down to earth

I was out at my voluntary job yesterday, I finished the solar grant I was working on and started writing notes for some workshops that will happen soon. It was freezing up there in the mountains, so I'm looking forward to being at home all day today catching up on my work and writing a few bits and pieces.

I have to make soap so I hope to get that done today, and the floor needs washing, clothes need to be put away and yarns sorted out. I still have to organise some trims I bought while I was at Tricia's and I'm trying to knit up a few dishcloths to put in my shop (coming soon), but it's slow going at the moment. I'm sure you're all familiar with these very ordinary tasks, they may be slightly different in your home, but their all similar; this work is universal.

My reward at the end of the day will be to sit and read some new books I received lately. Wild Fermentation and Little Luxury Knits. They are books I could buy through Amazon because of the points I received through your purchases. So to every one of you who has bought books through my blog, I appreciate it very much and thank you sincerely. And speaking of reading, I have made what I consider to be a huge change in my reading materials. Those who have been reading here for a long time will probably remember that I stopped buying magazines many years ago and the one I regretted not buying and stilled missed very much was British Country Living. Well, while I was at Tricia's, she bought the latest edition and I was delighted to be able to read it again. I told her I didn't buy it any more and she asked me why and added: "I thought you still did all those small things that give you pleasure." I felt like I'd been hit on the head with a mallet. Why had I made myself miserable not buying this magazine? Every time I saw it at the newsagent's, I wanted to pick it up and look through it but never did because I thought I would weaken my resolve not to buy it. Then I would walk out of the shop feeling miserable. Well, I can afford to buy that magazine with my pocket money, the magazine was a small pleasure that I really looked forward to and cherished and I have decided to buy it again! I bought the first one last week. I will finished reading that too today. Small rewards at the end of the day. Whatever they are, they're always a treasure. What are your small rewards?

When I was working, and particularly when I was in my 40s and early 50s, I was very ambitious. I wanted to be happy, successful and have a thriving business. I ran my own company, producing a town newspaper for one of our big mining companies, was well as reports and training manuals. I loved taking control of this little business, producing products that people needed and knowing that I was making a success of something that I wasn't supposed to know much about - writing about mining. Times have changed now, but back then women were supposed to be in the office, not writing about how to operate dump trucks, underground workshops and control rooms.

I got to a stage though when I couldn't continue in that field. I stopped enjoying the trips to the mines, I didn't like working in a mostly male environment and I hated the travel. I retired early and wondered what I could possibly do that would replace the feeling of strength and satisfaction I once felt working for myself.

Enter homemaking and being a stay at home wife.

Soon after I made my change I tried to make sense of housework. I had never enjoyed it and felt it was an annoyance that interrupted me going out and enjoying myself. But when I came home to stay and realised that I probably wouldn't work for a living anymore, I knew deep down I had to somehow find at least some satisfaction in my work at home. Little did I know the mother lode of happiness was waiting to be unearthed.

In the beginning, I wondered how on earth I would be able to fill the day, and not just one day but every day that was to come. I was reading all the time, thinking about how I wanted to live and one thing was clear, I didn't want to work again. So, if I knew that, the oppositie was also true, I would be spending a lot of time in my home. I started a few experiments in cleaning and rearranging things and it didn't feel that bad at all. I was lucky in that I enjoyed my own company so I went from there to wondering if I would get to a point of enjoying being at home. I'd always loved cooking so I started cooking, then I baked bread and tried to perfect my plain ordinary lunch time loaf. That worked! I made very good bread. I started making the bed every morning, worked on making some natural cleaners, then soap, and before I knew it, I was happily occupied all day.

After a couple of months at home I got to the stage of going to bed happy, content with what I'd achieved and making plans for the following day. I was thankful for each new day and the opportunity to discover new ways of doing my work. New thoughts were beginning to emerge and I was smiling a lot more. We have always lived with elements of simple life - we had been keeping chickens and gardening for many years, so I decided to expand on that. I started planting more vegetables, then tried to grow everything we would usually buy. That lead to more new recipes, a homemakers journal to keep all the information in and gently, from one day to the next, real change started happening.

I came to realise that homemaking is very much like running your own business, and just like a small business, you get out of it what you put in. I had to work to a budget, there were performance indicators to guide me and the amount of work I did reflected on the entire enterprise - I could make it or break it. My business meetings were replaced by family gatherings, making a presentation in front of a group became cooking a meal for a celebration and while I was not paid by cheque or direct debit, I was certainly paid in love and appreciation from others, and that wonderful feeling of satisfaction. When I looked back on my short history at home, I was amazed that I was happy and interested in what would happen every day. But the thing that surprised me the most was the feeling of strength, enrichment and fulfilment homemaking gave me.

I know now that there are many ways to be a strong woman. Running your own company and being successful is one way but you also demonstrate strength and significance as a mother, matriarch and homemaker. You are keeping your family functional, happy and focused. You are the person who makes it possible for many others to do what they do. You are the one who makes a safe, comfortable haven for the family. Your cooking nourishes, your cleaning keeps them safe, your organisation keeps them on track. Your wisdom helps lead your family. Your decisions mean something.

I still think the work I do in my home is like running a small business. I have different departments, a have to stay in the black with my budget, there are quite a few people I try to keep happy; but there is also a huge point of difference. Never once in all my time working for a living, even when I had my own business, did I feel really in control and free to do whatever I wanted to do, as long as it didn't sink the ship. I feel that every day now. There is an extraordinary feeling of freedom working at home. There are no rules except those I make for myself, I can do whatever work I feel like doing most days and there is no one looking over my shoulder. I know many of you feel the same about your own homes, whether you work there full or part-time. I doubt I would be as happy in any other place now.

If I could isolate one part of our home that facilitates our way of living the most it would be our roof. There has been a lot going on up there in the past couple of months and it's all exciting stuff. Well, it's exciting to me. :- ) I told you all about the solar panels we had installed in April, then, last Thursday, when we were out, the solar system meter box was installed. That gives us a good idea of our usage and what is going into the main grid. From what we've seen so far, I think we've paid our last power bill! Not only does that decrease our cost of living, it also lightens our footprint, and for that, I'm very thankful.

The thing I haven't told you about yet is that Hanno started the huge job of roof cleaning, maintenance and painting. Our home was built in 1985 and the corrugated steel roof has protected us since we moved here in 1997. However, there have been leaks lately, especially on the verandah, and something needed to be done. Hanno examined the roof a couple of months ago, cleaned it with the Gerni and started checking the bolts holding the roof on. Many of them were rusty and had to be replaced (with slightly larger ones so they gripped the timber in the old hole) and all of them were treated with White Knight Rust Guard - a liquid that removes rust then primes and seals the metal. There were over 450 bolts in total. Just that was a huge job but it had to be done - we want this maintenance to keep the roof in good order for another 25 years. Hanno will be 95 then and I will be 88. If it needs further maintenance after that, we might get someone else to do it; although knowing Hanno, he'll probably want to have a go at it himself. :- ) I am really pleased that he is able and willing to do this kind of home maintenance. It has saved us thousands of dollars and it helps us live well in our little home.

When all the bolts had been replaced and sealed, Hanno started painting. There are two newer sections that we built when we came to live here - the garage and a bedroom extension. Those areas were painted in Taubmans exterior gloss. Hanno said gloss is better for that purpose because it will be easier to clean in future years with the Gerni. The rest of the house was painted with a solar reflective off-white paint called Globalcoat. It's a specialty high gloss acrylic paint, made in Australia, for concrete, terracotta and metal roofs. It's like a rubber coating that doesn't chip or peel and is guaranteed for 10 years. He's been painting for about six weeks now, it needs two coats, and he's still going up the ladder everyday to do a bit. It's almost finished, thank goodness.

Being solar reflective, the paint will increase the energy efficiency of our roof and along with the other elements up there, while keeping us sheltered from cold, rain and sun, will help us consume less electricity. Our roof is one of the reasons why a small solar unit will give us all the power we use.

Along with the solar panels that give us solar electricity, we have a solar hot water unit. This has been operating perfectly since it was installed in 1998. Solar hot water cuts about 30% off the average electricity bill in Australia. We also have three skylights - one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom and one in the laundry. We have no windows in that bathroom or our laundry but even on dull days we don't have to turn on the light in those rooms. The skylight in the kitchen was installed when we added our back verandah, which made the kitchen quite dark. The light is never on in the kitchen during the day, the skylight gives us excellent light at no cost to us or the environment. Also up on the roof, we have whirly birds that spin due to their design, extracting hot air in the roof. These, together with the solar reflective paint now on the roof, should make quite a difference in summer.

We have a great roof and like other parts of our home, it has been modified to suit our way of living. We aim to keep it in good order so it will continue to help us live lightly on our tiny portion of the world. We have lived here for 14 years, the paint and the solar panels have been added this year, as we could afford them. The solar hot water, whirly birds and skylights were added in exactly the same way - when we could afford them. It doesn't matter if you can't do everything you want to do in your home when you first move in. Just devise a plan, save your money, and add what you can, when you can. It might take a while, but if you're living true to your values and those values include being as self reliant and energy efficient as possible, then it doesn't matter how long it takes. Make a plan, work towards your goals, and buy when it is wise to buy.

We had a wonderful visit with our family on the Gold Coast last Friday and once again I could hold my beautiful grandson, Jamie. The only downside is the trip there and back because the traffic is terrible. Still, it's worth it to see everyone, catch up on the news and see how Jamie is progressing.

There is no doubt in my mind - food and drinks made at home from scratch are far superior to what you buy at the shops. Not only are they tastier, fresher and healthier, they usually cost less for a better product. I spent some of my Sunday making a few odds and ends in the kitchen. We had been given a free box of apples and I wanted to do something with them; the first night I made an apple crumble. That still left over 300 apples, so I skinned and seeded a bowl full of them and made up a litre of apple juice. If it wasn't so labour intensive, I would have juiced them all but I had to de-seed the apples because there is a small amount of cyanide in the seeds, and these apples were commercial apples, waxed, so I had to peel them too. Still, the juice that resulted from that exercise was so good; Hanno and I had a chilled glass each with our roast pork for dinner. The leftover pomace has been bagged and frozen for future apple and fruit cakes.

I found some pickling onions at the store on Friday so I bought a kilo. While I was at Tricia's, we went out for lunch a few times and I had one of my favourites - Ploughman's Lunch - a mixed plate of sourdough, good tasty cheese, pickled onions, gherkins, ham sliced from the leg and a relish. One of those lunches had the most delicious pickled onions I'd had in a long time. Clearly they were not a commercial brand, and had probably been made by the chef. I think they were pickled in balsamic vinegar. They inspired me to make pickled onions, hopefully as good as those I had on my ploughman's plate. I really like having a jar of pickled onions in the fridge. They last a long time and they're a wonderful addition to a lunchtime sandwich or a snack plate.

This jar will sit for two months to let the vinegar and spices do their magic before we eat them.

There seems to be quite an interest here in preserving, so I thought this would be an excellent starting place for those of you who haven't done any preserving before, have no equipment, but would like to give it a go. All you will need for this, apart from the ingredients, is a litre | quart sized preserving jar, with a pop-top lid, in good condition, a saucepan large enough to boil it in (completely covered) and a smaller saucepan for the vinegar. The jar I used is one of those Italian preserving jars you can commonly buy in either a supermarket or department store here. Recycled jars are fine for this job - make sure they're undamaged and the lid is perfect. Wash the jar and lid in warm soapy water and rinse it well.

Let me say first that many of my American friends might be a bit concerned with these instructions. I'm not going to use a water bath or pressure canner, but these onions will be fine for about a year without that processing. It relies on high acid vinegar and sugar to keep the food safe; both of them stop micro-organisms surviving in the highly acidic, sugar liquid. This way of preserving is common in Australia and the UK and although your method of boiling everything is how you're advised to can food, this is the common way to put up pickled onions in the Commonwealth.

If you ever see this Melrose vinegar (or Braggs vinegar) in the shops, grab it. It will be more expensive than ordinary vinegar, but it contains "mother of vinegar" and with that you can make your own vinegar. Before you buy, lift all the bottles up to the light and buy the one with the most strands or blobs of stuff floating around. I know that sounds gross, but the "mother" floats around in the vinegar.

The taste of the end product will depend on the quality of the ingredients you use. Do NOT use your cleaning vinegar for this. I used the excellent Melrose unpasturised apple cider vinegar and Cornwall's Apple Cider Vinegar. I didn't have enough Melrose for this recipe because I wanted to keep the "mother" in the bottom of the bottle for making new vinegar. So I added a small amount of Cornwall's vinegar to make up the volume. Vinegar used for pickling must be at least 5% acid. Melrose is 8% and although Cornwall's never state on their label what level of acidity it is, they recommend it for pickling so it must be at least 5%.

PICKLED ONIONS - INGREDIENTS

1 kg | 2.2 pounds small pickling onions

50 grams | 2 oz rock, sea or lake salt

600 mls | one pint good vinegar - at least 5% acidity

3 tablespoons honey or sugar

2 teaspoons allspice berries

2 teaspoons mustard seeds

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

2 dried chillies

2 bay leaves

If you're in Australia and you can't find all the spices in the shop, use a packet of Menora pickling spice. I bought mine at IGA.

METHOD

Cut the top and bottom off the onions and place them in a bowl. Cover them in boiling water and leave for about a minute. Pour off the hot water and replace it with cold water.
When the onions are cool, slip the skins off the onions. Dry the bowl, place the onions back in it, and sprinkle the salt over the onions. This will draw fluid form them. Leave this, covered, for 24 hours.
The next day, boil your jar and lid in a saucepan. It must be completely covered. Bring to the boil, then let it boil for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave it in the hot water until you're ready to fill the jar, it must be hot when you add the hot vinegar.
In a small saucepan, add the vinegar, sugar and all the spices and leaves. Bring to the boil, making sure the sugar has completely dissolved. Let it simmer for a two minutes while you prepare the jar and onions. If you want to taste the vinegar, now is the time to do it. To adjust the flavours, add more vinegar, sugar or spice. Remember that the flavours will develop a lot while it's in the jar and what might taste quite harsh now, will turn into a soft and mellow liquid in a couple of months.

Wash the salt off the onions, then place the onions in a colander to drain.
Now you have to take the jar from the water without burning yourself and without contaminating the inside of the jar and lid. With your jar tongs, take the jar from the water and place it on the bench, making sure all the water has drained out. If you have no jar tongs, pour the water out of the saucepan, pick up the jar on the outside with a tea towel and lift it out. Don't touch the inside of the jar, it must remain sterile. Same with the lid - you can touch the outside but not the inside.
Pack the onions into the jar then pour the vinegar over the onions and fill it right to the top of the jar. The vinegar will still be very hot so be careful. Put the lid on the jar straightaway. The hot contents will help form a vacuum seal.

When the lid goes on, you'll notice the pop top button on the lid will be up. When the vacuum seal happens, that button will invert. That is your sign that it's sealed properly. When that happens, you can store the jar in your cupboard for up to a year. You want the vinegar mix to infuse the flavours into the onions, so let it stand for at least six weeks to mature before opening. When you open the jar, it must be stored in the fridge.

If the pop top on the jar doesn't invert, the onions are still okay to eat, but you'll have to store them in the fridge and eat them within three months.

Preserving food in jars, while not as popular as it once was, before so many of us got freezers in our homes, still holds relevance for those of us living this way. It's a useful skill to learn. You can put up several jars, or a whole pantry full, or you can do what I do and make small numbers of gourmet food jars that can be enjoyed for a fraction of the price you'd pay for the same quality in the shops.

There are three questions I am frequently asked in emails.

Why do you have those upturned flower pots on the posts in your garden?
How can I start living simply and start to save money?
Do you have any more recipes I can try?

I have two from scratch recipes for you today. Spicy lentils and fruit cup cordial.

SPICY LENTILS

This is a variation of the spinach dhal recipe in the fabulous Women's Weekly Slow Cooker recipe book. This recipe is very tasty and could be suitable for vegans and vegetarians if you substituted the butter for olive oil and used vegetable stock or water. It's not hot, although it does have chilli, pepper and curry powder in it, it just gives it a good spicy note. Served with crusty bread, it makes a delicious winter meal.

INGREDIENTS

500 g/1 pound yellow spilt peas (or green) or split orange or red lentils
45 g/1 ½ oz butter
2 medium onions - chopped
4cm piece (1 ½ inch) fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic
1 fresh chilli - as hot as you want it to be
3 tablespoons curry powder
½ teaspoon black pepper
800 g/28 oz tinned tomatoes
1 litre/quart of water OR half and half water and homemade stock
1 teaspoon sugar
bunch silverbeet or a pack of frozen spinach

METHOD

Rinse the peas well until they are clean and the water running off is clear. Drain them.
Heat the butter in a large frying pan, cook the onions, ginger, garlic, chilli and curry powder until the onions are soft.
Add the onion mixture to a slow cooker.
Stir in the tomatoes, water/stock, sugar and peas and mix well.
Cover and cook for about 10 hours on low.
About 30 minutes before serving, add the chopped silverbeet or defrosted spinach.

FRUIT CUP CORDIAL

Pick whatever juicy fruit you have in the backyard, or buy oranges, lemons and passionfruit.

INGREDIENTS

Sugar syrup - one cup sugar boiled in one cup of water until the sugar is dissolved. Or use whatever sweetener you usually use
Juice of four oranges
Juice of one lemon
Juice from about 10 passionfruit - sieve to keep the seeds out, but reserve about a tablespoon of seeds
Zest of two oranges
Zest of one lemon

METHOD

Combine all the ingredients in a large jug, then add the tablespoon of passionfruit seeds.
Pour into a clean bottle, seal and store in the fridge for up to three weeks.
Make up the cordial with tap water or sparkling mineral water and ice to your taste. It's not as strong as commercial cordial so we use about ⅕ cordial to ⅘ water.

I went back to the neighbourhood centre yesterday and worked on getting a solar grant so we can cut down on their $1,200 per quarter electricity bill. Finished that and will start writing notes for workshops today. I loved being back there with the other volunteers and workers, and seeing the Flexi students; some of whom were doing the Naplan tests. There are 28 students there now! I feel like I've gone back to my real life.

Tomorrow we are driving south to see Jamie, Sunny, Kerry, Sandra and Shane. All is well in my world.

Over the past few months our worm farm has gone from bad to worse. The farm was in an old bath tub (see above) that we bought cheaply at the recycle shop. I set it up a few years ago in the bush-house and since then we've been regularly harvesting worm castings and worm liquid. Then the rats discovered it. They found they could get in under the lid so Hanno attached a more secure lid for me. That worked for a while but they chewed a hole in the side of the tub where it had started to rust. There was no stopping them, and not only did they eat the food put in there for the worms, they ate the worms too! Has anyone else had that problem?

Eventually there were several points of entry.

When you have backyard livestock, whether it be worms, chickens, goats or a house cow, the feeds bins always have to be tight and secure, otherwise the rats and mice take over. We’ve always been mindful of this but nevertheless, the rats set up shop under the chook house and now that our old cat Hettie is no longer an active mouser, they’ve made themselves at home. We have a couple of pythons hanging around the neighbourhood but even they seem to have deserted this lost cause.

So I bought a smaller plastic worm farm. It’s made from recycled plastic, has four trays and best of all, it’s rat-proof. I set it up yesterday, following the simple instructions that came with it. The few worms the rats didn’t find and a new box full of worms have been installed to do their thing.

I love using worm castings and liquid in the garden and in pots. It’s the most gentle, but effective, fertiliser and adds beneficial microbes to the soil, another big bonus. We also use a lot of comfrey and now rarely have to buy any commercial fertiliser. This is a big saving when you garden almost year round and to have natural fertilisers like these means we can boost plant growth without adding anything we don’t want.

If you haven’t yet discovered how wonderful worm castings are, I encourage you to try them. One of the tricks to long term backyard vegetable production is to produce good quality organic food at the lowest possible cost. Saving seeds every year (as long as they're open pollinated/heirloom seeds) and making your own fertiliser will help you do that.

The new farm takes up a lot less room so I can use the extra space to sit more seedling trays.

There is a bit of cost in setting up a worm farm. You'll need a suitable container and worms, the rest of the farm can be set up with bits and pieces you have around the place. There are step-by-step instructions for setting up a bathtub farm from my original worm farm here. Here is some very good information and excellent photos about the value of worm castings and liquid. When you're set up, it will be one of the ways you can dispose of your organic waste and kitchen scraps instead of sending them to land fill.

If you're in the first year of your vegetable garden, it's best to grow the herb comfrey for your fertilising. Plant it on the edge of your garden where you don't want to plant anything else - it doesn't multiple out but it's difficult to remove if you want to move it. It will grow in almost any type of soil and likes a fair bit of water while it's establishing itself. Comfrey will grow quite rapidly from root cuttings that you can buy for a small cost or have given to you by another vegie gardener. Here is an old post about worm farm maintenance and making comfrey fertiliser. There is no other cost, except for your time and effort to grow it, and if you don't go ahead with your garden again next year, you haven't wasted too much.

As you probably know, and may be tired of hearing, I have been writing a book recently. Yesterday I finished it. We still have photos and a few odds and ends to sort out, but the bulk of my book work is over. I am so relieved, even though I enjoyed the entire process and felt quite privileged to be doing it. This signals not only the end of the writing but also my whole-hearted return to my blog. I have kept it going to the best of my ability but because I was writing and not doing what I usually do, had few opportunities to bring you new posts about our work here at home or new discoveries made.

I have also been refreshed by my trip down to the Blue Mountains with my sister, Tricia. It gave me a lot of time to think about myself, my life in Queensland and how I fit into the scheme of things. I am coming back here knowing with no doubts that my home is where I want to be, my family is the most important thing in my life and that now my role is to carry on here living this wonderful life and to encourage and support our children and grandchildren to become the best they can be. If I can be a role model for others as well, that's the icing on the cake for me.

Since November last year I've spent most days writing and have missed the ordinary domestic activities that are now so familiar to me. I kept making the bed, and dinner at night, but instead of baking bread every day, we've been buying the Aldi rye loaf. There have been no days just pottering around, no spare time for reading or experimenting; it's been just the bare necessities, then back to the computer. But today we are back to hot bread straight from the oven for lunch, working on new recipes, and looking for simpler ways of doing what we do. I'll be planting seeds later in the week, doing some work on the worm farm, reorganising the bush house, researching cheese making (again), sewing, knitting and cleaning. I have new books to read and a desk to tidy. Many would think it's some kind of madness to look forward to those things, but I'm back doing what I enjoy. It feels right.

Making our bed every morning helps us both sleep well, so we're able to get the full measure of the following day. Pottering around my home satisfies me; my work has a purpose. I feel content when I work here using simple methods and at the end of such a day, I look back on the work, knowing it has given us this interesting and comfortable home, and I can't help it, I am made happy by it. Having just come back from Sydney, a city of five million people, I know for sure that being here in this quiet little one lane street is where I want to be. We are surrounded by rainforest and trees, a few friendly neighbours, and we can work at our own pace making from scratch as much as possible and doing all we can to make our lives productive, useful and enriching. There is nothing fancy here but we live well and we're happy. At the end of the day, you can't ask for much more than that. I'm sure many of you feel the same way.

I never want to be someone who wakes up and wonders what on earth I can do to fill in the hours. There is so much to be done here. None of it has to be done right now, but it's there, waiting its turn. Living simply has given us a gentle way of living a full and rich life, although many of our contemporaries wonder why such a life satisfies us. They don't get it. That's okay, I don't get bowling clubs, botox, endless miles in caravans or shopping either. Let me plunge my hands into warm soapy washing up water or into the worm farm or garden soil or my knitting basket and I'm smiling. It doesn't take much. I'm so pleased to be back.