Thursday, August 28, 2008

Back to the Barren

Man im a lazy SOB...oh well, I have a good excuse, my internet has not been, well, usable. Not that we were unable to use it, just that we were too scared to. You see, my partner wandered into the clinic a few weeks ago, three weeks ago to be precise, and announced that he was unable to get on the net. So I rang Telstra....three hours later, after talking to about 10 people and being cut off three times, I was told that there was a credit ban on my phone because we had a bill of almost $4000!!!!

My jaw almost hit the ground...but it turned out to be a big mistake, on Telstra's part. And we don't have to pay it. But now we have a new connection.

And then of course I have a brief escapade to Sydney...for Uni ostensibly, but I had fun catching up with some dear friends and getting drunk on green plum wine and eating yummy Korean BBQ. And then of course it was my little redheaded cousins 1st birthday, that was fun!!!

Anyways, now I'm back home on Cape Barren. Another Doctor's day behind me. And all is well. Well apart from the fact that I have to write a 2000 word essay in two weeks!!! EEEK!

Well an update on our food finding and foraging abilities. Mauro brought back some fishing lures from Sydney...and some squid lures. So we decided to try them out and went down to the docks at sunset last saturday...after some kerfuffle with the fishing rods (Muuro had neglected to put any line on mine0 and then managing to get the lure stuck in the net...I went merrily casting off the dock with the other line...and managed to pull in two nice fat squid.

Of course, never having caught a squid before, it took some working out haw to manage them. Very strange creatures. You know you have one because when you pull it out of the water you can hear it blowing ink out. Lovely thick black ink that goes on everything.

When we got them home we then had to figure out how to clean the buggers...an experience in itself.


But I figured it out on the first one and the second one went much better.

And we had calamari for dinner.

Yum.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Foraging for food.

Yesterday we went back to Ned's Point, where I found a bed of mussels last week. I printed out the tide charts so we would know when it was low enough to get to them.

Well I managed to get a bucketful, not very large but plenty of them. A bit later, after I had filled my bucket and was busily trying to wash the worst of the sand and grit away, Mauro found another bed, a bit further out, with larger ones. I got a few of those too, but next time I will make sure I get those ones.

They took forever to wash...but finally I got them decently clean, and found a recipe in one of our ancient books, handed down from Mauro's Dad...British Food would you believe. It was for Mussel Brose, and though I adapted a few ingredients (we had no leeks!) it turned out pretty well. But still a bit gritty.

I ended up shelling all of the mussels. Although Mauro doesn't like Mussels, he did like the broth itself. Made himself some instant noodles in it...sacrilege!

Today was one of the warmest days for quite a while. I spent most of the morning cleaning the kitchen...I had made a bit of a mess making the Brose, lots of Pots to clean. EEKS! Then decided to make Banana Pancakes, was half way through he first one (and it was yum!!! Lots of cinnamon) When I got a call out to the clinic, someone had managed to plant a splinter deep in the fleshy part of their had...couldn't find any bloody tweezers. Was rather embarrassing actually. Couldn't get it out though, had to bandage him up and send him off to Launceston...

Anyways, when I got back there were a couple of the local kids who had invited themselves over. Mauro was in the middle of getting his fishing kit ready, I think he was jealous of me Mussels! Actually we had decided the day before to try out luck fishing at Porky's Point...had even gotten some limpets to use as bait.

Well after a few hints and a glass of cordial each the kids finally took themselves off. And we went fishing. Beautiful day...but no fish. Managed to lose a sinker off the first rod and the thingy whatsit you use for squid on the second. I went wading in the cold water looking for more limpets to use as bait...and then I saw them, two sharply curved fins and sleek dark bodies cresting out of the water...a pair of dolphins swimming by...it was a lovely moment. Almost made up for not catching any fish.