On my plate

Hi there, I hope you're doing something lovely with this beautiful, if somewhat hot, weekend.  I have a thousand things I could be doing but I'm lying in the hammock, under a tree, writing a post.  I've been sewing Christmas presents this afternoon and Belle has been working alongside me.

I'm loving this time of year.  I'm trying to fly through my household chores early, leaving the day free to teach the kids and then spend some time in the garden.  I'm trying to get out into it at least once a day.    That way, I can identify any problems early and I'm also aware of the food available for eating.

The little round garden is jam packed with veggies.  I've chosen to cram it all in because our biggest issue here is water.  I want to grow as much as possible in the smallest possible space so that I only need to keep one area of ground moist.  It's working quite well except I keep wanting to plant more seedlings so the 'one area' I need to keep moist has expanded to include two other small beds!  Oopsy!

      

In the round bed I have tomatoes that are looking very promising, eggplant, capsicum, some holey silver beet (haven't found the culprit yet), spinach, peas, leeks, carrots, dill, coriander, lettuce, nasturtiums, viola, beetroot and kohl rabi.  Of those vegetables we are harvesting lettuce, peas, a couple of carrots, spinach and the viola and nasturtiums.

I have been loving looking around the garden and planning our meals around our produce.  Yesterday I had eggs from the chook shed, goat's cheese in the fridge (thanks girls) and spinach in the garden.   Well the obvious choice was a spinach and goat's cheese quiche with a garden salad of lettuce, peas and edible flowers.  Yu-uum!! 

Now THIS is what I aspire to!  A healthy, delicious meal using ingredients from here, our place, creating next to no emissions caused by food transport, improving the soil due to us adding carbon to the soil in the form of compost during the gardening process.  What's not to love?!!

Of course, there were other ingredients, such as salt and pepper, that were bought in, but all in all, a much better way to provide food. I would be happy if I produced a meal this sustainable once a week, ecstatic if I managed it two or three times a week, and completely, absolutely smug beside myself with happiness if I could do it all the time!

Is this your aspiration too?

Slow living in June (Monthly nine)

Brrrrr!  I hope you've found your beanies, scarves and thermal underwear.  It has been sooo chilly this past week!  I'm snuggled in front of the fire as I look back fondly on June before I rush headlong into July.  The winter solstice has passed so I'm savouring the cold weather while I can.  Before we know it, summer will be back.

I'm joining Christine at Slow Living Essentials as she hosts our bloggy records of our achievements in June.  Click on the button below to see what others have been doing.

Nourish - We ate cheese, cheese and more cheese as I experimented with flavourings for my newly learnt skill.   We celebrated two important birthdays in the last week of June.  Hubby turned fifty and Rosie turned twenty-one!  The focus of everything in my month was organising a celebration while still continuing with teaching my children and caring for the animals.  Our June nourishment revolved around preparing party food for others while I cooked enough to entertain large numbers.  My poor family didn't get much TLC in June.  Hubby and the kids had to get used to smelling the aromas of dishes wafting from the kitchen while being told not to touch!  I fed them on the quickest, most basic food I could throw together.  Oh, and cheese!

And how could I forget!  I had to perfect a mulled wine to serve our guests.  The temperature was only eleven degrees on the big day so the warm wine was a hit.  I ran a practice batch at home and loved the results.  The house smelled beautiful and it was deliciously warming!

Prepare - A generous family with an olive glut meant I finally had the opportunity to try my hand at olives.  Daily rinsing is still taking place.  The pot smells so good and olive-y as I tip off the rinse water each day!

Reduce -  With Plastic Free July firmly in my mind, I was very conscious of not producing too much plastic waste.  Plastic Free July starts today and I'm really looking forward to the challenge this year.  I encourage all of you to take part.  It is just a personal challenge but really gets you thinking.  By preparing party food in advance and by choosing a menu around ingredients that I already had on hand, I was able to feed many people without creating too much rubbish.  I did buy several packs of those disposable takeaway type of containers, a packet of paper straws, a packet of paper napkins (plastic wrapped of course) and three packets of pastry which created plastic waste.  I'm sure there was more rubbish that I've forgotten to mention but all in all I was very happy with our efforts.

I enlisted the children to help label home made drinks

Green - I made some soap with our goats milk.  It looks lovely and I'm looking forward to trying a few more recipes. 

I made labels for party glasses from old wine corks.  They looked quite effective on the kid's drinks.

terrible photo but just to give you the idea

Grow -  The garden did it's own thing this month.  I didn't really give it a look in.  It still served me well by providing rhubarb for my fizzy rhubarb drink and I managed to weed my way to some chives that I used for one of my cheeses.  I thought I'd lost them forever in the jungle but some persistent pulling out of grasses revealed a lovely healthy patch of yummy chives!

Create -  Sorry, not much to report here.  Just many ongoing projects.

Enhance -  I was on the receiving end of this category as many friends pitched in to make our celebration a success.  Friends and family cooked dishes, set up a kids play area, helped on the night and one even brewed some beer!  Thank you everyone!

Discover - The children have been learning about Australian history and I have become very interested myself along the way.  I've been borrowing books from the library about family life in the early 1900's.  I've also been delving more deeply into Pat Coleby's Natural Goat Care because one of the goats has developed foot rot.  I thought I had been doing such a good job of caring for them but it's a huge learning curve!  I've also begun a new Coursera course about... (you guessed it) changing the world.  I do enjoy a small challenge!! Lol

Enjoy - I've enjoyed family, friendship, rain and bitter weather which served to emphasise the cosiness and comfort of our home! 

I hope your June was lovely too!

Making

Autumn and winter weather is just wonderful for getting projects done.  In looking for excuses to stay near the fire but still be productive, I've been busy trying new projects as well as making old favourites.

I made quince paste recently (which I have made before) but I took it off the heat way too early.  The next day I put it back in a pot and heated it again.  It took another two or three hours of constant stirring but it worked!

This last month I've started experimenting with my goats milk too.  The first couple of months that I had the does, I was so busy learning about milking and adjusting to the new routine that I couldn't ever imagine getting around to being creative with the milk.  However I've finally reached the stage that I have snippets of time to play with it. 

I love our milk.  It's so pretty, frothy and white as I carry it in from the 'milking shed'.  (Really it's a hodge podge affair of some temporary, but comfortable, pens and a milking stand that Hubby made.)  I've tried my hand at a proper cheese after making one by separating the curds and whey with lemon juice.  Now I have a couple of cultures and some rennet.  The first cheese I tried was a very simple Fromage Blanc which comes out as separate, little crumbly bits.  It's very yummy and great for cooking with!  I've used it on pizza, in soufflé and even in a cheesecake.

Now I'm trying to master a more solid cheese.  A fellow blogger sent me a recipe for a cheese she often makes and I've read and re-read it.   Thank you Cath for giving me the encouragement to try!  Cath sets it in round moulds which really appeals to me but it uses a different culture which I have yet to buy.  So I began experimenting with a Bondon cheese which I press between two boards.  The first one turned out well so I am making it again.  This time I will add herbs to the cheese rather than just salting it.  I'm determined to make a good cheese to use on a platter. 

I also ventured into the goats milk soap territory recently.  I couldn't find a suitable recipe but I shouted out on Facebook and someone found one I could use.  I didn't want to use coconut oil or other fancy oils.  I just wanted a very simple soap.  This one used a bit of glycerin and has oats in it.  I can't wait for it to set so I can try it.  It looks great at this stage.

A friend rang last week to ask if I wanted some excess olives from their tree (um... YES!) so I now have a big pot of olives soaking on the dining table.  In such a small house there was nowhere else for it to go.

We have an event coming up so I've been making fizzy rhubarb, ginger beer and lemon cordial as well.  Hubby's been brewing up beer and trying his hand at cider (from a kit).  It's been a very productive household - we can hardly move for brews and concoctions but it feels good!

Have you been 'making' too?

Slow Living Diary - May

Well I can't believe it but a month has just passed without me writing a single post!!  That hasn't happened since I began this blog.  I actually did write a post but had such issues uploading photos due to limited data allowance that I just gave up.  Then, when it was all sorted, I found I'd lost my mojo. 

Luckily it's time for me to recap my month.  That should get me back on track. I'm joining in with many other bloggers to take part in Christine's Monthly Nine over at Slow Living Essentials.  I have heaps to tell you as I haven't been keeping my regular blog record.  The goats have become a bit all-consuming because I'm now milking morning and night so we've been productive!

*Takes a deep breath.....* here goes!

Nourish - The porridge has moved off the stovetop and onto the fire.  I love the cosiness of wintery weather.

I've also made cheese for the first time ever.  I'm in LOVE!!  A simple soft goats cheese that tastes yummy on biscuits and I have also used it to make a baked cheesecake and a goats cheese soufflé.  I will definitely be making the soufflé again!  Yuummmm!

Prepare - We are lucky enough to have heaps of Fowler's jars.  This is my first year of preserving so I've used a few, had a failure with one batch of tomatoes, but am enjoying just staring at my growing stash of food!  Preserved food is the homeliest decorative effect I've ever seen!  I still have plenty of jars left so next year I'd like to preserve even more now that I've tried my hand at it.

I was given some green tomatoes and I made my first ever green tomato pickles.  I also made quince paste.  Originally I took the mixture off the heat far too soon and it didn't set.  The next day I reheated it with success.  So now I know that you can successfully recook quince paste.

Reduce - I'm happy to say we have reduced our food packaging!  With our own milk, together with the preserving, we are using heaps less throw away containers.  A few years ago, we changed from regular milk to powdered in an attempt to reduce the rubbish our milk consumption was creating.  Well now, since February, we have been enjoying waste-free milk galore!  I did purchase some milk bottles because I have been sharing and swapping my milk on a regular basis.  I kept running out of containers.  I think the new bottles will be worth their weight in gold for keeping the milk storage organised.  I just need to count on people returning the bottles and I'm sure they will.  That will make my purchase justifiable.

Green - Same old, same old.  I try to keep all chemicals out of the house with a good amount of success.  I haven't made soap for ages though, so we have had to buy soap (oh the shame) and we bought a bar of abrasive soap so that gardeners' hands would be clean enough for milking time.  We have no commercial cleaning agents - soap powder, shampoo,  deodorant, dishwashing liquid, surface cleaner (except an old container of Gumption) anymore so all feels good!

I've been making hand soap recently too.

Grow - Garlic, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, silverbeet, rocket and mustard are all happily growing away in the garden.  I've been removing netting and adding manure and mulch to all the fruit trees.  I've planted a little garden in the orchard for the chooks.  They have rocket, mustard and nasturtiums that I transplanted from selfseeded plants in the veggie garden.  I've netted over the top in the hopes that the plants will grow undisturbed while the chooks nibble away at anything that grows through the netting.  I do wonder though, if I should change the bird netting for chicken wire.  I did it this way because it was easier but I might pay the price later.  I think that's a new job I must add to my long mental list that I carry with me everywhere!

Create -  I haven't got back to my quilting at all this month but I received lots of helpful advice from readers on how to stop it losing shape.  Thank you!  I must get back to this project.  I've picked up the knitting needles a couple of times but I'm not getting far!  I tend to knit while I'm watching the children at swimming lessons but half an hour a week is not getting the jumper done.

Discover - I've been learning new recipes as I try to find new ways to use my goats cheese.  I've learnt to make green tomato pickles.  Belle has also achieved heaps in this category.  She can now independently milk a goat at the age of eleven. 

Enhance - I spent a night in Melbourne to attend a workshop.  We were taught the best ways to support families digesting the news that their baby has Down syndrome.  I was glad to learn of all the support available and to feel that I actually am well placed to support others.  Nothing beats first hand experience!

While I know it's not what this category is about, my garden has been enhanced by nature!  It's rained a couple of times recently.  Really rained!  Now everything looks happy and healthy.

Enjoy - I enjoyed watching the freedom my children have now that we educate at home.  Their creative play is wonderful!  Belle read The Indian in the Cupboard to the younger children.  They then set about building a tee-pee which soon became an Indian settlement with three tee-pees.  Then one of my little Indians (Pumpkin) branched out to become an Australian aboriginal with her own camp nearby.

Buddy Boy plays football by himself on a daily basis and has created a couple of imaginary team mates called Snot and Booger!  Eeewww!  He is such a 'boy'!!

I am never lacking an amusing moment with my children around.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to start living June!  Stay happy!