Winter ready

The winter solstice is just around the corner and I'm finally feeling like our family is ready for winter.

Our warm winter clothes, coats, beanies and gumboots are within reach for keeping warm and dry when we step outside. 

We have hot water bottles on the ends of our beds ready to be filled and slid between chilly sheets (flannelette of course) before bed. 

Our pantry is stocked with the goodness of summer and autumn all bottled up as jams, chutneys, passatta and pickles. And alongside them, supplies of dried legumes for soups, stews and curries and plenty of wheat and flour to be turned into sourdough breads. 

Throw rugs adorn the back of the couch for pulling onto knees for cozy evenings of crafting, reading or relaxing in front of the telly. 

We've gathered firewood, chopped and stacked it in our "new" woodshed (thanks to the local gun club for donating the shed and letting us forage for wood!). 

The garden is planted out with cabbages, caulis, broccoli, kale, Asian greens, snow peas and broad beans and is growing well (despite the slugs which have chewed great holes in everything!). 

And today, after months of waiting, we finally have the centrepiece to our winter - our wood heater/cooker has been installed. The house is feeling warm and toasty for the first time in a while. A loaf our sourdough just went in the oven and a pot of veggie soup is bubbling away on the top. 

Bring on the next few months of winter's cold and drizzly weather - the Wright family are ready!

Fruity muffins on winter mornings

It's cold here. Winter has hit and come with a chill and we still don't have our heater installed.

Delay after delay from the place we've bought it from means that despite being promised that it would be installed in early May, we still have it sitting in boxes on the verandah. We've been told it will be installed first thing Monday morning. Fingers crossed. 

In the meantime, while we continue to snuggle inside in our winter woollies and dream of crackling logs, bread baked by their heat and a constantly hot kettle on our wood stove, I've been enjoying playing with our sourdough. 

For about 9 months, our starter lived in the fridge and was pulled our once a week, fed, used to make tortillas and then put back in the fridge.  But I've had a few successes with bread so I'm using it as my go to loaf a few times a week and also making these delicious sourdough English muffins with dried fruit each week. I make a double batch and freeze the leftovers - they are so lovely toasted with honey, butter or jam for breaky on a cool morning. 

Sourdough fruity English muffins

This is the double batch, feel free to halve and make only 8. 

The night before you want them, put a few handfuls of dried fruit into a bowl. Add two tablespoons of delicious local honey and a cup of hot water from the kettle. Mix and allow to sit a little while. 

Then add 2/3 cup more water (you can use milk or whey if you like) and 4 cups of flour and a cup of active sourdough starter. Mix well and put in a 'not too freezing'/warm place overnight. 

Next morning. Turn an electric frypan onto medium low her. Put on the lid and let if warm. 

To your dough, add 1 1/2 tsp salt and 2 tsp bicarb. Mix and knead well adding extra flour as needed. Cut the dough into 16 even pieces and roll into balls. 

Flatten and shape each ball into a rough muffin shape (roundish, about 8cm diameter and about 1-2cm thick). Place muffins into your pan and replace the lid. I fit 8 in at a time. 

Cook for 5-10min until golden on the bottom. Turn and replace the lid and cook for a further 5-10min. Remove to a cooling rack. 

Cook remaining muffins. 

To eat, split muffins with a knife, toast and spread lavishly with your topping of choice. Yum!

Eating from the garden in late winter

Colour in the winter garden - beetroot, calendula and brocoletti flowers

Two years ago, if someone had told me that I would be able to eat veggies from my garden all through winter, I wouldn't have believed them. In the past, the only thing harvested in my winter garden was the silverbeet that had grown into a massive plant. I still have a long way to go in my winter gardening (no lovely heads of purple broccoli or cauliflower for us still), but now I can see the possibilities!

Snow peas in hanging baskets - snail and duck proof!

This winter promised lots of lovely silverbeet and peas, but my ducks put a stop to that. Instead, we've eaten great heaps of wombok cabbages, enough lettuce and rocket for salads and burgers, good supply of carrots, baby beets, some lovely stalks of brocoletti, the odd bak choi and masses of crisp and delicious celery. It's all been topped with the herbs that have kept going, and served with some of my summer preserved and frozen veg. It's not enough veg for us - I've still had to buy the odd pumpkin, frozen peas and bags of potatoes - but every day we eat something from our garden, and that feels very good indeed. 

Broad beans in flower promising more fresh veg soon.

Last night was a good gardeners meal. I made rosti with potatoes and a selection of fresh turnips, carrot, celery and herbs from the garden. They were served with new season eggs from our chooks (thanks girls!), sourdough toast, tomato chutney and the first few snow peas from my hanging baskets (ie. duck proof pea gardens!). It's a simple meal, but it tastes so good to eat all of those home grown and homemade items, knowing exactly what went into everything on the plate. 

Delicious!

With a bit of luck (and my planning paying off) and we'll continue to eat from the garden all through spring to make it a whole 12 months of garden consumption - yay!

Pretty purple and white turnip tops.

 

Living in the season {and cake too}

I have a bit of a pet hate - heating to summer temps in winter and cooling to winter temps in summer. There is a (large) collection of people who turn thermostats on heaters to 30c through the winter just so they can get about in a tshirt. The same people, undoubtedly, switch on the aircon if the temperature goes over 25c in summer. Grrrrr.... Makes my blood boil!

There's none of that in our house. We probably swing to the opposite extreme. Our centralised system is broken, so we only have room heating and no air con. 

Right now, it's the middle of winter here and it's pretty cold. It never gets cold enough to snow here, but we get a mean frost. We had one this morning that froze everything in sight. This morning, we turned on the heater, but its the first time we've used it in the morning all week. Most mornings, we climb (begrudgingly) out of our toasty warm (thanks to flannelette sheets and good blankets) beds, toss on dressing gowns and slippers and make a warm drink straight away.  Stu and the boys go off to their tropically heated work and school, and I stay here - dressed for the weather. During the day, I wear layers, a singlet and warm socks, a beanie, scarf and fingerless gloves. I wear them inside and out. When I venture out for my morning and evening jobs, I add a coat and boots. The boys follow this dress code on the weekend. 

Do I heat the house in the day?  Depends. If I am running around doing housework, baking with the oven going or in and out all day, then no, I don't. If I'm sitting in one spot sewing or working at the computer, or if I have guests, then I heat the space I'm in. We also heat the kitchen for our evening meal and the lounge room after tea. 

When watching tv or crafting or playing games at night, we use the heater on low. We also use blankets on the couch, and often reach for an extra layer or beanie. 

Hot water bottles are used for warming beds, or on chilly nights to curl up with on the couch. Hot drinks are used frequently, by all of us, to warm from the inside. 

We live like its winter. 

We eat like its winter too. We don't eat fresh tomatoes, zucchini, corn or stone fruits despite the fact that we love them. We'll love them even more when summer comes back. We eat seasonal veggies and fruit and preserved versions (tomato chutney gives that red, tomato-y kick to a sandwich!). 

Porridge is a breakfast favourite, and on days like today, I'm inclined to whip up a bowl of this nutritious, delicious cheap and super warming goodness for lunch too. 

We are eating a lot more soups and curries too. Warming and made from seasonal and preserved foods. They go beautifully with fresh bread (which incidentally warms the house while it cooks). 

My chooks are on their winter holidays, so eggs are off the menu. We still buy the odd dozen free range eggs (preferably local), but I only use them for baking, and choose egg-lite recipes. 

From the garden we're harvesting lettuce, beets, carrots, delicious celery, brocollini and herbs, with wombok, pak choi and kale not far away. These are the basis of most of our meals. We're also harvesting lemons, lots of juicy lemons. 

Tonight, I made a delicious, season friendly, eggless lemon-yoghurt syrup cake.  It was very very easy - kid friendly in fact.  We served it warm with a drizzle of cream and it made a fabulous dessert for us and my brother - very moist and with that fabulous tang that only lemons can give. Yum!

Eggless Lemon-Yoghurt syrup cake. 

(adapted from this recipe)

• 220g plain flour
• 200g sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• Juice and zest of 2 medium (juicy) lemons
• 250 ml natural yoghurt (homemade preferably - my 'recipe' is in this post)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil of your choice
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Juice of a third lemon (for syrup)
• 3 tablespoons of sugar (for the syrup)

 

1. Preheat oven to 180 degree C and grease and flour a pan (I used a 20cm round tin)
2. In a medium-size bowl sift the flour, baking powder and salt. 
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the yoghurt and sugar well, till sugar dissolves completely. Then add the zest and juice of lemons, whisk till mixed well. This forms the wet ingredients.
4. Mix your two bowlful a together until we'll combined. 
5. Finally, fold in the oil till it is completely incorporated.
6. Bake at 180 (or 160 if your oven is too hot like mine). degrees for 50 minutes or do until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
7. Meanwhile, make a syrup using the juice of another lemon and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Mix together in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. 
8. When the cake comes out of the oven, leave it in the pan and stab it numerous times with a skewer. Then slowly pour over the syrup, allowing it to soak into the cake. 
9. Let the cake sit for at least ten minutes to soak up the syrup and then serve. 

I wish I could tell you what it tastes like cold, but it was all scoffled up warm for dessert... I guess I'll have to make another while the family isn't home. 

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!

Autumn is....

Jamie's bunny {pattern}

Lachie's Easter haul
(the bags full of eggs and those little ones have jelly beans in them!)

Autumn is having extreme heat and then extreme cold - all in a week.

Autumn is wondering how long I should leave those sick looking tomato plants in the ground waiting for the last fruit to ripen.

Autumn is chocolate rabbits, hot cross buns and hunting for shiny wrapped eggs in the dark wet garden.

Autumn is seeing your breath on the air while doing the morning chores.

Autumn is building and planning (at least it always seems to be for us).

Autumn is pulling out the extra blankets for snuggling under in the evenings.

Autumn is not quite putting away shorts and skirts..... just in case.

Autumn is fruit - apples, peaches, pears and more - for eating fresh and bottling.

Autumn is brewing.  Filling the cupboards with beer and cider before the weather turns too cool for easy fermentation.

Autumn is watching the dirt and dry grass flush green and remembering that is isn't always so dry here.

Autumn is brassica seeds - cabbage, cauliflower, brocolli, pak choi and kale.

Autumn is beautiful days in the garden and evening bike rides.

Autumn is feeling the desire to pick up my crochet hooks again for snuggly crocheting evenings.

Autumn is colours - leaves changing and falling, flowers and pretty blue skies.

We've run out of bread....

It's another stinking hot day today. It was predicted to get to 38C in our little part of the world. We have had a record number of days above 30C for March, and even those of us who love summer are just over it! Everything in the garden is dry, brown and crackly. In the last week we've noticed that even plants that were looking fine (like the giant flax) are beginning to wilt and brown off. We've had about 30 drops of rain I. The last 2 weeks and there isn't any coming for a while yet.


Fried plants - this is a "drought resistant" native....

"Please turn off the heaters!"

There is still water in the tanks, but only due to us being extremely water frugal, not because we've had enough precipitation. My animals are all still alive, but they are all panting, we're not getting many eggs and they all look at me as if pleading for me to turn down the heat.



Strawberry plants are just hanging on.

I've just come home from school where i was running our kitchen garden program. We had a great morning cooking with delicious tomatoes and apples from the school gardens. It was hot work though and I'm pleased to be home. Our house feels nice right now - I shut it all up in the mornings and it stays cool for hours, but it will be heating up again soon and the air conditioner (now back in use since we are making the power to run it!) and ceiling fans will be working to make it tolerably hot instead of sweltering! We'll then open it all up again once the heat is out of the day and allow a bit of air in to try to help us sleep through the sticky nights.

So, the weather is causing us all sorts of discomforts and problems. Most problems are obvious and expected, but today's issue isn't one I've really had before. My problem is that we're out of bread. We're big bread eaters (toast, rolls and sandwiches feature regularly on the breakfast and lunch menus) and for 12 months now I've made all the bread we eat. But I just can't justify turning on the oven and heating up the house even more (not to mention standing and kneading dough with sweat dripping). I could get Stu to buy bread before he comes home from work, but we no longer enjoy shop bought bread and it just feels wrong somehow. So now I'm wracking my brains for suitably easy to pack and eat lunches and yummy breakfasts that don't require an oven to make. I'm thinking pancakes, tortillas, fritters or maybe having another go at crumpets. All still need a pan and effort, but no oven. One of these days, it'll be cold again and I'll relish turning on the oven to cook bread and warm the kitchen, but right now, that feels a long way away.

Have you discovered strange problems caused by of made worse by the heat? Any oven-free food suggestions? :)





Talking about making a difference

As we watch on the fire maps, a country is gripped in a heat wave and fires rage through. Mother Nature is thrashing and complaining again. She does that a lot these days. Like a toddler, she throws tantrum after tantrum.  Wherever you are in the world, you will have seen some of these disasters.  It's normal to have a tantrum sometimes, but when they are so frequent and so violent, something is wrong, something needs to be changed or the tantrums will only get worse.

Bushfires blazing about 200km from here, but close to some of my family.
Image from here

When we're given these natural disasters, our first instinct is to fight. Again, the toddler analogy works - as parents our first instinct with a naughty child is to yell at them and fight back. But all of you who have survived toddlers know that, in fact, the best option is to to be more gentle, to hunt for the triggers and to try to make life less stressful for your little one. And so with Mother Nature, her tantrums are telling us that life on earth is too stressful for her, she needs a break! And as the guardians of Earth, it's up to us to give her that break.

But how? The job feels too huge for our family or yours. But maybe it isn't. Every little thing we do to strive to help the Earth helps. If you turn off an appliance at the switch today, you've helped. If you buy less rubbish or reuse an item, you've helped. If you do a string of little things, you've helped quite a bit and if you can manage big things like going solar for your power or not driving your car, you've made an even bigger difference.

But the best way to make a difference is something I've learnt by accident over the last couple of months, and it struck home yesterday. You see I'd started to comment on the Grass Roots magazine Facebook page. Interesting conversations come up and I jump in to talk about things like cloth pads/menstrual cups, wee wipes, green Christmas ideas etc. And then I found out that all of my other Facebook friends can see these comments (oh the lack of privacy on Facebook is just scary!). I was pretty embarrassed. It is one thing to write on this blog or tell GR magazine about my use of these things, but I was mortified that all my work friends, school mates, belly dance colleagues, family and other friends now could know too! But then something amazing happened - a friend who had seen one of my comments asked to know more. We had a long and detailed (and not at all embarrassed) conversation about menstrual cups and now she is planning to get one for her and one for her daughter!  So now my changes to greener choices have not only reduced the amount of waste I produce, but have multiplied to much greater amounts than I alone could do. I've also noticed my family is starting to make a few changes after seeing our changes; people ask me about our solar hot water or our waterless toilet; people tell me that they think of me when they go to buy a disposable item, and you, my dear handful if readers, tell me that you are trying some of the things I talk about here.

So what is the best thing we can do to help our poor planet? We can talk about ways to help it!  We make little changes, then tell our friends and family about them and how easy they are and help them to make little changes too.  Then, maybe they'll tell someone, who will tell someone else,etc etc. A butterfly effect might just happen and together, our tiny efforts will become something huge.

So today, I'm not only encouraging you to talk to anyone who'll listen about little things we can do to ease the pressure we've collectively put on the earth, but I'm going to give you another little idea :-). It's just a tiny one, perhaps you already do it.

* if you cook bread, pastry, or roll out biscuits, chances are your recipe calls for you to cover your dough with plastic cling wrap. Don't! A damp cloth (a napkin or tea towel) will work just as well, that's what people did before they had rolls of plastic wrap! We don't use plastic wrap at all anymore, in fact. Items to be microwaved are covered with a lid or plate, items for the fridge are covered the same way and lunches use reusable boxes or bags. Maybe you could start eliminating plastic wrap too!

So that's my tip for today, perhaps it'll have a butterfly effect. If you're new to my blog, look around and you'll find more of the ideas that we do.

The blogs I read each day inspire me constantly - thank you to the bloggers who share the things they do to live greener, more sustainable lives. Here are a few great places to get inspired.

• Little Eco Footprints
• Slow Living Essentials
• The Witches Kitchen
• Urban Homestead South Africa
• Down To Earth
• Grass Roots on Facebook (or in fact, the magazine!)

(BTW, I read many more wonderful blogs, these are just the ones where I get the most "green tips")

Do you have a tip, just something small, that we can spread the word on? Comment below! Or, if you write a blog, pop a link below and link back here on your blog. If you know another blog that, like those listed above, is full of ideas, let me know that too so I can add if to this list (and my personal reading list). Lets talk folks, and work together to make a big difference.

And so this was Christmas

December has a habit of racing past, doesn't it? One minute you are excitedly decorating the tree and opening the first day on the advent calendar, and the next you are looking at a pile of opened presents and leftover festive food.

So Christmas has been and gone again and looking back it was quite different here than other years, and while a few changes felt a bit odd at the time, the resulting feelings after the event are heaps better.

Our Christmas cake/gingerbread sleigh combo

Most of our changes were based on our conscious decision to be more environmentally friendly. Last year we had masses of mass produced, plastic encased gifts, many of which were so poor quality that they broke within a week, and they were all wrapped in masses of wrapping paper.

This year, the gifts we gave each other were all homemade, second hand or vouchers for our time and activities to do together. The gifts we gave others were all homemade, many from recycled/repurposed materials. And the things in the boys stockings were about 50% homemade, and the gifts from Santa were purchased with quality and longevity in mind. There were also a lot less gifts than in previous years, and they were all either not wrapped, or wrapped in reusable fabric gift bags.

Christmas day at home - notice the spunky matching PJs?

In addition to our efforts, we asked our parents to give less to us and the boys, and to wrap less. They, and others, took on the challenge and we received some lovely eco-friendly gifts and a small amount of fun things for the kids.

These were pretty big changes, so how did we go? Well, there were times when making the presents felt stressful, but it was more the deciding what to make, rather than the actual making. I started the making very early and finished a week before Christmas. The gifts were all really personal and very different to each other, so they suited my desire to not make the same thing over and over. However, perhaps next year I will try making a lot if the same gifts so I can do a bit of a production line for the making. I will post a list of the gifts I made, with some photos, in a little while.

The gift wrapping was easy too. I bought fabric last January (on clearance) and then as we needed them, I simply cut and sewed very simple sacks. They looked great under the tree and we got all but 3 bags back, so next year I should only need to make a couple more. And the tidy up was brilliant! Just fold the bags and put in a box and because we used curling ribbon to tie them this year, that was all that went in the bin - so much better!

Second hand presents were fabulous! The children bought at the op shop, and I received a gorgeous summer dress and a cookbook that I will probably never use (it's a casserole book from 1972), but I love to look at it and love the sentiment. Stu received a stack of good quality business shirts for his new job and a card game from the kids and a good quality jumper too. And Stu gave me a set of vintage kitchen scales, that are exactly the same as my mum's - I love them!

Second hand gifts which are much loved already

The only challenging thing about the gifts was that there were less. I know we wanted less 'stuff' and we knew there would be less, but the reality for the kids and us of having much smaller piles of stuff felt a little weird. Don't get me wrong, at the end of the day we were all grateful to have a smaller amount of quality, eco friendly gifts, knowing that all that was missing was the piles of junk that we usually have, but just for a moment, we missed it. It'll be easier next year.

Because Christmas is about so much more than presents, we had plenty of celebration too (with green changes of course!). The Saturday before Christmas, we travelled to Melbourne to catch up with family. This year we took the train which was great - cost less than driving, no one had to drive and we saved all that fuel. In the city, we saw some festive city sights and picnicked at the gardens with our extended family.

Christmas Eve brings our quiet family tradition of a platter of cheese, cold meats, deli treats and fresh fruit while watching carols by candlelight on the tv, surrounded by our own candles. This year there were homemade cheeses and biscuits and homegrown berries with our free range, local ham. And I gave a Christmas Eve family gift of homemade matching pjs - fun and very well received!

(blurry) shot of our delicious Christmas Eve feast!

We've hosted Christmas the last few years, but it was decided that mum would host again this year, so after our family time around the tree on Christmas morning, we headed to their place for a lovely family afternoon.

Overall, a beautiful Christmas that left us with a much better taste in our mouths and feeling in our hearts than last year.

And to top it all off, I get to share it all with you. So thank you for not only reading my ramblings, but to those of you who also write blogs, I would like to thank you for all of your inspiring posts this year, and I look forward to sharing with you into the new year.

Loving summer

I love summer. I'm a hot weather girl and have always said that if my family would all head to a warmer area, I'd be there in a flash. But sadly for me, much of my nearest and dearest are not big fans of heat, so I'm left to relish the hot months of the year and endure the cold ones (which probably just makes me love the hot times more when they come).

Today was delicious. Hot and sunny. And to make if better, I found time to enjoy the warm weather. What do I love about hot weather? Here's a few things I can think of:

1. Less clothes - give me a floaty skirt, a singlet top, sandals on my feet or bare feet, and I'm much happier than when I'm rugged up.

2. Summer food. All the lovely fresh Mediterranean veg from the garden - zucchinis, tomatoes, eggplant. Yum! Salads and barbecues, quiche and simple pasta dishes. And ice creams of course :)

3. Eating outside. Ok there is sometimes the bug issue, but I love taking my breakfast or lunch into the garden to eat as well as having family meals al fresco - food tastes better outside.

4. The beach. We are lucky enough to live a short drive from a gorgeous beach. So we are able to visit on days like today. We took the kids after school. Grabbing only a towel each, the kids' boogie boards and some sunscreen, we headed off to enjoy an hour in the water. It was fabulous.

5. Exercising outside. I know you can do it in winter, but its just so much nicer on a balmy evening or morning to head outside and go for a good long walk (or run if you're so inclined), or, as I did tonight, take your yoga mat into the garden for a peaceful yoga session surrounded by nature.

6. Cold drinks. This could be anything, but right now, I'm particularly partial to a stubby of our home brewed apple cider at the end of a day working.

7. This last one isn't do much about hot weather as just associated with it for us, but summer also means Christmas and long school holidays which are two of my favourite things.

What do you love about summer? I'm sure there are heaps more things to add to this list, help me out.

Tuesday Garden Journal

Rach from Squiggly Rainbow stopped by here on the weekend and invited me to share in the Tuesday Garden Journal linkup she has started.  I'm a big fan of linkups :)  and I have started to browse through her blog and it looks like another good one - stop writing such lovely blogs people!  I'm running out of time to work LOL

So I'm going to try and join in with this Garden Journal on a weekly basis......  so here goes.

We've been very busy in the garden this week.  Its Spring, of course we have!

I have just finished making this arch in my vegie patch which I will use for growing cucumbers over.

I found these cheeky little tomato seedlings sprouting in the veg beds, and have plucked them out and potted them up.  Based on their location and what was growing there last year, these will be a delicious cherry tomato.  A few plants for me, a few for mum.  By the way, can you see the chicken wire loosely covering them?  That has to be all over my garden beds as we have cats and they love nothing better than well tilled soil for digging in.

The seedlings are going really well in the cold frame.  I love seeing the first hints of green each time a new variety pops through and cheer them on while they grow first leaves and then true leaves.  The zucchinis and pumpkins are nearly ready to go out and then will be protected from frosts by cloches in the garden.

Out in the chook area, Specks is all settled in the old dog kennel with 11 eggs from my mum's farm under her.  With a bit of luck we'll have little chicks in a couple of weeks.

Materials are piling up for the building of the pizza oven.  These concrete blocks came home yesterday and Stu will be getting more supplies after work today.  The concrete we laid on the weekend is dry now, so we will hopefully start the building tomorrow evening.

The sun is out and everywhere I walk I find animals enjoying the sunshine - chooks, bees, dogs, insects, snails (they don't get to stay though) and cats.  They all love our springtime garden as much as I do.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else is up to in their gardens this week.

Celebrating Winter

Its no secret - Winter is my least favourite season.  I don't like that the cold makes my fingers and toes ache; that the washing needs to be dried on the verandah or in the house; that we have to run heaters; that things get wet and muddy; that my garden is less productive; and that I have to wear shoes.  I'd love to move somewhere warmer, but this is where we live, and I understand that each season has its place and that having winter makes spring and summer even more special.  So, this weekend, we celebrated winter.

We had intentions of celebrating Winter Solstice, but I was working, so we made it Friday night instead. 

We made ourselves some ice lanterns which we placed out on the verandah.



Ice lanterns - so simple and pretty

We all rugged up in boots, coats, hats, scarves, gloves and thermals (except me - I forgot them and hence I was the only one that was cold!) and equipped ourselves with a torch and some glow sticks.

Jamie and Lachie heading out into the cold wintery night

Then we headed out into the fast approaching night.  The sun dropped down quickly as we walked around our tiny country town.  The dogs loved the walk, but were feeling the cold.  We tried to avoid the slippery muddy puddles and the boys learnt what a silhouette was as we watched the sky change colour behind the trees.

We were watched by some cows (who thought we were crazy).  We paid an impromptu visit to the cemetary by torchlight (and weren't at all spooked) to look at graves, some of which were about 150 years old and beautiful. 

Heading out of town

The boys (I think they were being "winter ninjas")

me and the kids and the muddy puddly road

It rained on us as we approached home, so we arrived a bit damp to see our pretty little lanterns still glowing.  The house was warm as smelled deliciously of the casserole with herb dumplings that was cooking in the oven.  It was delicious and warmed us to the core!

Lachie loved his personal kid-sized casserole

Poor Jamie has a cold and a sore runny nose :(

Then we had hot chocolates, homemade marshmallows and a board game in front of the heater before the boys went off to bed with hot water bottles and a wintery story.

We enjoyed celebrating winter and are now looking ahead to longer, warmer days.