Summer, saurkraut, sand and survival.

41 degrees celcius yesterday - and we survived! Thanks to all our preventive mulching and watering, the garden seems to have held up, and the chooks spent their day in under the bushes in the gardens and being very sensible.



Thankfully, the girls were still up on the South Coast of NSW with my parents having a ball at the beach, and blissfully cool.





We spent the christmas break up there enjoying family time in the sand and saltwater. Katie's cousin Harry even taught her to fish. In her crown and tutu: Of course!



But now it's back to the farm, and my parents have kept the girls for a week extra holiday to allow Ben and I sometime to arm ourselves against the next few weeks, where Ben will be undergoing his chemotherapy. My aim was to get the house clean (I can do this better when I dont have 2 little mud princesses here undoing my good work as fast as I can get it done!), get some meals prepped, my freezer and pantry full, and my paperwork in order. Plus go out for dinner, ride my horse, and sleep in a few times!

We accidentally grew 2 potatoes! Woohoo! #accidentalfarming #accidentalharvest

The garden had absolutley EXPLODED in the week we were away! I came come to a bucket full of peas (all now shelled and in the freezer!) and a nice little stash of apricots, which have a 'rust' on them unfortunatley, but still taste AMAZING and made a HUGE jar of apricot jam! Recipe here if you wanna try it: Super easy! Used it for plum jam and apricot - works great for both!)



And I planted some wheatgrass. Wheat grass juice: We'll be doing it lots. Here's a handy youtube how-to. And I was inspired to do it via this. Plus it's a really yummy green juice shot/add in for your juices. (Note: You really need a slow juicer or a mastication juicer to do wheatgrass. Normal centrifugal juicers dont work on wheatgrass. Not sure why, but I've tried, and they don't! I got my hurom-style juicer from Target for $60 and it's worked a treat! One day though, I'd love one of these babies...!)



So I bought my peat ($2 from Bunnings - bargain.) and soaked it in 4.5L of water in a bucket.



I soaked my organic wheat overnight in a jar on a windowsill til it started to germinate.



And I put down a thin layer of damp peat, a thin layer of wheat, and another thin layer of damp peat over the top and put it in my mudroom on the window ledge. I'll let you know how it goes...



I also decided to stock my freezer with food and easy crock-pot/slowcooker meals for hassle-free dinners on chemo days. I spent a whole day chopping veg from my produce market, but now have a freezer full of ziplock bags that I can dump into my slowcooker in the morning, add water, and come home to dinner done at night! things like Pumpkin soup, minestrone, lentil bolognese, veggie noodle souple (just add chicken if you like!), and mexi-beans. Plus I bought 2 BBQ chooks and broke them down into stirfry/soup pieces and put them in freezer bags for meals. And I froze some bananas and blueberries for smoothies. The freezer is *STOCKED*.



On the super-hot day, I decided to try making Belle's saurkraut from The Whole Pantry book. (Have you read it? Its beautiful. Santa bought it for me for christmas!)



Let me tell you - it is YUMMY. I had to stop myself from eating it all then and there! But it needs a few days to ferment so we can get some good bacteria going in there!



...Hurry up saurkraut!

Ben shaved his hair short the other day in preparation, and seeing him like that really brought it crashing down around my ears for a few moments, to be honest. It's gonna be a big few weeks and sometimes I really feeling the fear of the unknown creeping in. At those times I just breathe and repeate a few mantras:

1. Just keep going. Be in the moment. Do what you need to do. Get it done.
2. Ask for help.
3. This too will pass.
4. Breathe, slow down, be here.

Happy New Year to you and yours. Thankyou for stopping by my blog. It's nice to know we're not alone x