Slow Living December 2014

Wow I am runnig really late with this post, any way better late than never I guess.

Linking up with Linda who is now our gracious host having taken over from Christine in hosting the Slow Living Nine.  I love joining in each month and reflecting on what I have achieved, it is also great to hear what everyone is up to and share in their achievements.
With Christmas this month a lot seemed to revolve around getting ready for the festive season.

Nourish -Make and bake as much as possible from scratch. Ditch over packaged, over processed convenience foods and opt for 'real' food instead.
We are still drowning in and eggs so they have made it into many meals lately. We have had lots of ham and salad but finally the ham is nearing the end.

I also made a big batch of Orange and Almond Biscotti.

Prepare - Stockpile and preserve. Freeze extra meals or excess garden/market produce. Bottle/can, dehydrate or pickle foods to enjoy when they are not in season.

This month we started to make a dent in the 379kg of beef in our freezer and the meat quality is fantastic.  There will not be much else getting stockpiled in the freezers for a while as they are full to the brim.  We are even storing meat at Hubby's parents house.

Reduce - Cut down on household waste by re-using, re-purposing and repairing.

I am still reducing the clothes I own and sending them off to the op shop for someone else to enjoy.  And I am adding other random items to the box for the Op shop too slowly but surely we are de cluttering the house.

Green - Start (or continue!) using homemade cleaners, body products and basic herbal remedies. The options are endless, the savings huge and the health benefits enormous.
I have started a search for a good herbal/natural insect repellent so if anyone has any suggestions let me know.

Grow - plant/harvest. What's growing this month? What's being eaten from the garden?

The garden is producing lots of herbs, the zucchini have almost finished due to all the rain creating fungal problems but the cucumbers are coming on, there are spring onions, tomatoes, capsicum, water melon and eggplant.  

And weeds, oh my goodness the weeds and grass are invading and taking over.

Grrr so many weeds

Golden Nugget Water Mellon coming along nicely

Create - To fill a need or feed the soul. Create for ourselves or for others.

December was all about creating in the kitchen with new dishes being trialed and sweet treats being created.

Discover - Feed the mind by reading texts relevant to current interests.

I have read a stack of books lately.  One of the was "Free The Bears" whick was a great quick read about an inspirational Australian Grandmother who proves that one person can make big changes to the world we live in.  You can check out the website here.

Enhance - Community

This year Hubby and I volunteered at the Opening Ceremony of the Woodford Folk Festival.  In return we received free tickets for one day so we had a great day out soaking in the atmosphere of the festival and listening to some great music.

Our participation in the opening ceremony

Enjoy - Life! Embrace moments with friends and family. Marking the seasons, celebrations and new arrivals are all cause for enjoyment.

Well how could you not enjoy December with so many excuses to get together with family and friends.

Hubby and I enjoyed a delicious Christmas Breakfast with my friends Sandra.

My date and goat milk panna cotta with baklava (a Christmas only type of treat)

Hubby and I out for breakfast

Then we spent a great night at a friends farm for New Years Eve.  The hmans and dogs all had a great time.

What have you been up to?

Slow Living November 2014

Linking up with Linda who is now our gracious host having taken over from Christine in hosting the Slow Living Nine.  I love joining in each month and reflecting on what I have achieved, it is also great to hear what everyone is up to and share in their achievements.
We spent just over 2 weeks of the month in NZ leaving house sitters to look after Jessie, the chickens and the garden.  We had a great trip and I have lots to report so I will include a little here but most of this post will be about what else happened in the month.

Nourish -Make and bake as much as possible from scratch. Ditch over packaged, over processed convenience foods and opt for 'real' food instead.
We spent half of the month away but we are still drowning in zucchinis and eggs. Our house sitters made a big batch of pasta from our eggs and left us some along with some pancetta so we would have a quick and easy meal on our return.  Teamed up with some of our tomatoes, basil, capsicum, garlic and spring onions from the garden it was indeed a tasty and delicious meal.

There have also been a few sweet treats like this Buttery Orange Cake and Peanut Brownies during the month.

And I used up yet more zucchinis in the chocolate zucchini cake which I took along when we helped friends move house.  It was a hit even with the kids.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake Recipe later this week.

Prepare - Stockpile and preserve. Freeze extra meals or excess garden/market produce. Bottle/can, dehydrate or pickle foods to enjoy when they are not in season.

This month we finally filled our freezers with meat from Freezer 2.  Such a huge amount of meat 379kg in all.  There will not be much else getting stockpiled in the freezers for a while as they are full to the brim.  We are even storing meat at Hubby's parents house.

Reduce - Cut down on household waste by re-using, re-purposing and repairing.

I have been reducing the clothes I own and sending them off to the op shop for someone else to enjoy.  

Green - Start (or continue!) using homemade cleaners, body products and basic herbal remedies. The options are endless, the savings huge and the health benefits enormous.
Just the usual happening on this front.  

Grow - plant/harvest. What's growing this month? What's being eaten from the garden?

The garden is producing lots of herbs, we are inundated with zucchini, there are spring onions, beetroot, lettuce, tomatoes, capsicum, cucumber and eggplant.  I have dill and coriander going to seed which I collecting for replanting and for use in cooking.

Yesterday's harvest

Create - To fill a need or feed the soul. Create for ourselves or for others.

The past month has been way too busy for anything creative but hopefully I will have some time over the next month.

Discover - Feed the mind by reading texts relevant to current interests.

I have finally through a couple of books I started last month and thanks to our holiday they are finished... well almost.

Enhance - Community

Nothing to report on this front in Australia but on our trip to NZ we have started to build relationships in and explore the community that we will live in.

Enjoy - Life! Embrace moments with friends and family. Marking the seasons, celebrations and new arrivals are all cause for enjoyment.

My parents and I

November's trip to NZ was full to over flowing of get together's with family and friends.
We meet our new niece and had time to enjoy our other nieces and nephew as well.
We celebrated my Pops 87th birthday and my sister in laws 36th birthday.

Me with my Granny (Dad's Mum)

My nieces helping their mother blow out the candles

Then they helped their great grandfather (my Pop) with his candles

My brothers three girls including 2 week old baby Alice with their great grandfather

Me and my Nan and Pop (mums parents)

It was especially nice to spend time with my grandparents who are now all in their mid to late eighties.

What have you been up to?

Slow Living October 2014

Linking up with Linda who is now our gracious host having taken over from Christine in hosting the Slow Living Nine.  I love joining in each month and reflecting on what I have achieved, it is also great to hear what everyone is up to and share in their achievements.

Nourish -Make and bake as much as possible from scratch. Ditch over packaged, over processed convenience foods and opt for 'real' food instead.
This past month has been really busy for us and we have made good use of meals that I stockpiled in the past few months.  We have also been eating lots of egg based meals like omelettes, quiche and fritatas to make use of all the eggs, silverbeet, zucchini, and herbs in the garden.

There have also been a few sweet treats like carrot cake during the month.

Prepare - Stockpile and preserve. Freeze extra meals or excess garden/market produce. Bottle/can, dehydrate or pickle foods to enjoy when they are not in season.
I made one last batch of orange marmalade with a second lot of gifted oranges and I think we will have enough to last us through until next citrus season.

Reduce - Cut down on household waste by re-using, re-purposing and repairing.

This month I turned some jeans I got from the op shop for hubby that were too small into some chicken saddles.

Green - Start (or continue!) using homemade cleaners, body products and basic herbal remedies. The options are endless, the savings huge and the health benefits enormous.
Just the usual happening on this front.  

Grow - plant/harvest. What's growing this month? What's being eaten from the garden?

The garden is producing lots of Silverbeet and herbs, we are inundated with zucchini, we are harvesting asparagus daily and there are spring onions, beetroot, lettuce, tomatoes, capsicum, cucumber and eggplant.  I have dill and coriander going to seed which I collecting for replanting and for use in cooking.

The zucchini are smothering the lettuce plants around them but that is ok because we
will be harvesting the lettuce over the next week

This is what we are picking every day.... so many zucchini

Bush basil, eggplant, dill, tomatoes, lettuce I am letting go to seed, zucchini and other herbs

Beefsteak tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers

Coriander going to seed

The mulberry is fruiting and I am trying to beat the birds to them.

Create - To fill a need or feed the soul. Create for ourselves or for others.

The past month has been way too busy for anything creative but hopefully I will have some time over the next month.

Discover - Feed the mind by reading texts relevant to current interests.

I am still trying to get through a couple of books I started last month and at the end of the week we are going on holiday so hopefully by the time we get back they will be finished.

Enhance - Community

The car show that I am involved is over for another year and was a great success, however I am relieved it is over and I can stop thinking about it for a while.

Enjoy - Life! Embrace moments with friends and family. Marking the seasons, celebrations and new arrivals are all cause for enjoyment.

October was full of get together's with family and friends and my brother and his wife welcomed baby number 3 (another girl, baby Alice Rae) into the world and my other brother and his girlfriend headed off to Korea for the next 2 years.
November sees us heading over to New Zealand to catch up with my family and meet our new neice and we are really looking forward to seeing everyone.

What have you been up to?

Slow Living September 2014

Linking up with Linda who is now our gracious host having taken over from Christine in hosting the Slow Living Nine.  I love joining in each month and reflecting on what I have achieved, it is also great to hear what everyone is up to and share in their achievements.

Nourish -Make and bake as much as possible from scratch. Ditch over packaged, over processed convenience foods and opt for 'real' food instead.
We make all of our meals from scratch pretty much but I do sometimes buy cereal.  I was shocked most recently to find that the "Just Right" Cereal that I buy is about 28% sugar.  Some comes from the dried fruit but some of it is added.  I used to make our own mixed cereal but I got a bit lazy and went back to buying it.  Well I will not be doing that any more.  Along with the sugar there is a whole lot of other stuff in there I don't want or need.

During the month I made some more sausage rolls.  Hubby really likes these in his lunchbox even though they are cold as they make a nice change from sandwhiches.  There have also been some yummy sweet treats like the orange and almond cake.  I still have oranges so I will be thinking up some other ways to use them.

Prepare - Stockpile and preserve. Freeze extra meals or excess garden/market produce. Bottle/can, dehydrate or pickle foods to enjoy when they are not in season.

During the month I made a heap of pesto some of which made it into the freezer for later use.  I also froze some portions of quiche to have on hand for easy lunches when we are busy and want something quickly.

The macadamia and lemon myrtle shortbread were a real hit so much so that I had to hide the second batch in the freezer in small portions.  Most of them were still discovered but I have one last container full hiding down the bottom for an emergency.

Reduce - Cut down on household waste by re-using, re-purposing and repairing.

I am not sure we did anything in the re-purposing area but we continue to try and de-clutter giving things away that we cannot take with us to New Zealand.  I gave a friend a whole lot of huge plastic garden pots.  I am sure if I washed a disinfected them we could take them but it would make it more likely that they would want to pull our shipping container apart.

Green - Start (or continue!) using homemade cleaners, body products and basic herbal remedies. The options are endless, the savings huge and the health benefits enormous.
Just the usual happening on this front.  I have a catch of citrus cleaner on the go but now that I have all the oranges I will be getting another batch started.

Grow - plant/harvest. What's growing this month? What's being eaten from the garden?

The garden is producing lots of Silverbeet and herbs, we have harvested a couple of purple cauliflower but it is now getting very warm and I suspect the rest might not come to anything and get fed to the cow. I am growing spring onions, beetroot, fennel and celeriac, lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, capsicum, cucumber and eggplant.  The zucchini are just putting on their first small fruit so I am looking forward to harvesting those later this week. .

The zucchini are smothering the lettuce plants around them but that is ok because we
will be harvesting the lettuce over the next week

The mulberry is fruiting,  mmmmm can't wait

All of the citrus are flowering like mad so hopefully it will be a bumper crop next year.

The native bees are loving all of the citrus flowers and were there in their thousands
so we must have a nest nearby.

I have to hurry up and use these lettuces as the snails are into them in a big way

These beefsteak tomatoes are coming along and the cucumber will take off in no time at all.

I am doing much better at staggering my plantings this year and have just got my second round of seeds in.  Already I can see that we need to eat more veggies as there is a glut of beetroot, lettuce and silverbeet in the garden.

Create - To fill a need or feed the soul. Create for ourselves or for others.

I have finally picked up my crochet hook again after a long hiatus and have  been trying to maser the basic stitches so I can make something other than the dish cloths I have been making.  I am happy with my progress and my stitches are becoming nice and even my tension is better.

Nothing too exciting about this but my stitches are getting better.

On this one I have done 4 rows each of single, then double, then triple crochet hence it
is a bit curved but since it is going to be a dish cloth what does it matter.

Discover - Feed the mind by reading texts relevant to current interests.

Over the last month I have read a few interesting books including the one below which I posted about here.  I am also reading the transition towns book but i will talk more about that later as I have just started.

Enhance - Community

It is all systems go (only 8 weeks to go) in organising the car show that I am involved in and things are just getting busier and busier in this area.

Enjoy - Life! Embrace moments with friends and family. Marking the seasons, celebrations and new arrivals are all cause for enjoyment.

Attending the Real Food Festival was one of my highlights of this month and we also spend some time camping with friends which was great. I know October is full of get togethers with family and friends so I am looking forward to that.

What have you been up to?

Slow Living August 2014

Linking up with Linda who has taken over from Christine in hosting the Slow Living Nine.  I am so glad this is continuing as it is great to hear what everyone is up to.

Nourish -Make and bake as much as possible from scratch. Ditch over packaged, over processed convenience foods and opt for 'real' food instead.
With my self imposed "How little Can You Spend Month" everything except the one meal I ate out with a friend was made from scratch.  We have heaps of eggs and silverbeet so quiches continues to be on the menu in its many forms.

Prepare - Stockpile and preserve. Freeze extra meals or excess garden/market produce. Bottle/can, dehydrate or pickle foods to enjoy when they are not in season.

Our stockpile took a bit of a hit during the month as we tried not to spend more than $50 for the entire month.  But right at the end of the month we were given some oranges so I made a batch of marmalade.

Reduce - Cut down on household waste by re-using, re-purposing and repairing.

I am not sure we did anything specific that I can think of that fits this category this month, I am sure there was something but nothing springs to mind.

Green - Start (or continue!) using homemade cleaners, body products and basic herbal remedies. The options are endless, the savings huge and the health benefits enormous.
Just the usual happening on this front.  I have a catch of citrus cleaner on the go but now that I have all these oranges I will be getting another batch started.

Grow - plant/harvest. What's growing this month? What's being eaten from the garden?

The garden is producing lots of Silverbeet and herbs, we have harvested a couple of purple cauliflower but it is now getting warm and I suspect the rest might not come to anything and get fed to the cow. I am growing spring onions, beetroot, fennel and celeriac. The peas I planted are really stunted and I have only had about 20 pods from them.  I have got my first planting of Summer veg in and we will see how that goes.

Some Summer Veg are in

Create - To fill a need or feed the soul. Create for ourselves or for others.

Creations have been on hold this month and reading has taken over but I have plans to pick up my crochet hook again in the next few weeks.

Discover - Feed the mind by reading texts relevant to current interests.

I have been reading lots over the last month about dog training, the environment, farming and some back copies of the National Geographic which although are old are still fascinating.

Enhance - Community

It is all systems go (only 8 weeks to go) in organising the car show that I am involved in and things are just getting busier and busier in this area.

Enjoy - Life! Embrace moments with friends and family. Marking the seasons, celebrations and new arrivals are all cause for enjoyment.

We had a few family get together's during the month and we caught up with some of Hubby's relatives we had not seen for 12 months.  I have also been spending quite a bit of time around our 5 month old nephew which has been lovely.

I also got to spend the day with a friend who I have note seen for over a year and meet her 4 month old for the first time.  It was a real joy to see her and her new babe and how much her now 3 year old had grown.

What have you been up to?

Slow Living July 2014

Linking up with Linda who has taken over from Christine in hosting the Slow Living Nine.  I am so glad this is continuing as it is great to hear what everyone is up to.

Nourish -Make and bake as much as possible from scratch. Ditch over packaged, over processed convenience foods and opt for 'real' food instead.
There has been heaps of cooking and baking in the house over the past month and since we were also participating in Plastic free July it was all home made food for us.

Prepare - Stockpile and preserve. Freeze extra meals or excess garden/market produce. Bottle/can, dehydrate or pickle foods to enjoy when they are not in season.
Mostly we are making use of our stockpile rather than adding to it but I have been but I have been adding lemons and limes to the bag of them I have in the freezer.   I just throw them in whole and when citrus season is over I have them on hand.

Reduce - Cut down on household waste by re-using, re-purposing and repairing.
This month we participated in Plastic Free July and this again made us focus on the waste we create.

Since I found out that soft plastics can be recycled  out rubbish volume has dramatically. We now have only 1 supermarket bag sized bag of rubbish in out bin most weeks.  We are dropping all our plastic off once a month and it is shocking to see how much there is even when you try not to bring plastic into the house.  I think that in generally we will have about 1/2 bag of plastic and 1 bag of actual rubbish each week.

Green - Start (or continue!) using homemade cleaners, body products and basic herbal remedies. The options are endless, the savings huge and the health benefits enormous.
Just the usual happening on this front.  As it is citrus season I have a catch of citrus cleaner on the go but since there is just the two of us we do not go through that much of our cleaning products.

Grow - plant/harvest. What's growing this month? What's being eaten from the garden?

The garden is producing lots of Silverbeet, cherry tomatoes and herbs, we also have plenty of citrus.  I am having another go at broccoli and mini cabbages but I may have gotten them in too late and I am growing spring onions, beetroot, fennel and celeriac. I also have some peas in but they do not seem that keen on growing so we will see if they amount to anything.

Create - To fill a need or feed the soul. Create for ourselves or for others.

Creations have been on hold this month and reading has taken over.

Discover - Feed the mind by reading texts relevant to current interests.
I have been reading lots over the last month.  Liz lent me some great books and I am working my way through them.
This month I read about 10 different books including A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of the Night and The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness which I really enjoyed.  I will talk about some of the other ones in another post.

Enhance - Community
It is all systems go in organising the car show that I am involved in and things are just getting busier and busier in this area.

Enjoy - Life! Embrace moments with friends and family. Marking the seasons, celebrations and new arrivals are all cause for enjoyment.

Both Hubby and I celebrated our birthdays in July so we had a nice meal out with his family but other than that it was pretty quiet.

This is the goats milk and date panacotta I had for my birthday breakfast when we went out.
It was as good as it looks.

What have you been up to?