Friday Follies.......

My chickens are laying every day...seven girls, seven eggs....they need to
take some time out....and have a rest.

Moments in the Kitchen.....spring in a vase....avocado in with a banana
to ripen up...delicious organic oranges

No happy with my onions.....haven't produced a bulb...look more like leeks...
looked it up in my gardening book and apparently soil must be too rich...
there's always next year......

The end of the week brings some much needed sunshine to the hills.....a cold blast that felt like winter this week was not what I expected this time of year.....the bushfires in NSW bring a reminder that summer will soon be with us and the associated danger of living in the hills......it is worth the risk to live in beautiful country surroundings.  ..I wouldn't want to be living anywhere else. 
On another note, my chickens laid all throughout winter ....with the exception of the two light sussex who have the good sense to take some time off .....and are still laying every day....this has caused them to loose a bit of condition and they are on the skinny side....have been working very hard to try and fatten them up...they seem happy enough but I would like them to take a break, and gain weight...anyone else have this problem?

Rudimentary Reflections ........

A little bit of sping on my office desk....jonquils from a local farmer..beautiful

I have started to wear these necklaces daily....the amulet is from Nepal and
is to remind me of all things spiritual....the beads were a gift that I hadn't worn..
I read an article that was about the average life expectancy and you deduct the amount
of days that you have been alive from the amount of life expectancy days....and that's about
what you have left....seems grim but the beads are to remind me that our days on earth are
numbered, the individual beads symbolise days................a subtle reminder to enjoy everyday..and be happy!

After the beautiful sunshine yesterday, todays gloomy weather brings a more sombre mood and time for a little reflection on where things are at........so far so good....the lifestyle changes that I started working on so long ago now have become second nature and I love the simplistic way I am now trying to live my life.....I try to surround myself with small reminders of what I am trying to achieve....a few of the more simple ones on the list....Start eating better; be yourself; help others when you can; eat Salads; do something you love everyday; eat less, move more; buy less, make more: eat organic food; try to learn something new each day; try a new recipe at least once a week; grow my own food; avoid processed foods; stop putting your life on hold; create an amazing life...................the list goes on.....I encourage everyone to find their bliss and appreciate every day...life isn't infinite, so enjoy every single sunrise and sunset.

Tuesday "Tidbits"..........

 

Nearly lost these fuschia's over winter....they were gorgeous
when I got them late last year....big full standards.....
they got sick and looked like dead sticks......Spring
has thankfully bought them back to life.....gotta love that.

Planted an early tomato plant....usually
don't plant until Cup Day...an Italian
friend advises that you should wait until
then....see how they go !!

Some early snow pea shoots....growing in pots to see how
they go....hopefully all should be good.....at least the
snails haven't found this pot yet.....

Today at the organic food store getting vegies,
saw these zucchini seeds.....will have a go at
setting these up in the greenhouse.....if the
snails don't eat them as soon as they pop up...!



Spent a beautiful afternoon on Saturday planting out my seedlings.....the
snails have spent the last two days trying to eat them all....because of my girls I can't
use any snail bait....have tried diatomacious earth......egg shells and beer....so far Daisy has eaten
the egg shells and lapped up the beer !!.....read an article that if you leave rolled up paper the
snails will look for shelter and go in there and then I can dispose of them........sounds good ??

Both the girls went to the Clippers today.....they don't seem very impressed....
in fact Daphne looks a little mad at me......!!

Daisy just looks a bit confused....but then she always looks a bit confused....so cute !!

Opening your Heart......

I am a regular contributor to Oxfam and I also buy from their store and give their gift cards at Christmas.....have given chickens, goats, school books and blankets......my friends love them, they don't really need a gift themselves and are happy for a donated gift.......Today I have received a copy of the quarterly brochure which highlights the projects that Oxfam are working on around the world......there were some sobering statistics which I would like to share....2 Billion people lack access to clean water......121 Million children each year are denied the basic human right to an education......39.5 Million people around the world are living with HIV and AIDS......2.2 Million children die each year because they are not immunised.....20% of the population of the developed nations consume 86% of the worlds goods......it certainly makes you take a look at what you can do to help........consider joining the Oxfam global community and work towards ending the cycle of poverty...by signing up as a regular contributor, shopping at their stores and buying Fair Trade tea, coffee etc.....open your heart and do what you can to help.

Wellness Woes.....

Yarn bomb.....reminding us all to stay well.........loving this new art form.....

Spring time........reminding us that the seasons change......beauty really is everywhere !!

Influenza has hit the hills.....I have been sick with the flu for the last 3 weeks...can't remember a time when I have been this sick...very slow to get over the symptoms, but hopefully on the road to recovery.....Illness makes you reflect on how we take wellness for granted.  My mum has had a recent scare with bladder cancer and thankfully prognosis is excellent.   A lot of illness around in the last 3 weeks....including one of my chickens....she had an impacted crop and after a $100 trip to the vet for an injection and a range of medications, she was no better after 8 days....a beautiful lady at the local feed store volunteered to put her out of her misery for me.....she was very emaciated and vomiting, but oddly enough still continued to lay eggs even though the energy required was killing her.......nature is a strange thing at times.....Being unwell has encouraged me to spend much more energy on the pursuit of WELLNESS......taking the time to eat well, get plenty of exercise, enjoy everyday, find magic in the simple things and laugh often.....wishing good health to all .

Remembering the Years...

Flowers from my man....every year he makes sure they have hyacinths..my favourite

I recently celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary and it gave me the chance to reflect on the passing of time.....hard to believe that 20 years has passed.....where did it go?....It's great to acknowledge special occassions....we went away for the weekend with some close friends who were also celebrating their anniversary.....a nice dinner at a local restaurant in Red Hill....it was lovely.....we received cards from family sending their love to us both...and a fabulous voucher to a local restaurant for my man and I to have a quiet dinner...just the two of us....looking forward to that.

Mum and Dads wedding photo....hand painted as they were black and white in those days.

I certainly won't get the opportunity to celebrate like my parents.....last year we celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary....Wow....now that's a milestone.

Mid Morning Musings.....

 

Camelia's from the garden...reflected by two of my paintings...need to get back to the easel

Spring is just around the corner.....daphne and daffodils are out..

Beauty everywhere you look.....you just have to take the time to look

Even a few hyacinths popping their head up......my favourite flower

Not much happening in the garden.....but the beetroots are doing really well....yum

Book club book for July........I loved it

Winter is hanging on and giving us a very chilly blast before it hopefully heads off and allows Spring to burst forth and shower us with glorious Spring sunshine and warmer days.......can't wait to get into the garden and do my Spring planting....my first Winter of trying to grow vegies has not been very successful, but Spring brings great hope with it....time of renewal and splendour...........I love the seasons as the chill of winter makes you appreciate the warmth of summer....autumn leaves signal the start of winter......it all highlights the importance of seasonal eating....eating what you have in the garden....although if I had to rely on this Winter,I think we would have gone very hungry.....we try to eat seasonal foods and local, organic foods whenever we can....avoiding processed and chemically contaminated foods at all costs......a little self sufficiency is very rewarding.....stay warm and healthy .

The Great Cholesterol Conundrum



Like a moth to a flame....I am always drawn to a beautiful cheese platter....

Life is full of unexpected things that will trip you up from time to time....my latest is that my recent blood test, just for a check up, indicates I have elevated cholesterol levels, which while not dangerous need to be reduced........oh dear....not entirely unexpected I guess when you consider my love of cheese and all things cheesey......my love affair with the cheese platter is well known among my family and friends....I am unable to resist the delicious creamy texture of soft cheeses, and the bitey tang of hard cheese.......I happily devour platters ...chatting with cracker and cheese in one hand and chilled glass of sav blanc in the other......I now have to reconsider the amount of cheese I consume....which should probably be none, but I don't think that is possible.....Also my love of the humble egg....my favourite breakfast .......this will also need to be curbed...at the moment life without my favourite things seems bleak.......but a girl has to do what a girl has to do........so farewell to my cheesey habits....hello to special occasion only cheese....and no more than 6 eggs a week....farewell also to delicious butter which I lavish generously wherever possible....hello to cholesterol free spreads....life is still good if not quite as delicious.

Perfect Poached Eggs......

Thanks to Gary on Masterchef I have mastered the art of the perfect poached egg....he made it look so easy that I just had to give it a try.....never been able to manage it in the past.  Simply bring your pot of water to a rapid boil, add good amount of vinegar and a pinch of salt.....bring back to the boil.....drop your eggs in and gently move the water so that the egg rolls over on itself.....cook for 3 minutes...and voila !! ....perfect poached eggs.

Beautiful colour yolks on home grown, free range eggs...

Tip:...eggs need to be very fresh....

Stop the world, I want to get off......

Well the purchase of the new fridge went well, all done and delivered, and the old one is off to be repaired, reconditioned and hopefully resold, happy about that.......but walking through the store to buy the fridge I was shocked to see a 100" TV...really , who needs this.....I then find out the largest TV about to be released is 150 inches...over 3.8metres.....OMG.....what is happening....while this TV will obviously be out of the price range of most people, why do they insist on making one......how much radiation does it emit and how much power does it use to run.....when I think about my everyday attempts to do my bit for the planet and realise that it can all be undone by just one person buying and using this TV I could cry........how come something that is so obvious to me...that huge TV's are a ridiculous use of energy and resources......is still not something that others can identify, they are just happy to have a larger TV than their friends or neighbours....Wow, people need to really start thinking about what we are all doing and how much longer we can continue to act this way....TV is just one of the thousands of things that we all need to revisit...energy sapping, resource devouring, planet destroying purchases.........stop updating TV's, phones, computers, cars, appliances, clothes...try to repair, reuse, recycle, or just be happy not to have the latest gadget....advertisers and marketers want you to keep buying and spending....but think about the environmental impact of all purchases, the carbon miles, the cost to the environment to produce, energy required to run them......stop this crazy consumerism.....stop this crazy cycle and live simply....so that we can simply live....



Things that go "BEEP" in the night....

Why is it that there is always something around that house that decides to stop working.....for the past week our fridge has been beeping every 50 minutes.....until we called the repair people and the lovely girl on the phone advised us about holding in the button for 20 seconds and it will only beep every 12 hours....okay, until the guy can come to look at it in 3 days time !!....at least this stopped our requirement of getting up every hour overnight to stop the beep...which we did for the first night....then realised that turning it on and off at the wall stopped the beep for 5 hours.....oh dear !!

The culprit.....our fridge is on the blink.....

To cut a very long story short the repairman tells me that the fridge is on the way out....can be repaired for around $600 as the fridge gas has a leak in the thingmybob inside..very rare he tells me...and they will take the fridge away for 5 to 10 days....what the !!!...what am I supposed to do without a fridge, which is now full of food.......the fridge is 7 years old....big dilemma ....what is the more eco way of sorting this problem....how much longer will a fridge last...perhaps another 3 years??? if we are lucky.......is it worth repairing which would reduce the carbon footprint of buying a new one....it may not last much longer anyway.....should we buy a reconditioned fridge.....is it possible to get one second hand  the exact size as our fridge space???......feeling very conflicted but the decision has been made to buy a new one....Probably not the best choice for the planet......but don't think there is an alternative ??....It is not easy being GREEN.

Winter garden woes.....slowly, slowly....

Well winter in the garden is certainly different to summer in the garden......the crops are very very slow...there's a bit going on underground I hope.  The onion, beetroots, garlic and leeks seem to be going along nicely...if a tad slow.....I miss the glorious display of goodies that was in the garden last season...this waiting and waiting to see what happening is a not as much fun...also some little bugs are getting into the broccoli, cabbage and spinach...making a meal of most of it...have spread out scratchy straw and thrown around some diatomaceous earth...which is ground up fossils so fine they cut the ecoskeleton of insects etc...so they tell me anyway..things have improved slightly but I didn't have any bugs at all in the summer garden beds, so not sure where they have popped up from....hurry up Spring....

Beetroots look like they are going OK..

Onions ...hopefully something going on under there.......

On a brighter note, bulbs from last year have popped up !!

Garlic and leeks look okay...but ssooooo slow ...

When the Country is in chaos...make cheese !!

Wow what a political nightmare we Australians are facing.....don't really want to get into politics here....hopefully our wonderful country will survive the dills that we have put in charge and the other dills who want to take over....it just seems like chaos and I don't think anyone is really running the country....they are just fighting to see who can take over....hopefully our economy, environment and communities will survive their poor behaviour, and when the dust settles and whoever wins gets into power, things can hopefully settle down and they can all get back into the business of taking care of this beautiful place that we call home ..........my heart goes out to the people of Egypt whose Political woes are a million times worse...I hope the unrest settles down before any more lives are lost....peace to all.

Feta curds in the baskets....separated from the whey.....curds settle down into blocks of feta

Meanwhile amid the chaos....I thought it was time to try my hand at making feta (which I have learnt recently at a cheesemaking course)......with the help of my friend who also attended we set about making the cheese.....warmed the 8 litres of organic milk ...into our sterilised container...added the starter, renet and lipase mixes, gently stirred, waited for the curds...90 mins....then cubed them, rested the curds, seperated the feta curds from the whey....into the feta baskets ....flip them a couple of times and there you have feta...into the brine solution and into the fridge.....perfect, delicious and creamy feta....next we are learning Camembert......can't wait for that one......!

Homemade, Healthy and the girls are Happy .........

My first batch of homemade yoghurt.....huge success...didn't know that making yoghurt was this simple...Just boiled up the 7 little jars in the boiler......mixed the organic long life milk (must be long life as this has been heat treated to 91c)........with Acidophilus Biphidus culture.....added a few tablespoons of full cream milk powder...only added if you like thick yoghurt.....mix and pour into the sterilised jars...into the yoghurt maker for 6 hours and voila.....beautiful creamy pot set yoghurt...easy and economical.....

Boil jars to sterilise, mix milk and culture

Into the jars and then into the yoghurt maker for 6 hours.

 Have also been into the juicing.......so far only doing carrot, apple and a bit of kale.....tastes great but need to get a bit more adventurous with the ingredients....would like to do all green juices but they take a bit of getting used to .....will continue bit by bit and see how it goes....good news is the girls love the scraps that are left behind in the juicer......they peck away happily, so it's a win win.....everybody's happy


Prepare vegies and  fruit and into the juicer....goodness in a glass...

The chooks love the remains from the juicer......the girls eat it all ....no waste...fantastic

The joy I get from making things myself, trying to avoid waste, and making healthy and nutritious things to eat and drink is amazing.....it really is the simple things that make life great.....it inspires me to think there is so much more I can do.....Life is what you make it....and I am determined to do whatever I can to reduce my impact on the planet, cook from scratch, live well and laugh often....PS: happy birthday to my man.

What I'm reading....

Our book for Bookclub this month was Butterfly by Australian author Sonya Hartnett.....story about the coming of age of a 14 year old girl in Melbourne in the 80's.......I could really relate to this book, loved a lot about it but the ending left me really dissatisfied.....I don't like books where the author leaves the ending to your interpretation.....I'm a "needs to know" kind of girl............Other than that it was a good read....I'm sure the ladies at bookclub will all have something to say about this one.

Butterly by Australian author Sonya Harnett......good read !!

 With Winter well and truly under way, the Solstice has already been and gone.........it's lovely to start the day with a warm lemon and honey drink.......squeeze a lemon (straight from the tree in the garden) into warm water, stir in a bit of honey and drink first thing....very cleansing and good for the soul.

Warm lemon and honey , great way to start the day..........

Have just finished doing a great meditation  that I have downloaded off the internet......"ask for nothing and receive everything you need"......really beautiful sentiments in the meditation, includes sending out healing energy to your family and  friends, those in need and also the planet......receive back the joy of knowing you are helping those you care for and those who are less fortunate than yourself....heal your body, soul and spirit, with the power of your mind...amazing !

My Daughter's New Camera..........

 My eldest daughter has a fabulous new camera which she received for her 30th birthday from the family.....takes the most amazing photos and she is snap happy with pics of my gorgeous G-baby....

G-Baby taking after Poppy on the golf course...only mini golf at this stage...

G-Baby on the beach in the beautiful glow of late afternoon winter sunshine......

What great memories ........he is a beautiful little boy, only 2 but so much personality......It's great to be a nanny ....he's our first G-baby and very adorable...as you can tell by the pics....love to all the grandparents out there. 



Love Food, Hate Waste campaign...

As always still trying to do my bit for the planet, environment and now also my pocket....in the past I have been known to waste food, throwing away things that I could have put to better use if I was better prepared and more aware of what I was doing......life changes and my lifestyle has changed now in so many ways.....anything that can't be salvaged is either fed to the chooks, put in the worm farm for those guys to digest or else put into the compost.........had a few left over bananas that were on their last legs and turned them into a delicious banana cake....very easy recipe and would have cost less than a dollar to make....I was pretty impressed with myself...

Yummy banana cake made from the bananas going brown in the fruit bowl..................

 Then I had a barbeque chicken which we had used all of the meat from and decided that instead of tossing  it into the bin....can't feed it to the dogs, chooks or worms........I would make it into stock.....added a few vegies and boiled it up and used it for last nights risotto ......only problem is I have the left over cooked remains and had to bin them....don't know of any use for them...anyone out there use the remnants for anything useful...............??

Left overs from making the chicken stock........any ideas what it could be used for.....???

Am always now looking for ways to make our food go further..........using local organic foods wherever possible, free range, organic and locally sourced chicken and meats also.......it can be tricky but well worth the effort it in the end.....wishing good health to all.

Beating winter blues'........



Wow, winter has hit with a vengeance....so surprising that the sun can be shining beautifully one day and temperatures drop and rainfall starts next day and bang.....it's winter...I work from home so the cold weather wintery blues certainly take their toll on me....not a lot happening in the garden, plants are very slow to come along, not like the glorious bounty of summer crops.....have started growing my own seedlings to see how I go....bought a tiny plastic greenhouse and if I have any success and the seedlings take off, I will look at purchasing a proper greenhouse......would love to have stacks of seedlings and plants on the go...still a lot to learn but putting seeds into soil and adding water can't be all that hard - can it???

My itsy bitsy greenhouse......the start of bigger things maybe.

So far so good....spinach and leek seedlings have started to pop up..

Todays lunch......

Still trying to eat a healthy diet.....often fall by the wayside, but today I made this lovely fresh salad which incorporated beetroot and lettuce from my garden..along with cabbage, carrots, capsicum, feta and sundried tomatoes......also the addition of organic hemp seeds ...recommended by my Naturopath.....adds a nice little nutty flavour to many foods.....was delicious but I have to confess that just eating salad for lunch leaves me feeling hungry again a couple of hours later....Have been to Writing Group this afternoon and I could hear the rumble of my tummy.....home now for a cuppa and hopefully a treat..nothing to decadent.

The art of Cheesemaking......



Had a great day yesterday, attended a course on Cheesemaking....a local permaculture farm runs cheesemaking courses.....learnt how to make Feta, Yoghurt and Marscapone.....it was easier than I was expecting ...will certainly be making my own Feta and yoghurt from now on.....

Book club for April and May.....



 Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler was the book we read for April Bookclub....created interesting conversation... most thinking it was not Anne Tyler's best book by far but was certainly a good enough read...Story is about Liam a retired teacher who at 60 is fairly lost in life and is attacked one night and has no memory of the attack....the remainder of the story is about the interaction with his family and a woman he meets.....interesting enough story but not really compelling reading...5 out of 10 for me.

The book for this month is The Slap......am only 70 or so pages into this novel and I can tell you right now I detest this book.....I find the language very crass....the characters are formulaic ...wogs and skips according to the author...with the exception of the aboriginal moslem.... ..and punctuated continually by non relevant sexual encounters and vouyeristic episodes....hope I can finish it as it will certainly make a great debate at our bookclub discussion group.....