APRIL-MAY 2019     OLIVES AND EASTER…

A small rather dull looking tree tucked away in the side garden revealed itself to be an olive tree. A fruiting olive tree… By April it was carrying a surprising quantity of ripe, green and black fruit. Whilst it would not have been our choice to grow olives, it was impossible to let the bounty go to waste. We do like olives and eat same quite regularly, as part of an array of nibbles for Happy Hour drinks with the neighbours, in salads, and in meals like a favourite tuna, olive and caper sauce for pasta.

However, research showed that it was not just a matter of picking the olives and bottling them for later. Raw olives are, basically, so bitter as to be inedible without treatment, it seemed. So we embarked on a new experience…

Much Googling ensued…

The olives were duly picked, some black, some still green, for the sake of experimentation. We sat down at the table to prick each one several times with the sharp point of a knife. Tedious and time consuming.

Processing olives

Couey dog learned a valuable life lesson from the process – not all things that fall from tables are good things. She pounced on an olive that John dropped and tried to eat it. Spat it out again. Spent the next half hour pulling disgusted faces and sulking because we laughed at her.

We put the pricked fruit into bottles, filled these with cold water and over the next three weeks, drained and changed the water each day. When a sample didn’t quite set the teeth on edge, I put a brine solution into the jars and sealed them. A couple of months later, the result was actually edible olives. I was quite surprised…

In the subsequent year, I made the processing easier by not bothering to prick them at all. Put them into the largest plastic container/s I had, for the 2-3 week soaking process. It made the daily draining and changing of the water much easier than fiddling with lots of jars. They only went into these when ready to brine. I found that pouring a cm or so of olive oil on top of each jar of brine and olives prevented deterioration of the fruit at the top.

Our home grown and processed olives are every bit as good as shop-bought ones. The tree is so prolific that we now give much of the crop away – but recipients have to be prepared to do the processing themselves!

My Melbourne grandson came to stay with us for a few days before Easter. An adventure for the twelve year old was to travel by train, by himself, from Melbourne to Bendigo. His dad took him to Southern Cross, to the train, and we collected him at our end. He was so proud of himself.

John took the opportunity to get the boy doing more woodwork, as he had shown an interest in this when we lived nearby. During the shed organizing process of a few months ago, John had decided to sell his old woodworking bench and this had found its way down to the outdoor living area, in preparation for sale. To date, no interest had been shown to his ads, so the bench still sat there, being an eyesore. Now, it provided a place for grandson’s woodworking. Not what I had in mind for such a lovely area!

Concentration…

On Easter Sunday, son, wife and my grand daughter came for a day trip, to collect the boy. The Bendigo family came to a BBQ lunch at our place. The wonderful, large, patio was put to good social use yet again.

My daughter-in-law organized an Easter Egg hunt for the four kids. We decided this should be in an area of the nearby bushland, rather than have my young garden subjected to enthusiastic foraging. She supplied a very generous quantity of little eggs and the hunt lasted quite some time.

Ready, set…

Whilst we don’t see the Melbourne part of the family as regularly as we did when we lived there, that is a cost of the otherwise successful relocation. Occasions like this go some of the way towards compensating.

MONDAY MAY 8     BOORT

We were planning on moving on today, but we both slept late, so decided to stay on.

The wind had dropped, and the day was sunny. It was warm enough for Couey to be allowed another romp in the lake.

I will come back – reluctantly

I did a load of washing. Cost $3.

Mid-morning, two rigs moved in on one side of us. Pleasant to have some neighbours again.

Our site by the lake at Boort

I drove to the shops and did a small stock up at the supermarket – $49 worth.

For the rest of the day, we just lazed about. John spent some time on his laptop. I read. Took Couey for a walk along the lake front. She really wanted another swim and kept trying to pull away from me, but it was too late in the day for her to dry adequately before she would want to be back in Bus – and on MY bed! So, no water games.

That shag again – and some really authentic detail…

Tea was chicken and mushroom sausages, fries. John had an egg with his.

Some TV after tea.

Beautiful sunsets across the lake from our site

SATURDAY 29 JUNE     BROKEN HILL

Up at 8.30 again. After seeing to dog with a walk around a large open area at the end of the park, followed by her breakfast, I drove to the Centro shops. Got papers, postcards and some food supplies.

This trip was going to be an exercise in fridge management, probably with frequent small re-stocks the norm. We would certainly see whether we could manage extended trips without the supplementary Chescold portable fridge that had travelled in the Landrover. Both of us now had bodies that could do without the lifting a heavy fridge in and out of the vehicle, every time we moved camp.

I had been making adjustments to the way I used the fridge, as we went. One of the two plastic containers I bought to go where there should be crisper drawers, now holds a night’s supply of beer and Zero cans for John – five or six all told. The other holds vegies – limited capacity here equals frequent shopping, especially as I like to eat salads most lunch times. John now had a small bottle of the tomato juice he liked to drink, instead of a two litre one. I had started to sometimes eat an orange for breakfast, instead of drinking juice. So far, so good……

John spent some morning time on his laptop. I read the papers I’d bought.

My step-daughter showed up after lunch, later than the mid morning we had expected. She brought her dog with her, who immediately tried to eat Couey, so had to be taken home again. Not going to be a friendship there.

Daughter really wanted us all to go out to Silverton, though we had been there lots of times before. We loaded her into the back seat of Terios, with difficulty – it really was not designed for a sizeable adult, and it seemed the seatbelt did not work – it wouldn’t stretch far enough. Couey liked having company in the back, though!

No problems parking in Silverton. As the name suggests, it was the site of a silver “rush” in the late 1800’s and quickly grew to a town large enough to have a rail connection and station. But the much richer finds in nearby Broken Hill caused people to leave, and it became an “almost” ghost town. A handful of people remained, some picturesque old buildings still stand, it became the base for a number of artists, and also some film making. So it continues to exist in all its quirky glory.

First stop was at our favourite Horizon Gallery, though we were determined not to buy anything. We already had four works from there – and no more wall space at home. The artist Albert Woodroffe was there and we talked with him about his work, for a little while. God, it was tempting to buy! There was very little of his late wife’s works left there now; I do treasure the two of hers that we have.

Daughter spent ages browsing and talking in another shop, 39Dips, so called because there are that many of them between Broken Hill and Silverton. I found it a bit kitchy.

Then we walked around the Silverton perimeter and Couey had an off lead run. She was not very good at being tied up outside shops while we all went in – that old separation anxiety.

Had a beer each at the Silverton Hotel which, like the rest of the village, had changed little since our last visit.

And so, back to Broken Hill. Daughter had invited us to tea, so we had to first go via the shops, so she could buy supplies to make us the roast dinner she planned. It was after 5pm by now, so it was clearly going to be a much later meal than we were used to. Deposited her at her place, then went back to Bus and relaxed for a while.

Back across town to daughter’s place at about 7.30pm. Left dog to sleep in Terios in the driveway, which she seemed to accept with no problems. On his own, we found the other dog quite a friendly, eager-to-please fellow, but he did need some consistent training. He was a strange mix of ancestry – beagle, red cattle dog and something else. Not long after we arrived, he peed on the carpet in the living room – then daughter realized that he’d been shut inside all day without relief.  Poor dog!

We ate about 8.30pm. Obviously, daughter had gone to some effort to produce the roast lamb and vegies, which were very nice. She then told us she doesn’t eat meat much as she no longer likes the taste…..hmmm, not sure how we were meant to take that.

We went back to Bus about 10.30, watched tennis on TV for a while before bed.