Hi all, I just realised it's ben 9 months since my last post! Oops.

I haven't been doing much, this winter has been a pretty bad one for the people of Tassie - just lots of sickness, especially for those with kids, and we have had our fair share. Just getting by is all we've done, really.

However, I now have spring fever and have managed to overhaul the upstairs of our house (sounds impressive but it's actually just our bedroom and ensuite) cleaning all the boring bits that we don't usually clean, or see, and getting some extra storage for the permenant piles of stuff on the floor. I now have a place for all my wool and material and it's inspired me to sew and knit some new things. I'm going to turn my mum's original 70's long skirt into a knee length one for me, and I'm knitting some cotton dishclothes for a friend who is buying her first home. I thought our home-made dishcloths weren't much good as they got holes in them and I even went and bought one again. I then realised the bought one was filled with holes much faster, and completely fell apart in a few weeks, so I now realise my home-made ones are superior!

The new things we've done include:
Lots of recycling for my son, who is now 3 and very into collage - we cut out EVERYTHING to use for collage. Some items include cardboard packaging for anything (cereal, egg cartons, etc) junk mail (we have a no junk mail sign but still manage to get some), birthday cards and postcards, wrapping paper, paintings that he's done, the nets that oranges come in, scrunched up tissue paper, anything remotely interesting or colourful gets cut up and pasted.

Sourdough - as well as making our own yoghurt and soft cheeses, I've bought a sourdough starter from a local market and have started making sourdough bread. I've read and heard that this is the healthiest of breads as the sugars are metabolised differently by the sourdough culture (as opposed to yeast-based breads) and we make ours with wholemeal flour. It is actually easier than hand-baked 'normal' bread as there's no kneading involved and it looks just like those rustic round loaves sold for loads of money in organic shops - but ours is very cheap to make!!!

We also bought a cheese making kit to make fetta and haloumi but it's a bit more involved and I haven't had the patience yet. I made quark and cream cheese with it; the cream cheese was particularly good - it has sooooo much more flavour than the shop ones, but exactly the same look and texture. I was proud of that one, however the low fat one was lumpy and watery, just shows the real thing is the best!

We bought three new chickens - hyline/isa brown crosses, becuase our Australorps go broody in summer and so we had an egg shortage. The crosses, which are bred for batteries and are good layers that don't go broody, have been a bit disappointing. Although they lay well, they have no common sense! They poo in their water, eat and drink four times what our Australorps do, wouldn't eat food scraps or forage for their own food, and peck us whenever they get the chance. Our beautiful, docile, sensible, economical Australorps are so different in comparison! And we managed to get our Australorps laying again anyway.

Our six chickens became five the other day when we realised one of the crossbreeds were sick and we had to give it the chop. Our son wanted to know what was going on and we couldn't exactly lock him in the house alone so he watched and it was a bit awkward and unconfortable, but I kept telling myself this is life (or death) and he isn't old enough to have the self-conscious, squeamish attitude that we do. We eat meat, so I think we should be able to kill an animal - plenty are killed for us - and I'm glad we could do it, but it's not exactly fun!

I'm letting my son collect eggs now; afterI dropped one, I figured he couldn't do any worse, and so far there have been no fatalities - phew! It's so cute watching him go in and say hello to the chickens. He says things like 'hello chickens, would you like to say 'bok bok' now?' and 'chickens, can you lay an egg now?' as if they will understand and obey. He likes to help feed them too and all the leftover food he doesn't eat is 'for the chickens'.

We're planting plenty of vegies this week - my son is into planting this year so the garden is going to be very ad-hoc as he just randomly sprinkles the seeds, then goes and digs them up agian, then I try to cover them, then he'll stomp all over it, etc. but a lot of them have already come up so we'll survive. I just have to bear with him while he learns. I really want him to know how to grow food and look after himself and I'm finding that finally he is trying new foods that we grow - usually he will pick the vegies and help cook them but still refuse to eat them, but I've caught him eating some of our broccoli straight from the garden, and I'm hoping we might have some success with tomatoes too. We have some new next door neighbours who also have a big vegie garden and chickens, and I'm inspired by them as theirs is doing a lot better than ours!

As an example, here is our baby broccoli - ok so it's a side shoot but the originals weren't much bigger! I bet the broccolis are bigger (and the grass greener) next door. I shall have to try harder.

Until next time... happy reading/cooking/gardening/making
x Gayle

Summer

Wow, it seems Tassie has become the tropics! We have had lots of unusually hot, still weather and some great storms this year. I'm hoping this means that we have a good season for things that are normally fickle in Tassie - tomatoes, capsicums, corn, etc. Since I've been so slack with this blog, I'll have to compartmentalise this post...

Garden:
We had 3 apricots from our tree this year, the first ones to survive to adulthood! They were gorgeous, so I'm hoping for more next year. We got lots of blackcurants and I made the best jelly with them, using the super duper machine to get rid of the pips and skins. I also used less sugar so you could really taste the fruit. I also discovered rhubarb and strawberry jam this year and if I didn't have over 20 jars of jam left over from last year (oops) I would make more this season!
I am successfully growing rhubarb for the first time ever. It is MASSIVE and has taken over its entire corner of the world, obliterating all the other plants there. I will forgive it when I can start harvesting rhubarb - apparently you're not supposed to in the first year. Our blueberries were smothered by broad bean plants I stupidly placed in the blueberry section, so we didn't get as many as I hoped. Lesson learned!!! We also had a few raspberries, and they were so fresh and perfect, I'll plant more of them for next year too.

As for the vegies, I impulse bought 3 punnets of onions over winter and they took up so much room we couldn't plant much this summer. I still have a lot to learn with planning and planting what we need - not too much of one thing. I only had a few peas and corn (our favourites) as a result, and the onions went to seed which means there was a lot of stem and not much actual onion, so again I learnt my lesson.
I found an amazing companion plant - calendula. They're pretty flowers and don't take up much room (they grow up, not out) and I've picked some for inside and found the stems absolutely covered in bugs - little flies, aphids, whatever, and they're all dead! The stems are sticky and I think the bugs are attracted to the flowers, then get stuck and that's it. I've planted the flowers in the tomato bed and they're a sort of living sticky fly paper which is great.
I'm experimenting with borlotti beans this year, I use dried beans a lot, although when reading about how to dry them I've discovered that using them fresh is much easier and tastier. I haven't tried any yet, need some spare time.
We got a zillion potatoes this year after planting more than 3 times what we could realistically eat. We've given more than half away and eat potatoes every day, and we still have a third of them to dig up! We've experimented with freezing home-made gnocchi and were successful, so we can stock pile one day when we have time and use up some more. The up-side is that I found Nicola potatoes are much more prolific in our garden than pinkeyes and they are also very tasty and versatile - I'll stick to them next year. The pinkeyes are nice too, of course, and we are yet to taste our King Edwards.

The 'baby'
Well the baby is now two and a half, and really more of a child than a toddler now. He was obsessed with picking broad beans for a few weeks and was very disappointed when they finished. I personally don't like broad beans but will keep growing them for his sake. It kept him entertained for hours, trying to get them off the bush (which is twice his size) then bringing the pod to me to split open, then he'd get the beans out, comment on their size, and either eat them or put them in a container. They finished about a month ago and he still asks for them. He's also really getting into camping and the beach this year, which is fun. He potters with buckets and toy trucks and loads and unloads them for ages. He still has no interest in cooking, but loves food so there's hope.

The chickens
Our chickens have been broody on and off (mainly on) since September. At the moment, all 3 of them are broody, so they sit around all day, barely touch the kitchen scraps and certianly don't lay any eggs. I've tried everything and am told that it should have worked, but they're very determined! I've decided to buy more chickens. White leghorns are apparently good layers and tend not to go broody, so I'm waiting on 3 of them to come of age. If that stirs up our chickens then great, and if it doesn't, ours will get the chop! I love Australorps, for a few months they were very good layers and they're docile and beautiful birds, but I'm very frustrated with the lack of eggs so I wouldn't get them again.

We have lost our next door neighbours who were very experienced with gardening, cooking and keeping chooks. They have moved to the next suburb so not lost and gone forever, but it was handy having them around. Fortunately, they have been replaced - on the other side - by new neighbours who also have children, chickens, and are making a start on a fantastic vegie patch, so it looks like we'll still have someone to share ideas with!

I'm off to buy tomatoes now, we found some very cheap ones and have a year's worth of tomato sauce, relish and pasta sauce to make - I'm exhausted just thinking about it, but it's soooo yummy.

Happy living everyone, and if you need potatoes, you know where to come.
xx

A new purchase!

We got a very expensive but very exciting mixing machine the other day. We also got most of the attachments to go with it - a pasta maker, sieve (for my jams and sauces), mincer/sausage maker and ice cream maker. My husband pointed out that it was a 'passion purchase' rather than a financial decision, and although with our home made food we'll probably never get our money back, we've certainly had entertainment value and lovely food from it so far.
I made amazing meringes and managed to do the washing up at the same time (becuase the mixer does it all for me!) I never made them before becuase standing there with the hand-held mixer was so BORING. I also made the most fabulous, authentic French bread (and now I know, having just returned from a French bread making course in Paris!) and today we made minced meat to make a rabbit terrine. I've made lots of ice cream using it as a mixer and next door's machine to freeze it, as our ice cream attachment hasn't arrived yet. The vanilla ice cream is soooo good.
 
Our chickens, after going broody while we were away, are finally all laying agian and our garden's going really well. We're harvesting red onions, spring onions, spinach and silverbeet, lots of herbs and cauliflowers.
On the way are about a zillion potatoes, broad beans and peas. Newly planted are tomatoes, corn, zucchini, borlotti beans (which you can dry), melons, and capsicums. This is our first year planting melons and capsicums, so I'm interested to see how they go.
Our fruit trees, brambles and vines are also looking good for the first time. We planted them all 2-3 years ago and look like we'll get a few apricots, lots of blueberries, heaps of apples, bunches of grapes and some raspberries. Our local fruit farm has also announced that strawberries and tayberries are ready and we're ready to go and pick them as soon as it stops raining!!!
As for France, blame that for my lack of posts lately. I ate a lot and fortunately walked a lot too so I didn't come back obsese as I thought I would. I did a great bread and croissant making course, ate the best bread (that I made) that I have EVER had, lots of fabulous french food, and have been cooking a lot more French stuff since coming home. It's so fatty though, so it will need to be a fad, not a new lifestyle. To counteract this, I'm going to go through my dessert recipes and throw out all the really fatty ones, as I have some great healthier ones these days and want to stick to those.
The 'baby' is growing up fast, he loves watering the path (not the plants), and brings his trucks out and loads them up with dirt and weeds while I work in the garden. He has no interest in cooking (sigh) but happily licks the bowls and eats leftovers or ingredients as I go, or just goes into a corner and plays with cars and leaves me to it. He's very independent these days, which allows me more time to do my own thing. He loves the chickens and is often found standing at the chicken coop saying 'hello chickens, how are you today?' or 'hello chickens, what are you doing?' very cute.
That's all from me, off to bed, it's a hard life being a housewife :)
If anyone wants those healthy dessert recipes, let me know
x

Newbie Chicken, dolls houses and mini vegies

Well, it's happened. Our Newbie chicken, the add-on who was always a bit of an outcast, got very sick and we asked our next door neighbour, who was more experienced than us, to help us to 'dispatch' her.  The dispatchment didn't go according to plan, but I watched the whole thing and to me she didn't seem distressed or in pain and I know overall it was the best thing to do. My husband ended up doing the deed and although he was nervous, he said afterwards that he could do it again. We feel like true farmers now; we can do even the harshest of jobs!

We have had a few people talk about keeping ducks and telling us how great they are - they're good for eggs and meat, etc but personally, I couldn't kill a duck. Don't ask me why, maybe becuase I've seen them in the whild more often, and fed them as a child, etc. Chickens seem more domestic to me, and - I hate to say it - not as cute as ducks. So I'll stick to my chickens, thanks!

We won't replace Newbie. I'm happy with my three, and they have laid twice as many eggs since Newbie has gone!

I've been having fun making craft stuff - this is very out of character for me, I am not creative or crafty at all and see it as a very daggy passtime. But it's good for kids, and the pre-school programs have some crafts that my son has enjoyed (well, I make them, he enjoys playing with them). He enjoyed playing with a dolls house the other day, so I decided to make one for him. It was very quick and easy, took about 1/2 an hour, cost me nothing, and has been hours of entertainment for him. Luckily, when kids are 2 they have no expectations about neatness or authenticity - if I give him a small tupperware container and call it a bath, and he immediately puts the little people in it and gives them a wash. He spent at least an hour opening and closing the windows and making all the people and furniture go out the window, then back in the window. I used a nappy box to make the house and furniture, a container for the 'bath' and an old cloth nappy for the carpet. I'll add a picture in a minute so you can have a laugh at my creation.

There's the bath in the back left corner, a bed with a blanket in the front left, a dining table and chairs on the right, and the people are little duplo people that I had when I was little. I'll add more chairs, some pictures and other decorations later - he seems happy with it for now.

We've also been harvesting lots of vegies from our garden. We have eaten our way through about 30 leeks, some beautiful cauliflowers, some early red onions (they taste fine half-grown and I haven't found a recipe that uses a whole red onion yet so the small ones are perfect) some carrots, silverbeet, and herbs. We've just planted some potatoes, hoping they don't get frostbitten, and broad beans. We're going away in September so I'm trying to get some things planted now, and will have to wait until we get back to do the rest. Getting someone to look after vegie seedlings isn't as rewarding as looking after the chickens - who will reward them with eggs!

I've got a big pot of tomato sauce boiling away on the stove and I can just smell it now. We had left-over tomatoes at the end of summer, which we froze. Now we've run out of sauce, I'm making a new batch that we can eat with our home-grown, home-made potato chips in a few months. Yum!

I've also got a photo of some baby vegetables - sometimes our broccoli and cauliflower come out pretty small. The broccoli will grow heaps of side-shoots that will produce far more than the original head, but the cauliflower is just plain tiny! At least the ckickens enjoyed eating all the outer leaves. I'll show a photo here - don't they say baby vegies are packed full of vitamins!? That's what I'll tell myself as I eat my mini ones!

That's all for now, I'm off to inhale more of that tomato sauce. You have to strain it to get the right consistency and I'll add all the left-over chunky bits to some mince and make hamburgers tomorrow. Last time I did that with left-over stock vegetables they were the best burgers we'd ever had :)
x

Making my own food

It's back to work now and I'm finding it harder to get things done somehow - winter makes getting out of bed so much harder! But staying home part-time in winter is so much nicer, I get to be outside during the day and at least see the sky, if not the sun. Having to go to and from work in the dark is in the past these days and I love it :)
I've got some lovely warm clothes and a good raincoat, and so does my son, so we just go outside in the wind, cold or rain, and enjoy it. When you have the right gear and you're not frozen when you're outside, it's actually quite nice!
I've been making lots of my own food these days. I made a committment to a 1 million Women website that I would cut down on packaged foods. It was somehting I was doing anyway, but I'm really noticing the difference when I go to the supermarket and my trolley doesn't have much in it any more. I'm also noticing that I spend more time in the kitchen, but as long as I'm playing music or have someone to talk to, I enjoy it. I'm really proud of the things I make myself and I'm much more likely to eat it, share it and make the most of it when I know how much effort went into it! I'm also learning lots of new skills, saving money, being environmentally friendly, and learning to be patient.

The things I make or grow that I used to buy include:
Breakfast cereal
Bread (normal, flavoured and fruit loaves)
Pizza bases
Naan bread
Pitta bread
Jam
Pesto
Relish
Soft Cheeses
Yoghurt
Sour cream
Vegetables
Herbs
Salad leaves
Fruit (berries mainly, but we've planted apples and apricots)
Herbal tea
Pasta sauce
Tomato sauce
Barbeque sauce
Bean shoots
Deoderant
Cleanser
Soap
Washing liquid
Sponges

I'm also buying things like sugar and flour in bulk, using dried beans and lentils instead of canned ones, and using leaf tea instead of teabags (it's better quality and cheaper!)

I want what I'm doing to be sustainable, so I'm not taking on more than I can manage - I've said no to extra work becuase to work an extra day a week would mean that I couldn't keep up with my home-made lifestyle. I prefer being home anyway. If something is too boring, too messy or takes too much time, I don't do it again. I'm also not making anything that's worse quality than the shop alternative. Most of it is waaaay better, which is why I'm happy to put in the extra effort. I'm finding that the few times I've bought a packet of supermarket pasta, or a can of baked beans (which I used to love!) they taste really fake now. I'm used to having such lovely food, I don't like the high-preservative, lower-quality food any more. Like my husband, I'm getting to the point where I can't go back and will just have to keep cooking!

I've also started digging up the nature strip in front of our house to plant more vegies (our neighbours' idea, we're doing it together) which will mean even more home-grown food! I've also convinced three people to make thier own yoghurt after they tasted mine - not bad huh! I need shares in Ezi-Yo now (although I'm not using their sachets any more, my neighbour taught me a yummier way!)

PS Newbie, the new chicken, is not happy. I think she's depressed. I'll never get a lone chicken again, poor girl! The others have finally started laying, we get about 1 egg a day. Still cold and dark for them.

Happy cooking, gardening, sewing/knitting, or just reading this and relaxing, thinking I'm mad for doing it
x

Holidays!!!

After a record long first term, the holidays are finally here. While parents around Tasmania are tearing their hair out, school staff such as myself are rejoicing - free time! Holidays! Yes, my child is at home with me, but being with him is fun and he still has a day sleep :)
So... I finally got around to taking some photos of my latest works:

These are trousers for Anders - made from my mum's old skirt. I was so sure I'd fail, I didn't want to waste money on new material. He's worn them once and EVERYONE commented on how great they were - having no idea that I made them (of course I proudly told them all, whether they cared or not!) I was surprised at how easy they were to make, and how persistant I can be - I stuffed up the waistband, had to unpick the whole thing (and I'd stupidly used 1mm stitches thinking it'd be really strong - almost impossible to unpick). I nearly gave up then, and there are some holes in the material where I unpicked the trousers not the stitching, but they were ultimately fixed and finished. I'm definitely not buying trousers for him for a while when they're so easy to make!

This is my giant cushion - I just loved them in the shops and wanted one, but two other upsides are that it helps relatives of mine who can't easily get up from our very deep, soft couch and it's sooooo comfortable to lie on and watch telly when I'm too tired to do anything else :) 

I have a lot of pregnant friends and decided to try to make bibs - I never had enough, even though I had at least 20. I only had to buy terry toweling for the back-sides (so they absorb spew and dribble) and the front sides were from bits of material I had lying around from previous abandonned projects. I've made 15 and have another 1 or 2 to go, and again I was surprised at how easy they were. Maybe they'll fall apart in the first wash or actively repeal spew, who knows, hopefully the recipients will be too polite to tell me if they do!

More bibs, and a little bunny I knitted with leftover wool from Anders' jumper. I'm going to try to make a bunny for each baby too as they're little and cute, easy to make, and safe for babies.

The patterns and instructions for everything I've done I've found on the internet - usually on people's blogs. I'm not good at research and I don't spend much time on the computer, yet I've found all these simple, reliable, free projects with very little effort on my part. Yay for the internet!

Botched Jobs:

I've stuffed up pretty much everything I've made so far.

- My soap has rusty marks from where I dried it on metal racks - next time I'll use plastic ones.

- Anders' knitted jumper was too short - I should have measured it but I didn't. It took me two nights and a lot of guts to pull the bottoms apart and knit some additional rows.

- The trousers were too long, Again, I measured them against other trousers of his but should have put them on him. I'll have to take the hems up before he wears them again.

- My cusion was over-stuffed and felt like a brick. I had to unpick the inside pillow section, take some stuffing out and sew it again. 

- the toy astronaught I made Anders was really cute but I forgot to pull out the arms when I turned it inside out (photos next time) so the arms don't have any stuffing in them. The eyes are also a bit wonky, but I figure he's an alien - they can be however we imagine them to be.

I have started so many new things and done each one of them once. Of course the first attempt at most things isn't going to be perfect, and it's been really frustrating at times, but I keep telling myself that I'll know how to do it better next time (and I will) and I've really surprised myself at how patient I've been and how willing I am to problem-solve and fix something when - if it was something I'd bought that didn't work - I would have just thrown it away.

I've also been busy in the garden but I'll save that for next time! :)
Happy holdiays everyone who has them :) x

Photos of a housewife's work



Yes, he is holding a dust-buster, helping with the housework already!



Hmm, I haven't managed to work out how to get the photos and writing in any sort of order so... Here's my son's debut as a knitwear model. I think he's done quiet well, although there are plenty of other photos of him scoffing the biscuit that he's got in his hand here that weren't so photogenic. I painskakingly knitted this jumper, had to re-do the front 3 times becuase I kept chatting or getting engrossed in something else and made mistakes, and yet at the end of it, after saying 'never again' during the whole process, I decided I wanted to make another! I'll do it next winter.

The jumper is a bit short on him, so I'm going to try to stretch it somehow. Anyone got any ideas?

This is the quince paste I made - a huge batch that will hopefully last until the next quinces come into season in 12 months time. I haven't go the hang of making it properly - some of it was not cooked enough, this batch was proabably over-cooked, but the only difference is the colour. It tastes amazing, is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying it ($5 worth of quinces and some sugar is a year's worth of qunice paste) and it gives me an excuse to buy cheese...

My son again, this time modelling the home-made playdough tomliboos (from a TV show similar to Tellie Tubbies, don't ask) I made this beautiful playdough with orange escence accidentally, thinking it was yellow food colouring. So now it smells great too! He doesn't look very impressed with my Tomliboo-making skills, but I had to make them for 90 minutes, while he squashed every one of them and then asked for another. This was a rare moment when I had three un-squashed ones together :)

I'm now tyring to sew. I have my Gran's beautiful 70's brown sewing machine with immaculate case lined with bright yellow daisy wallpaper. It's very simple, which is good as I just randomly pick a setting and hope it works. I've made a huge cushion (I always wanted one and they're over $150 in the shops, I can just imagine my husband saying 'you spent WHAT!? on a CUSION!!!???') this one cost me $10 at the Salvos, buying old cusions to use for the stuffing. I'll take a photo of it for next time. I'm also making bibs as 7 of my friends are pregnant, 6 of them with second children. I discovered you can never have too many bibs, and they're too gross to re-use after one child has spewed on them consistently. So I'll see how I go. I have made 3 so far and they're not perfect but hey, I'm learning, and they're only going to get spewed and dribbled on, I think they'll do the job just fine!

The chickens are going well, still not laying but they're happy and it's nice looking out the window and seeing them there. They're also helping us to plough through the hundreds of self-sewn silverbeet plants (phew!)

Off to bed now, what an exciting life!

x