Eat like your life depends on it

Let's take a moment to think about that:

Eat like your life depends on it

The full credit for this thought provoking statement goes to Costa Georgiadis who visited the Blue Knob Farmer's market again a little while ago.  I don't think it needs much discussion, but have a think about it.  It may just influence some of your choices.

Here are some pics of Costa at the market that day.

Did you know that cattle will eat less volume of poor quality feed, and more volume of high quality feed?  Strange, it seems to be the other way around with us...

Lots of lemons?

You know the old saying, when life gives you lemons then make lemonade.  There seems to be lots of lemons around this area at the moment, maybe you too could make lemonade?  This recipe is not sickly sweet like store bought lemonade, and has a tangy lemony aftertaste.  Very refreshing on a hot day, lovely with mint or borage added to the glass.

3 1/2 cups sugar

4 cups boiling water

16 cups cold water

4 1/2 cups chopped lemons

200ml cider vinegar

Combine sugar and boiling water in a food safe bucket and stir to dissolve.  Add cold water (from the tap is ok, no need to refrigerate), lemons and vinegar and mix well.  Cover with a clean tea towel and leave for 48 hours.  Strain, then pour into clean bottles and seal.  Plastic softdrink bottles are good for this.  The lemonade is ready in approximately 12 days or when it is fizzy.

Makes approx 5 litres

Building progress

Things are thankfully starting to move a bit quicker.

Ground floor flooring and framing install

First floor flooring install

First floor framing install

Yoghurt recipes / suggestions - as promised.  If you made your own yoghurt I'd love to hear how it worked out.

• eat with muesli and fruit for breakfast
• use as a replacement for sour cream (eg on a baked potato, or nachos)
• salad dressing - 1 cup natural yoghurt, 1 tablespoon honey, 1 teaspoon ground cumin (toasted if you can be bothered) - mix together and voila !
• chicken marinade - 1 clove crushed garlic, 1/2 tblsp grated ginger, 1/2tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp brown sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, zest & juice 1 lemon, 1/4 cup chopped coriander, 1 tblsp chopped preserved lemon, 1/2 cup natural yoghurt.  Marinate chicken for a few hours.  Baste chicken with marinade while cooking.

Enjoy !

What happened to Spring??

Heavenly hippeastrums in flower

There was very little spring to speak of here at Seven Springs.  It seemed we jumped straight from cold Westerly Winter winds into swimming weather of 34 degree days.  We don't remember it changing so suddenly last year, but perhaps we are more in tune with these things these days.  Yeah mon (said with a leisurely Jamaican accent).

So 30 September was the first swimming event in the new pool.  Michelle was first in.  Ian was a big girl and went in eventually.

The veges have been rocking along, here's some pics.  It really is a pleasure to be able to feed ourselves from the garden.  Add the daily supply of milk and eggs and we have a complete diet, all produced within a stone's throw of the kitchen.

Plentiful parsnips

Bountiful broad beans

"Freckles Bunte" lettuce going to seed

Foxy enjoys supervising vege garden activities

Building works continue.  About 2 weeks after the foundation holes flooding the builder was back with a vacuum excavation outfit to clean out the holes.  Concrete was poured the next day.

Concrete pour

Floor joists installed ready for flooring

Dog and cats playing marco polo.

 We have changed the milking regime to separating Baron overnight.  Now that the weather is warmer, and Baron is older, it made sense and resulted in a significant increase in milk yield - almost double.  Just goes to show how much he can drink.  Now that the weather is warmer it is lovely to milk in the cool of the morning.

Cheese making continues each week and we are now at the point where we don't buy any cheese or butter.  Recently yoghurt was also added to the milk product lines, a natural yoghurt which can then be sweetened with honey from our bees and vanilla, or add fruit or whatever you like.  Lovely on muesli with fruit for breakfast.

Yoghurt is surprisingly easy to make, here's how:

Heat 2l of pasteurised milk to 38 degrees celsius.  You need to use a thermometer for this, don't guess, if it's too hot the yoghurt won't develop properly.

Add 3 tablespoons of storebought yoghurt, the natural or greek kind with live cultures, a pot set one is best, and whisk to thoroughly disperse through the milk.

Pour into one (or several) jars, trying to get as little air at the top of the jar/s as possible.

Incubate at 33 - 35 degrees celsius for 12 to 16 hours.  Michelle wraps hers in a blanket in the cupboard and leaves it overnight.

The next morning you should have lovely thick natural yoghurt.  The longer it incubates the stronger the taste.  Michelle finds that overnight incubation for approx 12 hours works well.  Refrigerate after the yoghurt reaches the desired taste.

If you would like it a little thicker, hang to drain in a piece of muslin or a cotton tea towel.  Some whey will separate from the yoghurt, you can either pour it off or mix it back in.  Ours lasts for a week in the fridge, by which time we've eaten it all and need to make more.  To make more just use your own yoghurt to start the next batch.  

Minimal effort, maximum rewards.  Enjoy !!

Want some serving / cooking suggestions for all that yoghurt?  See next blog.

August Rains

Yes we realise it is almost October, that's how long this blog post has been written and waiting to be published.  Sorry, we'll endeavour to provide updates more often, there's just so much happening.

Foxy & Baron sharing pollard

Certainly unseasonal, we have had about 40mm over the last 5 days or so and there is much more on the way.  The house dam is spilling over for the first time in many months, and the tanks are overflowing.

Here's what we were up to before the rain started:

Honey, honey
Well we finally got around to checking our bee hive.  Actually, it's quite important to wait for the right weather - sunny, no wind, no clouds (if possible), not too early in the day and not too late.  Bees are surprisingly fussy.  When we prised the lid off, this is what we found.

Broken bird comb on the left, note the three very clean frames on the right.

Bee box lid covered with comb, and bees.

It's called bird comb or bridging comb, and it happens when the bees run out of space to build comb to store honey or lay eggs for baby bees.  The bees' natural inclination is to 'go up' which is why you may have seen bee hives made of two or three boxes stacked on top of each other.  Strangely, there are three frames in the bottom box completely untouched by the bees.  We think it might be a bit cool on that side of the box at this time of year and that may account for the absence of building works on that side of the box.

So we eventually managed to remove all the misplaced comb without upsetting the bees too much, and collected 2.5kg of delicious honey.  It really is amazing how much honey is created by these little critters.

Inside the lid with most of the bees removed.  Beautiful.

There is now a second box on the hive (called a 'super', short for 'superstructure') and we are looking forward to even more honey in the warmer months.  We'll keep you posted.


To save, or not to save

This is a photo of a beautiful romanesco broccoli.  Michelle has been trying to grow this variety without success for about 2 years.  This was the final attempt, and what a beauty, the only one of about 6 plants raised from seed to mature.  The question is - do we eat it? or do we let it flower and set seed so we can save the seed?

Seed saving is such a worthwhile exercise.  The seed you save from your own home grown plants will become acclimatised to your specific region and growing conditions, meaning you should get better and better results year after year.  Saving and growing from seed also means you have access to heirloom and unusual varieties not available in the supermarkets, like romanesco broccoli.  In our experience the taste of the heirloom varieties is often superior to anything available in the supermarket, and many of our market stall customers agree.

Many seeds are very easy to save, for example capsicum, chilli and pumpkin seeds can be scraped out of the fruit and planted immediately, in the right season, or kept in an envelope (don't forget to label it) till the right season comes along.  All the veg and herbs at Seven Springs is grown from seed, most of it saved by Michelle.  Probably the most important thing about saving seed, is don't forget you have them !!  

So, did we save the seed?  It was realised that since we had never tasted this variety of broccoli, due to the lack of past growing success (ok, call it failure if you must), we didn't even know if we liked it.  So we picked it.  And while it is pretty, we reckon it tastes the same as other broccoli, but has a slightly milder flavour.  Will we grow it again?  Who knows, but we've got until next Autumn to think about it.


Building progress
Dismantling of the above ground pool has commenced and is well on the way to being removed entirely.

Holes have been bored for foundations and the string lines set out.

Then it rained.

Needless to say the works have been set back by a few weeks, depending on how much more rain there is and how long it takes to dry out.  We have clay soils which are sticky and slippery when wet, it sticks to your boots and is not much fun to work with.

So our target completion of end of September just won't happen (despite Michelle maintaining the target is unchanged).  Disappointing, but out of our control.

Busy Bees

Foxy & Baron - play mates.

Well it's been a little while since our last blog post.  Sorry.  But we have been busy bees, here's what's happening.

DA Approval (finally)
You might remember the building plans shown on Ian's "mans world" blog post earlier this year.  Finally we received DA approval and works have started.  Ian is owner builder, and we have subcontracted the pool installation and building of the new extension to lock up stage.  Negotiating the contract with the builder was fun (for Michelle), and we've accepted pricing for the internal staircase and kitchen cabinets.  Procurement is well underway for other items and all trades but the plumber have been nailed down.

Concrete removal to make way for new extension.

9m fibreglass pool is walked in.

It's far too cold to swim at the moment, but it is still great to have the pool in.  It's at least a sign of progress.

Ready to swim, just a little landscaping to be done.

Baron is king of the castle, well, spoil heap.

Milking continues
We are separating Baron and milking once per day.  Foxy is always helpful - she likes pollard almost as much as China.

Can you spot Foxy in this photo??

Cheese making continues.  This is a colby cheese drying prior to waxing.  It will need to age for about 3 months before being ready to eat.

Cheese making continues.

To market, to market
The market stall continues, and we have sufficient preserves, eggs and some fresh produce to make it worth our while each week.  This have slowed down during the cooler months, which gives us a little time to plan the Spring and Summer crops and market stall items.  And there was a surprise visitor at the market a few weeks ago.  The kasundi was pretty hot apparently.  This is Genevieve's stall, her potatoes are excellent.

Yabbies !
We visited PRIMEX again this year, a great exhibition of all things primary industry / agricultural.  This year as well as a couple of milking buckets we bought yabbies and silver perch fingerlings to stock two of the dams.  Don't worry, we didn't put them in together, or the fingerlings would be yabby food.  Looking forward to a taste test of each.

Ian releases the Yabbies.

Bees
Finally, the pun was intended, we now have bees !!  This photo was taken on the day we brought them home.  They seem happy, coming and going as they should, and we can see pollen on their legs when they return to the hive.  Now that they have settled in, we need to open the hive to check on things.  Maybe next blog we'll have a photo of the inside of the hive.

Greetings earthling.

Autumn Bliss

6am, just before sunrise at Seven Springs a couple of days ago.
No, it is not photo-shopped.  Note the reflection in the dam.

The weather is just gorgeous here at Seven Springs, cool nights, crisp mornings, clear days, it makes you want to breathe deep and get out in the country sunshine.

Autumn this year is glorious.  Here's what's happening in our piece of serenity.

The Merry Milkmaids
There is nothing quite like leaning against a warm cow on a chilly morning and milking by hand.  We have been milking China for three weeks now, and it is a wonderful experience.  She is such a lovely cow, easy to manage, ready and waiting for us at most milking times.  But if she is down the paddock, one call and she immediately heads up the hill to be milked (and eat a bucket of pollard).  Ok, so maybe she is more attracted to the pollard than the milking, but she is so well behaved we don't use the stanchion or a leg rope.  There have only been two kicking incidents and now that Baron is a little older she is very calm and patiently eats while we milk.  It truly is a lovely thing.

Ian the milkmaid, and little Baron at China's feet.

And of course, we now have our own fresh milk and cream.  Dexters are known for having a butter fat ratio as high as a Jersey cow, and China's cream to milk ratio is excellent.

China's lovely milk, the cream has separated to the top of the jar.

Milk on the left, cream on the right.

We've talked in previous blogs about making cheese, which we can now do with homegrown whole milk.  But now we can also make butter with the cream.  Delicious !!

About 3 days of cream + kitchenaid ...

+ about 5 mins of whipping = .....

buttermilk & butter.

We use the buttermilk to make bread, which gives it a lovely flavour and texture, and the butter is enough for our toast and sandwiches for about a week.  Strangely, we seem to be eating more bread and butter than we used to...

Vege update
Corn and cucumbers are gone and have made way for cauliflower and broccoli.  We've also put in carrots, parsnip, onions and turnips.  Haven't tried turnips before, but a recent article in a gardening magazine convinced us they were worth a try - judgement is reserved for the taste test.  We've also put in two varieties of Kale (Cavolo Nero and Red Russian), and rainbow chard.  Seeds of peas (Greenfeast and Massey Gem), more beetroot (Burpees Golden, Early Wonder and Bulls Blood) and cabbage (Golden Acre) are germinating as I type.  It takes a little care and attention, but growing from seed really is extremely cost effective.

A rather large butternut pumpkin, ready for picking.

The pecans are falling from the tree, and sweet potato and pumpkin harvests have begun.  Both delicious and generously proportioned.  We will definitely grow both again next year, quite likely in the same bed as this combination of planting has worked very well.

One sweet potato plant, ready for digging up.

The dug sweet potato, secateurs show scale.

Summer's tomatoes are still hanging on (no pun intended).  The San Marzano were ok, but in terms of yield and flavour were nothing compared to the giant tree tomatoes.  The best of the smaller varieties are definitely Tommy Toe (large cherry tomato) and Yellow Pear (look great and lovely and sweet).  The stand out summer tomato is the Black Russian - beefsteak style tomato, dark flesh, exceptional flavour, average yield.  We have repeat customers that come to our market stall especially for the Black Russians.

Herbage
We haven't made much mention of the herb garden in past blog posts, but it is an important part of our culinary garden, providing flavour and seasoning to most meals.  In the herb garden the stevia is flowering and the basil has flowered and is setting seed.  Sorrel, parsley, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, oregano, savory and three varieties of mint are available for the picking.  And the rosella is flowering - an annual plant, we will save seed from some flowers and make a syrup with the others - delicious over ice cream, in a cheesecake, added to soda or tonic water for a refreshing drink, you can even use the calyxes as a natural dye.

Wherever we go in the garden, Foxy is our steady companion, always locating a comfortable position for herself.

Michelle planting seed, Foxy relaxing with head in the shade of the carrots.

The Natural Life

Home grown & home made.

On our quest for a more natural life, we are becoming more and more interested in the products we still need to purchase.  Are they locally made? organic? what are the ingredients? are there lots of 'E' numbers and additives? We are also very conscious of the cost of convenience - having things at our fingertips at the local supermarket , as opposed to making / growing things ourselves (especially now that we are in the extremely low income bracket !!).

So this blog post aims to share with our readers the things we are making / growing for ourselves that have made a positive difference to our health and wellbeing - and our bank balances.

Fruit, Nuts & Veg
Ok, so this one is a no-brainer.  Growing you own stuff means you know exactly what has happened to it, and gee it tastes and smells good.  The smell of a carrot as it is pulled from the ground is amazing, and crisp beans eaten straight from the stalk while picking others is a treat not to be missed.  Pecans shelled as you intend to eat them are juicy and tender, nothing like the dried out versions found at the supermarket.  We have found that our organically home grown stuff tastes so good we often don't add much sauce or flavouring - the food doesn't need it.  And if you grow from seed it's dirt cheap.  Remember the giant tree tomatoes?  About 10kg of fruit from each plant, and the seeds were free on the cover of a magazine.  We just needed to put in a bit of labour and find a space to grow them.  

Homegrown pumpkin, parsnip, potato and sweet potato ready for the oven.

Toothpaste
Recently there was a study published in The Lancet Neurology medical journal which confirms earlier research that fluoride is actually a toxic substance and may be responsible for child developmental disorders (see thelancet.com for the full report).  This really should come as no surprise when you understand that the fluoride that is added to much of Australia's drinking water is an industrial waste product of processes to make fertilizers, steel and aluminium (see also http://fluoridealert.org/faq/).  State and local governments say fluoridation of water is safe, even essential, but scientists say it is toxic.  There is a huge amount of information on the internet to allow our readers to make up their own minds.  For our part, we have decided to do without it.  Drinking water is no problem as we collect sweet rain water.  We have also eliminated store bought toothpaste and now make our own.  Are we healthier?  Well we certainly aren't un-healthier.

The recipe follows, it takes about 5 mins to make.  We've been using it for over 1 year, our teeth feel very clean after using it, and they also appear whiter (no doubt due to the bicarb - you may have noticed this as a fancy ingredient in some commercial toothpastes).

Toothpaste
6 tablespoons coconut oil
6 tablespoons bicarbonate of soda
25 drops peppermint oil (not essence)
1 tsp stevia powder
1 tablespoon vegetable glycerine (optional)

Mix it all together and place in a jar.  Ready for use immediately.  If you don't like peppermint you could use citrus oils instead.  Try not to swallow the paste if using essential oils.  The peppermint oil is more for scent than taste, you can leave it out if you like.  Michelle doesn't bother with the glycerine, but adds extra stevia powder as Ian likes a sweeter toothpaste.

This recipe comes from a lady who has an interesting blog running:  http://lintrezza.blogspot.com.au/.

Laundry liquid
Michelle was pretty happy to come across the toothpaste recipe, but she was absolutely overjoyed to discover this recipe for laundry liquid, and the blogsite it comes from.  Down to Earth is a marvellous site for anyone wanting to make / grow / bake / preserve their own stuff and lead more natural lives like us.  Michelle strongly recommends you check it out.  Here is the blog address:  http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com.au/

Here is the direct link for the laundry liquid: http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com.au/2007/08/various-recipes-for-green-cleaning.html.  

We haven't included the recipe in the blog itself, as it is worth having a read online.  There are recipes for stain removers and heavy duty washing powder and a few other things. And also lots of explanatory notes.  If anyone has trouble following the link, let me know and I'll email you a Word version.  Michelle uses the standard laundry liquid which takes about 20 minutes to make and is very cheap, costing about $2 for 10 litres of laundry liquid.  We have been using it for about 4 months and Michelle the laundress is very happy with the results.

Loofah
You know those sometimes expensive spongy looking things you find in places like the Body Shop?  Well you can grow your own.  The loofah plant is a curcurbit that grows like a cucumber plant (also a curcurbit) and the fruit looks like a giant cucumber.  It can be trained on a fence or other support, or left to scramble along the ground.  Here's a photo of a loofah harvest that we aspire to.  They will be useful as kitchen sponges and body scrubs, and when they wear out they can go straight into the compost.

Bread
A staple in most houses, we have been making our own yeast bread using a bread maker for well over 1 year now, with great results.  The foccacia has proved popular with Ian and any guests.  But we still have to buy the flour, yeast, salt etc.  We are not inclined to grow our own wheat for flour just yet, but there is a way to capture wild yeasts - sourdough.  The starter doesn't look like much but the bread has a lovely delicate sourness and worth making if you have the time.  

Bubbly sourdough sponge ready for mixing into a dough.

This does take a long time to make as the sourdough rises very slowly.  And a bit of preparation is required, as it takes about 1 week to develop the 'starter'.  Michelle is in the habit of making one loaf per week, stretching out the process over a couple of days.  She makes the 'sponge' in the evening, mixes the dough the next morning (using the dough hook and the KitchenAid) and leaves it to rise all day, knocks it and shapes it that evening and leaves it to rise again all night then bakes it the next morning.  Here is a link to the recipe we have been using:  http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/may/10/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall-recipes-sourdough

Milk
Another staple in most peoples houses, regular readers will know we have been making our own cheese with local whole milk, and also that we have been planning to milk one of our Dexters.  The milking shed has reached practical completion, and China has been fed in there each morning to establish a routine.

China (still pregnant) feeding in milking shed.

The new calf arrived on Friday, a little boy, Ian has named him Baron.  So milking begins very soon.

Baron at 20 mins of age.

Other Stuff
There are other changes we have made to our lives, like using bicarb instead of store bought shampoo and conditioner.  Not only is it cheap it does a great job.  At first our hair seemed rough, like when you use shampoo but not conditioner, but it didn't really matter to the chooks or the cows so we persisted.  But now our scalps and hair have found their natural balance, and our hair is soft to the touch.

We no longer purchase chemical laden cleaning products.  Not even dishwasher powder - we use a few teaspoons of bicarb.  It does a great job.  Until now we have also been using commercial rinse aid in the dishwasher, but when the current bottle runs out Michelle intends to experiment with white vinegar as the rinsing aid.  For other cleaning jobs bicarb, vinegar, clove oil or lavender oil work very well with no choking fumes.  Check out Shannon Lush's website for details / ideas / info http://shannonlush.com/  
and also this site http://www.lifestyle.com.au/diy/shannon-lushs-cleaning-kit.aspx

We hope not to give the impression we are suffering hardship, and have turned completely hippie!!  Well, Michelle hasn't.  On the contrary, we are enjoying finding new ways to simplify our lives and when there is a monetary benefit, so much the better.