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