Baking delights!

Sourdough bread is one of those holy grails of self-sufficiency - grow your own yeast, rather than having to buy it.  It's notoriously difficult to get a good one.  But!  If you happen to have a friend who has a good one (in this case, passed on from someone met on holiday) who's willing to share, it's a sure thing.

So, here is Marmalade Cottage's first ever sourdough loaf on its first prove.

Second prove.

And baked.

And the proof will be in tomorrow's breakfast...

All is calm

With Bernard's, erm, demise, the hens are getting back into a rhythm.

The reinventors, and although they've been too polite to say, we suspect the neighbours too, are quite pleased not to be rudely awakened before dawn.

Alice's feathers have grown back nicely, and Enid is much less skittish.

Great survivor

It was touch and go for all of summer, but the little lemon tree has survived, and with judicial application of the creative reinventor's wee, is now thriving.

We're working our way through the lemons - the skin is too thin for preserving in salt, but they're very juicy.

Digression

The practical reinventor is a bit jealous of all her sewing friends who have sewing blogs, but given the irregularity of posts here, isn't going to start one. So here's a random sewing post.

  

This is a Lekala pattern, so while it's been drafted according to the practical reinventor's dimensions, its instructions are all but unintelligible.  Fortunately, it's not too complicated a design and most of the pattern markings are clear enough.  The green is broadcloth, bought for $6 a metre and the birdies are what's left of a dress that never stood a chance.

Usually the practical reinventor just wings her buttonholes with the zigzag foot, but this time, she busted out the proper foot.  And, yes, reluctantly, it does a better job.

  

It was the perfect project for these metal flower buttons.

 

And it will go nicely with the sensible tweed Miss Marple skirt she made last week.

The vine that gave its all

The pumpkin vine that grew out of chook shed muckings out has finally died.  But not before it gave us 16 fruit.

We think that might be a record.  It is for us.

Even though the last few fruit are fairly small, they're ripe and sweet.

We've saved some seeds for next year.  Just in case the chook shed muckings out of spring don't contain any pumpkins.