Thanksgiving

Eva always likes to do a little something for Thanksgiving, even though the only place it’s an official celebration here is on Norfolk Island. We had a frozen 3 kg turkey thawing in the fridge for the last couple of days and I cooked it on the BBQ in a foil tray and it was delicious. I threw in a few of our carrots from the garden to roast, and we also had some of our broad beans. I also tried a couple of the butter swedes. This is the first time I tried them, and while they are palatable raw, in small quantities, they are too sickly sweet when cooked. Maybe I will chop the rest up and see if the wildlife will eat it.  The row where I thought I had planted turnip turned out to be beetroot, and it was amazing roasted. So, carrot, beetroot, broad bean, and turkey – good; butter swede – bad.

We are still waiting for the latest batch of radish to get big enough, and hopefully we will soon be picking zucchini, tomato, and cucumber. The button squash and zucchini I froze previously was very rubbery and I had to throw out the last of it to make room in the fridge. This time the only stuff we will freeze is diced carrot, broad bean, plus maybe some other hard vegetables. We planted real pickling gherkin this time so will not be trying to pickle Lebanese cucumber, although it wasn’t bad. Eva already put up two big jars of pickled beetroot, and will do a few more soon.  We have about 20 okra coming up, hopefully we got them in early enough for a good crop. Fried okra, pickled okra, life is good. I finally planed the Kalamata olive tree out in the garden and it has a lot of new growth already.

Everything is mowed right down which has allowed me to get a handle on all the weeds, and I have been spot spraying with “Fusilade” on all the paspalum and clumps of winter grass, plus digging it out in places. Out in the back paddock it’s very dry and I can see the greener spots where water must be flowing through the gravel layer. I may mark a few of those places for some flowering shrubs in the autumn. We have been putting the carrot tops in the water dish in the evenings, and the wallabies come up and eat them. I suppose with everything being so dry they enjoy a bit of greenery. I have plenty of mulch left from all the stuff I chipped up after the snow damage in August to put around anything new.

The soles of the old work boots finally completely separated, too much using the shovel and going out in the wet paddock. I have switched over to a new pair I got a couple of weeks back and might be a bit more careful with. For the wet grass and boggy paddock I also bought a pair of Frogger boots, but I will probably still have to wear the gumboots come winter next year.

So, what are we thankful for coming up to a year in our new place? 
Having our own property and being mortgage free, not being in Victoria and having to endure everything they have in 2020, particularly the back to back lockdowns. Definitely not being in the U.S. with all the crazies and the pandemic that is out of control.
It’s been nearly 12 months here and we do not regret moving for one second. I wish I could say we did it because we predicted what was going to happen, but we just made the move at the right time and got very, Very, VERY lucky with everything.