This post will give me more joy to write than anything else I could think of today.  I told you  there are a few exciting things happening here at the moment, well, I am now able to tell you the most exciting one of them.  Our son Kerry and his beautiful partner Sunny are having a baby!  Hanno and I will be grandparents in late March.  I can barely believe my eyes when I read what I have just written.

This wasn't planned but it's welcomed wholeheartedly by all of us.  Both Kerry and Sunny are hard workers and now that they have a baby to love and care for, they've decided it's time to buy an apartment together.  Sunny is going home to Korea to tell her family and when she comes back again, the search will start to find their first home together.  We are all so excited!  My knitting has taken on a life of its own and when I think of all the projects I could start, my head spins. 

This is one moment in my life when I feel as full as I could be.  I'm full of hope, love, anticipation, joy, generosity and determination.  Now, more than ever, I know that the way we live is preparing for this new life. I hope that when it comes to be my time to die, the world is more like the one I was born into and less like the one I grew up in.  We all owe that to our children and our grandchildren.

I'll stop writing now, I've already gone overboard because only these words matter today: Our son Kerry and his beautiful partner Sunny are having a baby!

When I first started blogging I felt a bit like a fish out of water. Not only was I much older than most of my fellow bloggers but I was blogging about a way of living that most people didn't seem to be interested in. Back in those early days of the blog, although there were quite a few other bloggers living their versions of a simple life, very few of them blogged about their daily lives in the way I did. Let me say quickly that is entirely appropriate - to each their own. I'm always going on about how each of us needs to express our own values through the way we live. That said, my posts on gardening, homemaking, organising cupboards and linens, budgeting and cooking from scratch were part of only a handful of similar blogs.

Most of the other simple bloggers at that time were more focused on a peak oil world and organising action against global warming. Few wrote about the importance of individual action or recognised the power of the home. I am really pleased that has changed. It is common now to see simple bloggers write about their traditional action plans or frugal living mixed generously with home hints, thoughts on baking, dressmaking, knitting and recipes. Things have changed, my friends and they've changed for the better.


Now when I look around my blog neighbourhood I see delightful home-centred posts like the perfect farm wife's dress. Sara, at Farmama, not only shows us how to tend a flock of goats and raise beautiful children in a wonderful way, she sews and bakes too. And then there is Jenna over at Cold Antler Farm. She has recently bought her own farm and takes us on the most amazing ride with her while she learns about shepherding, sheep dogs and fleece. Jenna works a regular job but she also tends her farm and livestock alone, and has regular get-togethers where she teaches banjo and an appreciation of fine mountain music. Of course, no post on simple life would be complete without my friend Jewel's Eyes of Wonder blog and Amanda's Soulemama. Both are well known but there may be some of you out there not familiar with them. They're beautiful, inspiring and gentle reads that will take you to another place altogether. Jewel's is taking a break at the moment but she'll be back and she has an incredible backlog of posts there just waiting for you.


There is also The Cottage Smallholder and her wonderful blog full of gardens and food, and Jenny at Little Jenny Wren who writes about homemaking and dolls in her Tasmanian home. EcoMILF writes about mothering, family life, cooking and the home and now she's waiting for her latest baby, you can browse through her archives while we all wait for the good news. There hundred of projects just waiting for you at The Long Thread, at the knit and crochet community Ravelry and at Whip up. And last, but by no means least, there is Julie at Towards Sustainability who I have known longer than I've been blogging. Julie has been in a bit of a funk lately so I hope that your visits will bring her back to us and her blog in a big way. She has a lot of sensible and thought provoking ideas and I hope she continues blogging for a long time to come.


In most of our real life communities, there are fewer people at home all day and it's uncommon now to share backyard produce with next door neighbours. That has been replaced for many of us by this vibrant and interesting community of bloggers who chatter via their blogs and send backyard and home made produce through the post. Just yesterday I received some sourdough starter from a friend in Victoria and last week a knitted mini-me Teddy came to me from West Australia. The blog world can be a bit scary and the internet in general can be indescribably ugly, but I have found that in our little corner of it, the women and men who write about their daily lives, do so in a generous and thoughtful way that makes this space feel like a neighbourhood. I hope you'll visit all the neighbours that I've given links to here and I hope you'll feel welcomed, inspired and revolutionised, just like I have been, by being a part of the blog neighbourhood.

ADDITION: I want to add something that Mary commented on this morning. All those people who comment here, both the seasoned readers and the new comers, are an integral part of my neighbourhood. I feel that my comments section is my back fence that we all rest on while we talk about our lives and ambitions. I apologise for leaving that out of my original post above, it's so ingrained in my mind now, I always believe it is already accepted and understood.

These past few mornings have been a real reminder that Winter is here and most mornings I sit at my computer in woolly slippers and at least three layers.  It's 10C now, yesterday it was 6C at this time, and when I go out to feed the animals, my breath comes streaming from my nostrils.  It's good to see your own breath before you; it's proof of life.  Not that we need such proof, we have our daily tasks to show us every day that life, and the way we have chosen to live it, is full of life affirming actions, organic growth and the constant productive forces that make up a simple life.

Back inside again and I light the heat under the soaked oats already in their pot and waiting to be cooked for breakfast.  We rarely have the same breakfast two mornings in a row.  Saturday it was bacon and eggs, yesterday we had porridge. Some mornings it will be poached eggs on toast, the next, tea and toast.  It depends on what we have too much of or what needs to be eaten.  It's cold inside now, not the coldness of outside, but cold enough to yearn for an open fire.  We have reverse cycle air-conditioning, but I'd rather freeze than use it.  I am hoping that by next Winter we'll have enough money to install a wood burning combustion stove.  In my future, I can see warm days and nights knitting in front of that fire and the thought of it warms me now, just enough.  It also makes me think of Bernadette.

As the day warms up we both move silently towards our tasks for the day.  Hanno is erecting climbing frames for the new cucumbers and beans, digging up sweet potato and fertilising the gardens with blood and bone and seaweed tea.  I am writing, cooking and knitting.  Yes, this is still the jumper I said would be ready for Hanno at the end of June.  I'm just finishing shaping the arms on the front of it, the back is done so I only have the two sleeves to go.  As soon as that is finished I'm onto some other knitting that I'm planning out now.  Actually, we have some big things happening here that I'm not quite ready to tell you about.  Be patient, my friends, all will be revealed soon.  Just know that I'm smiling almost all the time.

I forgot to take photos of the garden until late in the afternoon, so these photos are darker than usual.  You'll be able to see the three mounds where Hanno has planted three zucchinis, there are new bok choy plants as well as beans, tomatoes, lettuces, radishes and cucumbers.  The last of the cabbages was eaten this weekend and now we're getting ready for Spring and Summer.  Life goes on.

I made a loaf of bread for lunch on Saturday but yesterday it was scones - plain and with dates.  We have plenty of our backyard tomatoes for sandwiches at the moment and these simple lunches, with a cup of black tea, fill us until our evening meal.  And that reminds me, Gabrielle is sending me some of her sourdough starter and that should be in the mail today.  What a thoughtful and exciting gift!  Click here to go to her very interesting website, Beechworth Sustainability.  Thank you Gabrielle.

A few days ago Laurienna asked for the apple cake recipe I made last week.  I make up most of my recipes as I go depending on what's in the fridge and pantry, so even though I've probably shared an apple cake recipe with you before, this will be different.  Most cakes are a mixture of butter with sugar, add eggs (one at a time), and when fluffy and light, add the dry ingredients - flour and your flavourings.  I know most cook books say that baking is a science and not to stray from your recipes, but I always do and it generally gives me delicious cakes.  So reduce the sugar or eggs if you want to, add cinnamon (I didn't have any), add more apples, experiment.  Be bold!

2 granny smith apples - peeled and thinly sliced

1 teaspoon butter + cinnamon if you have it

Combine the above and cook in a small saucepan for about five minutes with the lid on.  Remove from heat and cool. When cool, cut up a small handful of pecans.

In a mixing bowl add butter and sugar and cream it.  Creaming is beating the living daylights out of the ingredients to incorporate air.  When you cream butter and sugar, it becomes lighter in colour, and fluffy.

Add vanilla, then add eggs, one at a time.

Take the bowl off the mixer, fold in the flour by hand and a little bit of the milk. When all the flour is mixed in, add more milk until you have a nice thick cake batter.  Add half the mix to a cake tin, I used a round springform tin, then sprinkle on some crushed pecans and the apples.  Cover that layer with the rest of the batter.  Sprinkle pecans on the top.

Bake on 180C/350F for about 35 - 40 minutes or until the cake is brown on the top and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean (with no uncooked batter on it).

It seems to me that Sunday is the perfect day for baking.  When I was a girl it was common to smell the roasting legs of lamb and apple cakes wafting through the air on Sunday.  Nowadays it doesn't happen much and I wonder what our neighbours think when they smell cakes, bread and meat being cooking at our place.  Maybe they don't sense the invisible nature of it. I guess most people now aren't used to taking in the natural environment and noticing different aromas that surround them.

At the end of our day we had a simple dinner of crumbed fish from the local fish co-op, coleslaw made from the last backyard cabbage and spicy potato wedges made with our home grown potatoes, still in their jackets.  A glass of water each helped wash it all down.  There was a little apple cake still there but neither of us wanted any dessert.

It still amazes and delights me, even after all this time, that our weekends, once filled with more public and expensive entertainment and leisure, now satisfy and nurture us with their productivity and involvement in ordinary activities and work.  We made a choice many years ago to leave what is superfluous to our needs behind.  We have not yet regretted that decision; I doubt we ever will.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend and that this week will be a good one for all of us.   Take care, friends.

A kitchen is like the engine on a car; it drives the house.  We spend a lot of time in our kitchens preparing meals, making cups of tea, baking bread and biscuits and when we invite visitors into our homes, we often sit at the kitchen table deep in conversation.  Kitchens are where a lot of our home production takes place so it makes sense to keep our kitchens working at their best.  Despite what many of you think, I am no angel. Like most other people, when I'm in a hurry I take shortcuts, I open packets and don't put them straight into a container, I don't look properly for ingredients and sometimes have two jars of the same thing and I don't put things back exactly where I took them from.  I am guessing you know where this post is going.  I'm talking about pantries and keeping them clean and tidy, but this post has an added bonus - it's also a challenge!

Before we carry on, let me say that my pantry is in my kitchen and it's where I store all food that  I am currently using that doesn't have to be refrigerated.  My stockpile cupboard is just around the corner from the pantry and it stores all unopened and unused food.  When something is taken from the stockpile and opened, it is put in a container and stored in the pantry.  I usually clean the pantry about every three months.  We have no major bugs here to worry about and since we started freezing all our dried goods when they're brought home, we've even eliminated the dreaded pantry moth and weevils.  I don't stop freezing and using containers just because I see no insects, I know that I don't see them because of the freezing and containers.

My pantry was in a really bad state.  Despite knowing I should decant everything into its own container, I had a couple of things in plastic bags held tight with a rubber band, I had two jars each of dates and dried fruit and a couple of unopened packets that should have been in the stockpile cupboard.  Overall the pantry was a disorganised mess - the result of a busy woman taking short cuts, I'm sure many of you can relate.  So I set to work.

I emptied all the shelves into the kitchen benches and wiped the cupboard down with warm soapy water to remove all traces of spilt food, and then carefully dried all the shelves.  I put back the larger items onto their shelves so I would have more room to work, then started sorting jars into categories and checking I didn't have more than one jar of everything.  I made one jar out of the two lots of dates and one of dried fruit.  Any jar that were almost empty had its contents put in a bowl while it was washed and dried then the jar was filled to the top.  The entire exercise took about an hour and now I'm back to having everything is its right place and the pantry set to help me work efficiently in the kitchen instead of hindering me.  It feels good and every time I go into the kitchen I open the pantry door and smile.

This is an easy task but its one of the important ones.  Having food organised and safely contained will not only help you work, it will keep your food safe and will help eliminate waste.  So if you haven't cleaned out your pantry recently, I challenge you to do it this weekend.  I am going to start a thread at the Down to Earth forum where we can all post our photos.  We may not live close to one another but we can still use our modern technologies to support and encourage each other to work to the best of our ability.  I know it's probably not what you want to do on the weekend, but it won't take long and what else could make you open a door and smile at the pantry?

I forget if I told you that I'm having a two week break from my voluntary job.  It's been really hectic there all year with our move to the new building, setting up new systems, volunteer training and the rest of it, so when my friend and co-worker, Fiona, said she'd cover me for a couple of weeks, I jumped at the chance. Fiona is our Community Development Worker, she watches over all the hinterland neighbourhood centres.  I really appreciate her kind gesture as she has so much other work to do. But I needed time away from there to clear my head and I decided to use the two weeks to write. I've been doing that but as you all know, life never stops and there are many home tasks that need my attention as well.

And the apple cake, which was rich and moist, was served as dessert last night.  Apple cake, when the aroma of baking apples, nuts and spices fills the house, and when it is being enjoyed, is one of those home made foods that always reminds me of the nurturing role food plays in our lives.  It can be a plate of biscuits passed over the back fence or a favourite cake made because someone saw it on TV, or even the daily bread. Taking the time to bake them, using fresh wholesome ingredients and then sharing, make us stop to appreciate what we have and brings us all together again around the kitchen table.

Yesterday, Hanno and I travelled down the coast to have lunch with our son Kerry and his lovely partner, Sunny.  Sunny is a chef too and she loves using our fresh garden produce, particularly cabbage.  So Hanno bundled up some fruit and vegetables for them, namely, cabbage, snow peas, turnips and lemons.  It is a real pleasure to be able to give away just picked organic produce.  It seems to me that more and more people appreciate it now.

I haven't been in our garden since this picking, but I think there are a few bare patches there.  I will be picking all the beetroot today and they all be pickled and sitting in jars before nightfall.  I know many of you are growing food in your backyards and allotments, and also in container gardens on balconies and patios, so I thought it might be timely to write about harvesting and garden maintenance today.

Before I was a gardener I thought you planted, watered and harvested.  The end.  Now I know  that in addition to those three vital actions, there is more that goes on in the garden.  I know now that if we harvest properly and keep the garden well maintained, we get better and larger crops.  Don't forget that most vegetables are better if they're not left to grow really big.  Generally smaller vegetables are sweeter, juicier and firmer.  Of course, there are always exception to that rule so be guided by your common sense.

At the moment, we have a healthy trellis full of snow peas.  We often eat these when we're out in the garden but there are so many of them now that it makes more sense to harvest them to eat later.  With vine crops that flower, like peas, beans, cucumbers and zucchini/courgettes, you get many more vegetables if you harvest continuously.  That works well if you want to eat them with your tea each evening, but if you don't, if you want to store them in the freezer to eat later in the year, pick as many as you can each day and store them in the fridge in a sealed container.  When you have enough for a batch to be frozen - which depends entirely on the size of your family, blanch them and bag them up in a freezer bag.  Don't forget to mark them with a permanent marker with name and date frozen.

Green leaves are similar and often benefit from continuous picking.  We pick  lettuce, kale, silverbeet and spinach from the outside, just taking the leaves we need for that day.  The plant will keep producing leaves and you can keep harvesting them.  However, if you want to put up some silverbeet, kale or spinach in the freezer, you can harvest the leaves from the entire plant, making sure you leave the centre in tact.  After harvesting, give the plants a drink of weak fertiliser tea such as comfrey, compost or worm juice tea and within a few weeks, you'll have full plants again.

Tomatoes may be harvested either deep red, pink or green.  You can pick them at any size if you need to clear the land or a weather event, such as a hail storm or extremely hot weather, threatens them, but it's best to let them develop to a reasonable size.  We find that if we leave tomatoes on the bush, the grubs will get to them before we do.  We wait until they're a decent size and showing just the first twinges of pink, and we pick them.  They ripen inside away from birds and insects.  Tomatoes don't ripen by sunlight, they need a warm temperature instead.  Don't store tomatoes in the fridge, they'll develop their full flavour if left on the kitchen bench.  Don't worry that they'll go off, you'll only loose those that have a grub in them, the rest will last a few weeks on the bench.

Some vegetables like pumpkins, squash, potatoes, onions can be left growing until they're ripe, and even left  there until you need them.  Naturally, you have to use your common sense when using the garden as a storage container as well.  For instance, if you have continuous rain you'd have to rescue them or they'd rot in all that water.  But if you're hoping to get a few more weeks or even a month in the garden before harvesting, most of the time, with these vegetables, that's okay.  You'll need to keep your pumpkins in check and you can do that by waiting until you see the first pumpkins growing and then nipping off the growing stems, on the same vine, around it.  You'll usually get two or three pumpkins per vine.  When you see those pumpkins have set, nip off the extra shoots. That will stop the vine from rambling all over the garden.  A good indication to pick potatoes is when you see the green tops die down but they are usually ready for picking before the tops go brown.  Be guided more by the growing times for the variety you're growing and if you're impatient for potatoes, you can put your hand into the side of the plant and pick off some small new potatoes underground.  If you're gentle it will not damage the plant at all and these small potatoes are a gift when steamed or boiled and dressed simply with butter, parsley and a bit of seasoning.  Pumpkins are ready when the vine starts dying and they feel heavy for their size.  When you harvest your pumpkins, cut them from the vine leaving about six inches of vine still attached.  If the vine comes away from the pumpkin cover the circle at the top of the pumpkin with some melted bees wax to protect it while it's ripening and drying.  Dry the pumpkins in the sun for a couple of weeks before bringing them inside to store in a cool dark place. 


Leeks, radish, carrots, turnips and parsnips are best picked on the smaller rather than larger size but if they're left a little bit longer in the ground, they don't suffer much from.  You'll notice the sweetness and tenderness more if they're picked younger.

All through the growing season, no matter what you're growing, keep the garden beds weeds-free, pick off every dead leaf you see and watch for wilt in your tomatoes, potatoes, capsicums/peppers and eggplant.  If you see diseased leaves on any of these plants, pick off all the dead leaves and put them in a plastic bag and leave in the sun to completely kill off everything.  Then dispose of the bag in the rubbish bin.  Watch out for caterpillars, grasshoppers, slugs and snails and if you find any, pick them off and give them to the chooks.  Try to get into the habit of inspecting your plants early in the morning or late in the afternoon because that is when most insects will be feeding.


Keep your green leaves growing well with some sort of fertiliser tea - they're easily made at home and cost very little.  If you see any plant that is stressed or being attacked my insects, apply a feeding of seaweed tea to it.  It is a great plant tonic and can help plants survive harsh conditions.  Don't apply too much nitrogen to fruiting plants like tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, beans etc because you'll make the plant grow all leaves and no fruit.  If your fruiting vegetables aren't producing flowers, apply sulphate of potash  (according to the directions on the pack) around the base of the plant and water it in.  BTW, all the applications I've recommended here are organic. 

Make sure you tie up your tomatoes before they become too unruly and keep all your climbing plants attached to their supports.  It only takes a few minutes a week to do this and it makes all the difference.  Vines that are allowed to fly around in the wind will break or at the very least become damaged. Mulch around your vegetables with straw, particularly the tomatoes, as it will help them keep their roots at a even temperature and will help retain water in the soil.  Tomatoes are one of very few vegetables that like the mulch touching their stems - they will grow extra roots into the mulch if you pack it up around them and that will give you better crops.  All the other vegetables should have their stems kept free of mulch, it just needs to cover the soil they're growing in.  Keep applying the mulch through the season as it breaks down.  When it does break down it adds organic matter to your soil, which is always a good thing.


As you clear an area after harvesting, apply some compost, dig it in, and start another crop.  Even if it's just two or three plants.  Gardening this way will give you the best return on the work you put in and it uses the soil productively and sustainably.

It sounds like a lot of work but if you get into a routine with your gardening, it only requires observation and fixing problems as soon as you see them.  There will always be something to fix, adjust, tie back, prune or move.  The rest of it is pure enjoyment - both in the gardening and in the eating.   And you will probably find that you're at your best in the garden, many of us are.  Happy gardening everyone!

Today we travel across the Tasman Sea from Australia to New Zealand to visit Amy and see where she works.

I have been secretly savouring a cookbook that I thought would not only be a rich addition to my recipe collection but also help us all get back to real cooking.  I found this treasure when visiting my son Shane on his birthday.  He always shows me his new cook books and there it was, looking very much like an ordinary book.  Do not judge a book by its cover.  (Although this cover is special with a scarecrow and love heart. I should have known.) Hanno bought it for me the next day.  Well, the first week came and went with many opportunities to tell you but this book is so special and I love it so much, I had to keep the love affair quiet for a while.  Now my heart is overflowing and I have to let it all out and tell you all about this most fabulous of books; to do otherwise would be shameful.  The icing on the cake is that it's Australian and it's not written by a celebrity chef.  This, my friends, is the real deal.  This book is about real food.

The Real Food Companion by Matthew Evans.

This is my kind of book.  He uses full cream milk and loves raw milk, butter and cream and makes no apologies for it.  If you want a low fat cook book, and I'm not sure why anyone would, this is not for you.  This has recipes for  yoghurt, ricotta,  marscapone, chicken stock, lemon curd, asparagus with poached egg and cheddar, slow roasted pork belly, homemade baked beans and bacon, rosewater, braised red cabbage, gooseberry fool and many other delicious foods.

There is intelligent information explaining the gassing of tomatoes; that tomatoes don't ripen best on the vine; that Delicious apples are in season for about two weeks each Autumn, yet are available all year round in the shops; the difference between single herd milk and mass produced milk; what buttermilk is; and how to prepare pulses; as well as many good wholesome recipes.  But overall, in addition to the recipes, it speaks on the ethics of the food we eat in an intelligent and non-political way that I found very appealing.  This is not preaching.

I have not been paid for this post, nor am I attached to this writer in any way, except emotionally now because of his book. The only down side of this book is the price - the recomended retail price is $89.95 but I've done a bit of searching and found it here at Fishpond for $60.00, with free postage if you're in Australia, or better still it's 15 pounds (AU$26), plus postage on the UK Amazon.  I have added the UK Amazon box in my right column if you would like to buy it via my blog.

The Real Food Companion is not a guide to producing restaurant-style food  for your kitchen table, it is a nurturer's book that will aim you gently towards more ethical food choices and wholesome home food.  It will help you with the small and simple things like making yoghurt, washing pulses and selecting eggs but it will also be your guide to improving the food you put on the table everyday.  This book is a real winner.