Category Archives: bushfires

A good week all round!

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Its feels like its been a big week here. Since I last posted I’ve been busy sewing for our local wildlife rescue group, joey pouches, batwraps and hanging joey bags. The bushfires have been so devastating and it feels good to be able to help out the rescuers who are going out in the heat & smoke to feed and rescue animals.

 In the last few days the group has exploded to the point where its become overwhelming and everything is on pause while they stocktake. I can tell you there are days when I have cried reading the posts from people all over the world wanting to help and reporting on whats happening here. It really does help people to keep hopeful to see how much the world cares about our wildlife, as well as our people.

Locally things are improving. In the last three days the birds have returned, chattering away in the early morning in our front garden. Last night the flock of white galahs that lives in the park opposite flew over screeching- it was wonderful! – they haven’t been around for about 6 weeks due to the smoke. I can actually hear them outside now. We have also been able to open our windows again since Thursday – OMG – how I have missed being able to open windows! And we can see blue skies again.

Last night the temperature dropped and I finally got a decent nights sleep. We’ve had temps of 40C recently and between the heat and the smoke I think all of Australia is sleep deprived! With the smoke reducing, the birds returning and some sleep – it feels like a very good week!

I went back to work this week and I was asked for the second time to return to my second job – the one I really enjoy. So I am going back one afternoon a week starting in March. The money will go off the mortgage and honestly, its the best part of my working week so it will help me cope with the day job stress.

 The other  exciting news is that we have reached our five year retirement funds goal – current balance is $507,628!

Food & Fires

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I enjoyed pottering about the house yesterday morning.  I spent most of the morning working in the kitchen again, making chicken stock and pumpkin soup.  I’m a home cook so recipes are not precise, but they taste good.

Heres how I make my chicken stock:

  • 6 chicken thighs – brown in a little olive oil
  • 1 large red onion – quarter and add to pan with chicken
  • a few cracks of salt and pepper

Once the chicken is nicely browned add it, the onion and the pan juices to a crockpot. Then add:

  • 2 litres of boiling water
  • 3 large carrots halved
  • the top &leaves from one bunch of celery 
  • teaspoon of Italian herbs
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • teaspoon of vinegar ( helps draw the marrow out of the bones)
Cook on high for 6-8 hours, cool, strain and freeze. I love the taste of this stock and often just have a bowl it as broth, particularly if I’m not well. Its great for soothing an upset tummy and getting some collagen.

Once the stock was on I made roasted pumpkin soup that I had started the day before. Heres my pumpkin soup recipe:

Add to an oven tray:

  • Half a kent pumpkin cut into 2-3 inch pieces
  • One large red onion cut into eights
  • Tomatos – 2 – 3 regular size cut into quarters or a few handfuls of mini tomatos or a capsicum
Toss in a little olive oil

Roast in the oven till browned
Then use a large non-stick pot and add:

  • A few tbspns olive oil 
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1-2 tspns curry powder depending on how hot you like it
  • half a small onion chopped
  • a little black pepper
Mix the herbs and oil to a paste. Once the onions have softened add a tin of beans, a litre of stock and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the roasted pumpkin/onions/tomatos and a litre of hot water. Simmer for 5-10 minutes. Once cooled a little, blend the soup. 


Tastes fantastic and you get veggies, turmeric & beans all in one meal. This made 8 serves for the freezer and a tasty lunch!

In between cooking I cleaned out the pantry, mostly just a good tidy up was needed and it  looks much better now. I was given some lovely big glass jars for free last week so I have filled two with lentils and split peas and will fill the rest after the next shop.

In the afternoon it got quite really hot (40C – 104F) and the smoke was really bad. The fires were so bad yesterday everywhere, but it was awful watching Lithgow, surrounded by fire, seeing streets we know so well and houses right near where we lived on fire, people fighting embers and evacuating – all roads out of town cut off for most of the evening. 

Overnight the heat was bad, too hot to sleep much, but it has cooled down this morning. The smoke is still very thick though – (we are about 30 mins from the fire and in no danger.) so I won’t be opening any windows.

My plan for today is start cleaning DS’s room as he will be home on Christmas Eve. We gradually started using his room as a bit of storage so I need to sort it out a bit before he gets here.  Then tomorrow I have one present to buy and I’ll be ready for Christmas.

Holidays at last!!

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Its Day 3 of my holidays today and I’ve been busy in the kitchen for the last two days cooking for the freezer.

I bought 12 brown bananas for $2 so have made 3 loaves banana bread which I’ll slice and freeze.

Yesterday DD cooked two huge pots of bolognaise sauce. Half of it we froze in 12 single serves, 3 x 4 serves containers and then made 4 lasagnes in single serves for the freezer.

I roasted a pumpkin, onions & tomatos which I’ll make into pumpkin soup today. I made 12 single serves of split pea soup for the freezer. I used this Ina Garten recipe and seriously – it is absolutely beautiful! looks exactly like the picture and is now a new fave soup recipe.

So the freezers are full to the brim – I need to do some rearranging today to move the older food up to the top and make a bit more room.

The fires eased up for one day since I last posted and we had a beautiful blue sky  till about 2pm when huge smoke clouds started to roll in. I took this photo from our front verandah just slightly to the left of the photo in my previous post.

I’ve also had time to work through financial progress for the year and to set some goals for 2020. I’ve added another page for this. I’m looking forward to the next few weeks of holidays so I can catch up with family and get some jobs done around the house.