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!

Home Holidays

Rosemary framing the sun plaque

There is just one thing that I enjoy next to Tropical Holidays - that's Home Holidays!!  Time out of a busy routine to get stuff done!  What kinda stuff?  Anything and everything!  There is a ticking clock inside of me - one that wants to make time stand still, and in the absence of these magical powers, to make the most of every minute of my waking hours.  The lack of routines, getting dressed, to work on time, deadlines, general weekday business seems to shift and change gears.  I vacillate between making, creating, reading, fixing, planting, tending, contemplating and drinking endless cups of tea, dandelion and coffee!  Pure bliss!  And it is made all the more exciting when you can cross off the lists (yes, I am a listy-kinda-gal) and view all that you have achieved at the end of a busy but productively relaxed kind of day! And being a geeky list gal, I even add things onto a list, that weren' on the list, but that I achieved anyway at the end of the day and feel smug with myself!   Bet I am not making much sense to the sane ones reading this............ it's just that I have an awful lot of things I wish to do and achieve before I die.  Holidays are good times to catch up on those things!

The first up:  a whack of hand and body balms.  I have been running skinny on this since I finished my last one a few weeks before the end of the school term - and no time to make any up till now.

Simple body balm ingredients:  about 2 TBspn beeswax, cup of cold-pressed sesame seed oil and olive oil and essential oils of choice.  Lip balm is also another option to make with the same ingredients, just use more beeswax to oils, and use "edible essential oils like peppermint.   Easy peasy, and I make enough to keep me going for a good few months, and some extras to give away.

Ingredients for hand and body balm

Finished tins of hand and body balms.  Great for tucking one in a handbag,
one next to the bed and one on the windowsill in front of the washing up sink!

Using recycled mint tins.

A quick jar refill of Gardeners hand and foot scrub: add 6 TBspn organic sugar to a jar, mix in 2 TBspn olive oil and some peppermint essential oil.  A teaspoon of this can be used to exfoliate hands or feet to produce the softest of skin - the key to romantic back massages from a gardener!

Hand and Foot Scrub

Last weekend, I pulled out some berries left over from my smoothie making expeditions, and combined gooseberries with strawberries to make a mixed berry jam.  Looks yum, haven't tried it yet but no reason why it shouldn't taste as good as it looks!  Jam is sooo easy to make - I use 1kg fruit to 750g sugar (organic golden).  Boil it up till it gives the setting test (actually, I don't bother too much about this - some of my jams don't set as well as domestic goddesses would have you strive for, but it still passes the taste test.  This is mostly due to the fact that I like to use less sugar than conventional jam-making would advise).  

Frozen berries

Gooseberry/Strawberry jam

And whilst the jam is bubbling like a witch's cauldron of spider legs and frog spawn, a spin of the blender produces some damn fine parsley pesto - I'm hooked!  The time has arrived in that gardening calender, when we can go into the garden and start picking our salad ingredients: small kale and silver beet leaves, nasturtium flowers and leaves, parsley, calendula flowers, lettuces are growing nicely....... add a few sun-dried tomatoes, olives and home-made pickles and pesto in the salad dressing............ yay!  Summer living is the way to go!  I know it's still spring, but knowing that summer is beginning to peek around the corner is thrilling!

Parsley pesto

Home-grown salad

The garden is definitely awakening, seedlings are popping up out of their soil substrate and flowers are brightening up the corners of the garden.  The last week and a half has brought the infamous spring equinox weather - evil spiteful winds and whipping rain showers.  But when the clouds part and the sun shines through, there is hope.  I am amazed that the garden has not been damaged ... seems everything has withstood the battering and ramming weather bomb and come out without too much bruising.  We did have to take our garden chimes down, as they were keeping us awake all night through the wind storms!  Clang, clang, clang - like living in a Buddhist monastery where they are constantly banging the lunch-time gong!

Beautiful baby sunflowers

The colour of these un-named flowers brings a smile to me!

Seed saving:  I have collected many seeds for spring/summer planting.  Pumpkins, kamo kamo, beans, coriander, dill, corn, nz perpetual spinach etc.  Many of my seeds are 5th or 6th generation GreeNZ seeds.  Meaning, I have been collecting them each year, from the same original parent seeds.  If you keep on doing this, the theory is that the plants become stronger for your growing conditions that they have been acclimatised to.

Saving seeds.  My daughter looking over my shoulder has insisted I
add that she cleaned and sorted these ones in such a lovely way!
(It was worth it for the kiss I just got as thanks!)

Holiday Gardening To Do List:

• Mulch blueberry bed with untreated cedar sawdust.  Check.   Done.  No weeds to pull for a few months.

Sawdust-mulched blueberry bed

• Pip fruits collared and pheromone-trapped.  Check.  Done 2 weekends ago.  Hopefully catch those buggery coddling moths!

Pear tree with cardboard collar to lure coddling moth ladies

Pheromone trap for coddling moth guys

Another cardboard collar to lure female coddling moths to lay their
eggs in here instead of the apple blossoms

• Set up tomato trellis for planting time.  Check.  Quite a good sturdy system even I say myself.

Trellised bed for tomatoes.

Seedlings hardening off outside.

• Plant out and protect salad garden.  Check.  All collared with anti-slug and snail deterrents and Quash bait.

Outdoor salad bed with lettuces, mibuna, rocket and brassicas.

Old catering size tins make great wind breaks, as well as snail deterrents.
The snail bait, Quash, is organic copper-based and non-toxic.

Lettuces in the hothouse.

• Mulch and suppress garlic bed.  Check.  Found some old wool fleece left over from building.  I think the garlic is cosy, warm and happy.

Snugly bedded garlic crop

Not sure why I added the frame, just like the sculptural effect.

• Sow seeds.  Check.  Have tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, beans, chillies and kale, cabbages and caulis all waiting to be planted out.  Next round coming up soon.  Just direct-planted my beetroot today.

• Get mike onto bamboo harvesting for stakes and support structures.  Check.  He did that with our German Helpxchange a little while back and they are ready to use.

Bamboo supply for garden structures

What now?  A good holiday read perhaps.  Lucky me!

Fatcat Shanti sun-bathing in the spring sunshine

Bliss!

Berry, Berry Smooth!

Home-grown bananas

Wowee!  Heaven!  I think I just invented our own new mind-blowing health drink that tastes sooo good, it tastes like it must be bad!  How can that be?

Well, I had a basket-full of fast-ripening home-grown bananas, what to do with them?  I hate to waste food, especially stuff that we grow ourselves.  Banana bread has been the obvious answer in the past but I just did not feel very breadish-bakerish, so I thought - "SMOOOTHIES"!

Strawberry-Banana Blend

I have spent a week making a recipe of sorts, which I tended to repeat, based on it being much like a mousse pudding rather than a smoothie.  It went something like this:

BERRY, BERRY SMOOTHie

2 hands full of brazil nuts - blended till fairly smooth, then add:

8-9 bananas (3 of our small ones equal one large store-bought banana)

One cupful frozen strawberries (from last summer's surplus)

1 TBspn honey

1/2 tspn stevia powder

1 TBspn LSC (linseed, sesame seed and chia seed, ground)

1 TBspn wheatgerm (optional)

1/2 cupful preserved feijoa puree (optional)

1 cupful of soya or oat milk

Blend all together until smooth.  Most of my smoothies had to be eaten with a spoon as they were fairly thick!  Hence, the mousse idea!

Chocolate Heaven

Fast forward to Sunday and I had just used up the last of the frozen berries to make a gooseberry/strawberry jam when I got the inspiration to do a chocolate smoothie instead.  Here it is:

OUT OF THIS WORLD CHOCOLATE SMOOTHIE

(or otherwise to be known as Feckin' Delishus Smoothie at home!)

2 hands full of brazil nuts, blended till smoothish

Add 9 small bananas (or 3 large store-bought ones)

1 TBspn honey

1/2 tspn stevia powder (green leaf)

1TBspn LSC

1/2 tspn vanilla essence

3 heaped tspn carob powder

1 Cupful soya milk

Blend all above ingredients till smooth.

Be prepared to be blown away!  Such decadence and opulence!  Ought to be banned!  It tastes fattening!  Utterly insane, to drink something that you know is packed with such a powerhouse range of nutrients, but your brain is telling you it tastes too good to be healthy!

It's been such a good roll, these smoothie mornings, that Mike eked out my secret recipe (wouldn't even wait for my blog to spill the beans) and took over.  Even when we ran out of home-grown bananas - now he's buying them from fair-trading, organic Ecuador or some-such-place!  And he's added blueberries the last 2 mornings - takes like dessert!  It's a hit!