Wooden inlaid chess table

This amazingly delicate wooden inlaid chess table was made by my great-grandfather Charlie. Inside is a mechanism that once played music.

wooden inlaid table made by master craftsman my great-grandfather Charlie

The hinges are currently rusted, and I'm not sure if they can be fixed but we should try. This special tiny table is at my mother's house.

Engraved Lilac Lidded Pot

This engraving is another method you could use to decorate your purchased green-ware. My mother made this, I was too young at the time to try this, but my mother was very good at it.

engraved lilac lidded pot

I really like this simple lidded pot my mother engraved by hand with a tiny tool, and painted in a pretty lilac colour. I think it's something precious for our family. This little cutie is at my mother's house.

Large Green Buddha

In the 1980s, there was craft craze known as greenware painting. Basically you bought a plaster cast of a mould and painted it, then it was fired in a professional kiln. My mother took me with her to classes and we made several things, this green Buddha is one of my favourites.

green-ware Buddha my mother painted

I like him because he's so simple, just painted in a glaze that burst in spots inside the kiln. He is a stately gentleman standing about 12 inches high, I believe he brings good-luck! He currently lives at my mother's house, I think he is busy trying to make a lucky life for them <3

My Grandmother's Cookbook

This old and worse for wear cookbook was given to my grandmother in 1966, David and I have even used it! It's good to look up old recipes for traditional sauces, to name just a few.

an old cookbook given to my grandmother in 1966

 Inside the book there is a note to my grandmother and the date 1966. What a special old thing this cookbook is. I wonder how many times my nan used it to cook a meal for her family?

inside there is a note with the year 1966

Apparently these blemishes you can see are caused by moisture and acid in the paper, I'm not sure? I will have to find out how to look after this vintage treasure ...

Wooden Toy Steam Train

I think this train needs its own post, it's so very special.

hand-crafted wooden toy steam train

My father-in-law Brian, otherwise known as Pa Murphy, hand-crafted this at his workshop in Stanthorpe, and I think his wife Freya painted it. I put a tiny bit of silver and gold paint on top, just a few dots as if they were bolts. What a very special toy!

Hynotising Eye Mask

I made this up quickly one afternoon while my 21 month old son slept, as I was going to see if I could have a Nanna nap myself! I would need these to be put to the test right away!

first draft of my hypnotising eye mask

I'm sorry I can't share the pattern for this as this is my rough draft, and as you can probably see, it is very rough! I kinda of just 'winged it' and it looks it, too. If I have reason to make this again I will think more about how to write the pattern down.

Old and Large Wooden Hook

This special hook once belonged to my great-grandmother. Now, that could be Mary Margaretta or Elizabeth Jackson, I'm not sure but I will find out!

this large wooden crochet hook once belonged to my great-grandmother

My mother gave this to me recently, I've only used it once to try a rug idea with some thick yarn I have here. That yarn is too stiff to work with, so I hope one day to come across some thick yarn that I can make into a rug using this hook. This old wooden hook is such a special thing, I do appreciate old things that have stood the test of time.

My Parent's Orchard, Spring 2012

As promised, here is an update on my parent's fruit orchard, which we have offered to look after. My mum and dad are finding looking after these an extra burden, but we think this might be a good thing for us to do for several reasons. Besides these citrus trees, there is also a mulberry tree, two mango trees, a lychee bush, a chocolate pudding and a peach-cot.

we started work on these four citrus trees, one lemon, one lime, one mandarin and a lemonade tree

This is the second time we've worked in the orchard, if that is a word you can use to describe these dozen or so scrawny trees that resemble saplings more than the 10 year old trees that they are. Last month I didn't get any photos, but we simply pruned off some bulbous growths on the citrus trees, known as gall wasp. A large amount of growth was removed from the lemon tree unfortunately loosing a lot of flowers. It will take longer for the bug to kill the tree, but its best to remove as much of it as soon as you can.

a promise of things to come, one fine lemon specimen

For this second visit, we concentrated our efforts on a lemon tree which has proven its ability to produce fruit. There was one brightly skinned, fully formed lemon on the tree as testament that our efforts should not end up entirely fruitless. We started by clearing the weeds underneath the tree in a circle from the trunk, that was wider than the tree branches. We used a rake and shovel to remove as much as we could.

the old wooden stairs leading to the fruit orchard

That didn't take too long, especially after wetting the weeds with a hose, so we did a few more citrus trees, a lemonade tree which also had two fruit on it, then a mandarin tree, and one more citrus tree that we think is a lime. Later I went back and did the other lemon tree. I then sprinkled two handfuls of citrus tree fertiliser around the outer circle of each of these five citrus trees. You shouldn't put the fertliser too close to the trunk.

view of the orchard from the top of the stairs

Finally, I spread some sugar cane mulch around each of the five trees on top of the circle we have cleared. I pushed the mulch away from each trunk. We had planned to use a mulching machine to make our own mulch from green and brown leaf matter from elsewhere in the garden, but the old machine wouldn't start despite my father's best efforts. We also had planned to use some old chicken manure as fertiliser, but my mum bought a bag of citrus food to use instead.

I wonder what this adventure will bring, we hope to learn how to look after fruit trees. One day we might have fruit trees of our own, hopefully we will have room for a couple of dwarf varieties, because unfortunately the properties we are considering are around 600m or less! We've promised my parents to return in about a month, and we'll check up on the fruit trees then.

Our Potted Garden, Spring 2012

Spring is drawing to a close so I thought I'd do a mini update on what's happening. We finally have success with tomatoes!

today's cherry tomato harvest, along with a capsicum and a lime

The yellow cherry tomatoes have been the most successful tomato we've managed to harvest from our potted garden. We cut the tiny fruit up and put them on toasted cheese sandwhiches or pop them on top of cheesy veggie pasta bakes. While it grew, I draped the fruit on top of the mesh to keep them off the ground.

potted cherry tomatoes draped on top of some mesh

The lime tree also has fruit on it. From time to time, we take a lime off it to use in cooking, like in David's meatballs and spaghetti, which is one of my most favourite meals.

detail of potted dwarf lime tree fruit

The garlic didn't work out, so we removed it when Brian was here the other week, and in its place I planted some beetroot seeds, under the supervision of my father-in-law. Now they have sprouted, I'm looking forward to some freshly baked beetroot and steamed beetroot leaves.

beetroot sprouts planted a week ago where the failed garlic was

Finally, another job we had to do this spring was to repot some chilli. Potted chilli prefers to be repotted every year if you can manage it, we managed to transfer some that were in the smaller pots into the 30cm pots which is more like the size they need. We get so much chilli fruit constantly throughout the year. My favourite use is to dry it and blitz it into dried chilli flakes which is great for cooking or even added at the last moment to a bowl of pasta for some extra zing!

some of our chillies have been spoiled with new large pots

4 week old potted cotton

Here is a picture taken today of my potted cotton, the eldest sprout is 4 weeks old today. I now have 3 potted cotton sprouts, I planted 3 seeds a week ago but only one of those has sprouted.

3 potted cotton sprouts

 The 4 week old sprout is already showing signs of pest damage, I knew it would be bad but I didn't think it would show this soon. I was hoping to grow organic cotton by removing the pests by hand, but now I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that.

4 week old potted cotton sprout with pest damage

I wonder what this adventure will bring? Will it be a success, or just a bundle of useless fluff? I guess we will just have to wait and see ...