A Busy Week and Some Savings

Here is what I have been up to this week.

I made a whole orange cake from gifted oranges.

 I have been adding pretty touches to my journal/diary. This is how I  keep on track with daily jobs and different things.  

I have a to do list and I write out a little scripture from the Bible.  At the top I add the weather showing the temperature with a sunny or cloudy picture.  I keep record of how many eggs I collect and how much rain falls as well as how many mandarins in weight I have harvested.  

So far I have picked 67.3kgs of mandarins and the tree is still loaded.

I  decided to make use of my fireplace to dry breadcrumbs.

And I hung bunches of parsley and thyme near the fire to dry as well. This was really successful.

 We did a flying trip back to our hometown to catch up with friends.

 Ceduna is located four hours away.

 My parents live along the way so we stopped there for a day and night.

 Although it was cloudy the whole time we were there, the water was glassy calm.

This is the view from our friends house. 

I can imagine waking up to this each day, simply lovely J

I took some cuttings from my friends geranium plants.  I love these old fashioned flowers.  They grow really well here as they are so tough and hardy.

A gift from my dad.  

An old trolley that has a tabletop with drop sides.  It is still at my parents house because we didn't have the room to bring it home.

Here are some strawberries that were given to my parents. These came from the local supermarket and were going to be  discarded. Having a friend whose family owns the store can be a real asset. This is a large ice cream container full, and I was able to bring them all home.

 I also brought home some pineapple,

 onions,

 and avocados. 

These were all given to my parents.

I wish I lived closer as mum cant always handle all the food they are gifted. She does what she can by making jams, freezing etc to use things up, but sometimes the food ends up being given to the chickens, which is still okay, and they definitely don't complain  J 

 I prepared the strawberries for the freezer. I will make some jam with these and use some in our smoothies.

 There were eight pineapples all up.   I gave one to my daughter and the rest I peeled, chopped and put into bags in the freezer.  I am going to make some jam from these too and add to smoothies, pizzas etc.

My mum had these two jars in her cupboard. 

They are quite large and will come in handy for storage in my pantry. There are also some smaller ones in the op shop that my mum is going to get for me.  I like the way that Annabel has decorated these types of jars for her pantry.

 Another gift from dad. 

This time a retro plant stand.

 I gave it a clean and added some furniture oil to the wood, then placed my coleus in it. This plant started with the tiniest cutting I brought home.  They are so easy to grow, especially in a well lit area.

 On to our savings from my previous post.

Here is the bottle full of $2.00 coins.

All counted and it held a total of $948.00.

Not quite $1000, but close enough.

We have put this money in a tin to use for our travels.

 

We are in for a rough, freezing cold weekend.  Next week will be much of the same.  I will be getting some jobs done inside with the fire going to keep us warm.

Stay cosy everyone J