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!

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.

Apron Swap

We return now to regular broadcasting.........

Remember the apron swap? Well, in the end, I was super happy with my sewing achievements. This gorgeous thing safely made its way to Eileen in California. HOW COOL IS THAT!

I found the most beautiful 1920's reproduction apron pattern. Fellow ONCians, if you are interested, I am happy for you to trace your own version from mine, It is so lovely lovely lovely.

Looking at these photos taken by Mr Duck just before I posted it off, I realize how much linear time has slipped by....that would be a T-SHIRT I am wearing, and those would be bright green leaves on the Kiwi Vine....which are still green, but with crunchy frosted bits on top and masses of ripening kiwis.......

So. I declare I can SEW. kinda. If you don't look too closely.......

AND, no photos yet, but I did receive the most gorgeous lovely apron from Eileen in return.

I love a good global swapping project!

Namaste.

Ducks, Humans & Comfrey

From my desk where I am busily procrastinating, I can hear the ducks munching away on the comfrey. They love it. I love it too. I know some folks are a bit thing about eating it but I must admit I do whack whole leaves of the stuff into my green smoothies. The hysteria about comfrey being poisonous seems a little (lot) over blown to me. From what I have read, the leaves are PROFOUNDLY good for you, quite safe and no bad things have happened to anyone from eating them......

Anyway, I trust the ducks.


In other news, even though they are moulting, these girls are STILL laying their beautiful big fat orange yolked eggs.Thats 9 months straight - for 2 and 3 year old duckies. HAZZAH for ducks.

Must be the comfrey.

kiwi cuttings - plants for FREE

OK, so I did a little research. Yes, I know, I am meant to be writing a report for someone....so naturally my attention turns to anything but........

Looks like Diggers WILL be selling Issai again later this year. Hooray!
But I am gunna make some for free.

These nice people here at The Walden Effect say it is FINE to take soft wood cuttings in Summer. Well, it is almost still summer.....so here we go. They say SURE you can stuff around with rooting powders, propagation trays, heat mats and misters, OR you can just whack them into jars of water and see how you go.

So this is what I have done. I did add some VRM XLR8 Bio (link downloads brochure) for good measure, to help out compete bad fungi and help with root establishment. I also added a little rooting gel...........



Will keep you posted.

Meeting an old friend for the first time

Yesterday afternoon was a special treat. Rhonda from Down to Earth fame was in Canberra for a book signing, and my golly gosh I high tailed it through the rain over to Paperchain in Manuka to give her a big fat hug.

And I bought my first copy of Down to Earth. First, because I am sure I will be buying many more over the coming months as gifts.

And Rhonda signed it for me and drew me a duck.

This book is just beautiful.
And it felt pretty wonderful to give Rhonda and Hanno a big real hug.


Do ya self a favor.......get a copy.

More from that gorgeous girl at Itty Bitty

If Heidi lived near me, I think we would be friends. Well, I would stalk her and bring her home grown presents and flowers and make her cakes and cups of tea. I love this gal. You can see more of Heidi here.

Oh Blessed JOY

OK folks. This is the thing. I am frantically packing for New Caledonia. I leave at sparrow's fart tomorrow. Before you get all jealous, it is a WORK trip. I will be WORKING.

I am ALWAYS %#&*ing working it seems. Seems like I have been on the road for WEEKS. 

Anyhoo, I need to take some gear to wear on the landfill, (because that's how we roll) which means I have a bit too much luggage for carry on......So I need to take a larger suitcase.....which means it has lots of empty space, I mean, everything is just swiming around in there.


And then I realised


I can take my pillow.


My very own pillow.


Fucking bliss man.



Yes, I know. It is the little things.


Amen. 

Bragging Rights

Ok, I am trying not to be too smug here.....but here is the first tomato at duck herder central ripening on the vine. 

 Yup. In the glass house we have an apollo and a cherry tomato growing in large pots, sitting in a tray of water so they don't dry out. Being coddled and loved and fertilized and covered and double covered and well, here we are.

On the other side of the glass house we have tomatos slowly replacing auto pots of winter salad greens. The Auto pot system is great - only kind of hydroponics because you can grow the plants in soil rather than a non soil medium.

Meanwhile, the main tomato, eggplant and capsicum seedlings are hardening up outside.

Today is very windy - so they are being extra hardened up!

Just one more shot - of my lovely capsicum seedlings - these are "cherry time" - a small red cap. Everything looks very healthy. Growing veggies from seed is very rewarding. It also teaches you a LOT about soil and plant nutrition and soil biology and balance and health. It is all love.

Close rellies of HRH Queenie & the BEAST arrive on our shores

Swoon all of ye. Swoon all of ye and WEEP. (with JOY of course)

While Queenie will always be my first and only love, those amongst us who are not silly/obsessed/crazy enough to order their beautiful forever bikes unseen and un-tried directly from Workcycles in Amsterdam may wish to visit Emmi at Dutch Cargo Bikes (electronically or otherwise) to git yourselves something special. And Azor Oma.drool. drool drool.

Emmi is importing these NOW. For YOU. To LOVE FOREVER. 

I do feel quite strongly that if one is going to ride a  bike every day rain hail or shine, frost or sleet, one really really shouldn't be judged for going for FORM AND FUNCTION AND STURDY ELEGANT BEAUTY.


bthring bthring !!!!!

A Different Kind of Luxury

Yesterday I pulled out one of my favorite books to lend to a friend. I am very grateful to the weekend farmer for introducing me to this book: "A Different Kind of Luxury - Japanese Lessons in Simple Living and Inner Abundance"

Anyway. It is a beautiful book. Flicking through it again I found lots of little underlines and scrawls in the margins from my last reading. (Yes, I am one of THOSE people that likes to have a written dialogue with my books)

For example:

"If you have time, a lot of things are enjoyable. Making this kind of wood block, or collecting the wood for the fire, or even cleaning things - it's all enjoyable and satisfying if you give yourself time." Osamu Nakamura, (p70)

"Sometimes just to touch the ground is enough for me, even if not a single thing grows from what I plant. Often I'll go outside and just place my hands on the soil, even if there's no work to do on it. When I am filled with worries, I do that and I can feel the energy of the mountain and of the trees"Wakako Oe, p201

"It is important to me to be someone who has time...There's a term we have in Japanese, furyu: the characters are "wind" and "flow". Someone with furyu has time to write haiku, or can appreciate flowers, and they have space in their emotions to look at the moon or the stars. They're not too busy working or making money. Those people who don't have furyu are not full people." Gufu Watanabe, p245

"...the large external universe and the universe inside each person are not separate: they are the same. Thus dreams that jumans see are actually also the dreams of the universe. I don't feel that an individual human's origins and destiny are different from that of the universe as a whole." Masanori Oe, p285.

Its good instantly calming and centering and connecting-you-back-into-the-good-stuff stuff. May your lives be full of furyu.

upcycling a down dog yoga mat

So like the other night on the way back from cyd - ann - ee I just happened to be at my dear friend Rose's house around the time I was due to have a VIPC*. Anyhoo, I got to sit up at the flight deck Rose's office space with my phone, (not the scary phone), some pens, my note book and a BFGoS** and my giddy aunt - above me was the most clever home made pin board a duck has ever seen.

So of course I had to make one just like it....but red. Rose you see is outrageously artistic and stylish and her place is full of up cycled and re purposed amazingness.

So, if you have a dead yoga mat lying around....you just need a cheap white canvas and a $2 bottle of kiddies red acrylic paint. Paint the canvas. Try not to let the chickens walk on it while it is drying. (trust me). Paint it again once you have wiped off the the dirty chicken foot prints. Cut up the yoga mat to fit and glue it on the back and voila! Ok, perhaps in retrospect you might glue the mat onto the canvas first.

Anyhoo, I LOVE the colour. FORM and FUNCTION and COLOUR. My favorite.





* Very Important Phone Call
** Big Fat Glass of Shiraz

Taking Stock

One of the things I truly rooly love about working from home is being able make soup for lunch. Charmaine Solomon has taught me to cook lentils with a stick of celery, a carrot, and some home grown garlic, onion and a few bay leaves. Once this has had the crap cooked out of it  simmered gently during the morning I take out the stock veggies add what ever other veggies are handy - pumpkin, taties, more carrots, just picked parsnips, salt, pepper, spices, herbs from the garden, perhaps some stock, mushies....what ever I feel like eating that day and then let it finish cooking for about half an hour. How healthy and simple and easy is that?

It also means that if someone pops in, there is usually something to feed them too.

On the other hand I do struggle sometimes with getting the balance right. Sometimes I wake up early and get into work - on Monday I started at 4:30am.....and I was still focused on the computer and the phone and my notes and still in my PJs at 1:30pm when I finally stopped long enough to have a shower. Hopeless.

Sometimes I am a bit like a terrier with a bone. Anyway, making soup, remembering to have a shower and get dressed, getting out for a walk or going to the gym, or riding Queenie down to tend my plots at the community garden, or even just going out to feed the ducks in the winter sunshine........all these things are just golden and important and remind me how lucky I am and how gorgeous life is. I tend to work in fits and starts - full on for a day or so where I plow through everything interspersed with days that my brain refuses to focus and I am exhausted or just plain need a break from the mobile/email/'puter/humans.

Anyway, all this gorgeous alpaca yarn arrived this week. Just lovely. I wasn't sure if the rainbow colored yarns would be self striping....it turns out no - the way they are dyed means short colors and a total kaleidoscope thing happening.

 Ziva wasnt really putting much energy into helping me work out what to make first......
She really loves the pink chair. 

And here is another project. My home veggie bed is becoming increasingly shaded and invaded by roots from various plum trees and naughty chickens. Its hard to come up with something that keep chickens out but lets us in. Anyway, I have had the girls in there cleaning all the summer crops up and now I am ready to do something AMAZING. I picked up a full days work yesterday which was enough to cover the cost of some very very very very trendy raised garden beds and netting structures which should give my beds more sun and less abuse from roots, shade and feathered friends. Stay tuned! Watch this space.......

Knitted Wonder

So, with some delight I signed up for Down to Earth's latest dish cloth swap. I got teamed up with Esther from KENTUCKY! How cool is that. And how lovely lovely lovely are my new marbled green dishcloths. This was so much fun. I really enjoyed crocheting Esther's dishcloths, but I LOVED receiving some in exchange.

Thank you Esther.

And here is a much better photo of my precious!

Thoughts on peace and the (r)evoluton

Last night we had walnut loaf for dinner. Everyone loves this recipe. You don't even need to be a big fat smelly hippy. I discovered this recipe after my dear friend Pickle North made it for us one time. Even Mr Duck the meat eater likes it and asks me to make it again often.

It is simple and cheap and apparently planet friendly and also delicious hot or cold but especially with home made relish.

The original recipe is from "Diet for a Small Planet" but Frances Moore Lappe. I haven't read the original book, though I am very familiar with its concepts. I like the general premise that it isnt a lack of food that causes hunger, its a lack of democracy.

The recipe is here, although I don't add the caraway seeds, and I don't use so much cheese, I just use 2 onions etc etc etc.

Anyhoo, cruising the internets for recipes of a similar ilk, I came across this:

7 principles for a climate friendly diet which kinda sums up how I like to eat in a neat little small blue green planet loving package. Here are the principles here - only slightly reconstituted by the duck.

1: EAT REAL FOOD (processed, packaged, GM foods are from the devil)

2: EAT PLANTS

3: FAVOUR ORGANIC FOODS (certified or otherwise)

4: FAVOUR LOCALLY GROWN FOODS (support local food production and local farmers)

5: GROW WHAT YOU CAN, BUY WHAT YOU NEED, COMPOST AND RETURN TO SOIL WHAT YOU DON"T USE. (Sending organic waste to landfill is the path of the devil)

6: REFUSE OVER PACKAGED FOODS OR PACKAGING THAT CAN"T BE COMPOSTED OR REUSED

7: GET YA ARSE BACK INTO THE KITCHEN (and the garden - learn to grow, cook and preserve food)

Anyway, I thought this was nice.

I also especially liked this little quote from the same author:

Hope is not what we find in evidence. Hope is what we become in action

. Frances Moore Lappé

In other delicious lovely news Queenie and I set off at dusk last night to travel up river to pick wild plums. I have had my eye on this little copse of trees for some time, and they are just about perfect. I picked and picked and picked and then loaded up Queenie with about 20kg of plums. Really, I just had to stop because it was dark. The trees are laden and I suspect I may be the only urban hunter gatherer to know and love these particular trees. You do have to be a bike rider or avid runner, because bike path along the Molonglo River Corridor is the only way to get there. There, now you all know.

I gave special thanks to Queenie's ultra stable front rack, kickstand and steering stabilization spring as I set off by moonlight on the long dawdle home.

There are really only two things to do with such a wonderful harvest. Split the load in two. Put half into some melomel, and deliver the other half to the girls next door for value adding. I have no doubt I will be presented with an array of delicious and interesting concoctions in the coming days.

Thats about it.

Oh, I also found this little gem out there in the internets as well.

We must not believe in hope we must become hope, we must not believe in love we must become love, we must not believe in forgiveness we must become forgiveness, we must not believe in peace we must become peace...

Tony Angastiniotis Night Eagle

May there be peace on earth and may it begin with us. Amen.

Lotions and Potions

Last night I made another batch of beautiful moisturizer. You see, I WAS going to nick some of Queen Malina on the Front Deck's honey for Christmas pressies, but the weather hasn't been quite right for gettin' in there and mucking about.

Sooo, I worked up 2.5 liters of the good stuff. I have blogged about this before, but here is it again, just because I always forget how easy it is to make, and how SUPERIOR and SUBLIME the end product is.

The key principle is 1 part oil to 4 parts water plus 5% total volume in vegetable emulsifying wax, which is added to the oil part. Both components are heated separately but concurrently to 75 degrees Celsius, then the water part is poured into the oil part while stirring. Too easy!

Basically this is what I do:

Ingredients:

• 4 parts water or rose water
• 1 part your favorite base oils (eg olive, macadamia nut, apricot kernel oil or a mixture)
• 5% vegetable emulsyfying wax from here (ie if you have a combined oil and water total of 100mls, then use 5gms vegetable emulsifying wax)

Whatchadoo:

• Place wax in saucepan and melt gently. Add rest of oils.
• Add water in separate saucepan
• Heat contents of both saucepans to 75 degreees c
• Add water into oil pan, whisking gently. Continue to whisk untill mixed.
• Turn off heat. leave to cool, stiring accaisionally.
• When mix is below 45 degrees add essential oils and preservative if you want to use it.
• Poor into clean jars

Most recipes say to do this in double boilers, but I don't bother. In terms of preservative, I now use a combination of citric acid and potassium sorbate. From what I have read, potassium sorbate is an excellent non toxic, safe mold and yeast inhibitor, but it needs a lower PH (thus the citric acid) to work best. I really don't use very much (perhaps 2 teaspoons of citric acid in 2.5 liters of moisturizer, plus 1 teaspoon of potassium sorbate. Both are available from brewing supply shops.

If you are not using herbal teas in your moisturizer, you probably don't need to use any preservative. This time, I infused the oil in fresh chopped comfrey leaves for a few days, so I added the preservative just in case.

Well thats it - suddenly I have jars and jars of beautiful luscious moisturizer for Christmas Pressies.

In other news, and speaking of potions, the Cougar came for dinner last night and left us with TWO bottles of Wild Brumby Schnapps - so I am studiously working my way through the Pear William one first. Hopefully there will still be some of this left for Christmas, otherwise we will need to get started on the Butterscotch one. For those of you who do not know, this is the BEST SCHNAPPS in the WHOLE UNIVERSE. Get your self some now. Over the internets.

The Cougar did disappear on Queenie for a while. The race report was - "THOSE GEARS - they shift like butter." And he would be right.

that is all.

cycle chic in australia

I am still captured in the most delicious way by bicycle love. There are other lovely things happening - especially in the garden, but this is taking up lots of my head space. It could be linked to finally being happy here in the city and thinking muchly about how I make city living elegant and frugal and healthy and happy. Alternative transport - especially on ones deadly treadly is the way to go. I have sold my serious cyclo cross bike and am enjoying so much riding Selina up right in what ever I want to be wearing when I get there clothes. I feel liberated and free. I do not miss my lycra and my click on shoes that are unwearable off bike. This is all good because instead of a new car, I have a new bike (on order anyway). Mr Duck and I are determined to cope with just the one car and to go "car-lite" and far from being a drag its FUN and happy making.

Here is Mikael Colville-Anderson, founder of cycle chic, while he was in Australia last month. He says it better than me.

that is all for the moment.

in my brain

“Be Content with what you
have; rejoice in the way things
are. When you realize there is
nothing lacking, the whole
world belongs to you.”

- Lao Tzu

crochet house eaters & bikes

I have almost finished making one of these.

These have been eating my house again. If you look carefully, just to the left of this bastard cockies foot, you can see where he has been biting off pieces of pergola.

And I really want one of these:

But the one fellow in Australia who was importing them has just gone out of business............So unless I can import one myself, I may end up getting one of these:

I am over having to put on cycling gear and cleated shoes to ride anywhere. I want to travel by bike in my civilian clothes, skirts and nice shoes. I want baskets and bells and comfort and style - something to REALLY compete with the car for convenience and fun.

That is all!