A Day In The A Blue Mountains.

Thanks for visiting my blog. I welcome you to take your time and browse , visiting my bush garden and discovering the wonders of my city within a national park; Blue Mountains National Park. Via my blog you will travel with me through the successes, trials and tribulations of gardening on a bush block. I share with you my patchwork & quilting, knitting, paper crafts, cooking and life in general.
Showing posts with label Rose Geranium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rose Geranium. Show all posts

Sunday, 18 August 2013

Sometimes...


Last month, Mr Honey Pie and I made soap.


I love making soap. We don't make it often enough and usually wait until we have absolutely no soap at all and we have to buy it for personal use and then one lovely customer will send me an email and ask for another kilo or two.


That's when we know we have to make soap.  Which is what happened this time.
So we made soap. We made oatmeal soap with chamomile and lavender essential oil. We made rose petal soap with rose geranium essential oil and pink clay. We made lavender soap with lavender essential oil and lavender flowers. We made baby soap with just a hint of lavender and chamomile essential oil.
And then we let it cure.  We cut it. We let it air so that it could dry out a little more.
The house was filled with luscious aromas of the various essential oils.


One day, about a month after we'd made the soap, Mr Honey Pie sat me down and said he wanted to ask me something.
Mr Honey Pie NEVER says to me: "Honey, there's something I want to ask you."
NEVER.
That is, not until about two weeks ago.
He sat me down and he sat next to me and said,
"I've been thinking, what if I finish painting the kitchen and dining room?"
Well I was flabbergasted, firstly because I thought he had something life shattering to ask, and secondly because, well we only started painting the interior of our house well, like two years ago and everything came to an abrupt stand still...just like that.
I had seriously been considering getting in a professional painter and decorator, even though Mr Honey Pie is a professional painter and decorator.

Anyway, to cut a long story short...we painted. Or should I say Mr Honey Pie painted.  (I did help by rolling one coat of the main colour while he cut in.)

But before we could pull out the stinky cans of paint, the soap had to be packed carefully away, wrapped and boxed, to ensure no contamination with the paint fumes. 



Thirteen years ago when we had our house built, we chose neutral warm colours...mainly creams.  In the kitchen, you can see here, we painted a feature wall a sort of coffee colour.



In our previous house, the colours were sort of apricot-pink.



So far,the guest bedroom, the study, the two bathrooms, the lounge room and the entry have been repainted.  This time we chose blue as our main colour.


It just feels right.


But I'm not sure about the blue feature wall in the kitchen.  I was hoping that it would be darker.  But we've decided to live with it for a while and if we can't live with it...well, we'll repaint it.


And among the painting, we  hosted a birthday dinner for our Darling Daughter.
Our gorgeous Grand Daughter gets so excited about birthdays.  If she could have her way, she would have a full on birthday party for every member of the family with bunting, balloons, scores of guests, music and on and on.
But for today, she had to contend with paint fumes and a very messy dining room.
She had so much fun that her mum messaged me tonight to tell us that Miss Five was laughing in her sleep!
Well, we can't wait for the morning to find out about her dreams!




Sunday, 11 November 2012

Day 316/366


Despite a topsy turvy kind of spring, my rose geraniums have been flowering profusely.

I grow rose geraniums mostly to attract bees to the garden and to help with pollinating fruiting plants.

I must confess that I don't really have anything that's desperate for pollinating at the moment but I was pleasantly surprised to see that not only are the bees attracted to the rather small flowers of these pelargoniums but so are the butterflies.

I spent most of the day in the garden today, raking and clearing up the endless fallen leaves from our eucalypts and I took great delight in watching the parade of butterflies.

I'm fairly certain that the butterfly above is (unfortunately - in Australia) the common pest known as Pieris rapae or the European Cabbage Butterfly.  Like the Cabbage Moth, its larvae feed on cabbage.











Monday, 3 September 2012

Day 247/366

Day 247...where has the year gone?!
Busy, busy, busy.
For those interested, here is our soap, all cut and ready to be sent on to our customers.

When we returned from our holiday the house smelt like heaven.
We sell most of our soap in bulk lots but I do wrap and label individual cakes too to give as gifts.
We started using the soap about two weeks ago and we're very happy with this batch.
I was bit worried as we had to change the oil used because we couldn't source the brand we were using previously.
This is lavender soap with lavender flowers added.
We also made a batch of baby soap with lavender and chamomile.
My most favourite is our Rose Petal Soap made with essential oil of Rose Geranium.
That's next on the soap making agenda.


Sunday, 12 February 2012

Day 43/366


Tonight, I could have posted about the frantic storm we had this afternoon.
I could have put up photographs of the hail,the overflowing gutters, the trees bending in the wind, the mess left after the storm, but I chose not to.
Instead I've posted a photograph of one of my rose geranium plants which is thriving with all the rain we've had.
When the sun was shining and the sky was blue, it seemed to sing a little tune about the colour green.


Besides the aromatic properties of this plant, it's great to have in the garden because its little purple flowers attract bees and encourage pollination in other plants.
It is said that it makes a good companion plant for roses as it repels pests and encourages growth.

I grow it because I adore the fragrance of the crushed foliage and for its bee attracting ability.
Also, it seems to thrive in our poor, sandy, acidic, soil providing much needed greenery in our garden.

Rose geranium leaves may also be used in cooking to flavour custards and to decorate fruit drinks and punches.

Essential oil of rose geranium is produced from this plant and provides a economical alternative to rose oil used for scenting cosmetics and beauty products.

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