Be Proactive.

By about 5.30 this morning I had been up, taken the dog for her"wee" walk and thrown open the doors and windows. It's cool here today - 17 outside as opposed to the early mornings of 25 we've had through the week.

I made myself a coffee and sat in bed thinking how nice it was to feel a bit shivery in the cold wind blowing a gale through my bedroom windows. I had to shut them five minutes later as the rain began, but revelled in the sound of the wind whistling through one I had left open a crack. It's such a respite from the last few weeks of the stifling blanket of heat that has descended each day.

At 6 my phone dinged. Not altogether unusual; my daughter and I are both early risers and it's nothing for us to be texting before our day begins in earnest. This message was, however from B-Screen N.S.W, a reminder that my mammogram was due. In October 2013 I was sent off to a specialist by my doctor. It was a frightening time of scans, waiting, tests, examinations, more waiting. I was given the all clear thankfully but those weeks of not knowing were horrendous. To see the message at 6 am was sobering for a moment, remembering the shock and fear of finding a lump and then having a doctor say "Hmmmm, I don't like the look of this."

In this country, free breast screening is available to woman from 40 on, and is especially recommended for women aged between 50 -74 years.Why would you not?? It's not fail-safe, it's not perfect but it's the best we have at this point in time. Having seen a friend die a very long, and agonising death and knowing a number of friends who have won the battle I can't understand why women wouldn't take advantage of this FREE service. There aren't too many countries who offer this and we need to be grateful for a government that provides preventative services.

Our bodies have to last a long time. With advances in preventative medicine it's common sense to me to make use of the wonderful technology. And what about Pap smears? They're are a thing a lot of women have a problem with. Yes its uncomfortable, yes it's "damn! " when you realise it's due. And no I don't know anyone who thinks "oh yay, my pap smear is today." The thing is it needs to be done.

I have a friend - yes you know who you are - who is around my age and and told me a few years back that she had never; that's right NEVER had a pap smear!!!!! WHY? Well look out cause I'm afraid I'm going to bully you incessantly until you give up and go!! All women need to pull on their big girl panties and just do it!! Or in the case of a pap smear  - take them off!!

As parents,as wives, friends, hell as a woman - we need to be pro-active about such things. We live in a privileged society, be grateful for the advantages it affords us.

Book your pap smear, have a mammogram. Stop procrastinating.



                                                           

Love Food, Hate Waste

A website I find interesting is the NSW EPA's love food hate waste. It's an initiative run by the state Environmental Protection Agency in conjunction with partners from retailers, manufacturers, local government authorities and community groups. Its a site of frightening statistics about the amount of good food we waste in this state every year and its impact on our environment. However it's not designed to give you nightmares or a guilt complex but solutions on how to get the most from the food you buy and how to waste less of it.

Its based on a campaign of the same name, developed in the UK in 2007, by the Waste and Resources Action Program. (WRAP)

Let me share some of the statistics:
 This is a break-down of food we throw away and send to landfill:

Fresh Food                                                   $848 million
Leftovers                                                      $694 million
Packed and long life foods                          $372 million
Drinks                                                          $231 million
Frozen Food                                                 $231 million
Takeaway/Home delivered                          $180 million

That's 800,000 tonnes of food each year. When food is left rotting with other organics in landfill it gives off methane which is 25 times more potent than the pollution that comes from your car exhaust. These statistics are from NSW alone!! Each year NSW households throw out over $1000 worth of edible food.

Australians overall discard up to 20% of the food they purchase - that equates to 1 out of every 5 bags of food they buy.
Up to 40% of the average household bin is food.

These statistics are mind boggling. Its disgusting really.

Just think of the production costs and transport costs  - the "food miles". Good grief its just madness!

However as I said, the initiative is not just about horrifying statistics - its about solutions. Finding better ways to buy, cook and save your food and in turn doing the planet and yourself (and your bank balance) a favour. Its an easily navigable site, with lots of tips, recipes, as well as how to use the leftovers,downloads for shopping and menu planning, as well as insight into the issues arising from such waste.

It's definitely worth a look.

www.lovefoodhatewaste.nsw.go.au

Nundle.

About a month ago we decided to have a day trip to the small village of Nundle which is in the New England area of NSW. It's about a 3.5 hour trip from here so we set off reasonably early.
Its a town that owes its existence to the discovery of gold at  Hanging Rock and Swamp Creek in 1852, though its known more these days as one of the best places for crystals in NSW. You can also fossick for sapphires and other precious stones.

It's a lovely area with reminders of the past around every corner. For such a small village it has plenty of attractions such as a Arc-en-Ciel Trout Farm at Hanging Rock, the Nundle Woollen Mill, one of the last spinning mills in Australia; Jenkins St. Antiques and Fine China; Volcania Art Glass (and art gallery) just to name a few and my favourite : Odgers and McClelland Exchange Stores.

This is a home wares shop reminiscent of a 19th century local store. You can buy anything from fine loose teas, coffee, soap, enamelware, millet brooms, baskets, tea towels, aprons even flour in paper or cloth bags. It's a beautiful place to wander through; we had a lovely time. I bought an apron, some Badger Sleep Balm and a repro wind up tin motorbike toy for Mark. By the way you can shop online.

We had lunch at the Peel Inn; a hotel that was built in 1860. About 1863 it was won in a poker game by one John Schofield and it remains in the family to this day. We decided on chicken schnitzel and salad -  good old standard pub nosh - and I have to say it was soooo good!! The outdoor area where we ate was beautiful, lots of shady places to sit under a magnificent 40 year old grape vine. The outdoor area is so lovely in fact just last year it was featured in the top 10 beer gardens in Australia.

So I can highly recommend a visit to Nundle. We'd definitely go back and stay a few days to have more of a look at the attractions. Well worth the trip. :)

Useful Websites.
www.nundle.com.au
www.exchangestores.com.au                                            
  www.peelinn.com.au
www.rainbowtrout.com.au

Nice Things.

Katherine Elizabeth.

It's been a difficult few weeks with the death and funeral of my husband's mother, Katherine Elizabeth.

At 89 she had lived a full and busy life, quite "compos mentis" up until about five years ago. For the last almost two years she had been resident in a nursing home where sadly Altzeimers slowly eroded her mind and personality. It's a truly awful disease, isn't it?!

Her funeral was (to use a cliche) a celebration of her life. The last five years were not her sum total and we preferred to focus on her life before that. The photo slide show reminded us all that old ladies were once frivolous young things in stylish frocks and who rode pillion on motorbikes.

I hope she didn't have many regrets. I hope the few memories the disease would allow her to keep were of picnics and dances and the taste of  ice cream her mother use to make. I hope she is enjoying renewing contact with family and friends that made the journey before her.

     And I hope as we continue with our lives we consciously enjoy every moment we can.
                                               "This ain't no dress rehearsal."



                                                " A Parable of Immortality."

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
 I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, “There, she's gone.”

“Gone where?”                                                                                                                                              Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There, she's gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming, and there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”

- Henry van Dyke (1852 – 1933) 

Ta da - Presenting ....... The Hodge Podge Blog!!

Well I've dilly dallied and shilly shallied about for ages trying to work out what to do with this blog. It's been a great way of diarising the past 4 years and I've enjoyed it immensely but I've thought for a while (as I've previously mentioned) that I've reached a fork in the road with this format. Whether it needs to be moth-balled and another started or to just carry on with this one but in a different style has been the conundrum.

Since all blogs, no matter the content, are self-indulgent in that we create a platform for our own thoughts, experiences and opinions, I  guess I'll continue to indulge myself by sharing exactly those things.

Our dream when we first moved here was to create a little piece of paradise where we could live a simple, peaceful life. We've learnt skills like keeping chickens and growing veggies to appreciating life in a far more meaningful way. It's been a lot of work and at times frustrating but there hasn't been one day - no not a one - where we haven't laughed about something and felt incredibly blessed to live here. We've really settled into our simplified life though the learning continues. Anyone who doesn't think they have anything left to learn is either very arrogant ...........or very dead!

So; it's decided then; this will be a hodge-podge blog; a blog of all sorts. Holiday photos, veggie garden updates, ideas on simple living, maybe some of my shorter stories, interviews with interesting people. Bits and pieces I guess. I have no idea if you'll enjoy it. I hope you do. Feel free to comment and add your thoughts to the mix.

And now to begin...........................................

Bike Planter 2.

We've just finished popping the plants in the baskets. I chose ivy pelagoniums and geraniums for their hardiness and trailing. Since we often get temps in the high 30's and low 40's I'm afraid the English cottage garden plants I'd prefer are just a no-go.

They're peeping over the top but in a very short time they'll be trailing over the edges and looking pretty cheery under the gum trees. Do you know I couldn't find ivy, just plain old ivy, for love nor money. I even went wandering around the streets in a nearby town to see if I could pinch some from someones garden. :) I thought a few long tendrils would go nicely and "hurry" along the look. Oh well will just have to be patient. I've put a few pretty foliage plants in too; same family so should be quite hardy.

I'm thrilled with how it turned out. I can't wait for the plants to grow bigger and with the sort of warmth we've been having through the day they should be spilling out all over the place before long at all.

Bike Planter.

Good morning and a chilly morning it is too! I'm sitting in my office looking out at the fog. An insipid sun is trying valiantly to warm the place but as yet it's losing the fight. :) It's Saturday and we're expecting about 20c; gotta be happy with that for a winter daytime temp! It's surprising how quickly it warms up once the sun is up completely.

Once it warms up it's out into the garden today, however there's not a lot needing to be done in the veggie patch. I bought some colourful plants yesterday to go in my bike baskets. That's the latest project here - a bike planter for down the yard. I'll whizz outside shortly and take a photo of the bike and the baskets I bought to go on the front and back. They'll be painted an off -white, as will the bike, and then I'll plant some hardy (hopefully) plants in them. It's a lovely old bike - a bargain on Gumtree for $20! The guys have stripped a few things off it so it's bare basics and ready to go.

The baskets should look lovely when these get a little bigger and start to cascade over the edges.

A Berry Good Day.

Its raining, its pouring. Well not quite, it's sprinkling at the moment. The few heavy falls we had overnight were much needed  though it rained on the parade (s'cuse the pun) of a couple of family members who were hoping for a motorbike ride today.

For me, it's tucked up inside and having a quiet day I think. The dog is curled up in her little bed beside me in the office and it's looking like it could be time to put the fire on soon.

I made a Berry Clafoutis a few weeks ago; might just make another for desert tonight. It's a nice warm desert on a cold and rainy night. Lovely with cream or ice cream.

Can recommend this Banana and Raspberry bread.
I was very good and had just one - no - two pieces. I sliced the rest and individually wrapped half and popped them in the freezer. It freezes beautifully.





Ingredients.
150g butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 ripe bananas, mashed (1 cup)
2 cups S.R. flour
1 T.spoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen. - thaw frozen on  paper towel before using)

Method.
Preheat oven to 180c.   Grease and line loaf tin.
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating mixture after each egg.
Stir in mashed banana. Sift flour and baking powder over banana. Stir until just combined. Add raspberries.
Bake for 45-50 minutes. Check skewer comes out clean. Cool in tin for 10 minutes then lift out and cool on wire rack. YUM!

Mid-Winter???

Arrggghhhhh!! Don't you hate it when you write a long post and it disappears into the ether!? I've been up since 4am so I guess I can excuse myself - I obviously hit the wrong button.

It's hard to believe we're in mid-winter as the weather has been gorgeous; 24 here yesterday! We've had weeks of day time temps of around 20c and though it dips overnight it hasn't been too bad. Winter popped in for a quick visit the night before last- it was only 2c here so quite chilly when I got up. We had a small frost, only the second since we moved here almost 4 years ago. It can get cold enough but seeing we live on a rise or at least a small hill, usually a breeze keeps the frosts away. I remember growing up in an area where the ground would be thick with frost and the water pipes would freeze overnight! Our hands and feet would sting with the cold. My father told me oranges need a couple of good frosts to sweeten then so I was thrilled to see the white ground. No frost today though; it was 11 when I got up and it's quite windy.

Our mini frost.












It was a perfect yard day yesterday so edges were snipped and I whizzed about for a few hours on the "dear oh dear" (the John Deere ride -on mower) We got a trailer load of "woof wood" (Mark says that's the noise it makes when it catches alight. lol) and it's all stacked ready to go. We moved branches that had been blown down by a wind and stacked it ready for a bonfire. We might wait until Jordan returns from Canada and have the family out for dinner and a sit around the fire.

We had a guy move the container for us this week in preparation for another shed to be built. There's always something going on!

Today is gardening, planting and making a few pizza bases to freeze. In this weather I usually sit the dough in a window to rise. :) The wind has gotten up quite strongly now though the sun is still out and a visitor who's just dropped in for a morning coffee tells us the weather is supposed to turn nasty this afternoon. Best finish this and get outside to start the day.

Week's End.

After much ado with a new computer and printer/scanner we're back up and running. (Thanks to our son - yet again!!) Technology really hasn't come that far if the equipment gets more difficult to use instead of easier!

I'm able to load some of the photos I'd taken to go with the previous post. :) The vegie stock and quick fruit cake mentioned are here as well as one of a little visitor we had a few months ago. He spent a few days with us before moving on. Hopefully he'll drop in again.

It was lovely to watch the sun rise on this brisk autumn morning. It doesn't matter what the time of year there's always something to enjoy and appreciate. That got me thinking about how different we all are and how enjoyment varies from person to person. We love the peace and quiet of where we live. The wildlife, the scenery and generally just living a simple life that's very focused on enjoying each day. However some people find their peace and enjoyment in the middle of a busy city or by the ocean or a lake. We can find a quietness of spirit in the most unusual places; it all depends on our individuality. None is better than another. We have this perception in society that "different" is wrong or somehow not good enough. Different is just different. In it's most simplest form the definition of "different" is unalike or dissimilar.

I personally love the city; I love the vibrancy, the easy access to whatever I need or want. I think Sydney and London are two of the most fabulous cities around and yet the quietness of the countryside is what I need to live a truly authentic life.

I think wherever you live or whatever life you have chosen for yourself if you see each day as an adventure and something to be really appreciated you can't go far wrong. :)

Vegie stock brewing.

  Finished product; a freezer full of yummy, fresh additive free stock.



                                   
                                 
                                                 Quick fruit cake.

                                                                               Our little visitor.

'ere I is.

Just popping in to say hi. As you know I initially started this blog, not only as our record of our tree-change but also to keep distant friends and family up to date with what we were up to. I sat and read through the entire thing the other day and and frankly (yes at risk of sounding quite self - indulgent) I really enjoyed going over not only what I'd shared, but also the other memories it evoked.

So I've decided to continue with my ramblings for a time. Eventually I'll have it printed in book form so when Mark and I shuffle off the kids and F.G.C.'s (future grand-children)  will have a reminder of us and our decision to live " The Good Life".

Today I'll be in the kitchen for a little while. I have a fruit cake in the oven to cut up into portions and freeze.  A friend gave me the recipe and its just so ridiculously easy.

Soak 1 kg mixed dried fruit in 500 ml iced peach tea overnight. Mix in 2 cups S.R. flour and pop in a lined tin and into a preheated oven 125c for 2.5 hours. Now how crazy is that??!!!

 I also have some vegetable stock simmering, courtesy of veggie scraps. I just freeze bits and pieces; ends and small bits of carrots, turnips, pumpkin etc; tops off celery, really anything in the veggie line and pop it into a ziplock bag in the freezer. When I have enough, into a pot,cover with water, a few bay leaves, seasoning, bring to a boil, simmer for an hour and Bobs your uncle. Some gorgeous stock. I freeze in 1 cup quantities but like a lot of other things you can pop some into ice cube trays so you have a smidgen for whatever. Since we grow most of the veggies it's not only very economical but covers my pet obsession - I know what has gone into it. :)

The chickens will get the left-over veggies, along with the days scraps so its a win - win all round.

Onto some more Basil Pesto now, this one with cashews instead of pine nuts. Yum!!  I made some earlier in the week but its all promised so I need to get some more happening.

I've been taking photos as I've gone along but for some reason my new laptop isn't reading the SD card. :(

Will try to sort that out and will post them when I can.

Off to pick some basil. Have a good day.