They just keep coming!

To give you some perspective, the little one on the left is what I'd call a nice sized zucchini. Those monsters on top weighed 1kg each, they are now chopped up in my freezer, or in zucchini bread. Hoping to offload some to friends tomorrow, but I need more recipes! My freezer is full.

And the winner is...

Random.org chose number 12, which means vcollins won the giveaway, I guess it pays to buy 10 entries!

I'll email you shortly. Thanks everyone for entering my raffle, we raised $100 for QLD's flood victims, a fantastic effort!

Win some Thunderwear!

Heartfelt has a fantastic giveaway, go here for more details.

Little animal kingdom

And here's the latest treasury I"m featured in, created by the lovely Bec. Good choices Bec, it's always interesting to see what other people find on Etsy, such a treasure trove. I made a toadstool one to return the favour. In other exciting news, I've made 100 sales in my Etsy shop...yay!

In my garden

Right now.

Doily daks

I've been doing a bit more upcycling lately, made a couple pairs of denim pants for Evie for winter, a pair of shorts out of a pair of my liberty print corduroy shorts, and this pair of doily daks for my Etsy shop, in size 5. They are in my shop now, and I hope to make a few more similar pairs in the coming days. Don't forget about my Queensland flood raffle, it has been extended for 2 days, and now ends on the 26th of January at 12pm. This is so that when the auctions end, it gives people who didn't win an auction a chance to buy entries in more raffles.

Winter's nest skirt red

I've just uploaded this winter's nest skirt onto Etsy, since our market was cancelled on the weekend as the ground was too wet from all the rain we had last week. I'll upload the black winter's nest skirt soon.

What to do on these rainy days?

Get painted! We're going just a tad stir crazy after 4 days of consecutive rain (with a brief sunny hot interlude yesterday afternoon when I got lots of washing dry!) Don't forget to donate to flood relief, see my previous post.

Raising money for Queensland flood relief

I think you'd be sitting under a rock if you haven't heard about the devastating floods happening in Queensland at the moment, the lives lost, the massive damage bill. Toni is organising a list of auctions, raffles and fixed price items via blogs and Facebook, so I'm holding a raffle to raise funds for the premier's flood relief appeal. This upcycled woollen blanket dress in your choice of children's size 2-5 is up for grabs. All you have to do is donate $5 (or more! each $5 you donate gets you an extra entry) via the link above, then come back to this post and leave your name and email address in the comments section. The raffle will be drawn on Wednesday the 26th of January at 12pm. I will cover the cost of postage, so good luck, and start donating!

For more information about the dress, look here

Rainy days

It rained here most of yesterday, and was heavy overnight, looks like it will be the same today. We needed it, especially since I left the tap on the tank on overnight a couple of weeks ago and drained it to only 1/4 full. When the showers wee a bit lighter in the afternoon, we went for a walk, and bought the little basket from an op shop. Evie wanted a basket with a handle so she could pick vegetables ;) Might be a nice red ridinghood basket too.

Here they are testing it out, to make "vegetable soup"

The orchard dreams

It always happens a few times, and then not again for quite a while. I just had an email saying I had an item in an Etsy treasury...that's twice in a week! I'm not complaining! That's my little apple dress in the bottom left corner. I quite like that needle felted apple too, very cute.

Solar Powered nappies

After I'd hung a load of nappies on the clothesline this afternoon, it occurred to me that I'd just washed the nappies in solar hot water (most of my washing is done in cold water, nappies in warm), in a washing machine powered by the sun, and they were now drying in the sun. Very satisfying, it's the small things that make me happy! Even better if we had harvested our own water, but that's our next eco house project- one or two slimline tanks to be plumbed to the toilet and washing machine.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

I tried out the chocolate and zucchini cake recipe today (another medium sized zucchini used up!) from here. It turned out pretty well, and the girls loved it for dessert...wrapping a vegetable in chocolate always helps! There it is with a couple of loaves of bread I made today as well. I feel very domesticated when I bake a few things in a day, especially when I can pop a few things into the freezer for another day. So I've made zucchini bread (one eaten, one in the freezer), sausage rolls with zucchini in them, chopped up 5 zucchini into a bag and froze them, then the chocolate zucchini cake today. I gave a couple to my parents, so I have used up most of the ones in my fridge, but I'll bet there's more ready to pick. Next I'll make curried veggie pasties, with potato, carrots and zucchini. Thanks for the generous supply of free range eggs Bec, my guess is you guys will be eating a lot of zucchini slice!

Happy new year!

Welcome 2011! We slept through it of course, turning in at about 10pm, after a stinking hot day. The girls managed to stay up until the early fireworks at 9:15pm, then went to bed promptly after. We can see the higher fireworks from our front porch, so we don't have to go far! We were meant to be BBQ'ing with some friends, but we thought tonight might be a better night, without the 42 degree temperature and high winds.
We are having some technical issues with uploading photos at the moment, not sure if its the new camera, our our internet connection timing out, so we don't have any Christmas pics up yet.
And this morning, I discovered the start of the zucchini glut, and picked about 10, so I have zucchini bread on the go, and plans to make sausage rolls, lasagne, curries, and to chop/grate some to freeze for when they are producing no more.