Nathalie prolapse

Not everything about keeping animals is cute and fluffy! A surprising amount of time spent staring at animal vaginas and various consistencies of poo…

I noticed red on Nathalie’s back end, closer inspection showed it to be a prolapse from the vagina. 

Quick call to the vet who arrived a few hours later, but which time it had disappeared.

The vet wanted to have a feel around to see if there was an ongoing problem to worry about, so I ties Nathalie to a tree, she wasn’t best pleased about having someone she hadn’t even been introduced to groping around up there, but overall was very well behaved.

The vet said that she was in heat and sometimes this happened with so much blood in the area and it was nothing to worry about. So Nathalie was freed to run around the field with her friends. Today, a day later she is mooing for the bull, so a long lasting heat (normally it is only about 12 hours)

Not good

Back to normal

Choc chip cookie recipe

165g self raising flour (or plain and 1/2 tsp baking powder)

 75g sugar

70g butter (room temperature)

1 egg

110g chocolate chips

Mix everything except the choc chips together, don’t over mix.

Add choc chips and stir until combined (it is a stiff mixture)

Take balls of dough and flatten on to a baking tray (with baking paper if you want). Should make approx 15 cookies

Cook at 200°C until lightly browned, approx 10 mins.

Funky joists

 Many of them have gnarly funky bits on them, and a lot are too short for their space. Doing our best to use them rather than new teplacements as they are super solid despite a few funky bits…

Unleavened Flatbreads

250g plain flour

50g butter

180g milk

Melt the butter by warming the milk slightly and mixing the two together.

Put the flour in a bowl and add the butter/milk mixture

Mix until it comes together in to a ball and knead gently until evenly combined

Wrap and rest for 30 mins

Divide into 6 pieces and form each one in to a bll.

Roll out the balls on a floured surface until they are 3mm thick

Fry each side in a dry pan for 1 to 2 mins each size until it is cooked with brown spots on it

Stack them on a plate on a warm, but not hot, oven as they are done to keep them warm and moist

Breeze block wall demolished!

 Before

During

After

We also had to remove the hot water tank that replaced the death trap gas boiler that was here when we moved in and move the giant washer dryer combo we have to handle all the bedding from the apartments.

Lots of memories about living in this part of the house when we first arrived and how uncomfortable it was…

Rough puff pastry

 250g plain flour

250g cold butter cut in to 2cm ish chunks

Cold water

Makes enough for 4 individual pies (my dishes are 13x20cm)

Put the flour in a bowl and add the cubes of butter making sure each one is coated in flour so they don’t all stick back together.

Use pastry cutter to roughly work the butter in to the flour (like making short crust but you want plenty of lumps of butter still so don’t work it for long.

Add enough cold water that the dough just comes together, you can still see lumps of butter.

Put in fridge for 30 mins (or up to a few days) 

Roll out to 1cm thick and twice as long as it is wide. Fold each end in (like an envelope)

Turn through 90° and roll long again (not wider) till 3 times as long as wide.

Turn 90° and repeat twice more

Put whatever filling you are using in your pie dish (this one was beef and mushroom)

Roll out to the size of your pie dish, brush with milk or egg and bake at 180°C for about 30 mins or until golden brown on top.

Having removed various bits of insulation we can now clearly see the crack between the original internal wall (left) and the front wall (right). Bit of a worry!

Looking down through the 3rd section (of 7). Next thing is to replace any joists that need it and then lay the new upstairs subfloor.

This is the rubble from knocking down part of the breeze block (very not original) wall to open this up to it’s original 6x6m size

 It will eventually be kitchen/dinner with a small seating area as well. We have decided that the 2 beams need a little support from below to take out bounce from the floor upstairs and stop the beams sagging further (there is an 11cm difference between the ends and the middle) so there will be a couple of pillars in the downstairs room. Details of the design still being looked at..,