Green tomato and chilli jam - it's a knockout!

As I've mentioned, things are slowing down in the tomato-ripening stakes around here. Thing is, there are still tons on the bushes. As the days and nights get ever-colder, the chances of them ripening get slimmer. Having already whipped up a batch of Rohan's Season's End relish, we were after a different kind of preserve to use up the last of Summer's bounty, which includes some extremely cute (and hot!) habanero chillies. 

Sunshiny orange habanero chillis. I'm sure they've inspired a muppets character at some stage

It may seem strange to describe a chilli (or any vegetable for that matter) as 'cute', but there's something about these guys that just reminds me of something out of the Muppets. They almost look like they have a nose and mouth hidden in their funny little wrinkles. And the colour! Yes, I'm a little enthusiastic about them. When I took some in to sell at our local food co-op recently (along with some luscious bunches of kale, silverbeet, chard and red mustard leaves), I must have seemed more than a little like a doting mother, showing them off. But that's kinda how I feel about our garden and its produce. A little proud.

But the fact remains that (as always) we grew way more chillies than we knew what to do with. 

Sadly, chillies aren't a regular feature in our menus at home, on account of the fact that one of our kids is not at all keen on them. For this reason, the chilli condiment is in hot demand (sorry) because it can be added after cooking, according to personal taste.

The totally amazing chilli jam made by Ding has been rather a staple in our house since a very generous and kind friend sent us a whole box of it (it's not available in Bega), but that box has all but gone. So green tomato and chilli jam seemed the obvious choice of preserve. Thing is, it turns out that green tomato and chilli jam isn't really a thing. Not too many recipes made themselves available to me, so I took matters into my own hands, using just the ingredients list on the side of the last remaining Ding jar as guidance. 

Garlic, ginger, chillies and tomatoes at various stages of ripeness, ready to be blended in our special, Indonesian low-wattage blender

Here's what I did:

Chucked lots of tomatoes, chillies, garlic, ginger, little mini capicums and onions into our special low-wattage Indo blender (normal blenders would freak out our solar system) and whizzed it, adding malt vinegar as needed to make it liquid enough to blend. Then I dumped the whole lot into a big saucepan with some tamarind juice, some fresh mint, coriander and basil, a slop of sunflower oil, some sugar and some salt. Then I simmered the lot for about an hour. When it seemed to be a good jam consistency, I put it into hot, sterilised jars.

I know this recipe might seem a lot like George's Marvellous Medicine, but here's the thing: just like George's concoction, my jam really worked!! The jars all sealed! It tastes freaking delicious!

Unfortunately, the 'George' method of cooking probably means I'll never be able to recreate the glory... Or maybe I will, in infinite variations, for all the years we grow too many chillies and need a way to preserve them. Who's to know? We'll just have to wait til next Autumn to find out. Hopefully this lot will last til then.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm

"It feels like our little house has lost its virginity"

newly erected solar array seen through incomplete pergola

We've been living in our tiny strawbale for around 11 weeks now and up until 4 days ago we were living without electricity. You see, it was going to cost us $50,000 to connect to the grid. We were still living in Sydney when we learned this and it made us nervous. Off-grid solar? It just seemed so risky, so extreme but the 50 grand price tag helped push us through the anxiety to a place of calm acceptance. Then we moved down here and it seemed like every second person we met lived off-grid and no their batteries hadn't exploded and many of them had fridges and washing machines and tv's. All of a sudden, off-grid seemed totally banal. But in the flurry of building and getting the place in some semblance of liveability, electricity dropped down the priority list. 

Life without electricity hasn't really been that hard. But even while I say that, I'm aware that it was not so hard because we had access to electricity and could charge things up at friends' houses and at our workplaces. I don't want to get all pious "electricity, who needs it?" because that would be nauseatingly disingenuous, but it is possible to live a good life for a time without it. We got used to early nights in bed reading by headlamp, the noisy gas light and the fragrant flickering light of the many beeswax and mandarin candles we were burning. We read a lot and had very limited screen time. All good things really. But we started to yearn for music, especially as Oscy's favourite toy for a while there was a little synthesiser that played terrible versions of "Let It Be" and "Jingle Bells". Horrifyingly, the kids seemed to view this music as necessary soundtrack to their play so they'd be jumping on the trampoline or playing in the sandpit with this heinous elevator music playing all around them. Annie and I would laugh in desperation at the ridiculousness of our situation. No music but this!

Needless to say, music was the second thing we turned on, after a light, once our system was up and going. In the last four days we've been revelling in many old and new favourites so the bird and frog song on our land is now punctuated by The Decemberists, First Aid Kit, Hem, Poor Moon, Gillian Welch, Neko Case, Mumford and Sons, The National... All our old friends. Annie was so overwhelmed with joy to be hearing the Decemberists for the first time in our little house that she cried real live tears of happiness.

Will you check out that brightness?!

Most people we spoke to with off grid systems bought the components themselves but we "cheated" a little and got a custom made pre-wired system. Yes it is more expensive to do it this way. But for us science dunces, it felt like the right way to go. We spoke with Phillip at Living Power about what our power needs were - a light, a lamp, laptop, mobile phone charger, small fridge, Magimix food processor, stereo, sewing machine and he designed a 1.2kw system to meet our needs. We're still getting our heads around how to work with the system. For example, we can't let the batteries run below 70% capacity too often or else their life will be shortened. Given they are expensive and pretty nasty chemical wise, we need to prolong their life as long as possible. So we're monitoring and assessing, though we have a sneaking suspicion that Phillip is pretty good at what he does, and he has been extremely obliging and helpful, patiently answering all our (probably silly) millions of questions. 

A 1.2 kw system is not really very big. So there's a little bit of a careful balancing act at play whereby on sunny days the system gets  much more power than it can store so we need to think through our energy usage and balance it out across the day. It's amazing how even on a cloudy day we get a lot of energy. Yesterday was a semi-cloudy, little bit rainy, little bit sunny kind of a day and when we checked the batteries at sunset, they were at 102% capacity. Yeah I know, how is that possible? I'd already charged the phone and computer and the fridge had been running all day. So it showed us how much energy can be derived from a bitsa day like that. In fact, the cloudy day with a bit of blue sky can be better for solar gain as the cloud magnifies the light. How interesting is that? Tomorrow is forecast to be a partly cloudy day so I'm getting reunited with the Magimix - mushroom pate, sweet potato humous and coriander, parsley pesto anyone? 

Afternoon of solar installation, again yes, the unfinished pergola

It took three days to install. Bruno our electrician thought it would take two. But our 45 degree pitch strikes again! If you want a super-easy, super cheap build go the skillion roof but if you want cute sleeping lofts and maximum solar gain go the 45-degree pitch. Bruno told us that the 45-degree pitch, while a total bastard to work on, is optimal for capturing winter sun. Lesser pitched roofs will capture too much sun in Summer and not enough in Winter. 

We felt strange in those first couple of days of installation. Annie said she felt like our house had lost it's virginity. The beautiful galvanised roof was being covered in technology and the rough handmade walls inside were being technologised as well. In some ways we felt like we were being greedy. Electricity: did we really need it? Maybe we should do without it a bit longer? But on the final day of installation I was overcome by a really strange sensation as I pondered the fact that we would, very soon, be living off the grid. I felt all weird and nearly started crying as I contemplated the fact of getting energy from the sun. I know, I know solar power, its not new or profound. But in that moment it was something about knowing exactly where our electricity was from, that it is now and forever from the sun, and feeling so good about it, that I was practically moved to tears. 

(The cost of our solar system was $7,200 and the installation was around $1,000.)

Yep it's been awhile...

It's been busy round these parts of late. 

We've been to the circus, we've spent some much needed time with a very special friend and her gorgeous little one, we've had quite a bit of vomiting, we've had helpful and happy visitors, we've had extraordinarily busy times at work, we've had rain, we've had cubby building, we've had pergola building, we've had stair carving, we've had solar system installing. The busyness combined with our total absence of electricity has meant slow times for our blog.  The busyness has also meant we've kept a pretty poor photo record. Luckily Olive has maintained the photo record with her precious impressions of herself and life around her. 

Now I'm here it's hard to know where to begin…

My dad couriered our solar system down from Sydney a couple of weeks back. A lovely and generous act. We had a local electrician booked into install it and we were feeling excited. Then, on the eve before installation it started to rain and it just kept raining. Then it got really windy, so it was really rainy and really windy which are not optimal conditions for solar panel installation. Of course the irony for us was that the last big rain we had was back in April during our straw bale building workshop. And so one does wonder about the confluence of rain and building projects but anyway, we weren't too fussed about the delay given we've been living without electricity for more than two months, another week or so made little difference. For the most part we were happy for that rain, we had all our fruit trees and new Spring plantings to think of. Also our duck dam was turning into a puddle. I have to admit, that on the rainy rainy day I spent quite some time in our loft eating biscuits and watching the water rushing into the dam. Living here on our land during the rain was good. It helped us to see how much more we can do to develop better water management systems on our little piece of hill. Yes, more dams and more tanks but also more swales to slow the movement of water in the ground. For it is said that the most efficient way to store water is in the ground. So yes we have been adhering, in a very committed fashion, to permaculture principle number 1 - Observe and interact. 

Rain on the hills, rain in the valley

Little orchard duck dam filling up.. Yippee

Just before the big rain, Annie's dad Alf came down for a couple of days to help us with our pergola. The pergola project was stalled, mainly on account of neither Annie or I knowing how to get it moving. Yes we built a house but we were totally daunted by the pergola project. We need the pergola area to provide some extra undercover area, for while we are finding the size of our tiny straw bale pretty fine we do get a bit tested on very rainy or very cold days as the kids start to bounce off the walls and there's really no room for that sort of shenanigan. So now we have an almost-finished pergola and it feels good. We've planted pumpkins and Scarlet runner beans to trail up the sides and over the top to provide a quick-fix shade solution for this Summer but we're on the lookout for a longer term solution for Summer shade and Winter sun - grapes probably, kiwi-fruit maybe.Have you got any suggestions?

a bit of pergola, looking north-east

After Alf had departed and after we had our uninstalled solar array dropped off, we were lucky enough to enjoy the company of Genn and Jeff from Boise, Idaho. It's a long story as to how we came to have Genn and Jeff to stay, needless to say we were very glad to share this time with them.  Unfortunately, in the flurry of activity photos seem to have been forgotten. However you can find them over here. My dad also came back for a visit so we had a very busy week here on our block. Many meals were cooked, many dishes washed, many beers drunk and many jobs completed thanks to the fine efforts of this trio. The finest of efforts was reserved for a seemingly thankless task of carving a staircase out of the batter wall behind the house. The ground had gone hard and crusty and we feared we would never get it done but thanks to Peps, Genn and Jeff we now have a super-handsome staircase that will lead us to a very gorgeous old gate through which we will enter the orchard, bee, duck and top dam precinct. 

Staircase, looking hot

After a week of hard labour, Peps declared the need for a wash so I fired up the fire bath for him on a mild and sunny afternoon. As he lay there in the Spring sun he declared "Some people would pay thousands for this!" Indeed they would. We have still not tired of the fire bath novelty. It is a glorious way to wile away an hour.

And amidst all this stair carving, eating, playing, cooking, laughing, yelling, drilling, digging was Bruno calmly and competently installing our little custom made off grid solar system. It took three days to install but now it is done. We were nervous but now we are thrilled, but that is a story for another time. 

Let your little light shine

The last few weeks we've been frantically buying up as many mandarins as we can, while they're still vaguely in season, since we learned how to make these adorable little mandarin lights, and became addicted to their warm glow around the house at night. 

Awwwwwwww... ain't it purdy?

The process for making them is super easy - all you need is a mandarin and a splash of olive oil. One of those things that made me wonder a. why everyone doesn't make these when the mandarins are plentiful and b. why it took me 34 years to learn how to make these little babies.

Mandarin candles drying on the window-sill

At the moment, as we are living without any electricity in the house, the mandarin lights, teamed with some beeswax candles, a gaslight (aka the "noisy light") and a head-torch for reading and skirt-making, have been our only light sources. It's actually been really beautiful, and has meant that we've been doing super-fun things like getting into bed really early each night and just lying there reading or chatting. 

The no-electricity thing has been way easier than we'd anticipated, and there have been some definite benefits to our family. And of course we have a generator for important things like angle-grinding and skirt-making. So I guess we're not really electricity-free at all...

Today I got an email from Phillip, the man who's making our solar system for us, letting us know that the system is now ready to be picked up and brought to us by Pearl's dad, who's making the trek down in the next couple of weeks. 

Our power unit - batteries in the bottom, circuits and what-not in the top. All totally weather-proof so we can just park it out the back of our little house and run a cable to the inside.

This was pretty exciting! Mostly for the following reasons:

1. We are absolutely desperate for some music!

2. It'll be nice to be able to have a light bright enough to craft or read by that doesn't roar.

3. I kinda miss being able to use my sewing machine.

4. It'll be good to be able to charge things like the computer and phone without having to schlep them into town and bludge off our friends' (thanks Vickie!) and employers' power supplies.

5. Pearlie's excited about being able to use the food processor, too,

and of course, last but not least, its going to feel gooooood to be free of the power grid.

The power system awaiting installation of the batteries and....

Batteries in!

When we moved here we were quoted $50 000 to connect to the power lines on our street. Given that this was more than the total budget for our little house, this was out of the question. And also why the cripes would we want to pay $50 000 just so we could pay electricity bills??? While we still lived in Sydney the prospect of off grid solar made us nervous. We didn't know anyone doing it and there seemed to be so much hoo ha around potential battery dramas. But once we were quoted the crazy sums required to connect to the grid we quickly got our heads around not connecting. Once we moved it seemed like every second person (not just hippies) we met had off-grid solar. And so we find ourselves beginning a new life where we are responsible for our own power (and water and waste and hopefully food..)

The system we're getting is small - 1.2kw. But it's more than enough to supply us with what we need. Especially now that we've lived without power for a month. It's really helped us to realise just how much we don't need, much like the whole tiny house shenanigans itself. We're diggin' it, but that doesn't mean that we're not looking forward to having this little baby parked out the back, a handful of solar panels on the roof, music and power drills crankin'. And it's arriving just in time for the end of mandarin season, too.

I love that they're using a power drill to 'model' the system