Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Paid Parental Leave Rant

Ok so deep down I'm really thankful that we have the paid parental leave but I'm even more thankful that I'm not relying on it to pay my mortgage!!!! I have to have a rant about the bureaucracy involved! 
So I dutifully submitted my claim (twice since you have to fill out the paper form and the online form which are virtually the same). Then the family assistance office has 21 days to process it, to make it easy lets call this 3 weeks rather than worrying about if they are working days or not. Of course they take the full 3 weeks to process. Then my employer has 14 days to accept or decline, call it 2 weeks. Of course the payroll representative of my employer chooses to accept on the 14th day because "I didn't want to log in more often than I had to". This same payroll representative indicated to me that the family assistance office then takes about 3 weeks to pay my employer then and only then will my employer pay me. 8 weeks of the 18 weeks of paid parental leave is up before I get paid a cent!!! 
Can you sense the frustration??? I feel for those out there who are relying on these payments to pay their bills/rent/mortgage!
I think I will have to laugh or I'll go around the bend!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Christmas Pudding

I love Christmas pudding! This recipe is one I've developed from a few different recipes with my favourite ingredients and without my least favourite ingredient, peel. Its very flexible so add the fruit you like best!

1.5kg of dried fruit (I add approx 750g raisins, 250g sultanas, 250g currants, 250g pitted prunes and a pack of glace cherries)
brandy
315g butter
250g sugar
1t mixed spice
1/2t nutmeg
250g plain flour
6 eggs
300ml milk
250g breadcrumbs (fresh not stale)
1 apple

Soak fruit in brandy for 2-3 days (I often soak the fruit for a week),
Blend butter into the dry ingredients (except the breadcrumbs),

Beat the eggs together with the milk,
Make the breadcrumbs and grate the apple,
Add the dry ingredients and breadcrumbs to the fruit and then the milk and eggs,

Place mixture in pudding bowls and boil for as long as you can on the day of making (atleast 4 hours) and atleast 1 hour on the day of eating.

The puddings can be boiled and stored in pudding bowls or in fowlers vacola jars (I'm lucky enough to have some number 28 jars which are perfect for puddings!) 






Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Whats wrong with this picture???

I came home to find one escapee steer wandering in the driveway! He was having a lovely time! He looked a little lost without his mates though! He calmly (after one jump kick of protest) wandered back to the paddock...  

and patiently waited for me to open the gate for him to return to his mates! 

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Giraffe for Bubby

I just finished this evening at my thursday night sewing class at Patchwork Orange a Giraffe from Sewn Toy Tales by Melly and Me for Bubby! Hopefully when Bubby (has been born and) is old enough he'll love it!

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Steers are making themselves at home

The steers have now been on our property for two weeks and they have done a fastastic job of eating/trampling down our back paddock.


They also seem to have made friends with the chickens and spend most of their time under the trees by the chicken shed.

king of the mountain...

The alpacas have now eaten their way through to the rock pile and Lad (male cria) discovered how much fun it is to play I'm the king of the mountain!

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Galloway steers arrive!

Thanks Dad!

My birthday present this year from Dad is three 9mth old Galloway steers! They are making themselves at home in the paddock! The golden retrievers haven't discovered them through the fence yet... Could be exciting when they realise they have company the other side of the fence!


Keep eating little steers!

Monday, July 18, 2011

Quilt for my baby


Quilt top that I've made for my not yet born baby. It's a lone star and ribbon star blocks made from quilting treasures Beatrix Potter flannel fabric that I had been saving!



Friday, June 17, 2011

Thank you Bondville and Hunter baby!

I went to the post office and the gorgeous onesie that I won from the Hunter baby competition on the Bondville blog was here! Sooo exciting! Baby now has clothes to wear when he chooses to arrive!! The onesie is so cute and looks like it will be very comfy. It is the same one as the post on the Bondville blog that annouces that I won the competition.

Thanks again Hunter baby and Bondville!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Cherries or Plums?

Despite how much they look like cherries the fruit in this photo are actually plums! We have found several plum trees growing in our back paddock! A couple have ripened to red and others have ripened to yellow. If anyone could tell us what type of plums these are that would be great!

Plums picked from the trees in our back paddock
  We have soooo many! Some friends have picked bucket loads and there are still more to pick! I've stewed some for dessert tonight! Beautiful! I didn't over sugar them as I love the slightly sour flavour. I think this weekend I'll pull out the preserving kit that my mother-in-law has lent me and see if I can successfully preserve some!
Stewed plums, yum!

Saturday, January 8, 2011

surrounded!

Some friends took a photo of our property from a helicopter! It shows that we really are surrounded on three sides by water! To think that 6 months ago there was no water there, only dry scrub!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

The vege patch

We have started on the vege patch that we have been planning for months! We settled on the site right outside the chicken house which has now been renamed to the parliament! Today we marked it all out and planned where the watering system will go. There will be 4 beds 1m wide and 8-9m long and 4 additional 1.5m square beds for herbs and strawberries. In the middle of the area there are some really large unmovable rocks which we are thinking of making a feature, perhaps with something like pumpkins or another climbing fruit or vege plant growing over them. Progress so far...
Also Gedalyn ate lucernechaff from my hands this morning! :)