Nallerang Creek

The decision has been made!

2011-10-11T06:29:00.000+11:00

From "somewhere on the internet" & for no particular reason....!

Laying awake early this morning, with many things running through my head and unable to return to sleep at the time (fairly unusual for me these days) I made the decision to stop blogging - at least for the time being.

There are twenty-file draft posts waiting to be completed, one of which is made up of suggestions for future blog posts with notes and links included, and it must run to two full A4 pages or more. Probably more!

I realised I hardly ever write about the things (I think!) I am really good at, one being raising chooks. I realised I only occasionally expand on subjects important or interesting to me and seem to type in a long-handed short-hand kind of way. And I realised I was adding stress to my days by thinking about blogging or not blogging and, quite frankly, it is stress I can do without at the moment.

Time is a huge factor and whilst I believe that one can make time for things which we deem important in life, there are so many more important things requiring my attention out in real life and I must do them.

Apologies go to the folk following this blog and to the newer ones of these who perhaps came expecting more. I cannot deliver, not right now!

Thank you to all those bloggers who inspire and will continue to inspire me. It's helpful at times, on this road to living more authentically, to know and to read of others doing the same; I like that we can all learn from each other and have some sort of little online community going. I'm simply struggling to keep up with my real life community and something must go.

So... it's bye from me for a while. Take care!

xxx

Good food, at home

2011-10-08T09:54:00.000+11:00

The other day one of my sons and I stopped off at the new wood-fired pizza/cafe in town. We'd been out and about and thought it was as good a place as any to stop for a while and have a chat about his future and his plans. Plus, he likes pizza, and this place has been advertising widely since it recently opened and we thought it would be a nice lunch.

I had something lighter with a nice salad but I did try a morsel of pizza. We were quite disappointed.

Making most of our meals from scratch and not eating out very often any more, we realised once again that we've come to so enjoy the meals we prepare at home that bought food is definitely missing something!

Home made pizza dough made by one of my sons, heading for a second rise...

All the boys make their own pizzas, from scratch - they mix the flours, knead and rise it, flatten it out and top it with simple ingredients and a great mix of herbs grown right outside our kitchen (and sometimes an organic dried mix from the good folk who operate this local company).

We are still without an oven however they cook pizzas first of all in a large heavy pan on top of the stove, then finish it off on a pizza tray under the grill. Despite that, their pizza tastes twenty times better than the wood fired effort we paid for the other day.

I'm fairly ashamed to say that there was a (short) time in my life, many decades ago, when I was of the opinion that restaurant food was somehow superior to simple home meals. When I was first married, we entertained a lot for the business my husband was in, and were entertained, and ate in lots of ritzy places. Many of the meals were quite enjoyable but home cooking they were not!

As much as I like Thai food, the last couple of times we've come home later and grabbed a takeaway at the local award winning (best restaurant in our state one year!), I just haven't enjoyed it all that much. I'm yet to prepare Japanese food which tastes as good as that found in a good Japanese restaurant (don't make it very often though!), and there ARE some restaurants around which serve fantastic food, but on the whole, I'm really, really, enjoying home cooking and home prepared food at the moment!

Over the years I have come to appreciate more simple flavours, too, and as I study and research more into nutrition and health issues I have confirmation time and again that Simple is Best for health and digestion.

Today

2011-09-29T09:46:00.002+10:00

Life is fairly busy and this blog is one of the last places of my life to get attention at times.

Today it would have been my dear Mum's 92nd Birthday and my sisters and I are meeting today in as central a location as possible, with as many of our children as can attend who aren't at work or uni or school. It's school holidays here in NSW so the younger children will be there, as well as my teacher-niece, and two of my sons. We all live so far apart that it is quite a feat to get together and good fun when we do.

So, there's no other news for the moment and my photo today is the view this morning outside my kitchen window. I love looking at that pergola during Spring, with the Banksia Rose in bloom and the two different Japanese Wisterias loaded with flowers hanging like soft mauve bunches of grapes.

That's Italian lavender in a vase on my windowsill. Click to enlarge.

We had about 170mm of rain on the weekend (nearly 7 inches of rain in the old scale), mostly overnight Saturday and during Sunday, so the paddocks and road in flooded quickly. We weren't cut off as the rain subsided for a day or two and now it's been absolutely pelting down again overnight. I love the misty mountain look on days like these.

Shall be back when I'm able...

Bits and pieces, and LETS, on a Sunday

2011-09-18T15:56:00.001+10:00

Purple Sage (R) and Thyme (L),
with Nasturtiums and Violets and little Johnny Jumps Ups.

It's been a bit of a funny day, with me drifting from one thing to another, taking photographs here and there for a post on weeds I'm writing, fussing around with the chooks and letting them in to the house yard for an afternoon "stroll", a move I may regret!

Quick girls, a new yard to explore!

Inside to complete some work, then heading outside again.

I wasn't happy with the result of my weed photographs so will go back and capture them in a better, softer light. Too much harsh not-yet-Summer light doesn't show them up too well.

I also rode my bike down to what we call our Eastern paddock, with horse feed on board, to feed our old horse Ginger, who is about thirty years old. He sees that feed bowl coming and moves very quickly for an old man, over to the fence to start guzzling! We actually hang it on a gate, most times, so that it's too high for greedy Beau the alpaca to get his head into for a guzzle as well.

Bike with horse feeding bucket on board.

This is the bike I bought from a member of my local LETS group last year. I had an old bike but the dirt roads around here were giving the thin road tires a bit of grief and so I went on the lookout for something which could handle them better. I logged on to LETS one morning and, wa-lah, there was this bike available.

My local LETS group is the most active in Australia, with I think the highest turnover as well of shells, the alternate currency used by our group. Each group has a different name for their currency, with the Hunter group to the North trading in Mollies, and the Sydney group to the South trading in Operas.100% shell trading is encouraged although at times a dollar amount is charged to cover expenses and so forth. Some information about LETS and LETS trading is here (click to read) - has links to further information.

I was introduced to LETS by my sister-in-law some years ago but it took a while for me to "get it" and get it I did. Once enough people start thinking of goods and services to trade, it's almost limitless. A friend of mine organised almost all of her recent wedding through LETS, from hairdressing to cakes, to catering, invitations, photographs, etc. She was thrilled and it saved her a lot of money.

On my walk around today I discovered Cos lettuces, coming up in the grass - amazing!

We'll be harvesting these for sure, when they're ready...

And I realised this little track the dog had worn in her run around some of the trees is a great little path for the grandchildren to venture along and explore. Down here and to the left they'll come across a bird path and a little seat - perfect for picnics!

I'm heading outside again soon before starting work at 5pm - we're moving the electric netting fence so the chooks and ducks and geese have new ground to forage on. We're also swapping the netting around the orchard to some with smaller openings as we've discovered some of the smaller ducks are getting through (and obviously not caring about being zapped, the naughty things!), so to keep them safe from foxes, this has to be done, pronto.

Bye for now!

On my mind...

2011-09-09T10:11:00.002+10:00

Joining Rhonda at Down to Earth with an On my mind post today...

On my mind today is getting back to basics. I started off thinking of the craziness of the industrialised food system and how it's affecting our health and our lives. I have been attending a workshop series on health and nutrition and viewing documentaries (again) such as the brilliant Food Matters, Food Inc and The Beautiful Truth, so far.

Then I found this little gem of a video clip via Milkwood Permaculture and thought I'd share it today.

"The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system."
Soundtrack is the good ol' Willie Nelson...

The modern food industry and the way we treat the animals and the Earth must stop and we must move back to a more sustainable and healthier way of life, of treating animals, and eating.

The theme of this little clip is "Back to the Start" and whilst many people are generally horrified by the notion of returning to the horse-and-cart days, ditching the dishwasher and the multitude of electrical appliances in the average home and spending considerable time growing and preparing food instead of plonking packets into a microwave and pressing a button, there is a lot to be learned and gained by observing many of the methods used in the "olden days". Clearly what we have now isn't working too well.

So, based on that theme, I am having a Back to the Start or Back to Basics day today here at home. All the family left early, ranging from 5am to 6.30am; it's raining, after a very warm few days, and they will come in later, hungry, wet and cold. I don't have to water the garden so I'm getting back to basics and concentrating on the important things today inbetween bouts of work at the computer and cleaning the fridge: cooking a soup and other nourishing meals, lighting the fire early to warm the home and making a cosy environment for them all to come home to. They are the people I love and I want this home to feel special to them and somewhere welcoming to step into after a long day "out there" in the world.

Edited to say, the grandchildren are now coming to play this afternoon so DARN, that means I won't have time to clean the fridge. LOL!!

Carrots!

2011-09-06T09:29:00.001+10:00

I should be working, but what the heck?! What's a few minutes here going to do to the day, over all?

I'm been rabbiting on about this and that for so long I realised I haven't talked about the garden or posted any photographs of it and I'm sure you must be thinking I don't have one at all and buy all my vegies!

A while back I briefly mentioned My Carrot Experiment - I'd planted Purple Dragon carrots in polystyrene boxes as a trial. Here they are, coming up:

I had begun an early thinning at the time of taking this photo. The hessian is used to cover them at night and to help keep the soil moist, important for carrot seeds. The purple flower is a nearby Tibouchina. There seems to be a purple theme here!

And below is a photo of some of the thinnings I'd left in the soil a bit too long which meant it slowed the whole crop down as there wasn't enough room for growth. All fixed now!

Can you see a bit of the purple developing in there? Click on the photo to view a larger version.
They may be thinnings but we ate or juiced all of these... YUM!

And we're harvesting them from now on. They have orange/purply splotches at the moment and will grow to be all purple as in the link below. I have no photographs of the current size as yet as I have been either pullin' them up, washin' them under the nearest tap and MUNCHIN' THEM or popping them straight in the juicer with some apple and/or celery...!!

The carrots I planted are the second ones listed on this list here.

Purple coloured vegetables are highly beneficial nutritionally. Scientists say that a type of phytonutrient or plant compound called anthocyanin (the pigment causing the colour) found in purple produce is one of the most potent of all, helping to reduce the risks of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers, and assisting the brain and our eyesight. So, high time to gobble down more purple fruits and vegetables such as blueberries, blackberries, plums, purple cabbage, purple kale, purple beans - and of course the famous purple carrots! Nothing works in isolation, though; it's no use eating a fairly standard, nutritionally-wanting diet and taking some token purple vegetables to protect oneself. Begin eating a wholesome, plant based range of foods and ensure you include some purple coloured ones for the best preventative strategy. They taste great and look terrific on your dinner plate!

The photo below is of a carrot flower which I think I've posted before from a previous crop of normal orange carrots in the main vegie garden.

I don't know about you, but I am in my sixth decade of life on this planet and am still regularly gobsmacked, blown away and in a state of wonderment at the beauty of, and the miracle-like happenings in, Nature. Maybe even more so these days as I have come to understand more of the process of plants and how they grow and how absolutely wondrous it all is.

PS. I have no photographs of the magnificent snow peas we are harvesting at the moment either as they simply don't make it as far away as the kitchen. You just have to eat them straight away, don't you??

Get some sunshine into your life!

2011-09-05T08:47:00.000+10:00

These little Johnny Jump Ups always make me smile.
My grandchildren and I like making little posies out of them.

No, this isn't a post on getting enough Vitamin D, but that's a good subject too. It's pretty crazy, isn't it - that we live in one of the sunniest countries in the world and the masses have a Vitamin D deficiency!

What I'm on about today is that in spite of all the doom and gloom and heaviness in the world today, there is always a bright spot to be found, always a patch of sunshine to stand in, always something good to discover or remember. Even though we cannot see it some times, there is a lot of good in the world.

Click here to watch this great Youtube clip *

Now, how did that make you feel?

They didn't need fancy gyms in those days, with all that energetic dancing!

Have a wonderful day.
xx

* If that link doesn't work for you, here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=oXvJ8UquYoo&vq=large

Hmmm... soup!

2011-09-05T03:05:00.000+10:00

After a warmish, early Spring day, the night time came in with a cool breeze...

I had half a pumpkin to use so it was time for soup!

I make soup based on what's on hand. Usually, pumpkin soup here includes garlic and sometimes a bit of ginger as well, however both those items disappeared from their usual haunts (which happens sometimes, with a few people cooking and putting away in this kitchen!). This time it featured:

Pumpkin

a couple of potatoes

one carrot

celery - bits and pieces of stalk and leaf

one onion, finely chopped

bit of tomato paste

Celtic salt and pepper

vegie stock and

water

Roughly chop the first four ingredients into chunks.
Saute the onion in a eensy weensy amount of oil then add the potatoes, carrot and pumpkin.

In goes the stock*, tomato paste, salt, pepper and enough water to cover the vegetables.

Bring to the boil and simmer until vegies are tender.

Blitz it in a blender or with a handheld blender (Bamix type).

Serve with some yummy sourdough toast.

Eat straight away curled up on the lounge in front of a warm fire, with a cat or two on your feet and maybe a good old movie on the telly.

* you can use a couple of purchased stock cubes and then water to cover the vegies or you can use a couple of cups of liquid stock, then make up the amount with water. I have made some concentrated vegetable stock which I keep in the fridge. I don't ever add cream or sour cream to soups as I don't like it - the soup tastes wonderful without it, really and truly!!

My Dad

2011-09-04T08:57:00.001+10:00

It's Father's Day in Australia and I'm remembering my Dad today. Not that I need such a day to remember him!

That's Dad and I, on Christmas Day waaay back in the 50's.

My father died suddenly nearly three decades ago, and this year he would have been 95.

He was a good father to me and my four sisters. He had been an only child, married into a family of five children and ended up having five children himself - what a change that must have been!

We worked together on many projects over the years: servicing the cars and relining the brake pads, repairing the roof of the house, painting and lots of little fix-it jobs around the home and garden. I loved it. When he came home from work we would often sit down together and have something like a cheese and onion sandwich, which I still love to this day although I don't have them very often! Whenever I see cheese and onions in close proximity, I think of Dad. :) As I grew older we argued a bit but still were good buddies and when I moved out of home and went to live on the other side of Australia for a while, Dad was the one to ply me with lots of letters!

He was a great grandfather too, and my nieces and nephews loved their Pa. Sadly, he didn't get to meet my sons and I think he would have been surprised I had children at all, as it didn't seem as if that was going to be my thing at the time. My children would have loved him too.

Since my mother passed away, more recently, my sisters and I have been finding all sorts of interesting renmants of lives we had no idea about, and getting a better understanding of Dad's life. It's a shame some of this information is only coming to light now, when all of the people it is about are dead, and it has made us all more aware of sharing our histories and our stories with our own children.

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads and step-Dads and Grandpa's out there.

Saying sorry

2011-09-03T16:30:00.002+10:00

sor·ry /ˈsɒri, ˈsɔri/

[sor-ee, sawr-ee]
–adjective, -ri·er, -ri·est.

1. feeling regret, compunction, sympathy, pity, etc.: to be sorry to leave one's friends; to be sorry for a remark; to be sorry for someone in trouble.
2. regrettable or deplorable; unfortunate; tragic: a sorry situation; to come to a sorry end.
3. sorrowful, grieved, or sad: Was she sorry when her brother died?
EXPAND
4. associated with sorrow; suggestive of grief or suffering; melancholy; dismal.
5. wretched, poor, useless, or pitiful: a sorry horse.
6. (used interjectionally as a conventional apology or expression of regret): Sorry, you're misinformed. Did I bump you? Sorry.

From: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sorry

I have a friend who has been in the AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) ranks for some years and all I can deduct from conversations with this person is that the word "sorry" has a massively negative conotation within that organisation. Someone out there may like to enlighten me about this.

I think sorry is quite a good and useful little word and should be uttered more frequently!

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry I bumped into you!"

"I'm sorry for the way that must have sounded, I didn't mean it quite that way."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. I did the best I could at the time. If I could have my time over again I would do it differently, but I can't do that. I'm sorry, and I hope you can forgive me."

"I'm so sorry to have upset you the other day; I was feeling cranky because of (insert relevant bits here!) and took it out on you. I'm really sorry." And mean it.

Even kneel down to your dog, whose tail you've just trodden on, look in her eyes and tell her you are sorry. It will make both of you feel better!

It's alright, Mum. I know you wouldn't have done it deliberately. Hey, it's better already!

A meaningful sorry can help heal fractured friendships and all manner of little upsets and misunderstandings. If you can genuinely look someone in the eye and tell them you are sorry and mean it, then there's the potential for a lot of good to come out of it.

If you are on the receiving end of a sorry, then take it for what it seems to be and accept it graciously. Even go so far as a "Thank you for that. I was feeling pretty lousy because I thought you meant (insert relevant bits here!) and now I feel a whole heap better about it."

Sometimes there are situations where it can be downright difficult to either muster up a sorry or graciously accept one. It may take years to accept that you have done something to upset someone or you may be so ashamed of what you actually did that it almost hurts to think about it let alone facing the person you did it to. You may be so hurt and upset, even very angry, about what someone did to you that you don't want to ever see them again or are scared of slapping them across the face if they broached the subject.

Quite possibly, the people who read this may not fall into any of these categories, so sorry for the rant, okay? I don't know about you, however I have been in situations most horrible. I've said a fair share of sorrys over my time and will continue to do so if need be, and there are those whom I consider that saying a sorry to me would be appropriate. If I were in their shoes then I'm sure I would be feeling just as bad as I imagine they're feeling; just think, how hard would it be to say Sorry, I slept with your husband or It was me who ran over your cat four years ago and other heavy-going matters? And it's okay. It may take a long time coming and it may be never. It's no use hanging out for an apology or an explanation, or hanging on to anger about what has happened as that eats into you faster than the most quickly spreading cancer.

Forgive and forget, as the saying goes, slightly misses the mark, in my opinion. I'm very much into forgiving. We truly don't know what made another human being do and say what they did or said at the time. But it is hard to forget. It's simply best to just put it aside - file it away in the back recesses of your brain - and truly move on. If you think it's bad enough having had something done to you, it's much, much worse for the "do-er".

It would be a fine world indeed if there was never anything to be sorry about, however the more we can communicate such things, the better our little worlds can be. With Fathers Day coming up in Australia tomorrow, and families gathering together in homes and backyards and parks around the country, there's a huge potential for some family healing.

Good morning sunshine!

2011-09-03T11:43:00.000+10:00

At a few minutes to seven, late Winter, the sun peeked over the hill...

Sunlight reached over to the northernmost apple tree and moments later... weakly began warming the solar panels on the shed roof next to the house.

By that stage it had begun pouring into the north-western corner of the kitchen, just as we had imagined it would when disscussing plans for the house, found very promptly by Pirate cat...

... and lit up the snow peas growing right outside the kitchen window.

One of the most important steps to remember to do when building a house, renovating, or planning a garden, is observation of the seasons and tracking the sun.

If we had kept the height of our verandah at the standard measurement for building houses, we would not be enjoying sunshine in the kitchen in the middle of an early morning Winter - it would have hit the bullnose verandah roof and gone no further down. When it came to adding the north facing verandah, we had been measuring and holding things up and watching the sun track it's way over that hill and measuring some more, and had decided on at least another thirty centimetres higher than normal.

Our observations helped when planning the orchard, building the chook sheds, mapping out the vegie garden and building the clothes line.

Whilst it seems exciting to launch into a new project without waiting a second longer, at times it's best to sit back and watch and wait. You may still go ahead with your original plans, however you may also come up with something much much better.

Singing the egg song

2011-08-17T09:23:00.001+10:00

GD2 feeding the chooks, with her egg basket clutched firmly in one hand.

My granddaughter, two-and-a-half-and-a-bit, was here the other day.

As always, we went and fed the chooks, gathered eggs and sat and watched the funny chooks fussing about, pecking and scratching and bok-bokking about the place.

She went to check one particular nest in a little pen away from the main shed where a hen was making quite a noise. She was standing up inside the nest and bok-bokking madly, and little Lucy told me that the hen was singing her egg song. Wow!

Sure enough, one beautiful, warm ("it's hot, Nanna Ree" Lucy corrected me), egg was laid very shortly after.

I don't think I can ever look at a chook on the nest again without thinking of her singing her egg song.

Beautiful.

Let's talk about lunch

2011-08-14T12:33:00.009+10:00

Recently I mentioned my husband's unusual lunches but didn't elaborate, so here I am back again with an explanation of what they are, and why he lunches on them...

Wa-lah, enter the Green Smoothie!

"Its time we started eating like our life depended on it - because it does." Unknown

That's it: for the majority, no sandwiches, no salad or leftover of last-night's-dinner - just a green smoothie, some fruit and a flask of herbal tea, plus water. He's feeling muuuuch better for it too, so I'll share a little of the background...

A few short years ago he began having some health issues, one of which was a virus which takes a real hold and keeps on returning whenever he is tired, overworked or stressed (one of my nieces has this also and it brings her to a complete halt if not looking after herself). This virus is a challenge; brings on Chronic Fatigue-type symptoms and sends him to bed.

At the time when he was at his lowest with this, it didn't seem he was ever going to improve and thoughts of being his carer for the rest of our lives together ran through my mind - it was that bad. Compounding the problems when he actually was able to sit up and walk around for a while again was the fact he was exhausted and it didn't seem he could work again, which was, to him, a depressing thought. He is a hard working person who has a physically demanding job and for quite some time it was a real effort for him to simply get from the bed to the bathroom and back to bed again.

He went to the doctor and a couple of naturopaths here and in Sydney. Following a healthier eating plan and swallowing down some herbs and potions seemed to bring some improvement and slowly he was able to get back to work and a normal life, bit by bit.

A couple of relapses later and more problems with a massive leg clot and other issues, we arrived at a certain point in 2010 and decided to take further action ourselves in regards to increasing his nutrition levels. We went along to a raw foods workshop friends of mine were holding where he met Grant who runs raw retreats and promptly booked into one of Grant's retreat weekends. He really liked the raw dishes he tried at the workshop that day and during the retreat and decided to continue eating raw for a large part of his days.

Going raw may seem extreme to some people out there who stand by the old adage of "Eat a little of everything". Some say that should actually be "Eat a little of everything that is good for you", however not everything is good for you these days. We're assaulted from every direction with toxic substances in our water, the air, our food. Food is processed and manipulated to such a degree that it really couldn't be classed as food any longer. Toxins abound in the average home, particularly in those where the inhabitants use air fresheners, chemical cleaning agents, antibacterial wipes and sprays in the kitchen, bathroom, laundry and every horizontal surface or anything likely to be touched by their hands, or their babies.

We've been sent into a frenzy seeking out BPA-free plastic - or non-plastic - lunch boxes and drink containers and we're seeing a revival in the use of more natural and less toxic cleaning methods with good ol' bicarb soda and vinegar and elbow grease, for example. But food has become so removed from it's natural state that we generally can no longer "eat like our grandparents did" without a fair deal of research and/or growing some food ourselves as the food these days has most likely been grown with synthetic chemicals and fertilisers and in highly deficient soil.

Source unknown except for it being on the Gerson Facebook site just recently.

A lot of damage is done through the consumption of denatured, over-processed and overcooked food, and the absorption and breathing-in of fumes and toxic substances that it takes quite an effort to reverse the effects of it all. From what I have gathered from all my reading, research, experimenting and so forth, to undo damage done and to get our bodies into a healthy state - for some of us that may be for the first time in decades or in young people these days all their life! - the priorities should be to pare back to absolute basics: eat organic, plant-based food in as natural a state as possible, drink clean water and live as pure and as unstressed a life as you can make it. That doesn't mean it all has to be raw, but to be as unprocessed and unmanipulated as possible, to ensure the most number of nutrients reach us inside, so our bodies can do the work they were designed to do - repair and regenerate themselves.

Green smoothies, along with freshly pressed juices, are very high in nutrients and digested smoothly and quickly. Green smoothies have the added benefits of the fibre as well, which is missing in most juicing processes. That doesn't mean to say juices aren't beneficial; they certainly are, and feature heavily in the reversing cancer regime of the famous Gerson therapy. We juice too, however it's been the daily consumption of green smoothies which has helped my husband no end.

Some yummy juice I made, with carrots, celery, apples as a base.
On the left is some pulp which the worms in the worm farm will LOVE!

A couple of months ago we attended a talk by Victoria Boutenko (and her son and daughter) in Sydney. It had been a busy week and we were tired and considering not travelling the 100 kilometres or more, one way, to hear her. Aren't we glad we did! Victoria is the author of what would have to be one the best books on health and certainly best on green smoothies, Green For Life (available here in Australia at Fishpond.com.au). What she spoke about that night was the added information which has now made it into the second edition, of the Omega 3 benefits of greens (click to read). I am not a medical person although have read quite a bit of health and medical literature over the years; I understand it at the time but have difficulty in articulating the information to others and therefore it's probably best if you go to some of my links today or elsewhere to read the benefits of green smoothies, or beg, borrow or buy a copy of her updated book!

It has been suggested that just as we separate the fish-from-the-beef-from-the-lamb-from-the-chicken, we should also have separate categories for our vegetables and that greens should be in one of their own. They are some of the most nutrient dense things on the planet we could eat and we should be eating more of them. Ploughing through half a kilogram of green leafies doesn't sounds too appetising to most of us, however put that in a blender with some water and fruit and it becomes a pleasant drink. Chug down a litre or two of it every day and you're on your way to greater health and energy levels.

A couple of sample recipes are as follows:

1 cup of water

couple of handfuls of spinach

2 bananas.

half a cos lettuce

water

cup of fresh or frozen berries

Blend until smooth, and drink.

Just feel it doing you good!

You can also use beetroot greens, kale, celery, cucumber, "weeds" such as fat hen, chickweed or nettles, a bit of parsley, most lettuces, bok choy, spinach and chard. One of my sons uses lots of ingredients in his smoothies however I prefer them quite simple and usually no more than about four ingredients. It's best to not use the same ingredients day after day and you may adjust the quantities so that the final amount is close to a litre (or two litres if you're really getting serious about this!). It can be consumed straight away or kept in the fridge for a day or so or taken to work if kept cool. Popping in some avocado sure makes a smooth and yummy blend which I only recently discovered.

First step is to obtain a blender. We had one rather nondescript brand however once we realised we were going to use it a lot and wanted a smooth smoothie, we saved up and bought a Vitamix 5200, which is brilliant. We bought ours from Raw Pleasure but you can also get them here and here nowadays and no doubt other places as well. People say the Thermomix makes a great smoothie too.

Green smoothie links for your information:

Common Green Smoothie Questions

Green Smoothie Recipes

Part of the Green Smoothie Challenge companion pdf

The Green Smoothie 14 Day Challenge
Nutrients in Greens

So.... go get that blender out of the cupboard and start putting it to good use!

A beef about meat...

2011-08-14T10:28:00.002+10:00

Holy heck, if you had been thinking of going vegetarian or at least reducing your consumption of meat, if this isn't enough to send you over the edge to a veggie life, I'm not sure what would.

First I read this: Industry-Wide Use of Meat Glue Sticks Together Scraps of Meat to Sell You Prime Cuts

And I was wondering how widespread the use of it was in Australia. The words Surely not ran through my mind. How and why would they approve of such products and think they're okay for human consumption???

So then someone sent me this link in answer to my query. Hooly dooly.

It seems the best thing for meat eaters to do would be to ensure you know your source of meat/chicken/fish and what goes into raising it and processing it. As most of us don't have access to that information, then I think it's time to lobby governments and the food industry about leaving these toxic substances out of our food supply.

Or go vegetarian or vegan.

The story of a struggle...

2011-08-04T08:10:00.003+10:00

Source of this beautiful picture

As of this morning I have 22 draft posts, waiting for me to make time to finish them and publish here on the blog - twenty-two!! One of those contains a list of subjects I plan to write more about one day and some links and information I would post with them, and that's very long as well.

Real life is busy and I regularly question the need or desire to have a blog and whether it serves any purpose other that an outlet for my occasional rants. So while I'm off doing real life and cramming in some time here and there for a blog post and wondering whether I continue with it at all (blogging, that is, not life!!), here's a little story I came across twice just recently here and here which I hadn't read or remembered in a very long time.

There are a lot of people struggling and a great deal wondering what their life purpose is, particularly if they are struggling at the time and cannot see an end to it. I thought the story worth repeating...

The Story of The Emperor Moth

A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so that he could watch the moth come out of the cocoon. On the day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the moth for several hours as the moth struggled to force the body through that little hole.

The moth seemed to be stuck and appeared to have stopped making progress. It seemed as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. The man, in his kindness, decided to help the moth; so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The moth then emerged easily. But its body was swollen and small, its wings wrinkled and shriveled. The man continued to watch the moth because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand and able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the little moth spent the rest of its life crawling around with a small, swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

Over at this site where the story is quoted as well, he goes on to finish by saying "Sometimes, we may ask ourselves, 'Why are we are having this experience?', when things seem not to be going our way, and life seems very hard. It helps to remember the story of the Emperor Moth, who, without the struggle would not be the magnificent creature that it is. You have to wait to see the whole picture before you can judge. Sometimes we don't know what Life has in store for us, and what training we need to cope with what is coming!"

Good advice.

I went through a stage somewhere a couple of decades ago wondering what my purpose in life was and if indeed there was a purpose to life. I did a lot of reading and pondering and then I came across this little gem from I-don't-know-where. It went something like this:

What if your life's purpose was simply to be kind to others?

I read that and pondered some more and it seemed to take off the pressure I had been putting on myself. I thought "I can do that". Everything else just seemed to fall into place after that.

A new bird on the block

2011-07-29T12:02:00.003+10:00

We have a new bird.

No no no, not in a cage - somewhere out there in the garden, flitting from tree to shrub and maybe sitting momentarily on a rose twig before taking off into the surrounding bush again.

I first heard it two days ago, close by the house, but by the time I crept outside as silently as I could, it had gone. It was there again this morning, a sweet little call that I'm itching to identify.

I find this really exciting! As some of you would remember, we built our home in the middle of a paddock with the bush not far away but no tree or shrub whatsoever in the paddock. I love trees and a garden and it felt so desolate for a while, living surrounded by grass - not to mention being pretty hot in Summer! So to see birds or a new bird is to me a sign that they are finding what they need and feeling safe here.

Another little bird we took a long time to identify was a gorgeous little Honeyeater. We heard it first, every morning, early, and occasionally throughout the day. Every time I zoomed outside it would disappear. I know now that I actually did see the bird a lot, however wasn't able to marry it up with it's distinctive call, and therefore work on identifying it, for quite a while.

It's the Lewin's Honeyeater, details here and here.

That first link states the bird has a "a distinctive loud rolling staccato “machine-gun” like chattering " - so true! I watch them hopping about the vine outside my office here; they move so quickly that it's difficult to get a good photograph on the average camera...

It's a lovely day here after quite a bit more rain. I was about to go out and do some planting with one of my sons, however he needs to get back to Sydney as his workplace has been smoke affected by the fire early yesterday morning, and they need all hands on deck.

Bye for now...

Living consciously

2011-07-24T13:04:00.010+10:00

I've had a bit of a mental struggle with the term "living simply" for quite some time.

As any of you who have trodden the path to greater self-reliance and away from the rampant consumeristic society many of us live in today would know, it often seems anything but simple!

Life can become complicated and challenging and it can also be intensely satisfying and rewarding. To master a skill like bread baking for the first time; to know that YOU have been responsible for such a wonderful feat as growing food for your family; to make an outfit for your children when you've only ever before purchased clothes from a shop; to stand back at your home and know that you built it - nothing and no-one can take those things away from you and you can go on and further build on those skills, and others. A little step here gives you the confidence to attempt a bigger step over there, and so on...

To achieve such things is not simple. It's far simpler to go down to the corner shop if you have one and buy a loaf of bread. It's easier to buy a dozen eggs every week than to have a flock of hens to feed and tend and clean up after. It's certainly simpler and easier to have someone else build your house, BELIEVE ME!!

But the easy-come, easily-discarded sort of lifestyle that so many people live is none-too-satisfying. We've all read books and blogs and newspaper articles about how we're working more, living in bigger houses, buying bigger TVs and other toys - but have less contact with our families (all those bedrooms with people of all ages squirrelled away in them, hunched over an electric machine of some sort - we often don't even have to share a bathroom any more) and are not very happy, so I won't rabbit on about that again here today.

It was nearly a month ago when I "awoke with a start about 4am with a couple of words emblazoned in my head," (here) and those words were living consciously.

Nothing new or too startling, but those words mean a lot to me.

It's all sort of Permaculture-ish actually.

Being aware, living with more awareness, taking care, being responsible and taking responsibility, understanding the consequences of our words and actions - every where and every thing - and thoughts, living deliberately, taking control of our lives.

It doesn't mean a boring life, shunning authority, having no fun or laughter in our lives or having to walk away from friends and family who don't share our values and outlook. It means, in part, standing firm in our own-ness, able to love others who walk a different way, and living the best damn life we can on this beautiful, beautiful planet.

Yes the planet is ailing. I'm not suggesting you go out there and pollute the Earth. Live well and leave as little footprint as you possibly can on the Earth and the people you come into contact with.

And no, I'm no expert; I'm still getting all this together too! But know that if I fall a step backwards, I'll be working doubly hard at regaining and surpassing my position, upwards, on the ladder once again.

Edited to add, as it seems to have disappeared, that I'll still be using the term living simply however living consciously, or living more consciously, means more to me at this point!

Hooroo.
xxx

Catching up today

2011-07-23T07:54:00.002+10:00

Here's a very quick post this morning before I go out and open up the hall and put the signs up on the road for the Pat Collins workshop being held today near me and organised by the local Permaculture Group.

Unfortunately I cannot attend as I have a prior engagement however it promises to be, as Pat's things usually are, a very good day, full of information and little jars of goodies to take home.

Source of image

In her last workshop which was held near here, we made several brews for Winter Ills and boosting the immune system so I'm gathering today will be similar.

Pat has written some excellent little books and you can purchase some of them here. "Useful Weeds at our Doorstep" and "Pat's Herbal Recipes" are just two of her titles.

I'm off, instead, on a two hour train journey and I'm looking forward to some catching up of paperwork of all things. Two hours in a warm train, not having to drive a car or sit at a computer or do anything, really, means I can sit with my notebook and pen and draft up some co-op information I haven't got round to for tooooo long!

I'm not sure what the two hour journey will be like coming home late tonight, however I may just take some of my knitting for that one...

The vegetable garden, in the beginning

2011-07-18T09:27:00.012+10:00

One view of the vegie garden, one particular season.
That narrow bed has grown strawberries and now features a couple of mints...

People generally like to see what others are doing, being the little ol' stickybeaks that we are (I'm grinning as I type that), but also to gain ideas and inspiration for our own plots, so I am going to talk about some aspects of my main vegie garden today. I say "main" as it's not the only place we grow our produce; we have greens and herbs close to the front door and very often pumpkins, potatoes and sweet potato are planted elsewhere, such as the orchard or a blocked off chook run or the massive front yard area we have which is north facing and flooded with sunshine all year round. We grew watermelons for the first time in that front yard last Summer and had a brilliant result, so shall be doing that again!

First of all, a little story: last season my dear DH made off with some of the seedlings I had earmarked for other garden beds and planted them alongside the driveway. There he grew bush beans, cucumbers and golden zucchinis and even some tomatoes. It was a fairly successful exercise however once again the ways and methods of Permaculture arose in my thoughts.

Permaculture simply makes good sense in many many ways and it's the Permaculture zonings and location of the elements I'm specifically referring to here. We don't want to make additional work for ourselves in having to trot out with tools and watering cans to plant and tend isolated plantings, and this is what I found happened with the driveway garden: it was out of the way and off the normal route and was the last place we watered and tended - or even harvested from. The vegetables didn't grow as well as they could have and the area could be better used for produce which doesn't have to be visited regularly. It was perhaps a good experiment, and sometimes we have to try things and see the results they bring and determine whether we'd repeat them.

We originally had a vegie patch in the front yard but it wasn't planned very well, was too far from the chooks and the rampant kikuyu grass finally took over. We then had a think about what we wanted and what may work better and came up with a plan for a vegie garden alongside the chook yard.

It made sense to have it close to the chooks as when we weeded and pulled out the last remains of a garden bed we'd been harvesting from, we could either simply toss it over the fence (I tend to yell out Incoming at the top of my voice as I hoik something over the fence, and the chooks momentarily disperse!) or pop it all in a wheelbarrow and barrow the greens a short distance to the chooks. It also meant that when we cleaned out the chook sheds we could barrow all that wonderfully mixed up manure and mulchy material to either a garden bed close by or a compost pile.

Everything is now in close proximity and when I go out to feed the chooks and collect the eggs, I can simply stroll through the gate and pick some vegies for dinner. On the way back I'm able to whip a few clothes off the line as well. One trip, in one direction - less of my energy spent in doing all of those things which means I am more likely to do them! If your time is spent darting off in one direction to tend the chooks and another to tend and harvest your vegies and your garden tools are in the garage in another direction, or you are pushing a heavy wheelbarrow across large distances then, believe me, you are less likely to want to visit them all daily, or several times a day, particularly if you're busy and work outside the home as well, or have small children around, etc.

Once we had decided on a suitable size and layout, because of our chooks and the wombats and the occasional wallaby and one very hungry sheep, we built a fence around our main vegetable garden. We then set about removing some more of that rampant kikuyu, and building garden bed edging using recycled hardwood timber for a rotational bed system.

I can talk about rotational planting systems another day... I have changed this a
bit since it was new and have included a small pond as well. Click to enlarge.

In went some passionfruit vines to cover a couple of the fences, to provide food for us (and the cockatoos, we've found) and shade for the chookies in their run alongside. Also planted was a flowering vine to grow oh-so-prettily over the entrance gate frame.

This is an old photo showing the gate I made and the flowering vine, which is no longer there...
We have dug up the paths and alternate between having wood shavings or wood chips there - whatever we can source.

A couple of people visiting here for the first time over the years have asked why we didn't have circular mandala gardens and one even suggested that we weren't practising Permaculture because we didn't have a mandala!

Hmmmmm

Permaculture means different things to different people, obviously. You can embrace it wholly and have a very functional and productive farm or home garden, or you can take an element or two and incorporate just those into your planning. But, like anything, it has to work for you. If it's rectangular beds here for us for the time being, then so be it. If we change our minds tomorrow, then goodo to that, too. It just doesn't matter!

We have been slow to implement a lot of things on our property due to time or money constraints or the fact we haven't quite worked out what to do with a particular section. Sometimes we've changed our minds and our plans. The Husband and I don't always agree and it's no use getting too upset or too fixed about anything as life is full of compromise (icky word, that) and negotiating. I've found it's beneficial to be flexible. :)

Here is a photograph of a sign one of my sons painted a few years ago. He put it up over the vegie garden gate before we planted a new passionfruit vine nearby...

Lucky me!

And now you cannot see the sign at all!

Chooks, legs and oil!

2011-07-10T12:46:00.002+10:00

It's school holidays here and we have a nephew up from the city for a few days. It's mid-year uni holidays as well, so we've had a few "boys" at home lately.

Yesterday we all took to the chook yard. One pruned the mulberry trees and the rest of us rounded up chooks and set about clipping wings, inspecting chooks and oiling their legs. Here are some of them, inquisitively lined up at the feed shed window, wondering what was going on. We rounded them up into both the feed shed and one of the chook sheds and let them out one by one as we, um, processed them!

It was a good opportunity to count exactly how many chooks we have and I'm always surprised by the number! We had about three unplanned hatchings last year and I hadn't taken a head count for some time. One of the assistants yesterday was tallying them up as I called out names whilst oiling their legs and before I handed each chook through the feed shed window to someone else who carried it to another yard: "one Aracauna; Rhode Island Red; another Rhode Island Red; Australorp; crossbreed; Leghorn, etc etc. The boys even devised a grading system as to how calm or flighty each chook was, and called this out too, for the information of the next person to carry that chook: A for Flighty, B for fidgety but manageable and C for Calm!

It is normally a job we do at night, when the chooks are sleepy and dopey and easy to manage, however it's quite cold at the moment, some of the chooks and their rooster pals perch high in a couple of trees overnight and are therefore impossible to reach, and so we decided to catch them all in daytime. Silly us!

It took over three hours, but it's done now and we've had a good look at all chookies bar one who took off at the first sign of commotion, never to be found again until this morning! We'll get her another day...

First of all was a wing clipping, due to tooo many chookies jumping or flying to the vegie garden fence and then over into it (and the family not wanting to net the whole vegie patch); we have a couple of breeds which sail over six foot fences as if they were hip height - our Golden Campines and the Araucanas - and some of the others think what a great idea that is and try to follow.

Next was a general inspection of feathers, skin, vent, legs, to check for signs of mites and a general health once-over. No mites or lice were found on their bodies (although mites tend to hide in the crevices of a shed and come out at night, which is another reason we usually check after dark), although a few had the dreaded scaly leg mite again and we oiled every one of them. Information from the Fowl Facts site about these tiny mites states "They burrow into the skin under the scales of the bird’s legs causing a lot of irritation. Eventually the legs thicken with debris and crust. The birds will go lame." Nasty stuff. It goes on to say that you should try and gently remove as much of the debris as possible, with an old toothbrush perhaps, before treating with an insecticide and oil. The oil works to smother the mite and in milder cases is all that is needed, with perhaps a repeat treatment one week later.

I had purchased a container of cheap cooking oil for the purpose of dipping legs in it to smother the mites. Many of the chooks had good legs but I oiled them all anyway, as a preventative. My hands this morning are lovely and smooth after mucking about in the oil for a couple of hours, and hopefully the affected chook legs will be soon, as well. It does take time to cure, though, so repeat applications will need to be made. I won't bother rounding up all the chooks, only those few with crusty legs.

No photographs of yesterdays efforts, sorry; my hands were

too oily and all my assistants were otherwise occupied!

When I first discovered the problem in some of my chooks a few years ago, I nearly went crazy trying to find an effective remedy. If your chooks have a bad dose of scaly leg mites (Google Scaly leg mite images for some examples), then you may like to try applications of the following:

SCALY LEG MITE REMEDY

Get a large jar of cheap Vaseline.
Melt it very gently in a saucepan until it's liquid.
Take off heat and wait a few minutes. While it's cooling but before it re-solidified, add one cap full of Tea Tree Oil, one cap full of Eucalyptus Oil, and one cap full of Lavender Oil; stir into the Vaseline and let re-solidify.
Go into the coop at night and slather the mixture over the affected legs.
For heavy infestations, this may be reapplied several days later and again if necessary.

This is a recipe I found on Aussies Living Simply and is terrific. Thank you to whomever posted it.

With all but one of the chooks checked and rewarded with a good feed, we took off inside to shower and change and light the fire for another cold evening.

It's good soup weather here...

Recipe for that another day! Hoo Roo!

Remembering... and being prepared

2011-07-10T09:47:00.003+10:00

This week marked the six-year anniversary of the terrorist bombings in London, a horrifying time for all involved and an anxious wait to hear of loved ones.

Six years ago was when our eldest and his wife, in London at the time, found out they were expecting their first child. I imagine it was both a happy and exciting - and perhaps slightly daunting - time for them. The very next morning, terrorists struck the heart of London.

We'd just been speaking with them a few days prior so we knew he was going to be in the centre of the city at a course all weekend. When we heard of the bombings, we quickly looked up a map of London online and realised where he was due to be was quite close to one of the underground stations which had been struck. All of a sudden, all these miles away, the tragedy became close and all we could think of was trying to get news of them and whether they were safe.

Of course, the mobile network was stretched to the max and we couldn't get through. We phoned and we emailed in the hope that somehow they could get to check one of those and let us know they were safe, however it would be a while before we found they were alright.

Our daughter-in-law had been one train back from the horror and when she could, turned around and went home again. Fortunately she hadn't gone into work any earlier that day.

There are tragedies occuring all the time, big and small, all over the planet. Whilst a terrorist attack or the horror along the lines of the Japanese tsunami is not really something we can prepare for directly, there are many events which occur one can prepare for. It's not about being fearful, it's being mindful of what could happen and planning a way of managing it.

One good example of how quickly life can change was the massive windstorms which hit parts of New South Wales just this week, including the towns where two of my sisters live, bringing down trees over roads and trains in the Blue Mountains, blocking the main western rail line and cutting off power to local residents for several days. Local residents in some parts were informed not to drink the water either due to some type of contamination scare. Once again I'm reminded of the benefits of preparation and stocking up.

In the blink of an eye the power can be cut and if you have no other means of cooking or preparing food or a safe water supply, then you and your family are stuck with what you've got until normal services are resumed, which could take days.

My Blue Mountains sister and her husband are well prepared. They have a gas stove, a well-stocked pantry, massive vegie garden and chooks, and an independent water tank. They also have a slow combustion fire, plenty of chopped wood (for heating and cooking if need be) and can ride out a few days of local disaster.

I'm not going to go into the details of how to become more prepared as you can take a read here and here of some very well written material, and am only going to encourage you to to begin thinking, if you haven't already, of the benefits of having a bit of a stockpile and some careful planning, so that if the power goes out or another diaster strikes, your family will be well and fed and be able to treat it like a bit of a camping adventure - in the home.

It's another windy day here today. Stay safe.

Planting together

2011-07-03T20:31:00.001+10:00

On a recent visit, the grandchildren tried out some new gloves I bought them. They were still too big and fitting them onto Lucy's little hands was hilarious! First of all, Grandpa had a go and kept getting two fingers into where one finger should go, and then Nanna Ree had a turn and soon the gloves were on, with much giggling in the process!

One of the things we planted together was strawberries, in this old strawberry pot which I'd rediscovered in the vegie garden. Little children want to see fairly instant results however it will take a while before these fruit and every time they visit we will do a tour of inspection and see what is ready for harvest.

Then we planted up some yummy snow peas in a couple of hanging baskets:

In the hanging of these, one of the baskets went topsy-turvey-upside-down, however as you can see, they're still alive and reaching out towards the sun. Both pots are just outside the kitchen window and instead of growing up a trellis, the snow peas will hang down and be easy for little hands to pick. I tried this hanging-basket method of growing snow peas a couple of years ago but planted them too late in the season and it became too hot for them on the front verandah. We're hoping for a good harvest this time around...

PS. The gloves got just a wee bit wet that day, lol!

Now he tells me!

2011-07-03T11:28:00.003+10:00

Sunday morning, and he tells me he'll be working at a town a couple of hours away, leaving early tomorrow and staying a few nights! Yeeks! That means clothes, needing to be packed... tonight!

Mad rush to get some more washing completed... this had been on the back burner as far as important tasks to do because of the weather, but now we're playing catch up big time! It's overcast and the fire will be lit early so that we can get some nearly dry clothes to packing point.

In the meantime he was needing to load the truck and the forklift was bogged! Call in yours truly to drive the truck and tow the forklift to dryer ground...

Forklift towed and tamed and awaiting the next instructions:

Back to the laundry to the twin tub and spin another load...

Bye for now!

On my mind: a new year...

2011-07-01T21:34:00.000+10:00

A new financial year, that is.

Far from growing simpler my life these days is rather busy and I need to become super organised so that I may feel comfortable in moving forward and not as if I'm falling behind. Working from home much of the week, I tend to be distracted by phone calls, the washing, the cats, plans for dinner and the seemingly endless tasks awaiting my attention in the home let alone my office. With a lot of things on the go I work best when I'm organised.

To many others I seem really organised already however the more I've taken on, the messier life has become and my aim is to streamline as much as possible so that I can either 1) more easily manage it or 2) get it up to a state in which I'd be happy to hand it on to another to handle in the case of a volunteering task. And 3) - get outside into the garden more often!

When we built our home, this office was originally going to be the laundry and when we changed it into an office we unfortunately did not increase the size of the room or change the layout. If one is going to spend a great deal of time at a desk, this is one desk to be sitting at, with a wonderful outlook and little birds twittering in the vines a few centimetres outside the windows. However, it could be a tad larger, to hold another filing cabinet or two, so will take some careful thought and planning.

One of the first steps after thinking of the whole picture and making lists, was to purchase some additional file holders, storage boxes and hanging suspension files, pictured above. Now I need to set aside the time to make it work and off I will go.

Happy New (Financial) Year everyone!

Reading

2011-07-01T17:54:00.002+10:00

Hello... just a quick post tonight, showing you some of my current reading material.

First up is one of the books I have been reading with my grandchildren today. Their Mum was helping someone with a Sydney appointment in day surgery so the children have been here all day. It has been raining lightly (yes, again) and we've had to spend a great deal of time inside the house. I had great plans to do some vegie planting but that will have to be next time they're here...

Wendy is a stunt chook and it's a great book for young children. It has obviously been written by someone who knows chooks well. I love it!

The next book, My Stroke of Insight, was loaned to me and I've only just begun. It was written by Dr Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain doctor who suffered a stroke herself and was able to experience the recovery of her brain from the inside. I watched her Ted talk here, and highly recommend you go take a look at that as soon as you have read this blogpost. She's warm and engaging and smart; I am really looking forward to her book and to understand not only more of how the brain functions but also how to balance the left and right parts of it. We need more people like Jill in this world, she's a breath of fresh air, that's for sure.

The third and last book for today is the very special book I hinted at the other day, Mother Moth, and also just begun.

A woman I know mentioned something about illustrating a children's book as part of her PhD at the University of Newcastle, and invited me to her exhibition which unfortunately I could not attend. Up until that point I had no idea of her talents in this regard and was absolutely thrilled to learn more about her work, and to study her fantastic illustrations.

Imagine how extra thrilled I was when she presented me with a copy of my own! And it wasn't until she handed her beautiful book over to me that I realised it was her husband who wrote it. What a talented family.

If you would like to know more about the book, please go to their website here: http://www.mother-moth.com/.

I feel truly blessed to have the people in my life that I do. I look forward to reading this book, so thank you, dear Francesca. Have a well-earned holiday, and I'll see you soon.

Goodnight everybody!

On my mind... on Sunday

2011-06-26T11:37:00.005+10:00

This is a bit late for the usual Down To Earth Friday On My Mind theme. Due to frustrating dealings with the camera, uninstalling and reinstalling the software and still not being able to upload any recent photos, here are some older ones which will just have to do!

On my mind today is how to live and communicate more mindfully. Actually, it's been on my mind all weekend, after I awoke with a start about 4am yesterday with a couple of words emblazoned in my head, and after a week in which I experienced a number of communications with a particular person that were confusing and difficult in their implications. As a result I have been further encouraged to keep working at living a better, more productive and satisfying life and to raise the quality of my interactions with others.

The draft of a post on the subject is whirling away up there in my brain, however right now I'm specifically setting my mind, and the scene, to providing an enriching life experience for my grandchildren when they walk inside this gate which, hopefully, will help to stand them in good stead as they take off into their lives.

Unrelated to the conversations I mentioned I've had this week, I've been reminded at times that these little ones are my step-grandchildren, and that is true. They have two "real" grandmothers miles away, one in another country. Technology such as Skype can lessen that gap but for the moment I am the only Nanna they have close by to read stories, laugh, plant vegies or cook with and I'll run with that whilst I can!

Words are wonderful. They can also be used as weapons, and to wound others. It seems to me that we all need to be mindful of what we say to others and how we react to what others say to us.

I'll be off now, to mindfully map the rest of my Sunday; with a family birthday tomorrow and work tonight, it's a busy day. xxx

Long stem planting

2011-06-22T21:01:00.000+10:00

Snow fell last night at my sisters home in the Blue Mountains so no wonder we're all feeling so cold here - an icy wind is blowing straight off the snow!

Although it was blustery and cold and I had paperwork to do, I ventured out last night to the local Permaculture meeting to hear Audrey Taggart from the local branch of the Australian Plants Society talk about long stem planting.

It was very interesting information and something I will use whenever we are planting native trees and shrubs on our property and trial with other plants as well.

What's long stem planting you say? I have heard of it before from Mark Snodgrass at Organic Matters here on the Central Coast, when I did a workshop with him some years ago.

It's the practise of growing a seedling tree tall and narrow and then when planting it in the ground you plant (bury) about two-thirds of it!

Angus Stewart of Gardening Australia did a story on the local group and their planting methods and you can read about it here and scroll down to watch the segment, which may explain the process much better. If that link doesn't work for you, go to the transcript, click on the video link at the bottom of the page and then click on August, 2009, and scroll down to the 15th August.

In that clip, there's not much of the plant left above the ground, that's for sure!

Why do long stem planting? Well, it just makes sense when you know the reasons why.

Having a long stem in the ground gives it stability. It establishes a better, stronger root system. Whilst you've planted it in a deep hole and the root is waaay down at the bottom, additional roots grow out from the stem. This brings to mind my riparian zone - the area surrounding the creek which flows through our property. We've had flooding in the past week and anything planted with a shallow root system would most likely have been uprooted and sent off somewhere else in the gushing water, never to be seen again. Long stem planted plants stay put as they have a better hold of the ground.

The far away roots are more insulated from changes in soil temperature and also need no additional watering. Half the water used goes into the hole before the plant does and the rest is used up and trickled in as you back fill the hole. Care must be taken to not leave any air pockets whilst backfilling, and wallah, there you have it. Set and forget, my type of plant!

Audrey gave an example of the comparison of local beachside regeneration and stabilisation work where previously plantings had been vandalised but also struggled to survive in the sand and coastal conditions, being shallow rooted. In the long stemmed planting trial at the beach, not only were plants difficult to pull up by wayward people hellbent on doing some damage but once again, they were insulated and strong - and survived, with no extra watering once they had been planted. That's amazing!

Another good example of the success was the result of a plant trial being killed off in the hottest, or next to hottest, day on record in January a few short years ago. The group were dismayed to go and see that all the leaves and stems were burnt and dead. Not so! A couple of months later they took another look and the plants had shooted once again, due to their established stem in the ground, and she had a photograph of the plants now, high and healthy.

You can tell I'm hooked on the idea, can you not?

The question arose about planting fruit trees with the long stem method and Audrey answered with a "why not try". If you have a soft stemmed plant prone to rotting then it's not suitable, however if you have a "hard bark" plant, then ït would be a suitable candidate.

Audrey had little booklets (pictured above) to give out last night but by the time I chatted to this one and that one and made my way to her table they were gone. :( Good news for you and me is that the book is downloadable from their website at the following, for free. Thank you Audrey and the Central Coast branch of the Australian Plant Society.

Long Stem Guide

As I write (I'm setting this up to post later today), the sun is out but the wind is howling and it is cold. I have to go out today but here is a picture of one of our geese, wrapped up and keeping as warm as could be on a Winter's day.

I'd like to be wrapped up too, but in front of the fire, having a snooze...

Bees: one day, one day!

2011-06-22T11:48:00.002+10:00

I have been sitting here thinking about my post on running a fresh food co-op which will be ready soon (at least an introductory piece on the matter).

I decided just this morning to write it as once again this week I heard about another such co-op desperately short of volunteers and looking at folding up. I pondered on the co-op I'm involved in and the possible reasons we have an abundance of wonderful volunteers. Some weeks we have so many turn up that there are almost too many so I need to have a good long think about what we may be doing differently and share a few tips with whomever may be interested.

In the meantime I recalled a co-op member asking if we would have more of a particular honey in again soon and that in turn led me to think of bees and how much I'd like to have some - sooner rather than later.

I won't regale you with why it's a good thing to keep bees and why the planet needs bees and why humans need those humble, busy little creatures to survive, however if you want to learn more about keeping them you can go visit Sonya's bee blog and have a read. It will be a while before I can write such posts and I love the way Sonya writes there and on her Permaculture Pathways blog as well.

I've had a taste of "bee work". I was fortunate enough to participate in a small group conducting a hive opening on a local property last year with the local beekeepers group. We all donned up into spacemen suits and each had a go at opening and inspecting the hives. I loved it! It is so fascinating to really comprehend that these little creatures can do all the work they do and create a wonderful food for us to share; I'm sure it is something many of us give little thought to. We see a jar of honey in a shop and don't know what has gone on to result in it being there, in our hand as we pop it in a trolley or basket. We're generally so disconnected with our food these days and that's one of the things we hope to rectify in the running of our co-op. More on that another day...

A few months later I was invited by Don, a neighbour, to help harvest his hives, and let me tell you, that was an exciting morning! I took home a jar of just-harvested gold and within a week was presented with a few more jars for the co-op.

Don is very encouraging and tells me regularly that he will help me in any way he can when I'm ready to set up my own hives and I very much appreciate that. I've almost decided on where to position the hives in the paddock, and would probably aim to to have a native bee hive as well, up nearer the house.

In the meantime I have been planting a number of shrubs and herbs which also just happen to be great bee-attracting plants, such as lavenders, thyme, sunflowers in season, sage, various salvias, and so forth. We already have an abundance of eucalypts and native flowering trees around the property, and the plant which has had the most number of bees on it that I've noticed is the hardenbergia vine growing over our entrance gate. Cannot find an in-flower photo of that at present!

If anyone were to ask me what they could plant to attract bees to their garden, I would have to say "anything that flowers" will attract them as that certainly is what it seems to me.

Plant and keep planting: natives, fruit trees, herbs, anything. Let some of your vegies go to seed (here's a carrot flower) and provide them with a wide selection throughout the year.

Jackie French once wrote (it could have been in her fabulous book The Wilderness Garden) something along the lines of how rich she feels in her life when she can take a bunch of flowers from her garden when visiting friends, any time of the year - or a basket full of fresh produce. I know I'm not remembering her quote very well, however it impacted on me at the time to the extent that my aim here when we began a few years ago in a house surrounded by kikuyu paddock that I would one day be able to go out on any day of the year and pick flowers.

I think I'm just about there. However anyone who knows me well knows I'm not talking about just flowers, such as roses which I also love (Mr Lincoln above), but flowers, full stop. Here's some dill as I cannot find my photo of the beautiful flowering comfrey I had in a vase for a while:

Bees. It's no longer a matter of if, but when.

A Friday on my Mind posting

2011-06-17T09:27:00.005+10:00

This is my first Friday On my Mind post. If you don't know what that means, it's something I first read about on Rhonda's blog Down To Earth, and has been carried on by numerous bloggers around the planet, and also features on Kate's Purple Pear blogpost today as well.

In addition to the On my Mind theme, there is also a Thursday Around the Farm blogging day and various other theme days which may involve taking one or more photographs and publishing them online with accompanying text (or maybe not), to share what's happening in your world. It provides a fascinating insight to the lives of beautiful, ordinary people around the world, creating for their families, and living, wonderful, extraordinary lives, often despite the hardship and challenges they face, which make it all even more extraordinary. It's almost, at times, like reading a living book.

I'm cheating today and posting two pictures - sometimes you just can't choose one!

On my mind today are two of my sons in relation to the University of Newcastle logo above (for want and search of a better image, such as a bulding, the front gate, anything!). One son has his final mid-year exam there today in his first year of being a university student. He is so pleased to be there, particually since being a partially home educated young person and hearing from others how that would restrict his future success (that is sure a myth, says his mother!), and has been doing well in all his assignments and term tests. He has also been spending much spare time studying in the library at the Ourimbah campus, however the campus there has been closed for two days due to the flooding on the Central Coast and he's been camped out instead under rugs and cats with books and papers on the front verandah lounge.

My youngest son has recently applied to both the Newcastle Uni and Macquarie University as well and I'm thinking of him and what his future holds. He's currently working night shift in Sydney, getting home saturated at awful hours in the recent dreadful weather via scant public transport and walking. I wish him well.

The next one is the only part of the online weather forecast which would copy or save and shows a picture of something we haven't seen for quite a few days - the SUN!

It is bright and sunny today; the swollen creek is slipping back to it's normal levels and flooding roads have been reduced to puddles in the gutters or running trickles in the ditches alongside gutterless roads. It's not the end of flood damage work, in fact only the beginning as driveways need to be repaired, trees and fences need to be inspected - and clothes are lined up to be washed and hung out!

Bye for now...

PS - Edited to say that I actually cheated TWICE in this post... firstly with TWO pics and then to top that off neither of them were my photographs! How remiss, shall rectify that next time...

Flooding, again, and partying chooks...

2011-06-15T20:29:00.119+10:00

I'm here at the computer, escaping from the lounge room where the State of Origin match number 2 is showing on TV, loudly! I'm not fussed on watching sport and in particular, rugby/football, and would rather not be in the room, so am at the other end of the house in this cold little office, away from the lovely warm fire. It may very well be an early night for me, curled up in bed with a nice hot water bottle and a good book*.

Well, what a few days it's been. Our lower paddocks flooded and the driveway and road to town were cut on Sunday (just as well I got some extra supplies in on Sunday morning). More heavy rain is due and as I'm saying the last couple of days, "we're one heavy downpour away from flooding again". There is simply so much water and nowhere for it to go.

This, below, is a photo I took of the rising creek on Sunday afternoon. The creek runs through the middle of the entire length of our property so we're regularly observing it, testing it (with our Waterwatch kit), sitting near it looking for the elusive platypus and watching the birdlife, and appreciating all it brings to us. It was a very dark photograph and I had to adjust the lighting so you could actually see the water, which is very near the top of the creek bank. I was standing on the edge of our driveway to take this shot.

At around 9pm that Sunday evening, someone staying at the neighbour's up the valley another couple of kilometres drove along and at this same exact spot above, the water had become so high over the road (and where I'd been standing a few hours before), it came up to the bonnet of his ute! He got through but "lost his headlights", he reckons.

Here's one of our paddocks that same day. Certainly not the biggest flooding we've experienced since living here, but enough to cut access into town.

This is the paddock we launch the old rowing boat in when we have the city cousins up in the holidays, and saying that reminds me that we've experienced quite a few heavy rain periods as the boat has been out on this little lake a few times in years gone past.

I was talking about our roosters the other day, and here is Nugget, our main rooster, who was supposed to be a Rhode Island Red but isn't:

And here is Oi, a handsome little Cuckoo Pekin who has a new band of little ladies to impress and protect:

I think he's just gorgeous. Please note the little bit of blue-something in the bottom right of the photograph. It is a piece of broken balloon. Yes, a balloon. For the past week or two I have been finding bits of exploded balloon in blue, red, yellow and green, all about the chook sheds and yards and cannot fathom what they're doing there or how they got there. Did the grandchildren empty out their pockets one time they were here? How come I have only been seeing these now?!? It's a mystery. As well as squirreling away my glasses (a story for another day), they must be having parties out there when the sun goes down!

Here are four of the new Pekin hens:

And gangly, teenage Chocabo (please remember it was my sons who named these roosters and Chocobo is a character from the famous Final Fantasy game!):

I just cannot help myself tonight. Here's a photograph of our little grey hen who is very sweet and jumps on top of the compost bin to wait for me as I bring grain out of the feed shed.

And last of all tonight, a photo of some of the new ducks that have come to live at Nallerang Creek. I kept them locked up in a shed and small run for the first couple of days, and now they have been let out into the orchard and are only locked up at night. They are in their element and very happy.

Our conditions here the past few days are mild compared to what others are experiencing - more earthquakes in beautiful Christchurch, New Zealand, planes grounded due to volcanic ash in the air and people stranded in airports around the country, wars and strife overseas. I hope you're keeping safe and warm and dry where you are.

Goodnight. xx

PS
* The book I mentioned up above is a brand new one, almost straight from the publisher, and illustrated by someone I know. More on that another day.

It's raining.... again.

2011-06-12T09:16:00.062+10:00

Just when it began to clear up again after recent rains and we had a few days in which to get the washing dry and a few outside jobs started or completed, here it is again. NOT that I'm complaining... truly!

I haven't checked the rain gauge this morning however it has been pelting out of the sky and we have lost satellite connection a few times already. Here is a photograph of the rain spilling over the front verandah guttering.

The paths are flooded and the geese are in their element, sloshing around in the puddles.

Last night I picked up some ducks. Five Indian Runners and another little unidentified duck. The previous owner is going overseas and had an assortment of geese and ducks to relocate to new homes, and my plan is for these to roam the orchard, probably with the geese, whilst rotating the chooks around in their various yards and the paddocks. Here is a photograph of five of them in their former home. I will wait until this rain eases to take one of them all here.

Yesterday I spent some time walking around the yard, looking closely at the various trees. I noticed a second small wattle has been blown over; after all the rain and then a few days of strong winds, it couldn't keep upright. As usual, in Winter, the walnut tree looks dead, but the Fuerte and Reed Avocados are looking great. Small but growing well. One of the White Sapotes is very tall and I look forward to trying it's fruit one day; the Black Sapote (Chocolate Pudding fruit) is delicious and I'm hoping the white will be the same. It looks as if the Pine Nut tree is flowering - woohoo!

So much for the working bee planned for outdoors today. I think it will be a clean-the-house day instead! It feels like a baking day (wet and cold) however the oven has decided to pack it in. It has been working intermittently for weeks but I think those blueberry muffins the other day were it's last efforts at cooking. If the same part has blown again (something to do with the ignition) then it means an expensive call out charge for a small part, and by the time you pay for three of those, one may as well have gone and bought a whole new stove. This will be the third time we will have had that part replaced - if we go ahead with it. :(

This oven is an underbench style and we have a large, separate stove top on the bench above. Getting a replacement oven will be close to impossible as no-one seems to make an all-gas oven any more! NO-ONE! As we are off the grid and try to have as few electrical appliances as possible, or very energy efficient ones when we do, to have an all-gas stove is a boon. We run on LPG gas and buy in bottles of gas for cooking and as back up for the hot water.

I've found the only option if we want to purchase anew would be to buy an upright stove, which would mean altering the cupboards and benchtops that are presently set up for the two separate units, as there are only two models of upright stoves which run on gas only and need no connection to electricity. Unfortunately, as well, those two stoves are the same brand as the underbench oven we already have, and I'm none too fussed with the track record there.

Baking today might just mean pikelets..... I may also have to do a quick trip into town as without a stove, we cannot bake bread either, and it may be wise to stock up on a few items and some generator fuel, just in case this heavy rain continues and floods the road to town. Fortunately we keep a good stockpile of all the basic neccessities in both pantry and laundry cupboards!

Catching up around the farm...

2011-06-10T20:59:00.000+10:00

It's been an interesting few days! I arranged to cancel the account we've had with a satellite internet provider and reconnect with another, which offered more included data for the same price. The old company wouldn't match the price but also took their time in replying to my phone calls and queries, even though their customer service had been quite good in years past. It took a lot of chasing up on my part and they have lost my business.

To cut a long story short, we have been without internet at all for a few days and were reconnected this afternoon. I have been beetling off to a friend's home to log on to her internet, have been getting lots of things done that don't involve a computer or sitting at a desk, actually, and that also means I haven't uploaded some of the new photographs I've taken this week either.

So, I'm taking the opportunity tonight to go through some photographs...

Here are the five new girls we obtained recently. Gorgeous little fluff darlings!

For some time we've had two main roosters - Nugget, who was supposed to have been a Rhode Island Red man but turned out to be crossed with something else, and Oi (rhymes with boy), a very handsome cuckoo Pekin. More recently we raised an Araucana rooster we will probably keep to breed a few extra Araucanas - they lay the bluey-green eggs which I adore.

A young couple raised Nugget (named by my sons) in the suburbs from a chick and could no longer keep him when they found he wasn't female and started to crow, so advertised him for free. As I had some RIR hens and thought that I could breed up my own layers I said I would take him. However, despite being told by the seller they were RIR chicks, this little fellow grew up with a rose comb and was definitely not a RIR! I knew immediately he wasn't a purebred, but by that time they had driven miles to get to my place and were sooo estatic that their lovely boy was going to such a good home, I didn't have the heart to say I didn't want him. So I took him. He has been a fabulous rooster, friendly to us and protective of the hens, and yes he has fathered some chicks which all have rose combs, lol!

Oi came to live with us a few years ago with some girls, however the older ones died and we suspect that the younger girls were taken by a snake or an airborne predator as there was no trace of them whatsoever as they disappeared. Oi has been left to his own devices without any girls to take care of and it was a case of finding a new home for him, or bringing in some new hens! Pekins don't lay a lot of eggs per year however their eggs are small and cute, and they are such a quiet and placid breed which will be great for when the grandchildren visit. So.... new hens it was, and they are now a very happy little Pekin family. I just realised I cannot find a photo of either Nugget or Oi on their own, so will take the camera out there one day soon and post some pics here of them.

We have other roosters which have come up through the ranks recently and fathered by Nugget in surprise hatchings (I think I wrote of them months ago), but apart from Chocabo, a cute little chick which almost died and was handraised by my 21 year old son for a few days before popping back under Mum, and which now looks like an awkward, gangly, adolescent boy with messed up bed-hair, none of them have been named, and will be going to the great rooster heaven shortly. Here's Chocabo soon after reintroducing him to his family... He's standing there wondering if he will be picked on by all these active little chicks running around or his mother, but we watched for ages and kept checking back for days until we knew he was alright. Typically, after all this time and care and attention, he turned out a rooster. :(

And here are some of his family...

This mother hen was fabulous and we should have put a leg ring on her so we'd recognise which hen she was if we needed a broody to raise more in future - but we didn't! She's almost identical to one of her sisters and it's very hard to tell them apart.

Right away from the chooks and up at the front gate, one of the Gymea Lilies is about to flower for the very first time. I am so excited! It is a big strappy green plant and every so often it sends up this very tall flower spike and a stunning red flower. Native to the hills around here, I think we are the only folk close by to have some in their garden. These were purchased from a nursery, of course - not pulled up out of the ground from the bush, which is illegal. I will take another photograph when the flower fully develops, although it is so high I may have to stand on the top of our truck to get a good view of it!

Along the verandah, just outside our bedroom, in the Easterly nook I've created with little table and chairs and where it's lovely to sit with a cuppa at various times of the year, is the Chinese Star Jasmine making a bid for freedom...

And escaping up the verandah post...

Not far from that, on the northern corner of the verandah I have planted up at big pot of one of my favourites - fragrant sweet peas.

I'm not sure about this new bamboo climbing frame though. I embedded it into the soil however as the plant grows, the more the frame lifts out too. Next time I'll just use wire, but for the time being, this little guy seems to have a firm hold of one of the posts...

Last pic for now is one of the Japanese Raisin Tree in all it's beautiful, yellow Autumn splendour. A couple of days after this photograph was taken the cold winds blew in and left about two whole leaves on the tree! Click on the photograph for a larger version.

Try as I might, I cannot rotate this image and have it standing the right way up on this blog.

Have tried rotating it both in Paint and the Blogger edit department!

Goodnight! I'm off to have some pumpkin soup and warmed rolls, followed by freshly made Blueberry Muffins, made with blueberries picked at a nearby organic farm and frozen until tonight! Yum. :)

How luxurious - an extra hour in bed

2011-06-06T08:43:00.030+10:00

I wrote this post on the morning of 6th June and went to publish it but accidentally deleted the relevant photographs in copying them from camera to CD card to computer, so it went unpublished. Not wanting to waste the time spent thinking and typing, I've searched back and found one photo from years ago which may fit the bill - sadly no others. Here 'tis...

The alarm rang out at 5.30 this morning, I went out and made lunch and a thermos of herbal tea for dh (more on his unusual lunches another day). It was very cold here at that time and I had work to begin but...... I decided to go back to bed again!

I made up a hot water bottle to snuggle up with under the flannelette sheets (or to put against my back more likely) and a warm lemon drink, and lay there for about an hour more with a cat on my tummy, dog at the foot of the bed (on the floor, that is, not the bed), curtains open to view the hills and trees... just relaxing, thinking and pondering - and felt much better for it.

I still got up before the sun came over the hill...

(I was to have inserted a pre-sunrise photo here)

And then, not long after, the sun peeked through those lovely tall trees and began filtering into our kitchen and living areas, and my office (and the rooms upstairs). Raising the front, north-facing verandah up higher than normal when we were building our home was one of the best decisions made. The sun in Summer rises further towards the East and quickly climbs up high in the sky, and the verandah blocks that heat to the house. In Winter, however, the sun streams through the windows and warms the home, with the various cats folowing that sun and moving throughout the day to their various patches of sunny warmth! If you want to know the best places in a home throughout the seasons of the year, follow the cat!

This photo was taken in September a few years ago, so the sun is at the wrong angle to what I've described above - at present it's rising above that hill just to the left of the middle of the photograph.

Out the back door this morning, the teenage chooks were running amok and jumping up into the paulownia tree branches and on to one of the concrete water tanks. To give them a change of scenery and to allow them to peck and scratch and access some fresh greens, we moved the electric fence to the back of the house for a few days. We now wake up to geese honking at the back windows and the sounds of chookies chatting away throughout the day. It's lovely. But to get to the back yard they have to cross the part where the clothes line is and they like to make dust bathing holes under the clothes line - not so good. One needs to watch where one walks hanging clothes on the line! Soon we will move the fence to the paddock and they will be locked out of the clothes line yard.

(Pic of chooks on tank and in the tree branches supposed to be here.)

During the typing of this, a farm worker of a nearby neighbour came by to advise there was an alpaca out on the driveway, the private road we share with the residents further into the valley. I knew which one it would be - Beau, as in Beau Gest, the escape artist! And yes it was. I rounded him up with the enthusiastic help of the dog (I realised again today that with further training she could become very good at this!), and then went to find which gate had been left open. We have good fences these days so it's usually the situation of a gate being left open for the animals to get out, and it's usually my dear husband who forgets to close the gate!!

Gates all closed and the warm sun streaming down all around (we've had a fair bit of rain lately so I'm really enjoying the fine days now), I detoured through the orchard and picked some mandarins to snack on as I walked back to the house. It's wonderful being able to do this and I cannot imagine living anywhere without some food growing in my backyard.

Then it was time for work. Mondays are super busy round here and I don't get home until about 7pm, so it was nice to have a little break this morning...

Knitting NO-how

2011-06-05T12:36:00.002+10:00

Okay, all you knitters out there... here is an update on the dishcloth I began.

It's very loopy and loose and I have tried this with a couple of different sized needles too, with the same result. Is this look normal at this stage? Do you think it's the cotton I'm using, the wrong sized needles, my funny way of holding the needles and cotton? It continues to be stretchy and loose as the rows grow longer - remember this is my third attempt at this dishcloth as I undid the others...

I've gone online and am trying to view a couple of how-to-knit Youtube videos at present. One shows me that I'm holding the needles correctly but I may need to refine how I hold and manage the yarn. The following is a sample of some squares I knitted a couple of years ago which will eventually be made into a rug. Not too bad...

They look as it their edges aren't straight - which they are - as I've had them packed up in a knitting bag and didn't press them before using the camera. But there aren't any big loopy holes either...

I'm fairly determined to sort this out inbetween all of life's other responisibilities as I used to sew my own clothes, do a little bit of simply crocheting, applique and patchwork, and they turned out fine! Knitting and sewing are two things I would definitely like to continue into the future.

Here are another couple of random shots around the farm.... Mia dog jumps in the car at every chance and wants to go on a journey. Here she is in the ute, sitting ever so patiently and looking intently to see if the person she is watching is heading towards the ute. She will stay curled up in the car for ages, even as we work around, on the chance we'll pop into the drivers seat and drive off somewhere. In Winter it's a lovely warm place to be, but when she hops in there in Summer, we get her out pretty quickly.

Here's a sneaky cos lettuce popping up in the path near the thyme. Promptly harvested by someone anxious for some quick greens for their smoothie! This path is only at stage 1. Stage 2 is the build of up the edges and more fill, to build up the surface of the path so as to keep our feet dry in very wet weather. The path is made up of recycled concrete "20 minus" and tumbled glass. It's pretty and sparkles in the sunlight, although this example of it doesn't do it any justice at all. Lumpy bits all over!

It's great leaving plants go to seed as you never know where they might pop up next. It's also been great identifying some of the "weeds" around the place as edible as we have been having those in our green smoothies too. More on that another time, perhaps.

Last one for today is of Mr Snake, who is slithering along one of the chook run fences towards the kiwi vine. This fence doesn't look too sturdy or fox safe however the whole area is enclosed in electrified netting these days and it means there's no need to lock the sheds of a night and the chooks and geese can come and go as they please and be that early bird to catch the worm as they get up at first light whilst we're still fumbling round in the kitchen, inside.

Bye for now...

Pirates and keyholes, satellites and coal!

2011-06-04T11:56:00.002+10:00

I'm inbetween waiting for our satellite internet connection to be disconnected from one company and reconnected with another and this could occur at any time. The account with one was supposed to have finished at midnight last night but it's still on. I'm anticipating at least a couple of days with no internet so to do my work I have arranged to visit a very kind neighbour if need be and sit at her computer for a while. Here's a photo of our dish this morning, before the big rain clouds began looming in again and covering every patch of blue sky we could see...

Satellite internet is great - compared to dial up, the previous option. It's nowhere near an ADSL service, though, and others in the community and I have been pushing for that for some years, getting nowhere fast. Satellite is said to bring near-city speeds to rural areas for a good cost. I'm not complaining about the speed as that is quite adequate most of the time, however the cost does not compare in any shape or form to ADSL. I recently had to pay $34.95 (Aussie dollars) to buy an extra Gigabyte of data (yes, ONE GIG) to get me through the remainder of the month so that I could do my work, attach spreadsheets, and so forth. I'm changing satellite providers to get a bit more data included for the same price. City folk surely don't realise how good they have it, or maybe they do!

Pirate cat had to have a small operation just recently for a mass on his leg. It was, fortunately, a non-malignant tumour and his stitches were removed yesterday. He was a very good boy throughout, and we didn't see him licking the stitches or trying to remove them once. Here's his very long bandaging, which came off whole the day before I was due to remove it anyway:

He looks a bit bored, doesn't he - like a small child you are asking to keep still for "just another photograph". Yes, he's sitting on a tea towl at the sink. And yes, the tea towel was sent to the laundry for washing, straight after this was taken....!!

Talking of stitches, GD2 - my two and a-half-year-old granddaughter - fell awkwardly down a slide last Sunday at a birthday party, cutting her eyelid badly and spending the rest of the day in hospital to have stitches too. She's having hers out today. It hasn't stopped her at all, really; hospital staff recognised that this was one active little girl and said to her mother something along the lines of getting to know her as it looked as if she could be coming in to the hospital emergency department quite often!! Hopefully she doesn't... Here is a photo of her a couple of days before the accident, doing what she loves to do when visiting Nanna Ree and Grandpa's - feeding the chooks.

The biggest news of the year for this community and the Central Coast of NSW was the announcement that the coal mine would not go ahead. This was announced just days before the State Election, and extremely good news. For most of the time I've lived here there has been one threat or another from the likes of BHP Billiton, Sydney Gas and recently, the Kores Coal. I am very very proud indeed to have been a small cog in the wheel of our local community action group - Australian Coal Alliance. The group and the community has worked hard on this for some time to save our water supply, our land and valleys and our creeks and native wildlife, and the health of the people living here.

The stickers have gone from the car window and the letterbox; the sign from the front gate...

Success for us, and an inspiration to all the other communities having similar issues. Next big thing on the horizon, but thankfully not in these valleys, is the Coal Seam Gas fracking problem. Did any of you see Gasland? If not, I'd strongly suggest you do. Here's what someone wrote in response to the documentary's "same fear-inducing path of Al Gore’s Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth." - an article named Gaslands Fracking Nonsense . Reading a bit further down the page you will come across "Next up, Fox presents us with a local resident from Dunkard Creek, Washington, Pa., who runs us through the unpleasant story of a 35-mile stretch of Creek full of dead fish in 2009. While Fox lays the blame at the feet of local natural gas development, nobody seems to have informed him that a pre-Gasland EPA report concluded the water pollution was attributable to a build up of toxic “algal bloom” the result of discharges from coal mines" (enboldenment and underlining by me)- which only seems to me to prove that 1) there needs to be a whole lot more research done on this whole business; 2) nothing is safe once you begin interfering down below the Earth's surface - if the fracking doesn't do it, the coal mine will; 3) no guarantees can be made by the local coal company here or elsewhere or the gas mining companies, that no damage will be done to the local environment and water supplies and in turn, to the health of the local people and animals.

Time and time again, over the years, I have heard this line from mining companies: "What happened in (insert town or region) won't happen here because we've taken further precautions against that occurring." Or this line, quite a few times: "the geology is different here". Well, big mining companies, it's still happening!!!!

An upcoming event we are hosting here is a Perma-Garden-Blitz-y type worshop to build a keyhole garden. Vegies at the front door sounds fabulous (we have a few but want more), and the local Permie Garden Team have been here sizing it up and discussing plans and materials. We were going to do it anyway, so why not make it a practical workshop as well? It's all along the lines of "come work on this garden and a couple of others and that qualifies you to have a blitz/working bee at your place too". More information to come after the event but for now, if you don't know what a keyhole garden is, here are a few images I found on the net. It's shaped to minimise the path area and in the "keyhole" one is able to lean across to tend to or harvest vegies without stepping on the bed. Ours will be bigger than this simple circle shape...

... but not quite as elaborate or formal as this:

Having that near the front door will free up some more space in the big vegie garden for things we like to eat a lot of, such as ONIONS! We never have enough onions! This is one of the yummy pumpkins we grew in the compost in the banana patch.

We grew the bestest ever watermelons too, photos to come soon. Grandson 5 and I have been saving the seed of the best melons and look forward to planting them again in Spring.

Motivated by both the colder weather and the desire to sit around our lovely, warm, slow combustion fire of a night, and Rhonda's post here at Down to Earth, I picked up my knitting bag again the other night. I knit but I'm not very good at it and my progress is painstakingly slow. I've not yet reached the stage where I can watch TV and knit - one of those activities loses out as I cannot take my eyes off the knitting! My tension isn't good and I periodically knit test squares for further practise, however something is missing. Perhaps it IS my twisted finger (which I broke in a fall from a horse Oh-My-Goodness, over 40 years ago!) preventing me from holding the needle correctly. I cannot do anything about that so will keep going, slowly knitting simple patterns, and see where that leads me. I decided that I'd made a couple of mistakes too many the other night about 25 rows into a dishcloth so pulled it all out and began again last night. Here's my effort so far, before falling asleep on the lounge, in pale, pale green organic cotton, on bamboo needles, with a basket weave pattern in mind. If any of my family are reading this, don't hold your breath waiting for one of these at Christmas; it will take a while to do, methinks!

Before I go... I logged on here today and found over ten drafts of blog posts I've not been back to complete and publish. There are so many things I have begun, so many things to share - SO MANY PICTURES TO PUT UP - but I will have to be content with what I can manage, and irregular posts here are all I can manage.

So... until next time, HooRoo from me
xx

Be back soon...

2011-05-22T11:27:00.002+10:00

Quite a bit of news to fill you in on, the biggest News Of The Year being the stopping of the coal mine planned for these valleys. This was HUGE, so I shall return soon with the details.

More photos, a snippet of information about the keyhole garden plans, what we're harvesting, what we've built, and chookie updates.

Could she possibly be planning even more chooks?!?!?!

Be back soon...

You know it's Summer when...

2011-02-20T09:36:00.001+11:00

...it's too hot to eat inside and so you move to the verandah and then proceed to be divebombed by fingernail-size black beetles which land in your hair, clothes, drink, the salad!

The beetles last night looked like little Herbies - you know that VW, No. 53, The Love Bug, which was around in movieland a few decades ago and was revived not long ago for a new series? I was watching the little beetles and when they opened up their wings to fly, I instantly had a vision of the old style vee-dubs with the doors open!

Stayin' positive

2011-02-20T09:34:00.001+11:00

It's hard not to be discouraged when growing some food when the signs around you are signalling something else!

My intricate-and-workable hose system dismantled and not put back (several times!)... fruit trees planted low in the ground whilst I've been out and when others in that position have drowned and died in the past... my Insect Hotel pulled apart so someone could mow. It's enough to.... actually I'm at a loss for words here!

In a workshop I was assisting at yesterday, a question was raised about how to prepare more healthy food when the family was against the idea. It comes up time and again: How do I do (insert whatever activity it is you're referring to) when my hubby/sister/parents/kids are against it and won't support it or me?

That's a hard one to answer. One could burble on about communication and family meetings about aims, goals and working together to support one another - but what if you do all that and it still doesn't work? A less tolerant person may advise to divorce/ditch the parents/kick out the kids; others may suggest you lower your standards or expectations, however no matter how much those suggestions may fleetingly bring a wee smile or a grimace to your face, what does one REALLY do?

Continue on with attempts to communicate and bringing the family together, or garner some support instead of hindrance, I guess. Soldier on alone with your healthy meals whilst cooking something else for the rest of 'em to eat in the hope that at some point the family sees your increased vitality or weight loss or the fact you're so darn healthier you're popping less pills!

For the moment, I'm too busy to take on everything and the accompanying stress is no good to keep a hold of, so the vegie patch here currently has a bunch of new chicks running all over, with their mum and a few aunts to help weed, scratch and manure, and at some point soon (it never takes too long to get up again) a fresh lot of seedlings will find themselves planted there and the chookies will find themselves locked out!

Take care, all. xx

A quick catch up and hello...

2010-12-02T08:42:00.004+11:00

Hello everyone,

I do occasionally remember I have a blog, y'know!

(photos are ready to insert in this post but the internet connection won't allow it!)

It's raining again. We had 42 mm overnight and lots more today, I reckon. It's green in every direction and local authorities are warning us all not to become too complacent as all this growth could mean a bad bushfire season ahead as it dries out and becomes fire fodder.

The grafted avocado tree, which provided ONE fruit last year in it's first season, this year has hundreds of fruit on it! We may lose some to birds but should get a good feast ourselves. The tree next to it, a seedling given to us when we moved in here, is fruiting for the first time this year and has hundreds and hundreds of fruit on it. From one fruit in total last year to possibly over a thousand the next is pretty amazing, eh? We will be keeping a close eye on them both as the season progresses and the fruit grows...

My local LETS group sent a Summer newsletter out to all members yesterday and I found this quote in it which might provide a bit of a giggle - laughter being the "best medicine", we're told:

“God put me on earth to do a certain number of

things. Right now I am so far behind, I will never die!"

-Unknown.

That just about sums it up for me, at present!

Be back soon...

Aquaponics workshops, starting soon!

2010-11-13T14:17:00.001+11:00

A friend of mine is beginning Aquaponics workshops here on the Central Coast very soon. Read about it on Facebook here, or her website here.

If you like to eat fish and don't want to contribute to the depletion of ocean fish stocks, and want to grow vigorous vegies at the same time, this is the girl you want to speak to! She will also talk at your Permaculture or gardening club, or other organisation, meeting night if you're looking for a great guest speaker.

The Story of Electronics

2010-11-11T14:06:00.003+11:00

Having seen the marvellous Story of Stuff, I was pleased to see the latest release: The Story of Electronics...

I've tried but haven't been able to have the clip showing in this post so you can go to the following to watch it. Less than 8 minutes, and well worth the time...

On Youtube

Download

Enjoy...

It's National Recycling Week

2010-11-11T08:23:00.000+11:00

Hi again... it's National Recycling Week (8-14 November) here in the land of Oz.

Whilst we try and re-use as much as humanly possible, and

simply buy less in the first place

(that's the key, folks), I thought it was a good idea to remind anyone who may not already know, about finding out what to do with the batteries, the spare tyres, old spectacles or medicines or x-ray films, scrap metal and the like laying round the place, in their area.

Go to: Recycling Near You, type in a few details (postcode etc) and presto, you'll see what is available in your region. May not be helpful to those in whoop-whoop, but many regional and city suburban areas have some good facilities.

I'm astounded that some people pay for a second rubbish bin and fill the two to overflowing EVERY WEEK! A lot of it is packaging. Buying less (less appliances, less trinkets and goodies, less "convenience" food in packets, etc) and buying only what you need is a good way to live.

Christmas is looming and is often a time when people buy to excess, so if you don't want to have to deal with the excess clutter next year, see where you can cut down on gifts, wrapping, etc, in the next few weeks. Don't worry, I'm doing the same...

:)

What I'm reading

2010-11-10T11:07:00.001+11:00

I have on my bedside table several books which I'm reading at the moment. Next to the table is a stack of books and some gardening magazines that haven't quite made it back to the bookshelf in the library (our little library here at home, that is) and these are generally on health, organic gardening, Permaculture, and so forth. There are even a couple on home education that I dug up recently to pass on info to a friend. I love to read and usually manage a few pages or chapters before settling down for the night. I used to fall asleep sitting up in bed at an awkward angle, waking up nursing a crook neck, but have finally learned not to resist the signs of imminent sleepiness and now snuggle down cosily with the lamp turned off and the book safely back on the table!

I once heard somebody say that to have several books going at once is disjointed and messy (my words, not his - I can't quite recall his terminology) and that one should learn to complete things in one's life and have only one book on the go, putting all the others back on the shelf. Well, in my opinion, that's fine and dandy for some things, and I agree with the need for completion and not breaking up your energy with things scattered in all directions, but I just don't agree with the principle in relation to books! I feel like different subjects at different times. I generally don't read much fiction any more, love children's books, and just like to learn as much as I can take in about whatever I'm interested in at the time.

The list of current titles to make it to the table, only one of which I've actually purchased, include one I was given recently for my birfday - Speak to the Hand - the utter bl**dy rudeness of everyday life - a follow up (angry and funny at the same time) from Lynne Truss, the author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves (on grammar); Weeds, a new book I was loaned which isn't as good as I expected and I much prefer the writings of Pat Collins on the same subject; K-PAX (refer to film of the same name starring Kevin Spacey), also loaned to me by someone else who said this book changed his whole life and turned him to a path of greater self sufficiency and less of the consumeristic way of life, and I am still waiting to get to the juicy, inspirational bits! Then there's Cleo by Helen Brown, a story of how a little black cat healed a family (cats and their healing could be a whole other post).

The last book on my table is one I'm picking up often during the day as well, when I can, to read little snippets, and that's Alkalize or Die by Dr Theodore A Baroody. This is definitely the basis for a post another day and one I've already begun to draft, adding links as I go to sites and information on managing eating and lifestyle to increase the alkalinity in our bodies. Fascinating stuff, and I'm soaking up the information like a little sponge at present and incorporating it into my daily life.

In the middle of writing this short (yes, I can do short, Ramsey, lol!) post today I've had the most wonderful phone conversation with a young friend. She's in her thirties but when you're in your fifties, 30-something IS young! She is one of the most inspiring and warm young women I know and it warms the ol' heart to know there are younger people coming through with her kind of energy and passion.

I hope you have a greeaaat day!

PS... Edited to add the photographs above and also to pop something in which I totally forgot earlier: next item to add to the books sitting on the beside table for reading is called SOIL NOT OIL, by Vandana Shiva, who has just been in Australia collecting the Sydney Peace Prize, and talking at a public event which I unfortunately missed out on. She was interviewed on the ABC's Lateline program and the transcript is here.

Is a simple life simple?

2010-11-07T08:19:00.002+11:00

Thoughts whirl around in my head and send me off in all sorts of directions. I quite enjoy it, really, however the downside is getting those thoughts and ideas down in to a readable - and editable (is that a word?) - form. I remember a conversation with a friend years ago in which she was telling me about her new Voice Recognition Software; she would speak to the computer and it would "type" what she said. I joked about needing Brain Reading Software, where my whirling thoughts would somehow transpire into some coherent ramble on my computer screen. Somewhere in the world, I'm sure they either have this or are working on it. What a boon for rapid thinkers! :) And a bit of a scary idea too...

My blog posts here are sometimes little tasters for bigger things to come. I promised I would write about community and particularly my little community here, and it hasn't happened - yet. I didn't finish my post on appliances and what to use, or what we don't use here, in a low energy home. Something that's been going on "up there" is the fact that a simple life is anything but simple. This is not some new revelation; many people who begin to walk on a path to greater self sufficiency and a life not drenched in consumerism and commercialism and keeping-up-with-the-Jones family next door, realise rather quickly that buying takeaways or packaged supermarket foods, purchasing your veggies rather than growing them, buying eggs rather than having a few chookies bok-bokking around in the backyard, taking the car to get to work rather than two or three lengthy modes of public transport, etc, can often be easier, less time consuming and, dare I say it, SIMPLER!

It would be easy to pretend that there were no environmental issues in the world; that everyone doesn't need to reuse or recycle and that plastic bags are okay, really; that oil is going to last forever as they'll find new reserves as technology is improved; that coal will be produced cleanly and efficiently; that GM food WILL save the world from hunger; that scientists will come up with the best ways to overcome many of the other issues we face; and that politicians - the ones we voted for and who are working for us, the people, aren't they? - will make the best decisions based on all the information they have been presented with.

HA!

All you decent, thinking, people reading this, are just as concerned as me about many of these issues and have probably pondered them in length yourself, in various ways.

I cook from scratch most of the time; I keep chooks and grow vegies (not enough!); we chop wood from fallen trees on our property to keep us warm and to heat up the soup; combine with others our trips into town to lessen our use of cars overall and are mindful of what we do with energy, food, wastage, using and reusing resources and so forth. It's time consuming and it's not a simpler way to live, but it's satisfying and the more we learn new skills and update some old ones, the more satisfying it becomes - and the more self-sufficient and resilient WE become as a result. I don't know if we can become totally self sufficient and I'm not sure that's the goal.

I don't know if we face a future where services are cut and the population has to "do for themselves"; that's a scary prospect as many people today are not skilled in anything much that does not require technology or shopping centres, or others you pay, to provide for their needs. We are a very stupid lot to have let go of our abilities and knowledge and the sharing of skills with family and community and especially our children. We heat up packets and call it food; we have no idea of what produce is in season and buy oranges which have been shipped in from the USA at 40 cents a kilogram because we want to have access to them all year round (often at the expense of the citrus farmer just outside the cities where we live who has ploughed in most of his fruit trees as he cannot produce the fruit at that same price); we pay others to do for us what people used to do for themselves (simple repairs, for one); we don't know how to mend clothes so toss 'em out and buy anew; we drive around in shiny cars and update them regularly, complaining how much they cost to run at the same time; we spend our lives on a computer and have to go to a gym to get fit; we have lost the ability to know what our bodies need and run to a doctor at every twinge, and we have 1.5 children (or none) and rattle around in two-storey mansions where everyone has their own bedroom, TV, bathroom and an air conditioning outlet and can't seem to find the time to communicate with each other.

Now, that's generalising and I know of COURSE that's not how everyone lives, but that's generally where it's been heading in this world of late. Doesn't it all make you want to scream S-T-O-P at the top of your lungs from the rooftops? Thank goodness there are people all over, talking to each other and working on changing things for their little part of the world, or further afield: mothers wanting chemical free food for their babies; permaculturists and organic gardeners getting out there and demonstrating another way; ordinary people saying Enough is Enough and we want something different. We cannot go back but we can learn from the past to help plan for the future. As long as we can increase our ability to do more for ourselves, the better in my book. It's a slow process at times, with lots of ups and downs along the way. I cannot change you but I can do something myself and maybe, just maybe, someone else will learn from that and be inspired to pick up on one or a few things to incorporate in their life.

I seem all over the place and getting further away from Living Simply. But am I? So many pieces of this puzzle we call life is related, integrated, and not separate at all. You do one thing over here and it affects something else, or another person, over there. That's a really simple concept, actually. Maybe we should begin looking in earnest at everything - every thing - we do and say as having an impact on something or someone else, and how would that change how we go about our lives? Something to ponder on...

I want to begin talking about other aspects of all this, so I can pick up the threads and run with them another day. I don't have the answers and just want to let you in on what I'm thinking about. My simple words may inspire you on a line of thought, just as others do for me. Together we can think and learn and create a better way forward, in all aspects of our lives.

Two things which have become of utmost importance and where I want to concentrate a deal of energy in the future are health and relationships. I won't go into much detail today but will give a snippet of my line of thought. Our lives have become sick; ill health and obesity are rife, cancers, diabetes and heart disease are increasing, medical intervention is high and research dollars for the most part aren't coming up with cures. Our relationships are sick. We gloss over the truth and what's really going on with us; we banter about frivolous things and can be awful awful awful to each other. People aren't stupid and know when something is not right but we don't know how to go about fixing things and are afraid of confrontation. We're looking for the "nice" way round things and seem to forget that a well-placed direct approach is possible.

Good grief, I didn't want this to be a lecture! If you were coming to visit this blog for some advice on how to bake bread or raise chooks, be patient, I'll get there. It's just that for me, everything is related. If I'm looking to simplify my life and my footprint on this planet, using an easily recognised term there, then alongside that is my desire to simplify how and what I eat and to simplify my relationships with others. "Simplify" may not be the most appropriate word to use but I'm sure you'll get my drift.

Sounds like an interesting follow up, doesn't it; hopefully I'll get round to it before the end of 2011! : )

xx

Spring rains

2010-10-13T12:12:00.004+11:00

Isn't this a beautiful time of the year? There is new growth everywhere; one of the Japanese wisterias at the moment has bunches of flowers hanging like big, heavy, grapes; the grapevines aren't doing so well but are shooting out new leaves (I forgot to try moving the vines in winter when they were dormant, to a better position, perhaps); the chookies are laying and the days are warm (30 degrees Celisus where I was yesterday, probably more here), so I will need to change the sheets on the bed to summer sheets Very Soon!

Hmmm. I wrote that, oh - two or three weeks ago??? How life zooms past so quickly, and how the weather can change. I spent a few nights kicking off the rugs and now the rain has come to stay, bringing some cooler night-time temperatures and we've even had the fire going here and there. Nice for cuddling up, but not so good for the batteries! The generator has been getting a bit of a work out lately...

We drove north for The Wedding and now have an "official" new, and dear, daughter-in-law... a beautiful wedding despite the rain, with lots of family and friends around. A sad day too, for there was a sudden death in her family that morning. We stayed in Yamba (wedding was on the farm, out of town) which was the first time I'd been there, after hearing much about it for years. It was raining so much we actually bought some boots, just in case. I won't be posting photographs here so you'll have to make do without them!

The drive back on the public holiday Monday was safe but slow; the usual seven hour trip turned into twelve, with flooded roads (been much worse since, so we left at the right time) and a two hour crawl to get through to the other side of Buladelah. We don't normally go away on an Easter or long weekend, however I understand perfectly, now, the calls for that part of the Pacific Highway to be upgraded. I'm also aware of the threat to the local environment the road plans are, knowing someone who lives there. It was thirteen hours by the time we arrived home as we'd collected Mr Grandson 4 after brekky together at Coff's Harbour and drove the rest of the way home with him, singing and playing what he called the Silly Game, and dropping him off late in the evening. It was nice to get into bed that night!

We've also had birthdays and work and co-op, zoomed off to Sydney yesterday to look at a truck and paid a deposit on that, and somewhere in all there, DH has managed to finish the garden bed between house and new path and I'm about to pop the plants and seedlings in. With this warmth and rain, they''ll be shooting up in no time. I've decided to have more pretty plants and lots of herbs and edibles such as salad vegies and greens, with the rest of the produce over in the vegie garden. Just got to find time to go pick up with truck, now! It's a good one, and I'm inspired to finally get my truck licence. They say it's better late than never, for some things, and you CAN teach an old dog new tricks!

I recently attended an evening on alkalinishing foods and the big question for me, now - is this the answer to a lot of health issues affecting modern society? Could it be this simple? I hope to come back with info and links soon.

Till then, bye for now.
xxx Ree

Staying all day...

2010-09-18T15:45:00.006+10:00

Grandson 4: Are we staying all day, Nanna Ree?

Me: Yes. All day.
GS 4: ALLLLL day?
Me: Yes! Mummy packed your pyjamas so you'll be having a bath and dinner here.
GS 4 (eyes wide with excitement and beginning to prance around): We'll be staying ALL DAY, he shouts out!

We often go for a walk down to the letterbox and to see what we can find along the way...

We helped Grandpa sort through the recycled filling for the new paths...

There's always time to jump on the trampoline!

Pick some flowers for Mummy, perhaps?

There's DEFINITELY ALWAYS time to read books on the verandah in the sun...

Chat with the dog:

Check on those new chickens and bring back some lemongrass for tea making...

Sit under the Pin Oak Tree and contemplate the world around us - or have a picnic...

There's always food to prepare as all these adventures we have make us very hungry!

And very tired. It's easy to fall asleep at the end of the day...

Never too old to need a dog...

2010-09-18T14:56:00.001+10:00

Mia... hanging on their every word.

Quotations

2010-09-18T13:38:00.015+10:00

Due to lack of time but still with a desire to make connection and not fall off the blog-planet altogether, here are some quotations which make me think of all sorts of things. In no particular order, here are just a few which ring a bell with me, make sense, are relevant to my life at this point, or inspire. Maybe one of them will ring a bell with you today...

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." E.B. White

"Those who think they have no time for healthy eating will sooner or later have to find time for illness." Edward Stanley, The Conduct of Life

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid." Albert Einstein

"It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling." Robert M. Pirsig

"In search of my mother's garden, I found my own." Alice Walker

"We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today." Stacia Tauscher

"We run away all the time to avoid coming face to face with ourselves." Author Unknown

"Say what you mean and mean what you say."

"You cannot solve a problem with the same level of consciousness that created it" - Einstein

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." Nelson Mandela

"Truth hurts - not the searching after; the running from!" John Eyberg

"For souls in growth, great quarrels are great emancipators." Logan Pearsall Smith

"It's not only children who grow. Parents do too.

As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives,
they are watching us to see what we do with ours.

I can't tell my children to reach for the sun.
All I can do is reach for it, myself." Joyce Maynard

"PEACE - It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart." - Anonymous

"When you start treating people like people, they become people." Paul Vitale

"Just remember, there's a right way and a wrong way to do everything and the wrong way is to keep trying to make everybody else do it the right way." - M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter

"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen." Henry David Thoreau

"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." George Bernard Shaw.

"God hides things by putting them all around us." Author Unknown

Hate is a four letter word.

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness. ~Kahlil Gibran

The next three by Margaret Mead:
"No matter how many communes anybody invents, the family always creeps back."

"We are living beyond our means. As a people we have developed a life-style that is draining the earth of its priceless and irreplaceable resources without regard for the future of our children and people all around the world."

"Having two bathrooms ruined the capacity to co-operate."

If you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, stride down there and turn it on yourself!

And here's a little story I read just recently:

Law of the Garbage Truck
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us.

My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us.

My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly.

So I asked, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!'

This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.'

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment.

As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally.

Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.

------------Today is under construction ------- ----------Thank you for understanding ----------

Normal posting should be back in the not-too-distant-future, lol....!!

Frosts, elections, friends and a lost post...

2010-08-21T09:11:00.004+10:00

Here is a post I wrote in June which I have just this morning discovered to be sitting, still waiting to be published to the blog! I think I must have been planning to upload some photographs which never happened. I notice it was written on a particular day of the year that I think of a particular friend I was very close to for many years as it is her birthday. I remember contemplating the situation surrounding her exit from my life whilst I was drafting the following post, and how sad it is that we humans become so frought with shame and guilt that we cannot find a way out of it and move on. This friend had a brief fling with my first husband and as flings and affairs go, it seems this was a short one for him however she has not been able to face me or talk to me since and for the many years it took before I found out, I couldn't work out why our close connection was gone. I was Godmother to one of her children and the only glimpse I have had of that child since she was a toddler was a photo on her Facebook page, which I found after thinking of her mum on that recent birthday. That little girl is now a rather grown up young woman and beautiful.

Anyway, back to today. We've had another frost this morning, with a warm and beautiful Spring-like day appearing to follow. A few of our plants were frost burnt in the severe frost a few weeks ago and I'm not going to prune or tidy them up in any way until I can tell the frosts are over for the year, lest more damage is done.

Today is Election Day in Australia, where it's compulsory for everyone over the age of 18 to vote. Pollie watchers, polls and bookies are all saying it's going to be close, mentioning hung Parliaments and the like, and I, quite frankly, am not inspired by either of the two major contenders or their campaigns which have lacked zap or vision. The last few weeks of Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott flowing into our lives via a TV screen has at least inspired quite a bit of conversation with the boys, who will all be voting today, including a first vote for the youngest.

Our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was ousted a few short weeks ago in a manner which shocked the nation (what am I saying? It shocked the world!), and Julia Gillard is now in his place as PM. A lot of voters are still apparently upset by the way this was done and the Labor party may lose votes today because of it. Others will be voting for Labor simply because Julia Gillard is a woman and I find that a bit hard to take! Whilst I consider it wonderful that a woman can become Prime Minister of a country, I'm not for electing someone just because she's female. Whilst I would love to see a balance of good men and good women in there running our country, in the end, it doesn't matter if they're male or female, as long as they're decent people who can rise above the c#%p and get things done.

Here's that June post:

What I'm planting...
The camera is a bit shy again today so I shall come back and add some photographs later.

What I will be planting are more carrots, onions, beetroot and greens. The carrots I'm experimenting with by growing in some polystyrene foam boxes. The seeds went in the other day, I covered them loosely with cut up hessian sacks which will do two things - keep them from drying out and protect them from winged seed and seedling eaters (ie, birds). Many of my normal carrot plantings have failed and I think the secret may be to keep the soil covered and moist, with daily checking until I can see the little green shoots coming through. I want to plant more in the ground and will use a variety of shorter growing carrots there. Shall let you know how they go...

The chicks (Golden Campine/Rhode Island Red crosses) are presently in the vegie garden in their Docmobile, here, and our longer version in this post digging and scratching and manuring the bed after which I shall move them on and grow a green manure crop. The chicks are nearly as big as their Mum now and they shall be let out, probably today, into the yard with their Aunts and cousins...

Over at Aussies Living Simply, someone asked about rotational planting in the vegie garden, which led to chatting about companion planting as well. I left a reply there and thought I'd post it here as well, in a modified form, so anyone reading this blog would hopefully understand what I do here - or am attempting to do!

I have experimented with companion planting around some of my fruit trees and I guess it's too early to tell whether it's highly effective or not as the plants haven't been in place more than a couple of years. It looks very pretty though, and already is bringing increased insects and birds to the area so that's a good thing. Time will tell if the lavender planted up again the apple tree trunks will protect the apples against codling moth, for example. An understory planting of a range of flowering "things" is better than a mat of kikuyu, let me tell you!

I use a loose rotational planting schedule in the vegie patch with a six bed rotation of sorts then other beds and areas for potatoes, pumpkins, sweet potato etc. In regards to pumpkins, I have lots of land and so plant them in the orchard or the front yard but if I had limited space I would grow them where I plant the beans. And I say loose as I was starting to get a bit tizzed out as to what to plant when something was finished and have settled into a nice little pattern which I hope others will understand when I ramble on here about it!

I generally follow the standard 6-bed rotational guide which is published all about the place (links to come). I have not experimented, for example, with tomatoes in the one place for years on end simply because a rotational system seems to make sense to me, so I'll continue.

For four lots of produce, eg tomatoes, legumes (eg beans), onions and brassicas, I move them on to the next beds each season I plant them, with everything else fitting in around that. For example, this spring I will be planting the tomatoes in a bed next to the one I've just pulled them out of. After pulling the plants out, I prepared the bed and that's where I've been planting my onions, garlic, etc. Next year the onions will go in the bed that this spring the tomatoes will go in. And so it goes.

When something is finished and it's not time to plant the next crop in that bed for the next season, I either plant more silverbeet or salad greens or radishes or beetroot - or plant green manure crops. They can be anything from leftover barley from the pantry, chook grain, old seed packets sprinkled over the ground or specific warm/cool season green manures purchased from a produce store or mail order with Greenharvest, here.

With salad greens, silverbeets and chards, I just plonk 'em in anywhere there's room. I don't really think about rotating them but they end up rotating anyway if I plant in a spare vegie bed somewhere. In the past I've planted onions with alternate rows of carrots and beetroot, however we eat too much of all of those for one bed to be sufficient so I do plant in other places.

That's all for today...Bye for now!

The monthly blog!

2010-08-18T08:26:00.003+10:00

This is quickly becoming a monthly blog, as I don't seem to be able to post more frequently! I've contemplated cancelling the blog as I simply don't have the time right now to compose new posts (although I usually always have them swirling around in my head) or sort and upload photographs (this has been one of the major problems, actually - loading piccies of all I'm rambling on about), however I've decided that I'll keep going in my irregular fashion and see where that leads me.

We haven't been idle.

There have also been a few ups and downs.

Something happened to the computer and it hasn't been able to be fixed properly. I couldn't be without a computer with all the work I do on one, and fortunately I (yes, me - unbelievable!) got it up and running to be able to use it in a modified form (using no less than three browsers to connect with various parts of the internet). We have decided to purchase another computer, then send this away to be completely overhauled and will either sell it or pass it on to a family member, or something. It won't be tossed out, it will be used...

The strong, August wind gusts last week did some damage around the property including pushing branches into fences and tipping over the archway at the entrance gate. Something heavy blew into the electric netting fence protecting the chookies, knocking it down, and there was obviously a fox waiting in the wings for such an opportune moment and hauled off our last remaining female goose - Harriet, one of the very originals we've had for years and years - leaving Brendon and Squish to cry (honk) miserably and very mournfully. One of the co-op farmers suggested I give them some Rescue Remedy and I popped some in their water. A week on, they are changed geese. With no females to protect and watch over they wander around together like a couple of lost souls and even let the chooks feed in close to them without too much of a reaction. Sad indeed. I am now looking for some females so if any of you know where I can get some Pilgrim geeese without having to drive a day to get them, please send along a comment or an email if you know my email address.

On the upside, the days are warming beautifully, although we've had frosts today and yesterday; the chicks made it through the coldest of days and a lot of rainy weather and are growing strongly; a meandering path has been laid around a part of the house; a new, strong, entrance gateway has been built; lots of healthy cooking has been going on; the new computer is due to arrive any minute and I feel like spending my days gardening! This weather is very encouraging and invigorating, and I have seedlings itching to get into the ground. We're eating the most delicious greens and radishes and harvested some great sweet potato recently. Thinking it may be too cold here for them, we planted them anyway, not expecting much, so it was a great surprise and delight to find quite a lot of them, which we promptly ate and enjoyed! The Big Carrot Experiment is working so far with lots of carrots growing in the polystyrene boxes. YUMMO!

Alrighty, I've got to dash. Hoo Roo for now... :)

No, I haven't forgotten I have a blog!

2010-07-12T09:06:00.002+10:00

It may seem that way, as it will be a month tomorrow since my last post - yikes!

It's certainly not as if I have nothing to share as it's been a busy month. We've had rain, we've had severe frosts, we've been chugging around outdoors in muddy boots, coats and hats moving electric fences so the chooks and geese have fresh pasture. The very heavy frost one particular day "knocked out" something in the solar hot water panels and we're on gas bottle back up with no clue yet as to whether it's covered by insurance (doubtful) or if we have to fork out lots of dough for new ones! The newer models are more frost resistant and we'll certainly be looking in that aspect thoroughly...

We've been working hard, we've been kept warm at nights by our lovely fire (wood sourced on our property) and we've had some lovely meals cooked by my newly-turned-21-year-old son!

The chooks, some of whom went through a mild moult (so I'm expecting the others still to do so) and stopped laying for a while there, are now laying in abundance once again and I have eggs everywhere. The chooks are eating hardboiled eggs (good for them) and the dogs are eating eggs and we're having poached eggs, scrambled eggs, omelettes galore.

We also have a new batch of chicks. More details and certainly piccies to be posted as soon as I can manage more than a few minutes here.

Bad timing by mother hen as I do NOT like to raise chicks in Winter - it's simply too cold. She jumped two fences to lay her eggs in a well hidden spot, in the long grass under the eave of one of the sheds. She went three weeks totally undetected until our apprentice was sitting on a nearby log, having smoko (aka lunch!) the other day and heard some cheeping. He called me over and we moved some things away to get to her, and there she was: a white Leghorn cross with three little lemon chickens, one little brown one who has already been nicknamed Nugget Junior (after the brown rooster the boys called Nugget) and a few more eggs to go.

I decided to prepare a special pen for her and planned to move her at night. I have had the experience before of moving a hen with eggs and new chicks only to have her completely flummoxed and reject the lot of them, so this time it would be in the cover of darkness, when chooks become a bit relaxed and forgiving!

It was raining that evening so in a coat, hat and those muddy boots, with a clean lawn mower catch full of fresh bedding, I carefully gathered up Mum, her chicks and the remaining eggs. A fifth chick had just hatched and another egg was cracked ever so slightly so it was a delicate operation. I broke a lot of my own rules in doing this as I don't like to interfere with a mother hen, and certainly not move her in the middle of proceedings, however had no choice. Heavy rain was expected and had begun to fall in heavy showers; she was outside the electric fence, open to foxes and possible attack by the dog we are minding who has been proven to be a chook killer, and it wasn't a safe area for her chicks to stray far once they began to get around.

I needn't have worried. All went fine and she is now very happy with her five chicks in a safe and dry pen with a cosy bed. Photographs soon!

Yesterday, the back up generator began playing up so we need to get that looked at today. It generally happens when we're in the middle of rainy or continuously cloudy weather and when hardly any power can be generated by the sun.

Also yesterday, DS*19 and DS21 invited me along to see a movie - Toy Story 3 in 3D - so we went along. What a great movie - very well made. We were all fairly emotional at the end with a few tears rolling down my cheeks (you gotta see it to understand). The first film began with a young Andy playing with his wonderful toys and film number three is about him going off to college. Driving home, the fellows were talking about having grown up with the Toy Story series of films: they were young when Andy was young, and now they're more or less at the same stage in life as Andy is in Film 3, going off and doing their thing out there in the big wide world. Saying farewell to one part of their lives and stepping out into the next stages. I suspect, by what they were talking about, that I hadn't been the only one with tears. Think that's silly? The film may not have the same impact on others, however it struck a chord with us last night. My "boys" still have their favourite toys close by, and they're wonderful, warm human beings whom I pleased will shed a tear like they did.

Anyway, it's Monday and it's co-op day and a very busy one for me.

Hoo Roo!

* DS = Dear Son :)

Drip irrigation OUT, plants IN!

2010-06-13T15:41:00.003+10:00

Well, I did it. I did what I've been threatening to do for months and that was to rip out the drip irrigation I've been tripping over in the vegie garden for too long.

It's not that I don't appreciate it however given all the circumstances I'd so much more appreciate a clear walk around the paths and gardens without regularly looking out for softfall and away from the timbered edges of garden beds on which to break another wrist - or worse, corrugated iron on which to bang (and badly cut) my head. Sounds very negative doesn't it? However that's the way it's been. Either chooks or hubby have been in there fossicking around, again, with the result that all the carefully pinned down or partially buried lines of drip irrigation, rather expertly installed by myself and a friend a few seasons back, has again been uprooted in a dreadful fashion and I've much more interesting things to do in the vegie patch rather than continually watch where my feet are going and if I'm going to trip over the uprooted irrigation lines again! Of course, there are also the grandchildren to consider and they trip as well. It probably seems as though I must be living with some very wild and rampaging chooks and an obstructional husband, so whilst I work on those issues, ;) removing the lines seemed a sensible thing to do.

The drip irrigation system does conserve water use however I will just have to manage it another way. I will build up the soil condition, mulch well and water by other means. If, at the height of summer, it is simply too dry and hot I have rolled it all up to be able to quickly put into use again. Here is part of it, hanging in the feed shed:

In the vegie patch we have two water sources. One tap, on one side of the garden, is clean house water, off the roof, we only use if need be. The other tap, on the far side of the garden is outside water, collected off the chook shed roofs or pumped up from the spring in the creek. I have all manner of watering devices including low pressure sprinklers, and there's always wicking beds, which I've been going to try "when I get round to it"...!

I am now looking forward to planting more and have lootts of onions ready to go in, lots of greens and green manure crops. I've also got three polystyrene boxes lined up to try planting carrot seeds in. Will talk about that another day.

Even though I've been fussing around with vegies for a few years now I still feel very much a learner, or "probational gardener"...!!

The important thing is to get in there and try, and that's what I do, refining as I go.

Here are the dogs, having been left behind as I went through to the chook yard. "Mummy, please let us in, we'll be good girls!"

Mia is good with the chooks, Nandi is not. She was supposed to be here for three months and it's now been over a year... At least she has become used to the cats and has largely stopped the highpitched squealing every time one came within two-three metres of her!!

Here are the tomatoes which came up beside one of the roses... I don't know what these are, they're like elongated roma tomatoes - very nice, anyway. I picked about two kgs of them this week and more are coming on.

Next one is that photo I was mentioning the other day, when Beau the Alpaca (left) cooled his heels in the flooding paddock. Partner in crime is Wellington... The jolly shearer didn't make it out this year so we have to go another Winter into Spring and hopefully will be one of the first on the list. I don't worry about the alpacas too much but Scooter the sheep is looking pretty woolly!

The next few photographs are taken of some of the plants around the place. First up is the new growth on the weeping lilli pilly, just outside my office here... gorgeous colour, isn't it?

Next are some of the Nasty Urchins (Nasturtiums!) we have dotted about the place, with many of them as companion plants around some of the fruit trees.... Love 'em!

Next is comfrey... click on the photograph to enlarge it and hopefully you'll be able to see all the little hairs on the leaves... I use comfrey in many ways - in the compost, as a chook tonic, made up into a comfrey tea for the plants and now comfrey tea for me (refer post the other day)... It makes a delicious tea, I tell you!

Egyptian Mint, just inside the vegie garden gate...

Here's a green and white lilly growing in the tiny vegie garden pond. It is surrounded full time by white and pink yarrow, lemongrass and a bromeliad (for frogs) then at various times of the year, violets, snapdragons, and other flowering plants for colour and variety and just because I like them! I noticed the solar light we have near the pond to attract insects which in turn attract the frogs, is no longer working, so I'll need to replace that.

This is the lemongrass near the pond. We have another big clump of it too... Frogs like reedy plants so we're hoping they find this attractive as well.

Potatoes in the late afternoon sunshine...

And, lastly, to break up all the green (nothing wrong with green!) - some eggs! I collected these one afternoon, after eggs had already been collected earlier by another member of the family:

After a period of "egg deficiency" during most of Autumn, they're laying again. Go figure that out! As well as their lovely sawdust and wood shaving nests, Ben has made them inviting little nests in the shed, under the small water tank stand, under the potting bench and even a double decker set of boxes next to one of the wood boxes, filled with lovely soft nesting material to entice them to lay their eggs in those instead of a number of places around the yards and orchard we cannot find or get to easily!

I'm so glad to have finally been able to show you some up-to-date photographs as well as all the chatting.

Bye for now!

No floods... plus bread and unreal food.

2010-06-11T10:55:00.007+10:00

We've had no floods here although some parts of the coast have gone under water. All of a sudden, and contrary to predictions of more rain for the rest of the week, the clouds parted, the sun came out, clothes were quickly washed and put on the line to dry - and the temperature has dropped! Frost is predicted and it certainly feels frosty this morning, although I cannot see evidence of it anywhere close to the house. Must take a walk to the lower parts of our land where I know it pools until the sun gets high enough over the "mountain" to warm and melt...

The ground got a good soaking, the water tanks are full and the creek is flowing. On the downside the driveway has taken a beating and needs some renovation work, which is currently being discussed with the two neighbours we share the driveway with. Water has been rushing and gushing so forcefully across the roadway that it's down to the rock base in parts. We have decided to wait until the bulk of the early winter rains have passed (as that seems to have been a patten in recent years - heavy rains in late May/early June) and have someone come in and top it up and make it a driveway once again. Some holes have been temporarily filled but we're still dodging pot holes as we go in and out...

"Uncle Steve" our mechanic tells me that my little car, a Corolla wagon, won't last, he reckons - or at least not it's suspension - "on those roads you have out there". I drive carefully and mindfully, let me tell you.

I feel so much better this morning since I've had something to eat! I didn't feel like going back to bed after making smoko for the man before he left (he had a way to go today, and in the big old, slow truck), although it was still very dark and very cold, so I stayed up and hit the computer for some work catch up time. I began getting a little headachy and realised I had been up for over two hours and was hungry. This is such a good sign for me as for some years, I haven't become hungry until quite late in the morning. My eating habits are still generally haphazard but the big thing I've noticed when eating better and more healthier is that I begin feeling hungry in the mornings again. So I'm taking it as a good sign I'm back on track again. I had two of the most yummiest, golden poached eggs on good bread toasted crunchily, with Celtic sea salt and cracked pepper sprinkled over. Good-o!

Speaking of bread, I have been experimenting with a certain New York bakery's No Knead Bread and it is also very yummy! I first read of it over on Nelly's blog here (thanks, Nelly!) which led me to here and then the youtube video which alongwith the New York Times article by Mark Bittman started off a worldwide phenomenon, then a search for the written recipe which I (puff, puff, pant) finally found, adapted by Bittman, here! This is my second effort a couple of weeks ago, straight out of the oven. I was attempting to have more of a split on the top and it burnt just a tad, not a lot.

I used a little more flour this time as the first loaf was quite moist inside. I punched and pummelled it with floured hands for less than half a minute, folded it up, put it top side down (folded side) on a tea towel sprinkled with wheat germ and wrapped it up to let sit for another hour or two before baking. Whilst I'm still working on a less-moist interior - although the dough is perfectly acceptable as it is, it could be better and I will strive for that! - the crust in the best thing you've even bitten into! Try it and see for yourself...

I got talking to a friend the other day about teas and what teas I make out of what we grow here. We drink quite a bit of herbal tea and the brand we buy is Sunrider's Calli and Fortune Delight, usually plain or lemon. I find a lot of herbal teas too fruity and sickly for my taste so lemon is just fine. I usually make teas from the lemon verbena and lemongrass we have growing, and the other day I made comfrey tea after re-reading a book by Esther Dean and coming across her mentioning it. Since all the hooha about eating comfrey and it being banned in some places including Australia because of the supposed levels of pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) which could cause liver damage, I have hesitated using it on humans except for making a poultice, perhaps, only feeding it to the chooks and the compost bin, or making compost tea for the plants. Let me tell you it is one of the most delicious drinks I've tried! I roughly chopped two smaller leaves, popped them into the tea infuser, poured boiling water over it and let it sit for a while before consuming. Great stuff.

The reason I tried it was her reminder that it is good for teeth and bones; actually her words were "it is used as a blood cleanser, is good for teeth and bones and is a cell profilerant. Comfrey speeds up the rate at which the body replaces old cells with new ones, hence the old name of Knit Bone". Whilst I may not drink it every day, I will certainly increase my overall use of it, due to much research lately and this very informative page over on famous Australian herbalist Isabell Shipard's website, where she explains many benefits to comfrey and also studies showing differences in PAs in the root and leaves. I like the part where she asked about the banning of comfrey only to hear that borage and 25 other plants were as well. "But borage is served in restaurants," she replied, to which the answer was, can you believe it, "This legislation restricts its use therapeutically, however you can still eat it as a food." So, continued Isabell, the 27 plants that are considered ‘such a danger to health’ can still be sold and eaten, as a food!

In the meantime, you and I can walk into any darn supermarket or corner shop we like and purchase food laden with chemicals with names we cannot pronouce, which have been produced or added to in a sterile laboratory made up of ingredients we wouldn't choose to eat in a squillion years if we really knew about them! Do you sense that something is wrong here?!?

Millions of people around the world haven't been scoffing on comfrey and borage leaves till the cows come home and making themselves ill on it (read the part of Isabell's info on what comfrey can do for milking cows!!), but millions upon millions have been scoffing - and continue to scoff down - unreal food full of chemicals, additives and preservatives, meat and chicken that contains growth hormones and anitbiotics and fed on an unnatural diet depending on which country you live in, and foods which your grandparents wouldn't recognise as foods, or foods which have been refined and denatured and process to the hilt. And making themselves very ill in the process.

Something is definitely wrong here. Why and how did we become so gullible - so stupid - that we cannot distinguish between what is good for us or not and accept that a refined, chemicalised food is better. Where has instinct and intuition gone from our daily lives?

I'm not saying that I'm immune to this as I have been done over as well but my eyes have widely been opened for some time and I'm amazed that so many others have been caught up in the lie as well and continue to be. I'm on the one hand amazed that Government Health Departments don't appear to have realised the correlation between diet and dis-ease or health and frustrated like heck that some of them no doubt do but hands are tied and mouths are shut due to sponsorship or policital donations or deals that are done we don't get to hear of.

So, if our governments and health departments aren't making changes for the better, it's high time for us all to take responsibility for our own selves and vote with our feet and wallets.

Say a big NO to packaged and processed foods, start learning to cook real food and prepare meals which will provide energy and sustenance to you families. Grow some food if you're able and definitely try to fit this into your schedule if you have children, so you can learn together. Walk into that supermarket and buy the absolute essentials (toilet paper etc?!?) and steer clear of the aisles full of packets of unfood. Ask your butcher (or start going to one if you're used to buying meat in a supermarket) and ask if it's grain fed or grass fed beef you're about to buy - and find one who has meat from grass-fed animals (this is harder than you would think, even in Australia). Eat less meat! Seek out an organic co-op in your area - or start one with a bunch of friends, like I did. There were five of us to start with and now over 90 families stop by weekly to pick up their fruit and vegies.

Sure it will take time and effort, but it's worth it and buying quality without all the junk or extras is less expensive in the long run. Have a read of Rhonda's blog at Down to Earth on this very subject. She quotes Michael Pollan, who has written several books on food and origins of our food (frightening and enlightening) of which I've read several. One of my favourite quotes of his which is quite fitting to this post of mine is from his latest book, Food Rules: "If it came from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don't."

Rhonda mentions butchers in the old days with sawdust on the floors catching the occasional drips of blood. I can remember walking a few blocks, on my own (another subject for another day, allowing children to walk alone on the streets - these days children would be driven!), to pick up the family meat order and coming back up the hill with meat in a bag and munching on fresh parsley the butcher had given me as he knew I gazed longingly at the fresh big sprigs of parsley bordering the meat displays in his cabinet and would always give me some. No worries about me eating a herb which had been in contact with raw meat, and no ill health on my part for doing so. These days butchers have plastic parsley sprigs. Enough said.

End of rant now...
Have a terrrrrific day, wherever you are!
:)

PS... On a last note, it seems that young Abby Sunderland, who is attempting a round the world solo sail like our own Aussie Jessica Watson did, has lost contact and is declared missing in treacherous waters in the Indian Ocean. I hope she's okay.

The paddock is starting to flood!

2010-06-05T10:39:00.002+10:00

We've measured 89 mm in our rain gauge in the past couple of days, on top of an already wet ground; the chook yards are a swagmire once again, even after distributing round a whole stack of old hay and mulch the other day. I will have to lay down planks for them and us to walk on. There are still some hardy individuals who insist on roosting in the largest avocado tree, whatever the weather. Silly billies.

Here's what happened in a small flood in 2008...

...and if these bursts of very heavy rain continue, we'll be heading that way again this week. At least the kids have fun!! Me too, I like rowing...

Beau the Aplaca got out this morning; we think he'd clambered over a part where the fence is low and where there's some road base mounded up ready to fill holes up and down the driveway and chomped his way out to the main driveway we share with neighbours up the way. As soon as he was back in behind the fence, he took off and cooled his heels in the flooded part of the above paddock. A photo or two has been taken but we're back to the situation where the camera doesn't want to communicate with the computer and I cannot work out what the problem is (again).

Here's the very cheeky Beau, taken when the same paddock was much dryer!

Bye for now...
:)

Useful appliances

2010-05-30T20:56:00.014+10:00

Living off the grid as we do, we're not keen on having and using a lot of appliances, however I've decided to list those which have made it to the Nallerang Creek list of Usefuls and (almost!) Essentials.

Never one for whopping great food processors and mixers, I have always used a two-beater hand mixer for cakes and doughs etc, with a Bamix-type stick blender for other things, but my two-beater hand mixer has been far and above the most useful thing out of the two of them. I was given a Sunbeam mixer as an engagement present and that lasted nearly thirty years when it, sadly, was cheaper to buy a new one rather than fix it - if we could find anyone willing to try fixing it, that is! I went and bought a cheaper brand and that had been going fine (although not as well as the Sunbeam) until it dropped the other day and was ruined. I was mixing something and rested the mixer on the side of the bowl which I usually do, and turned around to tend to something on the stove, when an almighty kerfuffle erupted behind me and the mixer landed on the floor. The bowl I was using was too small and too light to take the weight of the mixer and fell over, with the mixer somersaulting through the air to the floor! My cup of tea beside the bowl, by the way, did not lose a drop, but there was quite a bit of sloppy mixture all over the floor, though! I learnt my lesson and will always use the bigger, stronger bowls from now on!

One little, useful, mixer dead. If it were a large mixer/food processor I would attempt to have it fixed however have tried before with these things and unfortunately know what the answer would be. It bothers me a lot that small appliances have to be tossed (unless you're a very handy handy man) and this very thing (planned obsolescence) was included in the very terrific Story of Stuff film - I'll give it another plug in case you haven't seen it. We moan about things not lasting "as long as they used to" and we're right - they're no longer designed to last! They are designed to become obsolete and unfixable (cheaper to buy a new one) in too short a time so you have to go out and buy another one. Another angle on this is perceived obsolescence where things - clothes, shoes, decorating colours and electronic equipment, etc - are quickly out of fashion and so you go and buy replacements, even when your clothes, shoes, curtains or computer or iPod are perfectly fine and in good condition! It's so silly, isn't it? Here's a good little article to read once you've finished with what I have to say today...

I have instead sent my prematurely deceased mixer to the Great Mixer Heaven and ordered another one from Everton Online, after reading the reviews and deciding I really wasn't into trundling through shops in town! Perhaps I should have bought a big mixer that may be able to be fixed if it broke down one day, however I have other issues to consider (space to keep it, power it uses, etc etc). I've bought from Everton before and their service is fantastic. We use a stove top kettle and couldn't find anything locally but cheap and nasty aluminium models for a while and without driving miles to the nearest big cities, however Everton had lots of stove top kettles to choose from at the time, and has just a few listed today, here.

Here's the mixer I've ordered, just in case you're wondering what I'm meaning by "two-beater hand mixer".....!

The last purchase prior to the mixer was a washing machine. We had a water hungry top loader for many years and I had said for quite a few of those years that when it finally dies, I would like a twin tub! Yes, one of those old old old twin tub machines, can you believe it? When I first began looking at them two or three companies still sold them in Australia. By the time we went to buy one, only one company - Haier - sold a new twin tub.

I wanted one as they are very efficient in water use and water is something we need to be very careful with. I remember "in the old days" washing three or four loads in the one lot of washing water and was looking forward to doing the same with this machine.

The day it arrived and I set it up, I put through three loads of washing - cleanest of the dirty clothes first, then next cleanest then the dirtiest lot last. I reckon I used, going by their specifications, less than 80 litres for washing and rinsing three loads of washing - two of clothes and one of towels. It was Very Exciting! And as it isn't a fully automatic machine with a cycle lasting ages, it is hopefully using far less energy as well. The components and operation are very simple so there's the likelihood of should something go wrong it can fairly easily be fixed. Some of the front loaders made these days are very water efficient and they're certainly very gentle on the clothes as I found when I using one in Germany once upon a time, however some of the cycles last nearly an hour and a half! During that time, if you find a missing dirty sock - tough; you have to wash it next time as you cannot interrupt the washing cycle. Or hand wash in a bucket, of course. ;)
I really like manual cars and I really like being able to control a washing machine to my specifications. The older I become, the less automatic I want anything to be.

Here is our manual toaster!

When it's been raining or overcast for days on end, we turn on as few appliances as we can manage without, and use this bread toaster, bought from a camping store, over the gas stove, instead. Toast isn't as nice as when cooked in a proper toaster, however this is acceptable and doesn't use any electricity, woohoo! The bread featured here is a slice of Antje's hand made bread that she bakes every week for the co-op.

In recent times we all went on a health kick, juicing and blending greens and fruits, but found the process lacking somewhat when the blender wouldn't blend very well, leaving even soft vegetables quite lumpy and carrots - they didn't blend at all! We ended up juicing the harder vegetables and fruit then lumping them all in to the blender with torn kale or spinach leaves or whatever softer vegies we had to hand and then blending the lot, with water. We missed out on all the fibre that ended up as pulp when things went through the juicer (although the chooks and the worms were very happy!) and it seemed to me because of the fractured way we were doing things, we were missing out on some vital components to the vegetables too. I sat down and did some research and came up with the blender to save for, the new Vitamix 5200. Stocked by Raw Pleasure and with the new model having a seven year warranty, I saved madly and purchased one.

Now, we blend green smoothies to our heart's content. Everything, even carrots, is blended superbly, and all the fibre is contained in what we drink as we rarely peel anything. Just chop and drop and add water and press the button!

It's getting late and perhaps the last thing I will write about tonight is our low low energy fridge. We have a chest fridge which we converted from a chest freezer (another Haier) I bought on sale using a Mt Best fridge thermostaty-thing. Here, take a look here:

A marvellous little invention. Go to this link and you can order one fully assembled like we did, which only needs to be plugged in between the power point and the freezer, or something you can put together yourself, in kit form.

Refrigerators are one of the most power hungry appliances around and our fridge was using a major part of our solar generated electricity. We were already using a chest freezer - which is a very efficient freezer because of the design and the fact only the top is opened which doesn't allow much cold air to escape - with a normal fridge unit beside it, however with this chest fridge, the power usage barely registers.
Goodnight... :)

Do Kelpies have a shorter life span than other breeds...?

2010-05-21T14:46:00.006+10:00

I was thinking the other day as I watched Mia (Kelpie x) scoot around the yard that they have soooo much energy they'd have to be worn out by the age of eight - surely!!

She sleeps well at night but sure packs a lot into her days... Definitely covers more than the daily 10,000 steps recommended for weight loss so she'll never put on an ounce of fat at this rate!

Lessons I've learnt: if thinking of doing a good deed and taking in a dog from a dog rescue organisation, think well and hard. We're into working dog types here, however they can also be a bit on the "nerved up" side of the temperament scale so I'd probably recommend getting a working dog puppy so you can love it and train it right from the beginning. If you're after an adult dog for your family and there's a nice, calm, family dog breed at the rescue organisation and he/she ticks all or most of the boxes you require, then look into the background of that dog as much as you can and speak to everyone concerned before taking him/her home. Be wary of that cattle dog or kelpie as they could mean a great deal of work. They may not, either.

We love Mia to bits however she arrived here with "issues". I was interviewed by the dog rescue organisation (DRO) via the telephone at least three times, in very lengthy phone calls, as well as having a home/yard/fence inspection, before I even got to see the dog. In hindsight, I should have asked them a lot more questions. Whilst it is a marvellous thing to save an unwanted dog from an uncertain - or short - future, there needs to be a higher degree of responsibility from these organisations to ensure the dog is suitable for rehoming in the first place. Highly strung dogs require a lot of retraining - and the right kind of training - and may always remain quite sensitive.

Our dog came with a dose of "fear aggression" - growling, fierce looks, etc, but would probably run a mile before thinking of biting anyone. The vet recommended sending her back before we got attached to her (which was, naturally, after we got attached to her!) and the DRO offered to pay for a session with a Dog Behavourist, which we accepted. Of all the Dog Behavourists around, we got a good one. Had to drive miles to see him but he had some good recommendations and they have worked well.

The DRO suggested that before we gave her away or had her put down (if we were indeed thinking of those options) to return her to them. She came from being housed at a kennel - a small concrete "cell" with access to a yard for half an hour once a day and surrounded by other dogs barking nonstop. I couldn't think of sending her back or trying to rehome her and have the opinion that if there's a problem, you work on it and through it as best as possible.

She is in fact our new hero and we've nicknamed her The Snake Dog after a recent incident where she trundled down the steps with myself and the grandchildren one day and headed out in the direction we were intending to go to pick tomatoes and look for figs for Grandpa, and came across a snake in the grass not far from the house. Whether she saw it from the steps or just happened across it, I don't know, however it coiled up in the air and went to strike her and I was then able to see what it was - the huge-est Red Bellied Black Snake I've ever seen! Truly! She chased it to the fence and then patrolled up and down the length of the fence, the whole time we were outside picking tomatoes.

More recently 19-month-old Lucy trundled down those same steps one lazy sunny weekend morning, heading off to the cubby house...

Having seen an old Diamond Python curled up and sunning itself in the grass just off the verandah the other day, I suggested to Lucy's dad (who had shoes on, I didn't!) that he scoot after her and check there weren't any snakes, when Mia sprung into action, charged past and ahead of Lucy and proceeded to check out every nook and cranny around the cubby. Declaring it all clear she returned to the verandah and settled back down asleep (with a watchful eye half open, of course). Dad had, by this time, caught up!

We didn't need her to become a Snake Dog to decide to keep her, but we will be. Anything worth it in life requires a bit of work here and there - or a lot of work. Dogs aren't things to be bandied around or handed back when the going get tough; they're living creatures and need the right kind of environment to thrive - just like children, and big people too. On the other hand, if you have come home with what turns out to be an aggressive dog and you have little children about, the best, even kindest, thing may be to have that dog put down. We're not sure we're the best environment for Mia and we've debated as to whether we've had the time and energy to pull her out of these habits; we've noticed when we put the time and effort into her training, being a highly intelligent breed of dog, she responds beautifully.

One last thing before I go today... Jessica Watson arrived home safe and sound on Saturday after her round-the-world sail. Goodness knows how I'd be if I was her Mum, but I had tears in my eyes watching her sail through Sydney Heads on TV, big sook that I am!

Have a look here for details of her arrival. I like it when she said, standing at the Sydney Opera House, something along the lines of the following: "I'm going to disagree with what our Prime Minister has just said; I don't consider myself a hero. I'm an ordinary girl who believed in a dream."

Good on you, Jessica. Welcome home.

Edited Jessica's words to what she actually said...

You know it's nearly Winter when....

2010-05-13T10:54:00.004+10:00

.... a pack of butter can sit out on the bench all day and still not be soft!!

Don't bother asking why we had a pack of butter out all day or take me to task for doing so, but clearly it hasn't affected the butter too much at all. It's not Winter for quite a few weeks yet however we've experienced some cooool mornings and nights but oh-so-beautiful days.

I'm going to be all over the place today, with bits and pieces about all sorts of things. I realised with some surprise that it has been a month since I last blogged.

Remember me talking about back problems a few weeks ago? I'm having a relapse this morning and have my back jammed up straight against the chair with a hot water bottle on the offending spot. I know I'll be better soon (heat is good!)... I've had a few people go out in company/sympathy with me, too - a couple from the co-op and others dotted all round the place, latest one being my daughter-in-law this week, who couldn't move but must have had the phone within reach and rang to say the kids were in the shower and she couldn't get to them. I was there in a flash.

I'm learning real fast that to have a strong back one must do r-e-g-u-l-a-r strengthening exercises - all those famous "core" exercises we hear and read about. Well, they're vitally important, it seems. After my back incident I read an article found here about whether resting was good for your back or not. Whilst resting (in my un-medical opinion) is essential after a specific injury, and a hot shower and lay down with a heat pad or hot watter bottle after a hard days work can make you feel better rather quickly, after the initial pain and discomfort has waned ask a physiotherapist to show you some core building exercises, to lessen the chance of it happening again. I don't have any diagrams of the ones my physio showed me and I'm sure there are tons of sites and information around which will show some basics - it's just that I just haven't been able to find online the ones I was shown, simply and without equipment! Go see your physio! Of course, if pain persists, see your family doctor! ;)

The key thing is movement, and to not sit for long periods of time. As my job involves a computer I find I'm sitting a lot and am changing how I manage that. I get up regularly and walk around, I stretch. However, have been a bit busy lately and the exercise regime has tapered off, I have been lifting and carrying a toddler and heavy boxes at the co-op, and bango - woke up sore this morning!

Something I'm really excited about is the homecoming this Saturday of Jessica Watson. Two days off the completion of sailing around the world in a littl' boat, alone, unassisted and ahead of schedule - and just sixteen years of age. So many said before she began that she shouldn't so it, some are still being critical, but look at what she has done, folks - SAILED 'ROUND THE WORLD ALONE IN A LITTLE YACHT, since departing Sydney last October. Having done a little sailing myself, in my teens many decades ago, around Pittwater in Sydney; having been way out in the Pacific Ocean (in a ship, not a yacht) in the vicinity of a cylconic storm and realising the isolation (all other ships cleared out as fast as poss), the enormity of Jessica's trip is amazing and inspiring and a whole lot of other words that aren't reaching my brain right now.

How proud she must be feeling? How estatic must her family be right now? Would I "let" one of my children go on a similar trip? To answer that, I would need to look at not only the preparation and the equipment, but also the experience and the "state of brain" of the person intending to sail away. You don't do this sort of thing after sailing Pittwater for a couple of years. Jessica has been sailing for years and completed many thousands of nautical miles of ocean sailing. I have been following her blog on and off for the whole trip and reading about her efforts elsewhere; in my opinion she appears to be a mature, highly skilled young "girl" and I applaud her wholeheartedly. How darn adventurous.

WELL DONE, JESSICA... YOU D-I-D IT!! Welcome home.

Another inspirational young woman, but a tad older than sixteen is Intimate Permaculture Designer, Cecilia Macaulay, who recently moved from Melbourne to Japan, and this is one of her blogs. I love the way she writes and draws (check out these truly stunning illustrations) and found this article of hers yesterday on winter warming. I thought it timely given the season, and wanted to include it here... Cecilia and Jessica, the world needs more like you!

When we first built this home I was feeling a little lost at the lack of garden and nearby trees. There were plenty of birds and other wildlife in the bush "over there" but not near the house as it was surrounded by grass. It felt really empty, particularly as at the cottage up the road where we'd moved from, we would regularly breakfast outside with blue wrens bopping all about us, for example. I've written about it before, the feeling that it would take years for birds to feel safe enough to venutre close. Well, it's happening! Just recently, the kiddywids were here ("are we staying here for the WHOLE day, Nanna Ree?" asked Josh, those gorgeous eyes wide open with anticipation) and we were having some quiet time on the lounge, reading, in the heat of the day, and I looked up and out through the big sliding glass front door.

I should have counted the birds, dragonflies and other creatures as they were numerous, I tell you! Scooting by in all directions on the other side of the glass, it brought a lot of joy to this ol' Nanna to see them. At last!

Then, as I was still watching, a large flock of heavy birds must have landed in the top of the Pin Oak tree at the front fence, too high up for me to see from inside the house, because WHOOSH, a whole heap of Autumny leaves flew to the ground at once, as if it were a Whomping Willow having a shake! (Pin Oak is the red tree on right, an old-ish photograph as it is very large now)

If any of you are in a similar position, building on bare land or in the middle of a paddock as we did, I'd advise you to keep your spirits up, to plant enough and then plant some more, and it will happen. "Build it and they will come" - Field of Dreams.

It's been a while since I began this and my back is improving and the day is growing warm. One thing on the agenda today is to ring the manufacturer of our slow combustion wood heater. We recently had the chimney (probably flue is the correct term but I like chimney better) cleaned and removed the old broken firebricks. I took some broken pieces, as instructed, to where we bought the heater from for buying replacements, and the guy looked at me as if I'd bought something in from the 1920's! We don't have anything like that here, he said. But I bought the heater here, seven years ago, said I. There's a new model with the same model number, said he, with a take these home as they should fit, they can't have changed it that much. Well they don't fit and they're completely different! The original ones are white-ish, narrow, rectangular? firebricks and the new model has speckled grey larger and deeper, shaped firebricks. One would think that after seven years one could buy replacement firebricks, so it's yet another call to yet another manufacturer
.
Did I tell you about the seatbelts in my car? Toyota Corolla, back seats hardly used, and I found just recently that the two side seat belts were cut through nearly all the way. The car isn't that old and I have never seen such a thing before, in any car I've known, let alone owned or driven, and my local Toyota Dealer says they will cost between $300-$400 to replace - EACH! I've written to Toyota about that too... Shall let you know the outcome. In the meantime, I cannot take the grandchildren in the car or carry more than two passengers, until it's sorted out and I have working, safe, seatbelts again.

Thank goodness Ian bought a new (used) car the other day - a Holden Rodeo dual cab ute with canopy:

...a much more versatile vehicle for us than his old Rodeo ute which "got drowned" in the 2007 floods but was resurrected temporarily by our wonderful mechanic, "Uncle" Steve as I call him! Temporary in this case meant another two years of active service before we finally retired it. It's still working, though, and is used as a farm vehicle. Just not registerable.

For the new vehicle, we had been tossing up between the Rodeo and a Toyota HiLux but it was a non issue as far as I was concerned - we couldn't find a decent older Hilux and the new ones (if we could have afforded them anyway) look like utes on steroids. I mean - why the blown up, puffy, way-too-botoxed look in the new models? You pull up beside one at a set of traffic lights and you'll know what I mean. YUK! And jolly hard suspension - so hard you cannot keep up a normal conversation. Bad move, Toyota.

I'd better go do some work.

Bye-bye until next time...

Breathtaking

2010-04-11T11:24:00.007+10:00

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle;
you can live as if everything is a miracle. Albert Einstein

Did any of you look up at the sky last night? It was so breathtakingly beautiful that it was difficult to drag myself inside again, but I did - only to wrench someone else away from what they were doing to come out and have a look as well, who then stood out there in the darkness whilst I eventually came in to put the kettle on.

I wished I could photograph it but I could not. Does a photograph do any justice to a "view" of that nature? I think not.

We came home from an engagement party in Newcastle and I stepped out of the car and looked skywards. I don't think there has been such a clear night when the sparkling features dotted over the darkness have looked so prominent and so magnificent for a very long time. But that may be because I've stepped out of my car too many times without looking skywards. It also may mean (and this is probably closer to the truth) that I don't go out much at nights any more!

It made me think, once again, that we people generally don't drink in and appreciate the natural beauty around us. It made me think that should we have to move back to suburbia, we won't be able to look up and see such things and how much I'm going to miss the clear and wonderful night skies, the green-ness of where we live and the feeling one gets as soon as you step into the temperate rainforests which are all around us. I refuse to be sad at this point and I guess I should be grateful that I've had this experience when others never do, however this environment certainly does something to you. Close enough to civilisation if/when you need it and far enough away and secluded to allow you to think you're many more hours away from Australia's largest city than you are. We're very fortunate.

We've laid on the trampoline for hours over the years, lined up like sardines with a dog for extra warmth and company, dodging mosquitoes and looking for satellites and shooting stars; we've watched the most striking electrical storms cuddled up in blankets on the old lounge dragged to the edge of the verandah and "so close" to the action that it felt we may be struck by lightening ourselves! Such experiences your children will not forget. Mine were recalling many of those incidents last night as we stood in the dark in the damp grass with necks craned back, gazing at the sky.

When I was thirteen (a few, um, years ago!) I was chaperoned by an older sister on a camping trip around Australia and right up the middle. We had tents but I think we may have only put them up once, the first night. Every other night for a few weeks we cuddled up in our sleeping bags under the stars. Now THAT was magnificent! I have never forgotten that trip and the sights we saw and was reminded of it again last night.

Maybe it will be a cool and clear night again tonight. If so, I would strongly suggest you drag yourself and your children outside, rugged up and prepared to spend some time looking around. If you stay there long enough, all sorts of conversations will evolve - which in this day and age of computerised games and families living in opposite ends of the house to each other with a TV in the bedrooms, must be rare. If you live in a city and the light pollution is too great, plan an excursion to an outer suburban area one evening, or a camping trip one school holiday so that your children may have this experience and witness the miracle of what they live in.

Hooroo for now... :)

Some photographs, at last!

2010-04-01T22:22:00.004+11:00

Taken around the farm in the last couple of days, here are some updates. First up is one of the Paw paw trees we planted not long before Christmas - is that fruit already? Oh my golly, they are fast!

Next is one of the rosella plants which are closer to being ready to harvest... These are such pretty plants; we have five of them but for sheer beauty in the garden and quickly growing space fillers, these are ideal. AND you can eat the fruit in jams, make fruit cordial and hopefully be able to pop them in a smoothie!

Here's part of the banana UNcircle I was mentioning the other day. They're definitely not spaced out evenly any more but I'm loathe to move and upset them again after what that patch has been through. I didn't realise Ginger our horse had made it into the photograph (click to enlarge and you'll see him in the bottom left corner):

Creeping sweet potato has found it's way through the fence in into part of the vegie garden. It obviously didn't want to be "on the outside"...

Cats curl themselves up into all sorts of interesting places. This is Timmy (or TimCat, FatCat, Garfield's Cousin or other nicknames), who has been on my lap for a couple of hours this evening and was earlier in the laundry basket on the laundry floor, eyeing off the people and dogs moving in and out:

And this is one of the Diamond Pythons, out for a snaky stroll through the chook yard and over the rose (sunflower, sweet pea and bean) frame...

He was a big fella - we found a much smaller, and very dark, python curled up in the grass not far from the front steps this evening. We walked up close, stomped on the ground nearby but still he didn't move. We'll check if he's there in the morning; he's either dead or was very sound asleep.

Here are the new chicks. I'm so glad Ben spotted them and moved them as that very night we had a massive storm and downpour of rain and some of them may have drowned in their nest under the comfrey leaves.

Uploading photographs is reallllly slow tonight so I may try more tomorrow.

Goodnight!

New babies!

2010-03-30T16:25:00.000+11:00

Well, what do you know? We have some chickens!

Not planned - the mother was seen appearing from under/amongst a huuuge clump of comfrey with four cute little chicks in tow, late yesterday afternoon, and more unhatched eggs back in the nest.

She's one of the Golden Campines and we thought she was hopping the fence to be with Mother Hen Mk II and her Araucana children, but it appears we saw her when she was hopping off those eggs for a quick break.

I was at the co-op and everyone else was at work at the time so Ben renovated and redecorated a small pen to suit new chicks (it looks beautiful) and moved them there when it was dark. No more eggs have pipped today so four may be the final number.

Golden Campine crossed with a Rhode Island Red cross rooster. Interesting mix! They are cute-as, with mottled markings.

Photographs soon. Promise!

New templates, woohoo!!

2010-03-28T15:11:00.002+11:00

I liked the green-ness of the old blog but it was overdue for a change of scene. What a breath of fresh air these new templates and layout variations are - wow!

I have been clearing up the email inbox(es) and found a message from Blogger about the new templates so decided to take a look. In only a few minutes I had a new template and a new look, with new colours. Easy peasy! Now the blog needs some new photographs, it's looking rather bare...

Out in the garden it is very warm but without the Summer humidity. We're eating figs - oh so delicious - and tomatoes from plants dotted all over the place. One good thing about planting them late is we seem to miss the fruit fly.

I will HAVE to get this photo problem fixed up!!

Ouch! Watch the back!

2010-03-27T12:03:00.004+11:00

It's been an interesting week, if one could call it that. I strained part of my back on the weekend, cleaning the bath and have been on "light duties" ever since!

I went to the co-op Monday but it wasn't very comfortable sitting in the car for over an hour prior whilst I did a farmer pick up, or even at the desk for a few hours, and I was fairly exhausted when arriving home. It hurt when I stood for a while, was sore when I sat and whilst I don't mind the occasional nanna nap (they're rare!), laying on a lounge for any length of time isn't an attractive option either. I injured my back about thirty years ago, but the incident this week is in a different spot and I am treating it as a bit of a wake up call. Damaging my back cleaning a bath makes me feel very unfit; I've had two sessions at the physiotherapist now and have asked for suitable exercises to strengthen it. Knowing how diligent I was with the physio exercises after shattering my wrist in a fall ice skating a few short years ago and how I now have excellent movement in my wrist because of it, I'm sure I will have a good, strong back before long. Look out bath, here I come!

The vegie garden looks a bit sad and I still have chooks in parts of it at present. Mother Hen and her flock of (now 8) teenage Araucanas are still scooting around in there every day, scratching round and cleaning up the weeds. I have some sections fenced off to be safe and they have the rest. They are enjoying it immensely! The other chooks look on in envy and occasionally a Golden Campine jumps over to join them.

I would have thought that by now Mother Hen Mk II would have given up the job and gone back to the chookie gang, leaving her kids to fend for themselves, however they were separated the other day and she was quite frantic to get back in with them. I will have to tag her leg or something so I know to use her next time we have chicks; she has been a brilliant mother, on equal terms I would say to Mother Hen Mark I, who was a Light Sussex and who died of old age a couple of years ago. MH Mk II is a shiny greeny-black Australorp.

We now have eight chicks left out of ten because a snake got one a few weeks ago (we immediately upgraded their night house to be ultra snake proof to all but what may be the skinniest snake known to man!) and another was found, newly dead, the other morning with no other marks except a chunk out of her leg. We have NO idea what that may have been. Do snakes have a nibble at something they deem too large to swallow? Did she die and then have a rat nibble her leg?

In typing all this, I am now thinking I may know what caused the disappearance of some of the Pekins we've had in recent years. I've always loved little Pekins with their round fluffy bodies and feathery feet, and have kept some for quite a few years (will see if I can drag up a photograph or two from the records) , however whilst some have died naturally of old age, some have disappeared without a trace and I had been thinking eagles or falcons, which we see fairly regularly around here, had swooped in and taken them. I'm now thinking they're still small enough a breed to be taken by a snake, given the size of this Araucana the other week,and I now have one Pekin left, a gorgeous little Cuckoo rooster called Meh (named by Nic, with photo from the Pekin Club pages). I think I had better find him a new home before he, too, is taken. : (

Most trees and plantings are doing very well and most of the garden is looking healthy. I say most as despite the lack of recent rain, the fruit trees and others we planted are doing well, except for a native - a banksia. I don't know why it is however have observed this before - natives turning up their toes in dry or harsh conditions whilst fruit trees and/or ornamentals/introduced plants surviving, and even thriving. This one is looking very dry so I had better rope someone into continuing to bucket water to it for a while, before I lose it. I loooovve banksias and remember the stories from many years ago about the Banksia Men.

Not being able to do much this week (very frustrating) I nevertheless had a couple of extra mouths to feed, just to add to the mix, and have been preparing new dishes. Have spent some of the time on the lounge scouring old and new vegetarian cookbooks and coming up with delicious meals and yummy salads. I even made cakes and two batches of muffins - recipes I hadn't tried before and one of which was a combination of two recipes (and it worked!!). One lot of muffins was based on pumpkin and the other, pears and banana and nuts. Yum indeed.

I also read about and was inspired enough to get to and make some pickled carrots (scroll down, interesting blog). I made a huge jar of it which looks absolutely beautiful sitting on the bench, as well as small jars of pickled beetroot, and a beetroot, radish and turnip mix. Hopefully I'll get this picture program to work someday soon and be able to post some new photographs. : (

In local news, today is the day the ex-HMAS Adelaide was to be scuttled, as they call it, into the ocean off the Central Coast to become an artificial diving reef. I say was as protestors have managed to have it delayed whilst calling for the whole project to be scrapped because of the toxic substances which (may) remain on board and be an environmental nightmare for the ocean and it's inhabitants. I was all for it as what a terrific attraction for the region it would be and so close to Sydney, until I read this with some horror; I think I finally understood what the protestors have been going on about. That's until, in turn, I read the environmental assessment report (or parts of it).

I can fully understand the implications on the environment if this is done with insufficient care or thought and would agree with the protesters on that point. Too much happens in and to this world without sufficient care and thought, with often permanent and irreparable damage done. What a shame this protest group didn't protest a little earlier and force an enquiry much earlier than May, weeks after the planned scuttling.

I'd still like to see it happen, IF it can be proven safe. Other areas of Australia have put their hands up for the Adelaide if we turn it down as they realise the potential the dive ship has in bringing people and dollars to their region. If I were a diver, what an amazing experience to have such a venue to explore. Roll on 5th May and let common sense prevail, whichever side of the fence that falls on.

Banana UNcircle!

2010-03-13T12:29:00.002+11:00

I decided last year to begin a banana circle.

I spent a while observing and thinking about the best site for it as we get frosts here in winter and bananas wouldn't last long in those conditions. I then decided to plant them near the concrete above ground water tanks (for warmth) where they also are in line for water run off when said tanks are full.

We duly built our circle using tape measure, star pickets and a length of sheep wire to enclose it and to protect it just a little more. In went five donated banana trees of various sizes. Loads of composty materials, inluding cut up banana trunks from a friend who had too many trees on her property, plus mulch to cover the lot, went into the pit in the middle. All was going well and it was exciting to tiptoe past on the way to the chooks and see those banana trees growing.

Until......... a big storm came through and knocked down every tree but one and damaged two smaller trees so much they didn't seem as if they would or could recover.

Once again, the hunt was on for more trees and the search was short as the next door neighbours had ripped out their bananas (yes, all of them) and plonked them on the bonfire in the middle of the paddock, with bits of timber and other tree debris on the top, and they slowly began to grow again. We drove past and looked over, recognising the familiar green colour and shape of a banana leaf, waving above the bonfire pile! A quick phone call to the neighbours resulted in us whipping over there with appropriate tools to prise some trees from the pile. Sadly we couldn't prise too many at all as their bases were deep down in the pile and too far to reach through heavy timber piles with any tool. We brought home some chopped trees for mulch though (that machete is terrific to use!) and ONE lonely little banana tree to plant. So with one little tree newly planted and one bigger tree established, that was our banana circle.

Left to it's own devices, with composty stuff being tossed in there occasionally and kikuyu grass doing it's usual growing through and over everything, we didn't immediately spot the new little trees growing. We're not entirely sure how, but it seems the ones we thought were dead sprung to life again and other pieces I'd chopped for mulch sprung a shoot.

We now have ~~six~~ SEVEN trees instead of the original five and instead of a circle have a mish mash of trees grouped together, and all looking very healthy. One is quite tall and so we should be in line for some home grown bananas next year... I'm not going to risk losing any again by transplanting them to a better position so they can stay where they are.

I can find one other photo taken a while ago to post here, and that's one of the dog in the vegie garden... It shows the Lemon Verbena "tree" (makes a lovely tea), a lavender gone wild, chocolate mint going the same way, a bit of comfrey sticking up at the front and curry plant to the right. Mia has found something interesting to investigate and wouldn't lift her head long enough for a photograph.

Bye for now.

Around the garden

2010-03-13T09:44:00.005+11:00

Both a lot and not a lot is happening around the garden! We haven't planted much in the way of additional vegies but the fruit trees are growing very well and the pawpaws have more than quadrupled in size since planting. Fortunately the more hardy trees have grown as well and the few wattles we planted as protector plants are way up over my head, so that bodes well for keeping the more fragile/tropical and frost sensitive plants going through winter.

Once again, rats got into some vegies, particularly the tomatoes, however we now have about four tomato plots all over the place and the rats have remained with one. We let the teenage chicks and their mum in to various parts of the vegie garden, locking them up in a snake proof pen at night over one of the vegie beds for safety, hence not planting too much more in there at present. I had been thinking she would have abandoned them by now and that I'd have put them all back with the other chooks, however she is having a lovely time. Every so often another chook hops the fence to be with them (usually a Golden Campine) and every so often the chicks jump/fly to the top of the fence that separates vegies from a chook run, but generally they are very happy roaming the vegie garden, and safe from foxes there.

The White mulberry is shooting up and the figs are providing us with a race to get the fruit before the birds do. We'll be harvesting our first proper kiwi fruits soon and even a couple of avocados. We cannot find many of either however hopefully some this year will mean many more next year.

One fig tree is doing great-guns - it is in a little grove of it's own with two rosellas and a big salvia plant and is loving it. All those plants are really really healthy and happy. For those who don't know, rosellas are birds AND plants - and we have about five plants dotted about the place which are now all flowering and beginning to fruit. They'll end up as jam and a fruit cordial. A very pretty annual related to the hibiscus I believe, so I must save the seed and grow it again next year. We grew them about three years ago and promptly lost the seed. :(

Over in the main orchard, the cosmos and the nasturtium seeds I flung around have come up and are happy companions to some of the fruit trees. Removing grass away from some of the citrus has helped them and two trees in particularly are loaded - a Navel orange and an Imperial Mandarin which is colouring up nicely and provides beautiful sweet fruit.

Over near the front fence the Italian pumpkin plants are still rambling; they are a lovely pumpkin to eat and to look at however not as prolific (yet) as other types I've grown. I will grow them again next year as well as others. I like the Jap pumpkin but every plant this year was eaten.

When I went out the back door this morning to go feed the chooks I noticed a Large Hole, right near the steps. Dog? Wombat? We keep the dogs inside at night (yes, little dog is still with us!) so it's quite likely that a wombat gets into the yard and wanders around. There was another little hole under the grape vines which had been started and not continued with. As Mia dog doesn't tend to bury her bones, I cannot imagine it's her digging, despite being given a bone this week which was almost as long as she is tall!

Unfortunately I cannot show you ANY new photographs of any of all this as I'm on a different computer and it keeps rejecting the picture software. I'll find a way, somehow!!

Bye for now!

PS... forgot to mention we harvested a lot of potatoes - about five different varieties including one with a purple skin, and another with purple flesh - beautiful. All that gorgeous garlic turned out to be a non event as although it was growing well, an animal or a two-legged resident has dug ALL of it up. The whole lot has disappeared, which is sad indeed and a mystery I haven't been able to solve.

PPS... Purple Pear is holding an Introduction to Biodynamics course soon, details here. Hunter Valley, NSW

Long time between posts...

2010-03-10T17:49:00.003+11:00

Goodness glory be, what a long break inbetween posts.

I hadn't intended to go "private" for so long and to close this blog to everyone but a select few. The weeks have passed and I'm looking for another job. Have been busy with the co-op and shall be back again soon.
Hooroo.

Our first fig!

2009-12-20T19:30:00.007+11:00

Today we harvested our first fig! It was one off the tree I photographed a day or two ago and it quite surprised me that there would be at least one ripe fig on a tree which is still developing tiny fruit the size of my little fingernail!

Actually, it isn't the first fig on our trees but the first we've been fast enough to eat. Birds have gotten to them first, last year. I haven't got a photograph as DH opened it up on the way to where I was and we ate it all too quickly. :) And it was yummy, by the way.

What I do have is a photograph of Santa (guess who?!) arriving at the Christmas street part yesterday afternoon, held at a neighbour's home:

He did a really good job, and it was a great afternoon. We have some terrific neighbours, that's for sure. The kids headed for a mound of dirt and played happily for hours and we talked about the wisdom of choosing white clothing for girls heading off to the neighbours to play! It sure wasn't white by the end of the party!

All the fruit trees we planted yesterday and the day before are looking very happy. Unfortunately we have had some seedlings eaten by something so haven't as much ready in the vegie patch as I would like. However, we're harvesting leeks, some potatoes that came up themselves (we planted others this year which aren't ready as yet), zucchini, silverbeet and chard, spinach, salad and Asian vegies, green and red cabbage, lots of different herbs, plums, the occasional passionfruit (lots of green ones still to ripen), mulberries, onions are just coming on and we're just about to start on the tomatoes which were put in late. The peaches have just finished and it was a race to get any before the birds gobbled the lot.

I picked some Lemon Verbena leaves and made a lovely tea yesterday. I love just about anything lemon and this makes a refreshing tea. As well as the delicate little flowers being beautiful in a vase...

Today, in a slack moment whilst I had a cup of tea, I watched a recorded episode of River Cottage in which Hugh made some cheese and then turned it into a cheesecake. I became inspired by that and so ended up making a slightly different version, based on the ingredients in the fridge. It was very delicious, so here's the recipe. I'm not calling it a cheesecake but Ree's Ricotta and Almond tart or pie. Note, measurements are approximate as I was crossing all my fingers whilst making it and it was a bit moist, taking longer to "firm up". Great alone but would be very scrumptious with berries...

Ingredients:

500g Ricotta

120g sugar

90g butter, melted

couple of teaspoonfuls of finely grated orange rind

2 eggs beaten

150g ground almonds or almond meal (can use flour I guess)

Method:

Whisk ricotta and sugar then add melted butter.

Add in the orange rind then

the two beaten eggs.

Stir in the almond meal until all the

ingredients are well mixed.

Pour into greased springform tin and

cook in a moderate oven until...... cooked.

Mine was done in about 3/4 of an hour

(but that may have been because I had a bit too

much butter. I have reduced the butter content

above, just a bit. :)

Simple and yummy.

That's it. A short one today. Just had to share the news about our fig!

PS. Remind me to give you the recipe for the best ever carrot cake. The only one I like, really, which is saying a lot considering carrots are my favouritist vegetable!

More planting in the food forest...

2009-12-19T09:09:00.012+11:00

Things always seem more cheery after a bit of rain. We've had nearly 12 mm the past couple of nights, with light rain falling on and off all day yesterday. After a very hot couple of days it was quite a relief, and...

PERFECT for planting!

We'd just this week received our order from Daleys so what better time and weather conditions than yesterday to plant most of it out?

As well as the paw paws I mentioned a short while ago, there was also a Pine (for pine nuts - yummo!), Cinnamon Myrtle, three extra avocado trees (2 Reed and 1 Feurte, making it SEVEN avocado trees in total - wow!), two Black Sapote or Chocolate Pudding Fruit, Rosellas (plant, not the bird), a White Mulberry, three more Hazelnuts of two varieties to further along the Hazelnut hedge plan, and something else which escapes me right now. Here's just a part of it, photographed this morning:

No straight lines here!

This is not the main orchard area but an additional forest of food being slowly planted out. Clicking on the photo's enlarges them, by the way. The tree in the forground is one of the Japanese Raisin Trees and the lovely big spreading one on the front fence is a Pin Oak. LOVE that tree. Over on the middle left you can see some of the pumpkin plants sprawling all over the place - lots of room to sprawl ;) - and to the right, young wattle trees which have been shooting up out of the ground pretty quickly lately, for shelter, habitat and eventual mulch when they've come to the end of their lives. We've planted less front sensitive varieties on the outer edges to protect those which are more sensitive. We don't want to lose any now! We lost some avocado trees in the June 2007 flood but the ones which survived that are going strong, frosts and all.

I'm none too fussed on the expanse of kikuyu grass inbetween and surrounding all the trees but hey - one step at a time. It looks as if Nallerang Creek Farm may be on the list for a permablitz or permabee (ie, Permaculture working bee) in the new year; there are benefits to being on the committee after all as committee or long standing members will be first to receive a "blitz" in the new plans for Permaculture Central Coast. From then on it will reach out to those PCC members who have attended at least two or three such garden blitzes, which is fair enough don't you think? This is something last year's committee wanted to see happen (and no doubt the folk before that too) however numbers haven't been sufficiently high enough to have a range of different teams until now, and for 2010 we have the Garden Team, Display and Show Team as well as many people taking on numerous less major roles which go a long way to the group running efficiently. We even have a Knowledgeable Gnome, the woman who won the Wyong Shire Garden Competition in both Permaculture and Water Efficiency categories. She will be ever-present to ask all those tricky questions of!

For the first year of permabees, the PCC Garden Team plan to complete four different styles of garden makeovers, partly from an educational aspect, including perhaps building a frog pond. The Garden Team is headed up by a husband and wife whom I like very much and who have between them PDCs and much horticultural experience. We seem to fit one of their criteria so if this goes ahead, I think we may cover this food foresty area and smother out the grass, then interplant with shrubs, smaller trees and groundcovers. If not, then that's the plan we'll eventually get round to, ourselves...

Getting back to the garden, this is the Marina de Choggia pumpkin plant (I hope I've spelt that correctly) and next is one of the pumpkins...

Here are some of the figs on one of the fig trees out front. I didn't realise there were so many on this young tree. There are heaps more than the last time I looked closely, and tiny ones continue to appear...

The following is our young Black Walnut tree, looking really healthy which is amazing for what is mostly a handwatered garden relying on tank water and a bit pumped up from a spring, and it has a visitor - a cicada.

He must have liked the look of me as he jumped on to my clothes and I wandered inside not having noticed. When I did, I picked up the nearest thing to me, a toilet roll innard destined for recycling, and he stepped aboard. Does anyone know what type of cicada he is?

This next one is of a salvia I've forgotten the name of but have written down in my farm folder. I trimmed off the dead flowers and it has grown back thicker and more lush than ever. We're now planning to take cuttings of this and the Van Houtti salvia (red/burgundy flowers at the left of the first photo up above) as both are evergreen and thick little shrubs, and use as protective plants for frost sensitive plants and bee-and-bird attractors, of course. Check out the size of these leaves! The flowers are a deep pink colour and are very pretty, arching out majestically from the grouping of large leaves...

We had a Christmas dinner of sorts last night, turkey and all the trimmings, as youngest son left today to return to Sydney and then to travel interstate with his Dad, and shall be away until after Christmas. It was proving toooo difficult to get all the five boys and their families together, and Beck was in northern NSW recovering from her knee op anyway (she decided to go with a Gold Coast surgeon instead of a Newcastle one and is at her Mum's, recovering) so we went with what and who we had, on a beautifully set Christmas table and amongst all the piles of pantry gear and moved furniture due to the mice not all being caught as yet! I think the tally is seven or maybe eight mice now. The rats in the roof are proving a little more difficult to catch.

This is the first year my three sons have been separated at Christmas time. Whilst some may think it's time to get over it and move on, it's the way in which is has been done which quite does me in as it's just not fair. Dad has taken youngest son interstate and overseas several times on some wonderful trips. His two other sons haven't had a look in. Seems if you go live with Dad you get rewarded; if you choose not to, you are punished. I don't normally publically discuss issues such as this - heck, I don't even talk about them privately - however it's no wonder rifts in families occur when situations such as these arise. It's just as well all the boys get on so well with each other and are great mates and that the older two have come to some sort of acceptance of the situation otherwise it would be very awkward indeed. They are all good and decent young people and I find it sad that their own father cannot seem to see it. 'Nuff said; end of story.

As Copenhagen winds up today it seems that either no agreement is going to be reached or a less than acceptable one will be put in place. I don't know. As I type, the world leaders are locked in and are going overtime to hopefully come to some sort of resolution. Many around the world are losing or have lost hope that this event will bring about good for the future of the world we live on. Mind you, it seems that this type of event is a world first, so of course there would be problems to be ironed out. I am a bit sad and frustrated and possibly a bit disgusted that the people we've elected to make decisions on our behalf are rummaging round the floor, fighting with each other and trying to buy off smaller nations to obtain agreements - good grief! I shall await the news, like others, and hope that common sense prevails and a workable balance has been achieved. All I know is we cannot continue going on the way we are.

We humans are such a silly lot. No further comment on that today!

Over on the PRI forum I saw mention of the a book called Firefighting for Non Firefighting Women, by Jenny Filmer of the ACT. It sounds terrific and as we have now reached Summer and it's already a "hot one", I have ordered a copy. Have a look at the ABC article for a sample of the tips she has included.

Jenny spent 40 years as a volunteer firefighter and this book is based on the course she ran for the NSW Rural Fire Service. Seems to be $25 well spent, in my opinion, and you can order your own copies from Clearbooks. Click on Order.

Last of all, before I go back to preparations for the day and make something tasty for the Christmas Street Party this afternoon, here is a photograph of the Children's Rose, with yesterday's raindrops still in place. The early morning light is a bit harsh however you'll get the idea. It's simply a beautiful rose and a very clear pink. It's been quite a busy morning with neighbours from up and down the street popping in. One has come to help fix the brakes on the big truck, another to drop in something of ours, another to buy eggs, and another has dropped in a Santa suit for someone to don this afternoon and arrive at the party on the back of a sleigh-ute!

Oh, and here's another pink one - Pierre de Ronsard, climbing up in front of the verandah... Gorgeous.

Bye for now. Hope you have a great day, wherever you live!

A Christmas plug...

2009-12-17T08:39:00.010+11:00

...for some people I know.

I haven't really considered putting ads on this blog however I will take this opportunity to advertise the businesses of two people I know whom I have dealt with and whose products are beautiful, with great service to boot. Geared to children with a Steiner theme.

Note to family who may see this: contact me first as I have ordered some goodies for some of the children and we wouldn't want to double up, would we, lol?!?

First up is Belinda's Spiral Garden in Queensland. Great, evolving, range of toys, books, play wraps, gorgeous crayons and stocking fillers.

Second is Jodie of the Central Coast and her wonderful range of home made felt animals and more at The Fairy Ring.

Merry Christmas (although I imagine I'll be back here before then).
xx

PS - already 39 degrees here - hooley dooley!