down to earth

I was feeling relaxed and focused as I went about my work yesterday. I pottered around the house doing this and that, and then worked on Shane's quilt in the afternoon. Hanno went to the dentist in the morning so morning tea was had, just me and the dogs, on the front verandah. It's my favourite place to sit and stare into the trees and think about life, the universe and our place within it.

We are fortunate people, we are happy living here. Just breathing this air fills me up and I know that if we continue living as we are now, working away at lives that are home made and filled with work and the satifaction it brings, our happiness will continue. We don't need the frills and trappings that have become part of modern life. I find the simple things we surround ourselves with and the work we need to do to live this way brings us the kind of contentment we never felt when we visited shopping malls and paid for our happiness. Like most others, we were conned into believing that work was a bad thing, something to be avoided, but since we discovered that work brings its own joy, we have never looked back nor regretted leaving behind lives that took but never gave back.

I look around our home and see a space that is easy to live in. It's beautiful here. The weather is lovely, we grow food all year round, we can keep our chickens, dogs and cat, we enjoy the many birds that visit us. We have a driveway a fair distance from the one lane road that leads to our house, we can close the gate on the outside world and feel content here. It's quiet. We sometimes hear children playing, a train going by at night or the whip birds and sacred kingfishers as they fly by with their strange screams. Otherwise is the gentle clucking of the chooks, Hanno hammering on one of this projects or the sewing machine buzzing away constructing fast stitches for me.

Just at the end of the front verandah a tomato is growing. It's a red cherry pear tomato and it's growing, against all odds, in a crack between the end of the verandah and the driveway of the garage. I have no idea how it came to be there but it has come to symbolise for me the way we live our lives. A seed planted in a hostile environment, going against the pattern of what has been before, and yet it thrives, bears fruit, and shows every day that difficult things are possible. We know that despite what is told to us by the media, and the example set by mainstream Australia, we can live well on $342 a week and we are happier now than we have ever been. When "they" tell you you need to have more to be more, don't believe "them".

How could you not love this life. No, we don't have a big TV or pay for the viewing of it, we don't have the latest fashions to wear, we no longer fly off to far away places for exotic holidays. But what we have is far more stable and significant than those passing fancies. We have built a life here that gives us enough work to fill our days and makes us sleep well at night, we are independent and we have the freedom to choose whatever we want to do each day.

The photo below sums up our day yesterday, and, I suppose, our lives as well. It's a gentle scene in the afternoon sun, showing that tasks need to be finished and the animals fed before we eat and relax inside. Yes, that's Hanno handfeeding Rosetta, our golden Hamburg chicken - naturally, Rosie and Alice sit and stare because food is being moved around and a crumb might fall.

Just to the side of the above scene, bean vines are weaving their slow path around upturned pots. One of the simple pleasure we'll be enjoying soon will be sweet baby beans pulled from the vine and eaten raw in the garden.

And over on the back verandah, fruit ripens naturally, a few bananas at a time, just enough for the two of us.

But the sum total of this life is much more than the individual parts because it adds up to give us independence, freedom, choice, security, joy and the comforting knowledge that we make our lives what they are. Like any good organic system there is a cycle created that shows us that what we put into our lives is returned to us ten fold. There is beauty is such a system, it is created by taking small steps, by using less rather than wanting more and by knowing that, at the moment, the work we do enables us to make whatever we want and need.

I have a secret pleasure at work. It's a pleasure Hanno disapproves of so it makes it all the more special for me. Before you start thinking I've taken leave of my senses, I have to tell you my secret pleasure is a wood heater. It's an old metal fire box in the 1930s house I work in. It's been sitting there like an old worn out battle ship since we moved in March with all manner of things sitting on it, but in the past week I've brought her to life each day with blazing fires that have warmed the house to its core. It's just wonderful how people appreciate and feel comforted by a warm house when it's cold and windy outside.

I would love to have a fireplace at home but Hanno thinks they're dirty and polluting so we have reverse cycle air conditioning, which I think is dirty and polluting. ;- ) Consequently, we don't heat our home and instead start off with many layers of clothes in the morning and shed them during the day. So I am really enjoying the entire process of the fire - building it up each morning, adding more logs, poking it at every opportunity and, of course, just looking at it and feeling the warmth.

It was a busy three days at work this week. We always seem to have more people need us in winter, it's the end of the financial year, we have a lot of new building planning going on and there were about 20 other things thrown in for good measure to keep me engaged and interested. I am lucky to work there surrounded by kind and generous people, and in a position to help so many.

Today I'm at home again. I'll catch up on the washing and do some baking but mostly I'll be sewing. It's birthday season in July and I need to get Shane's quilt finished. I have a lot of emails waiting to be answered so if you've written, I'm not ignoring you, it's just the nature of my days and I hope to reply to you in the next day or two.

We were talking about the cost of lunches yesterday and I was really pleased to read that so many of you are packing lunch boxes. Food is an ongoing cost that everyone has to deal with and with the prices rises so much lately I thought we should continue that theme and see if we can get a few ideas for frugal dinners/suppers. No doubt most of you would have your main meal of the day in the evening, but some would have it around noon. I thought it would be helpful for many of us to concentrate on one main meal and cost that out.

So, my challenge to you is to choose a nutritious hearty meal that you cook for your family, break that meal down into its parts and price it out for us. Post your recipe along with the cost of the ingredients in today's comments. On Monday, I'll use your recipes and food costs to make up my post. It should make a very valuable frugal food guide for us all. Try to make your contribution as short as possible as I think there will be a lot of recipes submitted. I will include a curreny converter in Monday's post so everyone can convert the costs to their own currency. Each post will be added with a link to your blog, if you have one, so make sure you include your blog address.

I would like to welcome all the new readers. If you get a chance, make a comment and say hello. There is a lovely community of readers here and it's nice for all of us to know who is here. There have been well over 100,000 page hits over the past month so I know a lot of you are reading through the archives. If you have a question about an old post, comment in the current post as I never have the time to go back.

I am really surprised at the cost of food now. I went to work with no lunch yesterday and ended up buying a curried vegetable pie at the local bakery. It was $3.75. A sandwich of salad and cheese would have cost $5. Add to that a drink and I would have been out of pocket $7.50! I work at my voluntary job three days a week. If I bought that lunch every day it would cost me $22.50 a week for lunch or a bit over $1000 a year. Taking lunch from home three days a week would cost between $100 and $200 and will save on all that packaging you get with a bought lunch.

We have a fridge at work and I usually have some cheese, butter and fruit or nuts stored there so if I don't have time to make lunch before I go, I have some biscuits cheese and fruit. I always take tea with me but I can also make tea or coffee at work.

Today I'll be taking what I call a backyard sandwich to work. It's homemade bread with egg salad and lettuce. I have some homemade biscuits too so I'll take a couple of them to have with my tea during the morning. I've been taking soup in a Thermos flask over the past couple od weeks and that's lovely and warming on these cold days.

I often talk about small steps and this is one of them. If you're just starting out on the road to a simpler life, the small step of taking your lunch with you when you go to work will save you a lot of money. You do have to be organised to do this every morning, but organising oneself isn't all that diffficult if you know it will save you $1ooo a year. Having a store of things like biscuits, cheese and fruit at work helps too. Just remember to buy them with your normal grocery shopping so you get them at the best price.

Don't limit yourself to sandwiches, there are many great lunches that can be packed in a box. I've included links to some sites that have great ideas. If you're trying to get your husband and children to be satisifed with a homemade lunch, I'm sure some of these ideas will hit the spot.

We are all guilty of falling for the voice in our head that says: "go on, buy lunch just today. It doesn't matter." Well, it might not matter one day but it does matter if you do it more often. And when you think about it, what would you prefer to have at the end of the year, an extra $1000 off your credit card debt or mortgage or the memory of hundreds of store bought sandwiches? The choice is yours.

Lunch box ideas

Vegan lunchbox

Schmooed food

Brown bag lunches

Muffuletta sandwich

I love baskets. I often take a basket with me when I go to my voluntary job, or out with Hanno to do the grocery shopping. When we go out for the day, I pack my basket with fresh sandwiches, fruit, water and tea so we don't have to buy food or a drink while we're out. I also use baskets around the home here. I have a little basket I use to collect eggs and herbs and I have baskets that I use to store fabric and yarn. They're really useful and look wonderful just sitting around waiting to work.

This is the basket I took to work yesterday.

My baskets really earn their keep and often get quite dirty in the garden or when I take one out on a picnic. Unlike a cloth bag that can be thrown in the washing machine and dried on the line, baskets require a little more thought in their care.

My tools for basket cleaning are a stiff brush - like a shoe polishing brush, an old toothbrush, soap, a bowl of warm water and some terry toweling rags or old towels.

I've just noticed this basket is drying out - you can see it in those greying areas. That's easily fixed by rubbing a light application of olive oil over the weave after its next wash.

Remove everything from the basket and take it outside. Take your shoe brush, dip it in the warm water and rub a little bit of soap on the bristles, dip in the water again and start scrubbing the basket. Work all over the basket, if you have smaller places to clean, use the toothbrush. Make sure you don't dislodge any of the weave, it you do, gently return it to its rightful place. You might use a pencil or an old chopstick to do that. If you leave it, it will dry with a hole in the weave and over time that may damage your basket.

When the basket is clean, take your outdoor hose and with a fairly sharp jet nozzle, hose over the weave removing all the dust and soapy water. When you're satisfied all the soap is gone, wipe the basket thoroughly with a terry cloth, then sit it on a cloth to dry in the shade. Depending on the weather, it might take two days to completely dry. Don't use the basket until it is dry as that will stretch the weave.

Cleaning a basket this way doesn't damage the cane or wicker. As the basket slowly dries, it will tighten up the canes and if you've been careful not to move the weave, you'll have a basket as good as new. Baskets last many years if cared for and kept clean.

You can often find old baskets at second hand store or garage sales. If you see one you like, check the weave for damage and look at the base and handle. If it's all in order, even if it's really dusty or dirty, it might be a wise investment. Clean it up using the instructions above and you'll have a friend for life.

It does me good to have time away from screens. I know this and make sure I have a couple of days most weeks when I spend most of my time connecting with my natural world. I 've just had two such days where I stayed away from the computer on purpose and watched a DVD with Hanno but nothing else on TV. Sure, I checked my blog and wandered around others for a little while, but both Saturday and Sunday I was quickly off into the work of the day, turning off the screen as I left. I know that for me too many screens - TV, monitors, any screens, prevent me from living the life I want for myself. I know I record my activities here but I could not do that unless I made sure that most of my time was spent connecting with real people, getting my hands dirty and doing, instead of just writing about, work. I love my computer and the ability to connect with people all around the world, but too much of it sucks the life from me. I wonder if this is common or is it something only I feel.

Sometimes, just some times, I watch a movie that impacts on me enough that I keep thinking about it long after it ends. Such films are watched knowing something special is taking place, there are lines I want to remember, ideas captured, simple music played well, and always an excellent script. Hanno and I watched Stranger than Fiction yesterday. What a wonderful and thoroughly enjoyable film. It a story about an obsessive and bland man who counts everything, lives each day as an exact replica of the day before and is reborn into his own life with the aid of cookies and milk and the love of a good baker. It’s a film about death that is life affirming. The film is postmodern, but not too abstract, and I’m sure many of you lovers of social realism will be caught up and captivated by its significance and sweetness, just as I was.

It reminded me that the plain and ordinary make up the broadstrokes of real life and that everyone, even an inconspicuous tax drone, and for that matter, a 60 year old Australian woman, has their own story to tell.

The rest of yesterday was spent pruning our peach and nectarine trees, clipping back grape vines, harvesting bananas, cooking and teaching myself some new crochet techniques. It was a lovely time. The weather was brisk in the morning and mellow in the afternoon. Night time was chilly but our bed was warm with soft flannel sheets and fluffy quilts. Pure joy.

There were a lot of eggs in the fridge so I had to use some of them. I made another swiss chard pie with several whole eggs and some yolks. That was eaten with a fresh garden salad of cherry tomatoes, Lebanese cucumbers and Darwin lettuce, dressed with raspberry wine vinegar and virgin olive oil. The egg whites made little pavlova cases filled with a dollop of local cream and strawberries, bananas and passionfuit from our backyard. Pavlova is usually a Christmas treat around here so it was nice to be able to tuck into them with a hot cup of tea at my side. I like my pavlova crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. Here is my recipe.

Four egg pavlova - makes five small pavlova cases

4 egg whites at room temperature, it's best if the eggs aren't really fresh
5 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar
2 tablespoons cornflour

Beat the whites until they're starting to stiffen, then add the vinegar and cornflour and one tablespoon of sugar at a time. Beat well before adding the next. Keep beating this until there are stiff peaks.

Place on a baking sheet in small rounds, build the sides up a little by smoothing them with the underside of a spoon. Bake in a coolish oven - 100 C (220 F) until the outside is crisp - about 30 minutes. Then turn off the oven, leave the door open slightly and allow the pavs to cool slowly in the oven. When cool, add a dollop of cream and whatever fruit you have available.

It was a real pleasure to work in my kitchen on a sunny winter's afternoon. The photo at the top of this post shows what it looked like at around 2.30pm. I could see Hanno through the window washing the car on the back lawn and every so often, throwing a ball for Alice to chase.

There are many moments in my life now when I just stop and take it all in, and being there in my kitchen yesterday, making dinner for the two of us, was one such moment. It was just a one thing at a time slow and ordinary day that made me stop and take a picture so I will remember the day I watched Stranger than Fiction, worked in the backyard and made another dinner with what is grown there.

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