Puppies, pumpkins, pesto and pesky predators.

Hello! I'm typing this on my phone from my front step! So apologies if the spelling/formatting is all over the place! I have to blog this way as I'm multitasking: Chaperoning the chickens as they free range at the same time! 

Mrs Fox is back! And she's picked off 3 chickens in the past 4 weeks. Last week as Ben left for work in the early dark hours of the morning, he caught her staring greedily into our henhouse; Sitting on her haunches at the door like a dog at a butcher shop window! And she comes right into our yard and up to the front door! Cheeky Lady! 

So no un-escorted free ranging for Lennon and the ladies. Grr. 

But today is an absolute cracker! My washing's on the line, the windows are all open... It's so lovely even some of my daffodil bulbs have gotten confused. 

"This is spring, right..?"

Wills having a lovely day in a light cotton sheet. I've added some warm, boiled barley porridge to his nightly feeds. He's a bit older now, and he needs a bit extra in the colder months. Plus he deserves it ❤️x

I'm knitting up a red neck warmer for Katie to wear with her school uniform and some thick socks for Ben. These are my first socks! And they're cuff-down style - which I believe isn't usual?! - on teeny thin double-point needles. The first one has turned out so beautifully! 

There's just a small problem: I only have one ball of wool left and the first sock took one-and-a-bit. And I found out from Morris and Sons in Melbourne that Admiral ombré 6 fach is discontinued!!! F%#€+*!?&@!!!!! Does anyone know where I can get a ball of this?! 

And the gardens going quietly into hibernation. The last corn fronds are sagging. The last tomatoes are shrivelling up. The last basil is curling and going brown. The bales around the bale garden are disintegrating as the first frosts come and turn the once lush-green baby fronds to crunchy silver-grey crystals. We'll start piling up oak leaf-mulch, manure and compost.

There's a few pumpkins sprawling around, which will come in handy for hot pumpkin soup with fresh crusty sour dough bread. And I've planted a few garlic bulbs, just to see if they come up. The chooks are moulting so we're only getting one egg here or there, but I've been bottling passata at fever-pace: can't let any of those tomatoes go to waste! There's nothing like fresh pasta with homegrown tomato passata, and pesto made from the spoils of the 'Basil Forest'! It's our go-to week night dinner at the moment!

And if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you'll already know that Hill Shadow Farm will soon be getting a new addition!

Meet little Bluebell! She's only 3 weeks old, but I'm totally smitten. She's pure Border Collie. (Her mother Zoe is an absolute stunner, and super smart!) A pedigree working dog! I can't wait to take her to obedience and agility classes! Keeping Collies active and mentally stimulated is essential, and I'm totally up to the challenge!

So that's us, up to now. Katie's at school, and Tara's napping, so I'm being Chook Shepherd and sitting in the sun.

It's a tough life, but someone's gotta do it ;)

Xx

Blessing, bunnies, and blissful days together.

Hello every bunny!

Hope you had an Easter as good as ours! Ours was filled with friends and fun. The bunny came and hid chocolate chicks in our backyard, and the girls giggled and ran about looking for them in their pjamas and gumboots.

Ben baked hot cross buns, and we had woodfired pizzas with friends on easter night. The girls got home thoroughly sticky and over excited, but having had a brilliant day! 

We've managed to cram alot of activities into Katies first school holidays: Family trips to the pool and Eureka Skydeck. There was a Pop Up Park outside the local library, with facepainting and games, we saw the Shaun the Sheep movie, and we went op-shopping. 

But undoubtedy the best thing about these holidays was Ben's CT results coming back clear of cancer. 

That was the very best day. 

His hair is starting to grow back, he's starting to regain some of his old energy and health, and we just feel so so blessed everyday.

 There were quieter days, where we stayed at the farm. Days we collected firewood, baked, removed some dangerous tree branches, pottered in the garden.

One blissful day, the girls and I headed down the back paddock with a blanket and our teddies for a Teddy Bear's Picnic, while the weather is still warm!

And also I knitted some slippers, attempted my first cabling on a beanie for Tara, and am now attempting my very first pair of socks with some beautiful wool from Morris and Sons.



Back to school Monday. The house is going to feel so quiet!

What are you knitting?

xx

Baking, Bikkies, and Beautiful Banana Bread

With the warm yellow sunny days now fading and turning crisper, I thought it might be a great opportunity to share some of my go-to, no-fail baking recipes!

These are regulars in Katie's lunchbox, or when we need morning tea! 

First, my NO FAIL AWESOME ALL PURPOSE BISCUIT RECIPE!

Yummy! EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

3/4 cup SR flour

3/4 cup plain flour

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla essence

125g butter, softened.

Mix ingredients and knead with hands to form a stiff dough. Roll teaspoonfuls into balls and press lightly onto a lined baking tray. Bake 180 deg celcius (160 degrees if fan forced) for 12 mins for a soft cookie, 15 min for a crunchy one.

You can substitute lots of things for choc chips! I've used nuts, sultanas, muesli, dried fruit, m&ms...

You can substitute coconut sugar or stevia for the brown sugar.

You can substitute 1/2 cup coconut oil for the butter if you want a dairy-free version.

So versatile!

The second staple recipe in my house is my friend Laura's Banana Bread. It's super easy, and it's like a warm hug from a friend on a cold grey day :)

LAURA'S BANANA BREAD

125g butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup plain flour
1 cup wholemeal flour
1 teasp baking soda
1/2 teasp salt
3 Large very ripe bananas, mashed
1 teasp vanilla


Preheat oven to 180 deg C (160 deg C for fan forced ovens). Mix all wet ingredients together well in a large bowl. Add dry ingredients, and mix till well-combined. Pour into a loaf pan. Bake 50 - 60 min or till skewer comes out clean and top feels 'springy'.

I promise you it wont last long! And your house will smell AMAZING when it's baking!

So there you go! 2 staple recipes from my kitchen (2 of many!) that are super easy and yummy for lunchboxes or afternoon tea.

Or midnight snacks ;)

What's baking at your house?
xx

Autumnal anxieties.

Waking up for the school routine today was just a bit greyer. A bit darker. The butter was unspreadably hard on the bench top. Katie asked where her school jumper was.


Autumn is here.


And I was over reading Kate's post today, and it made me crave my ultimate warm comfort food: Avocado, Vegemite and Tomato on toast.



Unfortunately our Grosse Lisse's aren't doing so great. There's SO many on the vines, but the minute one of them starts to show a hint of colour: BLOSSOM END ROT.

Ive brought a few green ones inside to see if I can ripen them on the window sill. So disappointing.

Sticks and Dip

The cuc's are going gangbusters! Growing fast than I can pick them! Katie has cucumber in her lunch everyday, and luckily, Tara's favourite lunch is "Sticks and Dip".



Taking the lead from my fellow thrifty homesteading bloggers, Ive attempted to preserve some, and make some lacto-fermented cucumber pickle. (I used the same method I used here.)








Soon it'll be time to plant seedlings in our winter foam planters for our next bale garden. Which we haven't got the bales for yet. And to finish our dog fence. Which we haven't got the wire for yet. And stack our season's firewood. Which we haven't got the chainsaw fixed, or started collecting yet. Or cleaned the chimney.

Ive been losing a fair bit of sleep lately.

Winter Foamy Seedling System!

Time's just flying by. Proof of this: Katie our big school girl is 5 in a few weeks!!! I've knitted her these cute slippers from Ravelry. Purple by request!

Cookie knows how to stay warm.

Our plans for Autumn:

More Ex-batts - we're down to 11 girls, so we'll be adopting 10-15 more.



Hay stockpile - for the bale garden AND to last Will the winter! We currently have about 15 bales, but I'd feel much better with a stockpile of 30 or 40 more in our barn.







Finish the dog-proof fence - to enclose a new four-legged addition to the family we'll adopt soon... saty tuned...





Firewood stockpile and service the chimney -it's not working so great. we've been getting a fair bit of smoke in the house and it doesn't draw very well.



Blackberry Jam - The blackberries are finished, and I have a freezer full of berries ready for pies and jams! I found a Slowcooker Jam recipe (Is there ANYTHING they cant do?!) - I HAVE to try it!

Cast on some beanies and winter woolies for us! -  Winter is coming! Time to get knitting!




...It's not such a big To Do list, right?

Plus we have to workout what we need to plant now, build a new bale garden, sort out our finanaces, plan and hold Katie's 5th birthday party, mow the lawn, prune the fruit trees...

*BREATHES HEAVILY INTO PAPER BAG*

At least I'll be less of a One Woman Farm in the next few weeks: Ben had his last scheduled chemo session today! HURRAH! Hopefully this means he's on the road to recovery. we're very grateful that his prognosis is so positive, and we're fairly certain he won't need too much more treatment after this. Others are not so lucky, and cant be that certain of a positive outcome. For them there's no end in sight to the chemo/radiation nightmare. My heart goes out to all those people. I've reminded myself of that often over the past few weeks, and it's how I've stayed grateful and positive (even on the days I hit rock bottom. And there were a few of those too.)

Livestrong. Be grateful. Winter is coming, but so too is Spring.

Big love xx

Fatigue, food forests, foraging and fabulous flowers.

It's been a hard week. A very very hard week.

But I think we're finally starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Ben did his last full week of chemo, which means we only have two Thursday 'short days' to go. It was heartbreaking for me having to drive him there each day, like a lamb to the slaughter. It's absolutely floored him. He's lucky to get out of bed each day. And I've been doing the equivalent of a single mum and a 'one woman farm'. I'm exhausted, and the cracks in my armor are beginning to show.

Luckily we've had our parents here for the worst weeks, and our new friends have been so helpful! Still, I can't WAIT until he starts to feel better again.   

Cookie: Constant companion.

And summer is finally coming to an end. We're going to have to start doing those Winter preparation jobs, like stock piling firewood and hay, and cleaning the fireplace.



The veggies are starting to go to seed with the end of the season, but the garden is still bountiful. Right now there is still tonnes of basil, plus green capsicums, parsley, lebanese cucumbers, rocket and quite a bounty of Gross Lisse tomatoes, still pale green.







We sadly lost another of the older hens last week. Not to a fox this time, but to some sort of respiratory virus-thing that all the others got and got over. But little old Snuggles just couldn't seem to shake it, and got weaker and more lethargic. She was one of the original hens that were here when we moved in, so god knows how old she was!

Do they all have names? Well, no. But often they name themselves, and we certainly recognise individuals! Aside from Lennon the Rooster, there's Hoppy (was lame, now better), Shiny (Kate's favourite), Patchy (is patchy), Scruffy (is scruffy), Trouble (with a capital 'T') and Walkabout (who is always on her own at the far ends of the farm pecking at something and reluctant to come in for dinner).

We're getting about six eggs a day.



And just LOOK AT KATE'S SUNFLOWERS! Magnificent! Planted herself before christmas and lovingly watered and tended by the Hill Shadow Ferals and all our other insect friends.






I can honestly say that we've discovered chaos is key in the garden! (Ours anyway!). Ours is an ecosystem. The weeds are welcome!: They shade the seedlings, hide the produce, feed the compost, hold the soil together, feed the birds, conserve the water. Insects are welcome!: the bees tend the flowers, the good bugs control the bad bugs. And we plant everything everywhere in every available space: "Wanna feed, Pests? - You're gonna have to find it first...!" It is a veritable food forest!





I also recommend what I've termed "accidental farming". Just seeing what comes up. We've had a tonne of seeds just sprout from our compost or shoot-off from parent plants. Just leave it be - you never know! Some of those have been our greatest producers! Survival of the fittest! (And if it turns out to be a weed, you can always pull it out later!) An example of this was our potatoes: We just decided to leave it be and see... and 'presto'! Accidental Harvest!

Also anything you can forage is GOOD. FREE FOOD = #winning! Just be sure any plants you pick arent sprayed, get permission if you need it, and they are DEFINITELY what you think they are (ie mushrooms - mistakes can be fatal!) We have been harvesting LOADS of blackberries from our thicket (we asked our landlord not to spray them!) and found a rogue patch of mint growing in our gully, which we took a few shoots of and have now established in two big pots by our front door.

One day, Old Man. I will get you out for a ride again one day! x

Now, I best go. Tara's putting stickers on my arms, Kate wants a snack, and there is a suspicious smell coming from Tara's nappy...

And Im gonna cook some bicuits for Kate's lunchbox, cast-on some knitted slippers, and feed the chooks. A farm girl's work is never done! :)

xx

Rejection, regression, refusal, and remoteness.

It's Friday afternoon of Kate's first week of school, and I have committed the cardinal sin of putting on a movie to occupy Kate (Hey it's hot and she's had a big week! Well that's my excuse...) and I'm shirking the washing up/cleaning/cooking in favour of this. Ben and Tara are asleep.

I'm feeling exhausted.

It's been a big week.



Ben has ups and downs, so we really cant plan anything. Most of the time, he's lying down or asleep. So im shouldering much of the driving/organising/parenting/farming/cleaning at the moment. Also I'm getting up in the night to the girls, and getting up with them at 6 or 6:30 each morning. It's full-on. And it's actually a bit lonely. When Ben is not asleep I try to take the girls out to get them out of the way and give him some quiet to work or rest, but it means when I come home, he goes to bed and I start dinner or bath the girls or feed the horse or watch tv on my own.

Kate has handled her first week of school really well and has made a few friends, but it has seen the return of her Encopresis (which I thought she was getting past!) - which if you've never been through it, is just HELL and RUNS YOUR LIFE. We've been battling it for a bout a year and a half now, pretty much non-stop, though over christmas it looked like she was over-coming it: Taking her self to the toilet without prompting and staying clean most days. Then she started school, and BANG. (As if I need that!) I dont really know if it's cureable, but I pray every day that it will be!!! It's just horrible: Disgusting, humiliating, frustrating.

When I'm not dealing with poo inside, I'm dealing with my animal poo outside, and that is the perfect segue to the garden. (See what I did there?)

Look at the corn-babies!

I didn't have much time for the garden this week and last (Ben's full week of chemo), but it has not suffered for it! In fact, the basil and tomatoes have taken over!



And it looks like the capsicums and cucumbers are going to be a success!



No success with the wheatgrass however! Sickly, little shoots or nothing at all! WTF?! I cant win! Oh well, not that it matters - I seem to have jammed part of my new juicer anyway, rendering it useless, until I can work out how to un-jam it.

(It's really been a spectacularly bad week.)



The blackberries are going MAD, which is both good and bad: Bad for the fact that it is a nasty weed, but the fruit has been abundant and has made some great jam and muffins!

Also I grew come tiny stunted carrots (NEVER had success with carrots!) Which the kids liked pulling up and nibbling on anyway.



One other thing that I've found REALLY frustrating this week has come from trawling the internet for animal shelters, looking for a dog to adopt. I really wanted to adopt another dog after Henry. I miss having a dog, and Cookie is very much 'Ben's girl'. So, of course I have been looking at shelters and websites for almost 2 weeks, and let me tell you: The whole process has turned me RIGHT OFF adopting a shelter pet. Which is sad, because I know the idea is to encourage people to adopt rather than buy from backyards or pet shops. But the process is repetitive, intrusive, frustrating, and very expensive!

I have filled in countless forms justifying myself as an intelligent human being. I have given histories of previous animals, estimates of income, details of may daily routine including how much time I am likely to spend away from home, aquiesced to 'home inspections', and most of the time have received nothing but a computer-generated automatic response.

As soon as I say the words 'we have a run, but no fence yet' (My husband has cancer ok?!) and 'small children', I am often instantly dismissed.

And the animals I am deemed not fit to care for are often older dogs - 9 or 10 years old - of questionable breeding, but are still priced at $400 - $1000. (No: Im not kidding). WHERE IS THE INCENTIVE TO ADOPT? Some agencys even had the gall to tell me that "if" I was "shortlisted" they would match "ME" to a dog! Yep - I wouldn't even get to choose!!!

I feel disillusioned, scrutinised, dismissed and frustrated. And sadly, I'm not sure I will continue down the avenue of looking at animal shelters. They seem to have waiting lists and an over-supply of people looking and not that many needy dogs (which is not the impression you get from the media and all these 'adoption drives' etc!). My illusions of going to the RSPCA and walking up and down the line of cages and finding the perfect mate who would jump into my arms and who would become my constant companion for ever seems really far away. Which is sad. Just look at the life we offer:

Yup. Clearly cold, neglected and miserable. (And just look at the TRAUMA life with our young children is bringing her!)

So I'm not sure what will happen from here. I know we have an amazing, loving, experienced home to offer a dog. But unfortunately, we just dont appear that way on an automated pdf form.

The search continues.

Any ideas? Have you ever adopted a shelter dog before? (Did you find the process completely intrusive/impersonal/offputting?!) 

We're not THAT weird are we?!

Dont answer that.

Big love all, have a beautiful weekend. (It's a bad week, not a bad life. This too shall pass.)
xx