How Fast Time Flies

Villa Sonia, Nyun Kuning, Bali.

Life just flies by and here it is 15 months since my last blog post.
In  my defense life is very busy with 2 teenagers, two demanding jobs and a fisherman to wrangle. Here are some highlights from the last year.
Actually make that one demanding job, I resigned from one job at the end of February this year and that was a very good decision for my health and for the family, even though I really loved what I was doing, I was too busy.

My advice to everyone out there is take plenty of time out. I really hit a wall in April/May and realised that I had been working hard (with a major project and management responsibility as well as the aforementioned two jobs) and parenting non stop and had no effective holidays for more than a year. This is a mistake.

We had organised a week at Pt Lincoln National Park in January which was a beautiful place but fisherman and I spent the whole time there in bed (not in a good way) with what appeared to be the flu and the kids and friend were left to their own devices as we were really sick.Fortunately we had lots of food as the cottage is 40ks out of Lincoln.  Highlight of the holiday lying in a small non air conditioned cottage in 40 + heat with a high fever; Not Good.

Fisherman then proved to have pneumonia,  then our son came down with pneumonia, I probably had it too but too busy looking after everyone else to have a Chest Xray. Our daughter inexplicably managed to avoid it.
As a consequence of all this we organised ten days in Bali in July and just had a very relaxing time in Nyan Kuning, just out of Ubud, at Villa Sonia, I can recommend it.

My daughter is doing year 12 so for many reasons we felt that having some relaxing time mid year would be a good thing. We all came back a lot more relaxed and it's nice to have some warm tropical weather in the middle of an Adelaide winter.

I volunteered at Bumi Sehat while I was there.

www.bumisahatfoundation.org


We also managed to take our 1977 Jayco poptop van on a little trip to the Corrong and feasted on fresh cockles. Note the very 1970s curtains

We saw this sculpture being made last year and it featured on a previous blog post. Here it is in position in the main street of Hahndorf with some admirers.

Sourdough Bread

 I have continued to experiment with bread and finally managed to make my own sourdough starter after many ill fated attempts. I suspect it's better to make it in winter in Adelaide, in the warmer weather it seems to go from just developing to toxic nailpolish smell in a few hours. I lost momentum with the bread making when we were away in Bali, however I have some sourdough starter in the freezer so will get back to it soon.
I have some large bags of flour from Weston Milling on Yorke Peninsula.
I have a San Francisco sourdough starter that I ordered as a fallback when I was feeling pessimistic about being able to make my own, I must try it and see if the taste is different

The Garden

How I love Camellias, but I live on the coast and up until now I haven't had a lot of success. We did have a cool wet winter which probably helps but I have had lots of blooms this year and there is one little spot in the back shaded by the veranda that seems to have a micro climate perfect for camellias and hydrangeas.

 We have quite a few pots. I could count them but I am a little afraid of what that might reveal!
It makes for a lot of work but I do like the variety and interest that they bring.

 

 The jasmine is climbing up the fence next to the clothes line as planned, and it smells beautiful now while in flower.  (the clothes line is behind this fence with the rainwater tanks, and although it gets a fair but of shade this is small price to pay for now having to look at it all the time!)

While on the rainwater tanks, we have been running the house entirely on rainwater for the last 3 months, its probably not going to last much longer with the change of season but it feels really good to be able to do this.

I don't really like the Euphorbia where it is planted (by fisherman) in a bed with the jasmine, a persimmon in the center, roses, lavender and camellias but I must admit it looks pretty at the moment.

The front yard is really looking like quite a mature garden now. It needs work on the understory and over the winter I have planted out several different kinds of Correa grown from cuttings from plants already surviving out there and native pelagonium cuttings as well as trying some geralton wax along the boundary. I hope it takes off, I've always really loved it.

We have had a nesting box for Rosellas up in one of the casuarina for 2 years now and have had several families use the box. A pair have just moved in. We are going to put another nesting box up in one of the neighbors trees over the back lane way. (with their permission)
The vege garden has been quite prolific over the winter. I have concentrated on greens and we have had lots of kale, silver beet, spinach, parsley, cabbage, snow peas, lettuce and bok choy.

I have planted an avocado in the courtyard, moving a dwarf peach to make way for it. Fisherman is sceptical. I hope it does alright. Close to it is an another one that has been growing from in a pot for years, this was sprouted from a seed in a glass of water in the kitchen. There is also another very small one coming up in the courtyard from a seed I planted there as an experiment!

Sunny
Well known Henley Beach celebrity Labradoodle.

 Only a few short weeks and child number one will finish her schooling and turn18 more or less simultaneously. The last few years have had their difficulties; welcome to parenting teenagers in the internet age. Fisherman and I are part of the first generation of parents dealing with young people having immediate access to the world, in all its beauties and all its horrors.
I strongly recommend caution about young teenagers having devices that connect to the internet (except under supervision).

I feel very proud to have raised a thoughtful, compassionate, intelligent and beautiful young woman who is a feminist and politically active. She just missed out on voting in this election but will fully participating in the next.

Yesterday we went to the open day at the Adelaide Central School of Art, how exciting to be stepping out into the world and to have the opportunity to explore interests and creativity.



We are still really enjoying living at Henley Beach. At the end of last summer we purchased a stand up paddle board so I am hoping to improve fitness and enjoy the beach with plenty of time on the SUPP this summer.
Swimming and walking will also be on the agenda.

A lot of time will also be spent protecting the garden from the fierce weather that is coming. Time to check the irrigation system and mulch, mulch, mulch.

How does anyone have time to blog? This has taken me hours when I should have been cleaning the house or weeding or paying bills.........

May 2012

So here we are in May, the year is just whizzing by.

We are finally doing a "makeover" of my sons room which was a combined Christmas and birthday present and involves a major clear out of toys,  painting and some new furniture. It is really changing from a younger boys room to a teenagers hangout and will look really wonderful when it is finished. We are still waiting on a desk from Ikea and he wants to find a really cool poster to put up on the wall.

Fisherman preparing the walls for repainting...

At the same time I have been reading Simplify by Joshua Becker on my kindle. With this in mind I have been really working on clearing out from his room as much as possible, and separating things into piles to give to St Vinnie's or pass onto younger cousins or the refugee association. As the Simplify book suggests I am just planning to tackle one drawer or surface at a time and slowly keep the process going.

For Mother's Day I am going to ask for commitment and assistance to keep clearing out and getting rid of stuff we don't need. (I have tried also asking for obedient children with clean bedrooms but my daughter replied "where do you get them?")

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On the bright side Fisherman and I had a weekend away in the hills at "The Willows" a B&B in Basket Range; this was a 50th birthday present from my family for him. It was a real treat. The house is surrounded by a Cherry orchard and has a cottage garden all around it with beautiful hydrangeas, salvias, fuchsias, windflowers, roses and many other plants. Early May is spectacular in the hills with Autumn foliage, the grape vines all turning golden and cool, fresh apples, crisp clear days and cold nights.

While we were in the hills we stumbled across a international sculpture symposium at the Cedars in Hahndorf. Sculptors from Australia,  the USA, Korea, Japan, Spain and a number of other places were making large stone sculptures on site, on completion they will then be placed in towns in the hills on permanent display. i really liked a lot of it. My phone battery gave up while I was there so I was only able to capture a couple of them.

We visited Barretts winery near Uraidla. Lovely wine, beautiful gardens and views and very pleasant company

Barretts Winery

The whole thing did give rise to fantasies of living in the hills with some property, a large kitchen garden, an orchard, open fires, you know the kind of thing. At the moment we are committed to staying at the coast, close to the kids schools and work. The hills are so attractive but I know I would really miss my beach walks.


On the home front I did manage to do a little op shopping. I know, I know, it is more stuff!
I do need a little jug and some more small vases so I felt these beautiful objects were justified at $5 a pop.

I have been experimenting occasionally with some bread making. I m quite pleased with the results but really need to make it more regularly to get really good at it.

Our next door neighbours gave me some pomegranates. hopefully next year we will have our own. I went through the protracted process of seeding, juicing, squeezing, and boiling up the juice with some sugar to make pomegranate syrup. It is delicious!

I have done a few things in the garden, planted out two kinds of peas, some rainbow chard, cabbages, kale, coriander, lettuces and  a few seedlings of beetroot a friend gave me. Looking forward to be able to pick some of these greens in the coming weeks. The chooks are very happy and we have lots and lots of eggs, we are giving a lot away and still having to think about what to do with all these eggs.

I have gone vego (with fish allowed) alcohol free and chocolate free for May so I will am eating more eggs than usual. So far very easy to be meat and alcohol free but being such a chocoholic I am really struggling with that and have had a couple of minor breakouts.


Last night just before going to bed a big sigh from my son. "What's the matter?" I said. "I have to go to school tomorrow", Says he. "and I would rather be in France." (well der!)

Book Giveaway & Review: One Magic Square, by Lolo Houbein | Sustainable Suburbia

Book Giveaway & Review: One Magic Square, by Lolo Houbein | Sustainable Suburbia

Sustainable Suburbia are giving away this book and I would love to have a read of it!

March 2012

So the beginning of the year has not gone exactly to plan. I am busier than I would like and this is despite cutting back time in one of my two jobs.

Life is very full with two working adults and two teenagers in a house and the demands of work and school leave us all exhausted. We have had a round of sickness in the house; only a bad cold but enough to keep me off work today, hence the time to do some blogging.

The garden has had very sporadic attention and the only things I have grown to eat this summer are chilli's, capsicum, basil and a few zucchinis, a sad state of affairs.

On the good news front there are lemons and figs, limes on the lime tree as well as a few Persimmons on the Persimmon tree. Nothing as yet on the Pomegranate but it is growing well so it is only a matter of time.

Writers Week this week and I will make it there but have not been so far. Had a ticket for last nights special event but had to give it away to someone well and non infectious!

The Lavender has been beautiful and full of bees.

Perhaps too full of bees. We had a swarm that tried to set up house in the shed (and stung me while I was watering) and then moved to the Rosella box in one of the Casurinas out the front. We had a bee man come and take the box away and add the bees to his hives.

We did have a family of Rosellas living in the box in the spring which was a treat. Very noisy when the three young ones were learning to fly; the perils of having a native front garden just outside the bedroom windows!

I started the year with great intentions of getting out on my bike more and having a couple of good rides a week. I did well in December and January but since school went back that seems to have gone by the wayside. I plan to get back to it this weekend, it is a long weekend so no excuses. We are only going to go to one day of WOMAD this year, much as I love it I think if I do the full four days again I will need a week off to recover.

I love going to our local Organic Market, check it out at www.organicsustainablemarket.com.au

have only made it there twice so far this year, that gives me some awareness of how overcommitted I have been!

The Iron horse at North Haven.

The sky at Henley.

What a joy and a privilege to live so close to the beach.

My youngest finished Vac Swim at Henley this year, the end of a great tradition of a week or so in January of lovely mornings at the beach swimming, socialising and developing skills for the kids, and swimming, walking, socialising and drinking coffee for the adults. I will miss it.

As usual we spent the last week of the school holidays at the Port Elliot Caravan Park. It was a lovely week and very social catching up with friends and family either staying at the Caravan Park or living nearby. The young people had surfing lessons at Goolwa Beach with Kingo. I would highly recommend it.

Goolwa Beach, initial instructions.

Around Christmas as had another addition to the Zoo, not one with parental sanction as we would not have chosen another cat. Despite saying no, no, no! Sebastian arrived one day and had soon wormed his way into everyone's heart. He was the runt of a litter of six left out in the hard rubbish collection to starve. He was 412 gms when he arrived. As it seems he is a good climber he will shortly have a very large and loud bell to wear around his neck.

We also had Screechy living in our birdcage for a week. S/He is a Rainbow Lorriket I found on the road with eyes glued shut. I fed him and cleaned his eyes and eventually he recovered and flew away. Sunny (the dog) was very sad about this as she spend every day that Screechy was here hanging around by the cage wagging her tail.

A Rainbow Lorriket

Sebastian making himself at home.

We have had the annual Tomato Sauce making day the Saturday just gone and it is a delicious batch. Based on the "Kathy's Tomato Relish" recipe in Stephanie Alexander, with less sugar and a few other variations. It is a great way to catch up with friends and make something delicious for the family as well. We had 20kg of tomatoes between three of us and ended up with just under 3lts of sauce each. We would have had a little more but managed to burn some.

This weekend I am hoping that everyone in the family will be fully recovered from the cold and we can have some enjoyable family time at home, get out into the garden and down to the beach, see some of WOMAD and soak up some Fringe and Festival atmosphere.....

The New Year

I want to make this year a year of being grateful for all my blessings.

France

We are currently in France enjoying a much deserved holiday. We have all had a busy and/or difficult year one way or another so we are hoping that this will be restorative, mind expanding and inspiring. We had a great week in Paris and one of the things I really enjoyed was the gardens. Below the gardens of the Palais Royal.

We were staying a very close walk to the Luxembourg gardens and this was a wonderful place to walk.

There was a lot to do before we left home, a lot of work to finish off for me, and a lot of work to do in the house to make it ready for our housesitter. So of course with this in mind I spent hours in the garden!! I prettied up the veranda

Mulched, weeded, watered, fertilised and pruned....

Did some spring planting......

Repotted a whole lot of Orchids...not this one actually

Bought an outdoor clay fire for the veranda...

Mulched some more...

And more.....
It was great to spend some time in the garden and the weather was beautiful for the few weeks before we left. The house was eventually left in a reasonable state!

Spring is here

Another season has passed by.

Spring is well and truly in the air and has been for a week or so in Adelaide despite the fact that it is still August.

The Winter sadly did not contain much in the way of gardening and my small plot has been looking quite neglected until this burst of Spring weather lured me outside to weed and feed and mulch.

All that has grown for consumption in the garden has been pretty well self sufficient; Silverbeet, Parsley, Chives, Sage, Thyme, Rosemary, Carrots, Lemons, a few Limes (exciting!)

I have been picking an occasional Capsicum and Chilli until a week or so ago and some Basil in a protected spot until really late June, so fabulous to have that fresh taste with pasta and stir fries.

I did manage to plant some Garlic so there will be a little bit of fresh Garlic come the Summer.

Four Tomatoes have come up self seeded in the vege patch so I will leave those and see how they go. Last weekend I planted some Purple climbing beans that have done very well in the past.

Other than this I'm going to have to wait to late October for planting as we are going to France for a month! I am hoping to do some blogging on our trip which will take in Paris, Provence and the Pays de Gex.

We have been greatly enjoying the home made Tomato Sauce and Passata that I made in March. Planning to make MUCH more passata this year, the flavour is so beautiful compared to the bought variety.

I have been on a frenzy of Marmalade making, I have made Grapefruit, and a batch of Orange and today I am going to make a 3 fruits batch with Orange Grapefruit and some of our Lemons.

The Hellebores are fabulous this year in the courtyard and seem to have thrived on neglect.

Good rains this winter have also helped I'm sure.

We have had a busy chook winter. Sylvia was broody and we brought in some day old chicks to put under her. Sadly she rejected them so I have been a chook mother for months. The first few days they were in a bad way as they had become very cold and infested with mites in the chook run. This meant intensive care for the wee things and I was very pleased that they all survived, even "Lazarus" who spend a good 12 hours lying on her side with her eyes closed, only twitching when I suggested to my son that she was dead!

They then spent weeks in a cardboard box in the laundry with a light and have only graduated to the chook run in the last week.

We all ended up with mite bites from handling the chicks, these are horrible and stay itchy for days. In the end it was a positive experience as we really cleaned out the chook run well, spread a lot of the compost throughout the garden and sprayed with a an insecticide. I don't really like spraying with chemicals but we really needed to get rid of the mites!

Here they are in recovery from their traumatic early experience, they seemed quite happy on the lounge room floor:

Even now they have to be fenced off from the large chooks who are very mean. You can see that they are adolescent chickens now.

The front yard always looks nice in the winter the Banksia is getting big and the Eremophila below it is in flower.
The lemon tree is healthy and very prolific, time to make more preserved lemons. We made some last year and we did use them all up, I love middle eastern cooking.
Winter is still a great time for walking along the beautiful Henley Beach with the added advantage that it is mostly left to locals and dedicated beach walkers rather than the noisy hoards who come in the Summer and leave their rubbish all over the beach.
One of the other joys for locals is the Grange Organic and Sustainable Market held fortnightly at the Fulham Gardens Primary School. If you have not been to the Market come along and check it out it is well worth it, just don't come and buy all the good bread before I get out of bed!!

www.organicsustainablemarket.com.au

As Spring really gets going there is a range of seedlings from the Henley Community Garden in addition to all the yummy organic goodies.

Also look out for the Vanilla Mossie range of natural organic insect repellant sold by my good friend Catherine Carroll, this really works, smells divine and is moisturising for your skin. Good eh?

While I am in the product placement mode please check out my family Olive Oil production in the Willunga hills.

http://mccaulsoliveoil.com.au

This is handpicked extra virgin cold pressed oil which is local and organic. It is very, very good.

Strange that the cats preferred sleeping place is a basket full of clean washing. I have arranged for him a variety of sleeping options over his long life (13 years) but none is so popular as one of the washing baskets-never with dirty washing, clean washing only.