down to earth

The beginnings of our new season garden.

From the outside, our simple house belies the fact that such rich lives are being lived here. You can see and feel it in the backyard with the abundance of life evident there, but at the front, well, our small home looks like many others dotted endlessly throughout the urban and rural areas of Australia. But Hanno and I have found the secret of living well and we are developing the art of it every day. It took that break away from blogging for me to step back and look at what we've got here. Our lives are not just skin deep, there is real depth here.

Tomatoes, capsicums and green onions.

Taking a break from this blog, even though it is a familiar friend to me now, helped me step back and take in how our lives here have evolved and shaped us. During my break I made sure I slowed down. It's one aspect of this simple life that I always need to readjust. Swiftness and efficiency often take over from slow and mindful, especially on work days and when I'm away from home. I need to slow myself back down again, put the brakes on and remind myself that work done slowly and mindfully easily gets through the chores and there is no stress at the end of the day.

Here is my main gardener, Mr Hetzel.

So while I've been away, Hanno has been working on the garden and I have to tell you that the soil this year is the best it's ever been. From almost empty beds just a few short weeks ago, we now have cucumbers nearly ready to eat, capsicums (peppers), lettuces, tomatoes, bok choy, beetroot, radishes, sugarloaf cabbages and green beans. In the bushhouse, we planted seeds for leeks, tomatoes, more sugarloaf cabbages, silverbeet and those wildly mad zinnias that bring bright colour to the garden. The zinnias are ready for planting now, the vegetables need another week or two.

Bok choy growing fast in front of grass clippings waiting to be made into compost.

Inside our home I've been knitting Hanno a jumper (sweater) and am just finishing the back. I hope to have him in it by June. I've also been reading new books and re-reading older ones, especially the wonderful Simple Living by Frank Levering and Wanda Urbanska. I read it several years ago but I'm enjoying it more now because I understand, from experience, what it is they hoped to do and how they fashioned their lives to suit themselves. I also have The New Compete Book of Self Sufficiency by the late John Seymour, sent to me as a blog giveaway by Steel Kitten, that I'm enjoying a lot. She actually sent two copies because the first one took months to arrive and she immediately ordered another copy when I told her it hadn't arrived. Naturally, when one turned up, so did the other. Thank you, Sarah. And thanks to everyone who sent a comment about my return. It gives me a wonderful feeling knowing that I'm welcomed back and have been missed.

Yes, it came back again. It was hiding behind the nesting boxes.

The chooks are healthy and happy, even though they had another visit from that snake. Alice is doing well, despite her old age and ill health. Things are starting to settle down at my voluntary job and I imagine that in a month or so the slow rhythm of my days will return there as well. I've rearranged and stopped a few things I was doing so that now I feel quietly confident that I can keep up my home duties, work in my community and at a couple of little jobs and get everything done that needs doing. It's a good feeling knowing those tasks I've set myself will be carried out as planned. I do not need every day to be a good one, but I do need to know that I have done my best everyday.

Cucumber tendrils have grown higher than they ought. In the background is a lemon tree with about one hundred lemons growing fat and juicy.

I remember when I first stopped working for a living, one of the things I hoped the days ahead would hold was richness. I was not seeking richness in a monetary sense but more a life that was multi-layered, that built on its foundations and add layer upon layer the kind of work that would result in an unusual life by today's standards as well as a rich and rewarding one. Tick.

Some of the seeds we planted. The zinnias will be planted out today.

There is nothing better than waking to a new day that you know will be full of productive and interesting work around the home. Pottering with this and that, putting things right, cooking, gardening, baking, sewing, sitting and thinking - all the things that went into old fashioned lives and not so much into those that are modern. Those things, to me, make a perfect day. And the truth is these days are so easy to home make. All they require is a commitment to one's self - a promise to stay true to our values and to live as we wish, not part of an homogeneous crowd, but as individuals who think about how we live. I do not need many of those perfect days to keep me going, just the promise of one tomorrow or next week is enough. And enough is all I'm after.

Today's kitchen is in New Zealand and it features real people living real lives. This is Charlotte's kitchen.

She writes:
"My name is Charlotte (aka ms lottie of theslightlymadquiltlady.blogspot.com), and I live on a lifestyle block in Northland, New Zealand. I decided to send in my photos, but leave my kitchen in its ‘in use’ state. To send in pictures of it tidy would be a bit of a fib – it never stays that way for more than five minutes!

The photograph of my sink includes my little girl. My sink is often used for these sorts of “Mama Tasks”. This time it was washing off the nappy cream she had found and smeared all over herself.

We are living in a converted shed out on our block of land whilst we build a house (it’s taking a while!). We needed a kitchen so we found this one second- hand on Trademe (similar to Ebay), we plonked it in and it works for us. The kitchen table and chairs are hand-me-downs and my husband is cooking in my best-ever opportunity shop find, a large cast iron skillet. Even the breadmaker that is chugging away on the bench beside him used to be my brother’s!

I made the decision at the end of last year to stop my work as a midwife and stay home. I now intend to spend much more time in my kitchen, so I’ve recently been looking at it with new eyes, trying to organise it a little more and make it efficient and user friendly.

My husband has just made me a new shelf out of recycled Rimu timber to go above the bench where the jug is. It will house our tea and coffee supplies and the teacups – all within easy reach.

Thank you for letting me share this little snippet of my life."

Please don't forget to comment. A comment is like payment for the time taken to post, and in this case in sending in the photos. Many of us were enthusiastic about this series, so make sure all the photos get a good number of comments. I don't want any of the people sending in photos to regret joining in. Thank you friends.

Everyone knows where Sydney is. This is a Sydney kitchen and it's part of Cath's home.

Cath writes:

"If you were to come to my house for a cuppa this is what you’d see of the kitchen from the lounge/dining area. We’re in a rental so I’ve done my best to make each room welcoming and comfortable without major changes, although we did receive permission to take the solid-core door off it’s hinges as it opened back onto the only set of drawers. Bad design there!

The small café table was in the garden when we arrived, but after a clean up and the addition of a couple of folding chairs it’s the perfect place for breakfast or a cuppa with a friend while chatting and cooking.

On my windowsill I have my Monet mosaic, a fresh gardenia, a little French jug I found at the op-shop, a candle, a thrifted hand-engraved wooden box, and some very happy herbs. Through the window you can see natives and tall firs backed by peak hour trucks and cars, as we’re on a major road.

This is the area of the kitchen our family of five love the most – it’s where the cooking action happens! Around to the right are the wall oven and fridge. The painting on the wall is by a differently-abled artist from a local studio. My teapot collection and some gifted wooden frames add more interest to an otherwise dull room. The cooking utensils are in a jug that’s a big sister to the one on the windowsill, and the measuring cups and spoons are in the thrifted red and white cake box.

The storage space is fantastic and I’ve been able to organise the contents of each cupboard according to how close they are to the stove, oven, or sink. This is my favourite kitchen out of all the houses we’ve rented. It’s light, bright, and large enough to have a café inside. :) "

Today's kitchen is Tanya's in beautiful Tasmania - the island State at the bottom of Australia. Tanya, I have the same Fowlers Vacola and we have very similar kitchen cupboards.

Tanya writes:
"I took these photos at dawn hoping not to have too much light exposure but they are still flooded. Through every season, the sun comes streaming through that window and I have never had any curtains or blinds on it because I love to look out on the garden and the chickens. Last night I bottled some tomatoes and some beans so when I came out this morning after my husband, he had taken the cooled bottles and placed them on a tea towel and up ended to Fowlers Vacola Pot (1950’s version) on the sink to dry.

On the sill above the sink I keep a bottle of hand wash and a great narrow vase that fits here just right and often holds bunches of herbs from the garden. The white ceramic pot near the sink is my compost bin for the chook scraps. It is one of my favourite things because it is just the right size for daily scraps, cleans up so easily and has a handle for carrying and also a lid with airing holes and a carbon filter.

At this time of year there is always an overflowing colander of tomatoes. Beside those I also have some Australian Limes that were swapped for some eggs and I have been making Blueberry Jam with Lime and Coriander (crushed seed not leaf), a beautiful combination. Another great “couldn’t do without” is my table in the middle of the kitchen. It is an old Singer sewing machine base with a marble slab on top. This is where I make pasta, knead dough and do a lot of food prep.

My blog can be found at www.suburbanjubilee.blogspot.com"