In theory, it should've been a pretty quiet weekend. A group of 8 for lunch and tastings on Saturday, and that's about all.
On Friday afternoon I got a call from Pineapple Pete, our pineapple grower. He said that he has a bin of pines picked and waiting for us and asked what time Josh'll be there to collect them. Whoops.
Without a ute, or someone to drive it, we were a little screwed....until Josh managed to con our friend Timbo (absolute bloody legend!) into helping us out. Timbo came over and picked me up in his ute, and we drove the ten minutes out of town to Pete's pineapple farm. We found the right shed, and the right bin of pines...but there was no forklift. Luckily Pineapple Pete came to the rescue and used his massive tractor (with forks) to lift the bin onto the ute. Secretly, I think Timbo was pretty disappointed he didn't get to drive the beast...but there is always next time.
After a bit of manoeuvring, Timbo the expert forklift driver got the pines off the ute and into our cool room. A huge effort, and another job done.
My next job as The Boss was making another batch of Limoncello, our wildly popular lemon flavoured liqueur. I spent about two hours washing and peeling 90 lemons and prepared our alcoholic base for them to seep in for a few weeks. Another job done.
Saturday was supposed to be nice and easy. 8 for lunch and tastings - no big deal, I've done lunch and tastings for 50 without Josh before! Josh's mum arrived at about 11:30am and everything was prepped and ready to go. A car rolls up, then another. And another. For some ungodly reason, we were FLAT OUT busy all day. It's great, don't get me wrong, but we were both exhausted by the end of it. (I slept for 11 hours last night, and Von slept for 12. It was a big day!) Another day done as the boss.
Today has been a lot more relaxed. We sold out of most of our liqueurs yesterday, and without Josh here, it was time for me to be The Boss again. I managed to dribble out the very last of our Chocolate and Lemon Myrtle liqueur and get three more bottles on the shelf. We've also had some experimental Lychee Liqueur brewing, with some leftover lychees from our Lychee Wine batches. It tasted pretty good, so I filtered that into some bottles too - that was two more products on the shelf!
I've got a batch of Apple and Lemon Myrtle jam bubbling away on the stove now, so all in all a pretty productive day as The Boss again.
I'm not quite sure what Day 4 will hold, but I'm pretty keen for Josh to get home on Day 5!
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| Lemon peeling for Limoncello |
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| Timbo having a play on the forklift/tractor/beast |
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| Pineapples!! (On Tuesday we will be peeling, chopping and pressing these bad boys - if anyone wants to come and help, you're more than welcome!) |
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| The cellar shelves, looking a bit bare and pathetic! |
