Little steps
I’ve always been overwhelmed at the beginning of projects. The task ahead seems enormous and I hover in uncertainty about how to tackle it. When I look back, I realise this has always been a tendency of mine and it only seems to be this year that I feel I’m gaining skills to overcome it. One piece of advice from friend really helped. She says, take time to sit and ponder and an answer usually comes. If you don’t know how to do something now or resolve something now, don’t panic about it but take time to reflect, sleep on it and in time, with peace, clarity comes. I’ve found this very valuable.
The second thing that has been helping me lately is the idea of taking little steps. If the big picture is overwhelming, start with one small part of it. Tackle that and then go onto the next bit. Our garden is rather large and has overwhelmed me since the day we moved here. If it wasn’t for John Palmer adopting us and our garden, we would be spending our weekends pushing the lawn mower (not really kosher in an ecovillage!). Lately, to my surprise, I’ve been enjoying gardening! Once I decided to tackle a small section at a time, I began to enjoy it.
I’ve just created a small garden bed next to our front deck. It was a weedy messy overgrown bed and now it is planted with lovely natives from Michelle’s Native Plants. Michelle kindly came to our house, looked at where I was thinking of planting and put together a group of plants that were suitable for the spot. What satisfaction I feel walking out of my front door every day and seeing the little garden I’ve created.
Wholefood for Children
This is my new favourite cookbook that my friend, Kacey, introduced me to. I had been raving to her about wholefood for kids based on traditional diets (and the teachings of the Weston A Price Foundation) for a long time. One day, Kacey said she had found a book that had recipes and information exactly along the lines of the advice I had been giving her. I had a look at the book and just couldn’t resist getting it even though a good portion of it is baby food and Kayo is nearly two.
Wholefood for Children by Jude Blereau is full of practical recipes that use every day ingredients and even though many of the recipes are geared to please a young one’s palate, the recipes I’ve made so far are really tasty! Lots of the recipes include stock. Stock or bone broth is full of really good minerals and so nourishing.
We had loads of bones in our freezer from our bulk organic meat purchase from farmer Paul Graham. My neighbour made this beautiful and tasty gelatinous beef stock (pictured below) and shared it with me. It’s so easy then just to finely dice veggies, throw in leftover rice and any other tidbits you might have. This is an “on the fly” busy day when I really can’t put time or effort into food for the kids. With stock, you know they are going to get a nourishing meal, even if it’s a five minute quickie.
The container on the left in the picture is the fat that was on top of the stock. I use this for sautéing (though it spits with the bits of stock so can be messy). Kayo loves “chippies” so I often make potato or sweet potato chips by just shallow frying them in ghee, coconut oil and/or leftover fat such as this from the stock. These fats are saturated fat and are stable at high temperatures (as opposed to vegetable oil which oxidises when heated). Saturated fats help us to absorb all the fat soluble vitamins (A,K,D,E). They also contain dietary cholesterol which is “vital for gender expression, immune response, memory function and to maintain the integrity of cell membranes in our body” (thanks to Bec Stoneman for this info! Bec is pursuing a Bachelor of Dietetics & Nutrition and is as passionate about this sort of stuff as me – more so probably and certainly more knowledgeable!).
One thing I’ve learnt from the book is adding apple to savoury dishes. Kayo and Taiji often don’t finish apples that they start eating and I end up with mangy bits of apple in the fridge that I don’t want to throw away. Chopping this up finely and adding it to the stew or sauce sweetens it a bit and adds interesting flavour. Both Taiji and Kayo have been eating more of what I’ve been cooking which is a thrill! (I’m rather intolerant of fussy eaters!). Anyway, broth broth broth is my motto at the moment and I am adding it to just about everything.
Honey bee and the wattle tree
We have a wattle tree out the front of our house and were surprised in July to find it in full blossom. Spring had come early it seemed and for a while I ignored the tree, feeling too perturbed by the incredibly early arrival of Spring. But one day, heading outside, I could not ignore the loud buzzing sound emanating from the wattle tree. It was absolutely full of bees going about their work collecting nectar.
I thought of old Jack up the road and figured they must have come from his hive. Jack lives just a few hundred metres up the road from the ecovillage and keeps several hives. We’ve been buying his lovely honey for years. Raw honey in the shops has usually been heat-treated so is not truly raw. Jack’s honey is totally untreated. His friend Trish sells it for him from a little road side stall out the front of his house.
Last Sunday, we went to buy some more honey from Trish as we had run out. Taiji commented that the honey was darker than usual. I didn’t believe him at first until we got home and I had a proper look. Sure enough it was much darker and it even tasted different. Then it dawned on me. The bees had feasted themselves on all the wattle trees in the area, including our garden and so had made wattle honey! How nice to be eating honey made from the nectar of trees in our own garden.
Our castle
Last night I watched Grand Designs, a British program which follows the progress of people building their dream homes. This episode followed a family who bought an old ruined castle which was virtually a pile of mossy rubble and over several years and several hundreds of thousands of pounds, restored it back into a castle. The build went way over budget and they ended up with a huge mortgage which they managed to pay by turning 9 rooms of the castle into guest accomodation. Living in a castle was the husband’s boyhood dream and for all the pain, frustration and money, every time he visited the building in progress, his dream was revitalised and he fell in love with his castle all over again. Despite everything they succeeded but the final message of the program was that the challenge didn’t finish with completing the build as they had had to compromise their lives by working really hard to meet the mortgage payments.
Our own castle was made possible by the discovery of two old army buildings for sale from the old Wacol army base near Ipswich.
We purchased these two lovely old weatherboard storehouses for $5000 for the pair and had them transported to the Ecovillage on two trucks with a police escort. We had faced many many challenges leading up to their delivery and there was many a time when we were on the verge of giving up. I will never forget the thrill and sheer delight when these buildings arrived at 3am and were delivered to our block.
Once in position, it was a long path ahead to turn these two old shells into a liveable home.
The larger building on the left, we called the Living Pavillion and the smaller one on the right, the Sleeping Pavillion. Then we joined them together with an entrance.
Over time, a home gradually emerged thanks to the help of many willing and generous friends and future neighbours.
During the build, I was working full time plus a weekend job and Kosuke was working 6 or 7 nights a week and between us, we took care of Taiji who was still a toddler.
Taiji grew out of babyhood into childhood walking gang planks, climbing ladders and helping us paint.
The Living Pavillion had no floor, so we put in a suspended concrete slab. From a shell….
… to a home. Our house isn’t fancy and it isn’t a show home but we love it. It’s a long cherished dream come true and it’s our castle.
Farm to plate
A couple of months ago, a farmer called me to ask whether I knew of a few people who’d like to order a side of beef. Paul Graham is a cattle farmer who sells his meat direct to the public. He does this so that he can farm his cattle organically and still make a living. The Graham’s farm wasn’t always organic. Paul bought the farm from his father after working in an abattoir for years. He had young children and was horrified to see the changes in the cattle when they were injected with hormones.
In Paul’s words, the animals became “sex mad” and the young cows’ genitals changed shape and size. He didn’t want his kids to eat the meat from these animals so he decided to convert to organic farming. Now his cows live a happy life on Paul’s certified organic farm roaming the pastures and eating grass. No industrial food waste as cattle food for his cows. He sells bulk meat to the public – you either order 1/4 or 1/6. So I put the word out through my networks and we soon had 4 “beasts” ordered.
Paul arrived early one Saturday morning and it was a fun, social morning as people came to pick up their meat and take extra bones and liver if they wanted it. Being an ex-vegetarian, I don’t know a lot about the different cuts of meat and how to cook them so it’s an interesting journey and the Internet is such a great resource for novice cooks like me.
The greatest satisfaction in this has been knowing that the cows have had a good life and been well looked after. We know where the meat comes from and how the cows lived. In modern supermarket-based living, we are so removed from the farm and the farmer. The meat doesn’t have much relationship with the animal or farm that it came from anymore.
There’s a beautiful scene in one of the David Attenborough “Life of Animals” series where a Kalahari bushman finally kills the animal he has been tracking all day and goes through this beautiful ritual where he lovingly pays respects to the animal and honours its spirit before carrying it back to feed the whole tribe. This is what I think we need to return to in some way. Not to return to a hunter gatherer way of life but to incorporate the ritual and honouring of the animals and plants that feed and sustain us and to know where our food comes from and just what went into getting that food onto our plates.
We have now created an easy way for you to participate in our bulk meat orders. Visit The Organic Meat Club and subscribe. You will then receive updates and news of bulk meat orders on the Gold Coast. Subscription is free.
Kosuke and Taiji with the cows at the Organic Farm Share farm in Unumgar.
Sourdough success! (well… sort of…)
I’m certainly not the Sourdough Queen and that’s really because I’m lazy. I don’t want to knead my bread and I don’t have the patience for traditional hand made sourdough – although I do love to eat it!
Being someone who likes to potter in the kitchen, I really wanted to crack this sourdough thing and decided the “wet method” of sourdough making that I learnt at Sandra Frain’s workshop was for me. This is a method where you don’t have to knead the bread! It’s very easy – you just take your “starter” out of the fridge, dump 2/3 of it in a bowl, feed it with flour and water and put it back in the fridge for next time. Then to the bowl you add flour and water and leave it to sit (ferment, rise) overnight. In the morning you add fat (e.g. coconut oil), acid (e.g. apple cider vinegar), molasses, salt, and more flour, mix it and put it in the tin to rise for about 4 hours. Then you bake it. No kneading!
I wouldn’t say it’s the most delicious sourdough bread I’ve eaten and I’m sure it can be improved but it passes. Mine is a bit doughy inside still which is possibly my ancient oven (30 year old commercial Waldorf, such a furnace we have to cook everything on low) or it’s the cooking time. Meanwhile I continue to dream of a programmable breadmaker as a friend once showed me how she makes the most divine sourdough bread in her breadmaker! Yes, I’m a technology girl, I confess. If it makes it easier, quicker and more efficient (but still healthy) then I’m into it! (I hate microwaves though).
Bread is pretty addictive so at least with this very rich rye sourdough, we don’t eat too much of it! I did succumb to temptation and order a Middle Eastern fruit loaf in this week’s Food Connect delivery though.
The best thing about bread is the butter…. real butter and lots of it! We get beautiful creamy yellow yellow butter made from cultured cream from the farmers’ markets in Brisbane. Oh boy, once you’ve tried real butter you can never return to the poor excuse for butter that you buy at the supermarket (even organic) and margarine? Don’t get me started! My lovely mother grew up on a farm and she says that our butter tastes just like the butter her mother used to churn when she was a girl.
A final comment about butter before you start sucking in your waistline and feeling for palpitations: A friend was telling me the other day that his grandparents used to put thick thick slabs of butter on their bread. And guess what? They lived to 100! Now isn’t that saying something? Kayo, my little almost 2 year old, loves butter. Forget the bread, just give her a little bowl of butter and a teaspoon and she’s happy!
Love your weeds
A woman who attended my Kitchen Table Talk for Organic Farm Share today shared this lovely story about weeds with us. Liana said she likes to read the land like a tarot card reading. When she spends time on a property, she pays attention to what the land is telling her. She says the land gives us or tells us what we need. This story is about a common and rather annoying weed called Cobbler’s Pegs or Farmer’s Friends. They aren’t considered a noxious weed but they are annoying because they stick to you and it takes ages to pick them off your clothes!
Well, Liana was on a property that was covered in Cobbler’s Pegs. The owner of this property had gout and sent away overseas for a natural remedy for it. Guess what arrived in the post? A bag of Cobbler’s Pegs! The owner drank the tea made from Cobbler’s Pegs and the gout went away.
Alf told us how weeds grow in an area to give the land what it needs, for example, nutrients the soil might be lacking. Once the problem is resolved, the weeds go away. Vegetables growing in really healthy soil are dominant and so a really healthy vegetable bed shouldn’t have weeds in it.
The more I learn about weeds, the more I understand where John Palmer is coming from as he patiently tries to teach us about the weeds growing in our garden – the edible ones, the ones that make fabulous nitrogen mulch, the remedies, and so on. If it weren’t for the weeds in our garden, we would have bare soil so maybe our weeds are taking care of the garden beds for us until such time as we can afford the money and the time to put vegetables, fruits, herbs and other more socially acceptable plants in!
our birthright
I am in Organic Farm Share because I believe that optimal health is our birthright and that the key to our health is in the soil and in our relationship to the land. I want to know where my food comes from, how it was grown and how it was produced. And I want to know the people who produce my food and the animals that participate in the food system. Most importantly, I want to leave this planet in a better condition than I found it and I believe that every small action we take makes a difference.
At age 14, I learnt about the terrible condition this planet is in and the inequality of food distribution and I became a vegetarian thinking I could do my bit to save the world. At 15, I learnt about nuclear weapons and Agent Orange. At 16, I was bombarded with images of the Grim Reaper. At 17, I learnt about the Greenhouse Effect and the rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest. I despaired. At 18, I made a decision not to have children.
How could I bring a child into such a depressing world that was only going to get worse? I felt no hope. I developed a terrible infection that could have rendered me infertile were it not for a dear family friend and mentor who told me I was too young to make such decisions and that there is always hope. That day, I wept for my future children and the world that they would be born into. My infection left with my tears but my resolve to somehow make a difference grew stronger.
At 18, I became involved in the environmental movement and realised that it was a hopeless minority and that we were banging our heads against the brick walls of greed and apathy. I couldn’t see my way forward and became more self-focused.
In the 22 years that have passed since that time, I have been trying to make sense of myself and the world that I live in. I spent five years living in Tokyo feeling claustrophobic amongst all the concrete, metal and high-rise buildings. At the same time, it was in Japan that I learnt about feeling appreciation for the farmer who produced the rice I was eating and the potter who had so skillfully created the tea bowl I was drinking from. In Japan, I gained more of a sense of connectedness.
On the Gold Coast, I have largely felt like a fish out of water – at times suffocated by all the cars, roads, concrete, buildings and peroxided hair. Three years ago, we moved into the ecovillage in Currumbin Valley. I began to feel hope that we can make a difference, first by living differently and showing others the way. Change starts at home.
Last year, I learnt that business doesn’t have to be the destructive and pillaging force that I have always perceived it to be. Alf Orpen says that business is a powerful force for change and now I realise this to be the new activism. By tapping into our core passions and by living who we truly are – we can make a difference. Organic Farm Share for me combines all the themes that have been so close to my heart since the age of 14 until now.
Now, I have two beautiful children and I will do everything I possibly can to pass on a planet that is regenerating itself, a planet that will support my children and my children’s children in abundance and vitality. And I will raise my children to be true and responsible custodians of this beautiful earth.
To find out more about Organic Farm Share, attend a presentation – held regularly on the Gold Coast and in northern NSW. More details here.
sourdough workshop with Sandra Frain
Phew! Time has flown by and there has hardly been a moment to stop, let alone blog. Below, some photos from the wonderful sourdough workshop held at a friend’s house in the Ecovillage a couple of weeks ago. It was so nice wandering down the greenway, through Berniece’s garden and in the backdoor of her lovely rammed earth house to attend the workshop.
Sandra Frain, our sourdough teacher, was just magic and created such a special atmosphere I had tingles in my spine. This is a woman who is full of joie de vivre, passionate about what she does and what she creates. We learnt about grain and the importance of fermenting grain to improve digestibility. We admired her sourdough cultures which were literally bubbling over with life (far left in the first picture), about wet loaves (which don’t need kneading) and dry loaves (which do). In this picture, the dry loaf is at the back and the wet loaf in front of it.
Kayo thoroughly enjoyed the workshop too, especially the kneading of her own piece of sourdough.
At the workshop, we also made butter from real cream, passing jars around the room and singing “Come butter come, come butter come. You’d better hurry up or you’re gonna be late. I’m gonna beat you to the garden gate”. And it was oh so yummy to eat freshly baked sourdough bread with real home made butter!
The next day, we had a 30 minute journey over the mountain to visit friends in Murwillumbah. I decanted some cream off the top of our milk and put it in a jar. We spent the car journey passing the jar between us and singing the song and by the time we arrived at our friends, we had real butter to share with our friends.
John Palmer – garden angel and patron saint of the valley
I’ve just come across some photos taken in 2008 and am inspired to write about John Palmer. I often talk about this beautiful man whom Kosuke and I hold in such high regard and who is so adored by our children. We call John our garden angel. He is the patron saint of many people’s gardens and indeed of this valley about which he is so knowledgeable. Kosuke and I are such black thumbs – famous for killing even pot plants – but John never gives up on us and I know he believes that one day, we will become green thumbs and we will start to grow our own food. Plant by plant, he shows us what is edible in our garden, what to pull out and what to protect. He turns up here week after week and year after year with stuff foraged from the side of the road and slowly we are covering up the grass and, with his help, creating garden beds from nothing and with no money.
For me, the garden is overwhelming and intimidating. Others, like my dear friend and now cherished neighbour Kacey, take to it like a duck to water. My mother loves gardening and her father was a wonderful gardener creating a lush vegetable garden on their farm in the Hay district in NSW even in times of serious drought. My mother finds computers and technology rather daunting and difficult whereas they come quite naturally to me. My father is a technology man so I guess I inherited some of his genes. I would love to be a gardener though – I think it’s such a nurturing and health-giving past-time – much healthier than computers!
What is also beautiful is to see the relationship between Taiji and John. Taiji sees John’s car and goes running out calling “John Palmer! John Palmer!” and together they explore the garden. Taiji now knows more of the plants and edibles in this garden than I do – African lettuce, south american spinach,… – so many plants considered weeds that really are nourishing foods. Sometimes I feel as though part of why John is gently and patiently teaching us about weeds is so that one day, if we ever had to, we could survive on the food that grows abundantly all around us that we are still so ignorant of.
John usually finishes up with a quick song, singing about what he and Taiji have created together that day. One day, we will make John proud of our new found passion for gardening. In the meantime, I am reminded of a story in the Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff in which she describes the culture of the Amazon Indian tribe she lived with. Each family has a garden and grows their own food, except for one man who was raised in town away from his tribe. He’s lazy, sour-faced and always complaining. Jean is surprised by how tolerant everyone is of this man and how they provide him with food grown in their gardens. His neighbour laughs and comments to Jean that the man doesn’t realise that he is unhappy because he doesn’t have his own garden or grow his own food. One day – after many years – the man asks his neighbour to teach him how to make a garden. He starts to grow his own food and he becomes a much lighter, brighter and happier man.
