Enough already.

 I came across this interview with Vicki Robin of "You Money or Your Life" fame. Downloaded the book onto my magical Kindle......

Goodness. It has triggered a bit of serious soul searching and deep reflection. I know I am probably the LAST humanoid in the elegant frugality blogosphere to discover YMOYL but you know...better late than never!

Things I have discovered so far:

• I have some seriously $^@&ed up deeply held beliefs about money, work and what it is for.....ever as a free range chook. 
• I have enough. 

I REALLY do have enough stuff.

Anyhoo, I feel deeply inspired and almost giddy with anticipation. I feel like my eyes have been OPENED.





In other news, and in homage to all things wonderful and free, I started making Kiwi Vinegar today with some of the very last squishy kiwis. Its only been a few hours, but it is ALREADY smelling divine.

Recipe adapted from the pineapple skin recipe from WILD FERMENTATION by Sandor Ellix Katz.

Ingredients are:

• 1 liter rain water
• 60 gms sugar
• Squishy Kiwis
• 2 weeks.

How much does 1 liter of Boutique Organic Kiwi Vinegar cost to make?

However much 60 grams of white sugar costs.

Now that is elegant.

In other news, I am going to a Christmas in July well August celebration tomorrow night. In line with my new frugal elegance, I made 8 little jars of moisturizer to give out as presents.

Well, that's Friday and that is all.

Have decided not to spend any money this week. Given that I have ENOUGH and all. Except on food. And some unavoidable work travel expenses while I am in FNQ later this week.

Gook luck me!

Formic Acid and BAS statements

One of the down sides of being a free range chook is the requirement to produce a BAS each quarter. Here is Ziva helping me to sort my receipts out.......

In other news, ANTS discovered the Kiwi Melomel. Big long trail of ants climbing up and going in, no ants coming out, lots of ants floating on the top.

I fished as many as I could out.....and anyway it was time to get all the fruit out so I strained the whole lot into a new carboy....and capped it off with an air lock. Perhaps the judicious addition of some formic acid in the form of deceased ant carcases will only help....? who knows.

The crochet cardigan is going nicely thank you. The ducks have picked up their laying - YAY GO DUCKS.

I met the lovely Mr and Mrs Bredbo Valley View Farm at the farmers markets today. They had a little trailer fill of cute little show and tell piggies. SWOON.

Thats it for a Sunday.

Amen.

delicious

Two delicious things on this raining afternoon. Three if you count having a nap. Oh the life of a duck herding consultant!

Behold the Kiwi Melomel on day 3. The froth has gone. I think the froth was mostly pollen from the honey and a result of all the swishing and stirring to get the honey to dissolve on a mid winter day. 

And I have just ordered the yarn for a new project. How gorgeous is this crocheted cardigan! Gwynne from next door lent me the pattern. She has made the same thing but out of different wool. I fell in love with the colours as much as the pattern, so for once I am going to follow the pattern COMPLETELY and even use the SPECIFIED wool in the SPECIFIED colours! What fun to try a bit of compliance. How hard could it be?

everyone loves kiwi fruit

Enough already with the ranting. (sorry about that)

 We are on the last few buckets of this years kiwi fruit. I know I do go on about how perfect these vines are for ONCian regions......BUT THEY ARE! What else gives you fresh beautiful fruit in the DEAD of winter. Kiwi fruit are BEST when they are left on the vine until late June or July.  Of course, by this stage, EVERYONE in the neighborhood is after them.
 

Luckily bread trumps kiwi fruit, so it is easy enough to cajole the possums onto bread. But there was such a big crop this year there has been more than enough for everyone.

Mostly we just eat these fresh - tones of them every day. They also feature heavily in the daily green smoothie affair. AND this year I am trying them in my very first batch of kiwi hooch melomel. Yessiree folks. Its time for some more WILD FERMENTATION.We are still working our way merrily through bottle after bottle of cherry melomel (locally known as "cherry sherry") , sparkling wild plum melomel and um, I think that's it.) How on earth could sparkly kiwi stuff not work?


Above you can see 20 odd liters of water, honey and mushed up kiwis. Will keep you posted.

we eat weeds

OK, So, we are still worshiping at the altar of green smoothies. Between the raised garden beds and the green house we have a pretty constant supply of lovely greens for smoothies and salads.

Two "weeds" that used to be problems in one of the raised garden beds are nettles and what I now know is CHICKWEED. Regular viewers will know that I have a long term love affair going on with COOKED nettles, so imagine how excited I got when I read somewhere that they go just fine in smoothies and that somehow magically whizzing them up gets rid of the stingyness. (where does it go?)

After a few cautious trials I can happily confirm this to be TRUE.

But onto the CHICKWEED. In winter, my raised garden bets get sozzled in THIS which I pull out and toss to the ducks who much it down happily (I should have known).

Turns out it is CHICKWEED. Which is also, it turns out, perfect for green smoothies.

So this morning's concoction was:

Flaxseeds
Chia Seeds
Bananas
Kiwi  (YES! OURS ARE FINALLY RIPE AND DELICIOUS)

And from the garden, freshly picked:

CHICKWEED
NETTLES
Corn Salad
Parsely
Lettuce
Baby Spinach


Yum yum.

Money Diet Debt Challenge

OK. SO. I am feeling very inspired after hanging around at Adam Baker's Man VS Debt website In consultation with Mr Duck I am back on the money diet and WE have set ourselves a challenge to pay $20,000 in extra payments off the princess castle mortgage by the end of the calendar year.

Actually my goal is to pay off our house mortgage as soon as possible, but it makes sense to start off slowly and break it down into little achievable chunks. I think we owe just under $200,000. Not a lot by average standards, but WOW, wouldn't it feel great if it was a big FAT ZERO and we completely owned our happy home. Happy Christmas to US.

Those of you with a less irrepressible approach to high cash flow would already KNOW that there are two ways to make money......earn MORE and spend LESS. Usually I just focus on the first, but this time I am gunna focus on the second just as much if not more.





Here is Adam's TED x talk here.

My bible on the journey if Rhonda's DOWN TO EARTH book. I love this book so much.

Land of NO DEBT

Bring it on. 

Yours in BIG LOVE

To blog or not to blog.....

That is the question. What is a blog for? Does it matter if you only do it now and again? A lot has been happening internally, but not much of it is coming out in words, or even pictures.

I think I will take the camera out for a walk and see what is happening in my life.

There has been quiet. And ups and downs. And people behaving beautifully. And people behaving badly. Just people doing their stuff. Frankly I am not a fan.

The duck.

Out