Almost midwinter again

Hello my friends,
Welcome back here.
It would take forever to try and fill you in.
I've neglected the vege garden because the house has gone up for sale. (reluctantly)
The fruit trees still provided over summer without any input from me. Yeee Ha for good groundwork!
I made sweet chilli sauce, tomato sauce and fejoia chutney, berry jam and pickled onions this autumn. The chooks have enjoyed liberation in the vege garden for several months and their population has exploded. I hope they have eaten all the grass grubs!
We shall probably eat a lot more chicken soup this winter.
Pumpkins also did well unattended
At the height of summer PJ and our neighbour made a delicious pudding mostly from our garden.

Lemon Meringue Pie with garden fruit salad

Old letterbox

Something lovely arrived in my letterbox this week. I'll be busy for a couple of days.

Spring Shift

It sneaks up. I don't mean mother nature's changes, I mean the energy levels and optimism I feel within myself, come spring. For about a month the garden has shown signs of spring. Though only in the last few days have I felt the energy I need to keep up with the season. Instead of lighting the fire and sitting near it to knit, I go straight outside to collect the eggs, open the glasshouse, check growth, frost and bugs. Washing dries the same day it is hung on the line and grass grows in a week.

Meanwhile....

We're in the middle of school holidays as well. This is what the teen has been doing. His homework folder is out but I'm fairly certain from the earphones, pocket knife and dreadful computer game case that NCEA English is not at the top of his priorities.

I've had to focus on a few things I'd rather not be doing, so my Mum took a few days off work to look after the children. I came home the other day to find they'd started making some puppets, an idea from a Living crafts magazine. It's so lovely to have a Mum who wants to do things with her Grandchildren, they adore her for this. So does the dog who walks around looking for her when she leaves.

I managed to put the finishing touches on a bag last night, I'm off to put it in the shop after a couple of very much appreciated purchases last week.

Not Again

Trampoline this time. The red head snapped both bones in his lower arm last night. Skatey had been helping him to flip!!!!!!! Red said "I cracked my bloody bones Mum"
Very brave at the hospital, worse break this time, but got it x rayed quicker.
I missed the Playcentre AGM which I had been looking forward to for awhile as it would have been my last one, having gone to most of them over the last 16 years.

Friday at last

PJ and I bought some delicious local apples for this weekend's baking. She's been taking about baking again all week and how could I refuse after she worked so hard to achieve "high honours" in her tap dancing exam this week.
The red head stayed home most of the week with me after his eardrum burst on Tuesday night. It was just as well he hadn't gone to see the Parachute band with the other kids that night. His earache came on so quickly but his fever and pain depreciated equally as quickly once the ear burst. So now I add burst eardrum to my long list of parenting experience. Gotta love it!

Thanks for the kind comments and emails I received after my last post. The blog community have been a lifeline at times over the past few years. Please accept this as a personal Thank You.



I understand too that my less than " perfect" relationship status got me dropped off a few peoples favorites as well. Walk a mile in my shoes before you judge me is all I ask.

In the kitchen

It would take me all day to catch you up with what's been going on here in the garden, at the sewing table and with life so I'm not even going to try. The focus of my life has changed a bit lately, I don't feel I can be as open with my thoughts here anymore. Some of my friends know my partner of 17 years and I separated earlier in the year, it has been a horrific time involving alot of grieving and of putting all my energy into my children to help them get through as best we can. We all have a long way to go.

They were very excited about Fathers Day this year. PJ said she wanted to make cup cakes for her Dad, so despite the chooks wrecking havoc in my garden and the boysenberries still desperately needing to be pruned, we spent some quality time in the kitchen.

The red head likes the beater,
And PJ looked the part with her Grandmas apron as they teetered on the stool without fighting to watch the mixer going round.

Thank goodness someone in the family is showing some interest in cooking. Hopefully she'll be cooking dinner for me someday.

Knitting possum

Dusting, window cleaning, lighting fires, vacuuming, knitting and costume sewing featured quite heavily this week. My neighbour caught me in the middle of a cleaning spree doing a very loud Bohemian Rhapsody rendition and invited me to watch the school kids rehearsing their performance for an upcoming event. I don't need asking twice to abandon housework.

I've been helping sew the costumes for the performance, so the lounge has been covered with black and sparkly fabric for the "Kiss" themed costumes.

I've been staying up way past my bedtime knitting too, lots of possum/merino gloves are coming off the needles for the craft co-op and here

Drop me a line if you'd like the pattern. It may be similar to others available but I made it up because the others I've tried don't fit as snugly as I like. Maybe it's the character of the double knit possum wool , I don't know. I should try it with some other yarn as well but I love this possum.

A little progress and thanks

I wish I could say I feel 100% better, what I can say is I think I'm getting there slowly. I have no faith in conventional Dr's who only seem to say "virus" when they don't know and "don't worry, take it easy' when blood test results don't show up anything. I have neither the money or the energy to try all the alternative therapies there are available. So in the interest of helping myself get better I'm off caffeine, alcohol, and crap food, trying to rest, trying not to stress and drinking alot of water. I'm so grateful to the friends who have called in to see how I am, to blogging friends who've said a few kind wishes or checked in, to my brother for delivering dry firewood, the community who have had kids after school and to Mum for cooking some meals and and giving the kids a bit of TLC.

L has been home and demolished our adorable old shed which I use to fret was going to blow down in strong winds. I dreamed of building a little road side garden studio on the site but he has won out and is going to build a bigger shed. Hopefully I'll be allowed a little space for a rumpus room for the teenagers to hang out in, since I had to give up a big bit of garden for it and transplant three established fruit trees. He better hurry up and get it built though, because if I start to feel better soon I might be tempted to plant there. Skatey boy has already started to build a stunt track for his unicycle.

garden notes

While it was raining an army of stink bugs amassed in my garden. They are absolutely everywhere, sucking the life out of everything. I squashed alot while I picked some things for tea, but as many as I squashed the same amount dropped onto the ground. They do that when they smell their mates "stink", then I can't find them. A friend suggested Neem oil for next season after I moaned that the catch crops, squashing and garlic and rhubarb sprays were just not doing the trick. Most of the outdoor tomatoes will be a write off I think, luckily I have quite a few going strong in the glasshouse. The rain has also made the blackberries go mouldy, while the immature peaches have got a bit of brown rot showing up.




The corn and basil are tops at the moment. I'll have plenty of corn for the freezer and am whizzing up a batch of basil pesto as I write.My "golden midget" watermelon, next to one of my Dads. The great organic verses inorganic competition is heating up. He won on melons but I'm winning hands down on corn and cucumbers and am way out front on flavour!

Finished pesto, this lot is being frozen for winter.

Cloth doll for PJ

Last night PJ had to go to the Dr and get stitches in her chin after trying to ride skatey boy's unicycle. L took her cos I really hate after hours Dr's visits. I stayed at home and sewed the doll I was working on for her before Christmas. I didn't finish it until now as I was struggling with how to do the hair. The ghastly yellow fine merino jersey from the red cross was perfect. She was thrilled with it because I made it look like her and used her favorite colour brown. She wants me to make one now that looks like her best friend. The brown merino I was wearing today will probably become the hair, I looked down and thought that while I was helping L split our winter firewood. Quite timely with a cold change upon us.

Foraging

When L and I met we lived in a house bus for several years so didn't have a garden of our own. I grew herbs in planter boxes of course but we over came the lack of a garden by doing alot of foraging for food and firewood. There are still several spots I visit where I know good fruit and nut trees are growing wild. I usually say to L at this time of year "better go and check if my peach tree is ripe" and he knows exactly where I mean. I also have several walnuts to call on, along with mushroom circles, rose hip bushes, elderberries, wilding plums, apples and pears as well. A couple of years ago I found, with a little help of a friend where some hazel nuts are. The jewel in the crown though is the pine nut tree I think. My brother and I visited there last week filling our pockets with the little treasures.The kids will have to do some cracking for me so I can make a fresh batch of pesto with local ingredients. Both my brother and I have saved some seed to try and germinate as well. Our property is not big enough for one of these massive trees but I've had plenty of people offer to let me plant them on their land. I looked to see if the seeds need any kind of stratification but haven't found anything to suggest they do. Has anyone got any tips? I seem to have trouble raising trees from seed in pots but get plenty of walnuts, peaches and apricots coming up if I just throw the stones in the garden and ignore them til the following spring. I'd love it if people would come and dig them out of my garden and give them new homes, I have even thought I should go on a fruit tree planting mission in public places so others may benefit from the fruit.
If you like the idea of foraging, Johanna over at star-cooked has some good posts about it. The native flax seeds are one I'm keen to try.

Teen

Actually I don't give the teen enough credit, he's brilliant at doing the dishes, even gives his Granny a hard time that she doesn't do them properly. We joke that he'll be the one when he goes flatting that makes the dish washing roster, getting on every body's case when the job isn't done properly. When we ask what he wants for birthday/Christmas he says "dishwasher" seriously!

Kitchen is on the painting list for next year.

Painting update 2

One of the nicest features of our little old house is the lilac windows in the bedrooms and bathroom. They're jolly fiddly to sand around though, you'd think I'd have quite good fine motor skills but they don't seem to work on this sort of thing. I admire people who renovate their houses especially scraping off years of paint to reveal real wood. It takes alot of energy and elbow grease, I think I may have lost weight or toned up some muscles I didn't know I had at least. Thank goodness I'm onto painting now.

The red head has been surprisingly good, the teen is babysitting with alot of complaining, even though all he's done is put DVDs on for Red to watch while Teen plays games, I think they've eaten cheese on toast every day which is all the teen is interested in making. (Note to self, more cooking lessons) Never mind the paintings gotta be easier right? Have to admit it's not my thing at all!

Am so GRATEFUL to at least have my own home though and want to put some effort into maintaining it. Mum reckons it's going to look like a hospital room all white, but I got a cheap deal on paint so white it will be.

Am missing being in my garden.

Bags and skirts

I had to have a break from the bathroom today. L worked hard before he went on holiday to replace the rotten wood and I feel like I've been working hard but not getting far. I don't enjoy sanding but quite like scraping big flakes of paint off. I was one of those irritating children who couldn't resist picking at a bit of peeling paint. Anyway, day off. The red head (3 and a half now) just wouldn't stay out of mischief all day. He did quite alot of pruning to my tomato plants while I was loading some new items in my shop . They are some of my absolute favorites which I've made over the last few months.

Solo mum

I'm wishing I was enjoying a wine, I've had a really full on few weeks. There's been very late night sewing for yesterdays fantastic Ngatimoti School festival, early morning watering and weeding (not enough mind you) in the garden, dehydrating kiwifruit for our Brooklyn School country Fair next weekend, Playcentre work and meetings, learning sign language and the associated homework. Whoops, I'll have to cram tomorrow morning. I'm not complaining though I really like to be achieving things so it's been a satisfying few weeks also. My mothering has not been up to scratch I must admit. I flagged the reading last week in favour of getting kids to bed early so I didn't throttle them. The red head drove me totally nuts on Thursday, none of my other kids are quite like him I'm convinced only mothers of red heads would understand he is into EVERYTHING! Has to fiddle, loves attention, displays a fantastic temper,is good at winding siblings up and at the moment not making it to the toilet on time. If I'd had him first I might have only had 1 child.
I'd love to show off the bags I made for the festival but no. 1 teenage son has been lending me his camera batteries for awhile now and decided last week to withdraw the favour so I shall have to buy some new ones. I will show when I make some more bags. Also the garden is worthy of some pics it's changing every day at the moment.
Any locals who are reading come and visit our school fair on Saturday at Brooklyn School there'll be food and entertainment,books, plants and crafts and stuff for kids too of course. If that's not tempting enough how about fresh whitebait sammies? We're fundraising for a new community pool.

Washing

I get so stressed when my washing machine breaks down, usually every few years. It broke down on Monday, the guy was supposed to fix it Tuesday. He came out and replaced a part and left a reasonable bill but, I didn't get a load on until last night because I was behind with everything else. Skatey boy came in and said "Mum there's someone in the house hear that bashing?" We both looked at each other scared to death. I said "hold my hand we'll check it out" (Quite stupid looking back) Anyway it was the washing machine in what seemed to be it's death throw. Relief on one hand and gutted on the other. Called back said fix it guy who said he can't look at it till Monday. Pleading about four kids didn't sway him a bit either. Unfortunately he's the only appliance guy in our town and looking back it took him 3 goes to fix it last time too. I'm grateful they're all out of nappies to say the least. I have some cool bits of fabric that I'm dying to wash up too.

From left: cool old floral curtain, fab orange sheet, and a bit of "viyella" all found at the op shops today. As well as two super cheap bits from that Spot place. Red head boy needs new long pants and shorts, have you noticed it's so hard to find cool boy fabric second hand? Hopefully the washing machine will live again on Monday.

Growing in the kitchen

At a recent seed swap with friends I was also given some Kefir grains. You use them to make a fermented milk drink which is good for your digestive system. I didn't know much about it and let my first lot perish somehow, so now with a fresh batch of grains I'm determined to keep it growing this time. Here's some info I found on growing Kefir , but I'd love to have advice from anyone else who's using it. My friend didn't tell me to wash the grains each time so hopefully that is where I've gone wrong. The ever suspicious and fussy kids are not keen on the taste but I plan to sneak it to them in fruit smoothies as summer comes. My friend told me the Kefir is something that should be given, not sold so if I can keep mine alive I'd be happy to share with anyone who wants to try it. I see there are plenty of people offering it for sale on "Trade me" and through the web if you're further away.

Again I'm wishing I had a goat or cow to milk, maybe I spend too much energy in wishing and not enough time in making things happen!

Keeping it real

If I truly had to be self sufficient this year I think we'd starve or get scurvy. I could barter lemons and grapefruit, but I have planted nowhere near enough winter veges! I might have saved enough pumpkins to see us through but the canelenni and berlotti beans only yielded enough for seed for next season. I'm giving broad beans ( fava) another chance after being totally put off them as a kid. About about a months worth of corn is frozen with about the same of tomatoes, a row of salad veges are in and drying apples is on the agenda but I only see them lasting a month as well. The frozen berries should see me through for jam and smoothies and there are a good crop of cabbages, spring onions and celery but I forgot to plant more beetroot for winter. The brassicas are getting eaten, we'll be all right, we'll just dim the lights for dinner! ( so the kids don't spot the caterpillars) and there is rhubarb for puddings after all. When the situation dawned on me I got motivated to clean out the glasshouse. I gave it a good scrub ( to improve light) and pulled all the old tomatoes out. I will put some pea seed in when the moon is right and hope they are ready for spring. We'd survive on calaendula and chickweed if worst camre to worst, from under the roses. I looked for my garden diary to compare the seasons and couldn't find it so I'm keeping my garden notes here on my blog from now on. ( see below)


In other news..... a great garage sale day! Got curtains for the sun room we turned into a bedroom for the "teen". Also I've been a fan of retro tablecloths for years, long before they were trendy in fact. Four today, couldn't believe my luck. One large sale was to fund Herceptin treatment for a local, defiantly no haggling on my behalf, I hope they made heaps. NZ Health system sucks!!!!! Fancy having to have a garage sale to fund cancer treatment.


In other news, the "teen" is at his first party with girls tonight! Oh to be a teenager again!!!!!!!!!! Very exciting.

A day in the life

I saw this at Sunny Corner Farm, who joined in from Little Jenny Wren. Today was pretty typical so I've joined in too. I woke early about 6 said to myself what day is it? Oh Thurs, PJ is sick still, don't have to go to Playcentre, I'll lie in. Got up at 7 am when PJ told me her bed was wet. Bother not again why is she bed wetting after several years of being dry? Is she missing her Dad? At work three hours away or her Granny visiting a new baby cousin in Adelaide? Don't know, changed the bed for the third day in a row, just as well the weather is good. Made breakfast for the two little ones, checked the big one had packed his lunch and organised him to light the fire when he gets home from school. Showered while they ate breakfast. Neighbour came over to borrow a lemon. Got kids in car by 10 to 9 to have skatey boy at dental nurse by 9.15 for his filling. There was an argument about who was going to sit in the front and PJ told me she was still dizzy and might be sick. Great, pack a wet flannel and a change of clothes. 9.15 dental nurse, 9.20 post office. Left small kids in car while I posted parcel, quick flick of a magazine. Hospice shop-nothing cheap enough for me. Txt from skatey boy, waiting at the library for me. 9.45 "Mum I saw your car at the intersection it looks really hippy". Dropped off overdue books. Sally Army and Red Cross, more of nothing for me today. Give the kids a chocolate milk for behaving in the car. Home by 10.30 all hungry, make sandwiches and cut up fruit for morning tea. Tell PJ since she's still sick she needs a nap. Try and convince the red head to come out and feed the chooks with me, nah he'd rather annoy his sister by bouncing on the bed. Got him outside by about 11.30 and he helped me plant peas by the neighbours fence. She poked her nose over offered me some old magazines and we arranged a garden visit to a local permaculture garden for next week. Inside for lunch and an hour knitting a scarf I've been promising PJ while watching Dr Phil of course. Drank about the third coffee for the day, got the rat bag into bed and cooked some macaroni for tea. Got some wood in for the fire , did the dishes again and went through the hair plaiting technique which PJ is trying to learn. 3.10 Skatey boy bowled in, "I don't want to go to soccor" and I'll argue the fact for a minute. Wake and cuddle the red head, get wood for the fire then into the car for tap dancing. (PJ's feeling better) Library again, a few books out this time, my card's lost can only get three. Skatey boy to soccor, back to collect PJ from tap then everybody can have a run around in the cool evening air until practice is finished. I crochet the tassels onto PJ's scarf while standing at the field. Txt from L he's got 24hrs off and is off for a social life in Westport tonight. Lucky for some. I picked up a bottle of wine in anticipation of the hyped up foursome when we arrived home. Fire's going. ( He's a great kid.) Turned macaroni on to bake, cooked a few sausages, picked some spinach , rocket and lettuce for a salad by cell phone light from the garden. Small kids have just gone to bed, bathed and having talked to Granny in Adelaide, happy. Teen is on the lap top, skatey boy is watching TV and eating cereal after eating more tea than me and a bowl full of ice cream!. Me checking e-mails, writing blog post. Plan to put washing by fire to air and maybe finish sewing a bag I cut out yesterday, while watching survivor out the corner of my eye.

That was Thursday! Another day in the life 15th next month.

Involuntary downshifting

Stuck at home with sick kids isn't as bad as it sounds you know. They slept most of the time, so since I was cleaning up sick anyway I did some l o n g over due housework, the cupboards and doors all look clean now and the worst of the dust has been delt to. (Must add sugar soap and disinfectant to the shopping list). I like being at home, uninterrupted by paid work, grocery shopping, meetings and sport practice. I like running out of groceries and getting creative with food, the "well" children had sushi in their school lunches today cos the bread, butter, milk, cheese and junk food have all run out. There's an oversupply of fresh veges and fruit but the "teen" thinks he's dying! I wish I could stay at home for another week but I have an appointment for "skatey boy" to have a filling in his tooth tomorrow. Other than house work and a spot of gardening in the adorable autumn weather while they slept, I've created a couple of sewing disasters: I planned for this to be my new bag, it looks great but doesn't really keep it's shape well while carrying it, I think I made the handles too short and a heavier weight interfacing may have been better.

The skirt is perfect except it doesn't suit me at all, I've tried it with heaps of combinations of tops/shoes/ tights etc and just can't make it work for me. I'm gutted cos I've been bonding with the fabric for months trying to decide what to do with it. I've hinted to L that a new pair of boots would set it off perfectly, but he's not biting. I don't know if I can part with it yet. If I can't make it work I may put it in my Felt shop . I listed a few bags there today.

Sorry, blatant self promotion. (council rates are due this month.)

Lastly, a present left for me at the back door while I was out in the garden. Cool eh?