Wild Hope Homestead

I had a great day the other day. The Little Fulla had 2 1/2 hours at kindy and with the car and precious time to myself I got a bunch of off-homestead things done. We came home with a peach tree, a soap holder for the shower, almost-pillows for 60% off (which I bought online since they were out of stock in-store, two large storage tubs for chicken food, two boxes of preserving jars from The Mother, groceries from the supermarket and a library card for The Little Fulla. I was feeling very pleased with myself.

The peach tree is ‘Springcrest’, which has a harvest time of mid-December. I have also recently bought a ‘Theo Ching’ nectarine, which ripens near the end of January and into February. This is from observing some holes in our fruit availability. After being so good at working on the Fruit Plan initially, it kind of got brushed to the side as we focused on a small child, the Vege Garden, chickens and other things. While we do have a number of fruit trees, it is always good to have more if you’ve got the space for them and you aren’t getting a steady supply of fruit throughout the year. It’s hard to know what fruit and varieties to pick, seeing as a bunch of our fruit trees are still young and not producing much yet. I just want to have more homegrown fruit that we can eat and preserve so I jumped on these two trees before they disappear from garden centres for the next season.

The storage containers for chicken food are something I’d been planning for a while. The rubbish bins I was using weren’t large enough to hold two bags of feed, meaning there were bags sitting around in the garage susceptible to rodent attack. I was excited about the green storage dumpsters with wheels that I’d been eyeing up in Bunnings. There were a lot of them in-store over the summer, but you know what happened when I was ready to acquire them? They were GONE. Nooo!!!! I was most disgruntled. How dare they disappear all of a sudden! Not to be defeated, I sussed out a few other options and eventually settled on two 120L storage tubs from Bunnings, one for layer feed and one for grower feed.

The influx of preserving jars prompted me to do some reorganising and purging in the kitchen. The pantry is slowly becoming more and more organised and I like it.

I couldn’t say no to more preserving jars.

The top shelf of the pantry was cleared of stuff that didn’t need to be there so I could fit more preserving jars in.

The top two pantry sheleves are now dedicated to preserving. And a little bit of chocolate. I just need to do some more preserving now.

Anyway, back to this good day. I had my weekly Crafty Night at The Mother-in-law’s place for a change in scene, which was all very nice and relaxing. Two occasions in one day without a small human attachment! And then, at the end of the night I was not only given some kombucha, made by The Parents-in-law, but also, a SCOBY! I have been meaning to delve into the world of kombucha for some time now, so I was absolutely stoked to suddenly have a container with a SCOBY in my hands. For the uninitiated, a SCOBY is the starter or mother that you need for making your own kombucha. It is an acronym for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast. And for the more uninitiated, kombucha is basically a fermented tea drink that is currently enjoying popularity due to its probiotic benefits. You just have to be aware that you are dealing with bacteria and yeast, so it’s important to keep equipment and hands very clean so as not to introduce baddies to the goodies. And it’s not recommended to consume kombucha if you’re under 4 years old, pregnant or immune-compromised due to this and the low alcohol content as a result of fermentation.

I took that little SCOBY home, clutching it in my hands, and announced to The Husband, “I’ve got a SCOBY!” He looked confused and a little weirded out as I held aloft my container of flobbly brown stuff. But he does like the taste of the kombucha I brought home and we now have our very own, first ever batch brewing. However, my kombucha excitement has suddenly fallen off the cliff after reading this article about fluoride levels in kombucha and tea in general. I don’t know what to think now. I am going to look into other, better fermented drinks in any case.

We don’t have tea bag tea, so loose leaf tea was tied in a muslin cloth for brewing.

Brewing the kombucha tea: filtered water, sugar and tea.

Kombucha must be brewed in a glass container with a cloth on top.

Work has begun on the big outdoor projects, amidst some heavy rain challenges, so I’ll be sharing on our progress on those things soon.