Nimmitabel: A Work in Progress: Queens birthday weekend & Pizzas, 8-10 June 2013

If I thought it was cold 2 weeks ago, it certainly seemed a lot colder this weekend. Although once again, warm enough outside in the sun during the day.

And there must have been more rain, as the grass was a lot greener again. Perhaps I'm being a bit optimistic to call it grass. Sure there was some grass, but some low lying weeds had also sprung up looking like grass from a distance, and was a lovely green. Hopefully it won't prove too much of a problem

green grass from a distance

All the family came this time, although the kids were supposed to study for exams. They confided later that not much study was actually accomplished.

studying, or just playing on the laptop?

Once again Justin reluctantly informed me that my brick work wasn't quite up to scratch for the succulent bed. And would I mind very much if he straightened it up a bit. Didn't worry me, it's not as though I was trying to do a sub-standard job, it was just that I wasn't unduly concerned that it was slightly crooked, and perhaps the bricks weren't dug in deep enough.

Justin re-laying the bricks

Denise also dropped in with some gifts. 3 x new unusual succulents which she'd bought at a local market.
How lovely!

the 3 x succulents from Denise

She had also planted some more cuttings from her own garden, and I had brought some more up from Melbourne including some bromeliads which had been multiplying . Hopefully they'll survive, we'll have to see how they do with the frost!

re-laid bricks and planted bromeliads

So, anyway, Justin fixed up the bricks, and then decided he wanted to tweak it some more...He wasn't happy with the path continuing from the portico, didn't think it went with his overall vision of the garden layout. So the bricks came up again, and then Justin had to get rid of the crappy mortar path that was there. Given that he was now an expert with the fencing bar, he brought it out again to break up the path. However it was relatively soft, and not very deep. In fact I said to Justin that this mortar path was actually softer and easier than the dirt that we had to dig up when planting the olive trees!!

attacking the path #1

attacking the path #2

Madeleine supervised from above

rapunzel?

and it looks like Justin was fixing something up here

very interesting...

Starting the brick revision

a few weeds in that path Justin

Assessing his work

Is it good enough?

Finalising with the mulch

fianl touches

So that was a productive Saturday afternoon.

It was also a little social, as Damien and Nicole had dropped in to say hello again, and invited us up to visit them in Kingower. We decided to take them up on their offer late afternoon, so grabbed a 6 pack of cider and drove the 10km to Kingower.

We were give the tour - inside and out. The school house had a number of bedrooms, a cosy kitchen with a terrific wood fire stove (which kept the room a lot warmer than our one does! I'll have to see if I can fit that bit of the stove back into the flue to see if it makes a difference). And a great big school room with a roaring fire, a large wall blackboard, and a number of couches, not to mention the billiard table which the previous owners had left behind.

Had an enjoyable afternoon, ended up in the kitchen with drinks and nibbles, and left after 6. Luckily no errant kangaroos.

Decided to have dinner at home, as opposed to going to the pub. I cooked up chicken maryland pieces until they looked delicious and golden. However looks can be deceiving...yes, they were golden on the outside, but as Fraser asked was it supposed to be this pink inside? No it wasn't, so I whipped back the plates and put the chicken back in the electric frying pan to "bake". Unfortunately I didn't push the adapter cord in far enough to actually heat the frying pan. Sure the light went on, to indicate power, but that was all. So after waiting 20 minutes or so for our dinner, I went to check the chicken , and was disappointed and a bit embarrassed to find no heat. So had to wait a bit longer. Luckily we weren't starving! and Fraser and I bonded

mother & son #1

mother & son #2

Sunday morning, and there was frost

frozen brocolli

I fired up the wood burining stove in the kitchen and amde some fejoa jam in the bread maker while I waited for the rest of the family to get up. Turned out quite nicely sort of sweet/sour.

self titled

Fraser wanted to rug up, and so of course went over the top

who is that "man"?

Father & son

We had some of Justin's friends for lunch. Susie and Bianca from Geelong, and Susie's boyfriend and parents. We had Jim's famous pork - and once again it worked a treat in the bbq. I said you just couldn't go wrong with it, which perhaps wasn't giving Justin enough credit as BBQ meister regulating the temperature etc.

delicious pork and Madeleine photo bombing

So we had the pork and smashed potatoes with garlic and chilli (from the garden) . Actually I had meant to make roast potatoes in the BBQ but I had put them in a cast iron pot with lid, and they seemed to steam not bake. I was complimented on the potatoes, so 'fessed up saying they were a fortuitous mistake. We also had a salad with lettuce from the garden, brocolli from the garden, and pumpkin from the shop. Finished up with a pear tart. I had tried to bake it in the wood fired oven, it had warmed up a bit and maybe even cooked a bit, but there just wasn't enough heat, so finished off (or perhaps started it) in the bbq. Worked out well.

So, lunch was very pleasant, and we had a wander around town afterwards. They left around 5pm, and after having a bit of a sit down and reading the paper, we went off to the pub for a late-ish dinner.

Monday morning and more frost, this time accompanied by fog. Justin took some terrific photos as per below

The fog finally cleared to another sunny blue day. I decided to make pizza for lunch. Once again employed my trusty bread maker, as it was just too cold to hope for dough to rise in our frigid kitchen. I was a little sceptical that the dough would work. Firstly I had doubled the quantity, and secondly the recipe didn't have any sugar to activate the yeast. I wasn't sure if this was an oversight, or intentional. Either way, I followed the recipe, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it worked.

Chopped up some pizza ingredients and took a unfortunately blurry photo

Assembled a couple of pizzas

And of course had to fire up the pizza oven. Given that this was the 1st time we'd tried it, we were a little unsure. The temperature got to 400 degrees and more, and initally there was quite a bit of smoke.