down to earth

Hello! Remember me? This cup of coffee is helping me get back into blog writing again; I've missed it. I think I'm ready to get back to the routine of writing about what I'm doing day-by-day and having my phone in my apron pocket so I can take photos when the opportunity arises. I feel it's an important part of my life now. I need to stay connected to you because most days I'm alone. I still have family and close friends drop by and today I have Shane, Alex and Eve here. Shane is taking a few loads of things I no longer need to the recycle shop and dump. I'll keep an eye on the kids and provide sandwiches, fruit and drinks as needed. Today's drink is freshly squeezed orange juice from a tree in the backyard. What a delicious lifesaver that tree has been over the years.

This is one of the lemon trees in the backyard this morning. I've given buckets of lemons away but as you can see, there are still a lot to be enjoyed. Soon I'll squeeze juice to freeze for summer cordials. Summer without homemade lemon cordial doesn't make sense to me.

These strawberries weren't grown in my garden but they're local. I live in an area surrounded by strawberry and pineapple farms so we always take advantage of the local produce when it's in season. It's always fresher and cheaper. It's an excellent way to help growers too. Every time I buy local it strengthens my community.

I changed my mind about keeping the vegetable garden. It makes mowing the lawn quite difficult, and we have three-quarters of an acre, so I decided to grow what I want to grow in tubs and pots. Shane removed the garden edging and I'm waiting for the grass to overtake the space again. This is my first crop of tub-grown rainbow chard. I love this vegetable and it's very easy to preserve in the freezer so it's an easy choice for my first crop. I've kept the herb garden too. I use a lot of herbs and it makes sense to me to grow and use them fresh instead of paying an arm and a leg for wilting herbs at the supermarket. Soon I'll be writing about what can be easily grown in pots and tubs and how to produce top quality herbs and vegetables in small spaces.

I've not got big loads of washing now. These towels are the result of family staying here but usually I have two towels, four dishcloths, numerous rags and bed linen to wash each week as well as my clothes. I still use my three ingredient homemade laundry liquid and it's still keeping everything clean without the use of nasty additives. It makes me shudder to look at the ingredient panel on bottles of laundry liquid and many of the other cleaners sold now. Please be careful when you choose because most of the items we wash are in contact with our skin when they're used.

I'm still happily working away in my kitchen. I cook lunch from scratch for myself every day and although I'm no longer cooking the meals Hanno loved, I've moved over to the foods I grew up eating. These include casseroles, soups, roast chicken, lamb chops, meat balls with pasta, curry and fish, although they will change with the seasons. I usually make enough for two or four meals so I don't have to cook every day and I have a nice stash of meals in the freezer when I don't feel like cooking. I can write about that in the future if you're interested.

I no longer make my daily bread but I'm still making pizza bases and scones. I'm looking for the bread I'll stay with. Currently I'm trying oat bread which is okay but not something I want to eat every day. I think I'll end up with the local bakery's ancient grains bread. It stays fresh for a few days, it's tastes good after it's been frozen and there are no preservatives or other additives.

I'm keeping my bread in the bread bag I made a couple of years ago. You can read about it here.

Thank you for the support you've given me and my family over the past few months. I did everything I promised Hanno I would do after he died and now I have to look after myself and carry on. I'm excited about what might be ahead.

I'll be back in a few days. Enjoy your time at home and let me know what you're doing there. 😊

This photo of our comfrey clump was taken a couple of days ago.

Comfrey is one of the easiest herbs to grow and is also one of the most helpful herbs in the garden. If you have a chance, particularly if someone offers you a comfrey root cutting, take it and grow your own clump. You won't have to buy fertiliser again.

Comfrey sends down a tap root and that mines the soil for minerals and makes them available in the leaves. Using those leaves in a fertiliser will give you minerals such as Vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, B12, C and E, as well as boron, calcium, chromium, cobalt, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, manganese, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, selenium, sodium and zinc. And comfrey nutrients are immediately available to your plants, unlike pellets and granules, blood and bone etc which have to break down for a a couple of weeks before they become available to the plants.

But that's not the only reason to grow comfrey. I use it here to mulch tomatoes and potatoes when I plant them. I scrunch up the leaves to begin the breakdown of the leaves and over the following week, when I water the plants, the comfrey mulch will start fertilising your plants as well as add organic matter to the soil. Comfrey is an excellent source of nitrogen, potash, phosphorus (NPK) and calcium so if you're growing green leaves such as lettuces, silverbeet or cabbages, comfrey will help you grow magnificent vegetables. Are you growing flowering fruits and vegetables? Then comfrey is your go-to fertilising liquid - tomatoes, potatoes, egg plant, any of the melons, stone fruit, citrus trees, passionfruit, beans, peas, chillies, capsicum/peppers, herbs and a whole lot more.

Someone might tell you that comfrey spreads and you have to be careful, but that's not quite right. It doesn't spread out like bamboo does but if you plant comfrey in a hole, it will slowly increase the clump but it will take many years before it outgrows it's spot. Comfrey likes water but we've been in drought here for the past ten years and our comfrey is still growing strongly. Make sure the space you choose is where you want it to grow for a long time because if you try to dig it out later, leaving only the slightest piece of root behind will make it grow again. The best spot is either at the edge of your garden or near the compost heap because it won't get in the way of your regular plantings and if you have an excess of comfrey leaves, you can throw them onto the compost heap and they will accelerate decomposition and add nutrients to the heap.

HOW TO MAKE COMFREY LIQUID FEED

Cut the leaves from the comfrey plant and put them into a bucket that has a lid. Half fill the bucket with leaves and put a brick on top of them to stop them floating. Fill the bucket with water and put the lid on.

It will smell ... a lot.

Stir it every couple of days and in two or three weeks you'll have a dark brown liquid that is an excellent feed for your plants.

When the comfrey fertiliser is ready, strain the leaves out of the mixture and put them in the compost - it will help your compost decompose faster.

The ratio to use is one part comfrey concentrate to 10 parts water. It will make up a liquid that looks like black tea. If you make a weaker mix you can use it more frequently.

It's equally effective poured over leaves and around the root ball on a weekly basis.

If you have an excess of comfrey liquid, store it in plastic milk bottles in a dark place.

COMFREY ROOT CUTTINGS

When you want to give root cuttings to your family and friends, and I encourage you to do that - the less chemical fertilisers in the world, the better - choose a spot at the edge of the clump and with a spade, dig into the clump as far down as you can go. Hopefully, when you pull the spade back you'll hear a "snap" and you can pull up the cutting with your spade and hand.

There are about 30 species of comfrey and they grow in zones 4 - 9. It will produce leaves all year but start to die down in winter. Depending on your climate, the leaves will die back completely and over a couple of weeks, with watering, will regrow when the weather starts to heat up. During that regrowth, it will form white, pink or mauve insignificant, bell-shaped flowers.

This is a simple post laying bare what I do during the day. You've liked these posts when I've done them in the past. It's my day, set out in chunks of time, so you can see not what I do every day because they're all different, but what I did on this day. I also took all of these photos yesterday so you can see some of what I'm writing about.

This is my work room. It's where I've written all my books and blog. There are a couple of laptops there, one under the fan, a sewing machine and overlocker.

So what happened on THIS day?

4 - 7am

Up early, finished off a few things on the computer left over from the day before, had breakfast while catching up on one of the previous night's TV programs, then five minutes of news. I never watch TV at night. Breakfast was baked beans with ancient grains toast and black tea. Then I unpacked the dishwasher, placed the breakfast dishes in, cleaned the microwave and tidied the kitchen.

7 - 7.30am

While I waited for Hanno to wake up, I tidied my desk, dealt with emails and finished setting up Adguard - I just bought a lifetime membership and changed a couple of settings. When Hanno was having his breakfast, I opened the windows in the bedroom and ensuite, made the bed and put a few things away in the wardrobe.

I don't like what's happening in the laundry at the moment. I have too many products on that top shelf and not enough folding space. I'll fix that next week when I have some spare time.

7.30 - 10am

Put load of washing on and scrubbed the laundry sink. Made some phone calls. Cleaned and organised the kitchen and started preparing lunch - corned beef, sweet potato mash and cabbage. The corned beef cooked slowly overnight and was really tender. Then I made morning tea, we had banana cake and tea, and I sat with Hanno on the front verandah.

10am - midday

Peeled and cooked vegetables and got plates, glasses and cutlery out to set the table. Peeled and cut up mangoes for dessert. Hung washing out, put some in the dryer and continued washing during the day. Served lunch.

12.30 - 2.20pm

Man from Airtasker came to mow our lawns and do the whipper snipping. I finished setting up Adguard on Hanno's computer and starting installing the new iOS. It took nearly four hours! Set up Adguard on our phones and iPad.

2.30 - 3pm

Hemmed some small cloths on the sewing machine.

Cleaning the kitchen bench - a never-ending job.

3 - 3.30pm

Talked to our grandkids on the phone. Alex and Eve had just been picked up from school by Sarndra and were heading home. We talked about what they were doing at school that day, what they hoped to get for Christmas and Eve's newly pierced ears. I'm getting her some good earrings for Christmas. They were worried about Hanno's health and spoke to him but he got tired so I ended what he was saying. They said they wanted to come down soon to see him.

3.30 - 4pm

Took Gracie outside for a run around. She's still stalking lizards but happily they're much faster that she is.

4 - 6pm

Made tea and toast and watched some of the late afternoon news. Heated up a stuffed capsicum for Hanno's tea then tidied up the kitchen, packed the dishwasher and hung out sheets and towels.

6 - 7pm

Cleaned and tidied my workroom, vacuumed the floor and emptied the vacuum. I'm no angel, I hate emptying the dust from the vacuum cleaner but it was so full it stopping cleaning! It felt good that I emptied it though so maybe I am an angel. 😇

7pm

Checked on Hanno and Gracie watching TV, had a shower and went to bed. Couldn't go to sleep so I got up again and looked for cake recipes in Grandma's Cookbook. I love that site! Also checked Grandma Donna's site. She has good, old fashioned, basic recipes, which is what I prefer to cook and eat now.

9pm

Got tired again so when Hanno went to bed, I did too. This time is was successful and I slept well.

I hang my dirty white cloths over the side of this tub and once a week soak them in oxygen-bleach.

We have two air filters in the house now, we've had them for about six months and they're really helping Hanno with his breathing when he sleeps. They have HEPA filters so they can filter out Covid, cold and flu viruses and well as fumes from paint or carpet, outside smoke and cooking smells. It operates on a blue light most of the time but when something is in the air it goes to orange then, if necessary, red. It takes time cleaning the air then returns to blue. It's fascinating to watch because often you don't know why it changes settings. I'm grateful to have it.

Today I've just been outside to pick lemons for the slice I'll be making tomorrow. We had corned beef, sweet potato and cabbage leftovers for lunch today. There are leftovers for tomorrow as well.

A few towels and a sheet on the line here. It doesn't take long to dry, maybe two to three hours most days.

It's a very calm and simple life we live nowadays. Most of the time we feel cut off from the rest of the world, we focus on what's here rather than what's out there and we work to our own rules and timetables. The work we do supports the lifestyle we've chosen and it consistently reinforces the importance of that work. I can't imagine living any other way now. It helps if you understand the significance of home to you. When you get that, it makes sense to care for what you've got.

Thank you for being here today. I hope some of what I've written helps you move closer to your ideal life. It's a mindset change really but when all that clicks in, the rest is not far away. xx

My computer problems have been resolved so I'm back with you. There'll be no Weekend Reading today because I haven't been reading but I hope this post on time management and routines will interest many of you, especially the new readers.

One thing we all deal with, and sometimes struggle with, is how to organise our time to do everything we need to do and want to do. Most weeks can be similar for those who have retired or are ill but when you’re raising a family, caring for loved ones, working outside the home or living on one income with outside work and work at home existing along side each other, organising time can be difficult. In all those situations, however, when you create routines and organise your time effectively, life is easier.

I get a few emails about this from readers who can’t create routines that work. I think the best way to organise home life is to do it in bits and pieces, never all at once. Each part of your life and every bit of housework you do requires focus so you have to be thorough and do it one step at a time. Slow is best.

I think the best way to start is to work out what you’re having problems with right now, and start with that. You have to be prepared to give time to the things you want to happen and for most things, each process will have many steps, not just one. For instance, if I want to feed my family nutritious food then I have to make time think about what I want to cook during the week, then more time to create a shopping list, go to the supermarket to buy food, go to the butcher, baker and fish market, or to the weekend markets. When I come home with the shopping, I need time to refrigerate or freeze the food, or store it correctly in a cupboard, before I cook it every day. As you can see, there are many steps and it takes time but when you set up your routines, it will help you a lot.

There are a few processes that could be part of your kitchen routines - cleaning, organising, cooking, baking and preserving. Another process that will fit nicely into your kitchen routines is to batch cook. I want to eat food cooked from scratch every day. You could cook enough food for the week on the weekend but I prefer a two day method. When I cook, I make enough for two days so we eat home cooked food every day but I only cook 15 days, not 30 days a month. We eat the same food two days in a row but when you’ve done this for a few weeks, you can freeze the second batch and build a store of frozen meals - so you have the choice of what you eat on the second day. Make sure you label your meals well so you don’t leave food sitting in the freezer or waste it. This post, Three key ways to save time and money, is about stockpiling, green cleaning and batch cooking for beginners, I hope it helps you with motivation.

If I want to reduce the number of chemicals I have in my home, ONE of the things I do is to make sure I always have soap, borax and washing soda on standby in the laundry so I can make my homemade laundry liquid. This not only gives me a very effective way of cleaning our clothes with few chemicals, it also saves money and helps me cut down on the amount of plastic I bring home. But it’s not one step, it’s many and it takes time. If I have the ingredients here, making laundry liquid takes about 15 minutes, then it lasts a couple of months before I make it again. Shop-bought laundry liquid costs about $9 - $10 per litre, homemade laundry liquid is $2 a litre which is a huge ongoing saving. Click here for my recipe for laundry liquid as well as a number of other uses for it.

And as you can see, these two common household processes have multi-steps and take time. It’s never instant, you have to work for it.

The reason they need multi-steps and time is that when you go to the supermarket to buy your weekly groceries, if you buy already cooked food, premade cleaning products etc., you’re paying for convenience. If you buy ready made meals, you’re paying for someone else to buy the ingredients, prepare and cook the meal and when someone else does the work for you, you pay for the ingredients, plus the work they do.

However, buying convenience means you have to earn more to pay the higher price of convenience products - the laundry detergents, shampoos, snacks, fizzy drinks etc. By cutting back and going back to a more basic kitchen, you’ll reduce your use of plastic, you’ll know exactly what is in the food you eat, you’ll live with fewer chemical and you’ll have more money in the bank.

So how can we get back to that basic nourishing food and healthy life? Routines will help you with the tasks you repeat over and over again.

Before you do get into routines you must organise your work areas - kitchen, laundry, bedrooms, sitting/lounge room, outside areas, but do one area at a time. Start with the kitchen, because you’ll be preparing food and cooking almost every day. Take a good look around and move things to suit how you work there. If you drink a lot of tea and coffee, make a tea and coffee station with your cups, teapot, kettle etc. near by. Make sure your glasses, plates, bowls and serving dishes are within easy reach for every one and are close to where they’ll be used. I have three big drawers under my induction stove. They contain all our plates, serving and mixing bowls so they’re close to where the food is made and when I finish cooking, all plates and serving bowls are right there. Clean and organise the fridge and freezer. Make sure you knives are sharp, it helps you a lot. Clean and organise your cutlery and gadget drawers - this will save you time when you don’t have to look for the things you need. Give away or donate everything you don’t use. Clean and organise all the drawers and cupboards you use every day, it will help you later when you're busy cooking, baking, making lunches or cleaning.

I know how much time paid work takes - I worked for a living until I was 56. I know how much time children take, especially when they’re very young. I’ve had my own children and looked after three grandchildren, so I get it, it’s time consuming. But once you’ve set yourself up with routines, a stockpile of groceries, green cleaning and delegating chores, simple life will help you to live well, consume less and hopefully be healthier. And you’ll have a feeling of self-reliance, freedom and satisfaction that will help you carry out your house work and build your own simple home.