I thank inoureyes and Daisymum for the inspiration to write today's post. A couple of days ago Daisymum made a comment, in part she wrote: "... sometimes the inspiration is in the little things you write. Today for me it was "the best silverbeet we have ever grown" from that I gather that sometimes even you guys have things go not quite to plan. When you are up to your eyeballs in things to do it is lovely to be reminded that sometimes the journey is easy, sometimes there are roadblocks along the way and sometimes you get "the best silverbeet we have ever grown".

Then yesterday, inoureyes asked about our failed aquaponics system and that reminded me of the times we struggled to keep our fish alive. Both those comments encouraged me to write about the ups and downs of every day and how those ups and downs are an important part of life.


I've touched on this subject a while ago and you can read that post here. BTW, I don't see either of these comments as criticism, and I know they were not intended as such. :- )

Those of you who have been reading here for a while know that I love the way we live. We are able to do what we like, when we like, and most days you'll find us content and happy working away at home or in our community. But there are times when our plans and expectations fall short and there is not much we can do about it. Although I'm a cock-eyed optimist, I expect the disappointments and the bad times. When they materialise, I recognise what's happened, work towards a solution, or walk away if I can't find one, and get on with my work.

I never expect perfection, not do I want it. I want to live a life that is significantly influenced by nature and any of you who have been working in a garden recently will surely know that when working with natural systems, anything can happen. I think you get a kind of artificial "perfection" at the supermarket. There you can walk down rows of produce to see row up row of perfect, unblemished fruit and vegetables. They present us with produce that is all the same size and colour, but when you bite into this food, if generally lacks taste. Those perfect looking fruit and vegetables are often produced using controlled conditions, pesticides and fertilisers. If you go to the organic section of the same store, you'll notice the organic produce doesn't look quite so perfect, but it contains no chemical residue and has a good taste.


So Daisymum, when we plant out our silverbeet in a shady corner of the garden, watch it struggle above the ground for a couple of weeks, then nurse it along with seaweed and natural fertilisers and the rainwater collected from our roof top, when I see it looking not only healthy but THE best, I have to say it aloud. It's worth celebrating because the silverbeet isn't always THE best so when it is, I celebrate it. I acknowledge the downs as much as the ups - without the downs, the ups wouldn't mean much and we'd be left with a flat line. I don't want a flat line life.


And the aquaponics - what a disappointment that was! It's a wonderfully efficient way of raising fish in the backyard, but we couldn't do it. I've written about the system here and about its demise here. As I've said before, if we were younger we may have persevered a lot longer with the fish, but when things went wrong if was too much work for Hanno, so we cut our losses and walked away.

We are much more experienced with the in ground vegetable and fruit garden and when things go wrong, we usually know what to do. But each season brings it's own tests and surprises, some seasons we get THE best and some seasons we get THE worst. The trick is to not have the worst season for too many vegetable in the same year. LOL

If everything always went according to plan yesterday would have ended with us having a bee hive in the backyard. Shane and Sarndra visited to pick up the couch yesterday and I was at work. Shane rang to tell me there was a big swarm of bees surrounding our orange tree. That had never happened before but IF I had been prepared, IF I had read more about bees, IF we had the equipment, we might have enticed those bees to stay. But the reality is we weren't prepared, I had not read more about bees, and the bees left. A disappointment yes, but all part of this lovely patchwork we are creating. Sometimes, just sometimes, there is a perfect row of stitches. Sometimes the stitches are badly placed and just wrong, and have to be unpicked. But both good stitches and bad stitches are part of the process and make for an interesting quilt, and life.

Buddhists say: when you are sweeping, really know you are sweeping. I think the downs of life help keep us on track and focused on real life. If we only had good times, we would soon lose focus, knowing nothing bad could happen. The downs are our anchors, they might not be appreciated when they happen but they stop us floating around aimlessly. So I celebrate the good times and appreciate the bad things for what they are - reminders that we need to stay focused. So if you've had to pull out the tomatoes because of a bug attack or if the children are going a bit wild today, tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow you might harvest the best silverbeet you've ever grown.

PS: I had to wait an hour to post this as Blogger was down for a while. In the meantime the sun has come up and Hanno told me the bees are still there ! Now what?

ADDITION: We called a local beekeeper. Bee update tomorrow.

I thought I should say a bit about our climate here after a few comments and emails yesterday. We live in a wonderful area of Australia - it's classified sub-tropical but we live at the bottom of a mountain range, back maybe 15 km from the beach, and during winter, it can be quite cold, by our standards. We lived in Germany for two years when we married so I know how cold it can get but here where we live, the temperature never gets below freezing and there are no frosts. Our severe weather events are tropical storms that can dump a foot of rain in a few hours and bring down forest trees that have been standing for half a century.

One of our favourite meals is fresh fish from the local fisherman's co-op served with a salad from the garden. Recently we were lucky enough to find whiting at the co-op so we snapped up a kilo of it. I think there may be several different types of whiting throughout the world. The one we have here is school whiting that swims along the coastline in the sandy shallows. They're small fish, a white, silvery colour and have a delicate flavour. If you have a fishmonger who will clean and fillet the fish, you can have a healthy and delicious meal on a plate in less than 30 minutes.

I decided to batter the whiting with a light tempura batter. It suited it perfectly and both Hanno and I enjoyed our meal very much.

TEMPURA BATTER
½ cup plain (all purpose) flour
½ cup cornflour (cornstarch) - read here about cornflour
1 lightly beaten egg
¾ cup cold water - cold from the fridge

Sift the flours together, add beaten egg and half the water and mix together thoroughly. Then add the rest of the water, making sure you have a smooth light batter. Let it rest for a few minutes before dipping each piece of fish into the batter.


Take the fish from the batter and place carefully into a pan of very hot oil. I use a small frying pan for this - to which I've added about ¼ cup of olive oil. Batter and cook all the fish, turn each piece after about one minute, and give it another minute of the other side. I squeeze lemon juice over the fish at this point while it's still cooking. If the fish are small it will only take a couple of minutes to cook each piece so have your salad and plates ready before you cook the fish.


If you're trying to introduce fish to a small child for the first time, this is the dish for you. It doesn't have a strong fish taste, it's delicate yet delicious and the light batter gives extra flavour that children often enjoy. If the fish has been prepared correctly there will be no bones to worry about.

We eat quite a bit of fish here - both fresh and from a tin, but I have to tell you, this is one of my favourites. If you can get some whiting, please try it. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

I love our garden. There are certain times of the year when being out there seems to be the only possibility. We are in that time now - when the stark coldness of a Winter's day is replaced by a more gentle warmth, and even in the late afternoon, the garden holds more of the promise of Spring than the reality of Winter.

Now the garden is a mixture of Winter's kale and Summer's tomatoes. Soon all the cabbages will be gone and it will be all salad vegetables and green beans. The days are getting warmer now but the nights are still cold. That reminds me that I have to plant up more tomatoes seeds, more lettuce, more beans, more chard, more everything.

The tomato bushes are the weakest they've ever been but they're still producing tomatoes. I wonder if that is caused by the fluctuating temperatures or a wilt disease that will be rampant as soon as the warmer weather hits. I noticed new tomato flowers yesterday afternoon as I wandered the green aisles of my outdoor supermarket. Hanno has mulched around the tomatoes and probably added more potash and blood and bone; hopefully that will see them through until I get the new plants ready for planting out.

We have a good lot of white cabbage almost ready for picking. We usually only plant out the sugarloaf cabbage because it's fast to mature but this year Hanno tried regular cabbage and it's grown really well. Obviously that's something we'll do again next year. I'm looking forward to fresh coleslaw, some fried cabbage with onions and a batch of sauerkraut that I'll get on to go as soon as we harvest. Sauerkraut is really easy to make and very nutritious, if you haven't tried your hand at it yet, I'll take plenty of photos when I do my batch and you might like to give it a go.

Yesterday I came back inside with an armful of some of the best silverbeet (chard) we've ever grown. The leaves are very study, the darkest of green and very shiny. We ate those cooked leaves last night for dinner, with steamed pumpkin and a little curried beef that had been cooked with onions, carrots, celery and garlic. Delicious! It's not a meal you'd find on any restaurant menu but that's the beauty of home cooking, there are no rules. It just has to taste good.

I am sure most of you know that adding organic material, usually in the form of compost, to your soil will give you better crops. It's not just one addition, this is a continuing process that will become part of your gardening repertoire. When you first start a new garden, you add compost; when you're between crops and about to put in follow-up plants, you add compost; you can even plant into compost to give your crops a real boost - just scoop out a handful of soil, replace it with a handful of compost and plant your seed or seedling right into the compost.

There is no doubt about it, when you're gardening organically, you need a lot of compost. Of course you can buy compost, but just like everything else you buy, you really don't know what's in it, so here at our home, we always make our own, and we always have at least one form of compost on the go. At the moment we have several composts bubbling away in the backyard - we have our regular compost heaps, a compost bin, the worm farm and our chicken compost. I haven't written about chicken compost yet, so here goes.


Chickens are really happy when they can scratch around. It gives them something to do, it's part of their natural behaviour and when they find something to eat via their scratchings, they are rewarded for their work. We use this natural behaviour to work for us. Just at the side of the chicken coop, we have a small fenced area of about 6' x 5'. Generally the chook don't go into this area, they are usually outside the coop or free ranging in the backyard. We use this little yard to keep baby or new chickens separate from the flock until they're ready to be introduced, when it's not being used like that, we, or should I say, the chooks, make compost in there.


The floor of the chicken coop is cement but this area has a bare earth floor. When Hanno mows the lawn he dumps all the lawn clippings into this little space and as soon as the chooks see that happening, they rush in to scratch through it. Really that's basically it - but we do add other things to make a good compost. You can add anything that you'd put into your main compost bin - vegetable peelings, old fruit, garden waste and leaves, kitchen scraps, the contents of the vacuum cleaner, crushed egg shells, the contents of old flower pots, tea bags and leaves, coffee grounds, shredded paper, etc. It's a great way of using up your lawn clippings during summer when you can't put any more of them in your regular compost.


The chooks will mix in everything that we put in there. They eat some of the grass, which contains omega oils, they eat seeds, bugs and little bits of food, but the great value of them being there is that they turn the mix over a few times every day. As they work, they add their own droppings to the mix and that helps speed up decomposition. Depending on the time of year, we get great compost for the garden within four to six weeks.


If you want to try this, make sure you use an area with an earth floor that is contained by fences so the compost isn't spread out over a large area. The same rules apply for this as for general compost - no meat or dairy food, because they'll attract rats. If there has been no rain, sprinkle the hose over the mix so it's moist - not wet. If it's raining, cover it with a tarp so it doesn't become too wet. The rest is up to the chooks. They'll love it, it will give them something to do and they'll keep being rewarded with little treats they find. You'll be reward with fast compost. When all the grass and scraps disappear and turn into compost, just collect it with your wheelbarrow and use it on the garden.

I meant to answer this ages ago but forget. When it's really hot here, we make sure the chickens always have a shaded area they can sit in. When it's very hot for a long period of time, we fill upturned rubbish bin lids with cold water and leave them in the shade near where the chooks sit - they will use these to stand in when it's really hot. If you have your chickens confined in a hen house during hot weather, hose the roof of the house to cool things down for them. Sometimes there is nothing you can do and you will lose chickens to the harsh weather, but these little simple things can make a difference and are worth trying.

If you have other strategies for helping your girls cope with the hot weather, please share them with us. :- )

I didn't finish everything on my list yesterday but I made great headway. I'm always pleased when I have a full agenda at the start of the day because I know I'll get a lot done and not wander around between jobs thinking about what to do next. A full list gives me direction as well as the tasks on it.


I made four patchwork arm rests for the lounge and will finish the final two today. I made two aprons for the fund-raising kiosk in bright colours that I hope will attract a lot of people over to us. I really liked working on these projects because they used fabric from my stash that has been sitting there for some time. I will make the lemon butter and Anzac biscuits later this morning.


One thing that wasn't on the list yesterday but was done nonetheless, was making biscuits for Alice. She's been biting and scratching her skin lately so Hanno took her to the vet a couple of days ago. She had a skin allergy, probably due to the commercial biscuits we had been feeding her. We wanted to get some biscuits with Omega oils in them, but even though the ones we bought were supposed to be a healthy option, they contained colourings that made Alice come out in the worst rash. The vet gave her an injection of cortisone and told us to stop giving her those biscuits. I used to make dog biscuits in the past so I set about making another batch, much to Alice's approval.

The recipe is similar to the previous biscuits. It can be made in the bread machine or by hand - it should be kneaded for about 5 minutes.

Mix the above ingredients together and add more water to give a good dough consistency. Knead by hand or add to the bread maker. When the dough is soft and smooth, roll it out with a rolling pin and cut to the desired shapes.

I told you all a couple of weeks ago that my son Kerry had travelled to New York with the intention of working in Canada for a year or so, before going to Cuba and Brazil. Well, he arrived in Toronto (he has lived there before and has friends there) but he couldn't get motivated to look for a job. He was missing his girlfriend, Sunny, too much. Eventually he decided he couldn't go on without her and after a few phone calls to her and me, he decided to come home. He's on his way back now but is zig-zagging through the USA before getting on the flight home. He's been to Montreal, which he loved, then back to NYC, to Phoenix, he's in San Francisco right now and tomorrow he goes to Las Vegas where he'll meet with Sharon's daughter (Sharon who helps me here and at the co-op) and her boyfriend. They have kindly offered good old fashioned hospitality to him so he'll stay with them while he's there. Then it's on to New Orleans, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and back to NYC for the flight home via LA. He'll be back home on August 20. It will be good to see him again, I've missed him.

I'll draw the winning names for the Envirsax bags later this morning. Good luck if you entered.

Just a few quick answers here: Rebekka, that bucket would be idea for ginger beer. My knitted blanket is coming along slowly, I think I have about half my squares now. How is yours going?

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. If you have to work this weekend, I hope you have ample time to relax. Welcome to all the new readers who came here this week and a warm hug to all the long time readers. I thank you for your warm and generous comments during what has been a tough week for me. They mean more than you know. Reading snippets about your lives helps me build up an idea of you in my head. See you again next week. :- )

Thank you all so much for your supportive and loving comments yesterday. They made a huge difference to my day. I phoned my friend late yesterday and we talked for a while (me squeaking and her talking) and even though she must wait until the 21st for her operation, everything else is working out well and she has organised as much as she can. I still can't go to see her but I'll be there as soon as I can. Today is day three of no voice for me but it's slowly returning - I've gone from silence to a squeak to a harsh whisper. Progress!!

And yes, I have made a list. :- ) Today will be a quiet one at home with the gate closed. I am doing some cooking for our Centre's fund-raising kiosk next week - Anzac biscuits and scones to be frozen until the big day, and a few jars of lemon butter. We have the church ladies and the ladies from the Hospital Auxiliary making cakes for us so we should have a nice stock of items for sale. My volunteers at the Centre have been baking and sewing too and our freezers are full.


I'll also be starting on my second Burke's Backyard magazine article. The editor sent me a pdf file of my first article after the pages were set yesterday. It looks good! I even have a photo byline, which I didn't expect. That first article will be in next month's edition which celebrates Spring.


There is also some work to be done on a set of patchwork arm rests I'm making for our new lounge. We didn't buy the entire suite but we're using an older sofa that was in our bedroom and has now been moved out to the lounge room. I'll take some photos of the room in the next day or so. We gave our old leather suite to Shane and Sarndra who are setting themselves up in their first apartment.


If I have the time, I'd like to do some work in my greenhouse. It needs an end of winter tidy up along with some serious reorganising. And of course, there are floors to be swept, a bed to make, bread to bake, and meals to cook. I am ever thankful for productive days such as this one. I get the comfortable feeling of being detached from mainstream life while working consciously towards a life of abundance and contentment. I believe nothing is free, everything is paid for by some form of action, and today I'll be working with that in mind. Today will be a good one for me, I hope yours is too. If you have the time, tell me what your plans are for today.

As you all realise, what I write about each day here on my blog is just a small fraction of what actually happens here. I know this post is not going to be optimistic, instructive or supportive but I want to write about real life and this is as real as it gets.

One of my best friends has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was told about a week ago but yesterday, she had a consultation with the surgeon who will operate on her; yesterday made it painfully "real" to me. I can't stop thinking about it now. When her children were told they rushed up here to be with her. Both her son and daughter went with her to the consultation yesterday. She is surrounded by people who love her, she is optimistic that the treatment will work and she will go into the surgery hopeful of a bright future. I just wish I could see her. She lives only a short distance from us but I've still got the flu, I haven't been able to talk for two days now, and I can't go near her until I'm fully recovered.


Significant and life changing moments like these always make me stop in my tracks and think about my own life. Am I being the best I can be? Am I doing what I should be doing? How can I change to make my life more meaningful? What am I not doing that I should be doing? I think I fall short when I answer those questions truthfully. I know I could be doing a lot more than I do. While I don't intend to change how I live, I do intend to make some personal changes and I intend to say yes to more of the many opportunities that come my way instead of saying no all the time.


Time is all we are given. How we use that time is our choice but maybe it is also a test of the kind of person we are. I hope to use my time more efficiently in the future. I don't want to waste time - that is unforgivable. I want to be the best version of Rhonda that I can be, I want to continue on my quest for a simple life and I am determined to be more organised than I have been in the past. Oh, I will still luxuriate on the front veranda with cups of tea, that is not a waste of time, it's an investment, and I will continue to take things slowly but I'm going to have a list each day and I'm going to follow it. No doubt there there will be a few other changes in the wind as I move through the coming months with my friend.

Life has a way of shaking us up and making us focus on the important things. This will, no doubt, be much tougher on my friend than it is on us, but we intend to be there to help her though it in any way we can. She has been a fine friend to Hanno and I so now we can return some of the goodness she sent our way. Send your prayers and best wishes out to her please, she is a good woman.

While I don't want to make DTE a question and answer blog, I do want to address a question Donetta posed last week. In part, she wrote:

But on a daily basis, Hanno likes working outside and does most of the gardening. However, I set up the gardens with one of our sons when we first came to live here 12 years ago, and carried on gardening over the years until Hanno took over when he retired about three years ago. Now, he does the day to day tending of the gardens, while I sow seeds, tend seedlings and look after the worm farm. I harvest and still plant a few things, but Hanno likes everything tidy and in straight lines and I'm not a straight line gardener, so I usually leave it to him.


I do most of the inside work - the baking, cooking, cleaning etc but now that I'm writing my book and a monthly column for a magazine, writing is a large part of my daily work now, so Hanno helps with the laundry and some cleaning. Now that we're here by ourselves now, that is minimal. When we clean something it tends to stay clean - unlike when our boys lived at home; we do laundry about once a week.

We each work on our little projects - Hanno's are usually outside and mine inside. Hanno worked on making a new lid for the worm farm today while I recovered from a bout of the flu, the first I've had in years. When I work inside I'll do a project like the oil lamps, make soap, sew, knit or mend; at the moment I'm knitting a jumper for Hanno. When Hanno is outside his projects are things like mowing the lawn, making compost, tending the chooks, house and car maintenance.


I have to tell you, none of it seems like hard labour, although in the past I would have seen it as such. Now there is a gentle flow to most days. We rise when we feel like it, we work at whatever task or project we choose for that day along with the normal daily chores. At 10 am each day, tea is taken on the front veranda and we take the time to relax and talk about what we're doing and what we have planned. If we don't want to work, we don't. But we both know that if we want to live this way for a long time, there is work to be done, so we get to and do it. Not every day is a diamond but generally the work we do is enjoyable, gratifying and enriching - not only in what it gives our home but also in what it gives us.

How do you divide up the work to be done at your home?