Snippets the third

Hello!

OK, I'm doing a snippets post again. I feel like all I ever blog these days is craft and my attempt at a how I'm really feeling blog that I tried to write this morning isn't sitting comfortably and needs time to settle. So I'm leaving it in my drafts for a bit and falling back on a trusty tried and true method of blog catching up.

I always hope that by skimming the surface, it might clear the way for bigger and better and braver posts to come. Sometimes it works, and other times, well, like I said there have been several crafty posts around here but not much more.

So let's get started shall we, several snippets of my life right now.

I am...

Enjoying my girls and my farmer boy. So much at the moment. They all seem happy and inspired and lovely to be around. So often we seem to be dealing with challenges and fixing things up, it's just lovely to sit back and enjoy this moment in time when it all feels just right.

Playing Suzanne Vega on Spotify whenever I am alone, all the time.

Smelling the sweetest signs that springtime is on her way.

Listening to the latest episode of Strangers and feeling heartbroken and inspired and sad and hopeful all at once.

Wearing coveralls (long sleeved, button upped overalls). They are the best winter invention ever. Sometimes I even wear my jammies underneath all day long and none ever knows. Best!!

Reading The Signature of all things and loving it. Thanks so much for the recommendation Ms Mogantosh.

Crocheting - my hottie cover, step four is coming tomorrow, are you excited?!

Knitting - another pair of slippers for my farmer boy who wore his first pair out.

Blogging - not so much these wintry days.

Flicking  to my spread in ABC Organic Gardener magazine and thinking it's funny that I am in a magazine about organic gardening not with our organic farming but with my crafting.

Enjoying the chit-chat on my Foxslane Facebook page and wishing it were as easy to comment and reply over here on the blog as it is over there.

Not loving these cold, wet, dark and windy last weeks of winter. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Knowing - that I need to menu plan but not knowing where to start.

Wondering - if I'll get a chance to get this post up before school pick up today, 45 minutes and counting....

Dreaming - of getting out into the veggie garden again later in the week when it warms up a tad.

Hoping to host a fabulous crafty event later in the year with the acest Veggie Mama herself.

Giggling inside when finding out in the middle of a pap smear last week that my doctor reads my blog. Hi!

Knitting socks!! From the toe up on 2mm needles that may as well be tooth-picks they are so tiny. Sock knitting might just be the very definition of slow craft but I am well and truly addicted and have plans for lace pairs and fancy yarned pairs and birthday present pairs and kiddie pairs. I loveLOVElove knitting something so basic and so essential, so pretty and so comfy.

Ravelry details here.

Laughing at one of my girls who declared that sex education at school is silly because they don't even show you how to have sex!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Casting on - another pair of socks. This time for Miss Indi in the cutest yarn that almost looks like sprinkles on fairy bread.

Grateful that my parents are back across the road after their three wonderful weeks away. Life and maths homework and circus and dancing pick ups and drop offs just weren't the same without them.

Adoring teaching wool craft to a mixed aged bunch of kiddies at the girls' school each Tuesday. We've been having the greatest time making pom-poms, god's eyes, finger knitting and weaving. And I've remembered how much I love to teach. It's been a long while but that feeling you get when you watch something click with somebody is priceless.

Smiling at the memories of last weekend; of packing up, of visiting a biodynamic farm and buying seed, of getting lost and not sleeping and spending hours and hours together in the car. Such crazy fun times. Let's do it again SOON!

And that's me all caught up with no place to go (except to the kitchen to wash some potatoes).

I hope you are well and happy and warm.

I wonder what you've been enjoying, playing, smelling, listening, wearing, reading crocheting, flicking to, enjoying, not loving, knowing, wondering, dreaming, hoping, giggling, knitting, laughing at, casting on, grateful for, adoring, smiling at...?

Big love

x

snapshot of now

I feel like I have a thousand things to tell you. There's so much going on my mind, in my heart and in my life. This morning after I took the girls to school, tidied the house and took part in a lovely girl's photography project, I sat down and started this blog three times.

I have three incomplete blog drafts sitting in my post list and now this is my fourth.

But I think this one will work because just before I sat down to write it, I spent a few minutes walking around snapping photos of things that tell the story of me now. Twelve photos that represent a bit of a snap shot of my life at the moment (minus the girls of course because they are at school). So I think instead of being overwhelmed with details I'm going to write a sentence or two to go with each photo and that'll be that.

Simple, right?!

OK, let's do this.

HARVESTING - rhubarb. There is just so much rhubarb right now. I cut and tied this bunch to give to a friend this morning but forgot. I think I'll make a cake for the girls for afternoon tea now instead.

I'm a little bit obsessed with tying things up with string at the moment. Somehow the winding and the tying make every package just that little bit prettier, don't you think?

READING - These two books. Finished one and a hundred pages left of the other. Possibly two of the best books I have ever read. I'm trying my hardest to slow down and make the last pages last longer but it's impossible. I only hope the next book I pick up is as good.

MISSING - salt. About a month ago my grandfather was told he had to cut salt right out of his diet. My grandfather and I have always shared a deep love of the salty. We were the type of people who added salt to a dish before even tasting it. If you were looking for the salt shaker at a meal time you could always be certain it was next to one of us. When he was told to cut salt out for health reasons I was devastated for him. It actually made me cry. And then I decided to cut salt from my diet too.

I haven't added salt to a dish for a month. I miss salt like crazy.

WAITING - for rocket. And for all the veggies that are sitting still in the icy cold ground waiting for the winter equinox and the days to get longer so they can put on some growth and feed my hunger for salads.

CROCHETING - well I'm not actually crocheting anything right now, but I do need to darn in the ends of my May motifs, photograph them and write up a blog post about #MotifDayMay before it turns into July.

KNITTING - woolly slippers. I love that Miss Pepper chose odd colours for hers. I love that she sleeps with them on the shelf next to her bed and I love that she took them to school today to wear them in class. Miss Jazzy's are next.

LOVING - my farmer boy's new house rule that every member of this family must pick and eat at least one carrot a day, everyday. Yay!

CARRYING - chunky wool and fat knitting needles in a cute basket wherever I go.

SEWING - right now I really should be outside helping farmer Bren prune the apple orchard but instead I'm alternating between writing this blog and sewing leaves. But firstly it really is just too cold outside. And secondly, I've got this space in my new craft area that I just painted white that I think needs to be surrounded by a leaf wreath. Hopefully the reality looks as pretty as it does in my mind. Hopefully also, it warms up a couple of degrees in the next little while and I can get a couple of hours of pruning in before pick up.

WEARING - great quality, wool socks for the first time in my life and marvelling at the difference they make in terms of comfort and warmth. Until now I have always been too mean to spend much money on socks, but all that has changed from now on. Wow!!

I would really like to learn how to knit socks this winter. If you have an in-the-round, snugly fitting, simple sock pattern, I'd love the link.



COOKING - spinach and kale and all things green and leafy in every meal. It makes me feel like a better Mum when I know my girls are eating such garden goodness.

MARVELLING -  at the fact that you can cook haloumi in your sandwich press. I know!! I had no idea you could do it either. Indi saw it on a blog somewhere, told me, we tried it and it works. I can't believe I spent so many years frying it in oil, splattering my kitchen with oil, and burning myself with flying bits of splattering oil. This past week we've enjoying the squishy, melty cheese without the hassle of the big cleanup. So great!

OPENING - the pages of Zoe Phillip's new book The Time of Our Lives. It is such a gorgeous book and I think the photo she took of farmer Bren and Bingo Maremma might just be one of the most beautiful photos I have ever seen.

OK, that's me all caught up now.
How about you? What are you harvesting, reading, missing, waiting, crocheting, knitting, loving, carrying, sewing, wearing, cooking, marvelling and opening?
Care to share?

Big love

xx

saving spinach

So we are half way through spring, and although it is almost impossible to believe considering the wintry weather outside, the race is on to get the kitchen garden summer ready. To pull out the last of the wintry crops, to dig some compost into the soil and to start planting out the new season's seeds.

On our farm the market gardens are almost always too wet to work the soil until mid to late November, so it is nice to have a bit of a micro climate to get a head start in.

The first thing that needs to happen up here is we need to make some room. Out with the old and in with the new. This almost always involves us walking around the garden a few times working out what flowers need to stay for the bees and seed saving, what plants are looking like they are past their peak and need to come out, and what can stay in the ground for a bit longer.

We plant loads of spinach every year and although we've enjoyed it in almost every meal for the past few months, the start of the warmer months means it will soon be bolting and we need to pick it at it's peak now and save it for future eating.

So I've been wandering around the garden picking big boxes of spinach.

Then I wash it and place it still wet in a deep frying pan on the cooker for a few minutes to wilt.

(Gosh, I wish I wiped down the cooker before I took that photo.)

Once wilted, I squeeze as much water out of the spinach and then use scissors to chop it quite finely.

Then I make tight little spinach balls of about a handful of mixture each and pop them in the freezer on a plate. Freezing them on the plate ensures they don't stick together and are easy to separate when I need them later on.

Once they are frozen, I pop them into a container all together and back into the freezer.

It never failes to amaze me that the contents of an entire garden bed can fit into a small tub.

I'd guess it is completely safe to keep the spinach balls in the freezer for four or five months although I'm sure I've used ours up to eight months later.

I use some of the stalks for the balls and we juice the rest and freeze it for stock.

I did drink a glass of straight spinach juice just because my farmer boy thought it would be good for us, but I do not recommend that at all. Ew!!

And then I repeat the snipping, washing, wilting, squeezing, snipping, shaping, freezing until there's no more spinach to be seen.

And the garden gaps are filled and a new season of growing begins.


Are you preserving? Planting? Gobbling?

I've missed you.

xx

#herecomeswinter

With the promise of more than two inches of rain on the horizon, we spent the whole of yesterday in the garden. We cleared out autumn and settled her in for the long, cold winter ahead.

We weeded, we forked over the empty beds and we filled them up with fresh compost. We picked bucket loads of carrots whose tops were starting to rot. We harvested the last of the tomatoes and beans and yanked out their vines. We thinned out and transplanted kale and spinach and cos. We planted broad beans soaked in garlic and chili (to deter the pesky possums). And we seeded a spiral of rocket and some parsley. 

And we lit a bonfire for warmth and to burn the sticks that held our tomatoes and beans up all through summer.

And my farmer boy made us cups of steaming hot Turkish coffee with cardamon.

It's a wonderful gift to realise that we are exactly where we want to be right now, doing exactly what we want to be doing. We are together, we are doing what we love: making and growing our own, we are being creative and we feel inspired and good. We feel really good.

Time and circumstances and bad weather may challenge that and probably change that, but for now it is.

And when we came in last night at dark, stoked the fire, settled in for the night and heard the rain starting to tumble down on the roof, we felt like we were up to date and on the right track.

Winter looks like she is settling in but our garden's ready for her.

If only I were as ready in the kitchen.
Soup again?
What're you having for dinner?

xx

See ya spinach!

If picking and eating vegies straight from your garden is the very best thing, then preserving a portion to eat in later months is second, and saving the seeds to growit again next season is the third.

Yesterday, after three or four months of spinach eating. After pasta pocket fillings, pasties, pies, stir fries, triangles, salads, pizzas, pestos, lasagne's, frittatas, on toast and in soups, we decided that this season's spinach growing days were over. 

So we pulled up all but one bed of spinach.

Then we stripped the leaves and composted the stalks.

And then we steamed, squeezed and froze the rest.

While pulling a spinach portion out of the freezer over the next few months wont quite be the same as cutting a few leaves out of the garden, it will still be spinach that we grew with love and care, in great soil, organically, in our own garden. And it will still be delicious.

And the one bed we left we'll collect spinach seed off to store and plant next year.

I do love growing and eating seasonally. It makes us appreciate what we have when we have it so much more. And the preserved stuff is just icing on the spinach cake.

Is your spinach going to seed?
Or perhaps you are just putting yours in?
What's your favourite way to enjoy the green stuff?
What have you got going on in your garden right now?

Bye. x