And the farm grows...

We finally did it. We bought 2 goats. 

Well, I bought 2 goats. I was a little flu-ey and delirious at the time. But these are our new boys, who will hopefully start helping us control our weeds & lawn with out sprays.

Meet Jerry and George. They're cashmere. 

The chickens are also loving this gorgeous warm weather we're having - spring has sprung! 

And after the goats have a good go at our overgrown veggie patch, I'm getting some seedlings in! 

My favourite thing at the moment is to take my tea and a good book and lay on the trampoline in the gentle warm sun. Bare feet on warm grass. And the hum of the Hill Shadow Ferals working on our fruit tree blossoms. 

I love being on the verge of abundance, don't you?! So blessed. 

Ve-ghurt.

Guys guys guys! I found another epic vegan recipe!

I made vegan coconut yoghurt! And its freaking amazing!!! Seriously: Even the kids love it!

And this stuff is SO. EASY.

I found the recipe at Chocolate and Zucchini, and pretty much followed it to the letter, using 3 x 400ml tins of full fat coconut milk, and 1/2 cup No Udder coconut yoghurt (From Woolworths) as a starter. Whisked it all together, divvied it up into the little jars in the yoghurt machine. Turned on my little yoghurt maker and left it alone for 24 hours. PRESTO!

Easy as! (Think of all those amazing gut bacterias!)

You gotta get yourself one of these little yoghurt makers - I got mine from Aldi for about $20. I bought it to make conventional dairy yoghurt when my kids were little, and we just could not get it to set! We tried all kinds of things! Fail after fail after fail. So its basically been in my cupboard doing nothing for about 3 years.

I whipped it out to give this a go, and BOOM! PERFECT YOGHURT. First go. Coconut yoghurt ROCKS.

This morning I had it with 3 chopped fresh strawberries and a level teaspooon of coconut sugar. AMAZING.

So look, there really is no excuses for me not to be vegan now! 'What do I miss out on?:

Yoghurt - nope. Making as much as I want!
Milk - soy (ALDI organic!) or Pureharvest Oat milk
Cheese - Bio Cheese FTW! (Coles)
Ice Cream - Soy Good Soy Icecream, in moderation!
Eggs - I do eat the odd egg from our lovely free range back yard chookies, but there's TONNES of substitutions! (Right Maxine? x) Chia, avocado, oil and vinegar....
Meat - berk. Try tofu, kidney beans, peanut patties, vege snags and i had the best burgers this week, by substituting a beef pattie with a GIANT, FAT grilled mushroom. Took up the whole bun! OMG drool.
Butter - Coconut oil in recipes, and Nuttelex spread on toast.
Bacon - gimme a break... #facepalm

Did I miss anything? ;)

This is not about how I look anymore. This is not about weight loss. I ate for weight loss for the last 20 years and it made me freakin MISERABLE. And I still got fat anyway! This is eating for how I FEEL. This is love through food. My tummy feels good, my head feels clear, and my heart is happy.

Go on - make the yoghurt. Its a game changer x

The recipe you've all been waiting for...

OMG this cake.

This. Cake.

Ben took it to work. His workmates devoured it. Then he told them it was vegan, and ran a guessing competition what was in it. NONE of them got it!

This is the best choccie cake recipe I've found. Note I didn't say 'the best vegan choccie cake recipe'. That wasn't an accident! So easy, so healthy, and YUM.

The original is here, but I've tweaked it a bit. So here it is:

Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Pre heat oven to 170 deg C (150 deg C if fan forced!) - thats 350 deg F for you guys, USA!
Spray-oil and line 2 x loaf tins with baking paper.

In a big bowl, combine:
3 c plain flour
6 T cacao powder
2 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
Set aside.

In another bowl, combine:
1/4 c coconut oil (melted)
1 ripe avocado (mashed)
2 c water
2 T apple cider or white vinegar
2 t vanilla extract
Whisk these together, then whisk in:
2 c coconut sugar.

Combine wet and dry ingredients and mix until well-combined.

Pour 1/2 mix into each lined and greased loaf tin (YEP - YOU GET TWO CAKES!!! One to take to 'that-thing-you-said-you'd-take-a-plate-to', and one for the kids for afternoon tea! BONUS!)

Bake 45 min.

If you want an impressive and also vegan choccie frosting for it, use a stick mixer (or hand mixer, or your ENORMOUS POP-EYE ARM STRENGTH) to mix: 
2 ripe avocados,  
1 cup icing sugar, 
1 t vanilla extract, 
4 T cacao powder.
And use this to ice it when it's cool.

OM NOM NOM. Who said vegan food had to be all spinach and mung beans?!

A branch came down.

Meant to be cold this week! We're prepared!

Any sun peeking through is a chance for us to get out and play outside! To throw off Will's rugs and let Lennon & the ladies stretch their wings. 

The mud is taking over, but it's only for a few more weeks. 

Meanwhile, Bluebell has settled right in to Hill Shadow Farm life.

Hard to imagine people try to have Collies in suburban blocks! They're so full of energy and mischeif! Blue thrives on the space and activity here!

Off to eat an apple pie. It's a tough life ;)

Organising the inside - while it's getting colder outside

So we have been in Melbourne for nearly two years and in that time we really hadn't unpacked our book collection and sorted it out. Recently we changed that situation.

A little win-fall meant we could finally afford to go to Ikea and get our wall units to complete the blank wall at Hill Shadow House. 4 Standard size Billy's and a small one with doors meant we could cover the whole wall.

A couple of wall fixers were added to make it safe and extra stable (kids you know), and here is what we ended up with.

They filled the gap perfectly!

With the books added they are starting to look like home!Yes they are alphabetical by author or series (i.e. Star Trek is under "S")

Notice the way we featured the wall light and created a cupboard for the girls art suppliers - or what I like to call the crap and messy cupboard. But the girls do like to draw, paint, cut, stick and general get their art on!

The wet cold days certainly allow us to explore other parts of Hill Shadow House - and it's a nice change to build something and get our books out of the boxes and temporary locations.

Mud Fest 2015

Argh - it's a Hill Shadow Mud-Fest!

9 degrees c at the moment! Thank goodness this weather doesn't last long!

Haven't blogged for ages! Finding it hard to sit and compose lengthy posts at the desk, so expect more posts from my mobile phone on-the-hop! 

Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show tomorrow! I'll be your On-The-Spot correspondent! 

Stay warm x

 

Ps Bluebell had her first night at Puppy Pre-school last night! Hasn't she grown?!

Homespun, hay, and hungry hunters.

It's getting colder and greyer at Hill Shadow. We still get blue skies, but colours are duller. The air is crisp. Morning frosts are a regular occurance now, and the report this morning said it was 3 degrees celcius.

I'd believe it.



I've been knitting lots of warm woolies! I'm about 3/4 through Ben's woolley socks (he MIGHT get to wear the before the end of winter!). I discovered my friend Bec over at Peg and Jane spins the most amazing wool by hand (amazing skill!) so I've HAD to buy some and cast on a little cardi for Tara. Im in love with this wool! And knowing that it came from a small family farm in country Victoria, spun by Bec, and knitted by me, makes it all the more special.





And we bought a new little runabout car for Ben - FINALLY. We just couldnt do the too-ing and fro-ing in in the freezing pitch black early mornings and all hours of the night anymore! So this is Ben's little work vehicle. And life has settle down CONSIDERABLY since!




It was great being a 'one car family' for all those years, but completely impractical now!



Last weekend we scored a few mouldy bales of hay from one of our agisters! Unsuitable as horse feed, but perfect for another bale garden! I've filled with layers of green clippings, cardboard, manure, straw, and compost, but so far I've just planted some peas and some bits and pieces from the garden. Not really sure what I'll put in there yet.



And of course in true Hill Shadow Farm style, we've had some #accidentalfarming happening, with a butternut pumpkin popping up on its own in the garden and these... er... things.



There's 2 of them. Pumpkins? Marrows?



Someone who has been loving all the wet weather is Katie!



MUDPIES!!! Perfect after-ballet activity!



And speaking of hay, we picked up this load for $4 a bale from an ad on Gumtree! BARGAIN! We got 20 bales, but I'm so getting another 20 when I can! What a steal!!! It's so nice to have the barn full for winter. Its a comforting feeling; abundance.



Some of the old hay we were given went out to the chooks as a nice warm bed in their chookhouse. And Ben up-cycled this old coffee table into new nesting boxes for the girls - aren't they brilliant!?









Unfortunately: Disaster. A few nights ago, we made a fatal communication error. I thought Ben had shut the chooks in for the night, he thought I had. We hadn't. I woke in the night to frantic clucking and I knew. I bolted out in my pjs and gumboots and in my torchlight I saw the flashing eyes of 2 cunning foxes in the dark, licking their lips having helped themselves to our henhouse like theives in the night.

I felt so horribly guilty. We lost 5 girls through stupid forgetfulness, and we both felt absolutely horrible. I now have a very loud piercing alarm set to go off each evening to remind us to SHUT THE CHOOKS IN!!!



You know what IS good about winter though? Baking. Specifically, my husband's baking.


Just LOOK at this apple pie!!! Tonight he's making lemon meringue. God help my waistline! I shall have to chop wood for hours to work it all off!

The other thing I cant wait for about winter...

3 more weeks!

What do you look forward to about winter?

Keep warm
xxx