New Zealand it's been 2 years now

Morning Folks It's been 2 years all ready that we arrived in New Zealand, the Land of the Long White Cloud. Beautiful with all the green grass and lots of rain. Winter is on us which means lots of rain, hail and snow. Hopefully this year will be a milk winter but according to the Metservices we are in for a bad winter ... I can only hope it will not be the case. Constant rain and grey days makes me very depressed. I am a girl of Africa that loves my sunshine. now I am going to spend my days inside cooking trying to be creative with this new dieet Keto my daughter is trying to put us on no carbs and high protein and fats and lots of crochet ... making doggie jumpers, scarves and beanies. Planning on doing a market day with a range of doggie beds recycling old pallets/crates which I am helping hubby make. Actually I am doing most of the work, as his eye sight has deteriated so badly that he is struggling to read the tape measure. But we are getting there

We have made two sizes so far for inside dogs ... not going into the kennels making. For the pillows to fit I have made them to fit a regular pillow so recycling pillows is possible, you need to change pillows on a regular basis anyway.

until next time keep well Rina

New Years 2018

Firstly wanting to wish everyone a Wonderful New Year 2018 ... keep up the new Years resolutions. I did not really make any this year cause I know how easy that falls by the wayside and we just revert back to our bad habits. Atleast I don't smoke or drink but I do swear a bit, drink way to much coffee and have a problem with the sweet stuff. We do try eat healthier meals. ATM my garden is just starting to really take off and hopefully I can freeze some veggies and preserve a few bottles this season. Our 6 remaining old hens produce 3/4 eggs a day ATM but they will soon need to be replaced with younger hens. So I know where some of our food comes from but we are far from being self sufficient like I would like us to be. Especially when it comes to our meat supply, maybe that is something I need to address ASAP Our local life stock sales yard is not far away from us. But unfortunately I would have to find someone with a trailer and hitch on their vehicle to get a few sheep to our place .. hate having to rely on anyone but we don't have our own trailer anymore. Just another problem we need to address .. going from 2 vehicles with hitches and 2 trailers to 1 small sedan without a hitch. anyway that is life for you it knocks you down and you just need to get up and go again. My daughter and myself did start a small home based baking business 6 months ago just to help with the daily bills. And low and behold she started to bake cupcakes and birthday cakes with all the pretty swirls and rosettes and designs. And she has done really well with that. Then we decided to start baking our traditional sweets and desserts to serve a bigger SA market here in Auckland, giving our customers a taste of home. That has paid off as so many people love our baking and have become regular customers. From thinking making homemade soap with pretty swirls and soap cupcakes that were more decorative than anything else and spending our mornings at flea markets. I am happier with the baking business. One of my recipes we use you can find under recipes for No Knead bread and vetkoek. We make a beautiful smooth Peppermint tart, a milk tart, Malva poeding and koeksisters. For us it is about baking fresh and getting it to our customer within hours of making it. Until next time Regards Rina