Hello, hello, to all of my wonderful family and patient bloggy friends!! I have finally managed to sit down and get a grip on the photos I've taken in the past few months, as well as get some thoughts from head to fingertips and from keyboard to wacky world wide inter-web!!!
Oh my, it's been full on here and if I don't do something consistently, I tend to forget about doing it at all... and then I have to really make a concerted effort to get back into the groove!! If I stop for whatever reason, I find it so hard to return to it and just let life sweep me along willy nilly!!
BUT.....
I told myself that I'd join in with this months Slow Living and although it's a little late, I am determined to use this to find my blogging spark again!! It will be a miracle if I can remember what I achieved in March, though!! And I must say that the last couple of months have certainly not been 'slow living' months around here, quite the opposite in fact!!!
Nourish: Lots been happening in this category...... our poly tunnel has produced loads of basil, I've been making lots of pesto and we have all been enjoying delicious pesto dishes!! Tomatoes have also been a staple of our dinners along with cucumbers, zucchini and eggplants.
We have enjoyed all this abundance for a few months now and I'll be sad to see it end. There are still more tomatoes coming on which should still ripen before the really cold weather hits.
This past summer has been the year of salads and I'm almost looking forward to moving on to pumpkin and potato's!! Almost!
You might notice the nice new header photo - hazelnuts from our bushes!!!! Oooh, we are excited about the hazelnuts!! We've harvested about 2 kg in the last month and almost all of them are filled with juicy, tasty kernels. Such a bonus to be getting food from trees that need very little care and attention.
You might notice the nice new header photo - hazelnuts from our bushes!!!! Oooh, we are excited about the hazelnuts!! We've harvested about 2 kg in the last month and almost all of them are filled with juicy, tasty kernels. Such a bonus to be getting food from trees that need very little care and attention.
Prepare: Our plum trees have started bearing quite a good amount of fruit, especially the D'agen prune variety, so we tried drying them. I wasn't too sure how much moisture to remove and they ended up being a little too dry, but we have a large jar filled and plans to use them, chopped, in muesli.
We have lots of frozen pesto stored away nicely in small Ball jars - first time I've done that so I'm hoping it will still give us a taste of summer on a cold and dreary day!! And we harvested and stored lots of onions, both red and brown - so exciting!!
Green: I think there would be quite a lot of green things that happened last month but none come to mind right now! I did sew my Fairy and her friend a medieval gown each, using op shopped fabrics and an old velveteen dress that I cut down to size for the underdress. Silly me didn't get any pics but I'm sure they'll dress up again soon!
Grow: This one is easy..... tomatoes, basil, zucchini, eggplant, rockmelon (not a success), watermelon (looking good but haven't tried one yet), capsicum, spinach and cucumbers were all growing last month. I am way behind on the planting bits though and haven't even put the garlic in yet. There are still potatoes in the ground to be harvested and several pumpkins that I cant take credit for as they grew of their own accord!!
Reduce: Hmm, can't remember anything amazing here but I'm sure I did some reducing somewhere...... does losing weight count??
Create: I made myself a skirt. This is a major event because I don't often have time spare to sew, let alone sew for me, but I wanted something nice to wear to the airport to pick up Stuy, so the day before with plenty of time, I dug around in my salvaged fabrics and whipped up a nice sage green corduroy mini!! The girls and I also created these cute little monster pouches - some for us and this one for a friends birthday.
Discover: Now I know this one means reading and discovering some new information, none of which I did much of (unless you can call aimlessly trawling through the odd blog late at night, discovery??)
I did however, discover that I can home educate, run a household and run a business concurrently, without too many mishaps, slap up meals or tears!!
Enhance: Once again not much enhancing unless you call letting the chickens scratch around in the autumn garden an enhancement? They are usually kept in a very small enclosure and loved following me around as I dug over a few beds of weeds. Having friendly chooks contentedly pecking up insects as I work is so relaxing..... and even though they do snap up all the worms I turn up, I don't mind too much, as they give me a lot of enjoyment with their delightful ways!
Enjoy: Easter! As usual, all the children that could manage it, came home for Easter and we did our usual hunt around the yard for baskets of deliciousness!! Of course, the other good event that happened on that weekend was the return of the Best Man, complete with tales to tell and gifts to share! Yes, it was certainly very very enjoyable!!!
And there it is...... a month of living, though not so slow! I have given up on my idea of a retrospective post every now and again, as I just haven't the head space to think. I'll join in with Christine at Slow Living Essentials when I have the time and inclination because it is a great idea to look back and feel a sense of satisfaction at whats been achieved.
I do have lots of photos and topics I want to share but after waiting so long, some of the pizazz seems to have gone. The photos and the thoughts are all a bit dated now and I have to search hard for the feeling of the moment and the thoughts that go with them. If I don't write a post about an event fairly quickly there after, it seems to dim and I lose the spark in the idea.
Do you find that?
To all the lovely peeps that have added me to their list of blogs, my apologies for being away so long. I have really missed this space and missed connecting with you all through your comments. I love reading your thoughts and encouragements!!
Thanks so much for stopping by.
Servus, meine lieben! Endlich bin ich amall wieder beim bloggen! Hab heute leider keine zeit zum alles ein zweites mal schreiben aber ihr könnt oben grad unter das Titel bild, denn Translate Knopf drucken.... und dann geht alles zum verstehen!!
