I'm removing the comments section from the blog. I know that will disappoint some readers but I have two problems associated with comments - time and spam.  I have to moderate the comments because of the number of spam comments I get and that takes time every day. As you know, I am spending less time online now and having to deal with spam takes me away from other things I'd rather be doing. I'm sorry to take this course of action but removing the comments immediately removes the problem.

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The garden is coming along well and working there, planting, weeding, moving pots, pruning and watering makes me feel capable of doing everything that will help me continue my complex, simple and satisfying life.  My old enemy, nut grass, has made a comeback, even with the weeding and mulch. I know I'll never get rid of it so I'm choosing to look on it as just another bit of greenery. I'm hoping that when the garden is completely planted it will be less noticeable.

Yarrow and Cleome.

A new rose - Seduction.  Mine is a standard rose not a rose bush.

Recently I bought a new rose that I really love. If you're not a rose grower, maybe this rose should be your first. If you've been a rose grower for ages, this is one to make room for. It's called Seduction and it's a semi-double (meaning it has a lot of petals). They are sold as standard roses and as rose bushes.  I have the standard variety which is a rose bush grafted onto tall rootstock. 

They start off a creamy white with a touch of pink on the edges and as they age, the pink edges get darker and more noticeable.  It supports many roses at the same time and each flower is in bloom for about two - three weeks. They're an excellent cut flower as well.

I've been harvesting the Silver Beet/Chard for the past couple of weeks. I love chard so I'm building up a small stockpile of single portions in the freezer. There are tomato plants at the back, which are flowering, as well as parsley, dill and green onions in the front. With these plants I only occasionally buy herbs or green vegetables but I still buy cauliflower, broccoli, sweet potato and onions.

I started baking bread again. I had to go to the bakery every week to buy a no preservative loaf and I got sick of doing that.  It's much easier making bread at home, it's much cheaper too, I know what's in the loaf and I can make exactly what I want. I don't know why I stopped baking. After Hanno died it seemed to be one of many things that were too difficult. But like all the other things I stopped then started again, bread is back to stay. I had a slice of hot toast for breakfast this morning with butter and cherry jam and a cup of black tea. It was a classic breakfast which I enjoyed a lot.

It's going to be 34C/93F here today. Yesterday we had bushfires very close by and all day there were fire bomber aircraft and helicopters flying low between the fire and the local dam. It was burning from Australia Zoo down to the highway and all it would have taken was a change in the wind direction and we would have been in danger of burning here too.  It looks like it's under control now and it will be cooler tomorrow so I have my fingers crossed. It's not a good sign when we're still in early spring.

I hope you're well and happy and things are good where you are. Take care. xx

This is just a quick post to let you know I got my electricity bill.  You might remember I posted about electricity charges after Hanno died when I was trying to establish what I used. While Hanno was sick at home I was using every appliance that made it easier for him and easier to look after him.  I knew my solo usage would be less but I didn't know how much less.  Click on that link to see the post.

I'm happy to tell you that bill reflects the one I got yesterday. My old usage was 5 kWh and my current is 4.06 kWh, less than half one person's usage.  I'm glad I did this so I know how low I can go if I need to in the future.  I have no doubt I'll use the air conditioning during summer but I doubt I'll stray too far from what I'm doing now.  The main thing for me is to use my solar power as I generate it by doing my housework in the morning when the sun is on the roof and to always turn off power when I'm not using it.

With the price rise on 1 July, the cost of electricity per day here increased from $1.99 to $2.28 kWh and my greenhouse gas emissions reduced from 1.1 tonnes to 0.6 tonnes. I hope this encourages you to reduce your usage too. It's not easy to do at first but it gets easier as you get used to it but as you can see here, it WILL make a difference.

For the rest of today, I'll have a salad wrap for lunch and make bread this afternoon before spending a couple of hours in the garden. I had a new gardener come over yesterday.  He's fantastic and I hope he'll return in a couple of weeks to clean my roof and do a bit of pruning.

Enjoy yourself over the weekend. I hope you get the chance to spend time relaxing at home. 🥰

I'm making napkins today. Those I made about five years ago are on their last legs and I don't want to buy napkins again and again and again.  Today and tomorrow I'll also be making laundry liquid, stainless steel sink cleaner, biscuits and chilli jam. These tasks, and many more like them, are a regular part of my housework. I aim for environmental and financial sustainability and I support and encourage biodiversity on the land I live on. I am mindful of the horrendous changes to the weather in recent years and this year we've seen many record breaking weather events around the world. It's the result of global warming and we've been warned about it for years but done nothing to slow it down or stop it.

Every dollar we spend makes the problem worse because that money is buying modern lifestyles built using fossil fuels. I'm not going to write about what certain countries, including my own, do to make the matter worse but I will urge you to educate yourself about global warming and work out a way to make a difference in your own home. We all contributed to this problem in tiny increments, we can undo some of it by working sustainably in our homes. 

I try to save money whenever I can because it makes sense to me, it allows me to live the life I live and I want my children and grandchildren to live in a world similar to the one I grew up in.  I want that for you and your children too. We can't keep putting it off, now is the time to draw a line in the sand and make sure we stay on the right side of that line, even when it's difficult.

Prices increased during the pandemic and the cost of living is still rising.  I thought it might be a good idea to share some of the things I do here to help reduce the cost of running a home. I'd love you to share some of the uncommon things you're doing too; don't worry about the common things, most of us are already doing them. 

Our water and electricity prices went up July 1 and we're about to receive the first bills since that price rise. For the last few months I've changed how I use my appliances. We had a solar hot water system installed when we moved here in 1997 and our first solar panels were installed in 2007. In September last year I had the old solar panels replaced and a new system of 18 panels installed.  I run my major appliances - washing machine, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner, one at a time, in the morning as soon as the sun hits the roof. That's the most efficient way to run my system. If you have solar, do a bit of research so you know the best way to run your system to save dollars. The aim is to use the solar power as you generate it and just have the leftovers going to the grid but if you work outside the home, that would be impossible for you. A solar battery would be better in your situation because it would collect and store all the solar power you generate during the day so it's available for you to use at night. 

I use the dishwasher every three days but I also take a break from it for weeks an a time and go back to it again when I’m busy. After a bit of tweaking, I changed the cycle I use in the dishwasher. I used to do a sensor wash cycle (2 hours!) now it's a 45 minute gentle wash and it still does an excellent job. I've not had to rewash anything.  I'm microwaving more too. I always heat up in the microwave and I'm cooking vegetables in a bowl with a silicone lid in the microwave instead of boiling on the stove.  I have an induction stove so when I do use the stove, it uses less electricity than the last stove I had. 

I use clothes stands on the back verandah instead of using the dryer - I get very dizzy hanging out laundry on my clothes line but anything at eye level is fine and the clothes stand is working well. My March electricity bill was $76 - less than a one person house but I'm waiting to see this bill due now because the last bill told me nothing - a certain black dog was seen in the front yard so the meter wasn't read. 🙄 I think the bill will be in the $200 range but even so, I hope that by using the solar power wisely and the $300 worth of credits I currently have, I'll get by and pay nothing.

I can't work out the water usage. I use less water than one person in my home and yet my bills are always in the $200-$250 range. My sister's water bill is less than $100, and she lives in NSW and she's in a two person house. If you live in SE Queensland, I'd love you to share the cost of your average water bill with me.

Most of the time I buy my groceries at Woolworths and have them delivered. They charge $119 a year for delivery so if I shop weekly, it costs just over $2 for delivery. That saves petrol for the 12km round trip and I'm not wandering around buying things I don't need.

I eat less meat, I still cook from scratch, still make laundry liquid and homemade cleaners and if you do that too, your grocery bill will drop a fair bit and you'll be bringing far less plastic into your home.  I'm thinking of baking bread again because the cost of good bread is sky high and I don't want to eat bread with preservatives and other additives. My recipes for laundry liquid and homemade cleaners are here. Remember to turn off the light every time you leave the room, don't leave the TV, radio or fan on. Don't leave appliances on standby. It all adds up and over the course of a three month bill may tip you over the edge.

Baby Gracie playing with a shoe the same size as her.

So what's happening in your home? I'd love to know how you're saving money in these hard time. If you have time, drop a short comment about your unusual tasks because it might help readers who are making their first changes and those who are moving on to another level. 

Looking towards the outside world.

I love where I live. My home is situated at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac of ten houses.  I have neighbours on both sides and across the road an old saw mill which is completely screened by a couple of hundred trees. Back in the day when this area was opened up, cedar and silky oak trees were logged and brought down the mountain on timber wagons pulled by teams of oxen. They came to the saw mill close to my house where the logs were dragged across the land and launched from a natural outcrop in the creek in my backyard. They floated downstream to the coast and put on clipper ships which sailed to England and India.  

We bought our home in 1993 but didn't move here till 1997. Our soil tests at that time showed this was "virgin land" which had never been lived on or cultivated. The creek is our back border and it still flows but there are no other signs of the history of the land, the men, the oxen or the timber wagons.

We decided very early on that we wanted to get the full value of our land by improving the soil and growing food. We bought heirloom chickens, installed water tanks, erected fences and started gardening. We produced fruit, vegetables, nuts, eggs and loofahs from 1998 until 2021 when Hanno became ill. I literally walked out of the garden in October 2021 to tend to Hanno, leaving the tools as they were, and didn't go back until early this year.

The garden when I walked out in October 2021. When I went back earlier this year, it was completely dead.

Hanno did the digging, weeded garden beds, made compost, looked after the chickens, planted seedlings and left the gardens fallow from late November to March ever year. It was too hot to garden, there were too many bugs and as it was our wet season, nature took care of the watering. We were excited to plan our new season in January and February every year and started working back in the garden in early March. Doing this allowed us to rest over summer, eat the freshest organic produce, produce much of what we needed and share a lot of it with our family, friends and neighbours.

My part of the gardening took place every afternoon from 2.00 - 4.00 pm when shade covered the garden. I pruned, weeded, moved plants, staked, watered and harvested to my heart's content. I preserved a lot of that produce by making jams, sauces, tonics, cordials, relishes and pickles. We cut down on the cost of our food shopping and made ourselves happy by being productive and working outside in the fresh air.

Here is part of the potted garden I created out the front.

I decided recently that the potted garden I made in the front garden wasn't enough. I wanted what I once had - the opportunity to sit in a joyous space, breathe fresh air, watch the wildlife and think about the ghosts - both men and horses, who moved massive tree trunks across this land. I wanted to see my house from a different perspective; I wanted to see the outside as well as the inside. So at the beginning of this week, after I'd had the garden dug over and compost added, I started planting flowers in two garden beds. In a small separate garden that used to be an old sand pit, I'm growing the herbs I eat, chillies and two tomato bushes. I grow comfrey next to the compost and use it to make organic fertiliser. It doesn't look like much at the moment but like every garden it will grow into something entirely different with a little help from me and Mother Nature.

Roses have been moved back to where they used to be and are growing well. Roses are as tough as old boots and they only die if you don't water them. There's a standard dark red Munstead Wood, a standard pale pink-white rose called Seduction, a climber called Pinkie, two pink Cecile Brunner mini climbers, the pink Montville Rose, a pale yellow hybrid tea rose called Elina, pink climber Dorothy Perkins and I have The Fairy rose which I'll plant in a pot and have on the side of the garden. I also have English lavender, salvias, gaura, penstemon, foxgloves, yarrow, several daisies, chrysanthemums, Queen Anne's lace, snapdragons, buddleja - butter fly bush, society garlic and a small lemon tree in a pot. There are a couple of other plants there that I'll remember as soon as I post this but I hope you get the general idea.  I'll continue planting until I can no longer see the garden bed.  Shane came down to help me with the final planting which was all in the middle of the beds. I get very dizzy when I step on uneven ground so I was very grateful when he said he would come and help.

The plants are a large part of the garden but it's the physical space I love the most; it feels different in there. I have a place to sit in the shade and I can see the entire backyard as well as an air corridor that starts around 500 meters away in the bush and flows into our backyard.  Male Willy Wagtails use it to show off, swooping and gliding in front of the female birds, and it's the corridor insects use when they start hatching in the bush and move into suburbia annoying us gardeners.

The love of gardening seems to grow stronger in me every year. It helps me think about life and how I fit in, it brings back memories and helps me think about what's next. But it's also about the beautiful flowers and delicious produce that can be grown. And I'm happy to say that it's there for all of us if we have land or pots to grow in and the desire to work hard.

I really thought I'd written my last post here but I didn't know how bad it is out there. I went to Instagram to remain connected to you all but now it's self-destructing to get more advertising dollars so I don't want to write there anymore.  I used it one last time to let you know I’d written this post but from now on you’ll either have to check here to see if there’s a new post or sign up to Blogtrottr which I explain below.

Thanks for coming back to the blog with me and welcome to the newbies. Here we have no rules except for the requirement to treat everyone with respect and kindness. That's how I live my life so it's no surprise that I want that here too.  And it does need to be vocalised because there are new readers arriving here all the time and I want everyone to know what my expectations are.  I've been writing on this blog since 2007 and during the first few years I wrote everyday.  I had SO MUCH to say I couldn't keep it in. When I discovered this simple way of life, I wanted to share it with everyone and back then, no one was talking about living simply, at least not in the way I live it.

The focus here is on my home and up until now, my family as well. Of course I still have my sons and their families but my much-loved husband, Hanno, died in May 2022. Since then I've grieved, thought about my life and my future and came out the other end of that process knowing I want to continue to live according to my values and doing what gives me pleasure. I've always been a bit of a hermit and that hasn't changed so although my family visits me and I go out to see friends, my blog will remain one of the ways I connect with people. So my writing here will continue much as it was before. I'll write about my day-to-day life which always includes housework, gardening and sitting in the backyard thinking about life (and death). Other topics will pop up occasionally too - it will all be a reflection on what I'm spending time on and what interests me and hopefully you too.

I spent the last hour trying to find new ways for you to subscribe to my blog. Early last year, Feedburner retired and with it went an easy way to let you know I’d published a new post.  I found Push Notifications but don't know how to set it up and Blogtrottr which looks okay at the moment but might not work as I think it will.  I'll continue to monitor it closely and hope it sends you emails about new postings when you subscribe to it.  It looks pretty simple so give it a go and if I find any problems with it, I'll let you know.  I'll add the link to the right-hand column too. Of course, you might just want to drop by and check the blog yourself without receiving any notifications. That's fine too. If there isn't a new blog, read through my archives, there are hundred of posts listed in the right-hand column.  

I’d like to make a list of fellow, non-commercial, bloggers who are currently writing posts.  If you have an up-to-date blog which isn't about selling anything, send me a link and I'll check it out and will probably add it to the list.

Thanks for reading through all this. I wanted to get all the blog-related information out before I settle in and write about what I'm doing here.  I'll be back on the weekend with a post about the garden I've recreated in my backyard.  Thanks for being here. ☺️

ADDED FRIDAY AFTERNOON: 

A number of people mentioned they're using https://feedly.com and that reminded me that I had a Feedly account too.  It's a great site that allows you to make a list of the places you want to follow - news sites, blogs etc. I think it's better than Blogtrottr.

Gracie update: she wouldn't allow me to brush her face so I ended up cutting all the prickles out of her eyebrows, nose and beard with some little scissors. She was in the worst mood while I was doing it but when I finished, she raced around the backyard like a gazelle. Dogs eh.

I have known for a while that this post was coming, but I didn't know when. This is my last post. I'm closing my blog, for good, and I'm not coming back like I have in the past.  I've been writing here for 16 years and my blog has been many things to me. It helped me change my life, it introduced me to so many good people, it became a wonderful record of my family life, it helped me get a book contract with Penguin, and monthly columns with The Australian Women's Weekly and Burke's Backyard. But in the past few months, it's become a burden.

In April, I'll be 75 years old and I hope I've got another ten years ahead. However, each year I'll probably get weaker and although I'm fairly healthy, I do have a benign brain tumour and that could start growing. There are so many things I want to do and with time running out, leaving the blog behind gives me time to do the things that give me pleasure.

On the day the blog started I felt a wonderful, heartwarming feeling when I first pressed the "publish" button. I wanted to share what I know, help others live simply, get out of debt and be kinder to our planet. I think I achieved some of that but the amount of money still being spent on cars, clothes, holidays and things that will end up in land fill is heart breaking. 

The blog will remain open so you can come back to read whatever you like but next Wednesday, I'll turn off the comments. For those that like the stats, I've written 2995 posts, there have been 91,222 comments and over 360 million page views. Thank you for being part of that.  I'm continuing my Instagram page so if you've got an account there, I'll see you around. It's much easier to write on Instagram because they have a limit on keystrokes so I'm pretty sure that can fit into my life.

You can find me on Instgagram by searching for rhondahetzel If you follow me, when I post, you'll see the post along with anyone else you follow.  I'll put up a link in my side bar this week to guide you there.

During the 16 years I've written here I've felt loved and appreciated and I thank you all for that. I also say a special thanks to the people who commented - that's what kept me going. Having that contact with like-minded folk gave me a better understanding of the world around me, helped me come up with ideas to write about and showed me that despite what we see on the news, the world is full of people who are trying to do their best.

Thank you for being here with me.  ❤️

COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED

I've written a lot about the various things I choose to do with my days now and apart from not being able to work in the garden, I'm a peace with my daily choices. What I've never talked about with you though, is what I choose not to do. Recreational shopping, smoking, reading fiction, flying, making soap, vinegar and yoghurt from scratch, growing food, travelling, sitting in front a some sort of screen day in and day out and hundreds of other things. I believe the things I do not choose are shaping my future just as much as what I choose to do.

When I get up each morning, I'm not catapulting myself out of bed like I used to but getting up slowly, thinking about my day, making decisions about the hours I'll spend within these walls, having breakfast, tidying up, drawing, talking to myself and Gracie and writing. I think that time weaves its own strange web and without me realising, the hours become another ordinary day. Another day I'm thankful for; another day in my past. 

Today I'm writing about the process of feeding ourselves. I suppose we know this process as cooking but it also involves preserving, fermenting, preparation, shopping, baking, and depending on the type of cooking you do, a variety of other processes that delivers food to the table. I'm currently working out ways to keep cooking from scratch and eating the foods I love without wasting what I buy.  I was pleased to see many responses to the information about the Zwilling vacuum-packed food. It's a good way to keep fresh food available for a long time.

But today's main topic will be some of the recipes I have on rotation in my own home. I'm not giving the recipes for each meal because writing out recipes is painful and the main reason I didn't write a cook book. But all recipes you choose should be edited to suit your own taste. When you find the meal you want to cook, look for a few different versions of the recipe and then edit your chosen one to your taste.  Here is my list of 40 favourite easy meals.

All the recipes here are for four servings. I used to serve two portions for Hanno and I and either freeze the other two portions or eat them the following day. Cooking this way helps you build up a stockpile of frozen home-cooked meals to eat on the days you're busy or too tired to cook. If, like me, you're cooking for one now, you'll either halve these recipes before you cook, then eat one portion and freeze one. Again this helps by building a small stockpile of home-cooked meals. Work out which spices you'll need to have on hand when you're cooking. If you're eating mainly European food - German, Italian, French etc., you'll need salt, pepper, paprika, and herbs, either fresh or dried. Asian food requires soy sauce, chilli paste or flakes, cumin, curry paste or powder, coriander/cilantro, turmeric, ginger etc.  You'll probably find the meals you like will use the same or similar seasonings. Grow your own herbs, it's easily done in containers and it will save you a lot of money over the year. Currently a bunch of herbs is between $3 and $4.90, depending on if you buy organic herbs.

If you're a solo cook, it might be better for you to buy your meat at the local butcher shop instead of the supermarket. The supermarket has only trays of meat and apart from $70 per kilo fillet steak, generally the trays are too big for a solo cook. However, if you want to buy a bulk tray of meat, that will save you money as long as you repack it into meal sized portions to freeze at home. A butcher will give you what you ask for - 2 sausages, 200 grams minced beef, two chops, a small piece of corned beef, a small whole chicken or a rack of 4 prepared chops suitable for roasting. They also have a range of bones for stock.

If you're new to this kind of cooking, set up your systems first because it is having a stockpile with a variety of food, having your kitchen well organised, and your list of meals that will support your cooking and make things easier for you. Here is some extra reading all about home cooking and providing nutrition. It also contains my own list of 40 meals I cook on a regular basis. If you're serious about home cooking, it's helpful to build your own list. It will provide constant and long-term inspiration. 

• Beef casserole

• Cottage Pie 

• Lasagne

• Roast chicken with herb stuffing and gravy

• KFC - Korean Fried Chicken

• Bangers and mash and curried sausages 

• Stuffed cabbage rolls

• Meatballs

• Spinach Pie

• Kartoffel Puffer

To find more recipes on my blog, go to the side bar under my photo and search for simple terms such as chicken, not roast chicken, or just click on Home Cooking in the list of topics on the bottom of the page. Good luck with this. If you can organise a list of favourite and easy meals, get your kitchen ready and create a small stockpile or pantry, cooking will be easier for you. Don't forget to delegate jobs too. Kids and partners love to cook, peel, chop and test taste. 😉