Nirvana Biodynamics

Growing nuts is one thing, being able to make the most of the bounty and having a good supply for the kitchen needs good equipment.There are many types of nutcrackers some work and others may be total duds and a waste of effort. While staying with a friend in France, we visited her parents and her mother gave me this great nutcracker. She said it was Swiss made so of excellent quality. (She was Swiss) She was right and its so efficient to use. It does not matter how large or small the walnut or hazelnuts it does a great job. I have seen similar nut crackers in Australia – they are often promoted as champagne openers. I think there are easier ways of opening champagne. Macadamias present a challenge. There shells are extremely hard. I used a hammer where as Quentin preferred to use vice grips.Both method were very slow and inefficient so the harvest of macas just sat in storage and where cracked only in small quantities usually only to make pesto. Recently we brought a Queensland made m...

According to this young goslings the shahtoot mulberry near our veranda, along with another tree in the mixed fruit orchard, belongs to it.It spends its day alone cruising between the two mulberries trees.It is not alone in liking these sweet fruits as the tree is constantly visited by wattle birds, silvereyes and blackbirds.These birds are quite clumsy and knock the mulberries down to the delight of the gosling.The gosling has also learnt to jump up and grab lower limbs and shake off the mulberries. These are the sweet yummy mulberries. The red shahtoot mulberry is popular as well but we have it netted this year.