"I love my kitchen - I designed it myself (I used to work as a Kitchen Designer) so everything is just how I wanted it. My sink looks into our family room and out to the vegetable garden. And the main orientation from the kitchen, when I'm preparing food, is outside. We've been in this home for over 4 years now and my kitchen still makes me so very happy."

There are certain times during the year when the air temperature is so mild and gentle we seem to blend into the natural environment and become part of it.  It was like that yesterday.  Late in the afternoon, as I was making dinner, I noticed Hanno was outside planting and watering.  I grabbed my camera and went out to join him.  There was no breeze, the air was neither cool nor warm, the conditions were perfect.  

Just a few short weeks ago, our garden was almost bare.  We stopped planting in November and have scratched a few harvests since then, but the main activity in the garden has been when we let the chook loose in there to scratch around for insect eggs and eat all the grubs and caterpillars.  After that, Hanno built the soil up again with cow manure, compost, old chook manure and worm castings.  When he planted the first lettuces and cucumbers in the garden a  few weeks ago, they burst into life and have been feeding us for the last week or so.  There is nothing better than the taste of fresh vegetables and nothing gives me a greater feeling of self reliance and confidence than walking outside in  the afternoon to collect food for our dinner.  It's sublime on every level.

While I was outside yesterday afternoon, I took these photos.  They speak for themselves, so I'll let them tell their own story.  My thanks to Hanno for providing us with such healthy, sustainable, organic food.

Yellow passionfruit.  There are black passionfruit at the other end of the trellis.

I've had another email asking for help with ideas so, with the permission of the writer, I'm opening this up so we all have a chance to offer ideas, support and encouragement.  Today's email is from Jo in the UK.  To summarise Jo's email,  her husband is working nights, her work hours have just been doubled and although she loves her job, she feels she has no time left for herself.  Jo lives in semi-rural England with her husband and two chidlren whom she loves very much.  Jo writes: 

"while others try to out do each other with credit cards, latest fashions, flashy cars, we don't, we have an allotment ( you probably knew what they are) large piece of land that we pay rent for each year, its ours for as long is we want it, we have had it five years now, we grow all our own veg and fruit there, we keep chickens in our back yard, I cook from scratch even the dogs and cats food. We mend things, reuse things, recycle a lot. But recently I feel we have lost out way, got stuck in a rut that I don't like and don't know how to get out of. 

Jo, I think the mother in any family is like a wagon that loads the family aboard and keeps everything on track.  Mothers do much of the housework and if you have an outside job as well, you'll have a lot, and maybe too much to do.  Don't let the wheels fall off your wagon, ask for help, start saying "no", establish boundaries - for yourself and others, and give yourself time to relax and recover.  You are not a machine, you need time when you can do whatever you feel like doing - be that reading, sewing, gardening, thinking or walking - or spending time with the family.  But it has to be your choice and what YOU want to do.  If you always do for others, you get lost and eventually feel resentment.

I think you might need to go back to your old work hours so you have more time at home.  You said you've just paid off a lot of debt so I doubt that is a problem for you.  You'll be able to do more, and organise yourself and your home in the way that suits you.  You mentioned that you recently took on more guinea pigs and that your work hours were doubled.  Those two actions sound like you're just going along with what others want from you.  Be proactive with your life.  You make the decisions and it's entirely your own choice what you say yes to.  You have consciously decided to grow vegetables and keep chooks, you need to also consciously decide to balance the time you spend working with time you give to yourself.  Not only do you need to invest time in your home and family, you need to invest it in yourself too. These two old posts may hold a message for you: When mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy and Learning how to say NO.

When you get yourself back on track, you might also think about changing various things you do in the normal course of your day.  I often change things here so it stays fresh for me and I keep enjoying repetitive tasks.   Those changes might just be rearranging my work spaces and changing how I do certain tasks, but those tiny changes keep it interesting and keep me going back for more. Learn new skills, that brings interest too. And take breaks, make yourself a cuppa and sit reading for a while.  When you go back to work, you'll feel refreshed and that you are being looked after too.

Jo, you have got the basics right. There is no doubt about that.  You love your husband and children, you're all working together towards being debt-free, you've simplified your lives and are living in a way that will enrich you and keep your family strong.  But this is not suppose to be difficult.  You make your own rules, you decide what it is you do each day.  I think that if you ease off the accelerator and give yourself some time to regroup and organise your daily chores, you'll rediscover that joy you used to find in day to day life.  Remember to take small steps and to find joy in small achievements.  Look for the beauty in your lives and disregard what your friends and neighbours are doing.  You've make some significant steps towards a happy future, all this is just fine tuning.

I hope you have some words of encouragement for Jo.  If you do, please add to the comments.  Thank you friends.

Today I am featuring Heather's kitchen in Pennsylvania USA.  It's another unusual kitchen which proves, yet again, how diverse we all are.

Heather writes:

"We live in an octa-decagon shaped house that we built from a kit, so our kitchen is a little unconventional, but works just like any other kitchen.

My husband & a friend made the cabinets from leftover wood from our ceiling. You will see that I have my calendar/house binder, cookbooks & bread bowls stored on the island. My sink is a double-bowl stainless steel w/ a curved-neck spout for filling big stock pots.When I look out my kitchen sink window, I see our chicken coop & can check on the chooks. 

 

Our kitchen is part of our "great room" so when I'm busy in the kitchen, I can help my girls with their school work, talk w/ visitors & be warmed by the woodstove all at the same time! Most of our walls in the great room are windowed, so we use a lot of natural light & rarely have to turn the lights on during the day."

 

 

We moved to our current home when Shane left school and Kerry was in his final year of school. We chose that time because we wanted to be closer to a university, potential employment, shopping and entertainment. This was a few years before we realised how toxic our lifestyle had become and then changed to a more gentle and slow life. Luckily for us, we bought our one acre piece of land a couple of years before the property boom and since then it has more than tripled in price. We were looking for a small simple brick house with a bit of land. What we got was that, plus a permanent creek wandering through remnant rainforest at the end of a one lane dead-end street. Bliss! Even though what we have is very simple, and the absolute opposite to what most people were buying then, when I walked on to this block of land, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. The garden was in its original state, the house was dated and needed work, but I knew at the very second I saw the backyard, that this was where I wanted to live. I was 49 then, Hanno was 58.

This is our house as seen from the garden (click to enlarge). As you can see, we have a solar hot water system (right), skylights, whirlybirds (to extract hot air from the roof), as well as a TV satellite dish that was disconnected many years ago. 

Five acres would have been too much for us then and would be a worry for us now. We used to have the boys to help mow the lawns (it took just over three hours) but now Hanno breaks the job up into a number of sections. It's slower but it's easier that way. An acre gives us room for our house, chooks, a double work shed for Hanno, a garden shed, bush-house, water tanks, vegetable garden, fruit trees and a large wild garden at the front that hides us from the road. I agree with you, a smaller block would give you the best of both worlds - you'd have enough land to do what you want to do, spread out and have out-houses but you'd still be able to manage the work of a 1400 block for many years to come. If you bought the larger block would you be able to subdivide it and sell off what you don't want?

Make sure the house has enough of the right kind of spaces. Look for a large pantry and stockpile cupboard close together, a work room for your sewing and mending, a well laid out kitchen that will allow you to preserve/can your excess garden produce and a place to sit and shell peas or read. If you have money left over after the purchase, buy some things that will help you be sustainable. Water tanks to harvest rainwater from your roof will help you every day you garden, skylights will help you bring light to rooms without electricity, solar hot water or panels for the entire house would be ideal.

It sounds like you're already gardeners and plan on continuing with that so look for a warmish climate with good rainfall.  Check your local authorities for flood history and look up the weather statistics for the past few years.  Overall, you want to live in an area that will support the work you wish to do in your home - like keeping chickens and growing food.

Even though you're still in your 40s, now is the time to look 30 years ahead.  You want a house and land that will allow you to work it easily while your husband is still working outside the home, you want a house that will be easy for you to live in for many years to come (our house has no stairs) and you want to know you're safe and sound and live well with your neighbours - go and meet the neighbours whenever you look at a new house.  You are paying for the location as much as for the building and land so know what you're buying into.  Ask every neighbour, and the people you're buying from, what the neighbours are like.  A bad neighbour is as concerning as a bad flood report - they will impact on your life in a negative way.  Steer clear.  You need to be fit and healthy to live as we do but as you age you also need access to medical facilities - make sure they aren't too far away.  You'll also need to be fairly close to a supermarket, butcher, and other primary producers if possible.

Look for efficiency, comfort, warmth and productivity in a house, rather than luxury.  A coat of paint does wonders for most places.  See if you can save a few dollars by buying a smaller home on a large block, and spend the rest of your budget modifying the house to suit you both.  Hanno and I did that.  We knew many things weren't to our liking when we bought here, but when we moved in we took the time to change what we didn't like.  As money became available during the first few years of us being here, we kept adding those elements we wanted - like the skylights, tanks, gardens and fences.  Fences are important and if you're gardening and keeping chooks, a house cow or goats, you'll need good fences.  And not only to keep critters in, but to keep them out as well.  Make sure, when you do your changes, you use recycled materials if you can, they cut the cost considerably, and help to make your home more sustainable and earth-friendly.

I highly recommend The New Complete Book of Self Sufficiency by John Seymour to you. He writes about and illustrates the ins and outs of a one acre small holding as well as a five acre one. You'll be surprised and pleased at his thoughts on the one acre plot - there is an abundance of crops, animals and fields of food for people and animals. It's really worth a read. I hope I've answered your question in a way that will help you look at things in a different way and will help you plan for your future. Please keep in touch and let me know what you decide on and how it goes when you eventually move.

The work of a simple homekeeper can sometimes be complicated.  I keep changing things, particularly my work spaces.  I love change and look for ways to change so that my work stays interesting and is done efficiently.  I am currently in the middle of cleaning up and rearranging my work room.  This room used to be Hanno's office and even now he tenaciously holds on to a tiny portion of it - a cupboard and a drawer.  I'm sure that cupboard would serve me well as a space to hold my fabrics and wool, but that is a change for a future time and unlike the old Rhonda who was terribly impatient, now I'm like a statue - just quietly watching and waiting for THE time.  I cannot divulge my plan here because Hanno reads the blog every day, but change is coming, I feel it in my bones.  ;- )

Yesterday I organised the desk space, moving my laptop over to its Winter position and the sewing machine to the left of it.  I like looking out the window during summer but now the light has changed I prefer to look into the corner.  As usual, my notebooks and notes are to my right.  It's strange how you can live with things for years and not notice them.  I've used one of the kids old mouse pads for donkey's years.  We bought our first computer in 1988 when the kids would have been 8 and 7 so I am sure this Mickey Mouse pad is from those very early days.  When I saw it yesterday I knew I couldn't live with it another day, so a quick project later, I now have a quite nice floral mouse pad.  It took me all of five minutes from start to finish and I will be able to replace the floral when I'm sick of it.

All I did was to draw the shape of the mouse pad, with pencil, directly onto the fabric, then cut it out. I sprayed each side with craft adhesive - do this outside as it's very sticky and smells a lot, then press the fabric carefully onto the pad It takes a little while for it to dry but when it does, it's ready to use.

Today's task is to finish up in here, which I'll do after I finish writing this blog. I have a number of baskets, containers and shelves on which to place my various stashes; the fabrics need to be tidied up by refolding and replacing them on their shelves. I also want to move the overlocker/serger so I don't hit my shins on it and rearrange what is under the desk. I hope to get it all done this morning so I can sew this afternoon. What are you doing today/tomorrow?  ♥

If you've been lucky enough to grow potatoes in your backyard you'd know the sign you look for to indicate when you should harvest.  It's when the green potato tops die down and you're left with bare earth.  Of course, you can harvest before then, but when the top dies, you know that no more growth will follow.  If you were to go out to a commercial non-organic potato farm, you'd probably see them spray herbicide (poison) onto the crop about a week before harvest.  They give their plants a certain amount of time, then harvest.  They need to kill off the green tops so they don't make the mechanical harvesting of potatoes too difficult.  The green tops clog up the machine at worst; at best, it's just more rubbish to deal with during the harvest.

Potatoes are an important crop for us.  If we want to eat organic potatoes that have not been sprayed with poison a week before harvest, we have to grow them ourselves.  That's fine with me.  Home grown potatoes, like backyard tomatoes, have much more flavour than those bought at the market.  You can also "bandicoot" new small potatoes from the side of the bushes while they're still growing.  There is nothing quite like new potatoes, fresh from the garden that afternoon, simply boiled and served up with a little butter and a sprinkling of herbs.  That, my friends, is one of the perks of vegetable gardening and it doesn't matter how much you can afford to pay for your potatoes at the market, you can never buy that degree of freshness.

Hanno bought Sebago seed potatoes a couple of weeks ago, as they were the only type he could find, but we both wanted Dutch Cream.  We got some Nicolas from the shop, they're similar to Dutch Creams, and I spent a short time cutting them for chitting a couple of days ago.  Chitting is the process of allowing your potatoes to develop shoots before you plant them in the ground.  If the potatoes are a medium size, or small, you don't have to cut them. However, if you have larger potatoes, for the sake of economy, you can cut them in half, making sure you have shoots, or eyes on each half.  Place all the potatoes, or potato pieces in egg cartons to keep them from rolling around and so the cut sides can dry out completely.  Leave them in a shaded light area out of the sun. When the shoots are a few inches long, plant them out in the garden.

I feel like a real farmer when we grow potatoes.  They're substantial and they need to be stored properly; they feel like real crops.  Potatoes make great filling meals with only a few additions - like my kartoffelpuffer recipe here, or as a fine addition to meat when you make your favourite potato salad.  So if you can find a space, take the plunge and grow some potatoes.  Even if you don't have much space, you can grow potatoes successfully in wire cages.  Just poke four star pegs into the grown, wrap chicken wire around them, place some compost in the bottom of the cage with potatoes on top and cover with soil and straw.  As the potatoes grow, keep adding compost mixed with soil and straw and each time the green tops grow again, add more.  You'll get good potatoes growing them like this but nothing is as good as potatoes grown in the garden bed.  By the way, don't grow potatoes in old car tyres.  Tyres contain many chemicals, including cadmium, and it's best to keep them well away from your garden.

There is no doubt about it, potatoes are an excellent crop for the backyarder.  If you haven;' tried them yet, take the dive this year. I'm sure you'll be pleased you did.

Growing organic potatoes fact sheet.

If you're a new gardener living on the Sunshine Coast or northside Brisbane, Sonya will be presenting some workshops for beginners on April 18,  go here to find details.  I know Sonya and I'm sure your money will be well spent.

This kitchen is both sad and a place that brings back beautiful memories.  This is Cadi's kitchen in Virginia USA.   Cadi, I send you much love during your sadness.  It sounds like you and Brent shared many happy hours in your kitchen.  I hope you continue to find peace there.

We rent a small, old bungalow-style house in Richmond, Virginia in the U.S.A where I'm a teacher. Just a bit over a month ago my love, Brent, passed away suddenly. I have many memories of us cooking dinner together in this lil' kitchen, of being silly, drinking wine while cooking, him teasing me about my lumpy mashed potatoes, me teasing him about being a messy cook...

For a long time I didn't step into the kitchen. Friends brought us food. And I seriously took dirty dishes to a friends house to wash them in her dishwasher. Crazy, huh? I just couldn't motivate myself to do much at all. Then one Saturday morning I realized just how nice it was to stand at the sink & wash the dishes, just how Brent and I used to. And it brought beautiful memories and a sense of peace.

We have a plain & simple kinda life. The second picture shows our dining area, just off the kitchen. Green is my favorite color. We usually have fresh flowers - even if it's just something tiny. The dresser holds linen & art supplies my children (two boys, 11 & 13) use. The toys in the basket are from their early childhood & are now mostly used when guests with wee lil' ones visit us.