down to earth

Before I start today's post I want to thank so many of you for your kind and generous comments. It really does make blogging a great joy to have feedback - without it it's a one-way conversation. So thank you for taking the time to comment, it motivates me to continue blogging.

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Although we've cut down on the amount of food we produce in the backyard, it's still an important part of life for us. Not only for the fresh food it gives but also for the work required to get a seed or seedling to harvest. That work is still interesting and rewarding and it forms part of the framework we live within.

We have a huge garden but only a small portion of it is taken up with food production. The natural soil here is heavy clay but we've been working the garden soil for almost 20 years now and it's as close to perfect as I imagine it could be. The original clay was broken up when we first arrived here and compost, lime and organic matter added, not just once but continuously. When a crop was harvested and the roots removed, Hanno added more nutrients and compost. Over the years that built up to be dark, rich, fertile soil that has given us many kilos of fresh food. We've always had a compost heap, at times we've kept worm farms and we always grow comfrey with which to make a good natural free fertiliser that is as good as any you can buy.

Daikon, butter lettuce and er, weeds. LOL

One of the major parts of our garden are our rainwater tanks. Hanno constructed an excellent water collection system from our house roof and the shed roof. That gives us 15,000 litres of rainwater to use on the garden. If we didn't have those tanks I doubt we'd grow food in the back yard because tap water is so expensive. Luckily we live in an area where the rainfall is between 1500 to 1800mm (60 - 70 inches) a year, that rain falls in heavy showers throughout the year and is followed by mild to hot sunny weather. We never have frosts and our winter temperatures are between 3 - 23C. Most winter days warm up to about 20C, even after a cold night. We used to garden all year but since we cut back, we plant in March and stop planting in November. That gives us and the garden a break of 3 - 4 months over summer when it's hot, humid and there are a lot of insects around.

Another valuable part of our backyard eco-system are the chickens. They provide eggs for the kitchen but also nitrogen-rich manure for the compost. The addition of fresh manure helps the compost decompose and after a couple of months we have the best soil additive we could hope for. And it all comes together simply by adding chook poo to compost - the microorganisms in the compost do all the work for us and help turn kitchen and garden waste into rich, sweet smelling compost.

Hanno planted out more seedlings yesterday. We're currently growing chard, beetroot, spinach, kohl rabi, curly kale, bush beans, climbing beans, Welsh onions, lettuce, daikon radish, bok choi, turnips, parsley, basil, rosemary, oregano, bay leaves, sage, lemon grass, mint, raspberries, blueberries, youngberries, elderberries, Brazilian cherries, lemons, oranges, bananas, loquats and passionfruit. In the bush house I've planted trays of various chillies and heirloom tomato seeds that have just germinated. There are flowers in the vegetable garden too and they help attract the pollinators.

The afternoon sun catches the tangle of Herb Robert and alyssum.

What started out almost 20 years ago to be the chore of modifying hard clay and then planting seed to bring to harvest, has turned into a gentle and pleasurable way to spend time together outside. That garden of ours isn't just a food garden, it provides us with a space to sit and enjoy the fresh air and all the wildlife that visit on foot and fly through.

I wonder what's in your garden this season.

I took my time last week. I had a list of chores as long as my arm but I stood back, took a deep breath, and then worked out what my priorities are. I won't bore you with the list, it will probably be played out on the blog in days and weeks to come, but I've started it and intend to work slowly. I have no deadlines to meet and I want to experience every day in its true sense. Having housework to do - work that will make our lives better - always makes me want to put on my apron and get started. I'm motivated when I see others working in their homes and even reading about housework makes me want to get my own house in order. I wonder if it does for you too.

I've broken my work activities into three separate areas - general house work, craft work and gardening. I try to do a bit in all three categories every day now because then I feel I'm doing all I need to do. And with the work there is always relaxation. Cups of tea with Hanno in the garden, a sleep in my chair after lunch, a stroll around the garden. But the truth is that just living here on this piece of land makes me relax. I feel safe and nurtured here and peace comes along with that. I walk outside to winter smoke from local chimneys, white cockatoos flying high, chickens clucking, the fragrance of alyssum and roses, the distant dull drone of traffic. Here within these fences, life is being played out to a slower rhythm but that doesn't mean it's any less significant, creative, intellectually stimulating or exhilarating. Running a home, cooking, shopping on a budget, mending, gardening and the rest of my particular mix makes a calm and rich life and I feel grateful to experience it all.

At the moment I'm creating a few dishcloths that will be teamed with home made soap for Christmas gifts and on my circular needles, I'm knitting this beauty for my grand daughter. I think I'll make two versions - one with long sleeves and one that ends at the yolk. I'm using EcoYarns fabulous eco-cotton, the ideal yarn for our climate, so I think both cardigans will serve her well. When I was looking through EcoYarn's website ealier, I noticed some new O-Wool O-Wash Fingering 4 ply suitable for baby and toddler knitting. It's washable and the skeins are in a range of very pretty soft modern colours. I might knit something with that soon.

Portuguese custard tarts.

Today Hanno will be weeding the garden and planting out more seedlings while I make up a hearty bone marrow, barley and vegetable soup. I love this soup, it's my mother's recipe and one that Tricia and I grew up eating numerous times every winter. I cook many of those recipes from long ago and feel privileged that I grew up in the family I was born into. When I finish making the soup, I'll clean up the back verandah and do a bit of repotting in the bush house. After lunch I'll nap for a while and then knit. At some point I'll make tea and we'll sit in the fading sunlight watching the smoke rise from neighbours' chimneys. It doesn't take much to make me happy. I'm on the knife edge of it all the time. Life's been good to us.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. Joseph Addison

It's been a busy year, one of the busiest I can remember, but that's all come to an end now - today and all my tomorrows, will be slow and calmly productive at home. At the beginning of the year I had just finished writing The Simple Home and then helped with the editing of it. The book was sent off to be printed and I was having a supposed rest to prepare for a book tour. But in reality the work kept coming, I had media commitments, I had to organise our tour accommodation and we had Jamie here on and off when his parents were working.

The book tour was exhausting. Not only the travel but also meeting so many people and speaking at events along the route. Don't get me wrong, I loved all of it, especially meeting all those wonderful people, but the logistics of getting from one place to another, the unseasonal heat, the unfamiliar beds, and the 6000 km we drove took its toll. We were pleased to get home to slow down and take it easy.

Last Sunday evening, Sunny and Kerry brought over a platter of sushi for us to share.

That didn't last long though. We had visitors, more media engagements, more talks, one of our sons stayed with us for a couple of months while he set himself up in a new job and relocated his family, there was a bathroom renovation, we welcomed new chickens and planted up the new season vegetable garden. I kept thinking ... I'll do that when I have a bit more time. That time didn't seem to present itself and things I used to consider daily tasks fell by the wayside. However, I knew it was not a permanent state of affairs, that this time would pass and I'd find my old life again. Finally we were looking forward to a visit from my sister Tricia, her son and children. We all had a grand time. I loved that Jamie and my sons spent time with their cousins. It's important that families stay connected, even when distance often prevents that from happening.

And then all that planning, work and busyness came to an end.

Danny and his children left last Friday and yesterday afternoon I put Tricia on the train to Sydney. When I drove back home I knew that I had no more talks or media commitments, no more writing ... my time was my own again. This was the beginning of my retirement, or as close to it as we're likely to get. I was smiling and planning for the future all the way home. When I got home Hanno was levelling and re-paving the path from the garden to the chicken coop. A good sign.

By the time you read this it will be Tuesday and I will already be on the pathway to our simple life, version 2. Chickens will have been let out to range free, the bed made, vegetables and herbs picked, lunch planned and some prep done, there might even be bread dough or biscuits ready to go in the oven. Waiting patiently for me in the freezer are bags of rosellas that we picked a couple of months ago and which need to be made into rosella jam, cordial and tea. We also have a few bags of elderberries in there that I want to make into a tonic. I need some straight away myself to help clear up this cold I've had for the past week. It seems to be dragging on. We have a few buckets of lemons picked from our two trees that have to be juiced and stored for summer cordial. Work in the garden continues but to be honest, much of the time is spent sitting in the garden under the shade of an umbrella, talking and drinking tea. I make no apologies for that, I feel no guilt, I think that relaxation and happiness is as a good a crop as any other from the garden. I have a bush house that needs cleaning out and re-organising before the heat of summer starts again. Plants need re-potting, seeds need sowing, cuttings need to be taken. We have to prune and fertilise the front garden soon too and clean and reorganise the verandahs so they're ready to help us get through the summer months.

Inside there are two knitting projects to work on and two small patchwork projects - one is nearly finished, one is yet to be started. Spring cleaning is waiting for me just around the corner. I feel confident that the house and yard maintenance that we've carried out over the past years will see us through the next few years. Our main job now is to enjoy daily life as we live it. And there is so much to do here - all of it contributes to the way we live outside the mainstream of modern life and more in tune with the seasons and our sustainable values.

So on this "first day" of the rest of my life, I'm really pleased to be working alongside you as you work in your home or at a job that pays the bills. There are so many people out in the wide world now who are doing what we're doing all in their own individual way. Never doubt this work and how we all live, never think that what we do isn't important. I believe that this is the only way we will reach a future worth living.

My sister Tricia is travelling up from the Blue Mountains to visit us. She arrives tomorrow. She is the one person I've known all my life, the personification of my past, the one who lived the same experiences I did, came from the same parents, were taught by the same nuns, ate the same foods, learned the same lessons, lived the same values and became a totally different woman, despite all that sharing.

We still share the excitement of every new day and look forward to whatever is coming up but our relationship is sustained by the shared experience of our past, the comforting memories of our childhood and parents and being a part of what made us. We are each other in a different form.

Tricia is visiting with her son Daniel and grand children Johnathan and Alana and during her visit we'll see my children and grandchildren. This, no doubt, will trigger conversations about our past as we continue to piece together what that is and make sense of what helped make us what we became. We both remember different parts of our childhood so when our recollections come up it helps us both because we have a different view of the same events. Just yesterday we were talking about the doctors our mother took us to when we very young children. We attended a family practice of two GPs and I don't recall us ever talking about these doctors before. Tricia had strong memories of one doctor, I had strong memories of the other. With both our memories, we have a better understanding of that part of our past.

I don't know why we remember what we remember. I only know it is important to do it and to think about it. I guess it helps us understand ourselves as we prepare for a future that includes death. I don't shy away from that, I'm not scared of it and I know that with each passing day that future becomes more of a reality. It does for all of us but when you're old, you accept it and don't hide from it by believing it's far off in the future.

So while Tricia, Danny and the children are here, we'll sit around the table and enjoy being together. Our grandkids can spend time with their cousins, parents and grandparents and start to work out who we are and where they fit in to this family. We'll have lunch down at the coast where my son is working as head chef, we'll visit plant nurseries and talk about plants, we'll garden, knit, cook and talk and all that time will become become new memories.

Families are important and I think we need to spend time with them. You have to take time out to do it but it's a good investment in your wellbeing and mental health to be on good terms with your family. BTW, family can be your traditional family or the people you choose to love and associate with. Tricia is the only person I have left from the family I was born into so she's not only my sister, she's part of my identity. I'm looking forward to the visit. :- )

Me and my sister - 1.

I thought it would take a couple of weeks and in the end it was five long, cold weeks of using our main toilet and bathroom instead of the ensuite. What a nightmare. All the way through I just hoped it would all be worth it. And guess what - it was! We both love the new bathroom. It's very simple, easy to clean, we have our toiletries organised in the drawers and behind the mirrors and it's a real delight bathing in there. It feels contemporary without losing a warm and comforting feeling.

Not his and hers sinks, because we don't need them, but we each have our own side of the mirror cupboards and the drawers. Hanno has his shaving and tooth gear on his side, I have deodorant, spare soap and shampoo, tooth brush and paste on my side.

And you can see here that the wonderful Mr Fox has moved in with us. We also have a bamboo chair for hanging clothes while we're in the shower and a seat on which to sit if needed. The little step is for me to dry my feet. I got into the habit of using the step on the side of the spa so this replaces that.

An overhead shower as well as a hand shower. I only use the overhead when I wash my hair but it feels like standing under a waterfall. There's no shower stall, just a shower screen on one side with a walk in shower. We thought this would grow old with us and will be suitable if one of us has to sit down in the shower or use a wheel chair.

I love this toilet because it has a really quiet flush. Great for old bladders when we have our middle of the night trips. ;- ) The drawers are for odds and ends on Hanno's side and makeup and a hair dryer on my side. Below in the deep drawers we have towels on my side and toilet rolls and cleaning gear on Hanno's.

When we moved into this house in 1997 we extended the house to include another large bedroom and ensuite. That is the bathroom we just renovated. Bathrooms are always costly, both when new and when they're renovated. This was no different. We had a budget of $6,000 and although that's much less than the average cost of a bathroom renovation, I was pleased that it came in on cost.

Some of the things that helped us keep the costs down were:

We used the existing plumbing outlets, so the toilet, vanity and shower are all in the same place.
We removed an 18 year old spa bath and didn't replace the bath.
We sourced all our own building materials, fixtures and fittings. We bought the tiles from a place called cheap tiles online and if you're in Brisbane, or close to it, it's worth a visit to the website to see their stock. Many of their tiles are current stock in places like Harvey Norman and are half their price.
Look for non-slip tiles.
The vanity, vanity taps, mirror, bamboo chair and step are from Ikea, the shower, shower screen and toilet are from Bunnings. Mr Fox towels from Bed, Bath and Beyond; they have a July sale on now. All the towel rails, the shower mixer, toilet roll holder and venetian blind were recycled from the old bathroom.
We are passed the stage when we can do the work ourselves so we got a quote from the man who has been doing our general home maintenance and repairs. He did the work with his son. If you can do some of the work yourself, it will save a lot of money. At the very least you can carefully remove the old bathroom.
Ask for quotes from all the people who will do work - the builder, plumber, electrician, waterproofer, and ask for an itemised list of what work they'll carry out. The cheapest quote may not be the best value for money.
After work is done for the day, clean up and make sure the workers always come in to a clean space. Having to clean up before they start or when they finish, adds to the cost.
Make sure you know how long you have to wait before stepping on the tiles, grouting, waterproofing etc. If you stand on anything before it's set, it might have to be done again.
Be absolutely sure of your design and colours before starting. Making changes during the work will increase the cost of the project and the time it takes to complete it.

This bathroom renovation is the last major project we'll do here. We've been working our way through our upgrades for the past few years as energy and funds allow and we're very happy to have all the major work done. That will help us live well in our own home in the years ahead and when we die, our home will be in reasonable shape for the kids to sell.

I love how our homes can evolve slowly with us as we age. It takes forethought and a realistic plan but it does help with the ageing process if you make slight and not so slight adjustments when or before they're needed. Do you have a plan for your home to reflect the changes you go through as you grow older?

I don't tend to make up many dry mixes in the kitchen, you know those concoctions that are supposed to be "time saving". I don't make up cake, scone or muffin mixes because I like gathering my baking ingredients; it's a comforting part of the process for me. I don't make up biscuit mix, hot chocolate mix or any toppings because it's too much of a temptation when they're sitting on the pantry shelf. Overall, I don't think they save much time at all.

There's one exception to this though - I like to have gravy mix pre-made so I don't have to gather ingredients in that short window of time between the roast vegetables and meat being ready and me serving up a hot meal. My gravy mix makes an excellent dark, flavoursome gravy when made with pan juices and it cuts the making time in half. I make it up in one cup lots and that generally sees me through two to three weeks.

My main mix is for plain gravy that I serve with roast pork but I also make one with homegrown rosemary for roast lamb and another with homegrown sage for roast chicken. These mixes really depend on your taste and what you have growing in the herb patch. I grow all my herbs and dry some of them. When I have dry rosemary and sage, I pulverise them in the mortar then add my other ingredients.

This plain gravy mix recipe will do any number of other dishes such as sausages, meatballs, steak, chops or casserole. The added bonus is that if you're trying to cut back on salt, you just reduce the amount or don't add it at all.

To make one cup of plain gravy mix:

1 cup of plain/all purpose flour
1 tablespoon paprika - or more or less depending on your taste
Salt and pepper to your taste

Mix ingredients together and store in a clean, dry jar.

To make a herb mix, simply make up the plain mix above and add your ground, dried herbs to the mix. About 2 teaspoons of the chosen herb will be enough, but taste it in your cooking and adjust it to your taste when you make your next batch. You could also add any spices you like such as turmeric, cumin, coriander, chilli, onion or celery salt. Experiment and see what suits you.

To make the gravy:

Add 2 tablespoons of the mix to pan juices in a frying or roasting pan.
Stir the dry mix into the juices over a medium heat and allow to brown.
Add 2 - 2½ cups cold water, or more for a thinner gravy. Mix the water in to the mix immediately to avoid lumps forming. Stir until the gravy is the right thickness, add more water to thin it down or allow to evaporate if it's too thin.

I like these simple mixes because they don't have the preservatives or artificial additives that the commercial mixes have, they cost a fraction of the price you'll pay in the supermarket and they're easy to make and store. Do you regularly make any totally from scratch sauce or gravy mixes?

There are many aspects of simple life that come easy to most people but one or two that seem to be more difficult. The difficult ones tend to be the non-practical things that often have to do with acceptance and knowing what enough is. In an email that came last week, a reader told me that she feels a bit cheated at times by the simple life she and her husband are living. She said she enjoys the budgeting, organising, homemaking and cooking, she loves her children, but when she looks around her home, she's not proud of what she has and she never invites friends around because she feels her home is not good enough. The implication is that she feels her home is not good enough for her friends, that they won't feel comfortable there. But it sounds like she feels her home is not good enough for her. She wrote asking for decorating advice - it seems that her attitude is fixed and it's easier for her to decorate her way out of this rather than adjust her eye to appreciate what's around her.

A clean and tidy house has a beauty all its own. It may not be to everyone's taste, it may not be fashionable, expensive or something that you feel you can show off. But everyone's living circumstances are a matter of perspective. I think acceptance and appreciation come from being grateful you have anything. Many people do not.

Not all of us live in show homes, many of us have humble homes that have the kind of appeal and character that weaves its own magic. We use ordinary domestic objects to decorate in an unpretentious way that is charming and authentic. Often there is the aroma of hot soup simmering on the stove or cakes and bread baking. These genuine things, the side benefits of home production, are what adds to the appeal of a home and gives it a true beauty that can't be bought - it has to be created and then nurtured. Nurturing your home will help you appreciate what you have. It generally means fluffing the nest by re-arranging and with sewing, painting and recycling, which soften the hard edges of homes, and people. When you look around a simple home, it's not so much about what you've bought but in how you've spent your time.

Accept the realities of life, don't confuse what you need with what you want. Simple living isn't just about simplifying your physical surroundings, it's about simplifying your mind too. If you can't love your own life you're putting unnecessary expectations and limitations on yourself. Break free of mainstream ideas of acquisition and accept what is in front of you. By slowing down and being more aware, you'll see what's there in a clearer light. And in the end it's not about being surrounded by beauty but in your ability to see the beauty in whatever is there. That could be a kitchen table surrounded by family and friends but some days the sight of steam rising from a cup of tea is enough.