Just Working Hard

However, when I did rise, I was out in the garden, giving the compost a stir, checking for weeds in the vegepatch, picked five lemonade fruit that were ripe and gave the tree a little prune, and wrote a list of things I wanted to get done for the day. The first thing I wanted to do was to take Kim to the New Age festival at the local Community Centre. So I managed to raise her interested in it, and bundled Ben and Kim into the car, and we set off. Upon arriving at the centre, we paid out $7 each for adults with Ben for free, and had a look around. We soon found that most of the stalls were very over priced and could get the same sorts of necklaces and crystals far cheaper on Ebay. Even a tarot reading was $40 for 30 minutes. How one could stretch a reading out for 30 minutes was beyond me! Anyway, I was over people trying to tell my future, and as we had had a good look around, we decided to leave. My parting comment to Kim was that the future is what you make it, and not what someone predicts. Good advice that she agreed with.

When we got home, I started work on the remainder of the hen house. Adam and I had placed the last two posts in the ground yesterday, and all I had to do was finish off the house. I worked on the house for four hours, with a couple of tea breaks in between. I made quite a racket when cutting the corrugated iron with the jigsaw, and even had to put earplugs in before I started. Apparently, Kim was trying to talk to me about something whilst I was cutting, but I didn’t even notice.

I managed to get a roof with a hinge on the laying box with a fairly wind and water proof seal, and have finished the frame for the main roof that will have the removable corrugated iron roof. By having a removable roof, I will be able to clean it easily, a few times a week. At this rate, I should have chickens by next Spring. Notice the sarcasm about the speed I am currently working at! Better to work slowly, preserving my back, than to stuff it up completely.

Kim had been working all day on cleaning up Adam’s old room, and had started moving furniture into it. She was quite pooped, so I decided to make dinner as I got my second wind. I finished work on the chook house at about 1645, and then went inside to start making a chicken and vegetable soup/stew in the pressure cooker. It has become second nature using the pressure cooker as the food tastes so great and it cooks so quickly.

I gathered up a whole bunch of fresh rosemary, lemon thyme, thyme, and oregano from the garden, added a bit of olive oil in the Jamie Oliver herb basher, and wazzed it up for about 4-5 minutes. The end result was a herb concoction fit for a king, and smelled wonderful. I added a little more olive oil to this and placed it at the bottom of the pressure cooker, and fried it up for about 30 seconds, and then threw in the onions, garlic and cubed chicken thighs, for about 5 minutes. Next was the 1 Kg of root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes), and then 4 cups of spinach from the garden. I then added a can of diced tomatoes, 1 teaspoon of curry power, 3 tablespoons of coconut cream and a litre of chicken stock. Bunged on the lid, waited until under pressure, and then cooked for 25 minutes. The result was wondrous. Everyone enjoyed the hearty feed, and Ben was the first to clean up his bowl.

It was a great evening, because we had the pleasure of our friend Pam to enjoy the evening with, and we just talked and talked. Good friends make the evening go so much slower. Now, everyone else is in bed, except me, and after such a busy day, I better head off myself.

Bonne nuit mon amie.