Easy Livin'.

Shadows on the cottage wall

Summertime, and the livin' is easy.  

Everythin's growin' and I'm feeling quite high!

My life is rich, and my hubbie's good lookin',

So into the kitchen, for a veggie stir-fry!

Or something like that.

What weather bio-rhythms!   A mixed bag, or fruit salad of weather patterns.  Stinking hot one day.  Next day has us reaching for winter woolies.  Then the monsoonal rains.   Plus spectacular thunder and lightning showdowns.  Sometimes all weather variables in just one day.  Crazy.  But the garden is loving it.  Everything is growing and mimicking junglesque qualities.  Weeds are as high as the proverbial elephant's eye!  And the abundant harvests are kicking in.

Fibonacci's cauli and leeks can only mean one thing - leek and cauliflower soup!!

What I'm harvesting at the moment?  Beans, beans and more beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, gherkins, strawberries, nectarines, lettuce, bananas and the odd cauliflower, beetroot,  and radish for salads.   With the warmer mornings, my hot oat porridge fettish is shelved and I like to indulge in cold-soaked oats.  Sounds yuk?  Hell no!  It is like dessert for breakfast!

Cold-Soaked Oats Recipe

1 cup oats

2 cups plain yogurt

1 handful raisins

1/2 tspn cinnamon (can add any spices of choice or mixture: cardamom, nutmeg, ginger etc)

Mix the above and let it soak in the fridge overnight.  The next morning add:

1 grated, peeled apple

1Tbspn honey

Stir all the above and serve with fresh fruit on top (strawbs, blueberries etc)

Can also add LSC (Linseed, Sunflower and Chia seed mix) or finely chopped brazil nuts if required, to the soaking stage.

A great start to the day. 

 Did you know?

Oats is a magical food.  It lowers cholesterol, acting like a giant sponge to remove it from your system, and thus reduces heart disease, lowers the chances of diabetes type 2, colon cancer (because of the high fibre content) and strokes.  Constipation?  Irritable bowel? Try oats to cure the problem!  Oatso Easy!  Gluten intolerant?  Check your oats aren't processed and therefore contaminated in a factory that processes other gluten-containing products and you should be okay.  

Another experimentation process that has begun, is ginger beer making with water kefir granules.  What a revelation!  I used to make ginger beer and it would take me at least 10 days, feeding the "bug".  Water kefir granules reduce this process to one day!  And it makes damn fine ginger beer!  It becomes a fermented beverage teeming with beneficial bacteria.  Good for you, and it's delicious!  Water kefir granules are a little like kombucha - the beneficial bacteria and yeasts process the sugar in the water and turn them into beneficial enzymes and micro-organisms and B vitamins.  Great for making a fizzy-type lemonade or ginger beer (just add lemon juice or ginger).  The granules were gifted to me (they grow each time they are used) but they can also be bought online.

Making ginger beer

My Garden Picture Gallery

Below are some fairly recent photos taken in our garden.  Enjoy the beauty as you browse through a virtual garden wonderland.

The beauty of feijoa flowers - no wonder birds are delirious with delight as they voraciously peck at them for tasty morsels.

German chamomile to drive bees balmy!

Oh, Sweetpea You!

Visiting Royalty -  A monarch butterfly seeking sustenance

Radishes pushing their way out of the soil - "Eat me!"

Pumpkins grown in a makeshift box mounded with compost stops birds 
scritch-scratching and disturbing their roots.

My recent triumph:  rooting a cutting of jasmine - 
my all-time aphrodisiac.

Foxgloves that self-seeded themselves

Fuzzy baby  apples

Feijoa flower cluster forms a mini-bouquet

Who can resist the Love of Lavender?

Extra-terrestrial Aquilegia

Hydrangeas to remind me of my beloved old grandma, long passed.

Hope you enjoyed your waltz around the garden with me........

Backyard Corner Makeover

The old wood shed

A new year.  New beginnings.  Or a Make-Over.  With the neighbour's stramash about boundaries, we decided to demolish our old wood store which could have been on the land he was claiming was his.  But of course, the land when surveyed, was deemed to be ours, the boundary being exactly where the half-size wire fence had originally been erected.  Long story short: we replaced the wire fence with the highest legal wooden fence possible.  Privacy for him and for us.  But we also decided to go ahead with demolishing the old wood store which had been haphazardly built by the previous owner, as we have already built one closer to the house.

Demolition of shed and newly erected new wooden fence

The builder who built our fence made short work of the shed - it was down within 2 hours!!  What to do with the blank canvas??  We decided that we would like to have a second go at growing our own avocado tree, so after purchasing a Hass, in it went.  We figure that this corner is sheltered from winds and will be easier to erect frost protection over winter.  Frosts killed our last 2 small avo trees as they are extremely frost-tender sub-tropicals.  Avos grow into really large trees, so there is not much space for anything else later on.  But for now, we have planted corn all around the avo - once they are harvested, there will be more space for the growing avo.  The corn will also provide a source of carbon for the compost bins and break up the compacted soil.

Avocado tree planted, with corn.  At the back, 2 passion fruits to climb the trellises

It did not take too long for the conversion, the pathway is newly sawdust-laden to stop weeds growing, and it is looking like a great space for growing.  Given that Katikati is an avo growing region, alongside our kiwifruit industry, we can buy avos at $2 for 3.  As Mike likes to eat half to one avo every day, it's still a rather expensive commodity, so hopefully our $35 tree investment will pay off in no time at all, if we can keep it frost-safe.  For hypothetical purposes, an avo a day for a year would cost us about $241 at 3 for $2.  Or something like that.  So in 3 years, our avo tree will hopefully be providing us with at least half a year's supply, thus saving us $120 p/a.  We shall see ....... gardening is all about economics!  And an added benefit will be that ours are spray-free.

Did you know?

In the Doctrine (teachings) of Signatures (Sign of Nature) of Wholefoods (healthy, untampered with), avocados are the signature food of the uterus and cervix?  They are proven to be excellent for all manners of womanly woes, hormonal imbalance, fertility, menopause, pregnancy and post-pregnancy weight loss.  When you cut an avo in half, it resembles the uterus and cervix, and the stone symbolizes the baby.  And get this; from blossom to ripe fruit takes about, wait, you guessed it: 8-9 months!!  Isn't nature fantastic!!  But not to worry, men won't become too feminine when they consume too much of this wonder-food!  It's good for them too.  And the myth that they are fattening - banish the thought!  Poppycock and nonsense!

Here's a great avo recipe that will defy the senses and confound your friends.  The recipe was given to me by my friend, Jo, a raw foodie girl.   A rich and creamy chocolate mousse made from avos.  No sugar.  In fact, it's so healthy, you could be doing your body a great big favour by eating it regularly!!

Creamy Avocado Pudding (sourced from Faw Foods for Busy People)

2-3 servings

1 ripe avocado

1 ripe banana or 1/4 cup pitted dates, soaked for 10 mins

1/4 cup raw carob powder (I've also tried cocoa)

2 tspn vanilla extract

Whip up all ingredients in a blender.  Use a spatula to scrape the sides of the blender a few times during blending.  Top with Whipped cream if desired (not necessary).  Gluten Free.  Dairy free.  Egg free.  Sugar free.  

Guilt free.

I love presenting this to unsuspecting people and asking them to guess the ingredients!  No-one gets the avo bit!!  Party trick deluxe.

Healthy Chocolate Mousse - serve with a fresh strawberry on top!

DentoPhobe

This isn't so much of a sustainable living blog-post as a diatribe.  I just recently went to the dentist.  Well,  2 weeks ago.  Since childhood, when a particularly heinous crime was committed in my mouth by our family dentist as my mother sat out in the waiting room with a magazine, I have had dental phobia.  I don't blame my mother, it's the only time I ever get time to sit and read a mag!  And I think I am not alone in this phobia of dentists.  (The following diatribe is accompanied with beautiful pictures to soften the harsh reality of what I went through.)

May the Angels Watch over all Pearly Whites
(my lovely Christmas gift from my daughter)

Note to self about Law of Attraction:  you attract to yourself what you fear most!!  After yet another awful dental experience here in our village, I began to go to dentist A in Tauranga.  Gentle, friendly and in possession of an impressive array of very expensive equipment.  Okay, so that's why dentistry in this country is exhorbitant, we are paying off the equipment mortgage for them.  For 5 years, dentist A, as kind and gentle as I could wish for, declares my teeth are "in good shape" for my age, and that there is nothing wrong with them that isn't age-related.  Hmmn.  I like to hear this.

But during the last 2 years, I start to question his diagnosis as I point out the receding gums and blackened bits at the base of my teeth.  Age, he tells me.  Not much you can do about that.  Cheekily, I tell him I think his standards have dropped.  He laughs.  But I go away and think, maybe it's true, his standards may indeed have dropped.  

Like teeth, if it's broke, we need to fix it carefully.....

So I decide to get a second opinion.  I return to a dental practice in my village - dentist B.  He rolls off a list of things wrong with my teeth - $3000. 00 worth of damage.  Eeek!  The first he tackles is the worst of the jobs - a tooth that gives me no pain, excepting it traps food between it and the neighbouring tooth - a hassle for me as I have to floss after every meal.  Ooops!  While drilling, he discovers a neon-coloured mix of antibiotics and steroids packed in under the old filling.  Huh?  Whoever authorised this??? The last dentist to fill this tooth packed it in there, without permission from me!   Do we actually know what dentists are doing in our mouths??  How long had I been walking around with a steroid/antibiotic seeping out into my system??

Stumpy Feldencrais, my new garden gnome gifted to me by my son for Christmas,
stands guard over the castle.

So dentist B drills away - 4 injections later, I have a new semi-bionic tooth (it is half tooth, half composite).  The cost of 2 teeth fillings: $440.    But sadly, after a week, I still cannot bite on this bugger!  So I return for a checkup and as I vehemently decline a root canal treatment, he says there is no other option but to remove it.  So at this point, I am weary of the week-long pain and want a solution, so I say okay.  I am given 5 injections this time.  With my mouth feeling full of duvet filling, padded and swollen but dead to the world, dentist B begins the barbaric practice that I am totally unprepared for.  He is wrenching my tooth sideways fit to snap my neck off of my shoulders with tools of torture..  After 5 mins, he says "Nearly there!"  I cringe.  How much more can I take of this torture?  He wrestles further, every few minutes claiming that "we're nearly done", or, "breathe"!  I close my eyes and picture the horrendous trauma that is happening in my jaw.  It's brutal, invasive and akin to oral rape.  Lying there, helpless, with your mouth pulled  and stretched open to breaking point, your jaw violated and your entire body tense and sore.

A pretty picture to take your mind off of the trauma of dentist visits - a tree necklace, another Christmas gift from my son's drop-dead-gorgeous girlfriend.

I lie there, in utter disbelief.  I gave him permission to do this!!  How can I take it all back?  When he finally pulls the tooth, he exclaims excitedly that I should look at the tooth, no wonder it wouldn't come out!  Numb and half-dead from shock and fear, I turn to see what he is showing me, as he explains that most people's tooth roots are tapered and come out easily.  Mine would have to be the first he's seen with a ball on the end!  Bloody hell!  "Never mind," he reassures, "at least you have a week till Christmas."  

Mind-candy

Uh, it's been 2 weeks - and my jaw is still bruised and I cannot eat on that side as the two neighbouring teeth were probably exposed to some severed jiggling and wrenching.  They are still tender and loose, despite taking a set of homeopathic remedies for bruising, pain and healing.   I resorted to pain-killers on the very first night as I was in extreme pain, but declined further chemical pain-killing assistance.  I already had 9 injections within a week's space, enough chemical dosing for my body!  I refused to take more paracetemol, despite the pain but 4 nights of no sleep takes it's toll.  

More mind candy....

Once my mouth heals, it will take longer for my spirit to return to normal.  I remember giving birth and the pain of extraction did not throb for quite so long afterwards as does my jaw!  My husband said it was my karma, that I must have hurt someone in my past life and caused as much trauma.  Huh?  Then I must have been a circus performer-acrobatic-martial arts expert who threw 23 darts pinpointed into his jaw, after kicking him in the mouth with such precision as to cause him to die slowly and painfully of septicemia?!

Good food to support good oral hygiene
(my oral decay began a long, long time ago as a result of our Coca Cola childhood)

So I am left wondering several things:

1. Surely there is a more modern approach to tooth removal than brutal wrenching, that hasn't evolved in the last 100 years??
2. How long do toxic injections stay in the body??  I asked the dentist and he said "only a couple of hours" - I do not believe this.  If fact, I am about to embark on a couple of nights wearing toxin-drawing herbal foot patches.
3. Dentists unreservedly promote the use of a fluoride toothpaste.  As ours is not fluoridated, I did some  online searching and discovered homeopathic fluoride (calcarea fluor) which does not damage the stomach.  Dentist B was skeptical when I shared that info with him.
4. Should I have given my filling another week to settle down before okaying the removal?  Alas, too late.  
5. If these homeopathics have been helping, then how much more pain would I have been in without them??

And the moral of the story??  Take care of your teeth and eat less sugar!!

Our own home-grown strawberries and blueberries - a royal treat every day!

Chemical-free Sunblock

Sunflower in Sunshine

So how come our rates of skin cancer are souring through the roof, despite the fact that we all take "precaution" against sunburn and liberally slap sunblock onto our bodies, head to toe??  Might it be that most sunblocks are chokka-full of chemicals??  Aye.  It's a no-brainer!  You wouldn't swallow a glass of chemicals, now would you?  So how come you would slap on a ton of nasty chemicals all over your skin?  Did you know that the skin is so absorbent, it will "swallow" anything that you put on it??  Hullo, people, wake up!!  I can't bear to see parents smearing "Cancer Society-approved" chemical sunblock all over their babies and children.  A childhood of that and you have set them up for exactly what you plan to avoid - skin cancer!  There are alternatives, but they are not found on the supermarket shelf!  And they are at least twice the price.  But then, what's the cost of skin cancer??

Tips to reduce your chances of developing skin cancer:

1. Exercise a little common sense.  If burn time is around 7-10 minutes, cover up with a thin layer of cotton clothing or seek out some shade after this period.
2. By all means, do wear sunglasses to protect your eyes from sunburn.   By all means, do wear a hat to protect your face. If you must apply sunblock, find one on the market with the least amount of chemicals (preferable none), or, better yet, make your own.  Recipe to follow.
3. Young children are more prone to sunburn.  Keep them protected and safe.  
4. Do not follow mainstream sun protection advice without doing your own research.  Knowledge is sometimes a precious jewel you have to dig around and work for.  For starters, read Learn why the myth of cancer can hurt your health.
5. Eat healthy, unadulterated foods.  Wholesome, organic, raw and fresh.

Recent 5kg harvest of healthy garden produce

I have developed my own sunblock which I make every summer.  It is not scientifically proven in a laboratory to reduce sunburn, but it sure seems to work, especially for my family who go surfing and boogy boarding in the waves for hours on end.  The main "block" ingredient is zinc oxide, which can be bought at a pharmacy.  I believe that the naturally occurring mineral is zincite while much of the zinc oxide as we know it, is a synthetically produced inorganic mineral compound.  However, it is safe to use topically and is even used to treat diaper rashes.  My beeswax is bought at Mossops in Tauranga. 

Home-made GreeNZ Star Sunblock

Organic Chemical-Free Sunblock

4 Tbspn zinc oxide

1/2 cup coconut oil

2 Tbspn beeswax

1/2 cup olive oil 

essential oil - 10-12 drops (I used Indian Basil and Cedarwood)

Optional extras:

2 tspn olive leaf 

6 drops rescue remedy

2 tspn tumeric

Melt beeswax on low heat, pour in oil while whisking, then add other ingredients while still whisking.  Pour into wide-mouthed jars that are oven-heated to resist cracking.

I go with my gut feeling when making anything in the kitchen.  If it feels right, I do it.  So this time round, I took a mental note of what and how much I was adding, so I could put it on my post.  It usually depends on my mood as to what I add, and how much!  My next batch may be completely different! This batch is quite neon yellow - but goes on as a nice tan-glow.  My husband and son have already surf-tested it and gave it the thumbs up.  That's all the proof I need.

Sun is Good!

The sunny skyline at Mount Maunganui docks.  Clear skies means Burn, Baby, Burn!  Quick, hand me the chemical-free sunblock!

Surprise!

Christmas Angel

We have just had a German HelpXchange couple stay with us for a week.  What a pleasure!  They painted the house, pimped my car, taught Shayni about what's under the hood of her little Jellybean car, made a meal, cut my hair, helped in the kitchen and weeded the garden.  Yup, all in a week.   A dynamo duo!  And they were just great company!  We laughed together and made great cross-cultural jokes we could both relate to.  We were sad to see them go.   One of Daniel's jobs was dismantling an old wooden kiwifruit bin veg-bed.  As he did the job, he was discovering potatoes in the soil.  So when he yelled out "Look what I found!", I expected to find a humungous potato but instead, there was a hedgehog mama and her 4 little babies curled up under the base of the veg bed.

A stash of hedgehogs

Trying to curl up

Squirming out of Mike's grasp

Little baby opens his eyes

What a prickly situation!!  Amelie and I set about immediately making a hedgie-house out of wood, into which we carefully placed mama and baba hedgies.  Then we set them up in a corner of the garden to snooze the rest of the day away.  Mid afternoon, we spied mama hedgehog wandering around the garden, looking for a safe space for her little spikey family - I don't think she quite like the new house we had made.  I fretted for them, wondering if they would make it.  But the next morning revealed a heap of snail shells dotted around the garden - evidence of their midnight snack foray.  They must have found a new, safer place to sleep as the house we made was empty.  What joy and bliss.  A little wildlife in our garden sanctuary.

Verocious Snail Eating Machines

So our week together with Daniel and Amelie flew by and before we were ready, we were bidding them farewell.  The down-side of opening up your home and hearts to travelers, is that eventually, they must resume their travels and you have to say good-bye.  While I was busy making a  recycled document pouch for them, they were secretly banging away in the garden shed, creating a beautiful wooden bird house for us.  It has opening doors to remove the old nest from one family so that the next spring, another family can move in!  What a wonderful gift!

Daniel and Amelie's Creative Bird-house

Garden art.  Some old tiles I framed for effect.

The garden is looking spectacular.  And spectacularly overgrown!  The underplanting of German Chammomile is spent and due for some serious clean up.  The persistent rains that normally bless all those living at the foot of the Kaimais has made for a burst of growth, not only in the good plants department, but also the weed department!!  Given that I am on glorious home holiday for the next 4 weeks, I will tackle one area, one wheelbarrow at a time.

Bloomin' Lovely Sunflowers!

My dearly beloved sister and I have a little ritual we developed of leaving singing telegrams on each other's answer phones.  The last one she left went like this: "Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...."  I did berate her for an entirely unsuitable message for vegetarians...... "couldn't you have transposed carrots for the goose??"  I cheekily asked.  Way more appropriate, don't you think??  Think of the millions of animals all around the world that are slaughtered so we can celebrate the traditional Christmas banquet meal!  So we can feast, feast, feast on rare Who Beast!  (words of Dr. Seuss in How the Grinch stole Christmas).

The culling in our backyard includes some darn fine berry, berry delicious fare!  Strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.  Yum!

Christmas is coming, the grapes are getting fat....

Ballerina fuschias

Our Christmas celebration was stretched over a night and day.  As our son and his girlfriend were here for 2 days, we put some Christmas music on and opened some of our presents by candle-light at about 10pm on Christmas eve.  We had Rooibos Chai and chocolate slice before bed at mid-night.  Then this morning, we opened up the last ones under the tree before they had to head on off to meet with his girlfriend's family for lunch.  A great time was had by all, precious time of connectedness for families all around the globe.  Every family has their own traditions, we may just be creating new ones to fit our changing family situation.  Our children's gifts to us were thoughtful, generous and surprising!

Christmas meal fare from the garden: rhubarb, green beans, lemons, leeks, radishes, silverbeet and some flowers for the centre-piece.

Home-made Bird anti-theft device on ripe strawberries 

Be-jewelled harvest - potatoes, beans and berries

Interesting hydrangeas or Christmas flowers

So whatever your table spread, may y'all have a very Merry Christmas.  May your hearts be filled with joy, love and peace.  May your bellies be adequately full and may your dishes all be done!  And to one and all, a Good night!