bath tub tomatoes - STILL going!

We planted our bath tub tomatoes in March this year and here we are about to step into August, and they are still going - both cherry toms and 'standard' toms. Not only are the plants still alive, still producing quality fruit but they still have flowers on some of them! It's nuts and we are rapt.

I should probably say that the other day I did get stuff done. Put the timer on for 15mins, picked a room and started there. Then did 15mins in the next room. After that I was in the groove, and just kept going minus the timer and surprised myself with how much I actually got done when I wasn't thinking about how much there was to be done.

Michael undid the boys' bunks and they became two single beds again - much better for air flow.

Quinn's 2nd Birthday - Party Bags & mini-star-focaccia

Following from the bunting and toppers, these are the 'toot toot' and 'two toot' biscuits set out on the table. The little table tags for the biscuits were also made out of the offcuts from the invitations, and the font is CK Jot, a free download. It was a very windy (but pleasant) day, so the tape came out of the bag... lots! I make it a standard these days to take tape and extra 'hardware' with me - you just never know!

Today's images

Usually the light in the kitchen through the skylight lights up Brenna's name across the top of the tall cabinets... even though at the moment the skylight is covered to keep the heat out, still this picture is the light shining on her name where it found a gap between the cover...




and this morning for breakfast... a silly idea, really, in hindsight because the children had their Christmas stockings of course in the morning so they were really NOT that hungry when I made breakfast... at least Father Christmas here puts some 'good' food (tiny multi pack cereals which they love) in their stocking *wink* so they get a reasonable start to the day on Christmas morning...


So I made pancakes with apple - I saw on a blog somewhere just the slices of apple, and then I followed my shaped fruit theme and did some apple stars, some banana circles etc you could do anything you like with them really... they do tend to want to try and stick a little more, the fruit down side so just keep an eye on them and the fine film of olive oil in the pan.



and 'OTT chocolate fudge brownies' - it's a microwaveable recipe from Tupperware (thanks A!) but I did mine in the oven and the second time round, with the oven slightly lower and taking them out earlier than the recipe suggested for oven, they worked quite well. Fresh cherries and cream. Treat. Also a substitute-cross since I intended to use our fresh chook eggs and make pavlova... but in the end this was a one-less-thing-to-make and a lot less eggs - because the pavlova uses the white I would have then made a quiche with the yolks so two things to bake and the pavlova was a 1.5hr cook time... maybe that can be dessert later in the week... don't have to have everything on the one day, right?

Best wishes for the year ahead, staying safe and making memories.

One chook three meals.

I was sent this link (thanks Ma!) and tried it out. It worked even though we started with a small, rather than a large, chook. It would also make free range chook more budget-friendly and in most cases, a whole chook is more economical than pieces are anyway. Bonus being you get better stock with the entire chook being used, rather than pieces.

The first night we had the chicken pot pie. I used the slow cooker and let it do it's thing, then took all the skin and bone/knuckles etc out. I used a slotted spoon and took out meat and veges and put in a large pie dish. Then I scooped out some of the 'stock' and thickened it. Poured the thickened stock (gravyish) onto the meat and vege then in a lattice pattern, laid out the puff pastry. Little bit of milk on top, sesame seeds (can't remember if I had them but would have if I did) then into the oven on high. That was a winner.

After dinner, the extra meat (larger pieces) into a TW container into the fridge. The remaining fine chicken pieces, veges and stock, into another container and into the fridge (this bit you could freeze if you wanted to for a few nights time). The next night rather than the skillet chicken, we had chicken & salsa salad wraps - so flat bread, heaps of salads, sour cream and some salsa, grated cheese.

The final lot of chicken/vege/stock, gets used as the base for chicken noodle soup - add crushed angel hair pasta or similar/noodles and some peas and corn kernels. Heat until just cooked, serve with crusty bread. done. three dinners, one chook.

The one thing to note is when initially doing the chicken in the slow cooker, don't add any veges that you want to keep their colour... eg I would put the chicken, onion, herbs, garlic, potato etc but only add the peas and corn/carrot finely sliced, to the pie dish itself (rather than the slow cooker) just before putting on the pastry. That way the remaining stock in dish three, the chicken noodle soup, doesn't have colourless peas and faded corn, because you add them fairly 'late' in the process overall, as well. All up one minimal effort in the slow cooker with one chook equated to roughly three night's meals. Of course you don't have to have each dinner in a row one after the other, but they are different enough that you could if you wanted to. Hope that helps. Happy cooking.

Making buttons

It's that time again that the tall gums across the road are having their trim. Some quite enthusiastically being trimmed. So we sent a little note and some candy canes (we've run out of gingerbread men), to ask if the loppers might put aside some branches (only if it wasn't too much trouble) as the children want to cut them into rounds, sand them down and make buttons. They make buttons at school this way to finish off their handwork projects, and with very local very fresh timber coming down across the road, as B said it's such a shame to see it go to woodchips. We also watched as very suitable for furniture-making pieces came down, and went in the mulcher... if I thought I would get to making something from them before the termites made lunch from them, I'd have seen about those if the loppers were happy enough to. I made one little stool from our park gum branches collected from the ground, while I was pregnant with Brooke over ten years ago LOL and haven't made another since. It was good fun, even if it was hard work getting up off the floor when I'd finished! :)
The guys read the note and were more than happy to save us some branches - thanks guys, much appreciated.

The Biggest Kitchen Table - Preserving/Canning

Reading this lovely blog 'Down to Earth' as I do, this most recent post is on preserving/canning... something I've always wanted to do but been too chicken to actually do... instead I have frozen all the things I've made like pasta sauce and so on. I know it's not the most energy friendly way to do it but there are so many methods out there, so much advice and well, when you want to start it's a bit much and you really don't want to mess it up - both for health and dollar reasons... so I'll be plodding through the comments and blog links in the comments on that post... and seeing how I go.

Wassup in the garden

Just a quick update - previous garden posts here. Strawbale bed: Various lettuces going well, chilli on the plants, baby capsi coming on. All the herbs doing well. Corn growing good. Feral spuds doing well. Silverbeet making a move. Feral something-or-others coming up (likely to be melons). Marigolds coming back. Feral cucumbers doing well and flowering. Here's how the strawbale bed started...
Under the mandarine tree: feral tomatoes going nutso - plenty of flowers so we won't have to buy toms soon. New feral toms coming up as well - I find it we chuck our tom seeds in the garden wherever, new plants come up so we should have a reasonably kinda regular tom supply. Mandarine tree going well. The red toms in the pic on the left are feral ones from the seeds from the ones Mum and Dad grew, and bought some down for us last time.
Fruit tree bed down side fence: apricot, 1 plum, lime going well. Other plum (corner behind cubby) was mysteriously snapped in half while we were away... so I pruned it back, watered it up and it has new shoots on the base. It will be coming out and going in a pot/somewhere else. New plum to take it's place and Brenna's Angel Peach is going in today as well. Growing feral in that bed is melons, pumpkin, zucchini, tomato and I've scattered capsi seeds from dinner so they'll be up soon no doubt. On the fence in the pot that Dad made from a boat buoy is strawberry and oregano - no idea if this is a good bug combo, it's just what got put in the pot because we had excess oregano seedlings. Sberries further protected by the big spiderweb spanning the 'arms' of the pot.
Pots: feral toms, chives, silverbeet and a handful of herbs including lemongrass from Lara, growing well.
Triangle bed: harvested the last of most of the zucchini which are slowing down now, the tomato 'trees' remain (cherry tom plants but gee they're tall) and are loaded. Michael wants to put strawberries in there, I'd like to put taller things in there and save the strawberries for other spots - the strawberries are going in tho. Next to that bed is the mulberry which has had it's prune (it runs a muck!) - well it's had the prune that I can reach and my stomach muscles can handle at the moment so it is a nice shape for the most part and then kinda has a mowhawk on top - Michael's going to sort the mowhawk out!

I've concluded I like large cherry toms better than standard tomato, they come on quicker, ripen quicker and are a little more versatile and don't seem as prone to bugs etc maybe because they're not on the bush for so long? Still to go in is Brenna's lavender from Grandma and Grandad for Christmas, and the Rosemary from Brenna's Birthday from the C Family... still prepping that part of the garden... won't be long though! xo

In this quest for Simplicity...

Many of us, or many people I spend time with, talk about simplifying their lives - in several ways. Of not getting caught up in the ever-escalating consumerism, of not becoming someone who has 'one of everything' or a million of something that they really don't need... of not always being so busy that there's never time to observe, reflect, and even just think - you know, feel the breeze on your face, the sun on your skin, the joy in watching things grow.

The thing is... many of us begin this quest already in the middle of a very un-simple life. Different it would be had we started off with this simple aim in mind, or began that way as children.

The way our towns and cities are set up - there's very little that's within walking or biking distance. Our main 'travel' every day is for school - yet that time is well worth it when I consider the schooling our children receive... for that schooling is nothing that mainstream schooling can offer. We really have to work hard to 'make' things come back within that walking or riding distance... it can be done of course, it's just a challenging beginning when you work out that most stuff you actually can't walk or ride to as you'd prefer (hence my wish for a Christiania bike - then all I'd need to drive for on a regular would be school).

The way our families are set up and spread out - there's a minimum travel distance to see any of them really. Which is not to say you want to live in each other's back pocket - certainly not - but the option of walking down the road to Nanna's would be nice... not just for us but for the kids.

The way our houses are set up - electricity/gas is required... having just put solar in, we're getting there and planning rainwater tanks soon - but there's still this endless list of 'bills' that come in that seemingly there's not much to do about them. We keep the internet because the library is a good drive, and not always convenient to our needs in terms of opening times (yet to find one that's open at 1.15am when I have a question about fruit trees)... we keep the internet in order to simplify our lives so we don't have to go to (drive to) the post office to queue up and pay the bills... we keep the internet to reduce spending on phones to speak with our loved ones who live a long way away... we keep the internet to send photos of events and happenings and really, to make connections with people who we otherwise wouldn't meet - because of how 'our' societies are so spread out - Eilleens consumption blog for example... I'd never have 'met' her nor anyone on Nappycino - who some are now in-real-life friends, and who I've learnt so much from and provide me with answers on living simply, or healthier, or making my own things... We keep the net to order products that simply aren't available locally due to ... well whatever - organic toys, bamboo fabrics and the like.

So I guess we just simplfy as much as we can... grow our f&v, support the local f&v when we can't grow our own, maybe chooks and definately solar and rainwater and keep an eye on our consumption and consumerism, be watchful in what our children are exposed to and 'pay the cost' of daily travel to ensure a whole education for them, not just an academic one... and ultimately aim for our dream of a services-self sufficient block, where the neighbours are a few minutes walk away and perhaps people we know who share similar aims... so that we can work smarter not harder to make it possible for each of our families. Ya think?