Wishing you all...

A safe and healthy 2010.

Change
While the sun that rises,
Is taken in by human eyes,
When it touches human hearts,
There is time.

May Blessings and Light be prominent in your heart.

Making One Heck of a Mess

Pls click pic for recipe

You know what?

If you add frozen cherry glop to a mixer working at full speed containing egg, sugar and 800ml of coconut milk you get one heck of a mess. I'll be back when I have changed all my clothes, washed my hair and cleaned down the cupboard.

I have no idea what possessed me. Luckily it has rather made an impression so it's not a mistake I am likely to make again for a very long time.

With any luck the rest of the ice cream will make it into the freezer container to be enjoyed.

Anyone else experiencing the post Christmas vagues?

Mudbrick Palace Back to Basics - Year 2, Week 5

Sowing seed or Planting -
Planting

• 3 Roma Tomato
• 1 San Manzarno Tomato
• 2 Rouge De Marmond Tomato
• 3 Mini Rockmelon
• 1 Eggplant (Early Long)
  

Harvesting

• Raspberries (don't know the weight as I didn't harvest them)
  
• 210g Zucchini
  
• 50g Leaf Mustard
  

Observing

• Beans have taken off
• Zucchini are starting to produce signficant amounts of food
• The separated Basil seem to have decided their new pots are comfy and started puting on new growth
• Capsicum and Eggpant in the bed getting full western sun seem reasonably happy and making gains
• The purple flowered snow peas are just starting to pod
• the newly planted strawberries seem to have settled in and have started making gains.
  

Maintenance

• A weeded the T bed
• I weeded parts of the top bed to put the second planting of Tomato's in

Planning for The Future -

• None
  

Working for the Future -

• None
  

Building Community -

• Spent some time with family
  

Learn a new Skill -

• None
  

the privileges i have

i can party all night and sleep all afternoon, because someone else on a farm far away gets up early to feed animals and water plants. i can avoid the traffic and buy groceries at 11pm, because somebody will be staffing the shop. i can avoid a restaurant if i don't like the amount of mayonnaise on my salad, and few would think i'm strange or picky. i can procrastinate a deadline then stay at the office til 11pm, because the vietnamese place down the road sources ingredients, tools, gas, electrcity, water, chairs, crockery, and then cooks dinner for me when i walk in the door.

i can tell as much of the truth as i like, without fearing for my life or that of my loved ones.

i can buy champagne for christmas bottled thousands of miles away.

i can freelance from home because others stock my supermarket, upgrade my internet servers, make my clothes, and import goods from overseas. i don't have to spend my days learning to sew to wear a great new dress, or an interview suit, or even shorts for the pub. i don't have to know how to make a toaster to have soldiers with breakfast.

i can see in the new year camped along a riverbank with friends and lovers. i can take time off work. i can choose where i live, who to spend time with, what to read. i can decide whether the material things i want are worth working a five-day week, or whether i want to work part time and spend energy growing veggies. or studying. or contemplating my navel.

i can afford medication.

i can choose to live 8km out of a city centre and buy reasonably priced organic goods on a saturday morning, smiling hello at all the other urban hippies. i can choose to live on a mountaintop with dogs and chickens and fish and views of a city.

i can love anybody and tell the world.

i can protest against internet censorship at a moment's notice because some time after the invention of the printing press, a group of people agreed to have a system for peer-reviewed publication for sharing and enhancing methods of knowledge advancement, which was used for improving protocols for encoding information in ones and zeroes. someones somewhere made machines to decode radio waves transmitted through the air, and yesterday, someone posted about a rally on facebook.

i can ride along the creek because the council keeps the paths neat and signposted, the sewerage engineers keep the water clean, the locals create working bees, the state government contracts the printing of bike path maps, and everybody learns the road rules at school.

all these people, planning, organising, working hard, so i can have these choices.

Mudbrick Palace Back to Basics - Year 2, Week 4

Hi Everyone,

I am going away this week to celebrate Christmas up in Southern NSW. I expect this will be the only post during this week. With any luck I will be organised in time for next weeks challenge post, but as it is the day after we get back I choose to promise nothing.

I want to wish everyone has a great Christmas and coming New Year. For those that are traveling I hope that your trips are easy and restful.

Wishing you all Love, Light and Renewal
Belinda


Sowing seed or Planting -

Harvesting

• 100g Raspberries
• 25g Zuchini
• 400g Silverbeet
  

Observing

• Some of the tomato plants have developed something fungal on their leaves. I think it was just because they were lying down on the ground for longer than they should and we got quite a bit of rain. Will see if it advances
  
• Looks like we might just have a zucchini glut shaping up
• Most of the bean plants are firmly climbing at this point.
  

Maintenance

• spot weeding
• spread sheep manure
  

Planning for The Future -

• Considering financial options for next year
  

Working for the Future -

• Completed Christmas gifts
• Wrapped most of the Christmas Gifts
• Made the Christmas Fabric wrapping paper
  

Building Community -

• Attended BEC meeting with the educators out at Birdsland. We got demo garden go ahead!
  

Learn a new Skill -

• Finishing off for knitting projects. I am not totally happy with the technique I am using so I will as Mum how she does it when I see her this week

Participant Posts
Remote Treechanger Sunday 20th Dec

Morning Harvest Basket

Walking around the garden this morning I realised it will be the last time I will get to do this for over a week.

It is always fun and exciting to be going away but this morning I felt the need to really connect back to home. Before the continued rush to get everything organised I wandered around with my harvest basket picking the stuff that was ready. Slowly noting what the garden was telling me about the season and enjoying the soft morning sun as it settled on my skin.

That is what I love about home, it's always here when you need it most.

Eat the Food - Loquat and Cinnamon Jelly

Loquats are a very soft, highly perishable product. Needless to say that means you really should process them the same day they are picked.

Before I was presented with this opportunity I had never seen or tasted a Loquat. Just to make things that much more interesting I had also never made jelly. Sure I have made quite a bit of jam but I had never actually tackled a jelly. Although they are both quite similar processes the precise nature of getting a well set clear jelly was rather new. Luckily being open to all options, even if you have never tried them before, and a well practised research eye can open a lot of interesting doors.


Thankfully it looks like I just may have succeeded. If I do say so myself it sure looks pretty. Again for a bit of time and a little money I have one more prize to add to my Household Christmas Baskets.

Loquat and Cinnamon Jelly
(adapted from Loquat Jelly)

Ingredients
Loquats
Sugar
Water
Cinnamon Sticks
Lemon Juice

Directions

• Cut Loquats open and remove pits. I found it easier to do this horizontally across the fruit but either way works.
• In a large stock pot, or sauce pan, put deseeded loquats and 2 cinnamon sticks with just enough water to cover. Boil until the fruit is soft and mushy.

• Into a jelly bag, a square of muslin or a strong open weave cotton ladle the contents of the pot, picking out the cinnamon sticks. Gather up the loose fabric starting at the corners and let the liquid run through into a large bowl. Once all the main liquid has come though twist the "bag" so it puts pressure on the pulp from all sides to garner more liquid. To get the final little bits while the bag is tight use your hand to squeeze certain sections to put them under more intense pressure. This draining process may need to be done in stages depending on the amount of fruit being processed.
  

• Rinse the stock pot to remove any of the loquat remnants, then measure and move the Loquat liquid back to the pot.
  
• Add 3/4 c of sugar for each Cup of Loquat liquid. When the sugar is combined with the liquid, ie you can't see sugar crystals, taste and add your preferred amount of lemon juice (I found it initially very sweet so I went for 2 lemons, minimum 2 Tbsp for set, in 7 Cups of Loquat liquid)
  
• Bring mix to the rolling boil, stirring constantly for 10 minutes
• Start doing gel tests at 5 min intervals, until you see the level of set you prefer.
  
• Once it passes the gel test turn off the heat and continue to stir for another 5 minutes to help cool.
• When safe move to jars and waterbath for around 20min

Winding Up to Wind Down

What can I say but "It's been a week and it's only Wednesday".

I look at the list of stuff I need to get organised and cleared away before we leave for 5 days and it gets just a little overwhelming. Luckily if I look at it one day at a time and acknowledge what I have achieved rather than focus single mindedly on what needs to be done it snaps back into perspective.

I have cleared away the cherries. So far 3 batches of jam have been completed and the rest of them have been boiled up and frozen in 1kg lots for use either as future jam or fruit additions for my Coconut Ice Cream. That takes the variety of jams available for the Christmas baskets up to 5, which strikes me as a goodly number.

The appointments for both car repair and dog stitches removal have been made. The car at least has been done while a decision on whether the stitches can come out will be made today. I have to say I really want those stitches out before we leave because the dog involved is lethal with an Elizabethan Collar on his head and both the other dog and I are getting a little weary of it all. The idea of having him crashing around the back of the car for the 8 hour trip up to the NSW south coast makes me clench up a little. That said if they need to stay in we will cope at least he has given up on attempting to rip the stitches out with his back foot so I don't need to re-bandage that on a daily basis. Lets just say the poor boy was a picture of pity for a while there.

All the presents that need to be done by Christmas day have been. Considering this time last week I was despairing about ever being finished I am feeling pretty good about this one. There are still a few outstanding but we won't actually catch up with those families until after New Year so the transportable projects will go with me on holiday and the others completed when I get back. Either way I have a plan and better yet it's realistic.

The next big job of the week is to try and make Christmas pudding. The operative word here being try as I have never actually attempted this feat before. My dad loves the rich and fruity offerings that Christmas traditionally brings. His mother used to make the pudding I am attempting every year and since she died when I was 16 a pudding has been bought rather than made. As we are going up to celebrate with my parents this year it just seemed like something that I really should try. I know it will make him happy to see his mothers recipe sitting on the table again and will make a real occasion of it for him.

Guess I better get moving.. not achieving much sitting here.

Unexpected Windfalls

Being within a group of people who hate more than anything to see waste is a wonderful but sometimes frightening thing. Wonderful because you never know what they are going to have rescued. Frightening because sometimes there is a rather awesome amount of it.

Anyway it was through various twists of fate that at 7pm on Monday I became the proud owner of 20kg of second grade cherries. Unfortunately as they had already been sitting for a day so some were in a very dire way, so time was of the essence.

That's the thing with unexpected windfalls, they take some time to sort and often it needs to happen yesterday.

The unrecoverable bucket, probably about a third, will be going to the chooks. The ones with slight mould that can be just cut off are being processed as fast as I can so that they don't get time to spoil further. The third sorting bucket is the "looks goods", so should keep ok for another 12-24 hourse, which I plan to pass them off to a couple of keen Jammers I am meeting later today.

Keeping the circle going is the key to ensuring as much as possible gets used, there is no point in hoarding fruit when you are on the loosing end of the spoilage clock. One little yes, combined with a willingness to wade through mess to find the useful, can make a dent in food waste. Even with that level of spoilage by the time I am finished there will still be a lot of food that has been saved from being wasted.

Like all of these problems the first step is not contributing waste in the first place the second is to go out and actively work against it. Now I just have to find homes for the jam and with Christmas coming that shouldn't be too hard.

Mudbrick Palace Back to Basics - Year 2, Week 3

Sowing seed or Planting -

Harvesting

• 200g Zucchini
  
• 200g Raspberries
  

Observing

• Unknown berry is ripening up.. atm I think it is a Loganberry but I will compare against the berry farm when I go picking tomorrow.
  

Maintenance

• Created sturdy tomato cages for the coming seasons.
  

Planning for The Future -

• planned the last few Christmas presents
• Working out the next week until we leave for NSW
• Looked through preserves stores to find out I can use for Christmas baskets
  

Working for the Future -

• Made Loquat and Cinnamon Jelly

Building Community -

• Finished the BEC Autumn/Winter Demonstration Garden Design
  
• Attended BEC Planning meeting
  
• Gave a fellow BEC member one of the Trial oil seed pumpkins to try and grow
• Putting together Christmas baskets for people I have worked closely with over the year
  

Learn a new Skill -

• Making Jelly (in the Jam sense)
  

Participant Posts
Remote Treechanger Saturday Dec 12th

Christmas Post

It may be much later than I generally expect from myself but the interstate presents are winging their way through the postal system.

Luckily at this point most of the rest have been made or found. If the prices of the Christmas material drop more before the big day I may also get the Christmas wrapping cloths made and my current paper stash moved to someone that will use it. If not this will be the last year that single use paper is going to grace my presents.

How's everyone else going?

Weeding is fun

Hi, Andrew here.
In the course of learning about this gardening thing and between old house and new I went from weeding 4 times the area and yet I I feel like I do a lot less.
As long as kept on top of, weeding doesn't have to be a lot of work.

• RTS

I tend to think of weed control as a very gently paced Real Time Strategy game. It's not just you versus the weeds. You have all sorts of allies. Other plants, animals, minerals maybe even other people.

• Grow something

Something will grow in the area. Ground covers are very important. If you don't put something you like there something else will grow there. Like a weed.

• Why is that a weed?

I define a weed as anything I don't want there. So I may have wild, random unplanned stuff in the garden that are not weeds. Pretty flowers. Things that make good green mulch. Things that compete with other things I don't like. Plants birds or other animals like.
I'd rather find a use for a plant than declare it a 'weed' and thus need to put effort into controlling it.

• Help those you want to win

Help the plants or animals that do help. Give them light, space, water, shade, food. whatever they want. Needn't be much, just a bit of help in return.

• Hurt those you want to lose

You don't need to pull them all out. Sure it helps but if you just brake off all the leaves it can't photosynthesis and starts to die. Break spots on creepers and let it starve. Step on them as you walk past. You might not be able to get to the roots, but you can weaken it so it gets out-competed.

• Annihilate

Every year I pick a few plants to declare war on. I do my best to wipe them out from the property. This is usually fast spreading airborne seed stuff. "environmental weeds" I know I won't get it all but I reduce its levels enough that next season it can be controlled.

Similarly I occasionally pick one spot and do my best to make it pristine without any weeds. No roots. This gives the plants I want a resting spot to strike out from. It needn't be a large area.

• Use animals. eg chickens

Chickens are awesome little tractors. Two chickens fenced into a two meter square area for a day can rip out every plant, roots and all, down to a few cm. Afterwards their coop flooring is great fertilised mulch.

• Use mulch

Mulch areas that don't have a useful plant. Lay down newspapers, dead weeds, chook scratching, solarising plastic.
It suppresses weed underneath and gives resources back to the bed as the weeds break down.

• A little on little makes a big pile

As you let your allies win it means you only need to occasionally pull out a weed as you see it. It will now often be very localised. Probably easy to see amongst the good plants.
In time it can get to you don't need to do 'weeding' any more, just pull one out as you walk past.

This Day, It's Full of Light

I think that my favourite gardening time of the year has to be December. We have had just enough rain to dull the thoughts of last year. Just enough heat to convince me that my efforts may produce a fruitful result.

This is the time of year when you can almost see the plants grow before your eyes. When your eyes brush past a garden bed the fecund growth heralds a promising season to come.

Hope runs high, fertility runs rampant and beauty if present in every step.

This Day, It's Full Of Life.

It's Raining

This morning I woke to the musical sound of rain. Fog was thick and heavy like a moist blanket shrouding the hill. The noises of the world were muffled, distant and easy to ignore.

The slow rush of the morning routine shuffled forth. Routine bringing forward worthy achievement. While blanket slowly drifted, lifted as the rain still fell. Until for a moment the sun broke through, only to be hidden.

Again the rain drifts through the air, its progress down is slow, silent. My heart is full of joy as it nourishing all it touches.

Mudbrick Palace Back to Basics - Year 2, Week 2

What can I say but some days the world is pulled sharply and unexpectedly in perspective.

A friend of mine lost one of the most important people in her world yesterday. Her best friend foreva was walking down a street in Canada, was shot and died.

If you have someone that you care about deeply and haven't connected with recently, please do. It's all too easy to assume that the world will wait for you to be ready. We all know we have a lifetime to be the best person that we can be. The problem is we don't know just how long that lifetime will give us.

Go, Please go, hug someone you love.

Sowing seed or Planting -

Harvesting

• 200g Zucchini
  
• 100g Raspberries
  

Observing

• The Siberian Tomato has started setting fruit
  

Maintenance

• Watering all the pot plants with the Kikuyu Ferment (Tea)
  

Planning for The Future -

• Mentally preparing the chicken/garden sitting plan for M

Working for the Future -

• Made a large batch of Roti Channi for the freezer
• Precooked and froze dried white peas
• Precooked and froze brown lentils
  

Building Community -

• Continuing the Write up the BEC Demonstration Veggie Garden Proposal
• Attended Community Harvest Communal Dinner
• Attended Herb Society Christmas Breakup
  

Learn a new Skill -

• Roti Channi

Glimpses of a Handmade Christmas

My days are filled with



The Unfinished Banner



One Denim Satchel



Two pretty Facecloths
(Vera Moda Bamboo/Cotton for 4mm needes)


Three Horsey Bookmarks

And

Four Little Hairclips all in a row

happy things

farmhouse honey and honeycomb, so fresh it contains little bee corpses....

my first artichokes ever....

corn plants coming up of their own accord...

succulents and cacti, doing their things

Make the Food - Coconut & Youngberry Ice Cream

Woohoo, it's the berry season again. Slowly but surely the strawberries have started making their presence known in rather large numbers.

Thankfully in the last couple of days the raspberries at home, my favourites, have also started intermittently ripening. Those little clues and the fact that we have already had 2 weeks of temperatures over 30C has moved thoughts to the fact that summer is well and truly on the way.

At the Mud Brick Palace frozen treats are a great way to beat the heat. As A can't have large amounts of dairy I tend to stick mostly to dairy free options.

Please be aware that this recipe contains uncooked egg. It is best only to use eggs from a known source where cleanliness is taken seriously to minimise the chance of contamination issues.


Coconut and Youngberry Ice Cream
makes approx 2.7L

Ingredients
800ml Coconut Cream
3 eggs
3/4C Sugar
1Kg frozen Youngberries, defrosted
(If using fresh berries put at least half though the food processor before adding to the other ingredients)

Method
Put the final storage container in the freezer to equalise the temperature.

Mix together all the ingredients in a bowl that will fit in the freezer. Ensure that the ingredients are well combined and mush up the berries a bit. Freeze for an hour, remove the stuff frozen to the sides and remix. Freeze for a further 2 hours and remix. Leave until solid, or overnight, & remix.

Transfer to the storage container and keep in the freezer.

**Note any type of berry can be used for this recipe although with strawberries you will need to food process all the berries to get them to mix adequately.

A Community that Eats Together, Stays Together

One of the more interesting community groups I have joined in the last 12 months is Community Harvest. This group formed by a couple of extremely passionate folk which aims to connect people to their community in a way that centres around food issues on multiple levels.

The most interesting bit me though is this group has been a real education to me on meeting people where they are in regard to community engagement.

To the eternal frustration of the founding members getting people to attend workshops, one of the real focuses of the group, has been an extremely hard slog. In the last year the types of workshops that have been offered were jam making, chutneys, tomato bottling, planning a 12 month harvest and Sourdough bread making. All bar the bread making and tomato bottling were a real effort to garner enough interest to run (minimum cut off for most was 2) .. and that doesn't count the pasta making and soap making that were offered but never ran through lack of interest.

The thing is although the workshops have been a struggle getting attendance, the monthly communal meal has been much less of an issue. Sure many of the faces that attend each month are new but I think the smallest attendance we have had was 5, in the dead of winter, and the maximum was probably tonight when I think we had about 15 people crammed around someone's dining table.

This is made up of a core group of 3 that attend pretty much every meeting and up to 6 that attend most. It's always enough to sustain a lively conversation and provide a wonderful range of home made food. For me it is a great way on a monthly basis to reconnect and recharge and the slowly increasing repeat attendance suggest I am not the only one that feels that way.

So many enviro/sustainability groups are only focused on "doing something". While this is great, there is a lot that needs to be done, my experience with this group suggests the opportunity to get together to chat and share informally with like minded people is sometimes the main thing people want. Sometimes knowing you can safely share your concerns, voice your opinions without having to explain everything from scratch to be understood is more powerful for many than educational opportunities.

Propagating French Tarragon

Are you frustrated with only ever seeing the very inferior Russian Tarragon available locally? Have you ever wondered why it seems you can't find French Tarragon anywhere?

Well, I think I found out why. It requires special knowledge to propagate. It isn't hard once you know how but without knowing the secret you are going to be doomed to forever waiting for it to flower (which almost never happens), or taking soft cuttings that just rot in the ground.

The secret is although it actually looks like a similar to a small standard bush French Tarragon is a running plant. Similar to things like mint it sends roots under the ground that break the surface. When it reaches the surface it shoots and makes a potential new plant. If left long enough for the new arm to create a few roots they can be divided off and potted up giving you a whole new plant.

Armed with this knowledge a couple of things become obvious, at least to me.

Firstly as a runner I won't put it straight in the garden. I have had too many experiences with mint or nettle trying to take over the world to trust any running plant in a garden bed.

Secondly keeping it in a pot will actually help me be able to propagate this plant. One of the side advantages of having these types of plants in pots is that the plant is almost assured to send up new "baby" shoots when it hits the side of the pot, if not before. This makes it really easy to see when you should be dividing your plants and potting on.

You may have a challenge finding it but at least if you do now you can make sure you can enjoy its wonderful flavour forever.