Light Fruit Cake Recipe

[troupie]

I can remember boiled mutton and caper sauce and to this day it gives me the shivers; to top it all off it was usually a weekly meal as there were not a lot of shops and my mum did not drive so couldn't just pop out to the shops like we do.

[cookie1]

Never a truer statement Nikkit. It is lovely that your Mum is still busy. Your Grandfather would have worked very hard clearing land in those days. Is the farm still in the family?  Sadly ours isn't. One brother wasn't interested and the other said he was but didn't really treat it as a business and left. Mum sold it then. Very sad but we didn't know enough to take it on. I'm glad now though the way farming is going.

[djinni373]

Just catching up on all this. Lucky I grew up in beef cattle country by the sounds of it
My mum was also a very busy lady especially during harvest times when she had to feed the family as well as all the itinerant workers who were always hungry as the work was physically demanding. She also kept the temporary workers' quarters ship-shape. Country women were/are amazing.

[Nikkit]

Phwoar! Boiled mutton with caper sauce. Flash party dish there troupie. !

It still makes me shudder though! Erk!

Yes Cookie, Granddad did work very hard, and ran a very successful farm that his sons took over when he moved to Perth with Grandma. The farm grew to 7000 acres for a little while when my brother and SIL were farming, (Mum and Dad and semi-retired to Perth) but then they sold part of it, leased the farm out and moved north. The farm is now 1/2 sold and 1/2 leased out, but I think the last 1/2 sells this year.

It makes me a bit sad in some ways that so much history in the family is being passed on, but really - it is only dirt, I have taken what I want off the farm and have lots of good memories. Farming is not how it used to be anymore, expenses are very high, margins are tight and you need some serious land to make a $$. My brother says now "to make a million dollars in farming you need to start with 5 million"!

[cookie1]

So true Nikkit. Sad as it is I am glad that no one in our family is in farming now.