down to earth

The kitchen is slowly coming to life again and I'm really enjoying working there. I'm still getting used to baking in an electric oven, I burnt my first loaf of bread in the new oven = : O , but it's just a matter of slowly working with the new and getting used to the settings.

I took advantage of the upheaval to scrutinise how I work in my kitchen and thought carefully about changes. For the past few years, every six months or so, I look at how I do my chores and how we use our indoor and outdoor spaces, and then, if they need it, modify them to improve what I do or how we use particular areas. By doing these mini audits I've slowly improved how I work and made changes that make working easier. It's a good habit to get into because I weed out what doesn't work and replace it with something more functional.

But I never did that in the kitchen because it always felt like too much of a task. I knew there were areas that needed changing and I could improve the flow of my work, but I didn't want to change it. I knew that doing one cupboard would lead to another and I'd have the entire kitchen upside-down. So I just ignored it.

Until now.

And now I wish I'd done it years ago because the changes are so good. I swapped the plates with the saucepans, so now the plates that we use all the time are in a slide out drawer and the pots that are used maybe once a day are in a lower cupboard. We also had the cat food tins in with the good glasses. Why! They've been moved to the stockpile cupboard and now when I need something in that cupboard I won't we moving a carton of cat food. Some things are so familiar they are only obvious in retrospect.

I modified the shelves in the pantry to make things more accessible and slightly tweaked other areas. I've tried to place things close to where they will be used. I don't care if they might look out of place because I want the kitchen to be easy to work in and I believe a functional kitchen is beautiful. So as you can see in the photo below, the dishcloths are in an old metal container on the window sill close to the sink.

The dishcloth on the top here was sent to me with some Christmas decorations and herbs by my good and kind friend, Niki. Thank you Niki. They will be lovely reminders of you to use in the coming year.

We still tweaking the windows. I haven't yet sewn the top valance for the curtains but the lower curtains are hanging. Hanno attached them too low at first, now they're too high but I'll live with them happily until he feels like lowering them again. LOL

And most of the things on the window sill won't stay there but haven't quite made it into a cupboard yet. We'll get there eventually.

I'm happy with what we and the workmen have done. I'm very happy with the quality of their workmanship and in some areas they've significantly improved what was there. We hope these improvements and modifications will serve us well in the coming years as we don't want to change it again anytime in the foreseeable future.

Hmmmm, I must get that kettle down from the top of the cupboards, it, like the cat food, has been sitting there for donkey's years (and I'm not really sure why). : )

Every gardener needs an assistant, and I have Alice. She follows us around the garden and loves to eat fresh tomatoes and carrots, just picked. In the photo above, she was told to "sit", but she kept a sharp eye on me while I took photos. LOL She is behind the potatoes and in front of the tomatoes.

The garden is suffering from the neglect of the past two weeks. There are no major problems there but the general day to day business of removing dead leaves, collecting vegetables every afternoon and tidying up has made way for a busy week at my voluntary job and the kitchen renovations. Today we will put in the work to bring the garden back to being the productive patch we need and want it to be.

These purple heirloom eggplant well illustrate the lack of time spent out there over the past week. They're too big, turning green and would be terrible in a vegetable lasagna. The taste would still be there but they'd be rubbery and tough. I'll be using these for eggplant relish that I hope to make this afternoon. In a relish, all mashed up and combined with spices and onions, like most vegetables, they'll make a great relish and can be stored in the cupboard for eating later in the year. Waste not, want not.

They'll be followed by these little sweet eggplant that will be perfect for eating next week.

New eggplant are forming every day.

There is a wall of tomatoes out there too. I forget what type these are but they're one of the large heirlooms, possible beefsteak or mortgage lifter. The flowers are forming and soon I'll be able to tell with more certainty. One of my jobs today will be to tie these back as they're falling over themselves and are starting to grow along the ground. That's not good here as we do have problems with wilt.

We are also growing tomatoes in the aquaponics garden - there we have an heirloom dwarf red fig tomato and a couple of other smaller types. I intend preserving at least a dozen jars of tomato relish this year, recipe here. We enjoy that with salad, as a pizza base and on cheese sandwiches. I also hope to make up 10 or so jars of tomato sauce. The sauce I did last year matured to perfection and was a real treat on plain fresh pasta with a green salad.

I love the following photo. This is a Lebanese cucumber that has fallen from its trellis and is dribbling along the ground. You can see that at every leaf junction there is a sweet juicy cucumber forming. That's great news in itself, but I have at least 30 cucumbers in the fridge, so when I make the eggplant relish I'll also use most of those cucumbers for bread and butter cucumbers. It's one of my regulars and you'll find a post about them, and the recipe, here.

This is a better photo of the cucumber vines. They're mixed in happily with celery, eggplant and tomatoes.

These yellow zucchinis are growing well now. These are the first fruit. We'll eat these as zucchini flower fritters, zucchini omelettes and souffles.

You can never have enough lemons. Thankfully the tree is full again and will produce well for the next nine months. I'll use the lemons for drinks, desserts and in general cooking - I often add a dash of lemon juice.

The green beans are almost finished and we've been enjoying their bounty in bean salad for the past few weeks. I've also blanched and frozen a few kilos in small batches. The photo below shows them tangled in with the choko vine - the little yellow flowers are choko flowers, which is producing its first fruit this season, and the pigeon peas which are flowering well after being cut back after harvest two months ago.

So now I'll have breakfast and get out in the garden before it gets too hot.

Thanks to everyone who comes here to read. I love getting your feedback in comments and emails. There has been a big jump in readers this week, so hello and welcome to all the new folk. I hope you enjoy your time here.

LATE ADDITION:

I've been asked for the eggplant relish recipe, so here it is:

2 large eggplant cut into 1 inch pieces
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup olive oil
2 cloves crushed garlic
2 onions, coarsely chopped
2 red capsicum (pepper), chopped coarsley
2 cups chopped celery
2 cups chopped and skinned tomatoes
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons malt vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Cut the eggplant into cubes, sprinkle about a teaspoon of salt over it and let it stand at least 30 minutes. After that time, rinse well under cold water to wash off the salt and allow to dry. This removes any bitterness from the older eggplants. Heat ¼ cup oil in a deep heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add dry eggplant and cook until tender and golden. Remove and set aside. Add the garlic and onions and cook until softened. Add celery, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant and cook uncovered for about 15 minutes. Combine vinegar with sugar and add to vegetable mixture. Simmer uncovered for about 15 - 20 minutes or until mixture is thick and the flavors are well developed - add salt and pepper.

This will keep in the fridge, with no further processing, for about six weeks. To keep it longer, add the hot relish to warm clean jars, seal and place in a water bath. Bring to the boil and keep on 90 - 95C (194F) - 95C (203F) for 45 minutes. Remove jars from bath and allow to cool overnight before wiping and placing in the stockpile cupboard.

When the seasons change from cool to warm, I take the doonas (quilts/duvets) from our beds and take time out to organise our linen cupboard. I believe it's an important part of my homemaker's responsibilities to properly care for everything that is used in our home. Our hard earned money has been used to buy or make the sheets, doonas, towels, napkins and tablecloths we use and I want them to last as long as possible and to look fresh and lovely when we use them. So when the seasons call me to take the doonas from the beds, and when they are returned to the beds again, I organise the linen cupboard.

If possible, try to have a separate linen cupboard where you keep sheets, pillowslips, towels, face washers, tablecloths, napkins and any other household linens you may have. The shelves or drawers should be painted or lined as untreated wood may stain whatever is on it.

The shelves at eye height and within easy reach should be used to store your most frequently used linens. Experiment with the folding of each item so that you use your shelves efficiently. How to fold a fitted sheet. Always put the folded side to the front so that the closet will look neat each time you use it.

Sheets and towels
I keep sheets of the same size and shape together, but you could also sort your sheets into sets and keep them together. Try to keep three or four sets of sheets, wash them weekly or fortnightly after use, fold them to your requirements and store at the bottom of the sheet stack in the cupboard. Always take your clean sheets from the top of the stack. Rotating your three or four sheet sets like this will keep them looking new and fresh for years.

Sort your towels into colours and sizes and stack them on the shelf with the folded side to the front. Take new towels from the top and put clean towels back into the stack at the bottom. Rotate them as you do with your sheets.

I have a strange habit of rolling my fitted sheets but it's much easier to lay them flat.

Wash your towels every week and hang them in the sun to dry. Before you hang them on the line, shake them to loosen the pile. Shake them again when you take them off the line and just before you fold them. This fluffs up the pile and softens the terry cloth.

I wash all our laundry, including towels and sheets, with homemade laundry powder and add a little white vinegar in the final rinse. This softens them and helps remove all traces of laundry powder. The towels will come out smelling slightly of vinegar but when they are dry the smell is completely gone.

Doonas, duvets, quilts and blankets
Depending on where you live you’ll either be using your doonas and blankets or you’ll have them stored in the cupboard. If they are to be put away for a period of time, try to find a fabric or plastic bag to store them in. The rectangle plastic zippered covers that doonas are often sold in are an ideal second use for the packaging that would otherwise be thrown away. If you don’t have one of these bags, you could make a large calico bag.

Make sure your blankets, quilts or doonas are clean before you store them. Storing anything with a spill on it will attract silverfish and cockroaches. Check the care instructions on the blanket or doona and, if possible, wash it gently and dry outside. If the blankets are woollen, make sure you wash them in cool to warm water and dry them in the shade. Adding a splash of eucalyptus oil or washing in wool wash will protect the wool from moths.

Herb Bags

Small calico, cotton or linen bags containing herbs or leaves you like the smell of can be easily made and are very useful in a linen cupboard. Any herb with a strong aroma is suitable. I use bay leaves, lavender, mint, rose petals, rosemary and lemon myrtle leaves. You can either sew small bags containing the herbs or just use an old handkerchief and tie the herbs in with a small piece of ribbon.

Packing the shelves

Towels and sheets, tablecloths and napkins should be at eye level because you use them frequently. Use your top and bottom shelves for items like doonas and blankets that you don’t use often. Take some time to organise your linen cupboard and learn how to fold your linens correctly. It will make the cupboard easier to look after, it will look organised and functional each time you go to it and it will be a pleasure to use.

When you take the time to organise your cupboard, check your linens for wear and tear. There will be times when you'll need to remove a towel or sheet because it will be too damaged to use. If the item is pure cotton or linen, cut it up for cleaning cloths instead of throwing it away. If it's a poly/cotton blend, you may be able to patch it together to make fabric storage bags for your quilts or blankets. Always try to reuse these things in some way instead of throwing them out.

Caring for your linens is a small part of caring for your family and your home. It is a simple and ordinary task that can be an a silent and private expression of love for you family, the respect you have for your role of homemaker and the importance you place on caring for what you own.

There was a time when I would have been extremely bored waking up in the morning and knowing every single thing that would happen to me that day. Now, that is what I hope for. I love knowing every nook and cranny of my home. I love doing the same thing at the same time, I relish the familiarity of it all. I don’t have to think too much about what will crop up, there is no anxiety about not knowing, and the day rolls along with one thing following the other and minute by minute the hours become another day. A day spent at home.

The strangest part of this kind of familiarity is that it feels fresh every single day. I rise, shower, write, eat breakfast, bake bread, work in the garden, sew or knit, care for the animals and do my general chores every day, and each time it feels new and that this day is one of a kind. It never gets boring; it gets better.

One reason I have grown so comfortable with this kind of life is that my home is like my work of art. I hope it will become my masterpiece. I believe that I have done the best work of my life at home. I might not have been paid for it, but it paid off in many ways money never could have. Hanno and I have created a shelter here for ourselves, our family and friends. We have a home that is more than a place to sleep and store our possessions, it nourishes us, in both body and soul.

We have turned our very ordinary brick house on a one acre block into a home that we thrive in. It is our own mini world. We have organic vegetables growing in the backyard. There are fish swimming in aquaponics tanks. Rainwater has been harvested from the roof tops and on that same roof, the sun is heating our water. Fruit is growing to juicy maturity; plump chooks are laying eggs every day and soon they will hatch baby chickens. Thousands of worms devour our organic waste and they in turn sometimes become food for fish and fowl. A creek flows by providing the water for a rainforest that gives us protection from the wind, and within the confines of that rainforest embrace, regeneration and life goes on.

Inside bread is baked, sauces made, jams processed and stored. Gifts are made for friends far away, the house is cleaned, soap is hardening, books are read, ginger beer is brewing and afternoon naps are sometimes taken on the verandah. Dinner is made from backyard produce and what is stored in the stockpile cupboard and pantry. Slowly, and with only the sounds of our home, each day is pieced together.

If you haven’t yet discovered the true beauty and comfort of your own home, there is buried treasure waiting for you. All it will take is for you to decide what it is you want your home to be, and then work towards that. It won’t happen overnight – this is slow process and, like housework, it will never end, but making a real home is another one of those valuable things that will serve you as much in the journey as in the destination.

Melissa at Elements in Time wrote about Finding Home yesterday and it is a similar idea to this. It is well worth a read.

They arrived just as promised - twelve beautiful bantam eggs. Helen sent them from Perth on Friday, they travelled overnight and arrived in Brisbane on Saturday morning. Hanno drove in to pick them up and when he arrived home with the precious cargo, I found they were carefully wrapped in tissues, placed in a carton, wrapped in newspaper - Tuesday's Australian (which Hanno saved to read), and placed inside a plastic tub for the journey. Not one crack. How good is that!

Helen told us to place the eggs under the mama hen (Mary) when it was dark, so they sat in their tub on the kitchen bench all day where the temperature remained a constant 28C (82F). When it was getting dark, Hanno and I took the eggs to the hen house, where the aunties had settled in for the night on the roost and mama hen was sitting on her nest where she has been constantly for the past three weeks. Hanno gently picked her up and I place all the eggs in her nest...

...while the aunties looked on.

And then Mary did what she's been waiting patiently for, she sat on her eggs.

You might be able to see that she fluffed up her feathers. I'm not sure if that was because she was upset that she'd been removed from the nest, or because she was proud of her eggs, but I have to tell you, she looked content as she sat there moving slightly underneath and settling in for the beginning of a 21 day pre-hatching period. December 23 is the day.

Thank you Helen. Hanno and I really appreciate your generosity and the effort and time you put into sending us the eggs.

We had a lovely day yesterday. We were both up early, me because I wanted to catch up on everything not done last week while I was at work, and Hanno because he had a few things to do and then drove the 90 kms into Brisbane. I did two loads of washing and hung them out to dry and then started packing the kitchen equipment back into the newly replaced cupboards. We actually only have two new cupboards, those under the sink, but there is a new benchtop, sink and appliances. I'll tell you more about them when everything is back, the curtains are hanging and I have taken photos.

I worked steadily all morning, taking my usual break at 10am to sit with a cool drink on the front verandah. It was lovely sitting there looking out onto our garden which, with the unusually mild weather we've been having, along with quite a bit of rain, looks beautiful. The agapanthus and star jasmine along the side fence, the sage, roses and daylilies are flowering beautifully and contrast nicely against the vivid green of the wisteria and camellia bushes. We are so fortunate to live in such a beautiful place and I am thankful everyday for it.

Hanno arrived home at lunchtime so I made sandwiches and tea for us both. A few months ago we changed our phone to another company and were given a free phone and a free DVD movie trial to Bigpond movies. We have 20 DVD movies free before they encourage us to sign up to a deal, which we won't do. : ) I couple of weeks ago we watched How to Make and American Quilt and my all-time favourite Australian movie, Hotel Sorrento. For all you Australians out there, if you haven't watched it, it's the best movie I've seen that defines the uniqueness of being Australian, and our relationship to America and the UK. Yesterday we watched The Horse Whisperer. You'll probably notice all these are old movies. It takes us a while to catch up with what's happening in the movie world. LOL

What a wonderful film The Horse Whisperer is! I had no expectations one way of the other about it but both Hanno and I loved it. It's essentially about a young girl and her horse, both badly injured in an accident, who seek the help of a horse whisperer, but it was also about simple living and finding your own personal happiness - either in the countryside or in the city, with those you love. It was beautifully filmed showing the richness of American country life and the vastness of the mountain country in Montana (although I don't know where it was shot). The scene of a happy rancher and his family around the dinner table and another where they socialise with neighbours at a country dance were perfect.

I thoroughly recommend this film if you haven't seen it, but be warned, the scenes at the very start of the film, where the accident happens are terrible and I had to look away. Apart from that I believe the film is suitable for the whole family.

It was around 5.30pm when the movie finished so I picked some salad from the garden, boiled some eggs and made dinner. After we ate, when the sun was going down, we crept into the hen house to give Mary her heart's desire. And after this special day, and 20 more just like it, we'll hopefully be watching the hatching of our little partridge wyandottes.

I would like to give everyone a gentle reminder and, hopefully, a little strength to not go overboard with Christmas spending. I've received a few emails recently from readers who feel they need to indulge their family and friends with Christmas gifts, even though they're on a tight budget and trying to move out of debt.

It's a difficult balance to achieve. On the one hand you're evolving into a new way of living that even if it doesn't involve paying off debt, is frugal and non-consumerist. On the other hand, you want to show your love and friendship to those you give gifts to, you want to celebrate and be part of the season and that involves gift giving.

Christmas is a time for family and friends to get together to honour their religious convictions, celebrate the season of good will and to reconnect with loved ones. There is no tradition that I'm aware of, apart from the con that advertisers try to pull about buying everything you can, that urges us to spend beyond our means. But I am a realist and I know that urge is there. Christmas needs to be part of your year-round strategy of being true to your own values of thrift, conservation and caring for your family and yourself. That doesn't include providing a luxury goods and toys splurge that you'll be paying for well into next year. Even if you can afford such a splurge, your new found values would, I hope, guide you towards a more frugal Christmas.

Give gifts that reflect your new values. Give, and receive, in the true spirit of Christmas, be generous with your love, acceptance, tolerance and kindness and you will be rewarded with the knowledge that you stayed true to yourself. Remember that everything you do is watched by your children, you are teaching them how to be. If you run around like a headless chook (chicken), buying too much with too little, that is what you'll teach them to do when they grow up. But my feeling is that if you are reading this, you want to give up your headless chook days and move more into a feeling of relaxed celebration; the kind that provides the feeling of abundance without dollar signs attached to it. So if you need to reduce your Christmas spending bit by bit, do that, but at least make an effort to make your Christmas not totally about expensive gifts and more about the embrace of your family.

Don't keep up with the Joneses. They're probably in debt up to their ears. Be glad that the sum total of your life adds up to more than shopping. You may well become the new leader in your family; the one who starts the frugal revolution. My feeling is that many people want to stop spending so much at Christmas but they don't know how to stop. Show them. Show them, by example, that a gift hand made with love, or picked with care at the fair trade store, is the best expression of the season that is not about expensive gifts but about love, peace and goodwill to all.

A post on frugal gifts.

I hope you didn't think I'd jumped ship. The house was a shambles when I woke up yesterday, then when I sat down to my computer to write, I couldn't connect to the internet (Hanno had disconnected everything to move the desk), so I decided to post from work and started tidying up. Yes, I had yet another day at work yesterday. I've been there every day this week so far, and will go back again today for our annual general meeting, where I have to deliver my report for the year. I worked alone yesterday and it was very busy, so I didn't get a chance to post and when I got home, after looking at the 72 emails waiting, I couldn't face it. I was too tired, so I ate my dinner and crashed into bed.

That all sounds pretty miserable and I have really good news. Even though we've yet to cook in it, the kitchen is almost back. As you can see from the picture above, it's almost complete but we still have no running water. The gas fitter connected the cook top yesterday, the electricians were here till 6.30pm last night and the plumber will be here this morning. When he goes, it's almost there. There are some broken tiles to replace, the skirting boards aren't down yet and the lower kitchen cupboards are still empty, but my kitchen is almost ready to work in. I am so pleased.

The curtains are finished and when the plumber goes I'll hang them, then we'll start bringing back everything that has been stored all over the house for the past couple of weeks. This is a good day! My sincere thanks to everyone for all the good wishes that have come in. I love these long distant embraces of support and friendship. And to Sharon and Lucy, the aprons arrived! Lucy's on Wednesday and Sharon's yesterday. I'll email you both this morning. Wow, what a lucky woman I am. And I just have to tell everyone that Lucy used EXCACTLY the same red and white check (I'm guessing hers was from Ikea too), that I used for my curtains and for her apron. LOL Great minds. : ) Sharon sent two beautiful aprons that I adore, I'll post pictures soon. Thank you ladies.

The eggs arrive tomorrow and I'll definitely do a post about them, and how they arrived. In the meantime, I'd better get on with organising my kitchen because I intend cooking our dinner there tonight and baking bread tomorrow. These past couple of weeks have been far removed from the simple life I wish to live. Hopefully things will return to my version of normal next week, and while Hanno and I enjoy the benefits of our new floor and kitchen, I will continue posting about our wonderful life together. : )

Last week Ann asked if I had two dogs as usually Rosie is in my photos. Here are Alice (left) and Rosie together last night for Ann, and to remind us all of the pleasure pets can bring to our lives.

It has been my experience all through my life, that while the vast majority of days are lived in a very ordinary way, they are sprinkled with days that test me to my limits and those that are the sweet icing on my cake. It sometimes feels like life goes on its merry way then, just to remind me that this is not to be taken for granted, something upsets the ordinaryness of life with a set of circumstances that test my purpose and strength. I accept these difficult times, like now with the kitchen, just as much as I do the ordinary days because I know as sure as night follows day, that just around the corner a diamond is waiting.

Symmetry.

When I came home from work yesterday, where I was so busy I didn't stop for tea, lunch or bathroom breaks (eek!), I walked into our home to find even more of the floor ripped out, furniture moved from the lounge room, a bookcase in the kitchen and the lounge packed in tightly behind my computer desk. Then fate stepped in with the most wonderful counterweight.

A couple of weeks ago, one of our Rhode Island red chooks went broody for the first time. She's so focused on becoming a mother hen that she has to be physically removed from the nest to eat and drink. And when she is removed, she runs to the bucket to drink, runs to the feeder to eat, then runs back to the nest, settles down again to try to hatch unfertile eggs. We want some more chickens so we decided to look for a rare breed that we could raise with a dual purpose. We get eggs and a rare breed, and many of them are dying out, is given more space in this fragile world of ours.

I asked around and was contacted online by a lovely lady in Perth. She only knows me from my writing but she said she had an excellent line of bantam Partridge Wyandotte chooks (bottom right hand photo) and that she could send me some fertile eggs. These chooks had been given to her by a vet who had raised them over the years to a very good show standard, but he now has a terminal illness. He had given them to her with the hope that his Wyandottes would live on. Of course I was interested but they were on the other side of the country - 3600 kilometres (2250 miles) away. I've been silently hoping for the past week that we would be lucky enough to raise these chicks, but the likelihood of that happening, because of the contraints of distance and cost, seemed very remote.

Until yesterday.

When I walked into the increasing wreck that we are calling home at the moment, among all the emails and messages, this gem was waiting, and verbatim I will quote it: "I have 8 [eggs] already, if the girls play nicely I should be able to get the eggs on a Friday flight, does that suit you or how about Saturday? Instead of sending me the postage over how about we barter? I would love some dish cloths if you can knit or sew them."

This, my friends, is the most beautiful affirmation of why I live as I do. This simple bartering of goods needed for each of our simple lives, the reaching out to our (long distance) neighbours to help fulfill a need and in turn to be helped, this is what I want my life to be. I want these acts of kindness, generosity and support to be well and truly a part of my days. But balance always steps in. The symmetry of life only allows a slender and humble number of these wonderful days so that when they come along I recognise them for their true and genuine worth and don't take the profundity of simplicity for granted.

I will really enjoy knitting dishcoths and sewing an apron for my unseen and distant friend. The days I make them will be diamond days, as will the days the chicks hatch. I'm not sure if Helen reads my blog, but if she does, thank you, Helen.

The eggs arrive on Saturday. : )

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