Double Trouble - March 12-13, 2011

I was very excited when last year's winners of the Couples section (The Wardrobe Mistress and Camera Guy) made a hurried last minute booking to come visit.  Excited because (a) they're very good company, (b) they're hard workers, and (c) the booking was at least partly prompted by their discovery of this blog - so clearly the heightened competition created by pitting guests against each other via cyberspace is working.

Admittedly there was a bit of confusion over the check-in process.  I was due to play fiddle in my regular jam session at the pub at 5.30.  TWM and CG were cutting it fine (I confess largely due to picking up items requested by me in Mudgee - Fowler jar seals, clips and lids and a venetian blind - more on this later) so decided - sensibly enough - to meet me there.  Unfortunately they - less sensibly - forgot that mobile messages would not be received for days (thanks to Telstra's less than stellar country coverage), and (less sensibly still) TWM panicked and decided to drive out to meet me.  Which still would have been okay if she hadn't - completely panicked by now - hurtled out of town on completely the wrong road (sense had pretty much departed by this point).

I, meanwhile, had discovered 2 rogue cows had jumped a fence into the house paddock and was leaving them charmingly there for the impending guests to help me extract them.  What better welcome to the home of The Cattle Baroness than to do work with actual cattle on arrival?  By 5.30 I realised that things had gone awry and was forced to tramp the paddocks in my fiddle outfit (okay, still jeans and Redback boots, but with shirt for town) with only the help of The Dog (who, it must be said, was thrilled).

The Dog

Miraculously by 6pm cows were out, The Dog was tied up (it must be said, NOT thrilled) and I was arriving at the pub pretty much the same time as The Wardrobe Mistress was returning - wild-eyed - from her dirt road adventure.  (Camera Guy had heeded the 'lost in the bush' adage of Not Leaving The Vehicle and was manfully staying put in the pub with the beer).

After this rocky start the weekend proceeded apace.  Fine fiddling tunes.  Camera Guy took photos.  Dinner was had at the pub up the road and bed was collapsed into for the following days of work.

And work they did.  We fixed the fence where the cows got in.  Put up the new venetian blind in the lounge-room.  Built tree guards...

Camera Guy shows off our new cow-proof (hopefully) tree guard.

Bottled nectarines with the new Fowler seals...

Adding syrup to the raw fruit.

Jars sealed, clipped and in the big boiler.

The finished product!  Preserved nectarines.

While I concentrated on the subtleties of fruit preservation, The Wardrobe Mistress distinguished herself by cooking a fabulous vegie pie...

The Wardrobe Mistress can cook!

Much merriment over dinner and wine and chat ensued.

Did I mention there was wine...?

But not too much wine, because we had to get up at the crack of dawn to round up Dad's recalcitrant cattle and mark them...

The cattle are rounded up and put in the yards.  But we're missing one...



Mmm, this is good.  But wait...








... where did my friends go?



We then had a lovely lunch at the house of our Fiddle Friends, went wild in their magnificent garden and came home with a bootload of fresh produce.  (Darnit, we should have cooked the vegie pie tonight!).  Not to mention kilos of the most luscious figs to make into jam. 

Now.  It's not that city guests don't work.  As I've said before they take to farm tasks with gusto.  But it must delicately be said that at the end of a fine weekend when a host looks at the excellent jobs done ... and then looks at the carnage left by the guests in the pursuit of those jobs...

A Kurrajong Tree was planted.  Yay, Camera Guy.  However, in his enthusiasm for planting a tree that would forever stand proudly as a testament to his planting, Camera Guy managed to uproot the other 3 Kurrajong seedlings, trowel dirt all over the conservatory table and destroy the blockbuster. 

Not that The Wardrobe Mistress was to be outdone.  She was busy locking up the chooks - unfortunately leaving 2 out to play Fox Roulette.  And after she'd gone I did spend 2 hours crawling around the chook pens looking for the handle of the chook bucket which - in her enthusiasm - had become detached somewhere during her Almost Locking Up The Chooks task.

Points might have been deducted except that I've just noticed additional post-visit crimes committed by their rivals in the Couples Section - Melba Toast and The Boy:

I'm sure after the Gulgong Show Weekend visit Melba and The Boy insisted they were leaving early because of city engagements.  But no!  In her latest blog Melba has indiscreetly revealed her true destination - lunch in Mudgee! When The Boy could have been ably engaged in hours more work!

So.  Couples Section.  Stalemate.

But that fig jam is delicious... and if Camera Guy manages to pass on the photos he took, and I manage to post them, huge strides will have been made in the progressive score.