The days away from my blog have been full of family. My sister Tricia flew up from Sydney on Thursday, we drove to Toowoomba for our aunt's funeral on Friday, while Hanno stayed here with Alice and the chooks. It was fun driving along the back roads with Tricia, we got lost a few times, but not badly lost, and it all added to the experience. The funeral was lovely, a celebration and remembrance of Joy's life with her close family there. I look along a small posy of violets I am growing here that I grew from my mother's garden. My mother Jean and Joy were very close sisters so I know my mum would have liked her flowers there on Joy's casket. My mother died in 1993.

After the funeral we had afternoon tea with the family at a cafe close by. I had only met one of my cousin's Susie's children before so it was good to meet the other two, Angie and Tom. Both Tricia and I were surprised that Tom looks a lot like our grandfather. Tom is a musician and is one of Triple J's unearthed artists. If you go to that link, you'll be able to hear his wonderful song, Hold me Down. Angie was interested in how Hanno and I live so I invited her to come visit us.

Late in the afternoon, Tricia and I headed off to Shane's to stay the night. He lives about a half and hour's drive from Toowoomba, but of course we got lost again and it took us longer to get there. But we had a good night's sleep, a short time with Shane and Sarndra, and we were off again the following morning. We took the back roads again, just stopping for a cup of tea along the way, and arrived home at lunchtime on Saturday. Yesterday my cousin Susie and her husband Nick came over for lunch.

Tricia flies home today, although she will come to work with me this morning while Hanno takes Alice to the vet. She was attacked by a dog when she was walking with Hanno a couple of days ago and now the bite is infected. Poor Alice, she's been through a lot lately. Hopefully we can get her well again and things will settle down for all of us. Oh, I meant to take a photo of Tricia, Susie and I yesterday but forgot all about it. :- (

My sincere thanks to all of you who left a comment about Joy. She was a significant part of my life and my mother's life and I appreciate you sharing the grief we felt and knowing how important she was to us.

I'm back at work today and tomorrow and hopefully things will be back to normal in our little home. I'm well behind on a number of things but I'm sure I'll catch up soon. I've been thinking of Christmas gifts over the past week or so. I doubt I'll have time to do much in the way of sewing or knitting for Christmas this year but I wonder what everyone else is doing. Have you planned your gift list? What will be homemade this year? Even though I won't be joining you in the making of gifts, I'd like to help you organise yourself in some way. Please let me know what you're making, or do a post about your gifts and I will link to it in the next week or so. Hopefully we get some ideas happening for those who haven't given this much thought yet. If Sharon has some time, she might find us some good links for handmade Christmas gifts.

There is no doubt about it, if you're making some gifts this year, now is the time to start. Give yourself plenty of time because we all know how rushed it is as soon as December starts. And don't forget to give me your links and ideas and hopefully they will help the newcomers to the wonderful art of homemade gifts get started.

My uncle phoned yesterday to tell me that my sweet and wonderful aunty Joy died. She was my mother's only sister and they were very close. Joy was 85 years old. My sister Tricia is flying up from Sydney today, tomorrow we'll drive to another city to join the rest of the family for the funeral.

I will be back in a couple of days.

My simple life is a series of small changes. They may appear inconsequential to many but they add up to an entire alternative lifestyle to me. My first real change came when I closed my business to concentrate on living. That was a big change to many people who know me, but a small one to me. When I stopped working and had more time I was able to revolt against a lot of what I did in my life. It’s strangely comforting to look back on our old life now. I have rejected many of the commonly held values that my contemporaries still hold true, and every day I look at ways of changing and improving what I’m doing. Many women of my age group feel comfort knowing that their lives are ordered and planned, I have never felt that. I feel uneasy with subliminal messages that tell me to be like everyone else and to not question how I live. I thrive on change, and although my life is rock steady now and my changes are only small, it is enough to keep me motivated and sure about what I'm doing. I am, by nature, a non-conformist so living the way I do now sits very well with that.

It’s difficult when you start to change life-long habits and ways of doing things. You’re pioneering new territory for yourself and need to take it slow. But living simply can be done anywhere and at any stage of life, all it requires is that you start your own small changes and fashion your new life around sustainable values. I don’t expect many people would start to live simply by doing what I did - giving up work, it’s more about doing the things you do every day in a different way. How you spend your money would be a good place to start – shop in a different way, buy local produce, start making some things for yourself, be thrifty and try to cut down on the amount you spend.

Budgeting is the biggest surprise to me. I always thought only the anal, tight-lipped brigade found pleasure in budgeting, but even though my lips aren’t tight or pursed, I love my budget. It’s allowed us to live on a very small amount of money and yet know for certain that we have enough to allow us to do most of the things we want to do. And we don’t worry about money!

So today there is another simple change for me. I've given up working that third day at the Centre, from now on, I will work two days. I need more time at home now. Don't be afraid to change as you go along. Make sure that what you're doing is working for you, if it isn't, change it. As usual, I have a few things to catch up on today. I'll be baking biscuits later this morning and there is washing to be done and hung out. Hanno vacuumed yesterday so that gives me more time to concentrate on writing.

I have four little parcels to post. One is to my swap partner, Danielle, the others to Julie, Vicki and Sharon - who won the stitcheries. I forgot to take the parcels with me to work on Monday, yesterday I took them but left my purse at home. LOL! I'll post them today, they are sitting on the kitchen table and Hanno said he'll walk Alice over to the post office to post them this morning.

There are also a lot of emails to answer and I'm not sure I'll get to them today. I'm sorry if you're one of those waiting. I apologise and will get to them as soon as I can. And last, but not least, the matter of awards. I have been very fortunate to receive a lot of awards along the way. However, now I have to tell you all that although I am honoured that you think well of me and my blog, I can't accept any awards. I just don't have the time to deal with them and pass them on. I mean no disrespect to anyone, it is simply that the small amount of time I spend blogging, is spent writing my blog. But I appreciate the thought and thank you for thinking of me.

We struggle against the fruit fly here in late spring and summer. I am pleased they don't go for our tomatoes, we had them once in the capsicums (peppers), but usually they zero in on the peaches and nectarines. Last year we used exclusion bags with limited success and exclusion sleeves that were better, this year we're trying tree cloth.

Tree cloth is a product Hanno found in the local hardware store. It's a roll of strong paper cloth that allows in 80 percent natural light. It's a closed weave cloth, suitable for excluding tiny insects. The only problem with the tree cloth is that you either have to make bags with it - and I have no solar proof thread - or you have to wrap the tree like an ugly parcel. This is what we did. I take heart in knowing it's on there only for another couple of months until we harvest the fruit.

We wrapped the nectarine tree on the weekend - it's my favourite fruit. The nectarines from this tree are sweet and delicious and much tastier than any store-bought fruit I've ever eaten. Hanno and I disagree on how we should wrap - I wanted to wrap individual branches, he wanted to wrap the whole tree. It must be a boy thing. ;- ) So that is what we did but when we wrap the peach tree in a few days time, it will be wrapped as individual branches. I think that will be better as we will get a tighter fit and we just have to cover the branches with fruit on them.

If you are thinking of doing something like this, you do it after the blossoms have been pollinated and the fruit have formed - the cloth will also keep out bees. When the fruit are small, but before your known insect season, you wrap your tree, or cover with exclusion bags.


To tell you the truth, it is a real pain to do it this but it's like protecting precious jewels that will be eaten if you do it well. We keep our fruit trees pruned to the height we can reach so wrapping the tree wasn't as difficult as it might have been if we had let the trees grow to their natural height.

Now all we need to do is water the tree and wait ... but that's the really difficult part.

It's the first day of Spring today. Rain has been forecast for the next three days but I feel in my bones that we'll get showers today and then it will go back to fine weather. I wonder whose prediction will be right. ;- ) With the weather forecast in mind, Hanno and I worked in the garden yesterday afternoon, planting seedlings and adding mulch. We also got around to netting the nectarine tree. We had a disagreement about how to do it and have decided one tree will be done Hanno's way and one my way. Hanno's tree was done yesterday and we're waiting to see how it goes in the rain, we'll do my tree next week. I took photos and will post them tomorrow, with more information on the trees and what we're doing.



The garden isn't looking its best at the moment with patches of new seedlings here and there, but it's not a show garden, it's a functional productive garden and shows harvesting, bare patches and new plantings all through the year. The beans are all but finished now and I'm letting them dry on the vines.


The other major development is that Hanno has been digging potatoes for last week's dinners and soon that garden bed will make way for new plantings of zucchini, cucumbers, beetroot and lettuce. Three zucchini have been added in the photo above and more will follow as the potatoes are dug up.


The potato crop this winter has been really grand with a lot of very big potatoes, the biggest we've grown. One potato is enough for both of us at dinner and they have the most delicious creamy nutty flavour. The spuds we're harvesting now are Dutch Creams, we have a crop of Kipflers out in the front garden that will be ready in about a month.


I cooked some fresh snapper fillets on the weekend which we ate with coleslaw made with our homegrown cabbage and capsicums (peppers), the carrots and onions were from the market. We had that with the last of the fresh cucumbers and two heirloom tomato types - my favourites, pink Brandywines, and an orange beauty from the permaculture garden at work.



Above is Bernadette our Barnevelder. If you enlarge the photo you will better see her beautiful feathers. They have a violet tinge to the pencilled edges. Many of the chickens we bought at the beginning of Winter are now old enough to lay. In fact, we sold a dozen to the local worm man on Saturday and I have another dozen eggs to sell at the Centre today. A couple of the women there said they will buy fresh eggs, so today we will see.

I had a few things to catch up on yesterday morning. I got the bedsheets washed and hung out to dry by mid-morning, remade the bed with fresh linen and warm quilts, fed the worms, talked to the chooks and fed them a feast of green leaves from the garden. Inside again, I baked bread, wiped the kitchen benches over and made a big pot of vegetable and barley soup. I put aside a few small containers of it to have for work lunches. Late in the day I made a banana bread and butter pudding.

Hanno went to the Foodbank on Wednesday to collect food for Centre and picked up a couple of large black bags of Baker's Delight bread while he was there. We pack the bread up, freeze it and give it to our people when they come in for food. I took a couple of the loaves home so I had a nice white loaf for the pudding. We also have a lot of bananas at the moment, and too many eggs, so a bread and butter pudding was the ideal thing to make.

You can use any fruit in this, or sultanas (golden raisins), or just spread jam on the bread. It's a very good recipe for a large family, just add more bread slices, use an extra egg and increase your milk.

BANANA BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING - enough for 6 people
8 slices of bread with crust removed
enough butter to cover all the slices
3 or 4 bananas, sliced thinly
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
600 mls (1 pint) milk
2 eggs

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F.

• Butter the bread, cut into triangles and place half on the base of an ovenproof pudding or lasagna dish.

• Sprinkle half the cinnamon and sugar over the bread.

• Place half the bananas over the bread.

• Then repeat those layers of bread, cinnamon/sugar and bananas.
• Press it all down slightly so there aren't too many spaces underneath.
• Lightly beat the eggs, add the milk and mix in.
• Pour the egg milk mix over the pudding, making sure you wet everything with the milk.
• Allow the pudding to stand for 10 minutes to let it all soak in, then place in the preheated oven to cook.
  

What you're aiming for is a soft custard around the bread and fruit. Overcooking with make the custard tough. It won't take long to cook, maybe 15 - 20 minutes. If the top hasn't turned brown but the bottom has cooked, put it under your griller (broiler) for a couple of minutes to brown the top.

I worked on the book proposal all yesterday afternoon with the smell of the soup cooking, and then the delicious aroma of baking custard and bananas. Mmmmmm. There is nothing better on a cold and dismal day than having tasty, simple food cooking slowly on the stove. Hanno and I had a bowl of soup each, a glass of water and then the pudding with blueberries. It didn't cost a lot to make but we ate well last night. Another bonus is that I don't have to cook tonight - and that saves time, electricity and money.

Suzan at Scrub Oak is having a 100th post giveaway. She has a lovely blog and is struggling with some decisions, not to mention, bears, at the moment. I'm sure you'll enjoy visiting her.

I thought I had today to look for a giveaway but after I read all your delightful comments on yesterdays post, I glanced at the visitors figures and WOW! It's over 500,000. In fact, another 700 of you have waltzed right in to add to that score.

I still find it hard to believe this blog is so popular. It has been a lesson in the making for me. It has shown me that sharing builds community, that word of mouth is more effective than gimmicks and that there is a need out there to connect with others online when those supports are lacking in real life. I know from my own perspective that it is wonderful to know so many of you are living simply and care about your effect on your environment.

Writing this blog and sharing our lives here has been, for the most part, a joy for me. It has forced me to look at my life in a deeper way than I would have without the blog. Writing about what we are doing requires an examination of the process most days - I doubt I would have done that as much if I hadn't been writing about our lives. I have found it interesting to develop an understanding of many of you through your comments, and along the way some friendships formed. I thank you for that because I am, by nature, a solitary woman but I am better for those friendships and I am wiser because of the comments.


I would love to give you all a warm hug and an invitation to tea to thank you for your involvement here. Obviously I can't do that so I'm about to look in my sewing room for a giveaway that I hope you would like to own. I have asked Sharon to choose who will have the giveaway, it doesn't matter where you live, I have leftover grocery money to pay for postage. LOL! ;- ) So if you would like to take part in this little celebration of numbers, add your comment and your name will be part of the draw.


Okay! I found three stitcheries I had waiting to be made into something, so you have three chances of winning. They are completed stitcheries that could be incorporated into a quilt, made into a cushion or tote bag, or even a wall hanging. I designed and stitched all of them by hand. Good luck and thank you for reading and being part of Down to Earth.

This is closed now. Sharon will do the draw very soon and I will be back with the winners. : - ) Linda is the last in the draw.

I wrote yesterday about my life and how I have changed. I want to take that a step further today and write about how you might simplify, if you haven't already done so. When I do something new that requires me to change my behaviour, I think about it for a while, work out the ins and outs of it, I might do some reading, think some more and then I dive in. Often the diving is the most difficult part of that process but when that first step is taken, it's usually easier than I imagined.

A change towards a simple life is similar. From the outside it looks difficult - you want the peace of mind it brings, you want to regain your independence and live well, you want to be environmentally sound, but it looks like hard work. Instead of holding yourself back, I encourage you to dive in. It's okay to be a bit scared of change, it's normal to be apprehensive, but don't let that stop you.

Dive.

Your first step might be to declutter one room. It might be to stop buying coffee on your way to work. You might start taking lunch to work. Maybe you'll start hand washing dishes, or hanging the laundry on the line to dry instead of machine drying. Or will you start stockpiling and cooking from scratch? Drawing up a budget would be a good first step. Or will you say "no" to that next invitation for lunch with the girls so you can save that money and spend some time relaxing at home. There is also mending, learning to knit, starting a vegetable garden, looking for an organic supplier of local vegetables, buying milk from a local dairy or bartering. There are so many first steps, I have to stop now or I'll be here all day. But the big question is, what will your first step be, or if you've made your first step, what will your next step be, or your next?

It really is as simple as making the decision to simplify and then doing those things you want to have as part of your life. Everyone will decide on different things, and you might want to do things I've not written about nor ever mentioned here. You don't have to tell your family or friends what you're doing, or you might have a family meeting to talk it over with them, the choice is yours. The important thing is to start.

You'll probably find, like I did, that once the move towards simplicity has started, a new thing can be added each day or week, and once you have that momentum happening, nothing will hold you back. In six months time you'll take stock and see just how far you've come.

I'm not going to lie and tell you that every single thing you do will be easy and will bring you joy. It won't, some things will be a struggle. I think you'll fnd that overcoming difficulties and persevering will bring you to a place where you'll feel you've done your best and you'll feel good about that. Look for joy in your everyday life and try to find happiness and contentment in your life. Celebrate your new skills; it's okay to feel good about what you're doing.

I hope that as you settle into your stride you'll start not only doing for yourself but also for others. Generosity and kindness are the icing on the cake for me and I hope you will get the same amount of pleasure and satisfaction from giving to others as I do. I'm not talking about grand gestures - there are none of those in a simple life - it's more about the tiny, and often silent, things, that with a small effort from yourself, will make a difference to someone else.

As you can see, there is no formula for simple living. It's diverse, there is no one size sits all. That's what makes it wonderful - when you think carefully about what you want in your life and then start doing those things, it feels right. Your version of simple living will be different to mine and everyone else's, even though we will have elements of it that are similar. But when you get it right, when you work on your own version of your life, and not that one designed for you by advertisers and marketers (or friends), when you set to and start doing for yourself, when you regain your independence and feel deep within that you're doing the right thing, then, my friends, you'll know you're on the right path and a team of wild horses won't pull you away from it.

I'd love to know what your first step will be, or was. :- )

When I was growing up it was a commonly held belief that if you did well at school, worked hard and made a lot of money, you would live a life of ease, confident in the knowledge that you could buy whatever you wanted and happiness would follow close behind. Most of us swallowed that hook, line and sinker but when it came down to it, having it all didn't make us happy.

I've often written about not spending, decluttering and giving away things you've paid good money for. Hanno and I live on a very small amount of money, we have no pay TV, we rarely buy books, eat out or buy clothes and shoes. We are making do with what we have. We've stopped eating meat (except for Hanno's pork and kale fest during winter) and work to produce food for ourselves in our own back yard. We respect the work we do and we're grateful we have the energy and ability to do it.

We often work hard at home doing for ourselves things that in former times we would have paid others to do for us. We stopped buying convenience food and instead cook from scratch so we eat pure food with no preservatives or artificial flavourings. I mend clothes and we look after what we own. We repair rather than replace. We try to conserve instead of consuming.

Some might read all of that and think we are "poor" and miserable and that if we had more money, we'd buy our way to happiness. There have been studies done in recent years that tell us that as long as the human needs of shelter, food, etc are met, having more doesn't increase happiness. Rich people aren't happier than ordinary folk. In fact, the more valuable a person's time is in the workplace, the more they are likely to spend their time making money and being away from their families.

I believe that if money and possessions do make us happy, that happiness is only fleeting. It is replaced, over time, with discontent. If I wanted to, I could still be working for corporate Australia but I know, from experience, that the money I would earn and the things I would buy would not bring me the kind of life-enriching happiness I get from my voluntary work.

I also believe that people and self awareness make us happy. I am happy with my family around me and knowing that I am what I am and that I am true to my values. I have thought about what I want my life to be and I make steps towards that every day. That gives me self respect and satisfaction and eventually that builds into the kind of happiness that is instilled deep within.

Our life paths will lead us all to different places, but no matter where yours leads, you will be able to live simply. Start by simplifying your daily tasks and then try to incorporate generosity, kindness and grace into your everyday life. Don't think of this way of living as a restriction or "poor" but instead see it as a richness that is built in small and simple ways. The rewards are there for the taking. They may not be as flashy or obvious as those store bought rewards but they are enduring and significant and they don't go out of fashion.

The Down to Earth book is going ahead. My agent thinks there is a lot of potential so we are preparing a proposal for the publishers. We'll try the North American market first, then Australia and maybe Europe. It's so exciting! I'll tell you more about it as I get further into the process of preparing the manuscript.

I have to thank a good friend, Linda Nichols, who helped me along the path towards publication when she recommended my blog to her agent. She has been supportive and generous along the way and I thank her sincerely for that. Linda is an author and has written several books, another is to be published soon. You can read a little about Linda at her website here.

I will continue writing my blog because it's become an important part of my life. It helps me reflect on what I'm doing and provides a valuable record of plantings and projects. It also helps my family stay in touch with what Hanno and I are doing. My sons, sisters and friends are reading the blog now so they can see what we're doing here when they aren't here themselves.

We had a fairly hectic weekend and I didn't do everything I wanted to do. Thankfully I planted up some luffa seeds as well as the lemon cucumber and giant sunflower seeds sent to me by Tracy in the swap. Hanno will be panting the dragon carrot seeds this week too. Thanks Tracy!

There is good news from yesterday. Hanno's doctor said he thinks he can be treated for the glaucoma with drops, and these started last night. The other eye with the cataract and bleeding retina is being monitored. He said he wants to see if the bleeding stops by itself, apparently it often does. Hanno has to go back to check the progress of the treatment next month. I want to thank everyone for their good wishes and prayers. Hanno hasn't read the blog for a few days because we've been quite busy here but when he does, I'm sure he'll be very touched by your thoughtfulness.

Kathleen flew home yesterday morning. Moey, she used to work in northern WA and has just spent a month filling in for another worker who is away. Perth was just a stop over. Shane and Sarndra visited in the afternoon on their way back home. Sarndra said some butterflies were released for the baby at the funeral which I thought was a sweet and innocent gesture from grieving parents.

So now it's back to work. Today there will be a fair bit of gardening done because we're in another transition period out there. It's the end of winter and the garden is showing its age. Most of the cabbages have been picked, the cauliflowers are all gone and we need to fill bare patches and plan for spring. I really should have sown seeds two weeks ago but other things got in the way, so that will be done today.


Continuous supply from the garden is the most challenging aspect of food production for us. We often have gaps when we have to buy tomatoes, pumpkins or potatoes. We try to monitor the garden as best we can but seasonal and climatic variations make precise planning very difficult. But, it is what it is, we know that nature will always have the last say and we just go along for the ride. Whatever we get from the garden we are grateful for and we hope to shorten those gaps in production every year.

Today I'll plant up some trays of luffa seeds to plant on the new lattice wall near our bedroom. And with spring and summer coming there will be lots of salad vegetables to go in. Let's see ... we have long black Spanish radishes, Daikon and French radishes, dragon carrots, climbing princess beans and lemon cucumbers - all received in the seed swap a few months ago. We also have Darwin lettuce, more pink Brandywine and Moneymaker tomatoes, dwarf borlotti beans and maybe some watermelons (moon and stars).


If you are new to vegetable gardening, it is a good idea to know your food. Tomatoes aren't just tomatoes and there are many different kinds of lettuce. Get to know what you're eating - they all have different characteristics. The old heirloom types were often named after the growers, the grower's neighbours or what the food looked like, so often the names are just as lovely as the vegetable. Supermarkets have taken away our ability to know our food but I encourage to get acquainted again. When you plant, find out what type of seed you're planting and put up a little sign over the seeds so you remember just what it is you have there. Soon you'll be on friendly terms with all your vegetables and just like people, you get to know their names first.