A trip to the sawmill

When I woke up this morning, I'd intended to do the food shopping today and clean the floors.  That is, after I'd had a yummy healthy breakfast and done my workout.


But we went to bed late last night (the Big Fella worked until about 11) so slept in this morning (as much as you can when your toddler is being rowdy and lets the dogs in to jump on your bed).


I did get up and make a yummy healthy breakfast.  And I did (eventually) do my workout.  But the plans changed, as they often do when the Big Fella has a day at home :-D


My husband is very enthusiastic.  He gets an idea in his head and totally goes for it!


So when he woke up this morning, as well as smoking his meat for jerky,

This is an old deep freezer from the tip - perfect as a smokehouse :-)

he wanted to take a trip to the sawmill (about 20-30 minutes away) and find a nice big piece of timber to cut into chopping boards.


Now, there's something you need to know about the Big Fella.  He loves to cook but he hates little chopping boards.  His idea of a perfect chopping board is a big bench made out of good quality hardwood and just chop on the bench.  Your standard, 20-30cm (about a foot) x 15-20cm chopping board is completely inadequate for the task when he is involved!


The Big Fella told the Little Big Fella they were going for a drive to the sawmill.  My lovely son came and told me that I couldn't come! :-)  But I was invited and decided to go.


(Side note:  Yesterday I noticed that we finally have grass sprouting in our driveway.  Yay!!!  This morning it had definitely grown.  Check it out!

Then on our way out this morning I saw this:

Our lovely puppies had been digging.  This hole is about 35cm wide and about 10cm deep.  Thank you very much, you lovely, annoying little things!)


At the sawmill, we picked up a lovely piece of Bluegum,

Measured it up...

And cut it into a "small" chopping board for the kitchen, a large chopping board for downstairs (making jerky and such), and a table/stand for our microwave so that we can fit our spices in the kitchen (although, it's the size of a small coffee table and I'm not sure how long it will remain in the kitchen!).

This will be the microwave/coffee table.

 The next stage was to plane it nice and smooth.

The piece on top that's being planed will be the upstairs cutting board.  The one under it is for downstairs!

I went upstairs to do some other stuff and the Big Fella kept working on the chopping board for upstairs.  I was part way through cooking dinner when this arrived:

Isn't that just gorgeous???  I love this kind of wood timber!  And it's so nice to go into the kitchen and see something that makes you smile!  It's so smooth and shiny and just makes me want to touch it!


So I got to use that lovely new chopping board to finish making dinner.  And it was a yummy dinner too!

This is a Jamie Oliver inspired dish.  There are pork and fennel sausages, tomatoes, zucchini, mushrooms, capsicum, red onions and garlic.  Then I poured a tin of tomatoes over the top and about 1/2 a cup of beef stock to keep it moist.  The croutons on top are sourdough bread soaked in olive oil with garlic powder, salt, pepper, fresh thyme, fresh parsley, and the zest of about 1/2 a lemon.  I put them all in a casserole dish and baked it, covered with foil for a bit, then removed the foil to allow the croutons to crisp up.  Mmmmmm!  Not quite a healthy recipe, but not too bad either... and definitely good for the taste buds!


The Little Big Fella decided we needed to have a fire this evening so I took our dinner down to this:

It's such a hard life!!! ;-)