Hey there Jorgie girl....

We've had our Jorgie girl for just over six weeks now, and I've got to say, I'm loving being a goat owner!

The first week was a big tricky - Jorgie was noisy and stubborn. She missed her goat herd and wasn't sure about us. We hadn't learnt how to handle her well and doing anything with her was difficult. Then I had my hand surgery and had to take a week off of handling her altogether. I still fed her, patted her and spent time chatting to her, but with stitches in my palm, it wasn't worth risking taking a pig-headed goat out on her lead. 

I was concerned about not handling her as much for a week, but as it turned out, I think it was good for her. By the end of that week she had settled into her home. She still bleats when we go out or leave her, but for the most part, she is settled and content to sit on her seat in the sun and chew her cud. Happy goat!

Now, I spend time with Jorgie every day, and it is amongst the most peaceful and enjoyable times. I've been wanting to share them for a while, so I took the camera out and here it is.... A day with Jorgie. 

At about 7am (sometimes earlier) Jorgie starts calling out to us to let us know its breakfast time. I toss some clothes over my PJ's and head outside. She's usually by the gate waiting for me. 

"Goodmorning! I'm ready for my breakfast."

We finished building the stanchion and milking table last weekend, so Jorgie now has her breakfast up there as 'training' for being our little milking goat. She's not keen on getting in there, but she's getting better at it, and once she's in, she relaxes and is fine. She eats her chaff and completo breakfast while I brush her, run my hands over her belly and udder, and generally get her comfortable with being handled and reducing her udder shyness. 

Eating breakfast on our homemade (all recycled) milking table.

After breaky, Jorgie goes back to her yard while I finish my morning chores and have some breakfast myself!  If the weather is bad, Jorgie likes to lay on the table in her stall and look out of her 'window'. Lachlan's cat, Pouncy, can often be found in her stall too, curled up on the warm straw. Our dog, cats and ducks all love Jorgie and like to get close to her. She is grateful for their company, but if they come too close, she head butts them away :)
 

Looking out of her stall "window" while standing on her table/platform.

In bad weather, or if I'm away from home all day, I give Jorgie fresh hay in her feeder. We don't leave hay there all the time as she won't eat it after a while and it just goes to waste. 

Fresh hay in the hay feeder that I made for her.

When I'm out and about in the garden, I like to stop by and give Jorgie 'treats'. She loves geranium leaves, mallow leaves, pittosporum branches and beetroot leaves, but roses are her favourite by far!  I've read a lot about goats eating habits and have heard that they love banana skins and citrus peel - Jorgie doesn't. But she does like most weeds and carrots (though she'll only eat carrot tops that are still connected to carrots in the ground, and not the ones I've broken off the carrots *sigh*). She doesn't eat everything, and is quite fussy about what she chooses. And, with relief, we have found that she isn't interested in eating the washing off the line. 



Jorgie likes celery leaves and I like the stems - perfect for sharing a snack straight from the vegie garden.

If I'm weeding, I often take Jorgie with me. Her favourite grazing spot is along the driveway (near her friends the ducks). I leave her lead on and let her browse while I work close by. Mostly, she just mosies along eating happily, but if I see her try to eat something I don't want eaten, I can grab her lead and steer her away. 

Most afternoons, Jorgie has tethering time. I have a few places I like to tether her, and the next door neighbour said I'm welcome to tether on their nature strip too. She gets a couple of hours out there to fill her belly. 



Lots of luscious weeds along the fenceline to eat while tethered.

On sunny days, Jorgie can often be found sunbathing on her bench in her yard. We built this bench for us originally, but she adopted it and loves sitting up there watching the world go by or snoozing. She can see a lot of our yard from there, and also into the school, where there is often someone happy to say hello to her. 

I spy a sunbathing goat.

Sometimes we take Jorgie for a walk around town. We have to be careful of our route as there are a few dogs that are happy to chase her. But mostly, walking her is a lot of fun and she happily laps up the attention of people who stop for a chat. 

Stu has taken on the job of grooming Jorgie and she loves to stand in the sun and have a good brush. Hoof care is my job though and it's not so much fun as I tentatively follow the guidelines I was taught by her breeder and hope I'm doing it all right. 

I'm looking forward to Jorgie having her kid/s. Unfortunately, we don't have a good due date as no one saw her mated and she was in with the buck about 6 weeks!  But the earliest she'll be due is mid October, and she is just beginning to develop her udder this week, so I'm anticipating the birth sometime in about a month. 

After her grazing time, Jorgie goes back to her pen for the night. She has a little more chaff to convince her to go to bed (we divided up her daily rations so we could do this), and eventually, she settles down in her stall for the night. 

A goat anchor

We didn't get our goat, Jorgie, with the intention of tethering her. I've read some horror stories of goats hanging themselves from their tether, of getting themselves tangled, spilling their water etc. It is just not an ideal way to keep a goat - or any animal for that matter.

So when we decided to buy ourselves a miniature goat, we built a suitable enclosure and shelter for her, and that is where she spends most of her time. 

Her enclosure is small though - big enough for moving around, sleeping and playing for a couple of goats, but not big enough for her to browse. 

We often take Jorgie for a walk to browse along the way, but you can only spend a certain amount of time doing that, and we have a few areas of our garden that grow beautiful browse that she could eat (that is, our lawns). We could let her free range in those areas, but as she is partial to roses, apple trees herbs and vegetable plants, I'm not sure she'd spend her time eating the grass and weeds!

So I did some research and some thinking and came up with a method of tethering her in those areas of the garden that I would normally have to mow. My tethering system reduces tangling risk, allows her to always access water, is portable and adaptable so that I can control where she has access to. 

And here it is:

It's an old car tyre (free from any tyre shop) that we have half filled with rapid set concrete. We lined the bottom of the tyre with a feed bag first, then poured in the concrete (and a few scraps of old concrete to make up more volume). While the concrete was wet, we inserted an eye bolt with a long stem and the washer and nut attached (they help to anchor the eye bolt so the goat can't pull it out of the concrete). We also pushed the base of a bucket into the concrete to make an indentation to support a bowl (or half bucket) of water. 

To tether the goat, we put the tyre on the middle of the area we want her to browse in (using a trolley or two people to move it because its really heavy!) then add a bowl of water (it needs to sit in the indentation and be shorter than the top of the tyre so it doesn't catch the chain) and attach the goat to the eyebolt using a d-shackle and a chain. You can adjust the length of the chain to meet your needs - that is, make it long for a big area, or short for a small area. 

The anchor has a really low centre of gravity, so the goat can't knock/pull it over. The water can't be knocked over as it is secure inside the tyre and in the unlikely event that the goats chain gets tangled on the anchor, she'll always have access to the water. 

It's a good system, but to be safe, always use it carefully. Make sure there aren't obstacles your goat can get tangled on; Check for plants you don't want your goat to eat within the goat's reach (plants you want or poisonous plants); make sure your goat has some shade, especially on hot days; make sure dogs or other animals (strange people?) can't get at your goat; And check your goat is ok regularly - ie. don't tether her when you're not home!

This isn't a long term tethering system, but is a great way to mow the lawns without using petrol and give our goat lovely fresh (and free!) browse. And the anchor cost less than $15 to build - bargain!

Goat people - if you see any problems with my design, please let me know, I'm hoping I've covered everything, but am open to suggestions!

All in a weekend

It's one of those Monday mornings when we feel like going back to the office/school/daily chores is the restful part of the week.

It began Thursday night with a boy complaining of earache. I instantly began treating it in the same way that I treated my last ear infection, and he felt some relief. We continued with the treatment through Friday while he stayed with me and slept through a lot of the day. 

Stu was our other patient. He woke to find that his nearly two week old wasp sting had become a hand sized area that was red, raised and hot. I was concerned it was infected, and not knowing how to treat it, sent him to the doctors (antibiotics for him). 

Debutante Sarah and Birthday boy Cody

 

Friday was my little brothers 17th birthday and my little sisters deb ball. Our house is in the middle of my families', so we met here for deb preparations (I was employed as makeup artist!) and birthday celebrations before we left Stu, my other brother and the three kids here and went to the ball. Sarah looked beautiful and had a great time. It was nice to watch my teenage siblings interacting with their peers and I enjoyed catching up with one of my high school teachers who then became a colleague and who is now retired. 

My gorgeous sister-in-law, mum, little sister and me!

 

I was also lucky enough to have my two best dancing buddies at the deb (for another debutante and friend), so we spent time together and the girls drove me home. 

With my crazy dancing buddies

 

I arrived home to find the sick one still up. He needed more treatment and pain relief. I settled him to sleep and went to bed. Next morning, the need for his pain relief became obvious - his ear drum had ruptured. I had moments of questioning whether my home treatment was the best action, but decided that even if I'd taken him to the doctor, the result would have been the same. I adjusted to treatment to a warm, moist washer with a little tea tree oil, held over the ear. The warmth relieved the pain and the steam gently softened the discharge without putting anything in the ear. 

We abandoned screen free Saturday and curled the two kids on the couch for a pyjama day and Harry Potter movie marathon so that the sick one could rest. 

Meanwhile, we donned our working gear and headed outside. The weather was against us (I know I begged for rain, but really?), but we soldiered on and (without any fighting!!!) built a shed. It's our third flat pack shed and we were impressed both with how well built it was and also how much better at putting them together we are now!  We completed the build except for a few finishing touches and secured the shed in the very last light of the first official day of winter. 



The dairy with plants just dumped in front - need to plant edible perennials there, any suggestions?

 

Sunday dawned, the sick one a little better, the shed still standing (woohoo!). Stu and the Jamie completed the shed build while I did some important chores like baking bread, washing and nursing. 

The shed was complete by morning tea time and we set to work up-cycling some materials for the beginnings of a milking stand and planning the layout that would turn our shed into our home dairy. 

Then we turned to fencing. 

The shed and fence! Ta-da!

 

The side of the shed/dairy forms one side of the goat pen, and our fence continues around from there. Stu had the brilliant idea of building the fence around the hills hoist washing line.  This gives the goat pen more area than I had originally envisaged and also gives a nice look to the garden (or it will when I've turned it into 'garden'). But it is harder to build a hexagonal fence than a straight one, and we ended up taking ages messing around with angles and things to get it right. But it's done!  I just need to finish attaching wire and then we have one more section and the gate to do. 

So it was a very tired family who gathered for a quick thrown together meal last night. 

I'm still on nursing duty today, but I'll take it a bit easier and deal with some of the smaller jobs. It does make you feel good though to get so much done over a couple of days and really begin to see a project come together. 

Did you tackle a big project this weekend?

Around the Garden right now

We're about to enter the third calendar month of autumn. You wouldn't guess it by looking at my tank levels or popping a spade into the ground - it's still way too dry, but the crisp mornings and the need to wear a jumper and socks tells me it really is.

It's dry, but we've had some rain. Weed seedlings are starting to show their heads in the 'lawn' areas and while my plants still look forward to a drink of carted grey water, they would survive without it.

This autumn I feel like I am living in and for the garden. I've spent countless hours preserving the fruit crops we grew or were gifted and have been enjoying celery, carrots, lettuce, herbs, tomatoes (yes still), silverbeet and herbs in our meals. I can see that there will be a small gap in harvest soon though, and will look into fixing that gap next year.

I'm growing seedlings of artichokes, pak choi, kale and purple sprouting broccoli, some more successfully than others, but I'm learning more each day, and getting better gradually at this growing from seed business.



Seedlings on the verandah.

Planted in the garden over the last month or so, I have broad beans, peas, sugar snap peas, snow peas, brocoletti, carrots, lettuce, wong bok cabbages, beetroot, garlic (two varieties), red onions, spring onions and carrots.



Seedlings doing well in the garden under a canopy of chicken wire to keep off cats and ducks

Around other parts of the garden, I've planted another olive tree, an almond tree, a mandarin and another feijoa. I've also added more herbs to my potted herb garden, helped 'self sow' silverbeet and calendula and sprinkled seeds of chamomile.



Garlic doing very well.

Our Muscovy ducks, Daisy (who may be Donald) and Peach, follow me everywhere in the front yard, chatting away and hoping I'll throw a snail or two their way. I've learnt that they love lettuce and beetroot leaves, and therefore, if I want to grow them for us to eat, they'll need to be planted beyond their reach.



I was sitting on the verandah writing this, so they joined me!

Also in the front, I'm working on a spot of pruning and taming the grass runners that are doing extremely well and reeking havoc around trees.

Out the back, Buddy is my constant companion as I peruse the works in progress. It looks messy now, but soon, our backyard area will be split by a fence. Inside that fence will be a water tank on a stand, the stand will become a shelter for our miniature goat, Jorgie, and her kid (which she should be getting pregnant with about now) when they come to live with us in September.


Behind Buddy, you can make out the holes for the tank stand and the pile of dirt we've dug out so far.

Next to the goat yard will be a new shed. The shed will be for feed storage with a section set up as my dairy. And all the way around the fence, I'll be planting goat friendly plants such as roses, lavender, silverbeet, wormwood, nasturtiums, chamomile and rosemary. These fragrant and pretty plants will look and smell lovely in the garden that will be below our washing line, and as they grow tendrils through the mesh wire of the goats fence, they'll be able to nibble away.

Introducing Jorgie, our miniature goat who will continue to live on the stud farm in Portland until she's had her kid.

The chooks are doing well too, they're laying a bit less now, but I still bring in eggs each day. They are enjoying scratching through weeds, devouring the sprouted wheat feed and picking at their garden which I planted back in march in an old guinea pig hutch so they can pick, but not destroy, the silverbeet, nasturtiums and calendula growing in there.



Standing on their very own garden.

So that's what's happening around here. On Friday, we'll take delivery of the tank and fencing materials so the next part of construction can happen. I'll keep you updated!

Not a butcher

Remember these guys?

Well they grew up. They grew up into beautiful big roosters of various colours. They were quite friendly and lived peacefully in a bachelor coop with younger roosters that have gradually come to join them. I enjoyed raising them, but as was always the intention, the time came for them to be processed into healthy, lean, almost free range and extremely low food miles meat for our freezer.

We've processed a few batches now, and we're getting better at it.  Each time, we learn something new and do the job cleaner, quicker and with less waste.

The adjustments we made to the process this time were to put each of the roosters (three this time - two of ours and a donated Rhode Island Red), into an empty feed bag each when we caught them. Previously we've just put them all into a box and once we had one escape and had to chase him round the backyard - not conducive to stress free meat! By placing them in the dark bags, they stayed still and calm until their turn came. We only ever catch then when we are completely ready, so they are in the bags a maximum of 10 minutes.

The other change was to add a few drops of dish detergent to the scalding water we use before plucking. I don't know if it helped - the first two were relatively easy to pluck, but the third one wasn't. I think the water was too cold, but basically, he ended up skinned instead of plucked. This seemed like a bad thing, but ended up good.

Now I'm not a butcher, and I actually don't like handling meat, but I believe humans should be omnivores, I believe we should eat humanely raised and killed meat and I am the only one in our house likely to do any butchering.  So I set to preparing our roosters for the freezer. Previously, I've just cleaned them all up and frozen them whole. And previously, we've fed the necks to the dog, but all the feathers, guts etc have been thrown out. Not this time. This time, we reserved the necks for Buddy, I have frozen the livers in a container to become pâté when we have enough (I'll add more each time we do this) and the guts and feathers were buried near one of our fruit trees to act as a blood and bone fertiliser.

The rest of the chicken, I brought inside. The Rhode Island Red was plump and lovely looking, so after a clean, he was left in tact to become a roast. The other two were not so 'roast chicken' looking, so I had a go at jointing them. I can't say I ended up with the neatest cuts of meat, but I did put a bag of skinless/boneless breast fillets, a bag of skinless/boneless thigh fillets and a bag of legs and wings into the freezer. Then, not wanting to waste anything, the carcasses went into the crock cooker with a couple of litres of water for two days. Yesterday, I strained it, picked the remaining meat from the bones and gave the bones to the chooks to pick at (that made me feel weird, but I didn't want to just throw them out! Besides, they do eat meat scraps from the chook bucket usually....).

The scraps of meat were added to a pasta dish last night, and the stock filled three large mason jars, which I bravely pressure cooked using my pressure canner for the first time. I was petrified of using it, but in the end, it wasn't too hard, and I now have three meals worth of stock added to my overflowing pantry.

So, despite the fact that I'm not a butcher, I managed to grow healthy, happy roosters and turn those three roosters into at least 10 meals for our family, plus bones for the dog and pâté. And not one bit of those roosters went to waste, or left the property.

Happy mini farmers.

DIY chook food

Up until recently, we fed our chooks on pellets. Layer pellets for the main flock, and pullet starter/grower for the young. But with so many chooks now hanging around, and my ever present 'could we DIY this?' attitude, I began looking for an alternative.

I discovered fodder systems and was pretty impressed. A fodder system is basically growing sprouts for your livestock. You can grow all sorts of things, but wheat is readily available and sprouts well, so that's what I use. By sprouting the grains, you change the chemical makeup of the material, thereby, increasing the available nutrients for your animals. You also increase the quantity of food, and in doing so, feed your animals less and save money!! As added bonuses, you know exactly what you're feeding your animals (and therefore what you're eating in your eggs/meat) and by buying less bags of pellets, you save on packaging. Hooray!

Wheat grains contain Vitamin B,C and E, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Pantothenic Acid, Phosphorus, Amino Acids.  By sprouting the grains, your animals get all of that PLUS vitamins A and K, Chlorophyll, Lecithin, Potassium and trace elements.  And the protein value of the feed goes from 10% to 30% (reference).

 

Lots of people grow fodder, if you want to do it, hunt around the Internet and read some other blog posts. But here is how we I do it.

For one smallish flock of birds (ie. for either my 7 roosters and 2 ducks of my 10 layers), a tray of food a day (plus some other things -see below) is a good start. So for each flock you need to set up a system. Each system needs a container with a lid (ice cream containers work well), 7-9 kitty litter trays (or similar), some old net curtains and somewhere to keep your system.

My fodder system is made of lots of bits of recycled timber and sits on the verandah.
Total cost for set up was about $30

Storing your system on open shelves is a good idea as the water used to water the top trays trickles down and waters the trays below.  You could use wire shelves from the shop, or if, like me, you believe things should be as cheap and recycled as possible, grab some pallets and scrap timber and custom make one!

I had helpers while making my pallet shelving system :)

Take your kitty litter trays and drill drainage holes in the bottom of them. Make sure you put in quite a few, but keep the holes smaller than a grain of wheat! I experimented with how many trays and found 8 is good. Apparently the fodder has the most nutrients between day 6 and 8 and after that it gains nothing and may start losing nutrients as the grass grows.

Now to grow the fodder. On day 1, put two cups of wheat into your lidded container. Cover it with water. After 8 hours (or overnight), tip the contents into your first litter tray and spread out the soaked grains. Repeat this step every day.  Use your net curtain to drape over your trays or the sparrows will find them and get very fat on your efforts (yep, speaking from experience!).

Each day, water your trays to keep them moist, but not soggy. In cool wet weather, I find once a day is enough, but on hot dry days, you need to water more often.

Day 1: Soaked grains

Day 3: Starting to grow roots

Day 5: A nice green flush

Day 8: Ready to feed!

Try not to disturb your growing wheat - it slows down the growth and you end up with messy crops. By day three you will see the wheat layer is starting to bulge and "puff" us as the roots grow. By day six, things are turning green. And by day 8 you'll have a lovely grassy crop. Keep away any wheat grass smoothie drinking folk and prepare to feed out your first crop!

The wheat will have grown into a slab of roots, shoots and grainy bits. Break it up and feed it out. Different animals treat it differently, but they all seem to like it.

I started with one system and have just started a second. Once we get our goats, I'll probably do three. And remember if you have other herbivores (guinea pigs, horses, rabbits etc), this makes a good feed for them too.

I do supplement the feed. The ducks free range and pig out on snails and slugs and the occasional scrap. All of the chooks get kitchen scraps. The meat chickens also get a whey and oat porridge (or porridge and yoghurt) to fatten them and the layers get a handful of layers pellets and shell grit. I hope to get rid of the layers pellets eventually though and replace the necessary nutrients in them with more home grown and natural foods.

Do you grow or cook for your animals?  Would love to hear about it!  And if you have any questions about this, ask away!

Home remedies - ear infections

Remember how I said that the boys cold had left me alone? I think I jinxed myself, and in typical me fashion, have ended up with an ear infection and have been feeling pretty lousy.

I have always had dodgy ears. I suffered badly with ear infections as a child and spent a lot of time taking antibiotics and other things to clear them up. I ended up having my tonsils and adenoids removed, having a surgical nasal scrape and having grommets put in my ears. The surgery helped and I was able to get through my teens without another ear infection (just dreaded cold sores which are my other personal problem and I'll tackle in a later post).

But in my 20s, my ears starting to play up again and by my 30s, I was having at least one ear infection a year, every cold was heralded by sore ears and I even had the joy of a ruptured ear drum a few years back.

The trouble is, the last two years, I've been to the doctors with shocking earaches (pain killers don't touch them) and the GPs have told me 'you've got too much fluid and wax buildup, I can't see anything in there' and prescribed 'waxol' (ear drops that supposedly dissolve the ear wax). So, knowing that my ears were actually infected, I would simply live through it, allowing my body to fix itself which was slow and painful. BTW, the waxol did absolutely nothing - it was uncomfortable and didn't clear my ears at all.

After the third unsuccessful visit to a doctor about this, I decided to stop and to take a more natural, home remedy approach.

Just an aside here, as I'm sure some of you are saying 'see a naturopath' (or similar). I grew up only seeing doctors, and never saw alternative therapists. I've since seen a chiro twice, but have never tried anything else. I might one day, but honestly I hate seeing anyone, and other than my biennial 'girl' health check and this ear infection business, I don't even see doctors.

So I've done a lot of research and the number of home remedies for ear infections is huge! People use all sorts of things - coconut oil, garlic infused oil, onion wedges, basil oil and their own urine to name but a few. I could try any of them (maybe not the urine), but found one that sat well with me and decided to stick with it for this infection and see how it goes. This is what I do:

Lovely lavender... {image}

Warm a teaspoon of olive oil and add to it three drops of tea tree oil and two drops of lavender oil. I soak this up on a cotton bud and place it into my outer ear. I've been doing this for an hour at a time, three (of more) times a day.

The best thing about this treatment is that all the ingredients are simple things that I trust and are always in my cupboards anyway. There is also very little chance of doing any harm with this treatment, so if it doesn't work, I'm no worse off and I still have the option of seeking medical help.

So how's it working? Well, firstly, the warmth of the olive oil soothes the ear ache immediately and makes me feel heaps better for the hour it is in. After that, the discomfort is dulled for a few hours (I can tell its time to do it again and the pain starts to flair). After one day, my ear was feeling loads better, after two, the pain was almost non-existent.   I plan to keep this up for a couple more days to ensure all the baddies are gone. It feels like its going to work (I promise a follow up post if it doesn't!).

Once my ears are back to normal, I plan to do more regular ear candling (we started that last year, but not often enough). I'm hoping that through maintenance and home remedies for acute situations, I can care for my ears naturally, without antibiotics and without doctors.

I'm fairly new to this home remedy stuff, but am learning quickly. We're trying a few other things and I'll post on them as we go. Would love to hear your thoughts on this, and any experiences you've had with DIY-ing ear infection treatment.

Sew a mini tissue pack

Head Cold season has hit here. People all around me are full of sniffles, sneezes and coughing. It's gross, but inevitable. I'm still OK, a touch of a sore throat, but fine otherwise. The boys have full on colds though and so the stack of homemade fabric tissues I made last year are getting a workout! I love that using hankies gives no waste, and a massive stack of them means they can go in the wash after each use, therefore taking out the thing that gives hankies a bad name - lugging around a dirty hanky for repeated uses and therefore building up a pocket full of cold germs....ew!

Now I'm no germaphobe, but the snotty hanky in the pocket thing is really yucky, so I don't send hankies to school with my kids, and I don't carry them with me either, so when out and about, we use paper tissues. But being light paper, they're prone to tearing up of you just shove a handful in your pocket. That's why those clever marketing folks creating the mini packets of tissues. Great idea! But they're expensive and wrapped in plastic .... that is nearly as "ew" as the snotty hankies!

I needed a solution, and so this morning, while listening to early morning coughing and nose blowing, I decided to whip up these little mini tissue pouches and managed to make two in about 30minutes AND remembered to take photos* so I could show you how I did it! All before a cup of tea -are you impressed? ;)

 

*my camera has started playing up, so for the time being all photos are being taken on my iPod - apologies for the poor quality.

OK, so here is a quickly put together tutorial on how to make them. They're pretty straight forward, but yell out if anything needs clarifying.

You will need:

• Some fabric scraps cut into the following shapes (I used pinking shears so they wouldn't fray)
• One 13 x 9cm rectangle and Two 13 x 6cm rectangles
• A zip (longer than about 15cm)
• A sewing machine with a zipper foot, matching thread and the basic sewing gear (scissors, pins, iron etc)

1. Once you've cut out your pieces, take the two smaller pieces and iron over just under 1cm on one of the long sides of each.

2. Pin the folded over edges onto your zip. You want the fold close to the teeth and both pieces of fabric lined up. Make sure the right side of your fabric is facing up. Pin them in the middle of your zip - we'll be cutting off the long ends soon.

3. Use your sewing machine to stitch the zip to the fabric. You will need to move the zipper tag along the way - do this by making sure that the needle is down, then lift the foot and slide the tag along, then lower the foot and keep sewing. Sew both sides so you now have a rectangle with a zip down the middle.

4. Slide the zipper tag down so that it is open about 3/4 of the way down your fabric. Then with right sides together, pin your larger piece of fabric to the back. Make sure your open zip ends are pinned close to one another so the zip will close when it's all sewn up. Note that your zippered section might be a bit bigger than your backing piece. If that's the case, just trim them to the same size.

5. Now simply sew all the way around your little rectangle, making nice neat corners and sewing straight over the ends of the zip.

6. Trim the zipper ends and corners of the rectangle, then turn it all right side out through the zipper.

7. Iron flat and your done!

If your tissue pouch is for school, you might consider ironing on a name tag so it is less likely to get lost (update - Lachie came home tonight "I've lost my tissue case!"  I was furious!  But then a kid knocked on the door, he'd found it and returned it - the name touch was worth it). To fill the pouch, fold tissues in half and then in three, stack together. You should be able to fit in 6 tissues, just stuff in the folded pile. The other nice thing about these pouches is that they can be thrown in the wash occasionally.

Now make one for all your kids in personalised fabrics and a pretty one for your handbag too :). Have fun!

A spread for your bread

Two main environmental concerns have led to nearly all of the changes we've made over the last year or so.

1. The amount of power used in our household (and its source)
2. The amount of rubbish produced by our house.

The second one has led to some of the most obscure changes. Each time I put something in the bin, I wonder - could we change our habits so we don't produce this waste or produce less waste when using this thing. Is there a way I can reuse/recycle of reduce the overall impact of this bit of waste. And frequently, can I make the processed product myself so that it has less impact in terms of materials used in the production and packaging, and is made using more simple ingredients.

One of the things we've changed is our consumption of margarine. I grew up using margarine and not thinking anything of it. We used it for spreading on bread, baking etc and the only time butter ever really came to our house was at Christmas when mum would use butter for the baking. I used to find it frustrating when we would go to a butter using household and I couldn't spread the hard stuff on my bread! Stu also grew up using margarine, so when we started shopping for ourselves, we didn't think twice about becoming another margarine household. Over the years, we started watching our weight and changed to reduced fat margarine, and I used it for everything.

Then last year, I noticed the margarine containers in the recycle bin. And, I started reading labels. That's not a good thing for the case of margarine. It occurred to me that a spread that was made in a lab wasn't the right thing to be putting on our now fully homemade and simple bread. So we switched to butter.

Switching to butter isn't easy. It's great for baking, there is less waste, but you have the tough choice of either popping it in the fridge to prolong its life and ending up with a brick that is useless for spreading, or keeping it at room temp (perhaps in a butter keeper) which shortens its shelf life, but is otherwise great until the temp rises and you end up with a yellow puddle.

Image

So I did some research and experimenting and over the next few months came up with a solution. A homemade spreadable butter. This isn't new of course. You can buy spreadable butter (though it is pricey and comes in plastic tubs) and lots of others have made it too - that's where I was researching. But this is what I do...

In the bowl of a food processor or mixer, put in about 250g of chopped room temperature butter (I use salted and then don't add salt). Add to that about 125ml of warm (not hot) water. Beat. The water being warm helps the water and butter combine. Once your butter and water are really well mixed (it'll take a few minutes, feel free to wander off and multitask), slowly drizzle in about 125ml of olive oil. Keep beating. When the mix is homogenous (that means "all the same", but using big science-ey words brings out the ex-scientist in me and makes me feel like I'm back in a lab!), you're done! Put it into a container and refrigerate.

This spread is a bit firmer that margarine, but after a few minutes at room temp is spreadable. It has no nasty chemicals like margarine and has less fat, and healthy oils too.  It also tastes good!  Enjoy!

Rocket chai!

It's been raining here. It is so lovely to watch the droopy shrubs perk up and the veggie patch looking vital again. And our tanks are full! The loss of our bore water connection this summer had me worried and I was beginning to think we might end up needing to buy water during those long, hot and dry weeks when I was having to pour our rain water on the garden to keep our veggies alive. But with full tanks at the start of February, I feel confident that we'll be OK. That's important to me. I feel that even if we can't be self sufficient for everything, it is important to be able to look after the basics - simple cooking, growing a few edibles, home maintenance and gathering enough water and managing its use so it is enough. Clearly we want to be much more self sufficient than that, but that is my base line.

While thinking about that, and hearing stories of people being without power and phone, and cut off from the rest of the world by floods and fires, I've started thinking more about our emergency plans. Hopefully, we never have a big emergency, but evem if we don't, we do often have to cope without power for a few hours, and I want those occasions to be easy to deal with. We are so reliant on power for the operations in our homes. Here, we have no natural gas and, in our home, absolutely everything is electric. When we have no power, it isn't only heating, cooling and the kettle that we lose, but our oven and stove are out of action and we can't even get water from the taps as they rely on an electric pump. If I know the power will be out, I put water in the sink to wash hands, fill water bottles and a thermos for hot water etc, but when it is unexpected, we're stuck.

So this is one of my goals for February. To organise a water supply that is not reliant on the power, or a non-powered way to access our tank water. And I'm also playing with ideas for how to cook and otherwise cope so that we don't feel that we have to go somewhere else or resort to takeaway dinners just because I don't have an oven.

Yesterday, we played with one of those ideas. We built a rocket stove in our garden using the simple plans from a Grassroots magazine. It was a very quick and easy build using things we scrounged from the garden - about 15 bricks, a tin can and the metal pot holder borrowed from the BBQ. We built it on the concrete behind the pizza oven, and the first version was on the ground. But it did really need to be raised so that it could be cooked on and fed sticks easily. We scanned the garden looking for something and spotted the no longer needed old toilet and a slab of concrete.  A quick rebuild and our rocket stove was complete. We were highly amused by our use of the old loo - Stu's parents who were visiting think we've lost the plot ;)

So the idea of the rocket stove is that it burns sticks to cook things in the pot at the top. It works, but not fabulously. For us, it was at least a two person job. Someone had to be sitting feeding in sticks constantly and tending the fire, while someone else found the sticks, broke them to the right length and saw to the food on top. It was fun though, and the boys got involved with the fire feeding as well.

Our stove wasn't exactly great and may need some adjustments, but we'll keep working on it (the pizza oven was terrible the first time we used it too, but we've learnt how to use it now). We did manage to cook something though. A large pot of homemade chai. It was definitely slow living (the chai took almost two hours!) but it was so much fun and boy did that chai taste good sitting together as a family sharing our 'rocket chai' in the garden. The slowest rocket in history!

If I can't get the stove to work better than that, it won't be a terribly popular cooking method. But if we were without power, I could at least boil water for tea and make a simple hot meal using only a pile of sticks and leaves from the garden as fuel.

And now, would you like to make some chai too? Here is my from scratch recipe - feel free to use a conventional stove to get somewhat faster results ;)

Chai blend

Crush the following in a mortar and pestle: 3 cinnamon sticks, 12 peppercorns, 12 cloves 4 whole crushed allspice and 6 cardamom pods.  Mix in 1 tsp crushed cumin, 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg and 1/2 cup of black tea.  You can use the crushed or uncrushed equivalents if needed, just make sure they are still fragrant and fresh.  Store in an airtight container until needed.

To brew chai

Add about a heaped teaspoon of the above mix to about 2 cups of water.  Bring to the boil.  Boil for 3-4 minutes.  Add about a cup of milk (soy is nice, but cows/goats works just fine) and boil for a further minute.  Strain tea into mugs and add honey (or sugar or vanilla sugar etc) to taste. Enjoy!

Our life less ordinary

If someone had asked me ten years ago, what I would do with a weekend in 2013, I don't know what I would have told them. I probably would have predicted spending it with Stu - right. I might have hoped I would have a couple of kids in tow - right again (though I would not have predicted the identical twin boys I ended up with!). But as for the rest....? What I do know is that there is NO WAY I would have predicted the list of things I've been up to with my little family this weekend!

Friday saw me planting out some more seeds in my vegie garden, hanging out with the kids at home and studying the new fitness program I'll be teaching next term. That night, we met Stu in Warrnambool to work on our tiny school's fabulous, parent run, pancake stall at the night markets. We worked really hard, but it was so much fun!

Saturday morning found us in the garden fixing a gate to stop our over friendly chooks camping on the back door step (and possibly being hurt by the dogs). Mum stopped in to say hi, then later, in the spirit of tiny towns, one of our friends and neighbours dropped in for a cuppa. We emptied our waterless toilet and made some adjustments, and spent some family time discussing the possibility of getting a milking goat, and debating the best solar power option.

That night, after a homemade curry packed with homegrown veg, I dressed up in a belly baring costume, did my hair, put on too much makeup and went to a local restaurant. It was completely booked out, and I was there to belly dance.... people really enjoyed watching me (and my dance buddy) performing the dances I had choreographed.... AND I got paid for doing it!  Can you believe that?!

A job as a belly dancer? !  I never would have guessed that one!

After dancing, I came home to a peaceful home (it was screen free Saturday of course) and cooled down with a homemade apple cider, hanging out with Stu and our books for a quiet night.

Early this morning, I was out and about with Stu for a run - yep, a run! Stu is helping build up my running stamina. Once I was spent, I was home for some yoga before breakfast.

The rest of the morning was spent processing three of our home raised chickens for the freezer - a job that, while not exactly pleasant, was surprisingly satisfying and not as horrible as either of us expected it to be.

This afternoon, I have watched brand new chickens hatch, completed paperwork for this terms belly dance classes, crocheted a small gift and baked bread for the next couple of days. And while I was doing that, Stu was working on the belly dance website and the kids were enjoying their favourite thing - time together at home to just play.



Hatchlings!  Six hatched and at least two more on the way!

I'm exhausted! But would I change a thing? No way! And I would love to know what I'll be up to 10 years from now.



Ginger (or chocolate) bread houses (or sleighs)

Last year's mini houses.

One of the things I love about Christmas in our home is that we adopt traditions from all over the world and make Christmas all about us and what we like.  One of those adopted traditions is the gingerbread house.  Back when my kids were very little and my younger brother and sister were small too, I would have the four kids during the holidays.  It was at this time that my then neighbour gave me my first gingerbread house kit.  We had a ball!  I stuck the house together and the four kids attached a huge amount of lollies to it (and rather a lot in their mouths).  We left it on display and then after Christmas, I let them all dig in and eat it.  One of the best things about gingerbread houses is how pretty they look even if you let the kids do it all without any adult views to symmetry and clever decorating.

Our first gingerbread house was a kit version with people etc.

We've made a gingerbread house each year since then, and last year, I made my own gingerbread for the project.  Can I just say - the kits are great, but gingerbread is easy to make and you can cut it however you like and it tastes awesome when you make it yourself!  Last year we made a collection of small houses, some to give as gifts and some to keep for the kids.  They make lovely gifts, but the only downside is that I have friends who don't like ginger.  So this year, we have made some changes to the recipe and have ginger and chocolate bread houses to give away and a sleigh with reindeer that we will put together next week. 

I thought I'd share the recipes and template ideas with you.  I made a batch of each this year and had enough dough to make four of the small houses, 2 reindeer, a sleigh and a large pile of tree and gingerbread man shaped biscuits.

Gingerbread

125g butter
1/2 cup tightly packed brown sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons golden syrup
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons of ginger
3/4 teaspoon of bicarb soda
2 1/2 cups plain flour

"Chocolate bread"

125g butter
1/2 cup tightly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 heaped teaspoons cocoa
3/4 teaspoon of bicarb soda
2 cups plain flour

Directions for both types

With an electric beater, cream the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and beat well.  Add the other wet ingredient and beat well.  In a separate bowl, sift the dry ingredients and mix well.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir, and then knead with your hands.  The dough will be relatively crumbly.  Form the dough into 3 mounds.  Roll out (with flour/baking paper/your choice of rolling out method) one mound to about 4-5mm thick.  Use your templates to cut out shapes with a knife and then carefully lift the shapes onto a lined baking tray with an egg slice.  Continue rolling out and cutting shapes until all dough is used.  Bake at 180C for 10-15min until just starting to change colour.  Cool on trays for a few minutes and then transfer to cooling racks to cool completely.

Decorating requires tongue sticking out levels of concentration!

Templates

Use cardboard from a cereal box to draw up your templates.  You can then cut them out, lay them on top of the rolled out dough (printed side of the box down) and use a knife to carefully cut around the shapes.  The templates can then be gently wiped clean and put away for next year. 

To make the mini houses you will need:
2 side walls 5cm x 8cm
2 end walls 5cm square with a 3cm tall triangle on top
2 roof pieces 5cm x 9cm

One of this years complete mini houses.

To make the sleigh, you will need:
2 sleigh side shapes
1 big square for the back
1 smaller square for the front
2 (or more) reindeer/horse shapes

Enlarge this image to fit on an A4 sheet and you should be able to use my templates, or feel free to make your own better ones ;)

This image is of my templates.  The bigger square is 8cmx8cm.  Feel free to copy the image and scale in your own program.

To assemble

Make up a batch of royal icing by gently beating an egg white and then beating in about 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar (I use the mixture, not pure) and a teaspoon of lemon juice.  Spoon into a piping bag (or snap lock back with a corner cut off).

Use the chocolate shapes, ginger shapes or a combination of both depending on your (or your gift recipients) tastes.

A chocolate house assembled and ready for decorating.

For the houses, I assemble on a foil covered coaster.  Run a line of the icing along the front of the coaster and down each side where the walls will stand (test the spacing with your pieces first).  On on of the end wall, pipe a line of icing up the back of the wall edges and place the piece onto the line of piping on the coaster.  Quickly glue the two wall pieces into place to hold it up, then attach the back wall.  Use more icing to attach the two roof pieces and fill in the gap in the top with more icing.  Your icing doesn't need to be neat, you won't notice it when you finish the decorating!

I like to give my house a couple of minutes for the 'concrete' to dry, and then go to town with the lollies!  Use whatever you like in terms of lollies, but we particularly like smarties, mini marshmallows and candy canes and tiny teddy biscuits make nice residents :).  Last year we used small chocolate bars cut on an angle to make chimneys and some fruit/musk sticks, and this year we used some licorice allsorts.  Use your imagination and have fun.

Lots of bright lollies make pretty houses.

To make the sleigh, I will join the four pieces and then stand the horse shapes at the front.  They will have pretzel antlers added and I have lots of decorating ideas.  I'll share a picture when its done.


Have fun!