Happy first days of spring!

We're really enjoying and revelling in how aware of the weather and season changes we are up here on our little block of land. Part of it has to do with the fact that we're outside a lot, on account of our little house being so small, and all its amenities (and prime fun-and-beautiful bits) being not-inside.



What better way to spend an early spring day (Ok - several days) than dragging a mattress into the middle of a paddock and setting up camp.

This morning, for example, the second day of spring, we were awake with the sun, and not long afterwards (just time enough for hearty cuddles in bed and some reading of our current favourite book, Farm Anatomy) we were outside, cooking breakfast on the barbecue and surveying the clouds, wind and frost levels. Yes, it's the second day of spring, and we're still having regular, heavy frosts. While some people in the Bega Valley can get frosts as late as November, we're lucky here in that the frosts only settle in the bottom of our valley, not near our house or veggie garden or orchard. This is a bonus, because it means we can get started on planting our spring and summer-growing food plants pretty soon, without fear of them being apprehended by frost.


Frosts at the very bottom of the valley, making friends with a blossom tree and some blackberries

One of the fantastic things about moving up here at this time of year is that we arrived just in time for some serious food-planting adventures, which, let's face it, is a big part of why we moved to this block of land in the first place. So it's exciting for us, but also nerve-wracking, because this, hopefully, will be our forever-house, so we really want to get things right. We're already planning the menus for home-grown feasts for birthdays 40, 50 and 60, so we need to make sure that the things we plant get a good start so they can serve us (and our friends!) well.

Nothing like some bulbs to let you know spring-time's a-comin'

Our bare-rooted fruit trees have been the biggest deal for us thus far, and are being tended with lots of loving care and worm juice. The Orchard has been planted along a swale/diversion drain above our house, which, when it rains, captures water from the road, and diverts it (slowly! - no erosion here) down to our little top dam, soaking the soil along the way and watering our collection of fruit trees. There will also be an olive grove and a nut grove added to this collection of food trees, in a similar kind of road-water-collecting arrangement, but that will have to wait…



Peach blossoms: freakin' beautiful









Due to the fact that it hasn't really rained since our workshop, we're watering our beloved fruit trees by hand, using water carted up from our bottom dam. The same is being done for the first 50 of our 800 Landcare grant shelter-belt/wildlife corridor trees, which we also planted this week. We're saving our pennies for a water pump to get water up from the bottom dam (spring-fed and therefore full) to our top dam (rain fed and therefore not so full), which we will then use for gravity-irrigating our fruit and Landcare trees and veggies. This will be an exciting day, but for now we're content with 5 x 20L drums filled up by hand and then carted up the hill in our car.





We also use these water-carrying adventures to harvest, dry and distribute the abundance of azolla we have growing happily on the bottom dam. We're using it mostly as a mulch and putting a little bit in the compost and worm farm, and she's working a treat.

The phase one veggie garden has also been receiving a bit of azolla love, and has been quite a pleasant revelation. I'd been a little apprehensive about how the soil would be in the area designated for the veggie beds we are going to use this spring/summer, as it hadn't received much (OK, any) attention, and basically consisted of a bit of earth right in front of the house that had been used to store all our building crap for the last 4 months. I expected it to be dry and compacted. In a rare moment of forethought, though, I had, during the frenzy of our strawbale building workshop, instructed someone to start putting loose straw and broken bales "kind of over there - I think that's where the veggie bed will be". This small mountain of straw had received no further attention, other than some food scraps and the daily emptying of our night-time wee bucket (essential in a very high sleeping loft like ours). This neglected pile of building waste has been the saving grace of the veggie patch! What a treat to kick back some of the straw to discover that a. the soil wasn't compacted at all, b. worms are diggin' it, and c. the soil is super-moist, even though it hasn't been watered since the build, when it got drowned in all the rain we had. Yee har! I spent a day and half going over it all with our friends' Gundaroo Tiller (which is totally ace, but I'm not going to write about its virtues because Milkwood already did it here), then spread about 10cm of manure/azolla/compost/worm castings, then covered the lot in another 10cm of straw (there's a bit of that stuff lying around here). We're slowly planting into it (a little rhubarb here, some comfrey there) and dreaming about a couple of months' time when it's (hopefully) crankin' out some quality food-stuffs.


New rhubarb leaves unfurl, watiting for next year's apple forage harvest

Even though we're spoiled with the abundance of egads-awesome home-grown and organic foodstuffs available at markets and given to us by generous friends and neighbours (this morning we had scrambled duck eggs from our friend Christa!), we're still itching for a bit of our own home-grown food, and we're watching with excitement and anticipation as our fruit trees bloom, our seedlings sprout and our dreams take shape here as spring unfurls around us.

 

rainin' and rainin'

I've probably mentioned this fact before - I love sewing for people I love! - but I had to mention it again given the gorgeous set of tops I just had the pleasure of whipping up for one of my loveliest friends, Niki. Is she not a beautiful P&E model?

Her request for 3 tops and a bolero came one day when I was lamenting not having enough cash to buy the new Sal Kimber album. How gracious of Niki to buy tops from me in order that I could purchase some music! The creative cycle is truly a beautiful thing...

The tops were to be comfy, but smart, and vaguely related to the colours dusty pink, blue and green. This was pretty fun, as I love colour-themed requests, especially since organising my teatowels and fabric remnants. I am an absolute sucker for anything arranged by colour, especially op-shops. The colour-coded op-shop seems to be a bit of a regional thing, in my experience, the most spectacular ones I've seen being in Cooma and Wagga Wagga. A few weeks back, I had a pretty awesome few rainy days of sick leave, after injuring my shoulder, so couldn't go on with any 'big' jobs (ie. house-building related). I just had to snuggle down and colour-code my fabric. How dreadful, I know.

So the tops were easy.

The bolero, on the other hand, was to go with a frock she already owned. Niki had sent me the belt, as a reference, but I was all in a tizz about the colouring.

The dress, as you can see, is bloody spectacular, so I was really feeling the pressure to get it right. What to do when in such a tizz? Defer to your muse, I say. Pearlie (my muse) is extraordinary at picking out combos. Combos of colours, combos of accessories, combos of food. Whatever - she rocks them all. Including Niki's bolero's dusty salmon wool/bright turquoise bias binding combo, which I believe to be marvellous.

Niki was pretty chuffed too, which is always a bonus.

While we were in Sydney hand-delivering Niki's tops (a special service reserved for only my most special clients, sorry) Bega was a recipient of some pretty phenomenal rain, which managed to wreak havoc all over our pretty shire. Being massive proponents of the 1st permaculture principle of Observe and Interact, we were super-keen to see how our land was handling the big wet. Pearl, Oski and I (Olive was at school) trotted up at the first opportunity, and were pretty excited by what we saw.

Firstly, the dam was absolutely chockers. Awesome. BUT it was overflowing, and showing off a pretty dreadful spillway which had some significant potential for erosion. Spillways, as we learned in Harvesting Water the Permaculture Way (yep: we get into some seriously sexy night-time viewing down here) should follow the contour of the land for quite some way, so that any overflowing water is captured and carried along the land slowly and gently, so as not to create any erosion and to ensure the land receives the maximum possible benefit from the rain. Our dam, in contrast seems to

a. spill right over the dam wall, taking our beehive with it (the only time I've been happy that the bloody bee lure didn't work) and then

b. create a kind of mini-river over the side, evacuating all our azolla and making a lovely azolla-bog in the gully below the dam wall.

Not the best outcome, at all, but interesting to see. We're not that upset about the dam's performance, given that, come spring, we'll be draining it and excavating it to remove silt, increase our water-storage capacity and create a gorgeous swimming hole. And at least we know it doesn't leak.

Speaking of excavations, they were pretty much supposed to be done by now, given that our workshop is in LESS THAN FIVE WEEKS but have been delayed on account of aforementioned rain. Slightly stressful, though Pearl has been wonderful with her "Babe, it's the weather. There's nothing we can do about it so don't worry" and things do seem to be clearing. All going well, Moonie the bobcat/bulldozer/front-end loader driver and self-declared "Excavation Advisor" will be up at our place bright and early on Tuesday to gouge out great quantities of hillside. The feeling is... well... kind of huge.

PS. As I write this, I am enjoying, quite immensely, the sound of the new Decemberists album, which I received in the mail today. It's a double live cd and, well, let's just say Pearl and I are dancing/panting/exclaiming "Yeah Colin!" as we go about our evening chores. Fun times.

PPS. Post-major rain event, the far South Coast this early Autumn is a truly spectacular place to be and all going well we should have some beautiful building weather for our April straw bale workshop. The prospect of toiling away on our hillside, with so many loved ones, on bright, crisp Autumn days excites us big time.

Happy kids on a breezy Autumn-like day

Yesterday was sunny and cool and breezy here in the south. One of those days that feels almost Autumnal, yet we are so far from Autumn we know it will be hot again any day soon...In recognition of the deliciousness of the day we headed to our land for an early dinner and dam swim for the kids.

I dunno about you but the dam swim is mucho unappealing to me, not only is it shallow and muddy but it's currently covered in Azolla. Not that Olive and Oscar seem perturbed, in fact quite the opposite. They bound down the hill towards the dam shedding shoes and clothes in order they can immerse themselves as soon as possible. Once in they roll and loll in the muddy waters happy as, well yes, pigs in mud. It warms our heart to see them so at ease and so happy in this place that will soon be our home (just as soon as we build our mini-straw bale with Frank Thomas and get a water tank and some solar panels etc etc.. but plenty more on that later). For now, our 7 acres is a place for picnics and plans and discovery and rolling in mud.

We built our fire and cooked our corn, It is truly the most delectable corn you can imagine. Grown nearby on the river flats it is almost obscene in its sweet juiciness. While the corn cooked we heated up a pot of our version of Jude Blereau's Cowboy Bean and Quinoa stew. Now it's hardly fine dining but golly, it is more-ish and nourishing and the nude, wet, happy kids eat so well when anything resembling tomatoey beans are on offer. Some people say I'm a little neurotic about ensuring the kids eat well and maybe I am but it is certainly satisfying to my mumma sensibilities to see our kids eat whole foods I've prepared for them. I'll post the recipe at the end for those in need of some easy pease, protein rich meals to satisfy the discerning kids in your life.

This recent land visit confirmed that the plums are finito but the blackberries are on the brink of readyness. We're torn in our relationship to the blackberries choosing, at this stage, to focus on their culinary attributes rather than their pestilent weedy nature. It's such a thrill to see the number of native raspberry plants cropping up across the acres as we imagine summers of the future and the berry cornucopia we will enjoy together.

These simple times together are so good. They fill our hearts with warmth and strengthen our resolve that this crazy shenanigan of building our own straw bale house and creating a food forest garden from nought + relying on the sun for our energy and rain for our water is all gonna be ok. And not just ok, actually pretty great.

Beans and quinoa stew adapted from Jude Blereau "Wholefood for Children"

will provide 2 - 3 meals for a family of 4

1 cup quinoa

1 tablespn lemon juice

1.5 - 2 cups of black eyed beans

olive oil

1 onion, slices

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

1 green capsicum, seeded and finely diced

large pinch of dried oregano

large pinch each of cumin and dried coriander

1 - 2 carrots, finely diced

1 sweet potato, finely diced

1 zucchini, finely diced

2 tblespns rapadura sugar

2 tins of diced tomatoes

salt and pepper

Place the quinoa in a bowl, add the lemon juice and cover in water. Leave to soak for at least 6 hours. Drain and set aside.

If using dried beans you should soak them overnight. Drain and set aside.

Heat the oil in a big pot, add onion and garlic and gently fry. Then add the herbs and spices and cook for a few minutes. Add the diced veg and put the lid on and cook for 5-minutes until it's starting to brown. Add the tomatoes and a little extra water, bring to a simmer. Then add the beans and quinoa and enough water to cover them. Cook gently with the lid on for a couple of hours until the beans are soft. Add sugar, salt and pepper to taste.

We like to eat it with some Barambah sour cream and grated cheese. And if we're feeling really fancy we make it into a Nachos kinda thing with some extra special organic corn chips.

Azolla love

As I lay in bed last night, excitedly devouring 'Water in Permaculture' by Bill Mollison, I was absolutely thrilled to discover my good friend Azolla on Bill's list of totally awesome must have dam plants. Cool! admittedly, we don't have any of the other plants he mentions (yet!), but the azolla is currently covering THE ENTIRE SURFACE of the dam, so that has to count for something, right?

When I arrived home from work this afternoon Pearl suggested we go for some plum therapy - visiting the land and stopping off at 'our' plum tree. Obviously, she didn't have to ask me twice, so we bustled off up the hill, buckets and bowls in hand. Pearl and the kids stayed at the tree while I trotted on down to the dam to collect me some azolla. Our little vegie patch was in need of a good mulch, the azolla crop was totally out of control and, excellently, we'd just had a substantial dump of rain (and Olive's first ever hail!) so the timing was perfect.

The wind, this afternoon, was absolutely howling. The noise of it rushing through the trees up on our hill was simultaneously thrilling, beautiful and terrifying. And the volume of it was quite unbelievable. The immense wind had blown all the azolla to one side of the dam, and a huge flock of ducks were dipping in the bit of dam that had been left exposed, presumably excited to be able to access the water without the hindrance of pesky floating ferns.

As I luxuriated in the delicious contrast between the warm muddy dam-water on my feet and legs and the cold wind whipping my face, I collected handfuls of azolla. Anyone who knows me will be unsurprised to hear that I collected a lot more than I could comfortably carry, but I struggled on anyhow.

Pearlie, meanwhile was breaking in her brand new remodelled King Gees.

After searching for months for a pair of Pearlie-sized farm pants, to no avail, I decided to take matters into my own hands and picked up a couple of pairs of King Gees at the Bega Valley Swapsies clothes swap. I unpicked the side seams of the best pair, and used the other pair to make extender strips to sew down the sides so as to lovingly accommodate the awesome curvature of my lady friend.

Mission accomplished, and mission successful! Pearl declared them to be "the most comfortable pants of all time!", and they proved to be perfectly suited to azolla collection and distribution.

Thanks to the stellar efforts of my mum, brother and Jen, we are now back on line. I think feelings of relief are abounding, given that poor little Pearlie has been technology-free now for a couple of months. Not a bad thing in itself, but when you're home alone with kiddies, in a new town with only a couple of very very new friends, the need for a little adult communication becomes, well, kind of important for one's sanity.

We've also both really missed doing the blog, which is interesting given that we are both total luddites. It's been interesting to reflect on what it actually is about the writing process that we have missed. For me, it's the documentation, the 'making real' of this journey which, especially now in its tentative planning stage, can seem unreal. My drive for progress and results makes documentation satisfying. But enough of that...

What have we been up to? So much! The 2 most exciting things that spring to mind are that we got our DA approved

and we found a ginormous, beautiful and bountiful plum tree across the road from our land, understoried with native raspberries which are, if you've never had the pleasure of tasting one, exquisite.

Spectacular!

So as a result of these 2 most notable events we now have an exciting-looking land-planning wall

and were able to enjoy this outrageously beautiful christmas lunch,

which we feasted on at the most amazingly spectacular place on the far south coast, Nelson Lagoon, aka our local swimming spot.

What a day! In addition to the plums (which are the most delectable combination of sweet juicy flesh with a slightly tart skin) was an olive loaf, baked by my love, featuring the olives I picked and pickled last year, an olive tapenade from Towamba Station Olives (local - yeah!) and goat's cheese from the SCPA markets. We are seriously busting our of our skins with excitement to be able to have a christmas day like that, let me tell you.

In addition to the aforementioned beauty, deliciousness and excitement, we've also been drying figs from our backyard tree, which is producing way more figs than we can possibly eat.

To dry them, you just quarter them and put them on a tray in the oven on the lowest heat possible. Prop the door open with a wooden spoon to let the moisture escape and keep checking on them, though they do take a while - ours were in overnight, around 8 hours.

We also made onion jam for our friends for christmas,

plaited mermaid necklaces and hair braids,

made a table runner for my mum's birthday featuring antique doilies, tablecloths and Olive's drawings of our Began adventures,

a spangly bolero for Kirstin in Thirroul,

and a skirt and top from Solomon Island souvenir sarongs for Meg in Nana Glen.

And then, at the end of the day we ate fire-roasted Buckajo corn while wading in the dam (check out that azolla crop!) and catching up with friends from afar.

Lots of other things too, but they deserve their own posts so stay tuned...

Last time we went up to the land (for a gorgeous picnic of local lamb and vegetables, delectably roasted by the roasting queen, Pearl) we were a little concerned by the extreme growth of the floating plant on our dam. It had basically doubled its empire in the space of 2 days, which was a little scary given that we didn't know what it was.

In the back of my mind were several thoughts concerning the identity of the plant, most of which involved fears of noxious plant status and/or toxic algal blooms. I took a little sample home, and got to studying my trusty Robbo, who revealed the plant to be Azolla filliculoides, an apparently cosmopolitan floating fern.

Cool! But is it a pest? Its quick growth on our dam indicated that it could well be, so I consulted the interweb and found an awesome gardening site, extolling the virtues of Azolla spp. as a "super plant". Could it be? A super plant already growing on our land? It fixes nitrogen! It takes up nutrient from the water to actually prevent algal bloom! It provides habitat and food for tons of little water-dwelling creatures! You can use it as a green manure (as people in China have been doing for eons between their rice crops)! It inhibits the capacity for mosquito breeding in your water! And its frenetic growth is seasonal, so it dies back in the cooler months.

Still, it was a U.S. website, so I was still wary of little Azolla's status in the Bega Valley. Enter the friendly weeds lady from council, who I emailed this morning (yes, working at council certainly has its perks in the know-how department). She sent me an awesome fact sheet, confirming all of Azolla's super-plant credentials and confirmed that she's A-OK to grow to her heart's content. Woo hoo!!!

Boy, did my mind start to race, concocting many ideas of what to do with our little water-borne gold mine. The most exciting, in my mind, is to use it in the pond at the end of our phytoremediation wetland, which is going to treat all our kitchen, laundry and bathroom water instead of having to get a stinky (and quite frankly kinda weird) septic system.... Ah but that for another post. For now I'm pretty much just thrilled to bits by the auspicious surprises that life chucks up at ya when you're just sitting around eating yer lamb.