Ho Ho Ho

Well another christmas passes, and we head for the end of the year. It has been a long time since I posted on here as we have been really busy! I had loads to prepare for the advent fair our school puts on. Then we had birthdays and chicken pox and last days at Kindy and Playcircle for the girls...christmas...and all that with a fair bit of gardening thrown into the mix! My lord the garden has really taken off. We have in about 60 ish tomatoes of various kinds, a couple of Zucchinis, gherkins, loads of beans, beetroot, lettuce, chard, carrots, broc, onions, and of course the ever moving sea of pumpkins! We have lifted out our spuds as we had them in early and they were ready. May try to put in a late crop...I have been fighting the birds this week for the christmas plums, which they love to peck and knock from the tree. It is a strange scenario, us being used to a later plum which seemed to just lazily hang its fruit out for weeks and weeks. This tree drops like a sudden shower of rain and there is a frantic battle, over the fortnight it drops, to get our fair share before they all rot on the ground. Anyways, I have stewed plenty and frozen them, plus made my usual 4 litres of plum sauce (which is the perfect amout to last until next season...we know by experience!) The apple tree has plenty of fruit growing on it, and we had a fair little crop of black raspberries this year. The other rasps are not fruiting as much but may be because they were transplanted during the year and might be better off from new growth next year.
So all in all we have had a busy old time. Big things to come next year, with school and kindy for girls, and me trying to get more out of the space we have in our yard! I hope to be more frequent at posting, and will try to diarise our progress...even if I may be the only one who uses the information, its good to keep a record :)

when all the batteries are used by munchkins....

Ok, so I had this plan I would post some crafty things I had done, but realised a miniature photographer had used up all the batteries in the camera. Despairing not I will now turn it into a post about self portraits and what children see...






Lucky they are so cute... and it's so interesting to see the world from their eyes sometimes...










The last pic is actually from my neighbours garden....so obviously a bit of fence jumping has occured!
So although I have some craft to share, this will have to do. Mind you these two are the best things I have ever made anyway :)

What we eat is killing us...

Big report out by the World Cancer Research Fund claiming what many an old wife has said for hundreds of years...we are what we eat...or as Hippocrates so eloquently stated "Let food be thy medicine ...". What the report actually says is that 95 % of cancers are caused by lifestyle. It highlights that people should not increase their weight after 21, meaning we should be lean, we should exercise more, drink less, eat less meat and eat NO processed meats (ie bacon, ham etc). We should also breastfeed for as long as possible, avoid sugary drinks and eat a plant based diet. This is a reasonable article on the topic...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/31/wcancer231.xml
Interestingly in NZ the tv news had this story as its lead, reported this information, yet somehow in summing up only really highlighted the body fat issue as being a major finding in this study! And they are not the only ones. Going through some of the headlines when I googled this report you would think that they had only said we need to look at this problem. Obviously obesity is a major issue, but the fact that we are being told to eat a plant based diet, limit our meat intake and eat no processed meat ( note that is THREE ways of saying try going veg) is being played down by many media outlets... In the end reports like these can only highlight the issues and people have their own right to choose how they respond to such findings. Just wondering how all those sausage and bacon makers might fare after today...
For me and my family I hear this information and I am glad my girls have never eaten meat. I am also glad I now have some weight to my arguement when faced with those...'are you sure they are getting all the right food...surely growing children need to eat meat...where will they get their iron from?' type questions.

And while I am on a roll, the weather today...

Weather forecasts are funny things. How can they tell what the weather will do tomorrow with so many variables involved? Last night, for instance, the weather forecast claimed we would have showers all day...



But this is what we woke up to this morning...sunshine! Not that I am complaining, in any way!!!

On a roll, or should that be a muffin...

I felt the urge to make muffins this morning. Mainly because I had some stewed fruit and didn't know what I was going to do with it
:) So as I lay half asleep I conjured in my head a batch of rhubarb apple and custard muffins...mmm...The challenge being to make them vegan. So I made a mix for basic muffins, added soy milk, oil and fruit in place of the milk butter and eggs, plopped some custard (also soy milk) in the middle and hey presto...They probably needed a tad more sugar, but they taste just fine otherwise :)

choc oaty treats

I love baking, and I am reasonably successful at most things I try. My only problem is I have children who prefer the dough to the end product! So the big people are left to eat it all...Until now... Now I have found the perfect compromise. It is from Leah Leneman's Easy Vegan Cooking, and it is called Oaty Chocolate Treats. I actually thought they were biscuits when I started making them the first time, and I got half way through before I realised they were not baked. They are a kinda fudgy sauce mixed with oats, fruit and nuts. But best of all everyone loves them in my house (for now anyway....) . I like them because they remind me of chocolate krispie cakes I used to make with my aunty Fofa :) (I guess you can use the same base recipe to make a vegan version of this old fave)

photo essay

This is how my 6 year old sees things around the house...

spring

So spring is happening right now all over the place! All my fruit trees have been flowering and greening up a little. I have been clearing beds and digging in compost in the past week or so. Also have got pots on the go, sprinkled with seeds such as mesclun, lettuces, basil and cocktail tomatoes. We have been germinating seeds, and trying to be patient. I find this time of year difficult...like doing prep for painting, I hate to have to wait! At least the weather is warming up and we no longer need fires and heaters :) And once I find batteries for my camera I can post the photos.

Dirt under the nails

You certainly know when it is spring as all of a sudden there is constant dirt under your fingernails! I do own a pair of gardening gloves, yet it just seems easier to get my hands dirty than actually go hunt them out from the shed. Today was beautiful and sunny, so I managed to spend a little time in the garden...after spending the morning walking about 3 hours to the markets, through town and back again! So I finally put in a few beetroot seeds, some rainbow chard/silverbeet and dug out an annoyingly placed agapanthus (which looked easier than it was!) I have also spent this evening putting seeds into makeshift seedraising trays (aka egg cartons, unrecyclable plastic tubs etc..) so come the equinox I will be all ready to go! Roll on summer!
And right now I am off to sit with the girls and watch some old films we rented from the best DVD/video store in town, Auteur House...you gotta love a video store set out by director, especially when you are an ex film student :) Singin' in the Rain will certainly make for light entertainment in comparison to the peak oil docos we have been watching of late!

The vegans might be onto something....

I was just reading over at Nikki's blog about her vegan leanings. The more you learn about the impact we have on the planet the more you realise that the vegans are onto something. One quote I read lately, which all those who are trying to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle should think about, (but can't seem to remember exactly where I read it!) was ...A Meateater on a Bicycle leaves a bigger carbon footprint than a Vegan in a Hummer. For the run down see easygreenatlanta.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_arch...

Our family have already chosen to be vegetarian, and it is difficult even for us to take it a step further. Well, not all of us...as my 5 year old announced a few weeks ago she has decided not to drink cows milk anymore. On questioning her reasons she told us that if all the people drink the cow's milk there won't be any left for the baby cows (I just about cried!). But the reality is that our current version of agriculture, in NZ anyway, creates more CO2 than our oil consumption! And aswell as that often pollutes our waterways and promotes the use of chemicals and hormones. Not to mention limiting the lifespan of the animals, and there are cruelty issues also. It is something to think about...

Realistically our family could survive on what we grow in our garden, if we plan well. That said we would have trouble with grains as space is an issue when your useable section is only about 890m2. Perhaps we could grow lots of buckwheat and corn? Or throw in a patch of wheat in our front yard if push came to shove. Like Nikki we can't have a cow or a goat, so dairy is out, but we have room for more chooks if we wanted to continue eating eggs. As they say, for evey problem there is a solution :)

Such a nice surprise

I am so excited...this is what I found this morning!

One of our artichokes has started to flower :)

Colours...

I just thought I would share some of the colours in our garden...it might not be spring yet but you can always find some colour if you look hard enough :)

Taking turns

I love the way the children at Stella's kindergarten work together. I know this doesn't happen everywhere, and it probably doesn't happen all the time, but they do seem to enjoy working as a team quite often. Here is a lovely example... when we went for a play at one of the children's houses during the holidays we left the kids to play in the garden while all the mums chatted. After a while we noticed they had worked out a system where eveyone got to have a turn on the one small trampoline that was in the garden...this is proof, and I promise no adults were involved :)

Waiting.....

I am now just waiting to get stuck into my garden....and waiting is so hard! I have been shifting grass this afternoon, to dig out a garden around the edges of our back lawn. It seems to be such a slow process but we are getting there. And I have thrown in some seeds, just because I am keen to get started. So I planted some marigolds, silverbeet/chard, calendula and nasturtiums so far. I figure they will take a few weeks to germinate and the fear of a late frost SHOULD be over by then. I have bought all me seeds for the vege garden, and planned it all so once we dig out the compost bins and get it all prepped it will be all go! I just found some pics of one of my vege beds at the beginning of summer last year, and it seemed so small ...by the end of summer it was NUTS! I just can't wait for it all to begin again!!!

big girl now...

So my baby just turned three...so hard to believe. Some days it feels like we have always known each other and other days I realise time has flown by so fast! She had a lovely birthday, and was incredibly blaise about gifts which is not a bad thing at all :)

planning in progress

So for some reason I have not made it to this point before now...busy, kinda. I have been filling in for my boss for a week (reminding myself why I don't want to work full time :) The weather, mixed with work, means the garden is looking very sorry for itself. But that should change next week (weather permitting!)I have mapped my beds out, I will be ordering my seeds for spring and getting things underway. Big plans...watch this space :)

Blimey!

I just went over to worstedwitch and saw this article! Seriously scary stuff!!!
http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/health-fitness/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_plastic_are_we_2_printer.shtml

midwinter gardening

Can it really have been nearly 3 weeks! No excuses really. We have had school hols, and crap weather...I blame that :)

I finally got into the garden this morning. It is more weeds than anything else, but I have started clearing them, so at least I can see the spaces I have got to plant in (when I can plant again). This is the hard part of gardening, waiting for that warmer weather so you can get planting again. I have been compiling lists of seed I HAVE to have. Haven't bought them yet, but don't know how much longer I can wait ;) At least I can get some seeds in trays in a month or so, and get the whole thing rolling. I keep daydreaming about lovely ripe tomatoes...

.

We did start digging around the edge of our back lawn so we can plant more around the edges of our section. It gets a lot of sun back there and really the fence wold be ideal for growing things up. Big plans on paper, just getting time and the right weather is the problem. I would love to not have lawn at all, but I am currently outvoted on that idea. And the kids need a space to run around like mad things! So I shall make do with the edges at the moment :)

Books and birds

It has been a little while since my last post, but you get that really. I have been busy painting our lounge and 'master' bedroom ,and the weather has been fairly miserable, so I haven't been all that motivated to do much...until yesterday. Yesterday I had a burst of creativity and I finished a doll I was reworking. I shall be finishing the little jersey I am knitting tonight, and then I will have three dolls to hand over for the school fair (which happens at the end of the year...).

I also just received one of the cookbooks I ordered few weeks ago. I have been vegetarian for more years than I haven't, but lately I have been trying to incorporate more vegan meals into our lives. So I ordered myself a copy of Vive Le Vegan in the hope I will be more inspired. It is one of those books often blogged about, and I am keen to work my way through a few recipes(particularly the cookies...my lord they sound so good). The other book I am still waiting for is Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World...the name sounds impressive enough, and the pics I have seen on various blogs look divine, so I cannot wait to get hold of a copy! I am a bit behind the times as I found it hard to get way over here...and that is saying something since I actually look after the Books page for the local daily paper and know most of the publishers who distribute here...but it is on its way now and I am excited :)

The garden is looking a little sad. My last cauliflowers were ruined in the rain we have been having (I am not god with waste...). The weeds are growing better than they should aswell. I need to get out there and do a good few hours of weeding (between frosts and rainstorms). The birds are happy though, as I have left a few apples on the tree for them all to enjoy. I love watching them all dancing about the tree, especially the Wax Eyes. They are like little green sparrows with white rings around their eyes. My camera is out of juice so I found this pic to show how cute they are :)Right... Best be off to clean up as my mother will be down for the day tomorrow....

Winter Solstice

It is the shortest day here, and I would put my garlic in if I could make it out to the garden ! Winter is here and quite frankly the garlic will be a week late by the looks of the weather forecast! It is also the middle of Matariki celebrations (Maori New Year)...which has become more and more popular over the last few years. Matariki is the Maori name for the Pleiades star cluster also known as The Seven Sisters. The celebrations are to mark the end of the harvest and the beginning of new planting. Matariki literally means the ‘eyes of god’ (mata ariki) or ‘little eyes’ (mata riki). Some say that when Ranginui, the sky father, and Papatūānuku, the earth mother were separated by their offspring, the god of the winds, Tāwhirimātea, became angry, tearing out his eyes and hurling them into the heavens. Others say Matariki is the mother surrounded by her six daughters, Tupu-ā-nuku, Tupu-ā-rangi, Waitī, Waitā, Waipuna-ā-rangi and Ururangi. One account explains that Matariki and her daughters appear to assist the sun, Te Rā, whose winter journey from the north has left him weakened. I just love that more people are rediscovering rituals which centre on the earth, the sun, the seasons, the cycle of life and the pull of the moon.

Stormy Weather...

It has been a day of extremes, sun, rain and now storminess! Our poor old chook, who is still recovering after being chased out of her roost in our lemon tree at 5.30 the other morning, is now roosting on our front porch. Desperate for a perch out of the wind and rain, she has taken to roosting on our jack and jill seat. She does have a perfectly nice coop, but has taken to her feral past of roosting in a tree. And being a temperamental fowl she will let none of us close enough to touch her, never mind pick her up and put her inside her house! So she has settled for who knows how long right next to our bedroom window...I hope she doesn't snore :)

...I speak for the trees

So it seems I am not the only person who has taken great offence to the tree felling. Last night a secret squirrel (and no it was not me) 'tagged' the wall behind which the trees used to stand. As I write this there is someone trying to wash it off, but it is going to be on the front page of the local paper regardless. So although the trees are now woodchips there is still a voice reminding us that we need to try and stop this from happening again.

The Lorax said nothing. Just gave me a glance...just gave me a very sad, sad backward glance...as he lifted himself by the seat of his pants.And I'll never forget the grim look on his facewhen he hoisted himself and took leave of this place,through a hole in the smog, without leaving a trace.And all that the Lorax left here in this messwas a small pile of rocks, with one word...UNLESS.Whatever that meant, well, I just couldn't guess

Trees vs progress

As I rode to drop Stella off at kindy this morning, through the foggy haze, I thought something was missing. The busy corner intersection just down from our house seemed different, but I couldn't quite work out why. It was on my return trip I realised that what was missing were the trees. On the corner is a large walled property which used to be the garden of the convent next door until they sold it off last year. The trees behind the wall were probably over a hundred years old and obviously in the way of whatever development is taking place! Our area has many old trees with protection orders on them, but because it is private property the developers can do as they please. And the worst thing is that the developers must have a sense of the upset it would cause as the trees were already felled and it was not even 9 am. I am guessing work must have started at the crack of dawn, before locals were aware it was actually happening. Progress wins this one.

On a cold and frosty morning

It was very cold this morning, and still is even though the sun is shining! My hands are still sore from the cold! The garden was frozen when I got out of bed, but is slowly defrosting now. It has been a whirlwind of a weekend...on Friday we found out friends were pregnant, and that another friend finally lost his fight with cancer. So the mood was somewhat melancholic. We also went to see the Dali Lama speak yesterday. I am amazed by the man's aura and presence. He was insightful, funny and wise. But at the same time he let his listeners be aware that he is just the same as us, a human being, with flaws. I could listen to him for days...

Don't you just love baking soda....

The stuff rocks, I have no idea why more people don't use the stuff to clean their house!
http://www.curbly.com/Chrisjob/posts/1629-Clean-Nearly-All-Your-Home-with-Baking-Soda

It has been a while...

Have not posted for a while. Guess I have been feeling like I've not got much to write about, and have my doubts as to whether anyone is actually reading this. Oh well, my purpose for starting this was to be inspired and I shall persevere to find inspiration.

Craftwise I am currently reworking a doll, dressing another and I am supposed to be cutting and sewing rabbits...but all I want to do is trawl the internet for inspiration.I have stalled slightly on my knitting too...

It has been cold and dank here, and so the garden is looking a little sad. Winter is the time for Mother Earth to rest so can't be too ungrateful for what she still provides for us. We still have parsnips and carrots in the ground, caulis, collard, kale, kohlrabi, celery, beets, rhubarb and leeks. And our oranges are ripening nicely on the trees, so we will be fine for eating for a while yet.

And my gorgeous gals still amaze me. They can be such hard work but are so damn cute!

Dolly is ready

I have finally finished my dolly, well mostly finished her apart from sewing her hat on. I do love their little faces, so cute and squidgey.

I have also been knitting a cardigan for my friends (yet to arrive) baby. So I have been busy but just haven't posted about it :)

The apples on our tree are finally coming to an end, so I have been stewing them up and freezing them (I hate wasted fruit). As we now have a freezer full of excess garden produce I think I had better make chutney from the last batch of good apples. It has been freezing cold in our little part of the world, with frost even! All the veges looked like they had been too llong at the back of the fridge when I got up this morning. The sun is shining now, which makes it more bearable, but winter is almost here . I am kind of looking forward to the chill, just not the getting out of bed on cold mornings! Oh well...

eat dirt

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_274/ai_n16359659?lstpn=article_results&lstpc=search&lstpr=external&lstprs=other&lstwid=1&lstwn=search_results&lstwp=body_middle
Just found this interesting article about allergies and anthroposophic lifestyles. It is a 1999 study, but makes interesting reading :)

the dirt

I have been able to spend some time in the garden this weekend, finally! We have two large vege patches and I have been trying to grow most of the vegetables we need. I hate supermarket shopping, so this is a way to spend less time there. Plus I love eating fresh spray free veges and fruit, so this is the best way I can do it! We also have fruit trees littered around the garden. We inherited an old apple, an early plum, an orange, a tangelo and a lemon tree when we moved here last September. We brought some trees from our last house, as the kids had bought them with christmas money from my 88 year old nana. So we also have two pear trees, a braeburn, two olive trees, a blood orange, a pink grapefruit, a clementine, two feijoas, a limequat, raspberries, blackberries and a blackcurrant bush. All of which are pretty small, but when they mature we should not have to buy much fruit either! I love the idea of being self sufficient, well as much as possible, but it is a long slow process to get to the point where you no longer need to buy all fresh produce...and sometimes I get impatient! Especially while drooling over the PathwaytoFreedom.com ....one day....

Hello Dolly

This is one of my latest projects, almost finished...although it does look like something out of Platoon at the moment. Stella is in her last year at Waldorf kindergarten, and Ruby goes along to playgroup in the same building once a week. They both love it, and we really are keen for them to continue through this education system as it feels right for us. So as a result I have become part of the craft group which makes gorgeous things for fundraising events. This is my latest dolly, my third thus far. Really close to being all stitched up into her finished form. It is hard to give them back, as you end up putting so much into them...

You have to start somewhere...

Rainbow fairies come to me,


Dance upon my paper free,


Help to make my painting bright,


Filled with love and joy and light.

This is my first post as a blogger. I have travelled in blogland, finding inspiration from other blogs, priviledged to see into other worlds, families, lives and dreams. I have until now hummed and harred about joining in. Not because I don't want to share, but probably because I think I might not have anything worth sharing. But today I have decided to leap. If anything I hope that sharing will not only inspire me creatively, but will actually force me to finish all those projects I have started! So my first post is about my inspiration...both of them. Above is Stella who is five. She is a thoughtful soul, sensible, caring and kind. And below is Ruby who is two. She is the comedian in our family, always making people laugh.



I find inspiration in both, and here is a place I can share that inspiration with others.