This is a Friday photo feature that anyone with a blog can join. To take part, post a photo on your own blog, write a short caption explaining it, and link it back to here from your blog by saying you're part of "On my mind". Please write a new post, don't link to an older one. When you've done that, come back here and add a comment below, with a link to your blog.

I'm thinking of the calendulas I picked yesterday. Like everything else in our garden, they're organic, so I'm making calendula salve with them. It's a helpful little home remedy to have on hand for rashes and infections. I'll tell you more about it next week.

Thank you for your visits and comments this week. If you've just discovered my blog, welcome. I hope you find encouragement and interesting information here. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

I'm looking forward to a peaceful day today. A walk around the garden, looking in on Mary and her eggs, a few emails and two summer hats for the babies and that will be it for me. I even slept in!  That was a good start to a quiet day and what made me think I should relax instead of work today.  It's the ideal time of year to start taking it easy.  The weather is hot again and everything is starting to wind down towards the summer holidays.

Our vegetable garden is starting to slow down too. There comes a time every year when Hanno and I ask each other: Will we keep planting? The answer now, is no. We'll keep harvesting and watering but own main growing year is almost over now and by late January most of the vegies will be gone, we'll rely on our freezer more and start planting again in March. There is still a lot of food there waiting to be harvested and much more that will keep producing like pumpkins and watermelons, but the planting is over for the year.

Let me introduce Lulubelle and Martha, our buff Orpington and Plymouth Rock chooks. Soon they'll be joined by some more of their type. The eggs under Mary are buff Orpingtons and Plymouth Rocks.

The beans have grow like wild fire this year. There are still a lot of the climbing green beans to eat fresh and to freeze and the butter beans below, a bush variety, still have another couple of weeks left in them.

 This orange tree is full of small fruit that will be juicy and ripe next winter.

 

Many of the skills we need when living simply don't exist in isolation, if you want to get the full measure of these things we do, you have to learn a number of skills to make it happen successfully. For instance, growing vegetables isn't only about gardening, when you learn how to sow seeds, tend and harvest vegetables, you also have to learn about how to enrich the soil, fertilise and provide water as well as food storage and cooking to make it work. Most skills are part of a process, often with several distinct skills supporting and making up the whole. 

When I did my post on freezing silverbeet (chard) and beans recently, I received a couple of emails asking if I would do a post on blanching. Blanching is one skill that is part of the process of vegetable production and food storage. It's another kitchen skill that used to be commonly taught but with the rise of purchased frozen and convenience foods, has been forgotten by many.  If you're growing your own vegetables or buying in bulk when you see a great special, you should take the time to learn about blanching, and then do it. Blanching takes only a small amount of time but it will help retain the quality of the vegetables you freeze. All vegetables have enzymes in them that help them grow. Blanching in boiling water or steam stops or slows down the action of these enzymes helping to keep optimum flavour, texture and vitamins. You can freeze food without blanching but you may not be retaining vitamins and you increase the risk of the vegetables spoiling in the freezer.

PREPARATION

Start by cleaning your sink. You want a clean work area and your sink will give you a good place to clean the vegetables and if you have a double sink, you'll also have a place to cool the vegetables after blanching them. If you don't have a double sink, use a large bowl or pot filled with cold water. The only other requirements are a colander, a large stockpot with a lid (depending on how much and what you're blanching), a slotted spoon to lift the vegetables out, or basket that fits inside the pot.

The general rule is to use about 4 litres (1 gallon) water per half kilo (pound). For the amount of silverbeet I blanched in these photos, I filled my pot with water to about three-quarters capacity.

Set the pot on the stove to boil with the lid on. Keeping the lid on will help bring the water to the boil faster.

While that is happening, trim or peel your vegetables if they need it, and cut vegetables like beans or carrots into serving size. Whatever you would normally do to prepare your vegetables for cooking, do before blanching. For vegetables like silverbeet, leeks or spinach, make sure you wash them thoroughly to remove all the grit or sand. Make sure you do all your prep properly because when you cook the vegetables after you freeze them there will not be another opportunity to clean, prepare or trim the vegetables.


Make sure you drain the vegetables well. Excess water will turn to ice in the freezer.

BLANCHING TIMES
Make sure you know your blanching times because if you under-blanch it can stimulate the activity of the enzymes and can be worse than not blanching at all, and over-blanching will cause your vegetables to lose vitamins, minerals, colour and flavour.

Click here for blanching times.

Click here for blanching times.

HOW TO BLANCH

1. Divide the vegetables up into portions that will easily fit into your pot.
2. When the water is at a rolling boil, put in the first portion and put the lid on the pot.
3. Check the blanching guides below to find out how long to leave the vegetables in the boiling water. When the time it up, quickly get the vegetables out of the water using your spoon, or lift the basket out, and plunge them into very cold water - add ice if necessary. You want to cool them down fast to stop the cooking process.
4. If you have several portions to blanche, carry on doing the above in the same water, making sure it's on a rolling boil before you add the vegetables.
5. When you've finished blanching and cooling the vegetables, place them all into colanders to drain thoroughly. Let them stand for an hour or so to drain off as much water as possible.
6. When you're happy that has happened, bag your vegetables into portions sizes suitable for your family.
7. Mark with a permanent marker with the vegetable name and date.
8. Place in the freezer. If you have a lot of home frozen bags, try to keep all the same types together or use ice cream containers or plastic baskets (depending on the size of your freezer) to organise the vegetables. Remember, you can't rely on coloured packets with photos on them like commercial frozen food so whatever you can do to organise your food will help you recognise what you have and assist your food storage program.

• A rolling boil is water boiling strongly with large bubbles - and when you stir it, the boiling continues.
• When you finish blanching you'll have some coloured water in the pot. Let it cool down and use it on the vegetable garden, there will be some nutrients in the water.

Age is starting to make its mark on me. When I was younger, I didn't think about age and I didn't feel a particular age. There has never been a time when I thought okay, I'm 18/30/45/50, I should do ...whatever. Now I'm in my mid-60s, I feel it and I know it. I wonder why that recognition of age is with me now.

No doubt, part of the reason is that both my parents have died and I'm a grandmother. I have moved into the front line, so to speak, if things go according to plan, Hanno and I will be the next to die. My friends have started dying too. It's a sad time but it's also full of good memories of times past and a strong feeling I am glad to be alive and that I have to make every day count.

Age has slowed me down a bit. I've also lost some strength and sometimes I forget things. When those things happen it makes an impact on me.  I wonder if it's the start of something sinister, something that we don't talk about. But it's not all bad news, in fact, most of it is good because I love being over 60 much more than being under 40. I feel as if I've grown into the person I want to be. My hope is that now the baby boomers have started retiring, we'll somehow reverse the idea that ageing is a bad thing and restore it to being just a natural process - a part of life. When you think about it, ageing is a success - if you live long enough to be old, you've survived. If you enjoy your old age, you've not only survived, you've thrived and maybe even triumphed.

I feel that this time of life is the payoff for the industriousness and busyness and of younger years - all those years of child raising, working hard for a living, buying a home and building a strong family. I have many good memories of those times, it was enriching and fulfilling but it was hard work. When I look back to when I was young I see all the hard work yet to come, all the teenage years, the struggle to pay off our home as fast as we could and saying the last goodbye to my parents and some friends - it was all ahead of us then.

We survived it all.

We are still industrious but it's gentle now; it's more a slow and steady working towards sustainability rather than working flat out. We see rewards for that industriousness in the form of our own independence and the genuine feelings of self reliance we both feel.

Busyness is different when you get older - it's multi-layered and on your own terms. My terms are not dictated to me anymore by my job or my children; now I do the productive work of my home, and I choose activities that challenge me and make me think. The self-imposed pressure to succeed has gone and been replaced by acceptance of whatever comes my way, trust in the future and confidence in my ability to cope, no matter what.

I am firmly convinced that, for me, now is not a time for plastic surgery or dyed hair. I wear my wrinkles, thinning skin and grey hair with pride; a kind of badge that says I've been here for a long time, I know what I'm doing, I'm a grandma, I have visited the past and I have a little wisdom to share if you care to listen.

It saddens me when I see women and men who are scared of ageing. This is not something to be frightened of - growing older is the golden prize. It is the time in your life when you can choose what you want to do - and if, like us you choose to take control of your own life and simplify, make your home productive and enjoy the day to day process of that, then you'll have something new to get up for every morning. I reckon I have another 20 years to live, if I'm lucky, I might have 30 or 35. Beyond that, forget it, I don't want to be here forever. I think my job has been to raise my children and to see them raise theirs. I have fulfilled my duty to my species and now is a time for freedom,  happiness and maybe a bit of craziness. Now is the time to really live like there is no tomorrow, but maybe that is how we should live all the time.

There are a few changes going on in our chicken coop. We’re preparing a nursery. As I wrote on Friday, Nicky kindly sent us six fertile eggs – a mix of buff Orpingtons and barred Plymouth Rocks. The eggs came by mail, carefully wrapped in tissues, sitting in an egg carton to keep them stable and packed into the middle of a medium sized box full of shredded paper. The packing was perfect and should really have kept the eggs safe but who know what happens in the postal system. Hopefully they'll all hatch.

For any readers living in the Glen Innes, Inverell or Armidale area, Nicky has large buff Orpingtons, large light barred Plymouth Rocks and large silver laced Wyandottes. You can contact her here.

Nicky advised us to sit the eggs in a safe place to settle for a while and to place them under the broody just on night fall. So after a settling down period, we were going to set them under Lucy, our experienced mother hen.

Lucy had other plans.

About three weeks ago Lucy built a nest in the front garden for herself and eight of her own eggs. She sat, appropriately enough, in the dwarf Madonna lilies, well hidden from view but when we looked well enough, we could see her long black tail poking out.

When it was getting dark and all the chooks had already put themselves to bed, Hanno lifted Lucy off her own nest and brought her back to the coop to a newly prepared nest holding the six fertile eggs. We thought we were giving Lucy a treasured gift but she made some yodelling noises and started grooming herself. We left her to settle in, an hour later Hanno went back to check on her and she was asleep on the roost with the other girls. Grrrrr.

Hanno transferred all the eggs over to Mary, Lucy's daughter, who has been steadfastly sitting on her own imaginary eggs, on and off, for the past two years. Mary deserves these chicks. 

Hanno is making a wire wall that will keep Mary and eggs/chicks away from the other girls but they’ll all be able to see each other. He’s made up a box nest for her so she can sit on the eggs away from the other chooks and when the eggs hatch, there is a little chook run right next door where they can all stay safe and together away from the older chooks and predators.

This is the second time we’ve put fertile eggs under a broody hen. The first time, a couple of years ago, the mother hen, a big Rhode Island Red girl, squashed the Wyandotte chicks after they hatched. I had thought that Lucy, being an experienced mother would hatch and raise the chicks. Obviously Lucy's broodiness was at an end and it was not to be. Hanno said her eggs were black when he disposed of them.

So now we count the days until 8 December when the chicks should hatch. Just 21 days seems like such a short time for life to form and being viable, but that's all it takes. I'm really looking forward to having chicks here. If it all goes to plan, they'll start laying in early May. We can't keep roosters here, we have tried, but given them all away. I'd love for our hens to lay fertile eggs but that will never happen without a rooster. This is the next best thing and it feels right to me. I guess when it comes down to it, it doesn't really matter how you get good free range eggs on your plate - you might have a local supplier, a neighbour you barter with or you have your own chicks.

Having those chicks grow up here and wander around our backyard all their lives makes me happy just thinking about it. We'll have an unspoken agreement with them that we provide a safe environment, shelter and food and they provide eggs, manure and their fine insect eating skills.  They'll help us provide a balance - putting into the soil instead of just taking.  It's a fine arrangement, I'm sure you'll agree.

I've just discovered Green Journey and what a find! It's full of interesting and helpful information and inspiring stories written by people who are living true to their simple values.  It's well worth a visit.

This is a Friday photo feature that anyone with a blog can join. To take part, post a photo on your own blog, write a short caption explaining it, and link it back to here from your blog by saying you're part of "On my mind". Please write a new post, don't link to an older one. When you've done that, come back here and add a comment below, with a link to your blog.

Every so often I receive an email asking if a reader can send me something as a gesture of thanks for this blog. Nicky wrote just after my post on chooks to see if we'd like some fertile eggs to put under one of our broodies. We jumped at the chance. We said "yes please!" to six - three buff Orpingtons and three barred Plymouth Rocks. They arrived yesterday. So, this is a little teaser about what my Monday post will be. It's what is on my mind today and what I've been thinking about all week. Thank you Nicky! It is a beautiful gift.

I've been writing you for a few years now and although you feel like a very close friend, you also keep me on my toes. You make me accountable to myself, you provide a space for me to express my thoughts and the record you provide of the life I'm living with Hanno has been very helpful.

Having been born in the 1940s, I'm pretty much old school but writing you has given me continuing opportunities to seek out the new, remember the old, and blend it all into our daily lives. You push me on to better things. I doubt I'd have looked into so many cleaners if it weren't for you. And bread, instead of just making it, you made me think about it and keep tweaking until I got it right. I make a really good orange cake now because of you. My old version was okay, but you pushed me to make it better; now my orange cake is a moist and delicious piece of homemade loveliness. So thank you, you should come round for tea one afternoon and try a slice. 

Blog, you really have been life changing for me. If it weren't for you I wouldn't have a book about to be published, I wouldn't be writing for the Women's Weekly and I wouldn't have a New York agent. Even writing that for you now makes me stop and think if it's really true. If I were following my life's pattern, I would be slowing down now, doing less and becoming invisible. You made me do the opposite. I'm busier than ever, becoming involved in a lot of interesting projects, and people I don't know say hello to me now. I'm not sure I like the recognition but I enjoy the new  opportunities to express myself creatively and to share information through you.

You've brought a lot of great people my way too and I want to thank you for that. I doubt I'd have met such an intertesting bunch otherwise. When I think about your readers and all the people who comment on you, the wonderful women who help run your forum and the 6000 members there, the writers and readers at the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op, the staff at Penguin and the Women's Weekly, and all the people who come to the neighbourhood centre for workshops they hear about through you, well, it makes me grateful you whispered in my ear to start you all those years ago.

It makes me humble too.

Thank you for not requiring too much of me - just a few words tapped away on our mutual friend, the computer, most days keeps you happy and functioning. I appreciate that because even though I've grown to love you, the short time I spend with you allows me to do so many other things you've made possible. We make a great team. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely yours,

Rhonda x

PS: Thanks to everyone who left a comment yesterday. I'm fine now; I was not sick, just tired. There is a lot going on here, I had some extra writing work I had to do in a hurry, and I spent the past two days at the neighbourhood centre. Both days were busy and hot. It takes me a while to get used to the hot weather again every year, so on that first very hot day on Tuesday, it really knocked me over. A couple of good long sleeps has put me right and now I'm ready for anything. Thank you for your concern and kind words.

Here in Australia, summer is the time for floods, bush fires, severe storms and cyclones. I'm sure everyone remembers the devastating floods we had last year in Queensland and Victoria. Recently we received a free booklet from our state government (Queensland) about preparing for disasters. It's called "Get Ready" and it's given us a lot to think about. It contains four steps of preparation that can be carried out well before, and leading into, an emergency situation:

When we were younger, we probably wouldn't have taken much notice of these types of booklets but now that we can't move as fast as we used to, we read them, store the information away in our brains, and keep the booklet handy. But for younger folk, I guess the recent floods and cyclones and seeing the overseas hurricanes and tsunamis has taught us to never be complacent. There is a role for disaster preparation in every home.

We are lucky here. If there was an emergency that affected food distribution, electricity or water, we'd be able to stay safe in our home for a few weeks. There is enough food and water here to keep us going and although we'd have to build a fire outside to cook, that's easily done and it wouldn't phase us. We would make a quick trip to the shop to pick up fresh batteries for the radio but everything else is taken care of. We keep our mobile phone charged and have a battery charger for the phone in the car so if we needed to, we'd run the car for a while to charge the phone. We have spare fuel here.

However, if there was a bush fire, flood or cyclone close to us  we would leave and drive to a predetermined safer location. In that case we'd need a grab bag - a bag containing those things we wouldn't want to leave behind to potentially be destroyed, as well as all the things we'd have to take to survive some time away. Generally a grab bag would be packed at the beginning of each storm/bushfire season, or left partially packed and added to when needed, and would contain:

Grab bag

• Enough food and water for 48 hours. Make sure the food doesn't have to be cooked or refrigerated - sandwiches, cans of beans, fruit, popcorn, chocolate, biscuits, processed cheese, muesli bars etc.
• If you have babies, the elderly or people with special needs with you, you'll need whatever special food and drinks they require.
• Nappies, wipes,  baby bottles, sippy cups for the babies. A bucket with lid for waste items.
• Eye glasses, walking sticks, asthma puffers and any special needs for your family.
• Clothing and shoes for everyone.
• Books, games and toys for the children. Books and cards for the adults.
• Depending on the weather, either sun hats or blankets.
• Sleeping gear.

In Australia, the State Emergency Service will respond to all large emergencies. Each state has it's own branches and you can find their websites by Googling SES in your state. The SES have a lot of valuable information on their sites so it's worthwhile having a look. This is the Queensland SES site.

I think we often think that disasters only happen to other people but the floods last year proved that anything can happen. Do you have an emergency plan in your home? Do you have any information that I've forgotten, if so, please add your comment.

When our garden is in full production, we have too much food to eat all of it fresh. Often we give some to family and friends but when there is too much beetroot or enough silverbeet or beans to sink a ship, the excess is picked and processed in the kitchen. Recently we had a patch of beetroot that needed to be harvested so it was all pulled out and I made pickled beetroot. This is such a common thing in Australia and there are always tins of it in every supermarket so many people have forgotten that home made pickled beetroot far outweighs the poor tinned cousin for taste and value.

I tried the Women's Weekly Preserves cookbook recipe for these beetroot and they're really delicious. It's one of the easiest pickled vegetables you can make. Wash the beets thoroughly, then cut the leaves off without cutting into the beetroot, boil until tender (about 45 minutes), drain and allow to cool. Reserve ½ cup of the cooking water to mix with the vinegar (recipe below). When they're cool enough to handle, it's very easy to just skip the skins off with your fingers. Cut them up however you prefer, then place in sterilised jars and fill the jars with hot spiced vinegar. The three large jars I made will be stored in the fridge and eaten over summer but could also be stored in the cupboard for six months as long as you're confident with your sterilising and sealing. The high vinegar and sugar content act as a preservative, preventing the growth of bacteria in the sterile jar.

RECIPE FOR 1 KG (2.2 LB)
1 litre/quart cider vinegar (I used malt vinegar)
220g (7.7 oz) sugar
½ cup of cooking water
1 small cinnamon stick (I didn't use that)
8 black peppercorns
4 small dried chillies
1 teaspoon mustard seeds

Put all the ingredients in a saucepan, bring to the boil, and pour it hot over the beetroot in the jars.

Here are the beets I did last week, some sliced, some quartered, packed in sterile jars and ready for the hot spicy vinegar.

Four bags of blanched fresh beans, out of the garden and in the freezer within the hour. These will be very handy when the beans have finished for the season.

Other vegetables, like beans, silverbeet, spinach, peas and carrots, only need blanching to be stored in the freezer for eating later when the garden isn't producing as much. Always blanch; it slows the action of enzymes on the vegetables which can cause loss of flavour, colour and vitamins.

How to blanch vegetables.

There is no doubt about it, when you have a backyard patch, you need to learn about preserving food too, otherwise you'll end up wasting some of it. But if you do that, if you learn these few basic skills, you'll have a good supply of fresh and frozen food to keep you going. I know my north American friends would generally can beans, carrots and many other vegetables. Here we do it differently, here we have a longer growing period and we generally use fresh most of the year, supplemented by the frozen stores.

Don't forget that you can also use these skills on cheaply bought vegetables that you might find at the market or supermarket. If you have too much of any vegetable, think about the best way to store it for later. If you pickle or freeze it before it loses its freshness and you'll get the full value of your money. I think that once you get a taste for home pickling and you see how easy blanching and freezing are, there will be no going back.

This is a Friday photo feature that anyone with a blog can join. To take part, post a photo on your own blog, write a short caption explaining it, and link it back to here from your blog by saying you're part of "On my mind". Please write a new post, don't link to an older one. When you've done that, come back here and add a comment below, with a link to your blog.