slow living in february 2014

Here we are again! Another month has flown by and lots of things have been happening to keep us all well occupied! The garden has been taking up much of my time, Stuy has spent most of the month building and the children have been helping us both as well as getting back into their home schooling. 

Welcome to another month of Slow Living at our place!  

Nourish: This month has seen us superbly nourished from the garden. Copious quantities of cucumbers, zucchini, beets and carrots as well as more modest amounts of potatoes, eggplant, basil and a few beans. Most nights we have a combination of three or four of these veggies, usually with eggs in some form! 

There have been a few cakes, both of the sugary variety - made and usually devoured by The Dj who is a whizz at cake making from scratch - and of the fructose free, low carb sort. I'm still very happy with my eating plan and am so used to not eating sugary cakes or chocolate, that it doesn't faze me if others are munching away beside me! I will even say that I feel stronger and wiser within myself for having kicked the habit!! 

Prepare: I'd love to be able to say that I've made lots of bottles of bread and butter cucumbers or some other sort of cucumber pickle but sadly my family is not a pickle sort of bunch. So no chance of preparing on that front! I have frozen some strawberries but not many…. they tend to get eaten fresh from the plants! 

This month is not really a preparing month, I think. February always seems like the time to take a breath and just be in the moment, after busy December and 'getting over Christmas' January! The next few months will be the preparing for winter months with basil pesto to whizz up, apples to bottle and potatoes to store. 

Reduce: This month there's been a bit of repurposing happening here. A couple of years ago we found an old cot at the tip which we used then as a trellis, although it's since fallen apart and been stored as single dowels. Now that the eggplant is loaded with fruit, on a precarious lean and in danger of falling over completely, we have used the dowel bits to hold it up in a proper fashion. Which is all very good because the cot is now in it's third reincarnation! 

There were the too-small cotton stockings we cut down to make a pair of leg warmers for The Fairy to wear to ballet. As well as a request from her for another batch of Secret Kid Club badges, which were made from an old pair of Stuy's work pants. 

Green: As usual, I don't have anything for this category and find myself thinking that I really must find something or change something, so I have a 'green' entry too!!  

Grow: Oh lots! I mentioned above what was coming inside and onto our dinner plates but there is so much more happening outside! The poly tunnel is going wild!! Cucumbers and even a stray pumpkin plant are crawling up trellises and along paths, tomatoes are springing up everywhere and in between all that is the basil, creating a spicy scent that mingles so well with the humid smell of warm, moist earth. Even on our 'hot' days, I love to go into the tropical humidity and potter amongst the lush growth. I have been taking pics and will share all that fecundity with you soon! 

In the rest of the garden, theres also lots happening. Coriander gone to seed looks beautiful as do the starry flowers on all the potato plants. Lettuce seedlings, more zucchini plants, frothy carrot tops with big juicy carrots beneath, blood red beetroot and red tipped perpetual spinach all make for a stunning display.
I think I mentioned last month that our strawberries hadn't produced much….. boy, was I wrong! In the last two weeks we have picked copious quantities of tasty red goodness and enjoyed every mouthful. They must be having a big second flush now that the weather has warmed up properly. 

We have also been digging over more beds for some autumn planting and I've just sown seeds of mangel-wurzel, more carrots and beets.

I'm loving the garden at the moment although it does give me much to do!

Create: Yes, well, there is a funny story with my creating this month. Six months ago daughter Nina, mentioned that she'd like to try dyeing fabric with yellow dock plants (a prolific 'weed' in our garden). I've wanted to have a go ever since and finally a few weeks ago, I just did it! But as usual, I tend to jump in without preparing things, so after a search for a suitable pot and a quick trip to the local chemist for some mordant, I threw in some bits of cotton fabric. Sadly, what came out was not the lovely yellow I'd thought would result, but just a yucky sort of coffee stain brown. To say I was  bit disappointed is an understatement! 

I'm still knitting away on the hot pink cardigan for The Elf as well as the odd crocheted dishcloth. 

Also, the last few weeks I've been beavering away on a very special gift for a beautiful couple. Ssh, more on that next month!!

Discover: I finished my Open2study courses a couple of weeks ago and have just started another, this time a nice creative one - The Art of Drawing and Painting. I am so excited about having the time to fit these in to my days right now especially after I printed out my earlier certificates of achievement!! I haven't studied anything for so long that it was quite a milestone! 

I haven't been reading much though but hope to work my way through a book that was gifted to me recently, Uriels Machine - The Ancient Origins of Science. So far (chapter one) so good! 

Enhance: With the abundance of cucumbers and zucchini, I have been able to pass bags of them on to friends and one of the local food places in town. Both were grateful and have put them to good use…. which makes me feel like a fairy godmother!!!  

I had a good laugh with a lovely older gentleman when he stopped me in the mall to ask where the newsagent was. After trying to explain, I said I'd take him there and jokingly assured him that I wasn't in the habit of picking up and wandering off with strange men!! I think it made his day! 

Enjoy: This month we have all been glued to the WInter Olympic games for two whole weeks! No, we don't have a connected TV but there is an aerial on the roof and once every two years we plug it in for the olympics.
Oh, the tension!
And the adrenalin!
Of course, there are a lot of Austrians in those snow sports, so for me its double the fun because I get to cheer for two countries but it's also double the adrenalin watching them barrel down the slopes or speed around the ice rink. I was sorry when it ended though because do I LOVE the winter olympics. A lot.

And after all that "slow" living haha, I did manage to spend a bit of time with my new issue of the British Country Living magazine. I adore the British edition with all the old, old homes and quirky buildings and always snap up any older editions that I find at markets and op shops.

How's that for our busy slow month?

I'm off to stop by all the folks that joined in with Christine for her Slow Living monthly link-up.
Perhaps you like to take a look too?