Yum

I’m happy to report my cider isn’t deadly! It is rather dangerous though.
It’s turned out very sickly sweet and tastes rather like soft drink as it’s
going down but then – after a whole glass (or two) – it turns and kicks your legs out
from under you.

A jolly good use of apples I say! I’ll be borrowing a ladder tomorrow to get
the ones that are left on the tree…

This is the recipe I used if anyone’s interested: http://www.harvington.org.uk/hic/speedycider.html

(metric:
1.5 kg cooking apples
5.7 litres water
1 kg white sugar)

Busy, busy…

I love Autumn.

I’m still harvesting bits and pieces. My tomatoes got away on me again this year and of course I didn’t label the varieties properly when I planted them so now I have a huge mess again. My mum is turning them into lovely things though.

I’ve just made my first batch of cider. It’s the super-fast cider recipe which appeared in Homegrown 2 (a NZ Gardener special edition). We had a lull in the beer making and the apple tree was dropping an incredible amount so I decided that it was important to have a different kind of alcohol in the house for when I get tired of the beer (never!). I know, I know, I could just cook the apples up and have a twelve month supply of applesauce but where’s the fun in that?

I’ve been cautiously planting a winter garden. I didn’t want to because we’ve been stripping paint off the house and I wanted to protect the soil from contamination by covering the beds with drop cloths. I figured that I’d lose a growing season but it would be better to ensure that the soil stayed clean (of lead and stuff I mean). But a small house fire and the variable weather have meant that we won’t get to the back of the house for a while so I’m working on a project to raise the height of all my beds and to increase the soil fertility over the winter. So, I’ve started planting a few winter veges anyway: leeks and rainbow chard so far. Probably some bok choy this week.

I have a huge amount of work to do though. Maybe I should write a list…

Messy Garden

It’s a mess and there isn’t much food in it at the moment. I’ve just harvested all the onions and garlic and I’m planning on a big shift around in the next week or two. It’s also not a very good photo, but I’m very pleased with the first sunflower to open.

Fresh

Something I overheard last night: “I don’t want you daddy, you smell like cheese…I want want mama! She smells fresh!”

Maybe it’s because I haven’t had any dairy since last Friday.  I like eating cheese but it makes me sick and I’m finally facing up to that fact. Luckily for me I found a neat vegan recipe book at the tip shop on Saturday. I think I’m eating better than I have in years! Of course I feel awful this week as all the toxins flood through my system and out but at least I smell fresh LOL.

(sorry, just a brief stop-in. I promise photos next time of my messy garden before it goes under covers while the exterior of the house is being stripped and painted. I also must share some of the adventures of the bumbling brewing co. We bumble, but we make nice beer ;>)

Yay us

I was dreading taking my car in for its Warrant of Fitness today. It’s been a very long time since we put any new tyres on it and since this would be the very worst month to fork out for expensive new ones, it was inevitable surely. But no! It turns out that one other advantage of hardly driving the car is that the tyres last so much longer. The mechanic even thinks that the tyres will last another six months. That would make nearly two years on the same four tyres. Woo hoo!

It’s a shame in a way though. A large car related bill might have pushed a bit closer to letting it go. I found Cityhop this week. They’re only in Auckland and Christchurch at the moment, but it’s a great idea. I’m tempted to join just I can drive one of those extremely cute cars.

Out of August

I just thought I’d update for anyone who was wondering what had happened to me. Gosh, that makes it sound like something happened to me when really it’s just been an oddly busy month or so.

I’m working part-time for the next few months and going back to “real” work has been interesting on a number of levels. It’s hard being back in front of a computer for two eight-hour days each week, but fortunately the weather has been awful for most of the days I’ve worked so far. It’s far harder to sit in front of a computer and concentrate on work when the sky is clear. It’s also been interesting being back in my old world-my pre-children, pre-garden world. It’s clarified some stuff for me.

The other reasons I haven’t been here are that I’m still working on a huge “sorting out my house” project which is supposed to make my life better in a million different ways (It’s just taking a long time to sort through the crap both physically and metaphorically), and I’m dithering about homeschooling again. If you think I dither about my garden -ha! That’s nothing compared to the way I’ve been dithering about homeschooling for the last 8 or 9 years. At the moment elder son is going to school when I can drag him (kicking and shrieking literally some mornings) and my younger son is learning at home with me which naturally means I’m spending less time on the computer and more time painting, reading, trying to organise the house so that their room-sized creations are more manageable and generally trying to parent in a way that is more concious and fully present in the moment.

I hope you’re enjoying spring. I have a list of jobs to do in the garden and, quite unlike me, I’ve actually written them down!

Freaking out

Anxious about peak oil? Try Peak Oil Blues.

I’ve linked to this before but I thought I would again as I’m in the middle of a bit of a peak oil “freak out”. It’s just the weather I think and the constant talking/reading about the less than ideal economic conditions around the world at the moment. And while on the one hand I’m completely aware that I’m very lucky to be living in a fairly water-tight home with a huge backyard which I’ll be able to fill with food producing plants, on the other hand I feel like we’re all going to starve slowly if we have to rely on what I can grow. And that’s when I start getting panicky because like so many people we are actually not much more than 2 pays away from bankruptcy and gardens take a long time to establish and get running efficiently.

Argh. I’m rambling sorry. What freaks me out most of all though is that so many people are so oblivious to what’s coming. It’s very stressful being a Cassandra.

*Deep breath*

Back to the plan. I’m slowly cleaning out the house and starting to organise some serious food storage (for great discussion of this see Casaubon’s Book) as well as getting new garden beds organised. And for some nearly-instant mental health improvement I’m planting up lettuces in pots for my kitchen windows (Ta for the idea Sandra ;>).

More Crafting

I love my mum.

No sooner than I’d said to her “I’ve just heard about this new craft magazine”, my mum retrieved her copy and pressed it into my hands. This magazine was made for me! The first issue told me how to re-cover my sad little 1950s dining chairs with salvaged billboard vinyl (let’s just pretend I will actually do this) and the second issue told me how to build a coldframe out of an old window and skip timber. How cool is that!

World Sweet World

Provisions

So, my garden isn’t feeding me but it’s ok. I have beer.

(Thanks to a very kind and generous friend who has shared his equipment in exchange for the space. Resource sharing is GREAT!)

Irrational

Sometimes I just feel like the garden hates me.

Yes, I know. Irrational.

It’s just the winter garden thing and feeling more frustrated than usual about the rain and cold and lack of money. The only solution is to go outside right now and build the new garden bed. Right now. I’m turning off the computer right … NOW.