Postscript

Further to my previous post...

Bones and all

Our freezer is well and truly full. Nothing else can go in. We still had some dog bones in the bottom of the chest from the last visit to Cradoc Abattoir, then last week friends down the road kindly asked if we wanted the offal from two steers being slaughtered, to feed to our dogs. Heart, liver, kidney, tongue... we packaged it all into bags for the freezer. It's good to see nothing go to waste from such lovely beasts.

A few days later, after the carcasses had hung in their portable cool room for a bit and were then butchered, we also took some of the fantastic beef bones, including two that looked like something from Jurassic Park. Can't wait to see the girls attempt to carry those bones off.

Then on Tuesday I collected a side of lamb from other friends down the road who ran some sheep on their land for the first time this year - two leg roasts, chops, rack, neck. And of course more dog bones. Yesterday the friend we got the lamb from rang and offered more bones, and I had to say no for lack of freezer space. They have kindly offered to store it in their bigger chest freezer for a month.

Local meat, fresh as it gets, and we won't have to buy dog bones again for quite some time...

Unfinished business

This was the first jigsaw I've started in years, well, since I was a kid really. I like the traditional, chocolate box variety with pictures of Swiss chalets, the Alps and Bavarian onion-topped churches like this one. The photo shows the puzzle partially completed a few days ago, but it's now packed up in its box again. For some reason I lost interest. It might have had something to do with the thick layer of dust accumulating on it. Anyway, we're having guests for lunch on the weekend and need our dining table back.

Stormy Monday

During the night I could hear the wind whipping ice and rain against the house, and we woke up to this:

Then came the waves of sun, wind, rain and snow to turn it all to mush. I'm glad I left the chooks locked up in their shed or they may have been blown away.

Tassie sourdough

Yesterday's loaf was made with lovely Tasmanian flour from Callington Mill at Oatlands. It made our simple dinner of ham and smoked salmon on freshly baked bread even better.

Cradoc Hill

Today we walked with the Huon Valley Dog Walking Group from the Cradoc Hill Abattoir (our fantastic source of dog bones) along a forestry trail up the hill and back again. The dogs loved it... all those bush smells and lovely fresh wallaby droppings, and some off-leash running. Our pair were exhausted when we got home.

Cradoc lies directly opposite us on the other side of the Huon. Often when it is raining at our place, we can see through the rain to the sunny hills of Cradoc. Two years ago we heard about people on that side of the river having water trucked in, while our large tank was overflowing. It's generally a lot drier over there, even though it is only a few kilometres away. And so it was today, as we left home in the rain with the dogs in the back of the ute, and ended up walking in the sun over at Cradoc.

Scrappy

I have to get down to the chook shed before dusk to lock the birds up, otherwise this cheeky Tasmanian pademelon is in there sitting comfortably in the straw eating the chooks' food. He's not keen to leave once he's in there either. We call him Scrappy, because he has several patches of fur missing on his rump and looks a bit battle-scarred. Sometimes he brings some of his mates, but they don't venture into the shed.