Hurray!

So that nicely leads on to the giveaway! This is my 100th post - wow I can't really believe it so let's celebrate. Leave a comment before Monday you can be in to win the giveaway. What is it? Well it's crocheted eggs of course! 7 different eggs made into a bunting - sorry no photo of it hanging - the light is fading and I was lucky to even get this one!