Loving Life On The Ponderosa

Winter can be a very depressing time particularly as the weather is cold and mostly wet BUT I must say, I've been enjoying the lovely sunny weather lately, that's for sure.

I took this photo a few weeks back when I was checking the "snail" mail and it made me reflect on my journey at the Ponderosa, which after all is the reason I started this blog.

If I am to be truly honest with myself, I first got the idea about recording specific moments in my life from a beautiful lady called Judy that I worked with at the New Zealand Defense Force about 20 years ago.  She was going through a period in her life where her husband was gone, her children had grown and her grandchildren were just starting to blossom.   I was sitting having a cup of tea with her when she told me her story of her father's diary and how beneficial it was for her much later in her life.   It had such an impact on her, that she made a choice to do something similar.

At the end of her story she looked at me and gave me some advice I'll never forget.  "Record and share your thoughts, your memories, your love, your passion, your friends, your family, your life, your history, your emotions, your connections.  But don't record it for your benefit, do it for your children and grandchildren for them to ponder and understand your take on life through your own eyes.  They will ponder on your thoughts long after you have gone so make sure you do it right and make sure it has a purpose"

The Ponderosa ... In it's winters glory

Since then I've recorded pieces of my life and one day I might choose to share my past journey's on this blog or I may choose to share those with just a selective few.

Whatever the outcome, Judy taught me a few things and I am so humbled to have recieved her wonderful advice.  I'm definitely loving living on the Ponderosa and learning each and every day.


Happy living peeps!

Freshen The Chicken Coop

Sometimes the chicken coop can get a little on the funky side, particularly in the heat of the summer days, or when your sawdust is getting a little low and needs some swapping out.

I read somewhere that a good solution is to place fresh herbs in the sawdust to help eradicate bad bugs.  I've tried this out a couple of times, but with my herb garden still needing a little time to help boost it's yield, I haven't done it as much as I could.  That is until my rosemary hedge needed a good prune back.  Not only did I have enough to place in the sawdust, I also hung some in the coop.

The scent of the rosemary in the coop was wonderful, and proved a little funny one night when the girls went to clean the coop and check for eggs.  Not knowing it was there, they opened the door at dusk and got the shock of their lives.  :-)  A little story to laugh about with them in their older years

Happy living peeps!

Baked Kale Chips

This is another easy recipe that can be whipped up quickly to enjoy as a snack with drinks, while you're watching the footy or as a garnish for an extravagant main meal.

Best thing about this too .. it's 100% healthy for you AND it's paleo :-)

Ingredients
1 bunch of kale
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of sea salt
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Using a good knife, slice the kale leaves away from the stem.  Discard the stem and chop the kale to nice bite size pieces.  Wash the kale and dry thoroughly.

In a bowl, toss the kale, olive oil and salt together until the kale is evenly coated.

Place the seasoned kale on the baking tray on a single layer and bake until crispy but not burnt.  It should take about 10 mins and you may need to give them a toss half way through.

Enjoy immediately!

Happy living peeps!

Coriander In Winter!

Ok .. so there's going to be quite a few gardening posts this season, purely because of all the work needed in autumn and winter to help prep for spring and summer :-)

I just had to share this with everyone about the latest discovery in my vegetable garden.  Coriander .. yip fresh coriander  .... in winter???  I'm really happy to find it actually.

Last summer I planted some coriander and as it does, it grew so fast it seeded before I could pick it all.  No real problems there .. so as I prepared for my winter vegetable garden, I prepped this particular space and planted some kale, spring onlions and beetroots back in April.  This photo was taken in May.

Coriander is a herb that can be expensive in the supermarket but if you go to the chinese or indian vegetable store you can get a big bunch for about $2.

It's an acquired tasted if you're not used to it.  I love to use it in my broths/soups, curries and dumplings, so I'm really happy this unexpected find has worked out a treat.  With the weather cooler, it's taking awhile to grow to a point where it will seed .. if indeed it does seed, so we will have a plentiful supply for a little while.

Happy living peeps!

West Garden Revamp

On the west side of the home paddock at the Ponderosa, is a wonderful part of the garden that I think has potential for a more formal look about it.

When we first moved on to the property, this particular garden had a mish mash of different plants that didn't really do anything for me.  One day when we had a digger to lay some power to our shed, I jumped on the digger and had a play to pull out what was in this particular garden.  A job that would've taken half a day took about an hour once I got the hang of things.

Because it's on the other side of our rose garden, it backs onto the new recycled fence that we did and I blogged about it in NEW ROSE GARDEN.  This will form a wonderful backdrop for the garden.

I am a great believer in planting in mass, which basically means planting the same plant in bulk.  I think it adds a more dramatic and finished structure to a garden as opposed to having a mix of different plants in the same space.

So in saying this, I've (with the help of my wonderful husband Gig), planted some port wine magnolias which will form a hedge against the fence.  This plant is quite fast growing and has a wonderful scented deep red flower that flowers from spring through to autumn, which is just stunning. 

In front of the port wines, I've planted some dietes glandiflora which looks like a long grass and has beautiful white and purple flowers.  I wanted these plants to add "texture" as oppose to the flowers which flower from summer through to autumn.

In front of the dietes, I've planted some gorgeous puple iris, in fact 100 of them.  Of course, the flowers are seasonal which means spring time but the foliage may stay all year round.   I love this flower and can't wait to see how these turn out.

Weedmat on our property is essential and although I haven't put any mulch down, it is in the pipeline once the iris' look like they care coming through.  I also haven't decided on how to frame the garden with a final planting in front of the iris'.  All I know is that plant will be planted in mass, like the others, and will be low growing, but not ground covering.

Once I figure that out, the garden will be complete.

Happy living peeps!

Paleo Chicken Curry

I found a wonderful crock pot chicken curry recipe while having a coffee in my local cafe and as I usually do, took a photo of the recipe with a view to give it a go.  Last Saturday the weather was wet and windy so it was a perfect day for a curry and considering this takes about 20 mins to prepare with the crock pot doing the rest of the work, I was all for trying the recipe out.

Of course, this recipe isn't the same as the one I originally found.  I didn't have red curry paste or tomato paste so played around with what I had in the cupboard.  I also think this recipe would tasted equally nice using lamb or beef.

Sorry, it was so yummy I didn't get a chance to get a photo of the finished product, just the leftovers.

Ingredients
750 grams or 6 bonless chicken thighs, roughly chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garic, finely chopped
2 tablespons of butter
1 teaspoon of ground cardamon
1/2 teaspon ground cumin
2 tablespoons of curry powder
1 teaspon of ground garam masala
2 tablespoons harrisa (or red curry paste)
1 x 410 can of thick coconut cream
1 tomato finely chopped (or 1/2 cup of tomato paste)
2 cinnamon sticks (optional)
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (if you like your curry hot)

Method
Throw all the ingredients into a crock pot and thoroughly mix together.

Place the lid of the crock pot and cook on low for 4-6 hours.

Serve with CAULIFLOWER RICE.

Happy living peeps!

Cauliflower Rice

With my husband choosing the paleo lifestyle, we've adapted and changed what we eat and this recipe is a perfect replacement for rice and pretty quick and easy to make.

I mainly enjoy pairing this with a curry or stew that needs something to mop up their wonderful juices, particularly when the paleo lifestyle doesn't allow for bread.

Ingredients
Florets of 1/2 a cauliflower
1/2 a brown onion, roughly chopped
1 clove of garlic, roughly sliced
Salt & pepper
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil

Method
Throw the cauliflower, onion and garlic into a food processor and pulse until it resembles rice.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the cauliflower rice until the moisture is removed.  Season with salt & pepper and enjoy.

Makes approxmiately 2 cups.

Happy living peeps!

Farewell To Our Calves

I've been reflecting on our beef over the past few weeks and just how far we have come with them.  Last month we sold our calves - all 7 of them to allow their mothers to "beef up" some more - so to speak, and prepare for the arrival of their new babies.  That's if Bullet the Bull did the bizzo.

I have to say, I've learned so much from these calves and I blogged about it in NEW ADDITIONS - PART 3.  Their wellbeing improved tenfold feeding off their mothers and I can honestly say that when we sold them about 3 weeks ago, they were about 10 months old, and one of them was still getting milk from her mother.

Our neighbour has been keeping an eye on our beef and made some initial enquiries.  He was particularly interested in one of our bull calves which I knicked named "tipi bum bum".  Mid way through May, my husband Gig asked him if he would be interested in buying all the calves and he jumped at the chance.  Within a couple of days, our 2nd addition to our beef whanau were gone.

 

Gig still believes that the balance of our beef versus the size of land/feed we have is not quite right and now our summers are more dryer and our winters less wet, it is taking it's toll on the land/feed.

 

We know for sure that a few of our cows produce some really good size offspring so the plan with the next lot of calves is to review the mothers and look to cull the numbers back.  We currently have 8 cows and 1 bull and realistically I think we should look to have no more than 5 cows and 1 bull.

 

Right now though, the focus is to ensure the new up and coming addtions expected in a couple of months, go well and I'm excited but nervous at the same time.

 

Happy living peeps!

 



The Hubby Is Hooked

I picked up this little side table for cheap as chips from a student who was finishing studies and moving back home.  It had definitely seen better days and needed some serious TLC.  It quickly got placed in the shed with great plans to give it a new lease of life.  Days went by, followed by weeks, then months as we worked on other projects around the Ponderosa.

The other day I came home to find my wonderful husband had decided he wanted the little side table next to his favourite rocking chair by the fire.  So ... he had given the little gem a new couple of coats of paint.  Colours of choice ... Annie Sloan florence, duck egg blue and paris grey.  He was right in the middle of giving the shabby chic effect when he promptly told me, I had to finish it off while he went for a ride with Aaliyah to her work.

A coat of clear wax and dark wax with some more work on the shabby chic look and it was finished.  Check it out!!

Unfortunately I didn't get any before photo's but I'm pretty happy with the finished result and think it looks a thousand times better. 

Happy living peeps!

Ducted Heat Transfer Kit

You would think that when you live in a house with three fireplaces, it would be a little excessive, but still lovely and warm.  But not when it's a 100+ year old villa.  Believe it or not, the three fireplaces isn't enough, especially in the winter time.

We've been doing a bit of work around the homestead making sure that we insulate underneath the house, seal all the draughty bits in the rooms as we renovate and even replaced an old wood burner with a new one when it "shat" itself so to speak last year.  I blogged about this in REVAMPED FIREPLACE.

The new wood burner we installed was awesome last winter and it's fair to say the back living area was lovely and warm.  The problem we were faced with was that all the heat stayed down the back of the house and it took forever to heat the entire home, even when we used the other original fireplaces. 

During the year we had people from various companies come through the home and give us some great advise about their great products that would be far more superior to any other product on the  market transferring heat from one part of the home to everywhere else .. bla, bla, bla, bla .. leaving your home warm and dry ... all for a cool price of anything between $3,000 to $6,000 and without any additional steak knife offers.

Surely there had to be something else out there for a fraction of the price?  All we really wanted was to take the heat from where the wood burner was and transfer it to the other rooms. 

Bunnings offered a heat transfer kit for 2 or 3 rooms for a couple of hundred dollars, but we needed it for at least 4 rooms.  Nothing at Bunnings or Mitre 10 was on offer. 

Enter a trustworthy and helpful electrical supplier who was willing to go out and have a look at what he could find for us.  Viola, he found one, so a couple of weekends back my husband decided to put it in when the weather was cool and raining - with my assistance of course.

Installation was pretty easy and stressless and I had a chance to get into our roof and see just how much space there is up there (enter some fabulous attic ideas).  Now our 3.5 metre stud home is lovely, warm and dry and although we didn't get any steak knives with our purchase I can assure you it did cost a fraction of what we were originally offered.

Happy living peeps

Spring Bulbs

If you are a keen gardener then you'll know that autumn is the time that most of the garden work gets done from preparing soil, to pruning, to planting to everything in between.  Right now, I have 4 gardens on the go awaiting for me to finish them before xmas and at least 3 of them are 90% completed.  The other one needs some extra work so I'll need to dig deep on that one.

Anyway, I'm a sucker for spring flowers and nothing talks spring more than daffodils BUT this year I've ventured out further into new and undiscovered territory.  One day when walking through the warehouse with my daughter Jayden, I stumbled over this heavenly display of spring bulbs.  Feasting on my moment of vulnerability, Jayden proceeded to convince me that we needed nearly every type of bulb available :-)  Crocus, daffodils, iris, tulips, freesias and ranuculus.  100's and 100's and 100's and 100s of bulbs.  When I got home, reality hit me and when it came time to plant them .. Jayden was no where to be seen!

A display of some of the bulbs

I managed to plant them all around the Ponderosa with the exception of the iris, daffodils and tulips.  I have visions of the tulips going into some pots because they are so high maintenance and have to be collected at the end of their flowering life and stored away.  The iris will line part of my west garden and I haven't quite decided on the daffodils yet.  I have a couple of weeks left before winter sets in for good and I can't wait until spring to see their beauty!

Happy living peeps!

Transforming A Light

If ever you have an old chandelier or light shade and wonder whether you should replace it with a new one, then think again.   This iron chandelier had seen better days and needed some extra TLC.  Enter a couple of coats of chalk paint and voila!!  Good as new!

This went into Aaliyah's room and she chose what colour she wanted.  I think it looks fab and definitely saved at least a few hundred dollars or even more!  I have a similar chandelier that will go into Jayden's room .. so the biggest challenge is for her to choose what colour she would like it to be.

Happy learning peeps!