down to earth

If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavours to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Henry David Thoreau

I sent that quote to one of my sisters the other day when she was struggling with an important decision. It really speaks to me and reminds me that while our lifestyle may not be everyone's cup of tea, it suits us, it enriches us and we must remain confident in our decision to live as we do.

Confidence: freedom from doubt; belief in yourself and your abilities.

We humans are strange beings sometimes. We like uniformity, we distrust those who run outside the pack. We like to have our own decisions validated by the mass appeal of them, and when that doesn't happen, when someone runs against the grain, we are suspicious and sometimes resentful. I'm sure many readers here have friends or family members who question your way of life, who want you to come to your senses and go shopping for all sorts of flim flam or who resent and question your decision to stay home with the children and "for go" one wage.

Staying home to raise healthy children is not an easy option. Living frugally to embrace a greener way of life is difficult. Making your home a place of regeneration and cosy safety will put you at odds with most of your contemporaries. So why do we do it? Is it because there is joy to be found in ordinary every day life? Is it because we know that unless we change the way we constantly trash our environment we are in big trouble? Is it that we're just fed up with what modern life has become - we find a feeling of belonging and contentment in a more simple way?

No matter what your reason is in striving to live as you do, be confident in how you live and what you're trying to achieve. Keep moving towards your own independence, keep learning how to do all the things you want to do; reskilling yourself will help you live true to your values. Above all else know that if you are happily settled in your version of a simple life, or if you're just starting your journey, you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours, and you will find contentment and happiness along that track.

Now, the fridges. I hope I've clearly demonstrated that I DO KNOW what you're all doing. ; - ) Anita, Tracy, Quinne, Char - I know. LOL I'm really impressed that a lot of you clean out your fridges regularly - Elizabeth, I want you to go have a cup of tea while we work today. The rest of the ladies and I will be cleaning out our fridges. I'll be back later to post a photo of my fridge. If anyone wants me to add their own clean fridge photo just email it to me and I'll include it later today. Happy cleaning ladies!

How long is it since you cleaned out your fridge? I haven't done mine since just before Christmas! There are a couple of jars in there holding sugary jam and last night I found a jar with one slice of bread and butter cucumbers. Isn't that crazy! One slice. Why would one slice be left? Hanno must have done that. ; - )

I try to clean out my fridge before I do a big stock-up but for some reason I've left it three months without cleaning it. I usually don't put jobs off, there's no point. All the work I do here in my home is for Hanno and I, no one else lives here, so putting off a job like this is shortchanging us. Tomorrow it will be the first job I do. I'd much rather have a clean and organised fridge rather than a dirty one. In the interests of safety and frugality, we have to be careful with our food.

Cleaning a fridge is a simple and straightforward job. The main thing to remember is to do the job thoroughly but quickly. You don't want to have the fridge door open too long or the food to warm up too much while it's out on the bench. I remove everything from the fridge, including the shelves and fruit bins at the bottom. I wipe out the fridge using a clean moist cloth and bicarb. When I've wiped every surface thoroughly, I get a clean cloth, dip it in warm water and wipe off the residue.

I check the seals, clean them with a toothbrush dipped in homemade all purpose cleaner, then wipe with a clean moist cloth. I remove everything from the outside fridge door - yes, even the Kath and Kim cut out dolls - and wipe the outside of the fridge, again with a moist cloth and bicarb. I wipe the residue off, then dry the surfaces with another clean cloth.

Finally, I replace the clean shelves and fruit bins, that I wash in the sink, and close the door for the fridge to cool down again. Then go through the food that was in the fridge. Sometimes old food is given to the chooks or worms instead of being returned to the fridge, sometimes we have a meal that night using leftovers. I always try to limit the amount of food that's not eaten by us or the critters and I'm happy to report that over the years I've cut down our food wastage a lot.

I wonder who else needs to clean out their fridge. Let's make it a date to do it tomorrow. How many of us will clean out our fridges? Are you game? I'm going to post a photo too, if you want to show your clean fridge to the world, send me your photo and I'll post it later in the week when I post my photo. Cleaning a fridge is a tedious but necessary job, we might as well have some fun with it.

Graphic from allposters.com

We closed the gates on Thursday afternoon when we returned from our day out and they have remained closed since then. We've been shut off from the world, working on this and that, and content doing it.

Little Lotte, the silver spangled Hamburg.

My main concern has been the care of Martha, Jewels, Beatrice and Heather - the youngest of the chickens - and I have to tell you they are a hand full. Beatrice, the little Campine, is an excellent escape artist and at one point we had to take some pickets off the fence when she wedged herself between a sheet of corrugated iron and the fence. My intention was to have them on the grass in the sun, but the wire circle I made didn't keep them in because the holes were too big. I then fenced them off in the vegetable garden with a length of lattice and while that kept them in securely, it blew over just before a downpour of rain and I thought it wise not to put them back there. In the end, they stayed in the 200 litre box they sleep in and that was under cover because of the frequent showers. We have some smaller gauge wire which makes up a wall being replaced on the chicken coop, so when Hanno puts on the sides of the enlarged house, I'll have my wire circle. I have a feeling that circle will happen today as Hanno has to look after the babies while I'm at work. ; - )

It's been a slow and quiet Easter here. I did some sewing on my tote bag and the stitchery, sorted through yarn, organised my work notebooks and diary for next week and did barely enough cooking to keep us going. Seeds were planted, pots moved around, worm castings harvested and scattered on the vegetable garden and fertiliser was made. I did all my house chores and watched part of two DVDs one of the ladies here sent. Most of all, I enjoyed my new book, Green Mountain Farm. I finished A Very Small Farm on Thursday and found it wonderful in places but a little light on substance; Green Mountain Farm is making up for it in the best way.

Visitors arrived yesterday to look at the new chooks. My step-son, Jens, and daughter-in-law, Cathy, arrived with Cathy's mum and dad. They only stayed for a short time as they were about to go back home, a drive north of about 200 kms.

The ever watchful Anne Shirley, our Hew Hampshire girl.

I had to go looking for Cocobelle on Saturday. She's sulking because we have new chooks and she disappeared and didn't come home to roost. I knew she'd be safe because there are a lot of trees she could sleep in but nevertheless, I went searching for her down by the creek the next morning. The path down there is rarely used, it winds down from our backyard to a jungle of wild maiden hair fern, vines hanging from the rainforest trees and little palms struggling up to the light above the forest canopy. It's cool down there, a noticeable drop in temperature, and with the sound of the creek ambling by, it was the perfect place to just stop and look. Shards of sunlight broke through to light the green jungle and although I heard a whip bird and the rippling water as it snaked its way to the ocean a few kilometres away, there was no other sound. It's like another world down there and I am ever thankful that it's part of the land we live on. Cocobelle broke the silence with her gentle cackle. She was sitting up high on the ledge above where I was standing. From there she could see the creek and our back yard, and, of course, the new chooks. I told her she has to get used to the new girls, and came back up to the yard. I'm sure I heard her go pfffffffft.

I love living here. I love being separated from the rest of the world and being content with that. We have plenty to do, in fact there are times when there is too much, but never times when there is too little. We are kept busy, interested and satisfied with all the small tasks that help sustain us. There will always be something to do in the garden, always food that can be cooked, sewing and mending to be done, eggs to collect, herbs to dry and soap to make. Those tasks that make up our days help us live this free and easy life. And while I look forward to my time at work with all the challenges and joy that brings, it is the drive back down the mountain and coming home that fills me up.

There will be more work done outside today. Hanno is enlarging the chicken coop, a project likely to take a couple of days, so I'll take over gardening duties why he's doing that. The production of food in our vegetable garden is vitally important, as is the well being of our growing family of chooks, so this requires a team approach to make sure all the required work gets done.

The first stage of the chook project got underway yesterday afternoon when Hanno climbed on top of the coop to clean off all the debris there. It doesn't look like much but it's already been standing for 10 years and in all that time, even with many local foxes, pythons and feral cats, we've only had one invader - a small dog that killed a few of our Rhode Island Reds.

In the photo below you can see the small cement slab running from the shed to the gate. This is the area we're enlarging. There will soon be a roof and walls surrounding the cement slab which will enable us to house about 20 chooks.

The coop is made up of a small shed where the girls sleep and lay their eggs. Just outside there is a fenced area that we're currently using as a pen to keep the older of the new chooks. This pen opens up to a larger run, just at the back of the vegetable garden, that is shaded by a fig tree, a lemon tree and a pecan. There is a lot of room for the girls to scratch and wander in the larger area but most days we open the gate and let them free range in the back yard. Often they'll wander through the fence and go down to the creek, or, during summer, they'll have their dust bath under the palm trees and then sit quietly in the shade.

We will keep the older new girls in this pen for two weeks. Then they'll know this yard is their home and even when they wander outside the confines of the fences, they'll know to come home at night. By then the four babies that we now have in a 200 litre plastic tub, will be big enough to go into the coop with their older sisters. They'll be kept in the pen for two weeks as well, to familiarise themselves with the other chickens while being separate from them, as well as seeing and feeling that this is their home. After their time in the outside pen, they'll be allowed out with the others. By then it will be time to bring our new Wyandotte babies home and they'll go through the same routine.

Yesterday afternoon, while Hanno worked on the roof, I was busy in the bush house, potting on the brandywine tomatoes. The photo above shows them a couple of weeks ago when the seedlings where starting to get their true leaves. I have found that tomatoes really benefit from special treatment before planting in the garden, so when I have the time, and when I want to make sure I get enough tomatoes to sink a ship, I go through the following procedure.

Each of the seeds is planted in a single long pot. I like these long pots as they encourage the roots to form and grow straight down. I do have two seeds in one pot above, but that's the result of my poor eyesight, or carelessness. After the seeds are planted they're put into a sheltered position that gets sun but no wind; I also put them into a container so they don't fall over.

A few weeks after planting the seeds, the seedlings will develop their true leaves and it's at this point I pot them on. I get a slightly bigger container, pick off the lower leaves and plant the seedling deep in the pot.

Tomatoes have the ability to produce more roots further up their stem, and to encourage them to develop those roots, I plant them deeper into the potting soil than I normally would with other vegetable seedlings. Bury the stem a good two inches lower than it was in the previous pot, firm the potting mix and water in with diluted weak seaweed mix. This helps the seedling cope with transplant stress. If there are any leaves touching the soil, pick them off, carefully.

The lower in you plant the seedling, the more roots will develop. The more roots you have on the plant, the bigger it will grow, giving you more tomatoes. I planted these on yesterday, next week I'll fertilise them with a week compost tea (you can use any weak nitrogen fertiliser) plus a pinch of sulphate of potash, then I'll wait for them to produce flowers. When I see the flowers, I'll plant them in the garden.

When I plant the seeds, they don't need sunlight. When the seedling emerge and put on leaves, they need sunlight, so they're left to grow in a sunny spot out of the wind. After potting on, they go back to their sunny position, and then to the garden.

Never let your seedlings dry out. There is a fine line to be drawn between too much, and too little, water. You'll develop the feeling for watering as you gain experience, but when you're unsure, feel the potting mix with your fingers and if it's dry, water, if it's moist, wait another day.

Later this morning I'll be planting more seeds and fertilising the seedlings already in the garden. Now is the time when there are a lot of small and fiddly jobs in the garden but I know that if I tend to them all they will make a big difference to our harvests later in the year.

I hope you are having a lovely Easter. Thank you for stopping by and reading. For all those folk who have emailed in the past week or two, I hope to reply this afternoon. Thank you for your patience. : - )

After much thought and help from family and my friends here, I proudly announce the names of our new chooks. We have golden Campine - Beatrice - above, and Faverolles - Heather - below. Look at her blue eyes, she is so pretty.

The other two babies are buff Orpington - Martha - and golden Hamburg - Jewels (yes, for our friend). The older girls are Australorps - Mary and Kylie, buff Sussex - Margaret (Olley), New Hampshire - Anne Shirley, and silver Hamburgs - Lotte and Stella Gladys, my grandma's name.

The littlest chicks were put into a safe area in the vegetable garden yesterday and scratched for the first time. They also jumped onto the top of their box, stood in their water dish and ate - boy can those girls eat!

The older girls are fenced off from the three large chooks but kept flying out of their secure area. Cocobelle, our last remaining black chook, ran off into the jungle down by the creek and sulked all day. The two Rhode Island Reds - May and Nell - are unconcerned by the new arrivals except if there is grain thrown for scratching, then they peck any little chook who comes near. Late yesterday afternoon I found a bush turkey sitting, watching, in the grass and later it came into the chook pen. There are many wild bush turkeys around here so I had Alice gently chase it off as they can devastate a garden (by scratching) in a very short time.

Overall, the new chicks have settled in well and have been accepted by the older ladies. Thanks to everyone who submitted names for my list. I have several Wyandotte bantam chicks coming soon, they are currently under Margaret's broody, and I'll choose more names from the list when they arrive. What a colourful and varied clutch of chooks we'll have in a few months when they've all developed their distinctive plumage and features. They'll be wonderful backyard entertainment.

It seems to me that chickens are in their rightful place in a backyard. They provide eggs and manure and will clean the bugs right out of a vegetable garden better than any human worker. Today I'm going to suggest we make a new garden bed just for chicken food so we always have enough greens for our feathered friends. Feeding spinach, Chinese cabbage and silverbeet to chooks guarantees deep golden yolks and the tastiest of eggs. I also have some open pollinated oats, barley and rye seeds here, so I might try those as well. I would like to supply as much of their food as I can. Not only would that cut our costs but it would also help us close that chicken feeding system, where we would supply everything they needed from our own land and not have to rely on bringing in food from outside. We aim at closing a lot of our systems to become as self sufficient as possible but we often have gaps. Maybe, with these chooks, we'll be able to do it.

Thank you all for your care and concern after my post yesterday. The nurturing power of family and friends really helped me get over the previous day and after an outing with Hanno yesterday, I feel on top of it all again. It's the little things that make the greatest difference. Hanno giving me a little kiss and saying: 'I'm glad you're here.', my sister Trisha gently reminding me of our mother when she wrote in an email yesterday (after reading the blog) to 'take care of yourself', my other sister Kathleen telling me 'I feel like I haven’t seen you for years.' Then all your kind comments and emails expressing concern and love. I am a lucky woman.

And I'm feeling fine this morning.

After writing in my previous post that I would be shutting the gates and cocooning myself inside, this sentence in the same post might give you a hint about what Hanno and I actually did yesterday. 'I might also look around for some pullets or young hens - we are down to three chooks and need more to supply our eggs.'

Yes, we have more chooks!!!

I looked on the poultry breeders' site, found a breeder about 90 minutes away and after talking with her, Hanno suggested we have a day out. I packed a lunch of pumpernickel and Camembert sandwiches, two pears, water and black tea and 30 minutes later we were on the road.

We stopped on the side of the road, at a small picnic spot, for lunch. The photo above is looking out over the plains of the Brisbane Valley, just north of the little town of Esk. We shared our sandwiches there with a family of Magpies - mum, dad and baby. (Clicking on the photos will enlarge them.)

Then it was onwards to our destination - a lovely little property set up as a Landcare refuge for wildlife. The lady there - also a Rhonda - was looking after her baby grandson who came with us in his stroller while we looked first at the older girls, then into the hatchery where we saw younger chooks. We chose 10! Two black Australorps, one buff Sussex, one New Hampshire, two silver Hamburgs, one golden Hamburg, one buff Orpington, one golden Campine and one Faverolles. I can't believe our luck to find all these different pure breeds in one place.

On the way home, we stopped at the Wivenhoe Dam. This is the dam that supplies most of the water for the city of Brisbane. We had a cup of tea here, and had another visit with a mother and baby Magpie.

Driving back into Esk, we stopped here to buy some chick starter and grain.

This is the view from the farm supply store door - out to the ranges and the Esk Post Office.

Then we whisked past pretty little cottages that have been turned into restaurants, on to a farm where we picked up a bale of hay for $2, and made the promise to come back soon for more. Our straw, hay and sugar cane mulch prices here have been sky high because of the drought and we haven't been able to buy our usual 10 bales for the year. When we got home, we made arrangements with my step-son, Jens, to drive out in his tray-back soon to collect as much as we can fit in - both for us and him.

But here they are. Drum roll please!

These are the six larger girls. The two black Australorps and the buff Sussex (centre with black necklace) are the oldest, then the New Hampshire (red girl on the right); the two little silver Hamburgs are the youngest of the older girls.

The Australorps - these are an Australian breed of chicken.

My favourite so far - the buff Sussex.

Two of the four babies - at front is the buff Orphington with the little peach Faverolles. Behind them, in the shadows of evening are the golden Campine and the golden Hamburg.

And one last photo. I had to include this because it shows the true nature of the New Hampshire - the red girl on the left. Since we put her onto the ground that freshly mown grass had been added to, she's been busily looking for worms, eating little blades of grass and scratching around like she's been doing it for years. It's an amazing testament to the instinct of chooks to scratch and look for bugs - they know how to do these things that are good for them and keep them alive, they don't have to be shown it. So here she is, a chook on a mission, walking with purpose and determination wanting to get off that concrete and back to real earth.

Everyone is awake now, we've taken the dogs outside and checked on the new flock. They're all fine and happily eating the first of many breakfasts they'll have here at their new home. It feels good, and right, to have a good sized flock again. When we get the little chicks from Margaret we have around 20 chooks - enough for our needs and for eggs to sell.

Hanno will have a busy day or two extending the chook coop to accommodate the larger flock. I will be researching the food needs of the smaller chicks and making sure the babies are put into the sun today and onto the ground where they will scratch for the first time. These are the kind of chores that make living this life such a pleasure. We want to make sure our new girls live good lives and that they produce healthy eggs. If I were a 'real' poultry farmer, I might not worry too much beyond the care and health of my poultry but I want our chooks to enjoy their lives with us, I want to share the abundance our land can provide and I want to be mindful each day of the joy I will find in doing that.

This is the beginning of another chapter in our simple book. Today will be a good day.

So now I want your help naming our little ladies. There will be a Martha and Nora, and Kathleen wants to name two, so I've given her the golden Campine and Faverolles to name. I'm going to name the two Australorps after our two Australian princesses - Kylie and Mary. That leaves four other names. What will they be? You tell me. : - )

For all those ladies who asked about the tote bag swap deadline: The deadline for posting your shopping tote is Wednesday, April 2, 2008. Less than two weeks. Happy sewing, ladies.

I have a mad secret - I like folding and sorting. Of all the crazy things to develop a liking for!

I'm always looking for low tech ways to do my house work and folding clothes and household linens is just about the lowest of low tech. It's just me and the item - no irons, no machines of any kind, all I need is a firm and steady surface. I came to this fork in the road when I realised how much I disliked ironing. Folding seemed to be my best option. Folding gave me close to wrinkle-free clothes without the involvement of an appliance.

There are tricks to effective folding and it starts with the way you hang wet clothes on the line. The clothes must be hung out well, after being shaken to have creases and folds removed. Then they need to be pegged securely in areas that are not noticed - so for skirts and jeans, this is on the waistband, for dresses, jumpers and T shirts I peg under the sleeve. Sometimes I hang shirts and dresses on clothes hangers. When the item is hanging, I smooth it out and make sure there are no areas that have been caught up or tucked in. I want everything to dry without too many creases and hanging in the same way they'll be used when dry.

I need to fold as soon as I take the clothes from the line - leaving them in a basket for a few hours (or days) is not an option. When I leave them, they need ironing. My routine now is to take the clothes, towels, pillow slips, dishcloths, sheets etc from the line and put them into the basket which is taken inside to the kitchen table. Piece by piece I place an item on the table, lay it flat, spread it out with my hands and make sure there are no folds, smoothing out creases. Then they are folded as well as I can manage, with each fold in the process being smoothed out with my flat hands, so if there are four folds in one item, it has been smoothed out four times. I try to fold edge to edge, corner to corner. If your corners are out, the clothes won't hang well.

The only things I'm ironing now are Hanno's cotton shirts, some trousers, some of my linen tops and skirts and some pillowslips (because I like them ironed). If I hang and fold well, I don't have to iron jeans. I take each piece as it comes, if it looks creased because I haven't shaken it before hanging on the line or I've missed a sleeve twist, I iron it. It's not rocket science - it's judgement by eye.

This has been an easy way to simplify my laundry routines. I've given up the need to have perfectly pressed clothes and am happy with the result I get with this method. It's much easier and less time consuming than ironing everything, no matter what. Best of all though it's a gentle and simple routine that is quite enjoyable.