Thank you for your wonderful comments and contributions during the week. It's those comments that bind us all together. I hope you have a weekend to remember and that you spend time with someone you love.

Grow your own: making Australian cities more food-secure.

This is Alicia, writing at her best, on Posie Gets Cozy.

I love this little winter table at This Whole Family.

OUR MOB - from comments during the week

Julie and her lovely blog Beauty in the Everyday and if you've ever wondered about Amanda Soule's Taproot magazine, Julie writes about it and shows some of the pages. 

Little Green Village is interesting and topical with many great photos. If you look down the page you'll see what a lucky man Mr Techno is. A baked dinner for work lunch! Wow.

The Thrifty Garden/Home is Mrs Mac's blog. It's full of interesting, common sense posts and wonderful photos.

In my real life the other day someone asked if I ever got bored writing my blog. She said it had been going for so long, "haven't you said all you wanted to say by now?"  Erm, no, I'm not bored with it. It feels like a friend that I sit down and share my life with. How can one be bored with that. Besides, I'm not one for boredom, I'm not sure it exists in my world. If it does, I haven't noticed it yet.

Sharing ordinary life with like minded people makes me happy. All of us together, all over the world, make hundreds of loaves of bread every week, we make beds, we wipe noses, change nappies/diapers, sweep, make cheese, soap and candles and we grow food, tend gardens and chickens, as well as other livestock. We're not meeting for coffee in the mall, we're not able to pass some eggs over the fence. The best we can do with our geographical isolation and separation from each other is to blog and write about what we do. From here we send the signal out - this is what I'm doing today. Are you okay out there? What are you doing?

Blogs aren't about one person. Blogs connect us.

I am interested in what other people who work in their homes do. I want to know how you spend your day, I want to know your routines, I want to look at photos of your home, family and meals. I want to share your celebrations and challenges. Seeing how you work, understanding how you made your home productive and comfortable, motivates me and makes me want to work alongside - even though we're far apart.

It reminds me of an Amish barn raising. Alone, it's too difficult, but together, when one friend joins in and another comes along, then another, we all move forward, some faster than the others, some doing it differently, some remaining traditional, some learning, some teaching, but together we raise that barn. We all know that not every day is a good one. When crops fail, when people and pets die, when it rains for days and doesn't let up, when the cat vomits on the kitchen floor, when we feel tired and today it's just too much, those are the days when sharing the load with others keeps us going.


On those days I look for the blog with the perfect loaf of bread, or a baby taking her first step, or chicks hatching or any blog where I see the good life is being lived. If it's still out there, I know it will be back at my place soon and everything will be right again. So no, I haven't said all I want to say yet and I'm not bored.

Okay everyone, let's get the barn up again today.

Bread is one of those foods that, when made with your own hands, gives a great deal of satisfaction and delight. It's only flour and water but it symbolises so much. I bake bread most days and use a variety of flours that I buy in bulk. Often I make a sandwich loaf because we use most of our bread for lunchtime sandwiches and for toast. Every so often I branch out to make a different type of loaf. I have tried sour dough in the past but I've not been happy with any of them. I'll continue to experiment with sour dough because I like the idea of using wild yeasts and saving the starter over a number of years to develop the flavour and become a part of the family.

However, the loaf I've been branching out to most often is just a plain old five minute bread. By five minutes I mean it takes about five minutes actual work to prepare but it's the easiest of all bread to make and to get consistently good loaves from. If you're having people around for lunch or dinner, this is the bread you'd bake, not the plain old sandwich loaf.

I'm sure there are many ways to make this bread, this is how I do it. It is the old New York Times recipe.

Late in the afternoon before the day you want the bread, take a large bowl and measure in three cups of flour - I'm using organic unbleached white and a German rye with grains at the moment. Either of them will do, or any flour you have on hand, including plain/all purpose flour. Add ¼ teaspoon of dry yeast and a teaspoon of salt, or less if you're on a salt restriction. Mix the dry ingredients together. Add 1½ cups water and mix the ingredients together with your hands until all the flour and water have mixed together completely. This mixing (not kneading) will take less than a minute. If you have to add slightly more water or flour to get a moist dough, do so. The amount of flour and water you use will depend on the type of flour you use, and your climate. Flour is effected by humidity and you use less water in humid weather. 

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave it on the kitchen bench overnight. During the night it will puff up and expand, but not as much as your regular bread dough does.

The next day, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it. You want it to look smooth and to all come together, but this will only take a minute, no longer. Form the dough into a tight ball, with a smooth top and a folded bottom and place this ball on a clean tea towel - just to help you carry it over to the oven.

About 15 minutes before you're ready to put the dough in the oven, place a cast iron dutch oven, with lid, in the hot oven and let it heat up to about 260C/500F - or as high as your oven will go. When it's really hot, slide the oven shelf out slightly to give yourself a bit of room, bring the dough over to the oven and plop it into the dutch oven, smooth side up and snip the top of the loaf with a pair of scissors. This helps the loaf rise and will give you that rustic look you want in a loaf like this. Put the lid on the dutch oven, close the door of your oven and let it bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, turn down the heat to 200C/390F, remove the lid and let cook for another 15 - 30 minutes (depending on your oven).

Same recipe using rye and grain flour.

The type of container you bake in is important. It must have a lid to give the loaf a steamy environment in which to cook. The container needs to get really hot because it's the very high heat when you start that gives the bread a great oven lift so it bakes as a tight ball and doesn't spread out over the bottom of the pan. I don't grease my dutch oven but I do put in a small disc of baking paper on the base that I don't change every time I bake. You can also use a pyrex bowl with lid or an oven-proof stainless steel pan with lid but I don't think they work quite as well as the cast iron. They will give you a good loaf though.

For a larger loaf, use 5 cups of flour, 2½ cups water, 1½ teaspoons salt and ½ teaspoon dried yeast.

Using this method you'll great a great loaf for very little effort and even though it's not a real sour dough, it looks like one and it has a good taste. The crust is crunchy and chewy but it goes softer as the loaf cools. It has a good flavour but it's not as developed or complex as a good sour dough loaf. Still, for an everyday loaf that doesn't take much effort, this one is a beauty. I hope you try it.

Over the years I've been asked many times what is the key to a simple life. I've thought long and hard about it and I reckon there are three main keys and a thousand smaller ones. Of the three main keys, the first one is to think about your life and what you want get out of it - your life is unique and it doesn't have to be like anyone else's. If you define your own path, and have realistic and satisfying goals, you're less likely to  listen to people telling you you HAVE to have certain things. You'll be less likely to be swayed by advertising. If you really KNOW yourself and where you're heading, you're more likely to stay focused. 

The second key is the ability to be content with what you have. Many people don't have that ability and never will. Sad but true. I think there is a way to develop contentment - you consciously think of what you're grateful for. All of us - the folk who have computers, cars and homes to live in are extremely lucky. Most of the people in the world do not have what we have. Don't take anything for granted. Work hard to get what you want out of life and be thankful for it when you have it. Share. Develop a kind and generous attitude. Don't buy things to show off, buy with purpose and function in mind. Buy good quality and instead of frequent upgrading, keep everything going for as long as you can. And at the end of the day, be grateful that you're in a warm and comfortable home with those you love around you. Hopefully, that will bring contentment to you.

The third is to pay off all your debt. If you do that, the rest of it is relatively easy, with a bit of on going hard work of course. The thousand smaller keys are different for all of us, depending on age, income level, ability, ambition and goals.

Mindful living, being content, paying off debt.

When you don't have to pay either a mortgage or high rent you free yourself up enormously - you can choose how many hours you want to work, or if you want to work at all. But how do you get to that position as quickly as possible? You need to have a plan and a budget and if you're married or partnered you need to both work together towards your agreed goals. The real trick here is to keep enjoying life while you're paying off debt because most large debts, such as a mortgage, will take years to pay back. If I were paying off a mortgage right now, I'd want my mortgage to be 25 percent of my disposable income, not 33 percent that many people go for now. I think 25 percent gives you a good pay back plan while not applying too much pressure. I'd pay that mortgage fortnightly instead of monthly. Also, I would work hard to save a little on the side to pay extra payments when I had the spare money. These extra payments make a big difference. When you set up your mortgage payments, make sure you have the option to make extra payments.

Go to the Down to Earth forum to get a lot of ideas about how to save money consistently. You can also ask questions there about saving money and a lot of other simple life topics. You have to make a plan to pay off your debt. If you think about it, just about every product at the supermarket has several brands that range in price from low to high. Consciously choose the lowest price, regardless of brand, that fits your values.  I won't buy any food that comes from China and very little food from Asia in general. I try to buy Australian and I try to buy as close to where I live as possible. That means I shop at farmers markets if I have to buy fruit and vegetables, I buy meat from a local butcher - I do not buy those things from the supermarket. I am rethinking my stance on generics at the moment. I used to buy them but now that most are from China, I buy Australian brands. I never buy the very cheap milk from the supermarket because I believe the way they're marketing milk is going to break the dairy industry. But apart from all that, everything else I buy, is from Aldi or IGA, mostly Australian, and it's the cheapest I can find. If you can stockpile your groceries, it will probably make even more savings, in time and money. So think about your likes and dislikes, your food values and devise a shopping strategy that gives you what you want at the lowest price. Grocery shopping isn't as straight forward as it once was. It's a  jungle out there.

Get involved in your life. Really involved. Stop working on automatic pilot, stop multi-tasking, focus on your work and do it to the best of your abilities - either in your paid job or at home, or both. Both are equally important and you want to give your best to both. Know how much money you're spending, and on what; know what's in the food you're eating - either by growing it yourself or finding a market selling produce you know a bit about; know your family - if they're young or old, never lose touch with them, stay involved in their lives and keep loving them.

There comes a time when there is a sort of automatic switch from being interested in simple life, and carrying out a few simple projects, to feeling like you're actually living the life. I think that switch generally happens when you're really focused on what you're doing - in both your debt reduction and your daily activities. We all do it differently, we all select different combinations of the thousand keys,  but when that swtich happens it's easier to stay on track and you don't have to push yourself to keep at it. It becomes natural and it's just how things are. Simple.

This post was written over the space of a few days ...
Hanno went out this morning and I took the time to work and sit in the garden. It was cold and windy, overhead a black cockatoo screeched for its mate. As the pine trees moved with the wind, acorns dropped into our yard. Luckily, the fence and rain forest protect our vegetable garden and yard from the worst of the winds but when you look up, the trees and birds show how strong the wind gusts are here mid-winter.

Hettie was sitting on the bench and every so often I took a break from my work and sat next to her. She didn't make a sound, or move, but she knew I was there. At 15, she sleeps all day in the sun on that little bench. My main work that day was to water the vegetables and when the soil was moist, to apply homemade comfrey tea to all the green leafy plants. Comfrey tea is packed full of nitrogen and minerals and it's a very useful fertiliser that is easily made in a bucket in the backyard. Easy, economical and nourishing, that's a great trio of benefits. I was going to prune the orange tree too but I looked at it and wanted to see the fruit on the tree for a while longer. It looks so pretty and it's a once a year event, so I'll take it slow with them.

There is something to be said for this kind of gentle work. The type of work that can be done anytime, not to any particular timetable or for any special need. A cup of tea taken outside to sip with legs stretched out, is enjoyed while I look around at the chickens and vegetables and up at the tall trees again to see what the wind is blowing around. Often it's just the acorns, but then a bird will squark and there will be a flurry of feathers or leaves, then it settles down again.

And now it's a few days later and I've done some light pruning and harvested more oranges. There will be fresh orange juice on the dinner table tonight. When the main pruning is complete, I'll have to treat the tree with some eco-oil because there is a lot of sooty mould on the leaves and if I leave it, it will weaken the tree.

All sorts of plans are made out there in our backyard. Plans to prune, move, fertilise, sow, enlarge, cut back and grow. But this is also where we have many of our family celebrations - this is a special place. There is a lot happening here now, we are growing vegetables, fruit and eggs; there will be a lot happening in the years to come. We have two little boys who, I hope, will spend a lot of time visiting us here running, exploring and learning. We have to keep it safe and healthy for them as well as ourselves. We want them to love it here as much as we do. There are plans for a sand pit soon, something that will encourage creative play for Jamie and Alex while they're toddlers. When they're a little older, we'll show them how to sow seeds, plant seedlings, collect eggs, identify vegetables and to see the beauty out there. You don't have to go too far to find beauty if you have a garden. It's right there, in front of your eyes, all you have to do is slow down enough to recognise that even the ordinary and mundane things in life have a reason and often a certain kind of beauty. When you "get" that, the appreciation of it transforms you.

I look around here and know that we are safe and protected. That we can make use of the soil to grow food, that we can harvest water from the roof top and store it, that we can hang our laundry out to dry in the clear sunlight, and that whatever effort we put in here supports our lifestyle and makes us the people we are. This backyard supports our decision to live as we do and I can't think of anywhere I would rather be on a cold and windy winter's day. Where else would I feel so comfortable and at home.

Over the weekend Hanno and I have been talking a lot about our garden. He often watches German TV on the computer and last week he saw a segment about German pensioners on the lowest pension. These people were making ends meet by buying and selling at markets and Hanno said one lady sat in the cold for seven hours to make forty euros. We talked about how lucky and grateful we are to live in a prosperous country with such a good climate. Our land and the climate we live in help us provide for ourselves. Not only do we harvest our own food, this food is organic and fresher than any we could buy anywhere. Yes, we both know that our garden is a great asset and it has enabled us live on our meagre budget, to eat healthy food, and to share a lot of it.

We bought seedlings from the local farmers market yesterday morning and now the bare patches in the garden beds are full again, new potatoes have been planted, more manure dug in, the gardens have been tidied up and the chooks have had a bonanza of food  flung over their fence. Everyone is satisfied.

There is much to be thankful for at the Hetzel house.

In the Year of Reading, the first thing our new premier did was scrap the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards. I don't want to get into the politics of this, let me just say I think it was a sad and ill advised decision.  Luckily though a committee of people working in the arts and literature have banded together to keep the awards going. They need help with fundrising and have created a fundraising page, which is here: www.pozible.com/qla

I am proud to tell you that Penguin has entered my book in the non-fiction category of these awards this year. It won't win; previous non-fiction winners are much more formal and literary books than mine. Nevertheless, I believe these awards are important for all of us. It says we place importance on the written word and ideas that define who we are, and not just on the commercial systems that make us prosperous.

Please donate if you can.

Two friends of mine sent me the link to this NY Times article during the week - The Busy Trap. It's a great read.

I really relate to this - what all successful parents do before breakfast.  I started doing it when I realised I could get a few extra hours into my day when I was studying. Now, well, I still do it.

Backyard farmers by necessity. - You Tube. What a great couple!

This is a lovely blog - Allotment Adventures with Jean. Have a look at the rolling compost maker down the page.

These people are living off the grid. It's interesting seeing how different, yet similar, it is.

FROM HERE ...

This blog, Little Home in the Country, is written by one of the wonderful moderators at the forum. I direct you there not because I'm mentioned in this post but because it's a beautiful lesson in following your heart.

Prairie Harmony is a member of the forum and is such a sweetie. She'll be surprised by her inclusion here but I watch and I learn.

Kev is a new to me reader of my blog. I like his blog - An English Homestead. It's great to see more men getting into this way of living and now we can encourage him along with our comments.

I'm lucky that I'm really healthy and rarely get sick. I like to have a few tonics handy during winter though, just in case. I thought some of you may like to try some of these little pick-me-ups if you come down with a cold or just feel a bit under the weather. I think these drinks work because they're hot, so they warm you up, and they often contain citrus, herbs and honey which can counteract cold-like symptoms with their antiseptic properties. I also believe they work partly because of the careful and slow ritual of making them and because you know you're taking time out to look after yourself. The mind plays its own tricks on us at times.

And for all of my northern hemisphere friends, who may we fanning themselves under elder or pecan trees, here are some of my recipes for cold summer drinks and elder flower cordial.

My favourite pick-me-up drink in winter is plain black tea with lemon and honey. You just brew the tea as you like it and add as much or as little lemon and honey as you like.

The immune activating tea and winter virus drink were sent to me by my good friend Susan.

IMMUNE ACTIVATING TEA

Allow to steep and drink hot to raise the core temperature of the body. Keep warm in a thermos or reheat by adding a small amount of hot water. 

FOR WINTER VIRUS

Take a lemon and slice an indentation all the way around it, so it can expand in the oven. Put it in the oven in a baking dish and bake until the liquid starts to come out. Take it out and let the lemon cool a little. Put the whole thing in a blender and then add the same amount of water to it, so that what you end up with is half lemon, half water. Add honey to taste and take by the teaspoon 3 times a day or more if required.

Warm apple cider with mint leaves and pineapple sage flowers.

APPLE CIDER DRINK

1 cup of non-alcholic cider or good apple juice for every person, zest of one lemon. Put in saucepan and gently warm for five minutes. Serve straight away.

WINTER LEMON TEA - makes 2 cups

LEMON VERBENA TEA

Place lemon verbena leaves in a cup and pour over boiling water. Allow to sit for five minutes, remove the leaves, sweeten with honey, if desired.

LEMON MYRTLE TEA AND CORDIAL

Recipes are from Dale's wonderful Dilly Bag site. Dale is a local Sunshine Coast indigenous chef, a good friend of Bev, who has catered for a couple of Neighbourhood Centre events. She's a great cook. Look for her lemon myrtle recipes down the page. Bev tells me that lemon myrtle has more antiseptic properties than tea tree.

 If you have a good winter drink recipe, please share it with us.

I have no use for celebrity. The word makes me a bit light-headed and I think of vacuous TV and film actors who gain fame more for what they look like rather than any talent they may have. I look for value rather than sparkles. I know there are many "celebrity chefs" sashaying their way around authentic and fake kitchens but I don't like labels, so I ignore most of them and just see the ones I admire. I love Nigella Lawson not only for her recipes but for her indulgent, and very familiar to me, attitude to food. I love Hugh Fernly-Whittingstall because he talks the talk and then, in a very practical and accessible way, walks the walk. Of course, I love Margaret Fulton, and her daughters seem to be very creditable cooks as well, and Maggie Beer, who could not love her. And yes, I know the later women are cooks not chefs, but it's the label thing again; they're irrelevant.

All these cooks have been my favourites for years. Year in, year out, I watch them if they're on TV and I buy their books sometimes. So I surprised myself when I had to make a place in this small group for another cook. I have been reading Nigel Slater's column in The Guardian for many years and then, all of a sudden, he was on TV. I watched, hoping he would be what I wanted him to be, and there he was - calm, precise and intelligent, cooking simple food in a gorgeous kitchen surrounded by a lovely garden. He won my heart.

I don't have the book here now but here is my usual recipe:
INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 kg/2.2lbs lamb neck or shoulder chops 
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 2 sticks celery stalks, sliced
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tablespoon parsley, finely chopped
• ½  cup washed pearl barley - this will add flavour and nutrition as well as thicken the soup
• ½ tablespoon paprika
• 2½  cups water or stock
• salt and pepper
• chopped parsley to add just before serving

METHOD

1. Heat half the oil in an over-proof pot or frying pan. If you're using a frying pan, you'll have to transfer it to a pyrex or oven-proof container, with lid, later.
2. Brown the lamb chops in batches, 2-3 minutes each side. Transfer chops to a plate and continue until all of them have been browned.
3. Remove all the chops to the plate and in same pan on high,  sauté onion, carrot and celery for about 3-4 minutes.
4. Sprinkle on paprika and stir in, if the pan is dry, add a little more oil. 
5. Add the barley and stir in. Cook on lower heat for two minutes. Don't leave this bit out because this is what develops the flavour.
6. Put the chops back in the pot.
7. Pour in water/stock and bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Season to taste.
8. Transfer to an oven-proof dish and place in a hot oven 180C/350F and cook slowly for two hours.
9. Remove bones, bay leaf and add chopped parsley just before serving. Test taste again and add salt or pepper again if needed.

Just a word about the lamb chops. This is a traditional dish of the working class, it is made with cheap cuts of meat like neck chops or shoulder chops. Give them a try, even if you've never eaten these cuts before. You won't be disappointed. There will be fat and gristle on the chops. Cut off the fat but leave the rest because over the long cooking time, the gristle will melt down and produce the most delicious and healthy natural gelatine that is good for you, especially if you have arthritis.  You can cut up the chops if you like, but putting them in whole, on the bone, will provide you with a nice stock while you cook the meal. Bone broth is very nutritious. If they go in whole, the chops will fall off the bone when they're cooked. Before serving, remove the bones. 

Change is constant in our lives. We're always reacting to the good and the bad in our backyard and while the good results in smiles and a feeling of achievement, the bad makes us think about change and modifications, but never giving up. And such is the case now. We've had to have a good look at our backyard because it's not working as well as it could.  The main problem is that since we increased the number of chooks we have, they're impacting more on the backyard and most notably, the grass.

Many of you will remember that I'm a complete fan of grass. Some people aren't, they think it's a waste of resources, but grass can be grown sustainably. We never water or fertilise our lawn, the sky and the chooks do all the necessary work and we leave it to grow and provide a cool and soft area for grandchildren to play on. It helps remove carbon dioxide in the air and releases oxygen, just like trees do. We also use it as one of the main components of our compost. So as well as providing free feed and omega 3 oils for our chooks, which gives us omega 3 enriched eggs, it helps provide valuable organic matter and soil conditioner for the garden in the form of compost. It also helps filter water runoff before it reaches local waterways and on a hot day, it helps cool the air around the house in a way concrete never can. I would never live in a house that didn't have a lawn.

This is the area the chooks are sitting in all day and you can see in the photo that the grass has died off. When it rains, it's very slushy walking through here to go to the chook house. In the background, you can see where Hanno has placed the posts for the chook run extension.

But! Those chickens of ours love sitting close to the back wall of our house, right near the gate that stops them coming closer to the house and onto the back verandah. That area just outside the gate is now stripped of lawn - mainly due to their droppings burning it off, but also because of their scratching and all the rain we've had this year. We need to move the chooks away from that area without cutting off their access to grass.



The last of our Barnevelders was killed by a fox last week. It was such a sad loss. She was a beautiful girl, she'd just started laying and she held so much potential. I emailed Julie, where we get all our chooks now, and she'll have some little Barnevelders, Welsummers and an Araucana ready for us in early Spring.

This is the area we're extending the chook run out to. That first fence will go and the run will extend out to the second row of posts. The fence in the background is the start of our little orchard and the dense growth on the right is the rainforest that lines the creek just a few metres beyond.

So we've decided to enlarge the chook run so it goes right out under the fig and pecan trees, providing shade and sun, as well as the all important grass. But they'll be behind a fence so they won't be able to wander around like they can now. There will be a large square space between the end of the chook run and the orchard, so Hanno's decided to put in an extra vegetable garden there. It's virgin soil there, so it will need a lot of enrichment before it amounts to anything but we'll start on it soon and expect it to be producing decent crops within two or three years. The key to virgin soil, especially in Australia, is to add a lot of compost, all sorts of manures, lime, rock minerals and worm castings. It will also need some cultivating and watering and although that sounds like a lot of work, it's good work and worth the effort we put in. We don't like the no dig method - we are soil people, we like the opportunity for the plants to send down their roots into the soil to mine the minerals and to bring them up into the leaves, vegetables and fruit.


The last piece in this equation is mulch. Lots of mulch on the garden that will break down over the months, to be replaced by new mulch. It all adds to the organic matter in the soil. As soon as the soil is moist and the organic matter is there, earth worms will come to live there and a healthy cycle in the new garden will begin.

This is the interior of our chook house. We're thinking of painting the exterior walls lilac. :- )

I've included some photos of the chooks and our chook house here. I'd love to see where your chickens live. I'll set up a thread at the forum and I invite you all to post photos of your chicken palaces there. Let's collect a lot of photos to show the incredible diversity of chook accommodation all over the world. Click here for the forum thread.

Thanks to everyone who inquired about Hanno's health. He's fine now, his eye has healed well and apart from eye drops every two hours during the day for the next three weeks, it's business as usual. I was really pleased that it rained while he was out of action with his eye. Had it not been so wet, I know I would have had Buckley's chance of keeping him out of the backyard. When the eye healed and the rained stopped, he was raring to go. We'd been discussing changes to the backyard to better contain the chickens and that has evolved into an extra vegetable garden and so now it's full steam ahead. I'll write a post about the changes in the backyard later in the week.

We went to the Landcare Conference at the Brisbane Exhibition Centre on Saturday. What a day! There were a lot of very interesting speakers and I met up with a few friends I hadn't seen for a while. Along with us, we had our good friend Beverly Hand, who also gave a very interesting talk on Cultural awareness for engaging Indigenous people. I sat in on Beverly's talk, and she on mine, and I was treated not only to her courageously spirited talk but also to some photos of her family. I also sat in on a talk by Dr Graeme Sait who spoke about healthy soil, the narrow focus of NPK fertilising, soil minerals, microbes and compost. I feel the reason I went to that conference was to meet Graeme. We spoke briefly after my talk which he listened to, and he told me how interested he was in what I was talking about. I was really impressed by this man's knowledge and understanding - even in the short time I was there listening to him. He reminded me of the links between soil health and human health and convinced me I needed to know more about him and his topic. Yesterday I downloaded a copy of his book when I signed up for his newsletter and I've started reading it. It's very interesting and has reminded me that we've got some Biodynamic preparation 500 here and this week, we'll be applying it. When we finish that, I want to try some of Graeme's Life Force fertilisers. If you have time to check out his site, read the article about Blueberries.  What a treasure. He and his wife live here on the Sunshine Coast so I hope I have the good fortune to meet with him again.

Today I'm returning to the Maleny Neighbourhood Centre as volunteer coordinator, with help from Beverly who will come in on Fridays. Ali, who has been our paid coordinator since I left to write my book, left last week. She'll be doing her Masters at the local university and I wish her well. It will take up more of my time that I expected to give right now but the Centre is close to my heart and I can't walk away until it's on firm ground again.

And here at home, I'm still working away quietly with Hanno on those things that keep us fed, clothed and happy. The garden is starting to produce quite nicely, the chooks are laying well, I'm still knitting up a storm for various babies we'll meet for the first time later in the year, and I've just made a new batch of soap and laundry liquid that will keep us going for a few months. Tomorrow, we'll happily welcome home Sunny and Jamie after a six week holiday in Korea. I've missed them so much. They're coming up to see us as soon as they get off the plane. Yay!

Ernie and I are still working on our Blogging Workshop materials and have one booking so far for those in Brisbane. If you're a new blogger and are hoping to attend a workshop, please tell me where you are so we can look into venues in that area. I think the workshops will start next month.

So with all the changes life continues to throw our way, it's still business as usual. I hope you enjoyed your weekend and have an interesting week planned. After my short break, I'm really pleased to be back here with you.

I want to share a link with you today. I've been developing the Maleny Community Newsletter for the Neighbourhood Centre which will cover general club and group news in Maleny. Instead of using clipart for the masthead, I wanted to give a more human touch that showed where we were from and what we're about. There was a slight problem though, I had no money. 

A friend told me about a friend of his and I phoned Peter Hollard.

Peter is a local artist and teacher. I expected to have to convince him what a great idea this is but as soon as I mentioned the Neighbourhood Centre, he said "yes"! He's such a talented and generous man, I thought you'd like to see his blog. When the first edition of the Newsletter is out, I'll show it here, in the meantime, here is Peter's blog.  Please note, there are Life Drawings on the blog.