Spring cleaning can be done at any time of the year. We tend to do it when it's cool but warm enough to have the doors and windows open. The temperatures here the past few days have broken records for being too warm for the end of winter. Hanno and I wanted to start our spring cleaning soon but we realised if we left it any longer we might be doing that extra work in the blazing heat, so we started yesterday. If you want to join us, throw open your doors and windows, put your apron on and let's start. Depending on how much time you have, you can do all the inside chores in one day, do one room at a time or put aside 30 minutes a day to work through what you need to do.

Everyone's list will be different for this but there will be some things in common. Most of us will have to clean windows, screens and shutters - I'll write about outside chores tomorrow. Some of us will need to wash curtains. Other common tasks will include:

No matter how much advertising you might see for products that will help you with spring cleaning, don't fall for it. Use the home made products that have served you well during the year. You'll also need a lot of clean cloths, so you might have to cut up an old towel to help you clean and wipe dry.

And if you can't do everything you want to do, don't feel guilty, just organise yourself. Make a list of things you can do next week, the week after, or whenever your other work allows. Not all of us have the time to dedicate to this yearly thorough cleanup. There will be a number of chores I'll be doing in the coming weeks as part of my spring clean.

Spring cleaning is not the most enjoyable task but it will help you stay on top of your cleaning and organising. If you do a thorough clean now, do a little bit every day, then you'll keep your house clean and tidy and you'll feel better for it. Providing a warm and comfortable home for yourself and your family is a big part of living a simple life. This is another step towards providing just that.

I'm sure I've left off some necessary tasks on my list. I'd be interested in knowing what your spring cleaning routine is and how long it takes you to carry it all out.

We had a lovely day yesterday. Thank you for your warm wishes for us.

This question is from slakermom: "what do you do with your extra produce? Obviously a lot can be preserved, but what about things like lettuce? There's only so much salads I can eat."

Harvesting is one of the most important parts of the entire process and you have to get it right or you'll waste food. We eat tomatoes almost every day that are freshly picked and eaten in salads or on sandwiches. When there are too many, and that is a truly joyful occasion, I'll pick the excess - usually when they're still green - and ripen them in the shade. Temperature ripens tomatoes, not sunlight. When they're ripe, I'll make relish, sauce or chutney, process it in a water bath and store it in the cupboard. I do a similar thing with cucumbers and beetroot - we eat them fresh but when we have a lot of them, they're picked, pickled and then stored in the fridge.

Potatoes, pumpkin and onions can all be stored in a cool dry place and will last for a few months if you find a place that is rodent-free. I know many of our American and Canadian friends can and freeze pumpkin but as far as I know, this is never done in Australia.

Don't look at the current crops as being only for that season. If you can spread the availability of produce over a wide time span, you'll be getting the best from your plantings. So with that in mind, try to plant a few extra plants so you'll be able to freeze or preserve some produce for later in the year.

Steelkitten, we do use straw to mulch our plants. It's cheap and easy to get here. When we buy ours, we buy about 12 bales and store them in the shed. We usually don't have a problem with seeds in our mulch. If you can get the chooks to sort through it, they'll eat all the seeds for you. Otherwise, you'll just have to pull out the green shoots when they grow - and if you do have chooks, they'll love to eat the grass shoots and they'll be full of Omega oils.

Maxine, Hanno will pick a lot of the kale to have in one of his seasonal pork meals. He cooks the kale with smoked pork sausage and meat. I don't eat it but he feasts on it for a few days because he makes a big pot. There will be kale left after he picks, so a couple of days later, we'll pick it all to clear the area for tomatoes. That kale will be processed in a water bath and stored in the cupboard.

Avalon, we tilled the original soil, added a lot of manure and compost and then enclosed the beds with the besser blocks. The soil is higher than the surrounding soil because we added a lot of nutrients and continue to add them between every new crop.

Linda, there'll be a post about the bush house soon.

Karyn, I forget the exact size, it's something like 2 metres x 6 metres (6'x20').

Trina, Heather has been a very healthy girl since we brought her home as a two week old chick. However, in the flock we bought with Heather, about six of them died. They were a mixture of rare breed chooks, Heather was the only Faverolles. There was a Barnevelder, some Plymouth Rocks, Sussex, Hamburgs. From what I have read, it is quite normal to have a portion of a flock died when they're relocated and we've certainly found that to be true. If they survive the relocation and settle in, usually they live for a very long time. We often have old chooks here. At the moment Cocobelle is our oldest at five years.

Evelyn, bok choy bolts in the heat. So does lettuce, broccoli, coriander (cilantro), spinach and cauliflower. Tomatoes don't set their fruit well in the heat either. Over around 30C (85F), tomatoes often stop producing flowers or setting them to fruit if they're already there.

Courtney, don't give up, love. You're doing the right thing, even though a lot of people around you don't know it ... yet. :- )

I should never say I'll do something on a certain day "when I'm not busy". My post must be short today because I have a very busy day, so I'll answer those questions from the gardening post tomorrow. Hanno is just about to collect our son Kerry from the airport. He's had a few weeks in Canada and the US. Later in the day Shane and Sarndra will be here for a family lunch. But before all that loveliness, I have to go to the Centre to have morning tea with 20 ladies from our local church. They asked ages ago could they come in to find our more about what we're doing there.

I really love days like these. As you know, I really love the everydayness of my life and enjoy squeezing every bit of pleasure from what I do here. But these special days, the days I spend with my family, shine out like beacons in the dark when I look back on them. Life is all about family and friends and the older I get, the more I know that to be true. Today will be one fine day.

Some of you will remember that Kerry left a few weeks ago to work in Canada and then travel to the US, Cuba and Brazil. He planned on being away for a year or so. Well, that did not go as planned. When he got over to Canada, he realised that he missed his girlfriend Sunny too much to go on without her. Today he is back. Sometimes life teaches us what we need to know in strange ways. Sometimes you have to go away to realise how much someone means to you. Sunny is a lovely girl and I thank my lucky stars that both my sons have brought wonderful women into our family.

So later today we'll be dining on roast lamb and vegetables with something that I haven't decided upon yet for dessert. We'll listen to Kerry talk about his adventures of roaming across the US for the past few weeks, we'll hear about Sarndra's new business that we're all excited about and the plans Shane and Sarndra are making for their life together, and when I go to bed tonight I will be pleased and satisfied with my lot. It doesn't take much to put a smile on my face; today I think it will be there all day.

I hope your day is beautiful too.

Hello everyone! I'll answer the questions from yesterday's post tomorrow, when I'm not so busy. I'm working Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the moment and today will be a big day for me.

Many people are put off quiches and pies because they're not sure how to make pastry. But pastry making is another one of those things that if you master it - and it IS easy - you'll have a skill that can be used for a number of things. You'll be able to make sweet fruit pies, as well as savoury ones like this quiche, or even meat pies, an Australian staple. So here is my tutorial on pastry making.

When you make pastry you need to keep the ingredients cold. In the old days, cooks always had a marble slab or bench on which to roll out their pastry, some also had marble rolling pins. Make sure your butter and water are very cold. It's easier to make pastry on a cold day, naturally, when I made this on Monday, it was the first hot day of the season.

Put the flour and butter in a food processor and process for about 30 seconds - until you have what looks like breadcrumbs.

Mix the egg yolk with the water and add to the mix. Process again. If you need more water, add it now and process again. The pastry will start to form a clump, and then collect around the blade. When it does that, it's ready.

The pastry will look dry but if you take some and squeeze it between your finger tips, it will stick together and not fall apart.

Take the pastry out of the processor and place it onto a lightly flour bench. Work fast now, you don't want the cold butter to melt in the pastry.

To roll out the pastry, roll up and down a couple of times, applying light pressure. Turn the pastry a quarter of a turn and roll again - up and down a few times. Turn a quarter of a turn again. Repeat this until you have a round disc large enough for the cooking pan you're using.

You might need a palette knife to lift it, I did, the warmer the temperature in your kitchen, the more it's likely to stick. Place your rolling pin at the edge of the pastry and roll the pastry around the pin, lift it up and place it on top of the baking tin. Gentry ease it over the tray and press it in place.

Make sure the pastry comes up to the top of the tray and then, with a sharp knife, cut the top of the pastry off to make a neat edge. If you have any holes in the pastry, and you often do, patch them with bit of the cut off pastry. Just place the patch over the hole and press it to connect with the pastry surrounding it.


When everything looks right, take a knife or fork and make holes in the bottom of the pastry. That stops it from rising when it's in the oven.

Now put the uncooked pastry in the fridge for 30 minutes. This allows the gluten in the flour to relax and it hardens the butter again. If you don't do this, your pastry will be a bit tough and it will shrink.


After 30 minutes, blind bake the pastry until it's a light golden brown. Blind baking is when you bake the pie crust without the filling. Take a piece of baking paper and place it on top of the pastry, then cover the paper with some rice, chic peas or dry beans. Then place in the oven and bake on 180C (350F). I keep chic peas for the purpose in a small jar in the cupboard - they can be used over and over again.


When the pastry is cooked, you can add whatever filling you like. We had eggs, sour cream, cheese, onions, garlic, mushrooms and bacon. Make the filling earlier so it has a chance to cool down before adding it to the pastry shell. When the filling is in, return to the oven and bake until the top if a golden yellow and a knife inserted in the filling, comes out fairly dry.

Other fillings to use include:
* spinach, onions, cheese and eggs
* zucchini, onions, garlic, eggs, cream and cheese


With the addition of a little sugar to the pastry recipe, you could make a delicious fruit pie. Nothing in this whole world is better than a peach pie or (maybe) a cherry pie. When the next meeting of world leaders takes place, I propose one of us make a peach pie and take it along to the meeting. We should serve the pie up to the leaders and before leaving, remind them that the people whose lives are in their hands are real people who eat things like peach pie. We'll make sure everyone has a cup of good coffee or tea before we leave. I bet that meeting would produce a better outcome than most of those we hear about. Sometimes good food reminds us of things that are otherwise forgotten.

Before I write today's post I want to answer a few questions that were in yesterday's comments. Claudia, well done on that work you're doing; it's fabulous that it's a joint effort with the family. Just a word on the pallets, Claudia, make sure the timber used in them is untreated. If it's treated it won't be suitable for a food garden - over time, the chemicals will leach out.

Donna, the cake topping is icing sugar (confectioner's sugar) mixed with a little milk.

Carrie, I've written two posts on convincing your partner: here and here.

Barb, good luck with your changes. You are so right, we must all shoulder that responsibility.

And a special hello to all those ladies who commented yesterday for the first time.
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Today I'm taking you on a walk through our vegetable garden. Hanno has done a lot of work out there this past week and it's starting to look like a really beautiful productive garden. There is only one bare patch now, but I'm quite okay with that because kitchen gardens, those used everyday to produce food for the kitchen table, are always being harvested - either for dinner or salad greens, or to put a few bags of an over abundant vegetable into the freezer.


I took these photos late in the afternoon when I was watering the garden and picking salad for last night's dinner. And while I was walking around, deciding what photo to take, I felt every possibility present in that garden. For the past fifty years, we've been encouraged away from self reliance. Now, we're all working harder and longer but we are softer and dependent on the system to support us and provide food. When I walk through our garden it gives me the feeling of choice, potential and the responsibility we all take when we walk a simple green path. Sure, we have to work for this, but it's good honest work and it pays off in more than a garden full of food. It gives us the feeling that we are able to look after ourselves, we can feed ourselves in good times and in bad, and we have regained the skills our grandparents all had and took for granted. If the system broke down tomorrow, or even a part of it, I have no doubt we would pull through and we'd help our family and friends stand along side us.


Of course, gardening leads on to learning several other significant skills that support this life too. We must know how to store our food safely, we should know how to cook nutritious food from scratch, and we need to know how to perpetuate the food system we've given our time and effort too through seed saving and propagation.


We've been gardening for many years, but we both had to relearn forgotten skills along the way - and we're still learning now. When you're a gardener you never stop learning. So if you're at the beginning of your journey towards self reliance, I am here to encourage you all the way. It may not always be an easy journey but it will be an interesting and enriching one.

I've had a few emails recently asking about how it's best to start living simply. I've written about this before but it's always an area of interest and often the first step is the most difficult.


Simple living is not about grand gestures - it's not moving to the country and it's not giving up work to become self sufficient. It's more about little things - small steps that make the way we live mirror our values. I believe that simple living is about being an individual - stepping away from the mainstream and living the life you want, even when that life is very different to those of your family and friends. Now I'd be the last one to tell you what sort of values you should live by. One of the best things about living in a free and open country is that we make those choices ourselves. So it would be wise to take some time out, sit by yourself, or with your partner, and write down the values that are important to you. For example, for me, it's important that:

I have other values that I live by but those will serve as a good illustration of what I'm getting at here. Now that I have those four things, I would then make each of them a category to work on. In a note book, give each category a page to itself - write the value at the top of the page and then, over the course of a week or so, bullet points ways you can change your life to reflect your values. Some of the ideas you come up with might be easily achieved, some will be difficult but the point is to identify what you want in your life and what you need to do to make that life.

Above all else, don't copy me or anyone else whose life looks good. This way of living means you evaluate your life and make the changes you want. If you copy someone else's like, you'll be faking it. Now having said that, let me also say that if you evaluate your life and it ends up being similar to my life or your best friend's, then that is fine, as long as you went through the process and identified that is is what you want.


When I first started living this way, I was in contact with many other women on a forum who kept telling me that simple living was about slowing down, being mindful and taking time for oneself. They told me the practical things I did everyday - the bread baking, keeping a simple home, green cleaning, preserving/canning etc, were homesteading, not simple living. I never believed that - I think that a simple life is the whole kit and caboodle. It's the way I feel about myself, my home, and the way I live, it's slowing down and being mindful and it is the practical expression of all those things in the daily tasks I do each day. The philosophy of it and the expression of it are part of the whole. The values you live your life by are expressed by the practical tasks you do each day.


Another helpful way of thinking about a simple life is to just think about the things you do now, and try to make them more simple - focusing on less rather than more. Draw a line in the sand today and say to yourself: from now on I will stick to my budget; I will reduce waste and never have my rubbish bin more than half full; I'm going to stop buying so many disposable products; I'm going to cook 50 percent of our meals from scratch - then add another 10 per cent in a month, then another; I will shop for groceries only once a fortnight (month/ two months); I will teach myself to knit. Your list may not look anything like that because it will suit your life and family, but it will give you a focus to work on and bit by bit, you'll be simplifying.

In my simplified life today I'll be tidying up the bush house, starting off some vinegar with wine left over from the wedding, taking photos of the garden, having my eyes checked by the optometrist, and cleaning the front verandah, as well as a few other things. Thank you for all the wonderful comments and emails you've sent my way this part week. I don't always have the time to respond, but I read every word and appreciate you taking the time to make contact with me. Often I'm quite overwhelmed by your comments and every day I'm thankful that my blog makes it possible for me to connect with so many of you. I hope you have a beautiful week.

LEMON CAKE RECIPE
(A variation on my orange cake recipe)

Ingredients

1. Place the coconut, lemon juice and milk in a bowl and let it sit for an hour. This will sour the milk.
   
2. Preheat oven to 175°C (350F).
   
3. Place sugar, butter and lemon rind in a large bowl, and beat until light and creamy, this will take about 4 or 5 minutes.
   
4. Add eggs one at a time, beating well between each one.
5. Fold flour and coconut mixture into the butter mix. When it's combined, place it in a round greased and lined cake pan.
   
6. Cook for 50 minutes or until , when tested with a skewer, it comes out clean.

I'm glad our gate was open yesterday because in walked Bob, the bee keeper. I looked up local beekeepers on the web and Bob was set up in the mountains behind us, so I called and told him about our swarm. An hour later he was there with a hive and smoker.

Bob has been keeping bees since he was a teenager, I guess he is around my age, so that's a mighty long time. When you have a swarm of bees, the person you want is someone with experience and common sense. Hanno and I stood back on one side of the garden fence while Bob strode right up to the bee swarm, with no protective clothes on or even the smoker. He had a quiet presence about him and as he worked he explained why bees swarm and what he was doing with them.

Bob said that in Spring, when the queen bee recognises there is another queen in the hive who will soon challenge her, she encourages the bees to eat as much honey as they can and then follow her to establish a new hive. They might have come from a hollow tree as there is some bush clearing happening near us, but most likely from an established hive.


The swarm will search for a place that is safe and secure and then the worker bees will set off looking for a place to set up a new hive. If the swarm isn't captured by a bee keeper, it will usually set up in a tree hollow or the roof cavity of a house. When they move to a smaller space they're much harder to capture. Luckily our bees were still happily sun bathing on a small orange tree in our vegetable garden, working with them would be fairly easy.