RAINY DAYS AND CONTEMPLATIVE WEEKENDS!

This weekend has been wonderful. Perth yesterday which normally I cannot stand, (I'm not one for shopping), however this was a case of having to, the last of my decent workwear was ready to be re-classified as yard clothes and in my role I'm expected to look the professional. Myers had a huge sale so I purchased my next year or twos winter wardrobe! I truly don't know how the city slickers live in that environment, the noise and masses alone was deafening & crowding to me, however having a good friend for company made it fun! See the river to the left? That flows through our region and empties itself into the Swan River in Perth, pretty? Taken just for my readers this morning:) And heres a sample of the wildlife you can expect to see around the area, quite a variety. I noticed not all I have seen were listed though, shame really because there is a massive variety to find if you spend the time. Today was a time for family. I went down to spend the morning with my parents, caught up with an Aunt and sister too. There is nothing better than just sitting shooting the breeze with family in my books, I'm only 45 minutes from them but it seems like thousands of miles if I don't get home at least every fortnight lol. We have had some wonderful rainy days here (about 2 inches of rain over the last couple of weeks), the cockies (farmers) will be complaining there is too much soon, you never can please them LOL. The rain has allowed my newly planted out shrubs & trees to settle in well and they are all looking happy outside of their pots. I have an order from Daleys coming next month so will need to get some new ground ready next weekend for the plant out. The paddocks are greening beautifully as you can see by the pictures I took as I travelled (Yes, I did pull over and stop the car LOL). I am hoping the water along the sides of the roads will be soon filled with tadpoles, this new pond of ours when finished will need some occupants to start it off! The remainder of the day is going to be spent helping hubby remove some horrid looking home made copper rangehood and plastering up the hole to ready for the painter, a job I can't wait to have finished...talk about a monstrosity!

Hope you all have a super week ahead, will post some of the garden pics during the week

Take care of you and yours:)

MONSANTO YET AGAIN

You all know how I feel about Monsanto and what I perceive to be the dishonest tactics they use to try and gain control of food supplies and make money at the expense of human health...well whilst surving the blogs I regularly read I came across this one from MAYBERRY, one I hadn't seen before. Another disturbing window on just how far this company will go to make money, watch it! And then try to find a milk supplier who doesn't use anything on his cows. Thankfully we have a supplier who doesn't use growth hormones to increase milk production in his cows in the town next door to us. I will be buying their products in the future! For more info, try HERE or HERE.

Hope your day is a great one Take care of you and yours:)

ANOTHER GLORIOUS DAY!

Hope your day/night is going well, mines going swimmingly! Hubby & son completed the herb garden for me on the weekend, so I took a day off to plant out! I have planted out both medicinal and cooking herbs, and there's some wonderful things in there, including my all time favourite the Mushroom Plant -HERE for more info. And here is the semi-finished product. Unfortunately many I wanted they didn't have in stock so have to wait until they all come in, however here is what I managed to plant: Mushroom Plants, Marigolds, Lemon Balm, Borage, Rosemary, Onion Chives, Thyme, Sag, Parsley Leaf (Celeriac), Pennyroyal, Coriander, Majorum, Basil and Camomile. I have yet to spread more straw and plant the ordered ones as they arrive, however it feels great to have got moving on yet another project on the list! I miss eating all those fresh fruit & veggies from the old house, I want everything to grow yesterday! The weather here has been cold, a couple of frosts, -1.5C the other morning and some much needed rain for the cockies (Aussie slang for farmers). We could still do with another couple of inches but the half inch we recieved will do for starters, more planned for the middle of the week.

Hope the week ahead is a good one for you Take care of you and yours:)

AND THE REAL WORK BEGINS...

Monday & Tuesday we had the bathroom, one bedroom and the shed painted. The shed looks almost new! There's some finishing work to be done over the top of the door on the right just to neaten it up and its done. Wednesday I took the day off to work with the earthworks man...and look what we got done! The yard has been levelled out, an old concrete retainer wall that appeared to be sitting like a frog on a rock was gone, the fruit and nut trees were removed and replanted in the chook pen. Now this truly is what you call a blank canvas! I will be putting in the round about for the cars, planting both in the middle and around the outside with a variety of fruits, nuts and native ground covers. Along the fence you can see presently covered with a vine will go the shadehouse where all the wicking beds will live, summers here have changed enough that you need some shade mid summer or you lose half your crops to the heat! I was amazed at the soil here. I was expecting the worst, however dig down just an inch or so and there is some gorgeous loam. Water starved though it is (given there has been no-one living here for some time), it won't take long to get it back in shape! All in all a very productive few days, now the real work of planting begins! I am looking forward to the day where once again we can walk outside and pick our dinner, the ultimate long term goal being food self-sufficiency...except for the meat & milk of course lol.

Hope your week is being kind to you Take care of you and yours:)

AND THE IDEA SPREADS....

Have you noticed the increasing ground swell towards building local resilience and sustainability into communities across the world? I loved this article from the ABC NEWS:

The old dairy farming town of Maleny in Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland (Australia) , perched lushly on the Blackall Ranges, now attracts tree changers, hippies, artists and weekend tourists.

In 2004 Maleny locals made headlines for trying to stop the construction of a Woolworths on the banks of the town's Obi Obi Creek, which was a platypus habitat.

After long stand-offs, they lost that battle and the supermarket was built. But this time they have taken on a bigger opponent and have decided to hit back at the global financial crisis. They are going to print their own money.

The Baroon Dollar - named after Lake Baroon near Maleny - will be printed and sold at local, independent businesses to encourage locals and visitors to keep buying up locally.

Darren Mitchell is the coordinator of the Baroon Dollar project and he told ABC Local Radio that businesses can put their hands up to accept the region's new tender. "We're creating our own stimulus package," he said.

"Rather than just relying on Kevin Rudd's stimulus we've decided to create our own. We've combined a sort of think-local-first program that often chambers of commerce hold around the country. "But we've combined it with a new initiative which is printing a community currency which works as a paper voucher and that binds shoppers to local, independent businesses."

Australian first! Mr Mitchell says the Baroon Dollar can be used in towns across the hinterland, including Montville, Mapleton and Kenilworth. He says the initiative is the first regional paper-based community currency in Australia.

"It creates a central pool of money that's used also in part for community grant schemes and micro financing," he said. "Shops need to sign up to be part of the project and we're getting good interest at the moment."

"People don't often realise that when they spend their money in chain stores across the country, up to 80 cents in their dollar leaks straight out into the global financial casino as I like to call it." But Mr Mitchell says the project is not just the latest anti-Woolies campaign. "It's a movement that started really in the UK and US for local economies to create resilience and to encourage local production of food in the local area," he said. "It's basically part of a movement that encourages farmers markets and encourages eating locally.

Now this story reminded me of the Lewis Dollar in the UK. Local money utilised to increase the purschasing of local products before imports.

Building resilience into our communities is vital, and will become even more so as the years advance and resources dwindle. Building communities, creating local bonds, trusting relationships, mentoring, teaching and encouraging those around us will become more important to our lifestyles than ever before, in fact since the industrial revolution!

Now is the time to start, it's never too late to not only create your home as a sustainable base, but your community too, for the years ahead will present massive challenges and not one of us can produce everything we need alone.... we need community!

Hope your weekend is a wonderful one

Take care of you and yours:)

I have worms!

LOL, well I have a worm farm! One of the staff came in the other day letting us know that a client had massive amounts of worms in her farm that she needed to cull out. Of course I jumped at the chance! The worm farm has been sitting empty on the last two patios, it was about time it was filled and put into action. And here it is, working away making gorgeous fertilising materials (called vermicompost). I actually ended up with a 10 litre bucket of them for $10! Much of the journey toward sustainability involves us learning how to replenish nature as effectively as we have plundered her. Hence, establishing and maintaining the "food waste to compost to soil to food to food waste" cycle is both an efficient practice and a glimpse of the cycles we must learn to respect all around us. Worms feed on the micro organisms that are responsible for the decay in organic matter, any organic matter will grow these organisms, some materials are better than others, some are so slow they are best avoided all together, as the saying goes "if it has ever lived, worms will compost it" to be more accurate it should be "if it has ever lived, it will rot and worms will find a meal!" In the domestic situation we are looking at kitchen waste, garden waste and often overlooked, paper and cardboard. Kitchen waste should really be limited to vegetables, raw or cooked the exception being any vegetable that is a member of the onion family, including leeks, these must be thoroughly cooked first and mixed with other materials. All fruit can be fed to worms but again all citrus fruit will need thoroughly cooking, particularly the peel, when citrus fruit is fed raw it is often assumed that it is the acidity of the fruit that causes the problem to the worms, this is not necessarily the case, all peel has a substance called "d-limonene" (the vapour that sprays out when you are peeling it) it is harmful to worms but is driven off when thoroughly cooked. Cooking and "mashing" all fruit and vegetables is to be recommended, it will decompose faster, provide a bigger surface area on which the micro organisms can grow and is therefore processed quicker by the worms. Used tea bags, coffee grounds, small quantities of bread can all be fed. Avoid dairy products, fat, grease and oil, meat and fish and bones, not because the worms will not compost these items, they will, but they will attract unwanted pests, flies etc. Any decaying organic matter that is really smelly (not a problem to the worms!) once the worms start to process it, the smell quickly disappears, if a worm system is working effectively there is no smell. Garden waste such as leaves, dead plants, grass clippings etc can be put into a worm bin but this usually slows the whole system down, particularly when woody material is involved, large quantities, certainly with grass clippings can cause real problems, even with small gardens the amount of waste after an afternoons gardening will overload the average domestic worm composting system, by far the best method is to pre-compost these materials in a traditional compost heap or bin and then feed the partially composted material to the worms, this way the micro life is already well established and the worms can deal with it much quicker, the same applies to the rabbit or guinea pig hutch cleanings. Newspaper, office paper, paper bags etc (avoid glossy magazines) cardboard can all be shredded and added to the system, in fact this material plays an important part in providing the worms with a balanced micro life diet! Paper and cardboard are also helpful when the bin has become too wet by mixing in shredded paper or cardboard it will absorb some of the moisture and aerate the bin. Vermicompost is beneficial for soil in three ways: -It improves the physical structure of the soil. -It improves the biological properties of the soil (enrichment of micro-organisms, addition of plant hormones such as auxins and gibberellic acid, and addition of enzymes, such as phosphates, cellulase, etc.). -It attracts deep-burrowing earthworms already present in the soil. Worm tea, that beautiful rich liquid worms produce should be ready on a weekly basis so regularly check your bottom box (or open the tap if you have a commercial kit) to collect the liquid. This will be too strong to apply directly on to your plants, so dilute it down to the colour of weak tea, and then apply to plants. Once diluted it should be ok on all your plants. It is really good on the fruit and vegie patch too. Castings should take a bit longer to produce and be ready after a month or so depending on how well you broke down the supplied material. When you can see lots of rich dark loamy looking material, you are probably looking at some lovely worm castings. If you have a layered system, it is a good idea to put another box on top (with the same conditions as the previous one) and commence putting food in this top box, instead of the previous one. The worms will migrate to their new home through the drainage holes. In about a week or two you should be able to take the box of castings (the middle layer) away and apply it directly to your garden bed. Most, if not all the worms should have also departed, so you can continue the process again with the new top box. Just check for any stragglers and put them with the rest of the worms. If you don’t have a layered system, you can move your box to a sunny area or add a light source and watch the worms will quickly depart to the bottom of the box. You should then be able to scoop out the top layer of castings for addition to your garden. As you scoop it out check for any worms and return to the remaining castings. You can do this a couple of times to maximise the castings you get. Worm farms are a simple and effective way to recycle organic waste and feed your garden too. There are too many worms in our worm farm, however we are in the process of getting the materials to get the worm wicking beds in, so once they are complete I can transfer some of the worms into each of the wicking beds. The way they breed it wont be long before I am able to fill every bed with them, a safe, natural way to continually fertilise our vegetable crops. Have to love self sufficiency-no more purchasing fertilisers and another great idea to care for our planet!

Hope your week is going well Take care of you and yours:)

So much activity!

We have so much going on at once here it is becoming hard to keep track of things! The chook pen (see my gorgeous girls to the left) is slowly coming along and will make a delighful environment for the ladies once all the fruit trees grow. With 11 planted, and existing pear and crab apple trees in there they will have a wonderful time! Remember I wrote earlier about pulling the car port down at the side of the house? Well we did, and guess what? The size of it is absolutely perfect as a roof for the chook pen! So below is a picture of the son doing what he loves best, welding! (I wont talk about the fact he set not only the vine on fire but the composting box also LMAO) And here is my helper, can't say little anymore, at 15 he already towers over the top of me! Thankfully the vine wasn't needed,(it's coming down over the next few weeks) or the old composting box under him, left behind full of heaven only knows what by the previous owner! This roof, with tin added around all the interior walls will make a great roosting/nesting house in the colder weather. The pen is very large with 3 sections, we will keep this one and open up the second so there is just the one very large yard and one dry house area. Having said that, they spend little time in the pen, we open the gate in the morning before leaving for work and lock them up about 5pm, they love getting out to scratch around, and with the weeds coming up the way they have after one poor excuse for rain a couple of weeks ago I need all the help we can get! Ahhhh, my happy place....buying plants LOL! Actually I have to thank hubby for these, he arrived home today with them, bless his cotton socks! The Indian Guava has the growth habit of a small tree like shrub and has the sweetest cream coloured fruit, flavour similar to a pear, very low acid, perfect straight from the tree or into fruit salads! Guavas are rich in potassium, and an excellent source of vitamin C with 100g of fruit providing approximately 100mg. Guavas are also a rich source of pectin, which is a natural thickening agent, therefore, they are ideal for jam making. The Pepino Gold is one I have had before, although it was left behind when we sold the house a cou[ple of months ago, so these I have yet to taste! This is a hardy small bushy shrub that only grows to about 1 metre. This plant needs protection from the frost in our areas. Some fans describe its flavor as a gentle mix of a banana and a pear. Others say it tastes somewhat like a mild rockmelon. Offering a good source of vitamin C, the Pepino contains a fair amount of vitamin A and is low in calories. Eating five daily servings of fruits and vegetables lowers the chances of cancer. A recent study found that eating nine or ten daily servings of fruits and vegetables, combined with three servings of low-fat dairy products, were effective in lowering blood pressure. And the Cameron Apple is just another type of Pepino, another I have yet to try, however I believe it is similar in taste to the Gold above. And another project happened along quite by accident today, but I will leave that for Wednesday...:)

Hope your week is a good one Take care of you and yours:)

Delicious Day!

The girls at work had a surplus of lemons given to them, they couldn't use them all so I scored! This morning was spent making Lemon Butter, or Lemon Curd as some call it. This recipe (you can find it on the right under the Recipes Label) is a particular favourite of mine as it does not need to be kept in the fridge until you open a jar, simply store in a cool dark place. This is our years supply. Lunch time on was spent at one of our collegues progressive luncheon birthday party. For those that may not know what this is, there is one course at each house. The food was delicious and the company was great fun. We travelled for miles, including to one very special place set on the top of a hill in the middle of natural aussie bush, surrounded by kangaroos in their dozens and the most magical of views.....photos to come I promise! And just for your pleasure, here are a few more photos of the caves.

Hope your weekend is going well Take care of you and yours:)

Still Going...

As you can see, the work continues! The clothesline has been mostly cut down, the last few bits we will do tomorrow, son has decided he might be able to use the metal for a "project"... bless his cotton socks lol. Pretty aren't they? My zygocactus in hanging baskets were left behind from the previous owners and are all in flower. I will have to get to and repot them all in larger pots as they are rapidly outgrowing the ones they are in. Gorgeous sunset looking out over the hills. The daylight is vanishing fast this time of the year, the evenings are gorgeous, not cold yet, calm, the magpies are all singing....love it! The curtaining company is coming tomorrow, that will complete the work to be done inside, mix of new roller blinds and venetians, the final touch to our humble home:) This weekend we will spend moving the last of all the carport roof, pavers and slabs from the back yard ready for the earthmovers to come in and level out the backyard. I can't wait for this to be done, it means we can seriously get stuck into planting out all the trees and setting up all the worm wicking beds for the vegetables:)

Hope your week is going well Take care of you and yours:)