Ginger powder production

The aroma of ginger and turmeric drying in the dehydrator is absolutely heavenly. 

Today I have processed our ginger that Rob pulled up a while back. Ginger isn't supposed to be that easy to grow in the sub-tropics however we have a nice collection of it here from our first ever little crop.

I wanted to see if it is just as easy to turn into powder as turmeric is so I sliced it up into thin pieces.

After drying it in the dehydrator I let it sit and cool overnight and all of this morning. Then I put it into the trusty whizzer gadget and turned it on for about 30 seconds. The ginger actually heats up quite a bit when it is in the blender, so luckily 30 seconds is ample time.

Dried ginger.

The yellow is stain from processing turmeric. 

The ginger has to be sifted just like the turmeric to leave you with the fine ginger powder.

Voila! The smell is just incredible.

This will be stored in glass jars and used for ginger biscuits, stir-fries, did I mention ginger biscuits?..

Each year we have a pair of parrots making a nest in our nest box. Here you can see the missus checking out the scene before she heads inside to do nesting business.

And....it rained at last. We got a little over an inch so it filled our tanks up quite a bit and the ground got a shallow soak. We are meant to get more next week all up and down the east coast of Australia. We need another couple of inches to get some grass growing in the paddock again.

So that's it for this week. Please share ;) I hope you have something fun planned for your weekend.

Promises Promises

Promises of colour and rain. I can provide the colour with my timber art, the rain is another thing entirely. Even by doing my usual rain dance of washing the car last week didn't work. However as I type, we have the most splendid rain clouds looming overhead.

Playing with colour this week to satisfy that thing in me that loves it loud.

Promises Promises. Looking towards the Border Ranges from our front paddock we see a build up of promising looking clouds. Although we feel hope, we don't expect it will necessarily rain here. So often everywhere gets rain except right here. There are times when we can see it is pouring in town and yet we don't have a drop. Fingers crossed - we shall see.

Dry as a bone, you can see Doug in the distance having a drink from his water trough. This water comes from our ever-decreasing dam.

Crow Central Café has been very noisy today. In fact there are birds coming from everywhere flying overhead. There is a particularly large eagle in a tree across the road, along with galahs, crows, cockatoos, blue cranes streaking across the sky and wrens doing that flittery thing they do amongst the undergrowth. It is actually quite loud hearing all the bird calls together! I can't remember ever seeing so many different types of birds here at one time.

Here we have a couple of Dragon Fruit amongst the sunflowers. A lovely turmeric customer, Kim, gave these to me to grow for ourselves. I gave some to my neighbour and the rest we put in pots. It would seem that it is possible to put them in a pot, place them up high somewhere allowing them to droop down and flower. I had planned to strap it to a steak and let it grow up it and then branch out. In another week or so we will find the perfect spot for them.This will be an interesting experiment.

Our apricot and pear trees are espaliered on the western side of the house to provide us with natural shade in Summer. The pear tree in the foreground is looking good with plenty of flowers. It just depends on how windy it gets here as to how many flowers survive to go on and produce fruit.

Rob's wicking beds have been brilliant during this dry spell. This is beetroot and some greens enjoying plenty of water that is being drawn up from the bottom of this container. We pour the water into the white pipe that you can see there at the top of the bed and the plants virtually water themselves! Water-wise and very convenient.

We have a bumper crop of peas in the wicking bed up at the top garden. Very tasty! I can still remember popping peas out of their pods ready for dinner for my mum when I was a little girl -a happy child-hood memory.

Maggie relaxes on the dry prickly grass!

Hopefully the next time you read this blog I can report some rain. Our tanks are down the furthest they have ever been and the trees are really needing a drink so it would be most welcome!

Have a great weekend everyone.

Blossoms and Dust

Apple blossom, a sign of things to come. We have two of these beauties in the back yard. This one in particular is a prolific producer.

The bark on the apple tree is just beautiful, just begging to be painted.

Pear blossom. Fingers crossed that this year we will get plenty of fruit. They need a lot of hours below 7 degrees Celcius to actually produce fruit.

Here we have our Rooster and a couple of the hens keeping cool in the shade - it is so hot to say it is Winter time. They have hardly slown down with egg production this year, we have been lucky. Nothing beats farm eggs in cake, quiche, scrambled eggs on toast, pancakes.... today's creation is in the oven - lime and coconut cake.

"Love Mandala" - a new piece that is on a 50cm x 50cm timber board.

This one is 25cm x 25cm on timber board. I will be playing with this one using coloured paint. Stay tuned for next weeks reveal. This one will be going into the Etsy shop.

Maggie waits patiently for me to catch up as I head up the back of the paddock to check on the crop.

As I take a snapshot of the Crow Central Café Maggie leaps about in the grass like a gazelle, she is a fun kind of girl!  It is very quiet here this morning, the crows have already moved on to next doors paddock for their feast of cow pat grubs. Yum...

This is the lowest I have seen the dam in years. I have to admit it makes me a little nervous.

With this drought we have to water the garlic every weekend to keep it happy and healthy.

This is what the turmeric looks like in the ground when the leaves have died off completely. The turmeric is still sitting happily underground. We will leave this section here until next year, let it multiply, then dig it up and sell it. We don't use any sprays to control weeds so you can see the stretches of black plastic which help to keep the weeds at bay. Every now and then we go through and pull out any big ones by hand.

Molly's greatest joy in life is to run rings around Doug, satisfying her kelpie need to round something up...anything will do...

That's it from the studio and farm for this week. If you would like to have this blog turn up automatically in your emails each week simply type your email address into the field on the top right hand side of this page (Follow by email) and press the Submit button. Also please share this post if you enjoyed it, much appreciated!

Have a great weekend!

Mulberry and Ginger

Mulberry Intention Boards have been the focus this week. I just love the one with the bees, they remind me of joy, flight, community and honey.

The boards I make are to enable you to focus your intentions for your life into the physical, here on this board. Rather than deliberately make them with a purpose like "bring in love " or "bring in money" I leave it up to the intention of the person who buys them. After all this is what an intention board is all about, using your own inner wisdom to know what you want to use it for. You can use crystals as they already have an inherent energy that is predisposed to certain uses. However you could use buttons or beads along with your daily attention and focus if you prefer.

Considering how distracted we can get day to day with our work, friends, family and all the issues around any of these, it is going to be helpful to have an intention board sitting in your favourite spot reminding you of what you want to achieve in your life. 

Meanwhile, we had seven drops of rain during the week. Our dog Molly came running into the shed to shelter! We didn't even have our usual yearly flood to top up the water table for us so our dam is really looking a bit dismal.

Here is Maggie doing her impression of a bird dog.

The local crows fly across the dry brown ground that is our home. Even though nothing appears to be growing, when I put my bare hands down on the earth I can still feel the life there. A solid ancient presence that re-assures.

We grew a little patch of ginger this year and I must say, they kind of remind me of sea horses! The taste is out of this world.

I am working on a new large timber piece that should be ready by next week. So stay tuned for the unveiling and meanwhile have a wonderful weekend.

Gumtree Cafe

Dry as dust in the paddocks yet the local crows are not perturbed. Below is our group of gumtrees that host a crow get-together every day.

How do they know it is 3 p.m.? Every single day it is the same crows at the same time.  Therefore I have named this spot 'Gumtree Cafe'.  I have noticed they tend to fly to these trees, sit awhile - presumably to put in their cafe latte orders and then find a place to sit on the nearby fence. Much like dining alfresco at a cafe waiting for their orders to arrive at their table. Picture the crow waiter, little apron tied around his middle as he balances a tray of drinks on his wing.

The photo above shows the crows headed for their favourite spot on the fence to await their order.

You can see the Gumtree Café in the background here, while Doug photobombs.

The water in the dam is fast disappearing. We use it to water the crops, our house garden and it also feeds our toilets. This saves so much water that we would otherwise have to use from our rain water house tanks.

These photos show you exactly how dry it is here. Doug is following me back to the fence knowing he is going to get dinner soon. He gets three hand fed meals a day to keep the weight on him. Two inches of rain over a couple of days would be perfect.

Meantime I am working on the foundations of my Wood Art business. I am encountering some tricky bits between postage weight and the on-line business. It is quite honestly starting to make me stare into space while one eye twitches a little. Never mind, all in the name of working for myself at home and it is all worth it. As it comes together I will post the details .

Have a fantastic weekend and let's see where this journey takes me next.
P.S. please share this post around 😊