down to earth

I've been up since 3.30am and have had a good session writing my book proposal. Exciting! It's Saturday morning here, the sun is shining and it's warm. Hanno is out walking with Alice and then he has to buy some cow manure. Oh, the glamour of the simple life! ;- )

I hope to do some sewing and knitting today in the breaks I take away from writing. Hopefully I'll get that summer night dress finished.

My pin cushion and needlebook sent by Danielle.

I received my swap package from Danielle on Friday. She sent a gorgeous needlebook and pin cushion, plus some great seeds from Eden - one of my favourite seed merchants. Thanks Danielle!

And this is what I sent Dani.

If you were part of the swap, please let Sharon know if you haven't yet sent your swap items. Hopefully we'll we able to get your photos sent in to make a swap parade. I'll email Sharon as soon as I finish here and she if she is able to do that.

This is the recipe for the biscuits I posted a photo of a couple of days ago.

Cranberry and Walnut Biscuits

¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup rolled oats
½ cup dried cranberries
½ cup roughly crushed walnuts
1¼ cups self-raising flour (OR 1¼ cups all purpose flour+ 1 large teaspoon baking powder)
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
125 g (¼ lb) butter, melted

Preheat oven to 180 C (350F). Line two baking trays.

Combine all the dry ingredients and mix well. Whisk egg and water, add to melted butter and mix. Stir that into the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Place 1½ tablespoons of mixture on prepared trays, squash down slightly with a fork. You should get about 20 biscuits. Bake until golden brown, about 15 - 20 minutes. Cool on a rack. Drizzle on lemon icing if wanted.

ICING: ½ cup icing sugar + enough lemon juice for the right consistency.

When I was reading Jewels blog this morning, she mentioned that she has a new widget, FEEDJIT. I have installed it too and have been watching with Hanno as people roll in from around the world. It's so interesting watching the live feed. You can check it out on my righthand side bar. Click on "watch in real time".

I hope you're spending your weekend doing what you love. Take care everyone, and for those of you in the path of the hurricanes in southern USA, we are thinking of you.

It's official. Meet Seth! Hanno said he saw him engaging in some hanky panky with the girls, so it looks like we've got ourselves a light Sussex rooster. Bec, when should I expect Seth to start crowing?

This is one of our young Australorp hens, Mary.

We have never bred chicks before so I'd better start reading something about it. As many of you know our attempts at trying to hatch fertile eggs last Christmas was a disaster. I hope Seth protects his girls well. He is a big strapping boy so I think he would be a capable lad. We have no light Sussex hens but we do have three silver Sussex - Pippa, Poppy and Mrs Rudd, and one buff Sussex - Margaret. I have no idea about the genetics of chooks and how the colours work out, but it will be interesting finding out and a pleasure to add another skill to those that help us live as independently as possible.

Here is my lovely hen Margaret, doing what chooks all round the world do.

And just one last chook photo. ;- ) This is Lulubelle, a barred Plymouth Rock.

More work was done in the garden yesterday. This is always a busy time of year for Hanno as he pulls out old crops, digs up potatoes and plans for the coming season. The weather is perfect at the moment so I know he will try to get as much of the heavy work done as he can before the onset of the hot and humid weather.

You can take a lot of the hard work out of vegetable gardening if you plan well. Getting all the plants in and the maintenance work like weeding and mulching finished before the hot weather, makes it a more pleasant activity. If Hanno can get all that digging, planting, weeding and mulching out of the way, all we need to do in the hotter months is to water, fertilise and harvest. Generally the mulch keeps the weeds at bay while it keeps the moisture in the soil and helps keep the soil temperature constant. You get much healthier root structure under mulch and your vegetables will be better for it.

The bare garden bed in the background is the old potato bed. Now it will be planted with all sorts of summer vegetables.

The most important thing in a vegetable garden though is to build up your soil. Mulch helps with that as well because it breaks down over time and adds organic matter to the soil. That will bring in the worms too. Forget about all those expensive chemical fertilisers. You will get by well enough with straw or hay, a compost heap or a worm farm and a big clump of comfrey. If you have chooks too, that's the icing on the cake because their old nests and the spent straw on the floor, enriched with their poo, will help you make the best compost. If you have an indoor fire where you burn only hardwood, those ashes can also be added to your compost. If you can add lots of compost to your garden every year, in between each planting season, over time you will build up a rich organic soil that will give you fresh wholesome vegetables year upon year. Don't expect great results the first year you garden but if you add to your soil, your garden and the vegetables it produces will improve every year.

Potatoes are one of the easiest of all crops to grow. They need a deep rich soil and a moderate amount of water. The photo above shows some of the dutch creams / nicola potatoes Hanno dug up yesterday. From that small garden bed he harvested over 19 kilos - 42 pounds of very good quality, large organic potatoes. There were a few smaller ones that did not have time to grow to full size, they will be used as our seed potatoes for the crop we will plant next week. Start off with good quality certified seed potatoes, but if you can't get them buy organic potatoes from your green grocer. We use new organic seeds when we can find them, but also organic potatoes from the store and our own small potatoes as seeds and we've never had a problem doing that.

These are the next seeds to be planted. I'll plant these luffas along the lattice, the nasturtiums will be popped in with the vegetables and the giant Russian sunflowers will be grown for the chooks and the wild parrots. I always plant flowers in the vegetable patch. Not only does it bring in the bees to pollinate the vegetable and fruit flowers, it adds beauty to the garden.

And lastly, here is a photo of newly born rats from our compost heap. If you live in an area where there is a lot of wildlife, you need to monitor your compost. It's warm in there and there is food for all sorts of critters. Make sure you don't have any small surprises like these, because they will bring snakes and all sorts of hygiene problems.

Happy gardening to all of you starting your Spring gardens.

ADDIT: For all those backyarders in the UK, Pebbledash has told me about her 18 year old nephew, Ben, who is making these absolutely beautiful chook tractors/hen houses. You can check out his site here.

I've been resting these past couple of days and, impatient as I am to be well again, I think I'm almost there. The pain is gone from the back of my leg, moved to my hip and has now settled in my knee. It's very strange. I've never had anything like this before but the worst of it seems to be over and that makes me very happy. I am not one to rush off to a doctor as I tend to think my body will heal itself. Let's see if that proves to be true. Thank you all, friends, for the sweet get well cards, emails and all those lovely comments.

Activity has been at a minimum here but I have done a few things around the house. Cranberry and walnut biscuits were made for morning teas and I've also been tending the worm farm, knitting and writing. Now that the warmer weather is here the worm numbers have started to explode. I put some food in the farm yesterday afternoon and noticed a wriggling mass of baby worms. I'll take a photo of them later today so you too can see their squirming loveliness.

This is what awaited me when I walked outside yesterday afternoon. Hanno was sitting on the stump of a tree, with Alice, watching the chooks. We have to watch them when they free range now because we're growing lettuces and tomatoes in the yard unprotected from their scratching feet and ever hungry beaks.

I'm beginning to think that Big Bertha (above) is a rooster. Yesterday I think I saw the beginnings of spurs on those long, long legs. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. One part of me loves the idea of being able to raise our own chicks, the other half knows that as soon as the crowing starts, so will the neighbours complaints. We'll just have to wait and see what happens - whatever will be, will be.

This rest of the chooks are happy to wander about each day, looking for grubs and the occasional stray grasshopper. About half of them are laying now so we're selling eggs and putting that money towards their food and general care.

Just out of sight in the above photo is our, still uncovered, peach tree. The nectarines stood up well to the heavy rain we had a week ago but it looks untidy and ugly and I really don't like having the entire tree wrapped.

Hanno works every day in the garden and it really pays off. Above is a variety of vegies like leeks, beetroot, lettuce and tomatoes. Further over, just out of view is the potato patch we're half way through harvesting. If you've never eaten a fresh potato, let me tell you that is a treat you won't forget in a hurry. This crop is dutch creams, aka Nicola; we have Kiplfers growing out in the front garden. We are almost ready to do another planting for summer and as the prediction is for another hot one this year, we're thinking of putting up one shade tunnel for the green leafy vegetables. That will be behind the garden bed you see above. Beside it, where we are now growing potatoes, there will be mixed vegetables like capsicums, carrots, radishes and lettuce. The new potato crop will go in the old kale bed and we'll plant luffas on the new lattice. You can see it below with a few tomatoes growing well up against the lattice wall.

It is truly a wonderful time of year here. The nights are cool, the days warm and there is a feeling of expectation and reward in the air. It looks to be another good season of backyard growing coming up and I am thankful that we are able to get the best from the small parcel of land we have. We see complete life cycles here, one season comes to and end while a new one begins. Winter vegetables start flowering and seeding while summers vegetables grow quickly to their full potential. The hens start laying every day and the finer details of their feathers develop as the season progresses. The complexity and genuine beauty of the natural world always amazes me, I will never get tired of seeing bees flying from flower to flower or watching the day-by-day unfolding of a sunflower head.

Life is good in a productive backyard. Nature's gifts to us for our table are abundant and sweet. We never say to each other that we are living the good life, but we both know it deep down to our bones.

Image from Carl Larsen gallery

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.

The beginnings of a cotton nightie I started last weekend.

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.

We found this one perfect, ready-to-eat peach on the weekend and, of course, ate it straight away. It has ripened well out of season but even though it was not as sweet as they will be later on, it still tasted good.

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.

The photos were taken yesterday afternoon. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

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.

Above and below are plantings of spring onions, beetroot, lettuce, silverbeet, tomatoes, bok choi and leeks.

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.

Further over behind the house, in the new trellis garden, the tomatoes and lettuce planted a few weeks ago we going really well. There are flowers on the tomatoes and I think we'll be eating the lettuce the week after next. It is always a joy to know that fresh food is growing just outside our door and that, if we put the work in, tend, weed and water, that our work will result in organic food on the table.

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 think we have the world's largest chook. Meet Big Bertha, the light Sussex, she's been renamed. She is, without a doubt, the tallest chicken I've ever seen. I thought she might be a rooster but no, she's just a very big girl. I tried to get a photo of her with the other chickens but she kept zigging and zagging and running away. This it the best I can do, but believe me when I tell you she is at least a third taller than our biggest and oldest chook, Cocobelle.

The rest of the weekend was taken up with writing, sewing and knitting. It's a lovely stage of life I'm at with time to do whatever it is I wish to do. There is a perception in the media, that is often reflected in day to day life, that there isn't a lot to look forward to as you grow older. I want to present a different viewpoint. From where I stand older age is comfortable, enriching and wonderful. The angst of the young years is long gone, the hard work of raising a family - as lovely as that is - is over, and we oldsters get to sit back and take it easy. Today and tomorrow I'm hosting a group of elders at our Centre. We're talking about Living Well on Less and then we'll have lunch together. It's just a simple lunch - sandwiches, fruit and cheese with coffee, tea and juice, but I know it will be appreciated as will the opportunity to connect with like minded folk our own age.

Every age has it's pros and cons but when someone tells you it's horrible to grow old, don't believe them. There is joy to be found in old age. You can look back and see the patterns of your life emerge and, if you're lucky, grandbabies come along. That hasn't happened to me yet, it's yet another thing I'm looking forward to but I have to tell you, life's good. :- )

I hope this week is a good one for you. Take care of yourself and enjoy what you're doing.