stronger

My absence over the past months has been quite productive.  I have completed a botany course, been on a permaculture design course, made a whole group of new friends, read three new books, planted my own vegie patch, learnt to make bread and pretzels and a number of new dishes, enjoyed a number of huge lightening storms,  renovated a built-in wall cabinet, learnt how to take long-slow bath times,  found a new acceptance of self, learnt Tai Chi and found a new connection with the earth, catalogued all my seeds, reconciled with a sibling, forever lost a second sibling to permanent irreconcilable differences, planted/transplanted a myriad flowers in my garden, made some lovely beaded jewellery, found a property I want to purchase (with lots of land to practice permaculture), drew up the permaculture design plans for the new property, started a new pen and ink drawing I love, bathed, groomed and walked the pups a thousand times (never ending pre-occupation) and found a stronger more authentic, more forthright me in the process of all the above.

I'd say that was a few months well spent :)  I am feeling stronger than ever before and I am learning to like this emerging me although it is a more challenging me to live with.

I must say I have missed blogging everyday - I realise that I love documenting my time, it helps me process emotions and activities, which I may otherwise allow to drift off into oblivion, only to have come back and torment my subconscious in some obscure form I will never be able to later comprehend.  And so, I hope that I will make time every so often to come and write about my life here as it does me so much good to write out the words which fill my spaces.

happy spring day - southern hemisphere!

It has been a huge whirlwind of a week.  Spring is upon us, August has been hot, dry and dusty and we cannot wait for the rains.  I find that people get cranky at this time of year; the weather, I think is to blame, after the first rains, everyone magically settles down.  All this dry weather does however allow us a small window of opportunity to sort out the winter garden.   The spring rains bring back the cold of winter for a while, but mostly, we are past the worst winter has to offer and appreciating the blossoms and sunshine.

I have been busy with spring garden jobs, mostly by instinct, as I have never done this before.  I have pruned just about everything; creating the shapes I want for bushes and hedges, chopping up trees like there is no tomorrow and pulling up tired biannual and harvesting the leaves from a shrub I cannot name, not even after applying my new botanical knowledge BOT101.

The shrub is woody, perennial, has grey leaves and smells like eucalyptus. (any ideas?)  I have never seen it flower, that may be due to my highly depleted sense of botanical observation until now, the BOT101 is taking care of that nicely.

This is an abandoned corner of the garden nobody ever sees, it is right next to the kitchen and so I have claimed it for a herb garden.  I have actually been working on it all winter as the soil was terribly depleted.
It is however looking quite plantable now.

I made lovely little seedling pots out of newspaper.  The idea came from a post by Urban Homestead S.A., I altered the idea slightly, and now am able to fill my pots with soil as they are made.  I simply cut the bottom off of my shampoo bottle (the sacrifices we make).  I fill the bottle with soil, wrap the newspaper around (it's about 30cm long/15cm wide),leaving at least half hanging off the edge, fold the 'hanging off' pieces over the cut-off opening of the bottle, overlapping them to form the base.  Then tip the bottle over and slide the pot off - and there you have it, ready made seedling pots which can be planted directly into the ground as the newspaper is biodegradable.  The seedlings don't suffer replant shock and shouldn't suffer climate change either, as I have them sitting happily in the sun, right where they will, be planted in about two weeks.  As a first time gardener, I must say I am very happy with the outcome.  Time will tell if I am actually doing anything right at all :)



Once I had used up all my newspaper and potting soil,
I counted up how many pots I had
........ 99!
What a lovely number!
(little tip - use a permanent marker for the labels - my labels are washing off ....blah! )






I have a lovely design layout for my garden which I created with my graphic software (ah! the fun I had).  I know exactly where each plant will live, and have researched the needs of each and located the best possible garden spot for each individual.  I am companion planting with flowers, so it should all look quite lovely, oh yes, all this work is to create a herb garden, I am studying herbology, so this is hands on study for me.

I am having a great time passionately throwing myself into the garden, perhaps that is a newbie thing ...  first love affair ... give her time, it will fade .... I hope not, I simply love the idea of encouraging life to bloom around me and hope that in the process I bloom too.




.

splashing Raw

A picture says a thousand words 

.... I'll leave it at that!

 ....... and yes, it is RAW!  find the recipe here.

getting acquainted

RAW for one week and feeling SO good, I headed into the garden yesterday on a spontaneous mission to cut back some dead foliage and allow the new, which is already peeping up through the earth, to thrive.

I had no idea that five hours later, I would be gingerly avoiding all contact with clothing and human touch, as I succumbed to a vicious sun burn.  Who would have guessed the early spring sun could do such damage!  On the up side, my compost heap has quadrupled its size and the garden is looking a bit more aesthetically pleasing.  Today, I am paying for my irresponsible hard labour with sunstroke. 
I am not a happy fishy!

On a more positive note, the following pictures taken after Sunday's visit to the grocer (unfortunately none of my own produce as yet).  Most of the produce is not organic, so I have to wash each piece in a citronella wash I have which removes chemicals and waxes.  It is quite a job, but now the kitchen is stocked and all produce is safe for consumption
(as far as I can tell).

It made such a lovely display, I went photo mad:
(I will not bore you with all 103)

I love the vibrant colours and textures. 

My camera however did a poor job of capturing what my eye could see.

There is a whole world of discovery inside each fruit
that I just wish I could capture.

These baby spinach leaves are one of the staples for my green smoothie drinks.  I battle to eat them RAW as they are, but in a smoothie, mixed with bananas and some dates, they are wonderful.

I have never eaten fennel root before, it just looked too odd to try, I have always just walked past them in the isle, however Beloved was shopping with me and grabbed two of these knobbly old guys.  I must say, they are quite refreshing RAW and work well as crudités with humus.

 As you can see, I am getting well acquainted with food .....

colour coding!

Isn't that fun! (tongue-in-cheek)

On a serious note though.  I am fostering a new relationship with food.  This may take some time to develop into something healthy and worth celebrating, but in the meantime, a bit of fun does not
hurt and goes a long way to keeping me sane on this insane journey of life :)

raw! raw! raw!

I have to congratulate myself; I have eaten RAW this whole week!

clap! clap! clap! clap! clap!

I intend for this to be a two month RAW FOOD experiment.  I hope to find that my energy increases and that my girth decreases.  It is not as difficult as it sounds really.  Just eat plant matter that is RAW and you are on your way.  I juice vegetables and fruit to make lovely health drinks and I make lovely green smoothies.  I make large oversized salads and I use avocado in just about everything even to make chocolate mousse!  I have learnt to make a RAW cheesecake which is delightful and I have made my own trail snacks ... all with RAW foods and NO cooking at all.

Beloved is not too charmed by this change, especially as he is cooking most of his own food.  As I get used to this change I'll probably take back some of his food preparation as well.  I refuse to bring junk into the house, so he has to go out and purchase anything he wants that is not healthy.  I must however say that he is beginning to ask for a smoothie or salad when he sees me making them and I am delighted to oblige!  He has also perfected his carrot/apple/ginger drink made with the juicer and I am delighted to help him with all taste tests necessary.

As far as my rather unhealthy relationship with food is concerned, I have made a useful affirmations powerpoint which I meditate on daily and this has become very helpful in keeping me focused on all this RAW eating.