Although I knit all year long, autumn and winter seem to be the seasons I dive head first into it. I love knitting, not only do I make those things I need around the house and unique gifts for family and friends, knitting keeps me sane. It's like meditation. The repetition, the clicking of the needles, the feel of the yarn between my fingers, and the slowness of it as one by one the stitches form a new creation, all combine to comfort and calm, even on the hectic days.

In the first bag I came across "The Art of Knitting", a series of booklets for new knitters. They are full of small and easy to knit projects, with clear instructions and good photos. The thing that caught my eye was a reoccuring project that features in every edition - a Shaker-style throw rug. It's made of wool scraps and leftovers from other projects and each edition features a different stitch, colour or decoration. It's like a sampler quilt in that you can be learning a new stitch on the 15cm x 15 cm (6 inch x 6 inch) squares that are all joined together to form the rug. This is the perfect project for me. It's something that is portable, small, easy, yet it will make up into something more complex and very functional. I'm starting on it this week.


If you can find "The Art of KNitting" at the newsagent, it looks like a good investment to me. If you'd like to join in on this project, I'm happy to share the details of what I'm doing with you. I'm not following their instructions, I'm just going with the idea of it and working with whatever stitch I feel like doing. The squares are made sometimes of textured stitches and sometimes garter stitch or stocking stitch. The textured squares still use plain and purl stitches, but in differing ways that make up textured patterns. You can either make many squares using different patterns in different colours, or find a pattern you like and knit it into squares, just changing the colours. We will be making squares, like patches for a patchwork quilt. The size you make is your decision, it could be a knee rug, a baby's crib rub or a larger queen size bed quilt. All you need to do to make it bigger is knit more squares until you have the size you want. I think it would be a nice idea to show our finished rugs, if you have a blog, you can show your progress and the finished rug on your blog. If you don't have a blog, send me a photo of your finished rug and I'll include it in my final rug post at the end of winter.

I'm starting on a ladder pattern square, but if you have a knitting book of stitch samples (or search online), you could choose any pattern you like the look of and knit it to the 15cm or 6 inch square size. I'm using no. 6 (4 mm) needles with 8 ply acrylic yarn. I usually don't knit with acrylic but I have a fair bit of it here that's been given to me and I'd like to use it up. If you want to use pure wool, or a natural pure yarn or blend, go ahead. As long as you end up with squares the right size, you'll be right. I'll be decorating some of my squares with simple embroidery and backing it with polar fleece, but we can talk about that later.

So, do I have anyone willing to knit along with me?

Autumn is creeping up on us, slowly but surely, it's cooling down at night, and while the days are still hot, I know Autumn is there, waiting. It's my favourite time of year. We don't have pronounced seasons in the sub tropics, some say we have only two - summer and winter, but the subtlety of autumn, and the explosion of spring are there, but they're most noticeable to a gardener. So as I see the leaves yellow on our neighbour's magnificent front yard tree, and veins appear on our wisteria, I prepare myself for the new vegetable garden.

It's taking shape slowly, the way gardens should. One day a mass of weeds, bare patches and old plants hanging on, the next, weeds have gone, perennials transplanted, soil dug and raked. Compost is turned over and moistened. Plans are drawn. Bricks realigned, herbs cut back, vines trimmed.


A pineapple is moved. :- ) A garden inches its way towards a new season.


Hanno has planted corn, bok choi, chives, green onions, red onions, brandywine, amish paste, moneymaker and oxheart tomatoes, Richmond Green cucumbers, green beans, potatoes, capsicums (peppers) and lettuce. Yet to go are leeks, sugarloaf cabbage, kale, peas, carrots, radishes, turnips and white onions. There may be other odds and ends that go in too, but that is the basis of our food for the next few months.


Now they're in and growing, the seedlings will need extra care until they're properly established. If there is no rain, we'll water them every day, the tomatoes have already been mulched right up to their stems to encourage extra roots to grow where we place the mulch. The more roots we encourage along the stem, the more tomatoes we will get. Newly transplanted seedlings have been watered in with a seaweed solution to help with transplant shock, the newly established plants, like the potatoes, are watered with a weak solution of blood and bone and potash. The flowers are slowly arriving, when most of the plants have flowers, we'll give them a good watering, then wait while the potatoes grow big enough to harvest - first with us pinching new potatoes from the sides, and then later, digging the whole garden up and storing what we find. There is always something to do in a vegetable garden. The work is rewarding and interesting and you get paid in the freshest organic produce. No wonder gardening is a big part of us now.

So what are you planting this year?

It's been a very full weekend here. From the minute I wrote the Biggest Kitchen Table post, It's been non-stop. I've been visiting friends, Shane and Sarndra have been here, and we've been settling in some new chooks and Princess, Sarndra's little black cat.

But the most important new addition to our home has been Sarndra. In all these years of being married, then having babies, I've always been the only woman. Shane and Sarndra are staying here, on and off, while they prepare to go to New Zealand for a holiday. They finished up at their jobs last Friday and have brought all their worldly possessions to our place for safe keeping. Having Sarndra here these past couple of days has been an absolute pleasure for me. There is giggling, someone else's dresses and skirts, and order; Sarndra is tidy. So the bed is made, she helps with dishes and folds things, and she talks, the way we women do. She seems to be very comfortable with Hanno and I. :- ) We talked about babies the other day, and Shane, and a whole lot of other innocent inconsequential topics that, with another person, may not seem important, but between us, are creating a glue that will hold us together for many years. It's the first time I've formed this kind of friendship and I know it could go wrong, but I've seen no bad bits yet, it's been the best kind of discovery. I know we are all flawed, well I know I am, so I hope when I see her not so good side, and she sees mine, we will take it all in and accept it as part of our all too human package. She is all I ever hoped for in a daughter-in-law and I am really pleased she's here and part of our lives now.

Hello all. Our dish/tea towel and pot holder swap seems to be chugging along just fine. Don't forget to e-mail Rose (rosmar at 1earth dot net) or myself Sharon (cdetroyes at yahoo dot com) if you have any problems. Now for another, ahem, yes, you guessed it, swap. Rhonda would like to start up a seed swap. We will be swapping heirloom seeds only. The rules for this swap are very strict. You may only swap within your country and even with in specific territories or states of some countries, such as Australia. If you are interested in swapping heirloom seeds (not the seeds you get at your local big box store), please leave me your name, your country, your territory or state, and your e-mail address (spelled out please). Those ladies who had offered to help with seed swaps please e-mail me, Sharon, (cedtroyes at yahoo dot com) if you wish to help with this seed swap. Rhonda is thinking of making seed swaps a regular happening around here, so if you are interested in this please leave a comment for us, too. Sharon

The concept of the world's biggest kitchen table was hatched in January when we discussed chickens; now we go on to preserving/canning in a water bath. The idea is that I write my post here, and if you have a blog, you write a post about preserving/canning the way you do it. When you write your post, leave a comment, with a link to your post and we'll all move around, reading all the kitchen table posts. If you want to use the biggest kitchen table badge (above) please do so. When you visit someone's blog who is part of the kitchen table discussion, please be kind enough to leave a comment. If you're a learner, and want to ask a question, do so in the comments section, and anyone with experience can answer. Hopefully, each question will have a few answers. I don't have time to transfer the links like I did last time. Please leave your link in comments, and we'll all find you from there.

The weather is to blame. Cold, snowy winters in the northern hemisphere and mild winters in Australia, have given us differing ways of processing our food. My understanding is that in North America, meat, fish, vegetables and fruit are all processed in pressure canners and stored for those long cold months when nothing can be grown on the farm or in the backyard and it's too cold and snowy for hunting. Of course, people back in long gone days relied on having those stores to tide them over, now many of us are able to go to the store to buy pineapples from Thailand, salmon from Alaska and peaches from Greece. Modern commerce has bypassed the seasons and the need for having the skills to 'put up' enough food to keep a family going for many months is fading fast.


In Australia, where the climate is not so harsh in winter, preserving food to see families through the winter hasn't been seen as such a priority. There is a long, fine tradition of homesteaders 'putting up' food, because they were so far away from the shops, and they would do that when the season was high and crops were plentiful. But in the cities, apart from bottling a favourite tomato sauce, jam or chutney, or backyard peaches, plums and cherries, which were all done in a water bath, preserving took a back seat.

So let's acknowledge that southern and northern hemispheres do things differently, and work from there. Also, this post is about preserving/canning in a water bath, not pressure canning. I don't have a pressure canner so I cannot advise you about them. However, these kitchen table posts work because we all write about what we do, so if you're preserving/canning with a water bath or pressure canner, and want to write about that on your blog, please leave your link so we can read it, and learn.

I also want to warn you that preserving food in jars has been done for a long time so many different methods have been developed. But there are dangers. People have died from Botulism poisoning, but it is very rare. Don't use an old preserving/canning book as a guide. Most of the guidelines have been updated in the past 20 years. Please be guided by your thermometer, the information available and your common sense.

Water bath processing is suitable for high acid foods like tomatoes, rhubarb and sauerkraut and some foods to which acid, in the form of vinegar or lemon juice, has been added.


FRUGAL SETUP
I have written about preserving in the past, and will give you those links for easy reference later in the post, times and methods are in those posts. I want to use this post to tell you about setting up a water bath from scratch and, hopefully, from what you already have in your home. You can do that by using the largest stockpot you have. You will need a pot that you can boil on the stove, that will allow you to have at least an inch of water over the top of your tallest jar. You'll also need a tea/dish towel folded up to prevent the jars touching the hot bottom of the pan. You could also use newspaper or a round cake cooler.


RECYCLED JARS
The other requirement for this poor man's preserving setup is a collection of jars. Jars that have been used for food, can be used for this task. Check the lid, it's best to have those little poptop lids, that have a thin ring of rubber on the inside. That will help you seal the jar. I have a large collection of jars of all shapes and sizes. I use them for preserving and for storing a wide rage of odds and ends. Jars are valuable - don't throw them away. Some people advise against using old jars but I have been using them for many years and have never had a problem. You must make your own decision on what equipment you use and make sure you check your jars and lids and throw away any that are damaged, dented, rusted or chipped. When recycling jars, don't use anything larger than a litre/quart as there is no guarantee that the heat necessary to kill bacteria will penetrate into the middle of a firmly packed large jar.

CHECKING THE JARS
When you've finished processing your jars according to the times suggested, take them from the pot and place them on a towel on the bench. Now you'll have to check that the jars have sealed correctly, because if they haven't, you won't be able to store them in the cupboard, they'll have to be eaten straight away, or stored in the fridge. To check the jars, look at the poptop on the lid. Sometimes they invert while they're in the pot, sometimes they invert when sitting on the bench. Push them with your finger to check. When they're cool, if any have a poptop that hasn't inverted, it hasn't sealed properly; put it in the fridge.

You will need a thermometer. I use a milk thermometer that I bought for $15 at a kitchen store. I clip it to the side of the pan and monitor the temperature while the jars are in there.


PROCESSING
The basic idea behind preserving/canning is that you add your fruit or vegetables to a jar, or make up your favourite jam, sauce or relish as normal, then add it to hot clean jars, seal and place in the stockpot, not touching. Bring the water to the boil, then time the load, keeping it at the necessary consistent temperature. A time guide is in the instructions for water bath processing below. And that's it - you remove the jars when the time is up, let them cool on the bench, check that they have sealed correctly, then store in your cupboard. This sort of food is not suitable as kitchen decoration, light will make the food lose colour and the shelf life is much shorter if it's exposed to light. Use recipes suitable for preserving, there are many books around with a wealth of good preserving recipes.

Most of the preserving I do is not to keep us going through the leaner seasons, our garden does that, it's to make a delicious sauce from a glut of tomatoes, to make the most of a cheap or free box of peaches, or to make jams and relishes. All those things I make are family favourites now and all much tastier and cheaper than anything bought at the supermarket. If I make a small amount of jam, chutney, beetroot, bread and butter cucumbers, I pour them into hot jars, and when they're cool, they're stored in the fridge instead of being processed and stored in the cupboard. Larger portions of all those things would be processed in a water bath and stored in the cupboard. At the moment, I have three jars of rosella jam, six jars of strawberry jam, and some relish. At other times I might have double that amount, plus a few jars of peaches. All our beans, corn, carrots and peas are frozen, we dry other things like chillies and herbs, but most of our food is fresh.

So as you can see, a lot depends on your climate, whether you have a garden or not, or access to cheap seasonal fruit and vegetables. I think preserving/canning is a great skill to develop. Used in conjunction with other methods of long term storage, it will give you good food out of season, or allow you to make your favourite jam or tomato sauce and have it ready in the cupboard.

LINKS TO MY PRESERVING POSTS
Instructions for water bath preserving + some recipes
More water bath preserving
Preserving your harvest
Rosella Jam
Making ginger beer
Fruit cordials
Roasted Capsicum and Tomato Relish
Bread and Butter Cucumbers
Beetroot
Strawberry jam

If you're already well into preserving/canning, please share your knowledge with us. If you're a novice, I hope you decide to learn about processing food this way. Do some reading, if you know someone who is already doing it, ask if they will teach you. There is nothing like hands on learning. Start small, by putting up a few jars using recycled jars and a big stockpot, and if you like the process, and intend to carry on in larger quantities, look around for a cheap processing unit. Make sure you're aware of the dangers before you start, and we guided by that knowledge and your readings. It's a big topic, but well worth the effort. I hope you enjoy this discussion around the world's biggest kitchen table, now it's over to you.

Thank you for coming by, leaving your comment and sharing yourself with me. I so enjoy reading about what you are doing. I live in my world, but I also live in THE world, and I am thankful that we can connect here and learn from each other. Take care.

The Basic Bread loaf made yesterday

I was asked by Charis to post about a simple bread recipe and I’m happy to do that because I know there are a number of readers who are trying to perfect their bread or just starting out in the wonderful world of home baking.

First let me say that it doesn’t matter whether you make bread by hand or in a machine. The aim in making bread is to make a good wholesome loaf that contains no preservatives, is cheaper than a shop-bought loaf, and is so delicious, that it becomes your family’s bread of choice. Either hand or machine will give you that, but you also need to fit bread making into your normal day-to-day activities. We are all aiming for no fuss, not much time in preparation, and good reliable bread every time you bake. If someone tells you you’re not doing the right thing making bread in a machine, don’t listen to them; if someone tells you must use a machine to get good bread, don’t listen to them. Make up your own mind and do it how it works best for you, and that might be a mixture of both, or one of them. Trust yourself.

Basic bread is a mixture of flour, water, yeast and salt. There are many other things you can add, but that is your basic loaf. If you would like to add more flavour, you’d add maybe some milk or milk powder, oats, sugar, butter or oil, or different flour – such as wholemeal, whole grain, rye, sourdough rye, soy and linseed, corn and barley or spelt. Each will give its own unique flavour and they have differing nutritional benefits. Remember, white wheat flour, and most other flours, are bland in taste and must have these natural flavourings added. Once you work out what flavour works best for your family, then you can tweak the amounts of salt, sugar etc so you get the bread that suits you perfectly. I have noticed that American recipes call for a lot more salt and sugar than we use here. This is all just a matter of taste - adding more or less salt or sugar to a bread recipe doesn't spoil the bread - so start with a good reliable recipe and experiment with your additives until you get them right. If the recipe you use has too much, or too little, sugar or salt for you, change it.

Inside the basic loaf.

It turned out okay but it’s not a really tasty loaf. You will get better if you add more flavourings. Here is a more flavoursome recipe. If you use a machine, put it in the machine in this order:

plus another cup of warm water - I can't tell you the exact amount of water you'll use. That will depend on your flour and the weather. Start with the 1¾ cups and you might have to add more.

Mix the ingredients in the cup and allow to stand for 5 minutes. You want your yeast to prove - it will look like this:

When it's finished, remove the dough and roll it into a long cigar shape - about 12 inches long. Cut into about 8 pieces for large rolls or 12 pieces for small rolls. Take each piece of dough and work it with your hands into a nice round ball. Place all the balls on a baking tray, add seeds, polenta or a criss-cross and allow to rise for about 30 minutes - depending on the temperature in your house.

All the bread machine recipes above can be made by hand as well.

MORE BREAD RECIPES

More of my posts on bread are here, flower pot bread is here, moving beyond the plain loaf is here, the New York Times no knead bread. My tutorial for making bread by hand.

HINTS AND TIPS
But baking isn’t just about recipes, is it. It’s about technique, knowing your ingredients and doing the right thing. Don't be a passive bystander when you're cooking, become involved in it. Learn about your ingredients and what they do. Know why you're using them.

So here are a few hints:

• If you store your yeast in the fridge, and you should, mix it in warm water to bring up the temperature before you add it to the flour. You can either wait till it bubbles, so you know the yeast is active, or you can just mix it in and use it after it's warmed up. If you’re using water from the hot kettle, pour the water into the cup first, test it to make sure it’s not too hot, then add the yeast. Pouring hot water into yeast will kill it.

• No matter what type of flour you use, it will absorb differing amounts of water depending on the weather. If it's a humid day you might find you use less water; on a dry day, or in a heated home, you might need more. So when you go through a recipe, be flexible with the water. If a recipe calls for 1 ¼ cups, add one cup and mix, adding the ¼ cup slowly until the dough looks and feels right. If you don't add all the ¼ cup, or if you add a little more, that is okay.
  

• Whether you use your hands or a bread machine, you need to touch the dough. Learn the feel of good dough so you know what to look for. Remember all stages of the dough - it changes a lot through the process. Basically, when all the ingredients are mixed together, you want a dough that isn't too sticky (although almost all rye dough will be more sticky that wheat dough) and isn't too dry. Feel it between your fingers and thumb, just like feeling a piece of fabric. Wheat dough will be soft by not sticky. If you're still at the beginning, you can add a little more flour or water, according to what your judgement aims you at. Don't add anything at all at the end of the process, you'll ruin the bread.

• Don't use too much flour to knead the dough. A light sprinkling is enough. Adding more flour when kneading adds more flour to the dough and at the end of the process that will give you a tough loaf.
  

• You need a hot oven to bake bread successfully, and the oven needs to be pre-heated for the best results. Bread has two types of rising - one is from the yeast you use, the other is called "oven lift" - you get this when you put properly proved bread dough into a HOT oven. The heat immediately starts to lift the bread. That is what you want. Adding dough to a warm oven won't give you the same result.
  

And the best tip I can give is to warn you that you will have flops, everyone does, but that's okay, learn from it and keep going. When the bread doesn't rise properly, or if it tastes bland, work out what went wrong and fix it next time. Because if you can get this right, if you learn how dough should feel at all stages of preparation, if you work on shaping your bread and decorating it, if you get into the rhythm of making bread on a regular basis, it will become a joy for you and your family. Bread making is one of the true pleasures of living a simple life. Be brave, give it a go.

I am still learning about our pecan tree. It sits in the chook run and it is the most beautiful tree in our backyard. It's deciduous, madly green and lush during the summer and a slender skeleton with forking fingers during winter. For many years I didn't know what it was, and I still don't know what variety it is, but I'm happy it's there. Apparently the old varieties of pecan take 12 years to produce their first crop. We have lived here for 11 ½ years and nuts are growing for the first time.

I believe pecans are native to north America so there may be some of you who are growing them. If so, any tips you can give me will be gladly accepted. We don't have the disease pecan scab here and, from what I've read, apart from a ring barking native pest, the pecan grows without trouble here. But I wonder how we harvest the nuts. Do they fall off? We don't have a lot of them but I want to make sure I take full advantage of what is there .


A short stroll over from the pecan we're growing passionfruit vines. Both Hanno and I love passionfruit and I think we now have five vines out there in various stages of maturity. Not only are they a delicious fruit, the flowers are beautiful. This photo was taken as the flower was opening so you can see it's white tendrils and deep purple throat. Exquisite!

Another uncommon tropical plant that I've been growing here for about 10 years but am only now becoming serious about, are my vanilla orchids. I've grown them in pots until now, have had one or two orchid flowers but never any pods. It's a bit of a palaver to grow them for vanilla pods but that is what I intend doing this year. When the luffas are removed from their trellis, I'm planting a few vanilla orchids in the ground near the shade of the banana trees. The vines need to grow to a certain height and then have the top of the vine removed from the trellis to grown downwards. That triggers flowering, and eventually, pods. Then comes the hand pollinating, we have no natural pollinators of vanilla here, and then, when the pods are (hopefully) prolific and mature, they're picked and fermented. A long and tedious process to produce that sweet unique flavouring, vanilla. But I'm mad enough to do it. ; - ) I'll take some photos when I plant.

I forget who asked now, but someone wanted to know more about the bricks around our raised garden beds. I asked Hanno and this is what he told me. The brick size is 390 x 185 x 110 mm and they're a hollow brick with holes in the centre, which is good for planting small overflowing herbs because they soften the edges. Don't buy the solid type unless they're very cheap. We bought ours as seconds. I think they were a bit under a dollar each. If you buy enough for several garden beds, it will be fairly expensive but it pays off over the long term. Unlike logs, they don't decay or leech into the ground and they're easily rearranged to form different garden shapes. To lay them, set into the flat ground about two inches deep and secure them in with the soil you back fill.

I was contacted by Radio National last week. They are doing a program on frugal blogs and will be interviewing someone from slate.com and me for the program. I do that non-live interview today. Shane and Sarndra will be here too, bringing over more of their stuff to be stored here while they're in New Zealand. And when I came home from work yesterday, I noticed Hanno had placed two ripe luffas on the outside table. I'll have to check them out this morning and see if they need more drying time or if they can be skinned right away. I did the first of The Frugal Home workshops yesterday at work and it was a great success. The first two workshops have been booked out. Times are tough now and I hope to pass on some of what I know via these workshops. But now there is bread to be baked, a cake to be made and I'm sure, a hundred other things to do. It's good to be back home after two busy days at work.

ADDITION: I'll certainly let you all know when the program will be on. Apparently it will be in a couple of weeks. I believe they have podcasts too, so you might be able to download it if you miss it, or if you're in another country.

It looks like a really good swap. I think it's wonderful that so many of you are taking part and I hope you enjoy it. Swapping is a good way of developing new friendships and learning new skills, even if it's straight machine sewing or hand stitching. For the experienced sewers, it's a small project to work on that has a surprise element attached to it, and it helps use up those little bits and pieces of fabric that might otherwise be left unused. I would like to take part but I'm really snowed under at the moment so I'll just watch from the sidelines and enjoy the photos when they come in. To Sharon and Rose, I thank you sincerely for the work you are putting into this. I have organised many swaps and I know how time consuming they can be. So thank you both for you work and time.

To answer a couple of queries from yesterday: Mike, the tree was already planted when we decided to let the chooks free range around it so we couldn't bury the wire. Instead, Hanno covered the root area, on top of the ground, with chicken wire and held it down with a few bricks and pieces of wood. Initially we covered the wire with straw mulch, but the girls soon scratched it off so we didn't replace it. Since the wire has been there with no straw on top they've ignored the area and only walk under the tree on their way to somewhere else.

Margaret: don't plant potatoes in old tyres. Tyres contain cadmium and overtime it will leach out, possibly contaminating the potatoes. If you want to grow potatoes in a small space, use a wire cage. You can make it by surrounding some star pegs with chicken wire. The principle is the same but instead of adding more tyres, you start with an empty cage and as the potatoes grow, add more straw. Sometimes we hill our potatoes, sometimes we don't. We get a good yield either way.

Autumn, I use a fair bit of lemon in cooking - cakes, dressings, fish etc. I make some of the lemon juice into cordial, the rest is frozen and used over winter.

Maryanne, that's great news! It's always so exciting when the first of your fruit or vegetables start producing. I hope you get a great harvest from those tomato bushes.

And to everyone else who left a comment yesterday, I thank you. It's always very interesting for me to read what you write. I like knowing how others are living, doing the same household tasks I carry out here. It's a little bit like a friendly chat over the back fence.

One of the things I did last weekend was to clean the pantry. Pantry cleaning is one job that needs to be done every few months so I can check my containers and clean up any spilt food. A few years ago, before we bought our deep freezer, we had a couple of outbreaks of pantry moths that wiped out quite a few kilos of flour. We haven't had pantry moths since we started freezing all the dried grains and flour that come into the house, but I'm still on the look out for them. If you haven't seen pantry moths, and I'm not sure if those we have here are the same world-wide, they are a small brown moth, about the size of a fly. They get into flour, rice, lentils etc, when they're being processed, or in storage, or in the shop, and unknowingly you bring them home. When the product has been sitting on your shelf for a week or two, the moths emerge and fly around the house, where eventually they will find more flour or rice and lay eggs. To prevent this happening, if you can, put all your dried grains and flour in the freezer for a couple of days as soon as you bring it home. That will kill any larvae that might be present.

Cleaning the pantry is a simple, but essential, job. The way I do it is to empty everything out of the cupboard, clean the shelves from top to bottom with a terry cloth rag and white vinegar. If anything is spilt - we had a small molasses spill, it is cleaned up with a terry rag and homemade soap and wiped over with a clean moist cloth. If you've spilt any flour or rice in the cupboard, it's a good idea to vacuum the cupboard, making sure you do the edge, where the shelf meets the side wall, to make sure no flour or grain is lurking in the join. Leaving those little bits of food in crevasses attracts moths and weevils and it's best to vacuum them to completely remove any trace.

The hours spent at home during Autumn are the sweetest of the year. It's almost here, I feel the change of seasons upon us, and it calls us to do that seasonal work reserved for this, our busiest time. We plant our main eating crop in March, so as February draws to a close, I plant seeds in trays and Hanno prepares the gardens with compost, worm castings, blood and bone, cow manure and old chicken poo mixed with lawn clippings. It's a healthy brew and it's loosely dug and raked in to enrich the gardens for another year of backyard organic vegetables and fruit. One plant we never fertilise is the lemon tree (above). It's planted in the chook run and with its roots protected from scratching claws with wire, it produces bucket loads of lemons every year.

How often do we get the chance to help someone whose life has been completely turned upside down? Not often. We do favours for people, we give to charities, but when is an act of kindness given to someone who loses everything in the space of one single day?

Jarryd needs your help.

I just received this comment from Frogdancer and I am happy to help her. This is what she wrote:

I was wondering if you'd like to let your readers know about a book drive I'm organising for my friend's son. They were totally burnt out in the bushfires near Traralgon (literally drove away with nothing but the clothes on their backs and their cat and dog).

He's 17, a real literature nut, and we're sending him books to help replace all of the ones that he lost. Plus a few more to broaden his horizons. If any of your readers are book lovers then they'd know how lost he is without his library.

The list of novels we're working from as a base is on my blog, along with how I'm organising it. (I'm crossing them off as people comment.)

My aim is to make his postman curse the day that blogging was ever invented!!

If you can help, please do. A random act of kindness will lift your spirits and make your heart feel good, but more than that it will help a young man regain his faith in the goodness of people and give him books to fill his brain and form his future. I am so pleased to see James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon on the list!

Read frogdancer's post and book list here. Apparently her email is down so leave a comment at her blog, or here and I'll pass it on to her. If you were wondering if you could help after the fires, this is a quick and simple way to make a real contribution - grab a suitable book, slip it in an envelope, write a note telling Jarryd that you're thinking of him, and pop it in the post. How easy is that!

Thank you for doing this.

Hello ladies. The sign-up deadine for the swap is now over. I am glad so many of you have joined our new swap. I am especially happy that there are so many first time swappers and even novice sewers and crafters who have joined in-this is what a swap is all about! Swapping is about learning a new skill or practicing an old skill and making new friends. Rose and I have made lists, are sorting buddies out, and will be back to post the swap buddies at the end of this week-end. I will tell you that there will have plenty of time for this swap (the deadline will be towards the end of April), and I have also been thinking about asking everyone to include a favorite recipe or two with their kitchen creations-it is a wonderful way to share a family or traditional food with far-away friends and to get to know their favorite foods. Until Sunday, Sharon and Rose