I'm all about the colour

So, it seems spring is taking FOREVER to arrive (or rather, it teases us and then disappears again) so I have delved back into finding joy in other things other than garden stuff!

I have decided to do a make over in my laundry and here is a pic of the test strips I have so far done to see what I think. It's hard to tell from the photo, but I really like it and can't wait to get stuck into it this weekend! I spend a lot of time in my laundry since it's where we pass to get to the shower, has my herbal supplies, sewing and crafting stuff and of course washing! This is sure to brighten my day (and is viewable when I'm in my kitchen).

Yesterday I was rearranging my kitchen windowsill and came across a rough quartz crystal that my nana gave me many years ago (I think I was about 10). I've kept it all these years but never really known what to do with it. I felt inspired to wrap it with wire threaded with some small glass beads to hang in the kitchen window. Not the best work, and the wire probably should be a bit thicker or at least my handling of the thin wire a bit more gently!

This afternoon I got out my beads again and started to thread up a wee star down in Danielle's bedroom where the late afternoon sun was streaming in and warming us up. The kids got into threading for a few hours as well. I have my newest hanging in my bedroom window for now.

Yesterday while pottering in the kitchen I put on the stovetop a few ingredients to give a lovely warming fragrance to waft through the house. In some water I sliced up an apple, added some chopped up lemon balm and crushed cloves.

This evening I was thinking of getting out my felting wool to make some "beads" to string actross one of our bedroom walls that is particularly plain. Back at the beginning of the year we painted it a gorgeous warm milk chocolate brown and I wanted to add a little colour somewhere. So here is  my start (at the front blending into the towel). I only got through 11 balls before my hands felt awful from the hot water and soap. Only 30 more to go...

The kids play area at the far end of the lounge is also going through a bit of a transformation lately. It too has a REALLY large plain wall that has bugged me forever but I hadn't yet felt inspired in what to put up there. I'm thinking open storage for access to toys, resources and books with a place for the nature display and a wall decal to break the plainness. A lovely recycled sari rag rug has been found to put in their area which adds a bit of colour too.

Nurturing our home

It's lovely what the sun and warmth can do for the soul.
We've been very busy around home today...
I popped more seedlings into the garden, so feeling like things are coming along well and used my new very basic gardening/weeding tool that I love that hooks underneath all those strong rooted weeds such as creeping buttercup that take over my garden beds (and only cost me $4.50).

I have decluttered my kitchen and laundry again and have a pile to donate as well as rearranged things to see if they work better.

Dog had a bath

Simon mowed our middle lawn (where the kids play area is) and I pushmowed the front lawn where the herb garden/washing line are (I call it exercise).

Area rugs had a good shake out

Chicken tractor got moved

Simon removed some ugly plastic netting that was attached to our deck railing from the previous owners (8yrs ago!).

I have purchased some paint to do over my laundry. I *may* share photos when it's done depending on whether the combination is tasteful or garish. At least I can shut it away from anyone else seeing it if it's not a good look!

Well, this is pretty much the sum of my winter garden. I had several more cauli's in there but they started going to seed so I missed the opportunity. I harvested this wee one before it did the same. It's only about 12cm across. Same with the cabbage. Silverbeets/ruby chards are doing ok atm, so we will be eating more of them in the weeks to come.

Stash busting

I've been on the hunt for a new bag for a month or so now. Haven't had a lot of luck trying to find something casual, something green (coz it's my new fav colour), something that will hold my usual stuff and anything I need to add to it along the way.

So in my googling of pictures I realised that I could actually attempt to make my own. Once I found pictures of what I liked (and specific name) I went on the hunt for a freebie pattern and found one at Lula Louise that I liked (not having ever made a proper bag before with lining etc).

I had the perfect piece of fabric on hand (a nice green corduroy I'd picked up online a few years back but had no plans for) and I was able to find a suitable cotton lining lying around.

So, here is my new sling bag that I whipped up this morning. I mocked up my pattern onto newspaper and I was off. I did modify the pattern slightly - I narrowed it down to 35cm across the bottom, created more of a curve around the top, didn't include the bottom panel (didn't need a bag to hold that much stuff) and lengthened the strap so it can go over my shoulder and body.

Colour is a bit bluer in the photo. I embellished it with a piece of felt I found in my craft drawers while tidying them yesterday. My nana was big into felting, and when she passed away I requested all her sewing and some of her craft stuff. The piece was circular so I just made it into a spiral and sewed it on.

Eating the weeds

As I was reading through the last section of my Susun Weed book about violets it inspired me for tonight's dinner. I had already decided to make a leek and potato soup since I had a lot of leeks arrive in my vege box yesterday and the recipe I read was for a creamy leek and violet leaf soup.

The soup called for a cup of sweet violet leaves to be added and then some of the flowers sprinkled on top. I had heartsease flowers (Viola tricolour) and sweet violet leaves (although, not a cups worth) and here resulted my version of the Creamy Green Violet Soup.

A hot lemonade for those winter coughs

So, here is another recipe I found and had everything on hand.

Steep 2 tsp of organic lemon rind, 1 tsp sage, 1/2 tsp thyme in boiling water for 15mins (I used about a cup of water).

Then add the juice of 1/2 lemon and 1 tablespoon of honey (I used my garlic honey mixture). Sure tasted good! The recipe didn't specify whether this was for dried or fresh herbs. When using fresh herbs you really need to double the amount and the above amounts are probably for dried when I compare them to other medicinal teas.

Spring ills

Well, it seems we made it through winter unscathed (removing yourself from a social life kinda does that!), but now that Nathan's all back on form with a strong immune system we've been out and about for the past couple of months and with it recieved a few viruses and coughs and colds. Danielle's down with a nasty cough and cold at the moment (and Nathan's brewing one) and while I was able to get Nathan to take my "rocket fuel" when he was sick a month ago, she's not having a bar of it (understandable really). So last night I made up a Garlic Honey. I have this need to get garlic into the kids whenever possible (I cook with garlic and onion everyday) and during these times I really want to get a more concentrated boost in as an antiviral and antibacterial so these things don't develop too far or linger on for too long (and in Nathan's case I don't want his immune system to go into overdrive again and cause his nephrotic syndrome to relapse).

I filled a small jar with whole garlic cloves and covered it with runny honey. Poked it around to get the air bubbles out, capped it and will let the garlic infuse into the honey. This one can be used from 12hrs after making it but will last for a long time once it's made (the garlic should eventually break down). Can be taken off a teaspoon (which is what they did this morning) or can be made into hot lemon and honey drinks.

Where is spring?

I'm still waiting.

Between the cold southerlies ripping through and the horrendous amounts of rain I haven't spent any time in the garden. Most of my seedlings are limping along (but not really growing) so I have some more seeds in trays but it's been so cold that they're taking forever to germinate!

On the plus side though...

-My garlic is looking awesome
-I have LOADS of potatoes come up all over my garden from last year. I only put in two small bed of spuds this year and it seems that is plenty with what else is down there.
-In amongst all my brassicas that have been in the garden since the beginning of winter and then bolted at the first sign of spring I have found 3 cauliflowers growing and looking great.
-Fruit trees (apples, feijoa, strawberries, blackberry, grapevine, lemon) are doing really well
-My rhubarb is growing crazy big this year. All I can put it down to is that I accidentally dug it out as I was preparing one of the beds over winter (it's at least 8yrs old - as long as we've been in this house and it was here when we got here). So we enjoyed a rhubarb and apple crumble a few nights back.
- My herb garden is looking better and better every week. It's really shrubbed up and not too many bare patches of soil now. I popped a few borage seedlings in that had finally sprouted.
-Wild herbs that live in my garden include - sweet violet, heartsease (a foraged one that I bought home last year), cleavers, chickweed, fumitory, dandelion and red clover (I'm cultivating patches, one of which just happen to be in  my herb garden).

When out and about with the kids about a month ago I spotted a nettle patch. Since nettle is one of the wonderful tonic and restorative weeds and many of my herbal books speak of it, I decided to pluck a small bit with roots attached to take home with me and popped it into a weedy area of my garden. So if you hear me complaining of the nettle taking over well it's my own fault lol!

Went on a medicinal weed and herb walk with a friend and the kids last Saturday. Was introduced to a few new weeds that I will now keep my eye out for. Nathan really enjoyed the walk, particularly since he was recognising a lot of the weeds as ones that we gather ourselves from our garden or the neighbourhood.

So while I was out lunching with a group of internet-turned-real-life-friends today (and involved a bit of driving to do so), at least the rest of my family were being conscious of climate change....look what I spotted on my way home after dropping a friend off.

Dabbling in green smoothies

These seem to be all the thing lately. I've been making them occasionally as we have the fruit to add in (they are tastiest with about 2/3 fruit to 1/3 greens). With my abundant patch of chickweed going on at the moment (and my reading up on the benefits of chickweed) I thought I'd use this as my "green".

So this is how we all drank a glass this evening...

1/2 pineapple

1 banana

Very large handful of chickweed

About a cup of water

Blend till smooth!

OK, so not so good on the food miles with using the banana and pineapple...but I sure saved on food miles and my own energy in producing the chickweed! In one part of my garden it grows in a perfect square where the chickens tractor had previously been.

Some of the benefits of chickweed (as well as being highly nutritious) are for chest congestion, asthma, bronchitis, whooping cough, chest colds, flu, weak lungs etc - Danielle has a very chesty cough at the moment so thought we'd give it a go. It's also good for urinary and bladder infections as well as digestive problems. It's good all-round weed that can be added to meals daily.

Chickweed Pesto

I've been meaning to make this for quite a while now but either forget about it, or not in the mood, or don't have any sunflower seeds (I make the cheap version using these instead of pine nuts) or forget to use them before the kids eat them all!

I first heard of making a pesto from chickweed over at Johanna's recipe blog Wild Concoctions. Then last night I came across a recipe in Susun Weed's book Healing Wise that I am currently reading. So the resulting recipe was a combination of the two...

1 cupful of chickweed
1/2 cup of basil (only I substituted in mint since I just can't seem to grow basil)
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1 large clove of garlic
1/2 cup olive oil

Blend together. I would have added parmesan had I had any and it probably needed a little salt. However, the lovely creamy result was very nice!

De-meating our diet

Last year we had got to a place where I was only cooking a meat meal about twice a week. However, after going on the GAPS diet to heal Nathan's gut as part of my quest in dealing with his auto-immune conditions it meant that we were eating A LOT of meat again - every day and often included in lunches as well as dinner. It wasn't always a lump of meat we were eating, but often was in the form of meat stock cooked into every meal that I could to provide the minerals and gelatin. The diet included no grains in any form (and as for legume type alternatives - from memory it was limited to navy/haricot beans, lentils and split peas) as well as no potatoes. I found with not being able to serve those types of vegetarian dishes with rice etc, made those legumes tricky to incorporate consistently (and often I would have cooked them in a meat broth anyway) so we mostly remained with the meat dishes. Danielle really went off soup this year for a while, so that was one meal that there was little point serving them up. While the diet healed as anticipated, I was keen to cut back on the meat as soon as I could.

So, in the last month as I've been slowly bringing in more grains I have been dropping the meat! I do find when I do a meat-less meal that I tend to go all the way and do vegan. I love the feeling of eating vegan...but do like meat.