down to earth

Thanks for your enthusiasm about the new book. I was amazed at all the comments yesterday. It's a wonderful feeling knowing you're all there waiting and as eager for the book to be out as I am. I've decided this will be my last book so I'm savouring every moment of it. I'll have another update after I find out about the book tour and publicity. I want to tell you more about the book too but that will have to wait until after I see the final stage - apparently that will be here in the next two weeks.

In the meantime, let's get back to lives being lived. Tricia flew back to Sydney yesterday and even though I was looking forward to gardening and carrying out a couple of plans I have for that area, instead I watered the vegetables then sat on the garden bench and felt a wave of tiredness overcome me. Hanno brought out a pack of sugar cane mulch for me to use on the new beds but it's still not done. My plan now is to do it tomorrow. I have a feeling that the last few months have taken a toll on my energy levels. In addition to meeting so many impossible deadlines, Hettie's death and the lead up to it, more mundane things such as a burst water pipe in the kitchen on Monday seem to have hit me all of a sudden. Let's see what tomorrow brings. It might just be that I need a few nights good sleep with nothing to do the next day.

Silverbeet/chard, beetroot and lots of parsley.

Lettuce, turnips and a potted Cleome.

Cut to the ground in winter, the raspberries are starting to shoot again.

Violas and alyssum with a pot of succulents.

Curly kale and rosemary.

The garden is smaller now after we took out two beds last year, but it will still provide salads, green leaves, herbs and fruit. It's not nearly as much work as it used to be. As we get older, smaller is better. We're growing a selection of herbs that I always use in cooking - tons of parsley, thyme, sage, borage, rosemary, Welsh onions and oregano and there are also three types of chilli and ginger. We have lettuce in the ground and soon I'll plant up a tub of it to grow in the bush house. When it's hot here, lettuce will bolt to seed soon after it's planted but we get around that by thickly planting up a tub of it and keeping it out of full sun and well watered. We cut it early when the leaves are about half grown.

We've just planted four tomatoes and that will be the extent of our tomato planting this year. We're trialling two new types (to us) - Beef Short, a medium sized beefsteak variety grown on a medium bush, and a prolific cherry tomato called Rapunzel with metre long tresses of fruit. They've been in a couple of weeks now and are both going well so far. Rapunzel is in flower already. We still have the ever-present kale crop and it's still looking spectacular. If you're thinking of growing kale this year, look for curly kale because it grows like a weed through winter and into summer. Hanno has been eating kale for 70 years and says curly kale is the best tasting of all the kales, and it's the easiest to grow. Our other favourite leaf - silverbeet/Swiss chard has just been planted so we should be right for leaves for the next few months. Chard's sister, beetroot is in the ground too. I often pickle beetroot but we also have it raw. A trellis is ready for the Lebanese cucumbers to scramble over and I'm going to prune last year's capsicums/peppers and see if I can get another year out of them. Finally, I'll be running a line or two of French radishes along the edge of the beds. Oh, and we're planting a few rosellas too, for jam and tea.

We have more berries now. I planted two more Heritage raspberries and we've moved an old Youngberry over with the raspberries. They're in a fairly small area so I'll have to be ruthless with the clippers but there is a strong trellis to climb on so I'm expecting good things from those plants.

Shhhh, through the bushes I caught this elusive creature reading the paper in the afternoon sun.

I still haven't finished carrying out all my plans in the garden yet. This year I'm making it a place of production and a shady place to sit and relax. When I've done that, I'll take photos but in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the photos I took yesterday so you can see what's going on out there now. It's a great time to get busy in the garden. What are your plans this year?

This photo was taken two years ago.

Hettie died on Friday afternoon. The vet said that in addition to the cancer, she had a few other serious problems. He gave us the option of coming back with her on another day, but as there was no hope of treatment or recovery, we decided to ease her pain straight away. She slipped away quietly while I held her. So after a lifetime of having dogs and cats around, we've decided that Hettie will be our last four-legged friend; it's too painful at the end. She was with us for a long time and it seems quite strange knowing she's not here now. RIP Hettie. Another chapter closed. Another new beginning.

Our sincere thanks to everyone who sent us a message for Hettie. Your kind support helped us get through the sad hours and makes us feel loved. Thank you for taking the time to reach out.

Kerry's Mambo feather cushion.

Tricia pinning her quilt before hand quilting.

The weekend here was subdued. Kerry and Jamie called in so Kerry could help Hanno with some heavy work. They loaded the trailer twice and drove off to the local dump and then we had lunch together. Even after so much decluttering, there is still "stuff" surrounding us. Although to be fair, this was mostly from the shed and yard. It feels good to be getting rid of all that excess and rubbish. Tricia and I cleaned out the bush house and then she went inside to hand quilt while I stayed outside and did some repotting. I'm still working in the garden, planting, tying up, propagating and fertilising but I'll be ready to show you a few photos later in the week. Yesterday the three of us had lunch with Kerry and Jamie (Sunny was working) at a local pub which has its dining area overlooking the water. It did us all good to sit in the sun and relax.

Sewing for Moey.

Receiving this pastel of Jamie was one of the highlights of my year. Moey is such a talented artist. She drew this from a photo on the blog, so it was a complete surprise to me.

I've really enjoyed my sewing lately. I took part in the Down to Earth Forum blue August swap, making a linen apron, a table runner and napkins for my partner Moey in Perth. She sent the pastel of Jamie above. Isn't it wonderful! And I found an old Mambo shirt hanging in the cupboard, it must be about 10 years old. I decided to repurpose it and made Kerry a big feather down cushion for his white leather lounge (photo above). He was away for his birthday so it became his birthday present. I think the distinctive artwork of Reg Mombassa needs to be on display, not hidden in a cupboard.

The start of the blue quilt collection.

Soon I'll be doing more work at the sewing machine. I'm planning (in my head) a blue patchwork quilt for our guest room. Now that I have more time to work in my home, I've decided to put some effort into a couple of areas so they reflect how we use those spaces. Homes change all the time and although I don't want to be constantly updating, it feels right to fluff up these spaces now, using fabric on hand, so we can all enjoy them and make guests feel at home here when they visit us.

My sister Tricia has been visiting these past couple of weeks and we've had a great time together chatting, knitting, sewing and gardening. She's going home tomorrow so after that I'll be back in the garden again to finish off a few things and then I'll take some photos to share with you. The weather is perfect for outdoor work at the moment and I'm mindful of the fact that tomorrow is the first day of Spring. There is always something to do here and although it's sometimes sad, it's never dull. I hope you've had a good weekend and that the week ahead is a productive one for all of us with many opportunities to enjoy time with our families. xx

I've had a few requests to write about how I make bread. I've written a number of bread posts but as it's such a big part in our lives, let's go through it again.

Even thought the bread I make looks like different recipes, I change the type of flour I use to get the variety I want but the recipe stays pretty much the same. I always use baker's flour, not pre mix. Over the years I've used plain white, wholemeal, whole grain, soy and linseed, corn and barley, leckerbrot and rye. At the moment I have organic spelt, rye, white and wholemeal flours in the cupboard and it will eventually make up bread of different forms such as sandwich loaves, free-form loaves, bread rolls, baps and French loaves.

My tutorial for making bread by hand is here
Making bread using a bread machine is here

BREAD RECIPE

2 teaspoons dried yeast
1 teaspoon sugar or honey
¼ cup warm water
4 cups bread flour (can be any variety – wholemeal, rye, white, grain or spelt)
1 teaspoon salt
350 ml warm water (approximately) Read what I said about water in the links above

Make sure the flour and yeast are fresh and if you want a more tender dough for to use for pizza, add a tablespoon of olive oil or butter. You can freeze the dough if you want to. It's often handy to have a few batches of dough big enough to make a pizza base in the freezer.

The following photos are all bread made using the recipe above but with different flour and toppings.

If you're a new baker, don't give up if your bread isn't what you expect the first time you make it. It took me ages to perfect a good dough, to know what to look for in the dough and to always get my hands in and feel it, even if it's being made in the bread maker. Teach yourself through trial and error what good dough feels and looks like and over the days and weeks, you'll teach yourself to produce loaves good enough to be used for sandwiches, rolls and toast. When you start producing good bread, experiment with toppings, additives and different shapes.

Remember the bread you bake will be made exactly to the dietary requirements of you and your family and nothing you can buy at the shops will be as good as what you bake at home. Your bread will be cheaper than the good bread you can buy (but not the cheap and nasty supermarket loaves), you'll know exactly what's in it and you'll have fresh bread in your home whenever you want it. I hope you try your hand at this because it's one of the core skills of a simple home. Even if it looks too difficult for you, trying and then perfecting a bread recipe will help you produce quality food in your own home and it will challenge you. And we all need that.

I'm hoping the hard copies of my books will be on sale at Amazon soon so I was checking in there yesterday looking for signs of activity. While I was there I noticed a review with one star so I had to look at it. This is what it said: While there were some really good tips for simplifying, the basic message in this book is how to be a "traditional" housewife. Nothing against that at all, but it is not for me and I suspect many others. Anyone who has read my books right through or the blog for any length of time would know that my "basic message" isn't promoting traditional housewifery, but an encouragement to be whatever you feel is your true self. Simple life is a garment that all of us can wear but we need to pin and sew it according to the cut of our own jibs, not the expectations of anyone. Just as in mainstream life, if you live according to the ideals and aspirations of others, you're doomed to failure.

The life choices you make should fit the age you're currently at and reflect your values. When you move towards a simple life it should incorporate what you're comfortable with and be allowed to settle in its own time. Anything else would be a complete waste, and a betrayal of your core beliefs. When I look back on my own life, I see that each decade presents different challenges and if you're lucky enough to start living simply when you're young, you'll progress through life, building one stage upon the previous one. However, not all of us are that sensible (I wasn't) but it's quite easy to come into the lifestyle at any age and start where ever you're currently at.

Jamie's toys on the kitchen table (above) and craft supplies, collected rocks, seeds and a little pine cone on the outside table (below).

But getting back to the "traditional" housewife in the review, I hope you're not a traditional anything just for the sake of tradition. That implies to me that you're adopting a role that has already been laid down and rubber stamped as being acceptable. If simple life gives us anything, it's the guts to move away from what is "normal", the courage to examine who we are and what we have, and to do things our own way. It's fine to be a traditional housewife if that is what you are, but it's also fine to be any other kind of housewife or not to think of yourself as a housewife at all. I prefer not to label anyone and to accept them as they are.

If you end up moving towards a traditional life or a non-conventional one, if you're married or single, straight or gay, young or older, if you are black, white, yellow, red or spotted, if you're female, male or transgendered, it is possible to have a happy simple life. And within all that diversity, with people making decisions based upon their own values, beliefs and knowledge of what is good for them, what will emerge is a life worth living. So steer clear of anyone who wants to label you as being a certain type, be yourself, be true to who you are and live to your potential. Life won't always be smooth sailing but if you create a balanced life, the way you live will help you through the tough times. And if someone who doesn't know you labels you as being the opposite of what you are, just roll your eyes and move on.