Picture this. It's Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting in my workroom in an old skirt, blouse, apron and Crocs. I'm such a dag when I'm at home but if home is not the place for being daggy and comfortable in old clothes, where is? Beetroot is boiling on the stove, I have already made spiced vinegar to pour over the beets and that will be one more thing I have ready for our Christmas lunch. This year, because of the work commitments of some of our family, we're celebrating on the Sunday before Christmas, 20 December. I'm looking forward to it very much.

It's hot outside - thirty six degrees when Hanno last looked, so we're all staying indoors out of harm's way. Gardening and watering was done early this morning, vegetables were harvested. I filled a basket with food to be eaten during the day and some for pickling, so it's inside tasks now, or relaxing in an armchair, knitting, which is what I'll be doing as soon as the beetroot is cooked. Hanno is on the other computer, probably reading the German newspaper or catching up on the blog or forum. A relaxed Sunday full of this and that, or nothing at all, depending on how the mood takes us.


Thank you all for your kind and loving messages about Alice. It does make a difference, you know. I'm very pleased to be able to tell you that Alice has recovered quite well. She initially had two very bad days when all she did was sleep, but yesterday she started perking up and now she's back to her old happy self. We are still keeping her quiet, as per the vet's instructions, but the truth of it is she doesn't want to be outside, she wants to be with us. We're very happy with that, we are pleased she is safe here with us because she might not have been.


We have a visitor. Koda is here for a sleepover - many weeks of sleepovers. Koda is my step-son's and DIL's Airedale. Jens and Cathy are leaving for Christmas in Europe next week and we're looking after Koda while they're away. Alice and Koda get on very well and after the initial sniffing and jumping, they settled down and now they're both asleep on the kitchen floor. The calmness of this house and the way we are here settles them.


I started writing this post yesterday, Sunday, and now it's Monday morning. I work at my voluntary job today and I'm looking forward to an interesting day, jam packed with things to do. First up I'll write an article for the local newspaper, then I have a meeting with my good friend Beverly, elder of the local indigenous people. She and I and a few artists will be talking about the art works we want at the new Centre. After lunch I'll answer all the emails that have arrived since I was last at work and prepare the materials for the Frugal Home workshop I'll be doing tomorrow. People will wander in and out, the phone will ring too many times and hopefully few of the calls will interrupt my work.


All that busyness is a sharp contrast to my work at home. Here it is peaceful and quiet and although I work to a list I make up in the morning, generally it doesn't matter if the work is done today or tomorrow. I do what I feel like doing, slowly, so I know my work and it's not part of a mad rush that I won't remember. I want to remember my days here. I want to look at the new curtain I made to cover some of the jars I've moved from one cupboard to another. I want to see the curtain open and closed - it's new and it pleases me. I want to look at the newly bottled beetroot sitting beautifully in its dark pink brine, it's next to the bright yellow pineapple vinegar, fermenting under a cotton cloth. I made them both, from scratch - I didn't have to buy them at a shop, I can provide.

I guess every pet owner dreads the day when they can see the death of their pet in the not too distant future. Hanno and I have reached that point with Alice. It's been a very sad couple of days for us. Hanno had Alice outside with him a couple of days ago looking for a bush turkey that he'd seen wandering in. He called Alice and they went outside our fenced area and down to the creek. All of a sudden, Alice took off after a scent. She didn't come back.

Alice is deaf so there was no point in calling her, so I got our whistle, which she can hear because of the high pitched sound, and I blew on that whistle for about ten minutes. No Alice. Hanno got in the car to search the neighbourhood. Just over the creek there is a big horse paddock and stables so we knew that if she ran over there, at least she wouldn't be in traffic. Not far away is Steve Irwin Way, our main road, that is always full of speeding traffic.

I waited by the gate leading down to the creek, looking to see her furry Airedale squareness come running back. She didn't come, and Hanno came back alone. A little while later, I went out and searched the streets on the other side of the creek. Still no Alice. Then the phone rang. It was the local Council asking if we had lost our dog! The woman living next door to the horse stables had heard her barking and went to investigate. She found Alice in the creek, all caught up in vines. Luckily this lady was a veterinary nurse, she untangled Alice, got her back to her home, gave her some water and phoned the Council, giving them the details on Alice's tag. She finally came home really dirty and totally exhausted. She didn't wag her tail, she dragged her back legs and she was terrified. She had been gone three long hours. We let her rest for an hour, then Hanno washed her and took her to the vet.

A new vet has bought our local practice so he gave her a really good examination. He found she had an ear infection, cataracts - which we knew about, and a severe cardiac murmur. I had noticed that in the past month or so, she'd had episodes of panting, I guess the murmur was the cause of that. There is nothing much we can do for Alice, except treat her obvious ear infection, make her comfortable and keep her happy. She doesn't want to go outside any more, she just goes out to have a drink and do a wee, then she stands at the door to come back in again. The vet said she shouldn't run around, she must rest and take it easy. Hanno and I have decided that one of us will stay with her, but if we both have to go out, we'll leave her inside on her bed in the kitchen. She's a good dog, she never jumps on furniture or destroys anything, she'll be fine inside alone.

So it's come to this. A once crazy, mad dog, full of life and joy, who used to chase Rosie around the backyard, is now a little granny resting on her bed. We've had Alice since she was a tiny puppy and have been lucky enough to share her life. It will be hard to say goodbye. Alice will be 12 years old on New Year's Eve.

I was asked to do a post on making butter. It's not something that is generally part of my household tasks but I do make butter when I have spare cream or at this time of year. You get the best cream and milk in Spring. Making butter over Spring will give you the finest butter.

Like most other things in this simple life, the best ingredients will give you the best end result. I use cream from Jersey or Guernsey cows for my butter making. Usually it's 45 per cent butterfat - the higher the butter fat content the easier it is to make and the better the cream and butter will be. If you can't find Jersey or Guernsey cream, buy pure whipping cream or heavy cream. Check the label and make sure there are no "stabilisers or vegetable gums" in the cream. You want pure cream.

If you can find cream at a good price and you want to make butter, it's prudent to buy a large quantity because butter made well will store for a few months in the freezer. I live in dairy country with lots of rolling hills and brown and cream coloured cows dotted throughout. Unfortunately our cream never goes on special, if it did, I'd take advantage of that and make butter when the price was low, especially if I could get a lot of Spring cream.

In the old days, homemakers used to make butter with a butter churn or by shaking a jar full of cream. Nowadays we can use our electric appliances however, butter can be made by hand simply by shaking the cream in a jar.

Generally I buy local Maleny cream but this one was cheaper, and still local, so I bought Cooloola cream this time.








After you wash the butter remove it from the processor onto one of the clean cotton cloths you use for yoghurt making or ginger beer. Just like yoghurt making, hang the strainer over a big jug so it can drain.

It's a good idea to have a few of these cloths made for various uses around the kitchen. I'll do a post on them soon.

We've recently planted three sweet potato plants. We have the golden one but there are also white and purple types. Sweet potatoes are a very good crop to grow if you're in a warm climate. They won't grow in the cold. You can easily grow sweet potato from a store bought tuber. You should buy an organic tuber not only because often the others have been sprayed to prevent them from sprouting, but also because it will be a healthier living tuber. Pick a healthy looking sweet potato that is unmarked and firm. When you get it home, place it in a warm and sunny spot and wait for it to produce shoots. This could take anywhere between a couple of days to a month, depending on how warm the weather is. When you see the shoots, you'll know that the weather is warm enough to plant.

Two weeks before you plant, choose a sunny spot with good drainage and enrich the soil with compost and aged manure that is dug in, watered and allowed to sit. When you're ready to plant, cut the sweet potato into pieces depending on how many shoots are growing. If you only have one growing point, don't cut, but if you have two, cut in two, if three, divide it in three. Try to give all the growing points enough tuber from which to grow.


Make a hollow in the soil about 8 or 9 cm/3 inches deep and place your tubers in, with the shoots to the top. You'll need about 30 cm/12 inches between each cutting. Pack the soil in around the tuber, leaving the shoots exposed. Water in with seaweed tea and cover with a straw mulch. Sweet potatoes like to be watered in well, but after that they don't need a lot of water. If it rains, don't water, but water once a week if you have no rain. Repeat the seaweed tea every month to keep the plants healthy and growing well.


The biggest problem you're likely to have with sweet potatoes is that the vines will take over the garden. We are going to grow ours over the top of the chook house to help protect it from the summer heat. If you find the vines are taking over, cut them back a bit. Don't cut them off completely, but you could easily take of a third of the growth.

Sweet potatoes are a fairly easy crop to grow and they're a good staple food to add to your diet. You can use them in any recipe to replace potatoes - to top a Shepherd's Pie , as chips or mash, or baked, golden and delicious in the oven. Classified as one of the super vegetables, they are a significant antioxidant and contain vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, copper, manganese, vitamin E, vitamin B6 and beta carotene. They are a good food for diabetics and for people with arthritis and other inflammatory disease.

When you harvest your sweet potatoes, be very careful not to bruise or cut the skin. Any damaged tubers should be the first eaten. Cure the remaining perfect tubers by drying them in a cool dry place, not the fridge. They are cured properly when you can't rub the skin off with your finger. Long term storage should be in the coolest room in your house, pack the tubers in baskets lined with newspaper and cover the basket with a towel. This allows the tubers to breath without sweating. Home grown sweet potatoes won't rot as quickly as the store bought ones.

If you live in a warm climate and are just coming into the end of spring, you can plant your sweet potatoes now. They should be ready to harvest in about 16 weeks time - early March.

Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Curry

Thanksgiving Sweet Potato recipes

It getting towards that time of year when things start getting very busy. I spent some time on the weekend working on my Christmas gifts but I'm not sure my ambitious plans will result in me finishing everything on time. Despite the extra work, I love this time of year, especially now that my boys are happily settled with their girls and our expanding family gives us more reasons to celebrate.

We had a visit from Shane and Sarndra yesterday, Kerry and Sunny will drop in today. Sarndra is a real family girl. She is happily connected to her own family and is making a real effort to get to know all of us now. She looked gorgeous yesterday in her blue summery dress - she usually wears dresses or skirts (just like me). She is an absolute joy to me. Sunny is a shy girl with us and not confident with her English but she really is a good fit with our family. She is a beautiful girl, an excellent cook and is very close to her mother. That's a good sign! I am truly blessed to have these two girls in my life now.

Sarndra is teaching herself to sew and knit. It's quite the thing now apparently. No longer seen as the domain of us oldies, sewing and knitting are cool again. Thankfully these things go in cycles and each time they come around new techniques, as well as the traditional methods, are discovered by new eyes. And what a wonderful world it opens up - being able to make beautiful and unique items for yourself, your home and to give to friends. You can always pick the home of a crafter - you'll find things there that you won't find anywhere else. These homes stand out as warm and inviting because they are decorated with the simple finery of a creative mind.

This is what I was working on this weekend. It's a tea cosy knitted with organic cotton, topped with pure wool felt flowers. It's a very simple project that I started knitting last weekend and almost finished yesterday. Actually I thought I had finished but when I put the cosy on the teapot, I realised it need more flowers. So that will be completed later in the week, but you'll get the idea from these photos.

I didn't have a pattern, I just cast on enough stitches to cover half my tea pot. It was 40 stitches for each half. I just measure it as I knitted and half way up, I started knitting two together to reduce the size of the top. Then I cast off and sewed the two sides together with a wool needle and more of the organic cotton, making sure I left the appropriate holes for the spout and handle.

I see things differently now. Gone are the days when I wanted to live to be 110 and I thought illness was a weakness – not in others but in myself. All my life I’ve been lucky enough to be healthy, optimistic and forward thinking and now, while still retaining those characteristics, I see times when age has caught up with me and bending over the wrong way or carrying something too heavy for me will make me suffer.

I see the strong and capable man I married, who has always prided himself on providing well for his family and done more than enough for us, hobbling around with painful joints and being frustrated at his own inability to work as he would like. Oh, he still climbs trees, much to his doctor’s annoyance, still thinks he can take on the world but age has a way of letting us remember past glories and not current reality. He pays the price if he works hard all day, so do I, and often I don’t even try to do it any more.

But on the flip side, I love being my age. From the time when I was about 15 until about 55, I felt young, strong and invincible. Now I feel mellow and wise, and strong, but in a different way. Is it okay to call yourself wise? I’m not sure. I feel I know things now that I knew before, but now I see them differently. If that's not the accumulated wisdom of the decades I’ve lived, it’s close to it. People look at us oldies differently and if they don't, we're invisible. I refuse to be invisible and make myself heard as much as possible. Often older people are seen as weak or not knowing much. That shallow view belies what being an elder is. What some see as weakness is really acceptance. I understand a lot more now about what makes us tick and when I see others make the same mistakes I made when I was younger, I just shrug and accept it as being human. I still know all I knew when I was younger, and more, but it's not as important to me now to let everyone know it.

In addition to seeing my own and Hanno’s decline, I am also witnessing the illness of my close friend Bernadette. She's a fiery old bird and as tough as they come, but she’s been laid low with cancer and all the treatments and psychological drama that go with it. Hanno and I are walking this road with Bernadette, wherever it takes us, and whether it’s a good day or a bad one, we usually find something to have a laugh about. And out of the ashes of all that Bernadette has been through these past few months, comes hope and and belief in the future. She bought herself a puppy! Just before she was diagnosed, Bernadette’s old dog Iona died. So after a lot of thought, and a promise from Hanno and I to look after her puppy if anything happens to her, she picked up her cute little Shih Tzu a few days ago. That, my friends, is the wisdom that age brings.


Is there anything more optimistic and hopeful than a puppy? Introducing Flora McDonald.

I've come full circle. I started off my dish cleaning duties as a young girl when my sister and I had to dry when mum washed up. I grew up doing that and now I recall it fondly as a time of family conversations, pushing my sister (she reads my blog and she'll probably add more to that) and sometimes, only sometimes, pretending to be sick to get out of wiping up. It's a nice memory to have. So now I'm back at the sink, this time as the washer, with no dryers and no electric dishwasher. That is sitting outside the back door waiting to be sold. It feels good to have made the decision to get rid of it - yet another thing we've simplified.

When my mother did the washing up, although I remember a bar of yellow laundry soap being there over the years, she used detergent probably from the mid-1950s. So from then until now, I've usually used detergent. In the past couple of years, I've had periods when I used my homemade soap, but there was always a bottle of detergent around. We still have a couple of bottles of detergent in the cupboard and I will use them, but when they're gone, that's it - we are a detergent-free zone.

You need to use more liquid soap than you would with a concentrated detergent. I'm using about two tablespoons of soap in my washing up sink. I'm also equipped with two washing racks, a draining board on which one of them sits (generally we only have enough for one drainer), a handmade dishcloth, a cotton washing up mop and some steel wool. I usually use one of those steel wire scrubbers that lasts me at least three months, with disinfecting every so often. But Hanno bought steel wool recently, so I'm using that. I don't like it, although it does a good job.


The warm water starts off with a lather when the soap is added but the bubbles don't last as long as detergent bubbles do. We've been scammed into thinking - both with washing dishes and clothes - that we need bubbles. It's not so, bubbles do nothing. I'm very happy with the dishes washed with this liquid soap. They are as clean as when washed with detergent, the time I spend washing up is the same but I'm much happier because I'm not using petro-chemicals. I always had a niggling doubt that there was a residue on the plates and cups, even though I rinse them well.


This soap may also be used as a handwash - you can dilute it 20 percent soap to 80 percent water and store it in a dispenser. I've washed pure wool with it and was very happy with the result. I've washed my hair with it and it was shiny and soft and, just like with homemade hard soap, didn't need hair conditioner. You can use it as a shaving soap - it's mild and contains glycerin so it leaves the skin smooth. Rubbing a few drops of this soap into a stain and putting it in with the normal wash usually removes the stain. It makes an excellent natural horticultural soap that will help control aphids, mealybugs, whitefly, scale and red spider mites. It doesn't kill them as a poison would, it suffocates them.


I foresee a time when I will be washing up with my daughters-in-law drying for me, all of us talking about our lives while the menfolk are outside picking vegetables to be taken home. Maybe over the years, smaller drying hands will be added to this productive group. :- ) It's a fond and comfortable vision I have made just out of this one adjustment to our lives, but standing at the sink with my hands in warm water makes for those tender scenes in my head. It seems like such a good idea to me.

ADDITIONAL READING:
I have no problem using borax but I know there are some who doubt whether it is a good idea. When I was growing up it was quite common to use borax eye wash, and it is still a recommended homoeopathic treatment. Here is some extra information about it.
Borax information
Green Living
How borax works

Well ladies and gentlemen, I've made my own liquid soap, tested it for a few weeks, and now I'm happy to recommend it to you. I've tried several versions of homemade grated soap, I added glycerin to it, boiled it, and tried every which way but it was always horrible to use. Slimy, ugh. What I was after was a liquid soap that could be easily poured from a bottle, that I could use for washing up, as a shampoo, stain remover, handwash, for washing pure wool by hand, and as a horticultural soap. I have all those things, and more - Hanno used it to wash Quince, one of our chickens.

I used this recipe and tutorial and found it to be a very good reference. The only thing I changed was the sunflower oil - I used rice bran oil because I have a lot of it. This soap is made in a crockpot and you'll need a stick blender. My finished product turned out darker than I expected but I think I added too much borax and over processed it at the end. I won't repeat the tutorial here, I'll just add some of my photos and comment on what I did. Be guided by David's tutorial for the recipe and the method.

Making liquid soap is more difficult and takes more time than cold pressed soap. It uses a different form of lye - Potassium Hydroxide. You'll have to find a soapmaker near you who sells this because, at least in Australia, it cannot be sent through the post. You cannot buy this stuff at the supermarket or hardware.

When you have assembled all your ingredients, make sure you remember all your safety precautions for making soap - they apply here as well.

When you add water to the potassium hydroxide, it makes a noise. Like groaning! Don't be alarmed, it's normal.

When you have everything mixed together and you've stirred for what seems like hours, you cook the mixture in the crockpot. It turns the mix into a big batch of goo.

The entire process takes a long time so it's good to know that when the paste has been diluted (stage 6 of the tutorial), you can leave it and continue on the following day.