Winter Wonderland

It got awful wintry here over the last week - a massive storm left us with prolonged power outages and a garden buried in hail. Where I live is usually pretty temperate, even in winter, so the extreme weather was a bit of a shock to all of us. There were a few accidents locally (due to black ice - thankfully we don't get that too often) and an old church lost its roof but otherwise we pulled through pretty well. It was sure dramatic though!

The chickens were entirely disinterested by the entire thing.

These girls don't even care.

Oh, and the potatoes have started to come up!


The garden seems to be fine after its icy flooding, though the strawberries are losing a few leaves. Did I mention that those green flowers are a sign of a disease? Awkward. It could also have been due to the cold weather, though, so I'm going to let them be until the spring before deciding if they seem to be actually sick. The asparagus lost some fronds to the heavy winds, but those break off fairly regularly and the plant doesn't seem to be bothered by their loss.

It was quite a treat to see how truly green everything is on the background of the hail, though - it all tends to blend together and seem a little unremarkable for a lot of winter.

I have since dealt with a lot of those weeds, I assure you - not that it'll hold em off for long!

Despite the continued meddling of the neighbour cat some of my potatoes have poked out of the soil. So far there are two visible plants, each about an inch high. I was a little concerned that they were just another new variety of weed, but when I poked them they seemed to be very sturdy - most weeds are fairly flimsy - and on quite thick stems. A little googling has made me confident that this is, indeed, what a baby potato plant should look like. If we're lucky the rest will start to show up soon, but I'm excited enough for just the two, if nothing else.

Potato!

Inside the house things have been fairly quiet. The cold has kept us rugged up and spending more than a little of our time wrapped in blankets not achieving a great deal. I did make my first loaf of bread, though, and that was great fun. The kneading was almost meditative in the way that knitting is - a simple, repeated motion that you really get into the rhythm of. It was almost a shame to stop. I only had regular flour and we didn't add any fancy ingredients (is herb bread a thing? I'd love to start using my herbs more often!) but it was still delicious, especially with a fresh pot of pumpkin soup.

We don't have a breadmaker, though I grew up in a home that did, but I didn't find I missed it that much. It would absolutely save a lot of time with the kneading and proving section but overall it was still totally simple to just throw it in the oven myself.

We also had dessert pizza one night and let me tell you, if you haven't tried one then you're really missing out. They're incredibly sweet, of course, so if you aren't into that then steer clear, but for a treat they're delicious and a lot of fun to make. Ours had a pizza base spread half with Nutella and half with a white chocolate and almond spread, covered with sliced strawberries, sprinkles, caramel sauce, mini marshmallows and both milk and white chocolate chips. The best part about dessert pizza, though, is that you can use whatever you have on hand (or go wild at the store with picking out anything that sounds nice).

Before: promising. After: delicious.

Next time: the chickens finally get their roost, I buy some more plants (because of course I do) and the lemon tree finally gets into a proper pot. I have some yarn in transit, too, but who knows when that will arrive. One of the biggest truths of living in Australia is that anything you order online is gonna be at least two weeks away. It's better just to forget about it and treat its surprise arrival as a present from past you.