blogs i love

i have a couple of blogs that i really enjoy reading. i will share them with you..
perhaps the most gentle and moving and inspirational is maira kalman's illustrated blog for the new york times. she writes and paints a meandering narrative about things like her visit to the supreme court in washington. her paintings are good and her views are wonderful. one comment on her blog read:

listen,

you are one of the best writers ever
and if you were my neighbor
i would weed your garden
for free
just because you understand
what is important in the world
and how to illustrate it
nicely.

i am just saying…

my favourite permaculture lifestyle blog is from france where hardworkinghippy and fabrice live the lifestyle i dream about. the pictures are delightful and they share the sorrows and joys of their farm with refreshing candour.

i look at lots of craft/creative blogs and am suspicious of the perfect families and homes depicted. i little too de-cluttered for me. where's the mess?

more jam

here are the pears

how beautiful are these quinces in the sunlight?

grated quince

pears with vanilla bean

i'm developing an artisan range of jam. cooked in smallish batches. all hand cut. i love it, and spent all weekend cooking up jams and marmalades. i made quince, pear, rhubarb and vanilla, as well as three types of citrus marmalade. the best is the extraordinary chilli jam, which i have already posted about (the same recipe as last time), but hotter chillies this time which have given it more of a bite.

the quince-based jam has a nice pinkish tinge.

kiva again

rose is from the sudan
and felipa from nicaragua

please check this out. kiva - lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur in a developing country. it is microfinance - small loans that are faithfully repaid, allowing you to reinvest with another person or group.

sour dough bread

i've wanted to try and make sour dough bread for as long as i have loved the taste and texture. we've go some great sour dough bakeries in sydney and bourke street bakery have now opened in marrickville. yay! but i gave it a go. i found a good website to help me along. the starter took a week to get nice and fermented and then the dough itself took more than a day to rise. it's certainly a slow process but the dough seems quite robust - doesn't need heat to activate and can sit around for ages, even in the fridge. my loaves are quite dense and take ages to toast (no sugar in the dough) and are pretty delicious. i'll keep on with it and might look out for some really old and 'fruity' starter from somewhere.

for an update on bobo creek... the bridge is to be inspected by a structural engineer this week. it's still looking positive, just so so slow. aaargh!

fully foul weather

it is raining in wild sheets that lash against the house. however this is nothing compared to the weather on the far north coast. south queensland had one third of their annual rainfall in one day earlier this week.
on a brighter note, mum, dad and i went to the margaret olley exhibition at the s.h. ervin gallery on tuesday. there we feasted our eyes on monotypes and pen, ink and watercolour studies, all on paper in muted yet joyous colours and bold, confident pen lines. we then feasted on lunch in the cafe next door. yum.

bridge over troubled waters

or troubled bridge...
we still have bridge woes - despite what we hear last week, the council suggest a structural engineers report. so more delays. i'm sure it will all eventually work out, but we must be sure before we go ahead with it all.

meanwhile pete and i have a folk gig tonight at sutherland folk club. folk means intense concentration and a quality (read: 'sober') audience. still it will be good to get out the songs again.

painting from my sister madeleine

my little (although not the littlest) sister lives outside bath in the uk. she is one of those amazing, competent, creative, fun, loyal, determined people that we are so blessed to know. she homeschools her 3 older daughters and added twins to her beautiful family last year. she does have a pretty impressive husband. she is also a musician and an artist as well as being a very accomplished cook. so in her masses of spare time she has painted this gorgeous water-colour for us. it is of course of bobo creek and shows the ebay cottage, guitar playing on the verandah, children in the creek, people cooking up a storm in the kitchen (i think that's me and madeleine) and someone reading on the grass (sophie or olympia would be my guess). there's a nice big water tank and a wind generator. so watch it all unfold over the years.
thank you madeleine for your love!

who reads blogs anyway?

i heard on radio national today that 90 (or was it 99) percent of blogs are never read by anyone other than the author! Jeff Cole, the director of the Center for the Digital Future said "We think most bloggers have achieved the anonymity they richly deserve." So what, i say. i blog for the sake of keeping a vague kind of journal and a vaguely chronological order. it's fun and i do enjoy reading other people's blogs. i am suspicious, however of the really 'perfect' people out there with meticulously 'arty' kitchens and workspaces. somtimes it all seems a little photoshopped to me. bring on the mess.

as for me, i'm simultaneously cooking italian meatballs in a rich tomato sauce, writing a song in b major (just changed the lyrics again), updating my blog and listening to my daughter olympia skype her beloved cousin in london, while izzy designs her dream house on the sims. sophie is at her parttime job in a bookshop - her kind of heaven. that's life.

and rosie (23 and daughter numero uno) graduated from sydney uni today. congratulations rosie! she majored in music.

that's my mum joan with rosie. she was more excited about the day than rosie was. mum should pace herself though as there are a fair few grandchildren to watch graduate over the next few years!

our bridge is all good!

it sounds like the bridge on the road into bobo creek is good. solid and reliable as we had hoped. now (hopefully)all that remains is for us to transfer the deposit to the estate agent and exchange contracts and the beautiful piece of the planet is ours! well, that's a little arrogant isn't it. but we will be custodians for a while.
we've contacted a young and funky PhD student of soil and environmental sciences through the permaculture forum and she is happy to consult. as it turns out she is also a latte-drinking inner-west dwelling person, so we can meet her on our mutual turf and talk about what to do for the bigger picture of bobo creek.

here is the sleeping area of the cabin, with its metal, hinged walls that let the creek rush through in spate. hopefully this doesn't happen while we are sleeping there. the rock had been in the fireplace and was still hot. i was trying to warm up a bit before i went to sleep.

the bridge at bobo creek

we are not home and hosed yet, so to speak as the council want to look at the bridge on the road in to the property. we have already had a mini-drama with it being a "paper road" that crosses a neighbour's farm. we needed permission from the lands dept as it is classified as crown land. we have that permission. anyway the bridge is a beauty, built by the plumber who is selling us the place. we just hope it passes council's scrutiny.
pete and i had a really fun gig in port macquarie as part of the camden haven music festival. our blues band played to a packed restaurant and enjoyed the audience's enjoyment of our songs and stories.
we had thought to avoid the property till it is all sealed and settled, but we decided to pay the council in taree a visit and then loaded the car with old blankets from the salvation army store, and some local produce and teabags and drove to bobo creek for two nights. it was cold but lovely and we sat on the deck playing through our folk songs for we have another gig coming up next week. we enjoyed lots of walks around the place and found parts we hadn't seen before. i slashed at a lot of the thistles and some lantana which will need serious removal before too long. it is just beautiful there.
we visited the wingham growers market on saturday morning and loved it. real organic food. we bought barrington perch which was excellent pan-fried that night.