Narcissus and Notebooks.

Signs of Spring are everywhere in the garden. Although I knew I would shorten their lives in the warmth of the house, I picked some Early Cheer and Paper Whites( Narcissus ) anyway. They look and smell marvelous on the coffee table in the lounge. ( I made that table runner in the photo. It is hand pieced and hand quilted. It was made from fabrics left over from my very first quilt a couple of years ago.) Unfortunately one of the blue fabrics has faded.
The other photos are of notebook covers( in various stages of completion) I am making for the sales table.They are easy to do and are turning out well. They are reversible and can have the notebook changed, when one gets full. I am just putting a small amount of quilting on them to hold the batting in place. Lovely fabric is the key I think.
More progress with the hand quilting on The Apple Quilt, while I watch TV, tonight.

Spicy Apple Loaves.

I've just been baking and the house is filled with the smell of spice. As we don't eat much of this sort of thing any more my baking days happen less often. This recipe is tasty and multi purpose. I make it in 2 loaf tins; that gives you one to cut and one to keep ( or freeze ).It can be used as a cake, a loaf or a dessert.

Spicy Apple Loaves.

2 cups dry cooked apple 1 cup of oil
2 cups sugar 2 tsps vanilla
2 tsps ground cinnamon 1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp ground nutmeg
3 cups flour 1 tsp baking soda
3 beaten eggs pinch of salt
Method.
Beat the eggs, add the oil and vanilla. In another bowl, sift the dry ingredients, add the sugar. Put in the cooked apple then gradually pour the liquids into the dry ingredient. Mix till just combined. Spoon into 2 loaf tins lined with baking paper ( or greased ). Bake in a moderate oven; 160 - 180 degrees centigrade; for about 50 minutes. ( check after 40 mins; test middle is cooked ) Remove from oven and cool on a rack for 10 minutes. Enjoy!

Thanks for the sales table suggestions. ( I still need more ideas ) Yes, we have made wheat ( not corn) bags. The moving with the door type stopper sounds like a good concept. Great to meet you Shelina - I went by your blog to visit. Will add you to my list of places to visit.

Sales table.

Some bright spots in my garden today are these cute little bulbs - called an Ifafa lily. It doesn't make a huge spectacle, just a pleasing little clump; with pale lemon elongated trumpets. I think it is quite unusual; well in NZ any way. Not far away under the eaves of the house I have a Poinsettia tree ( now). It started as a pot plant many years ago and was then planted outside. It has about 20 flowers out at the moment
Over the weekend I spent time with a few other ladies from my local P & Q Group, making items for the Sales Table at our big Exhibition in September. There was a very poor turn out of members which is unusual. I do know there is flu and heavy colds going around........ Perhaps that is why. I don't expect to see the younger ones turning out when they have kids sport and activities to deal with, but there are lots in the older group who I expected to see there. We have made quite a collection of items for sale but coming up with new original items ( that people really need or might want to buy ) is always a challenge. We did the usual ones like needle cases/ sewing kits in many guises; pin cushions ; these little tile tidies (photo) that hang on the workbench beside your sewing machine...the top padded tile is a pin cushion, the removal bag hangs open ready for threads and little scraps. We made hand towels on buttoned fold over to hang tops and patchwork roll up workblankets (??) If any of you other out there have to be involved in making such items and have seen some new ideas I'd love to know what they are, if you're prepared to share.
The outside border on my apple quilt is looking good, so I am keeping steadily on as I hope to put it in the Exhibition. I have 2 to enter....my first ever public hanging. Perhaps display sounds better.

Answers to some Kiwi comments.

After packing the export grade kiwifruit, another layer of fruit with not much wrong with it, is taken off for local market sale. What is left after that is made into juice; pulp products; puree and fruit leather. The real rejects or slightly ripe fruit is used in stock food ( don't know about the zoo idea ); but care has to be taken to fed it out only a little at a time! ( Cause you all know what kiwifruit is good for don't ya!)
Deb, I didn't know they grew in Brazil. Chile certainly grows lots ( at the same time as us too, so is in opposition to our fruit ).
Kirsty I have to ask, "Do you remember the name of the packhouse you worked at....We might have met????" LOL
I wonder if any of you have seen any other kiwifruit products in your countries?. The green juice is certainly nice if you get the chance.

Now a couple of photos of things that took my eye in the garden.
I have several Jade plants ( Crassula lactea ) in big pots and this one is currently smothered in wee flowers, and looking very healthy.

The plant with the little red buds and needle like leaves is a member of the Protea family called Aulax cancellata.

Packing kiwifruit.

Yesterday the packhouse started packing our kiwifruit crop. Since picking time it has been in covered picking bins in a coolstore at about 2 - 3 degrees centigrade. It is taken by forklift from the coolstore around to the bin tipping area where a big machine carefully tips it , bin after bin onto the beginning a long conveyor system. (They are round rollers moving it along.) At various points along the way it is graded either by a big photosensitive screen or by hand ( people ) as you can see in one photos. They are looking for defects; ( marks on the skin; nicks or cuts; deposits; wrong shape ;etc etc ) There are 32 separate categories of reject! From there they move along the conveyor and plop into separate cup things which later weigh the fruit to decide what size it is. The fruit are packed into about 8 different size categories. ( Jumbo, 25, 27, 30, 33, 36, 39,and 42 ) This tells you how many fruit in flat tray. 42 being the smaller fruit. The average size fruit is a 36 which weighs 100- 108 grams. Jumbos can be 150 grams.
You can see from one of the photos the packhouse is a very large building with many people working there. Graders ; packers; tray preparation; tray stackers, pallet strappers etc. Also the job I used to do at one time Quality Control. The fruit is packed into many different sizes and types of packaging from single layer trays that you see in a photo to great big free flow bins. Not every size gets exported to every country. You can see on the photo of the green tray ends some figures. This tells the fruit size; pack date and the growers personal #. Ours being 75791, so that is how you can trace the fruit back to which orchard it was grown in. Every fruit from New Zealand should have a Zespri sticker on it.They are put on automatically by the machine. ( sometimes ruthless sellers pull the stickers off and keep them and the Zespri trays, then fill them with inferior cheaper fruit from other countries.) There is not a lot we can do about that.
They haven't finished packing our fruit yet so we don't know for sure (yet) just how well our crop will have packed out. They will finish it on Monday. Maybe next time you buy Kiwis ( kiwifruit ) you might take a note of how it was presented ; what pack type was it in, did it have a grower number on it ? I'd love some fed back.

N Z Quilter.

Have had family staying at the weekend, so have spent a mundane day today washing sheets remaking beds etc.The freesias they brought me are lovely. They were just breaking buds on Saturday and are now almost fully out. The fragrance is divine. The yellow ones being the strongest. So lovely. Mine in the garden aren't ready to flower yet so these are really appreciated. I guess cause I have a huge garden I don't get gift flowers very often so find it very special when I do.
Another great thing today, when I sat down to take a coffee mid morning my copy of the New Zealand Quilter magazine ( Issue 56 ) had arrived in the mail. So I quickly had a 1st browse then and will savour every page and photo for several more days till it is all read. The temptation is to read it all in one session; but I'll make it last. Even tho NZ is such a small country we have an every increasing # of Quilters and fibre artists. We are well looked after with a very large number of P & Q shops, per head of population, ( I certainly don't have to travel far to visit about 6 stores ) The other great thing is, if there are prizes or competitions or free offers we may enter them. I get really frustrated with reading only for Australian readers in my other mags. Our own magazine is right up there with the others from overseas....and it is all about Kiwi Quilters too so that's really exciting.
Happy reading, happy stitching!

Dawn Chorus

More on Vireyas. This is my oldest one , Dawn Chorus. it has been in a big blue pot since 1988. This photo shows one of it's best flowerings. ( it has only 6 flowers out today ) It is now at the stage where it probably needs an even larger pot, although they do like constricted roots. It broke it's first pot by rolling off this spot and fell only about 4 inches but was so tightly packed it split the pot. I had it in a new pot the same day and it didn't even notice. I have grown many from cuttings of this particular one. ( Very hardy, but also easy) Just popped them in the ground or the edge of the pot and they took. Have managed that with one other variety as well. I'll show you some other ones when they flower.

Vireyas.

After my gardening stint on Monday I had an enticing bare, newly weeded and cleared area in my Yellow Garden. Yesterday I visited the garden centre and returned with another Vireya ( tropical rhododendron) the same one I already had planted in that area.So I now have 2 Sunny Splendour( the first planted in 2003 ). The 1st one has flowered several times and seems quite happy there. I have numerous other Vireyas in pots and in the garden and down by the dam. ( some grown by me from cuttings )The one in the pot in the photo is Yellow Bunny and is scented. Usually it is only the white or pale coloured ones that are scented. ( I didn't have a photo of the Sunny Splendour flowering.) Vireyas do well in our area and as they flower several times a year are a wonderful thing to grow. In the cleared part of the yellow garden I also planted some golden Ranunculas and some Iceland Poppies called Champagne Bubbles. Hope they are both as good as they look on the label. So that's what I have been doing this morning...replanting that area. Already in that piece of garden I have lots of Daffodils; Iris; Freesias and other yellow or purple delights( also some orange at one time of the year ).
I have always kept a record of all the plants I plant ( not punnets of seedlings or seeds). It is in a large hard covered book and has a record going back for the entire 28 years I have had this garden. I find it really valuable when I need to check the name or age of a plant. It has also aided me in remembering all the names of all the trees and plants. I write in each entry; where I purchased the plant; the date; the price and where it is planted. ( I can also see how much I spent on the garden hmmmm....)
Time to laugh now...I am also keeping the dockets from all my Quilting purchases! ( fabric, equipment and notions ) So one day if I write a book I will have lots of references. I also keep a Journal and notebooks about my projects..and photos. Yeah, I've always been a record keeper! ( find it a useful reference and time saving)
I am currently hand sewing down the binding on the back of my apple quilt...the handquilting is almost to the outer border and I was getting fed up with the batting getting everywhere. I also find it useful to put the binding and label on at this stage then the quilting in the outside border will be accurately positioned. So the end is in sight! I'm still in love with the colours, so that's good.

Thrifty Options.

During the weekend I used up some scraps of fabric to make a crazy patch piece of fabric which I then backed and bound on 3 sides .With a little help I rolled it as tight as I could and safety pinned it in place while I hand sewed it securely in a tight roll. I now have a brand new draught stopper, which isn't too conspicuous lying beside a black door. We shouldn't need one at all, but some time ago now when we had new tiles laid the thoughtless tiler couldn't get the door to shut over the tiles he had just laid, so he took the door off and sliced ( crookedly ) a big piece off the bottom. Ever since there has been wind and dust blowing into the house. We intend to get a new more attractive door but haven't quite got around to it yet. Meanwhile this is an effective option. It gave me another little practise at stitching in the ditch around all the shapes.
Our Sunday walk this week took us in the opposite direction from the week before. We drove then parked the car and walked around the end of the Omokoroa Peninsula, by the Walnut Grove along the cliff top, then down some streets back to the car. From most parts of the track and waterfront there are great views of the sea out towards Tauranga and Mt.Maunganui. I can walk a much greater distance without getting tired or bored if there are interesting things to see., so I enjoy it when we can take the time to make a short journey somewhere different to exercise and breathe sea air. We are usually limited by DH knees, which give him some problems. I could just walk on and on if it is reasonably flat, but I know he needs the encouragement to walk so we go at his pace and as far as he wants. When I walk alone I do my own thing at my own faster pace. Yesterday DH chainsawed down firewood trees and I gardened and mowed lawns so that means different muscles got a work out.
Today DH had to go to a course on handling hazarous substances, which won't be much use to an orchardist but we are having to do many doubtfully sensible and useful things to comply with regulations to be allowed to export kiwifruit! ( Because customers in Europe want to an assurance we are using safe practises ! ) I doubt most of them would know the difference. Anyway that means I may do as I wish all day...(already have soup made for lunch)!