The New Fire/Oven/Heater

After the driest November ever (in Queensland's records), finally a decent couple of days rain. And it's cold, cold enough for me to have been wearing my winter hoodie & cold enough for Santo to light the woodheater. Cold enough to dig out another blanket! Coldest day ever, both up here on the range (14 max) & Brisbane (19 max)...Brrr

Cool weather & our new woodstove got me in the mood to cook; had to work so only got to make some fresh bread, but managed to sort through a few recipes for Xmas cooking in the next few weeks....
When we got the new stove installed a couple of weeks ago we had cool enough weather to light it & christen it. That night I tested the oven out for the first time & made a Baked Rice Custard in it, beautiful.

Leeks haven't grown big enough so we still haven't harvested them. They're going to seed, but they look edible, just small. Going to test them out with some leek & potato soup later this week; it's meant to rain all week & it's been cool weather so perfect for cooking.

The other recipe I really want to try soon is home-made gluten-free lasagne sheets. I've googled & there's lots of different flours to try; my initial test will be rice, tapioca, corn flour with a bit of xanthum gum for stickiness. Sorghum is on the shopping list to try that blended as well.

That idea of taking time to smell the roses (and the lasagne baking) is definitely in harmony with my philosophy on living this "down-to-earth" lifestyle where possible.
This amazing planet called Earth.

Gourmet Cooker/Heater

Asparagus & No Snakes

24 hours with no snake sightings....nice....
Plus, enough asparagus picked to have with some freshly baked gluten free bread today.
Excellent!

One of our neighbours, however, has also had a snake incident...a double act, 2 in one day! What the hell? She & her family have lived at their rural property over 10 years & are long-term residents of the area, and yet this incident has them worried about snakes as well now.

First snake; >5 foot Eastern Brown, second >4 foot. So we discussed whether it was a breeding pair of the Bastards. Then, when I shared that I've also seen 2 x Juveniles the past month or so she realised she may in fact have an entire nest of them hiding in the garden or near the chook pen or the house.....crikey!

But for those city dwellers that may be reading this & feeling smug....they're alive & biting in suburbia as well; check this out:
http://www.news.com.au/woman-dies-after-bite/story-e6freoof-1226185218167

Also in today's Brisbane news; 3 reports of hospitalisation from snake bites in 1 day!
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/spate-of-snake-bites-prompts-warning-20111110-1n8k4.html

Everyone just be careful eh? It's darn hot but we're putting our boots on anywhere not on a path or lawn...even then we need to watch where we're stepping.
Tread carefully & have a nice day!

Summer Daze

So last night I went to bed really early & enjoyed a few pages of the last book in Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy. Such good writing! Even so, I was probably asleep by 9pm therefore woke up after a good night's rest at around 4:30am. This pleasantly surprised The Cat, who is quite used to having Santo to himself for at least an hour most mornings. Apart from jumping up to wake me/say hello briefly, that is....
It was already light, who would have thunk?

After First Tea I went for my usual morning stroll around & meandered into the main veggie patch. I had just checked out the asparagus & decided there was not quite enough to pick for breakfast, when I all but trod on a goddamm snake! Yep, you had better believe it, yesterday it was a Juvenile Eastern Brown around 20cm long sunning itself on the driveway, today a definitely Adult Eastern Brown...longer than 1m, guessing around 4 feet long.....Yikes! I screeched & bolted a few feet away then turned to watch it nonchalantly head to a hidey hole in the middle of our garden, at the edge of our pond. Sadly it looked quite at home....a Resident in the middle of our vegetable garden!

Given that a woman died within a 2 hour drive from here, apparently from multiple bites from a Brown snake in her garden last week, this has prompted us both to be far more careful about everywhere we go & everything we do outside here now. You really don't want to put a foot wrong, so to speak.......