Caution is in the wind. We're being advised to save our resources, spend our money - for the good of the national economy, and keep our heads down. Keep working, keep spending and don't change anything. Times will get better, they say.

Of course, times will get better but now is the perfect time to change. Change can make your life better while the bad times continue around you. Simplifying your life can make a big difference to how you survive this economic crisis. I'm not saying you should pack up and move to the country, I'm saying that whatever you're doing in your home right now - the way you shop, the way you cook and clean, the way you furnish your home, how you feed your pets, how you think, how you travel to work or school can all be simplified in a way to save you money and eventually, time.

Living simply is a good way to live all the time, not just in hard times. I know many people are coming to it now because it provides an optimistic direction and a light in the window in these cold dark times, but even when the economy turns around again, it will provide that, and more. Simple living is not just about being prudent with money, it provides a gentler way of living that is kinder to the environment and to the people who live it than the way we have come to live our lives now.

Modern life encourages us to be dependent on others. We buy our food, often already cooked, from a shop, we buy our clothes already made, we have someone cut our hair and 'do' our nails, we go to the doctor to ask what is wrong with us, a mechanic fixes our car, a train takes us on our journeys, someone teaches our children, magazines and TV tell us what we should wear and who we should look like; advertising dictates, products dominate, others decide. Obviously we shouldn't give up the convenience of modern life, but we should get back our independence. We should make our own decisions on food, cleaning, clothing, health and how we live. Almost everything you make yourself will be superior to what you buy in a shop. You will take care that what you include in what you make is healthy and not there just to extend the shelf life or make it smell better. Preservatives and flavour enhancers are there to benefit the manufacturers, not us. We do better with fresh, or home made.

This post is not meant to teach you what you might need to know but rather to encourage you towards change. I have written many posts on ways of doing things, recipes, developing yourself and becoming independent. Some older posts on these ideas are here, here, here, here and here. And read 50 simple things, which is here.

I don't expect anyone to change their life overnight. It's a slow process, one thing at a time, day-to-day kind of change. But generally you will find that changing one thing will lead seamlessly to other changes and before you know it your life change is underway. And I don't want to point you in one direction either - this life is different for all of us. Those older and younger, with and without children, working outside the home and working at home will all have different priorities and needs. So the point of this post is to help you think about change, to tell you it's possible no matter what you hear from others, and to encourage you to start. You don't have to live your life the way "normal" life is portrayed on TV or in magazines. Your life will be different to your friends lives, so don't model yourself on them. You and your family are unique, so create a unique life and piece-by-piece, slowly but surely, new possibilities will open up before you. It won't be easy, you'll work harder at first, but the rewards will be there for the taking.

So wake up, dive in, be bold, find beauty, slow down, give more, expect less, breathe deeply, take pride, value yourself, respect your work, do good, learn, grow, develop, lead, teach and become your true self, whatever that may be. Unravel the mystery of what your life can become by starting on that journey today. That first step is the hardest, but it's also the most important.

With two incredibly busy days at work behind me, I'm happy to be home again. I love my work, love the people I work with, and the students at our Flexischool, but as we move closer to our new building, the days get more hectic with more work to cram into the days I'm there. I have to go back for a meeting tomorrow, but today I will appreciate the quiet and familiar here at home.

We've had Shane and Sarndra staying with us for a couple of days. They were organising a few things for the wedding and wanted to make sure Princess (the cat) and their chooks settled in well. It's a slow process, but everything seems to be going well on that front. I helped Sarndra with the wedding invitations on Sunday while we had a nice conversation about her hopes for their special day and our wedding in Hamburg. They left to go to Brisbane on Monday to stay with Sarndra's mum and this morning they're flying to New Zealand. They'll return a couple of weeks before their wedding in late June. Bon Voyage S & S! One of the wonderful things about blogging for me is that my family can read that life is going on as normal here at home, even though they're far away. I have family members and close friends who read my blog most days so I'll take this opportunity to say hello to Kerry, Sunny, Tricia, Danny, Kathleen, Susan, Wendy, Bernadette, Suzie, Nick, Angie, Billie and Zoe.

So today Hanno and I will be here together with all sorts of possibilities on the horizon. We have bread in the freezer so I won't bake bread, but I'll be sweeping, washing, making the bed, and tidying up; all the gentle things that will bring my mind back home again, and I will make sure I talk to Hanno, smile, relax, sew and knit, enjoy myself and get enough sleep. :- )


We have walnuts! We were given a large bag of Tasmanian walnuts last week - 10 kilos (22 pounds) of them! Hanno and I have cracked a few open with the hammer but today I'll have to do something with the bulk of them. Have you frozen walnuts? I hope to freeze most of them in small bags but I wonder if it will affect the taste. At the moment they're really delicious and I don't want to spoil them. If you know of any other ways to store walnuts, please let me know. Which reminds me, I'll check the pecan tree today to see if any are ready to fall. When I last looked, a couple of weeks ago, they were still green.

And this afternoon, after I feel satisfied with the work I've done, I'll sit with my knitting for a while. I haven't knitted at all since last Friday and I've missed it. For those of you knitting along, I've only done three and a half squares so far. Hopefully I'll do another three before the weekend. The square I've almost completed is an easy one, giving a nice textured look.

BASKET WEAVE SQUARE
Cast on 28 stitches.
Rows 1, 2, 3: Knit to end
Row 2: K 5, P 3, K 3, P3, K3, P3, K3, P3, K2
Row 3: K2, P3, K3, P3, K3, P3, K3, P3, K5
And repeat rows 2 and 3 until the right length, making room to end off with three rows of Knit.

I brought home one of the knitting folders from work yesterday and want to look through it for ideas before I take it back again next week. If anyone has a favourite simple square pattern they'd like to share, let me know and I'll include it in a post later in the week.

Welcome to the new readers, including the knitters. It's lovely having you all here. A warm hello to those old friends who continue reading. I love receiving your comments, I read every one of them, and although I don't often have the time to respond to comments, I do appreciate your thoughts and good wishes. And now I'm off to answer a few questions in yesterday's post. Have a lovely day, everyone.

Worms are a mystery to many people but if you have a small bucket of compost worms, you can create a worm farm that will help you get rid of a lot of your kitchen waste and newspapers while giving you a really beneficial end product. Having a worm farm allows us to create very good fertiliser here at home. Used in conjunction with other organic fertilisers like homemade compost, animal and chook manures and herb teas, we can grow whatever we like here without buying commercial chemical fertilisers.

Using worm castings in your garden will improve the structure of your soil, will help it retain moisture and will add microbes which help make the nutrients already in the soil available to the vegetables you plant. You will get better growth, healthier roots and bigger harvests using worm castings.

I have written about setting up a worm farm here, today I want to write about fast worm farm maintenance. The end product of a worm farm, the reason you keep worms, is for the worm casts - this is called vermicompost or vermicasts, which is just another name for worm manure. Once you've had those worms chomping away on food, paper, manure and straw for a few months, you'll want to harvest the castings. My problem was Hanno needed the castings for the garden and I didn't have time to harvest them. I wanted to empty the bathtub, sift the gravel on the bottom, because I know a lot of worms are living in there, reset the filter cloth on top of the gravel and build up the bedding again. No time for that, so I did a bit of fast maintenance.

BTW, you should never hose out your worm farm. Over time, the farm will build up beneficial bacteria, just like yoghurt and sour dough starter does. The longer it stays undisturbed, the better it gets. So your normal maintenance is cleaning the outside, making sure you don't have too many spiders, or rats, and generally checking the worms are healthy, the filter cloth is doing it's job and nothing has made a nest in there. There is little cleaning as such.

I didn't feed the worms for a month, making sure they ate every bit of food and last weekend I divided the farm in two. I wanted to create a pile of worm castings, containing the worms, and a pile of food that will draw them away from the castings side and into the food side.

They look ugly. The dry skin is brown with blotches of mildew, they look heavy but they are deceptively light. Yes, I'm talking about our luffas. We have a very small crop this year, mainly, I think, due to the amount of summer rain we had. But I'm grateful for whatever grows and they'll do Hanno and I, plus our guests for the coming year. There are about 10 luffas almost ready to harvest but two have been waiting for me on the outside table for about a week after dropping off the vine. So today I have photos of what I did with them yesterday. It's a simple thing to skin them, save the seeds and clean them well enough for use. The entire process took me about 10 minutes yesterday.

The trick to easy processing is to allow the luffas to go brown and dry completely before you process them. That can be done either on the vine or picked. Our luffas tend to develop mildew in our warm and humid summer weather, and if that happens to yours too, it's not a problem. Just let them dry naturally. They will be ready for picking and processing when the skin is dark brown and very dry. If you pick one up in your hand, it will be very light, because all the flesh inside has dried up, leaving only a skeleton of fibres. When they're at that stage, pick them and lay them on a table outside in the shade for a day or so to completely dry out.

Break the end off where they were attached to the vine. That little disc will come away from the luffa really easily. When it does, tap the luffa on the table a few times to dislodge the seeds, and tip them out. There are quite a few seeds in each one so keep tapping them until all the seeds are out.

In the photo above you'll see one luffa that has no mildew and one (behind) that has.

Listen ... it's sublime.

This is Australian man Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu singing Bapa. Geoffrey has been blind since birth and he sings in "language". He speaks and sings almost no English. His language is Yolngu from Elcho Island. There are subtitles on this clip so you will know what he's singing about. But the true reason for listening to this is to hear and see his extraordinary talent.

There is a cyclone off the coast heading towards us. Currently a category 3, it is predicted to move up a notch and be category 4 later today. Here is the latest map. We live just under the bottom of the cloud mass, about half way up the east coast of Australia. If tropical cyclone Hamish doesn't move away from the coast, it will move south, towards us. Later today we'll move the sun shade sheets of roofing iron in the chook yard and generally tidy up so there is nothing to fly around in the strong winds. I'll come back on Sunday to let you know what's happening.

I always like doing those simple tasks that connect me with my history - washing up, sweeping, raising chickens, gardening and stitching are all things my great, great grandmas would have done. And they would probably have reflected that the same things they were doing had been done by their many times great grandmothers as well. Many of the things we do in our lives now are far removed from the past, but I rest assured that when I plunge my hands into warm soapy water to wash the dishes, when I pick up my broom and when I stitch, I am doing exactly what's been done by women and men throughout our long history. That makes me feel good.

This throw/rug/afghan/blanket/blankie pattern will be as simple as you want to make it. You choose the stitches you're familiar with or follow what I'm doing. The stitches I choose will be easy - just a combination of plain and purl - but they'll produce textured squares. I found this list of knitting abbreviations that has many videos of the stitch they're describing, attached. If you're a beginner, look at "K" for the plain (knit) stitch and "P" for the purl. Both have videos attached that show the stitch.


I started off doing one garter stitch square, which is just cast on, plain knit stitch, cast/bind off, and one in stocking/stockinette stitch. That is cast on, one row of plain, followed by one row of purl until the desired square size was reached, then cast/bind off. My squares are using 28 stitches. If you're going smaller or larger, go up or down four stitches, because the textured patterns I'm using work in sets of four. Using 28 stitches gives me 7 sets of 4 stitches. I'm using 8 ply yarn on no.7 needles. You will also need a straight ruler.

Let me say right here that I'm not an expert knitter. There are many very good knitters here though so if you get stuck, make a comment and I, or one of our knitting buddies, will help you.

A couple of the ladies commented that joining the squares together is a bit of a task, so I'm going to join strips together as I go, and then join the strips at the end. Does anyone have a suggestion for how to join the squares? I would like to hand stitch with yarn but I'm not sure how practical that is.

This is the textured stitch I'll be doing today:
MOCK DOUBLE RIB - It looks like rib but doesn't stretch like normal rib.

Abbreviations: p = purl, k = knit (plain)

Cast on 28 stitches
1st row: k to the end
2nd row: p1, k2, p2 and repeat until you get to the last 3 stitches - then do k2, p1.
Keep repeating rows 1 and 2 until you have what looks like a square. Then measure your knitting - whatever the width is, you will need to keep knitting until you reach the same measurement in length.
When you've reached that length and you have a square, cast/bind off.

Everyone will have different tension in their knitting, so our knitting will either be tighter or looser. Your 28 stitches might be 6 inches, mine might be 5.5 inches, someone else's might be 4.5 inches. That is all good - the measurement we are aiming for is a 28 stitch square and whatever size your knitting tension gives you is fine, as long as all your squares turn out the same size.

It's always wonderful starting out on a new knitting project but this one has that added bonus of knitting alongside friends, all doing the same project. I really like that! Thank you for joining me - now let's begin and make up some fine looking blankets.

I don't make a list for myself any more, I used to, but now my daily rhythm sweeps me along. But if there were such a list in my home, every day, in among the housekeeping tasks, without fail, Rhonda-keeping tasks would be listed too. 'Talk to Hanno, smile, relax, sew and knit, enjoy yourself and get enough sleep' have as much to do with keeping my home in order as sweeping the floor and baking bread. Without those elements in my day, it's just a list of chores, and while I find joy in working at home now, it wasn't always so and might not always be. I need to relax, smile, talk, knit and sew to enjoy what I'm doing.

I know I'm in that laid back phase of my life now, and there are many of you who are run off your feet with the work you need to do each day, but my days are also full to bursting at the moment, so I make sure I look after myself as I go. If I don't who will? No one. It's not Hanno's job to walk around with me and make me smile, I have no personal assistant who tells me to sit down and have morning tea while she types up a report for me, or does a couple of pages of book writing. It is my responsibility to do what I can to look after my well being as I work. If I don't do that, my well being will run off down the street screaming "I told you so!"

So every day I make time for morning tea on the front verandah. Hanno and I reconnected out there when we both gave up work. For years we'd worked in our jobs, separated every day, and too busy to talk at night. Those morning teas and the talking that went with them brought us back together again, it reinvented US. That 30 - 40 minutes not only gives us a rest after our early morning work, it also sets us up for the rest of the day, we discuss plans, solve problems and draw closer to each other. It also helps us do an extra 60 minutes work for the investment of that restful 30.

I have written before about not seeing knitting and sewing as a craft, but instead as part of my housework. I love to sew, but when I do, I am producing items for our home, or mending clothes or sheets, making curtains, or sewing on buttons, applying patches or restitching a hem. All things that allow us to keep using what we already own or to create what we need from what we already have. Looking after our clothes and soft furnishings is part of my house work. And so is knitting dishcloths, rugs, tea cosies, hats, mittens and scarves. So I don't feel I'm taking time for myself when I knit or sew, even though I love doing it, it's part of my housework.

Finding joy in daily life is just one of the ways I have made this housework thing work for me. Instead of being the misery it used to be, I look for ways to enjoy my day, I smile, talk, relax and rest when I feel like it. It makes a difference, especially on the busiest of days. But you have to remind yourself to do it when you start, so make a written list, or a mental one, and list what you need to do to enjoy your day. And then, even if it puts you behind a bit, do it - look after yourself so you can look after your family. If you get sick, or if you hate what you're doing, everyone will suffer. So give yourself time to do a few things you enjoy throughout the day. Rest. Sit down with a cup of coffee and talk to the children, or who ever is in the house. If no one is there, email or phone a friend. Look for joy in your day, find happiness in the pantry, reinvent your routines so they work for you, and respect the work you do for you are making a warm and comfortable home, and that is one of the most important jobs there is.

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