Really, it can't be february...

Summer is nearly over (though it is still hot!) and I have not posted for so long! I have no idea where January went! But back to earth today with the first day of school for my lovely Stel. She was so very brave and I hope desperately she is enjoying her day! It was a beautiful welcome for her, with the whole school waiting to greet the new students. There was a lovely Powhiri for the class one kids and their family, with songs and speeches. And then we were greeted one by one by each teacher and staff member which made it all seem so inviting. Her teacher is fresh and young and all I can hope is she enjoys every minute she is there :) If not, there is always homeschooling!!!
The garden is chugging away. Mostly providing pumpkins and tomatoes...and the now dreaded giant zucchini! I am waiting for a batch of zucchini coconut loafs to finish cooking, then I shall be making zucchini banana bread, before venturing onto zucchini orange chocolate loaf (which will use up about 2 of my 5 gigantic zucchs!!! They shall be heading for the freezer to be munched on during winter, when I shall be glad to see them :)
It is about now I am planning my winter veg, and I have prepped some of the soil for planting. It just gets so hot when I am ready to do work, I can't bear to go out in it! We are officially in a drought in our town...first in 100 odd years and we are brown! there is a sprinkler ban (for those who use one) and if the rain doesn't come we won't be able to use hoses soon!!!!! Madness!!
I have been trying to keep up with the 100ft diet. Half the food on our plates every night would be ours...lets hope I can post some pics soon :)

100 foot challenge

Who can resist....

I have been setting up my garden for a while now, and we have some produce ripening up. While my resolution for the year is to decrease my reliance on the supermarket, this challenge fits in with this nicely :) I completely agree with the notion that growing your own food is a revolution in itself. The challenge, set by the folks over at pathtofreedom.com, is to eat just one meal a week grown from your own garden. We do try to eat from our own garden everyday at the moment, sometimes a whole meal, mostly just the veges. But we can all do it. Take power, feed yourselves...it's not that hard and even the smallest garden can provide food.

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 :)