Diversification

Many people in Tasmania do lots of different things to make a quid. Take local Huon Valley ceramic artist and farmer of saffron, olives and lavender Lisa Britzman for example. Her business Campo de Flori (field of flowers) had an open weekend for Christmas so we took the opportunity to visit her cute Glen Huon studio yesterday. I wanted to add a few of her ceramic Christmas decorations to the tree David made from sticks this year. Aren't they beautiful? I was left amazed at what she and partner David have achieved on their land. Diversified income streams are a necessity for many and a dream for some, especially in rural areas where full time jobs are few and revenue from one line of business not enough to live on. It's great to see this talented lady making a go of it.

I scream

I finally succumbed and ordered an ice cream maker online last week. Some of them require you to freeze and re-freeze the metal bowl during the process, but we don't actually have a freezer in the house. We have a deep chest freezer up in the garage, and it wouldn't be very practical to be running up and down the stairs with half-frozen confectionery. So I bought a fancy machine with a compressor that does its own freezing during the process.

The first batch I tried was strawberry, made with a punnet of fresh local Huon Valley strawberries, milk, cream, sugar, salt, vanilla... that's it. We took it to our friends' place on the weekend to eat after dinner and it was delicious. The next batch was vanilla bean, made with much the same ingredients plus five egg yolks. The mixture needed to be refrigerated overnight as it had been heated during preparation. Also delicious! Now I need to get onto the flavours I am most excited about making: honey, green tea, pistachio, coffee, lemon sorbet... mmm.

Recycled

Over summer we had the front door entrance area of our house enclosed in glass. Until then, the area immediately inside our house was almost always piled up with shoes and jackets, especially in winter, when we had to leave our gumboots outside but upturned in case they filled up with snow overnight. Wet and muddy shoes are normal where we live. It has been working a treat for shoe drying and storage so far... and a good sun-baking location for Lilly the cat.

But one thing was missing - something to hang coats on. At Cygnet Market a while back I saw some lovely coat racks made from recycled wood and metal hooks by Phoenix Creations, and took a business card so I could measure up the space and call to order some. They are made from re-used boat timbers and retain some of the paint and character of the wood. I love them. David attached them to the colourbond exterior of the house using the large recycled brass screws provided. Now the glass enclosed area is filled with the unmistakable scent of Huon Pine. This morning we put the coat racks to good use, as the light misty rain softly drenched us when we ventured out in raincoats to feed the chooks.