This Week.....

.... we have enjoyed an early family Christmas celebration...

All very busy opening presents.

.... we have celebrated Eden's fifth birthday...

Please forgive me for the paper plates and cups - at least we could compost them afterwards!

Birthday Girl.

Enjoying the very talented face painting by a clever kindy mum.

Eden's tiara birthday cake.

.... we have done some Christmas crafting, by ourselves and with some local friends...

The spice angels we made with our friends.

Christmas cards the kids made with their Grandma.

.... we have coped with the current heatwave by going swimming and relaxing...

.... we have had Grandma over for a stay...

.... we have enjoyed cricket and homemade beer...

Even Brannen has taken his place on the couch to watch the 'kiyet' (cricket)

.... we have done some Christmas cooking...

Gingerbread Christmas tree decorations.

.... we have made some Christmas gifts...

Lined tote bags for the girls to carry their swimming gear to swimming lessons.

My first attempt at a reversible tote with box corners - happy!

 ....receiving my university results. One distinction, and two high distinctions. I am very happy with that. I am changing my course slightly for 2014 onwards, to a double major in Sustainable Development and Community Development. I am slowly hatching ideas and plans for my future 'career' (or not) direction and am very excited about what the next few years may bring.

.... the lead up to Christmas is so exciting! What have you and yours been up to?

Chicken Business

Our first batch of little chicks grew up..... into five roosters and one hen. We couldn't keep all the roosters so they were destined for the freezer. Their father, our main rooster, also needed dispatching, as he is now directly related to most of the hens in our brood. We also have received roosters for eating from a couple of local friends, so Nath has spent the last few evenings killing, plucking, and processing chicken meat. Tonight will be a big night - Nath and a friend have the last of them to get through, nine roosters and a drake (which will end up on the Christmas table). We'll have enough chicken meat to see us through a few months I would say.

Killing our roosters left us with a role to fill. We selected one of the roosters we had received from friends to fit the bill of our new head rooster. He is currently terrified of us, and wary of the chickens, but he has been working his way up the pecking order, one by one, so I am sure he will settle in at the boss spot soon. He's quite a pretty little thing, too, so different from the Plymouth/Australorp roosters we have been used to. Eventually I will get another big meat breed rooster, and maybe run two pens of chooks, but for now this new fellow will do. He is a Rhode Island Red/Isa Brown cross. Hopefully he throws more girls than the last boy did!

Bees.

I used to be scared of bees. If one flew near me, I would freeze and stop breathing until it had gone. Nowadays I see bees as friends, useful little insect friends with a very important job to do, and I love their presence in our garden. We have a lot of bees here, but the next step for us was installing our own hive, so that we could collect honey from it, another thing that we will no longer have to buy. As we use honey instead of sugar in our family, it seemed like a sensible thing to do.

We've been on the wait list for bees for a few months now, and yesterday, we got the call. So Nath and Brannen drove down the hill to collect our very own bees, a buzzing, humming closed hive of activity. The entrance to the hive was obviously blocked so they wouldn't escape during transit, but you could see their busy little legs and wings in the tiny holes in the hive 'gate', desperately trying to get out.

 Nath placed the hive in our chosen spot, under the grevillea bush in the otherwise unused pool area. It's a great spot - morning sun, afternoon shade, and locked so the kids can't get in. Once we demolish the pool, down the track we'll be able to get a couple more hives and the old pool area will become the bee area! Nath carefully opened the little gate to let the bees out to explore, and in a week or so he will open the hive to make sure the queen is healthy and laying, then we will leave them for a few months to do their thing. We have to get a couple more hive boxes ('supers') so that they can expand and have room to produce lots of honey - for them and us!

I may not be scared of bees anymore (well, not much, anyway!), but the actual beekeeping part is definitely Nath's job!

The beautiful grevillea.

 We are feeling pretty happy with how our garden and home plans are going, as we are well underway to producing a lot of what we eat here at home. It is such a fantastic feeling to be so connected to the food we eat.

Reminiscing and a Lovely Handmade Card Swap.

Ten years ago, Nathan and I made our first major move as a married couple from Perth to the Pilbara mining town of Karratha, about 1500km north. It was our first year out of tertiary schooling and the beginning of our respective careers. Nath was working as a youth worker, and I was teaching. It was a fantastic experience and one I am so glad we had. We eventually left Karratha to travel around the country in a beaten up old Landcruiser but the wild Pilbara landscape still holds a place in my heart.

I was thinking the other night about how different our lives are from back then, ten years ago, when we were fresh out into the workforce. For one, I hated cooking. To me, opening a jar onto cooked pasta was 'cooking from scratch'. I spent as little time as possible in the kitchen, but I did spend hundreds thousands of dollars on Tupperware to make my cupboards look stylish!

I hated gardening, too. We had a very small yard and it was reduced to a dust bowl by the time we left. I had no idea about where my food came from, and didn't care, to be honest. I had never grown anything edible (or anything at all!) and thought people who enjoyed spending time getting dirt under their fingernails were, quite frankly, a bit mad. A friend of mine at the time started a worm farm and I remember thinking worms were a strange choice of pet!

I shopped like crazy back then. I struggled with depression and feelings of low self worth. Every time I felt low or anxious, I would go shopping. I would buy things I did not need, even things I did not particularly want. It was the first time Nath and I had earned a 'proper' wage and I went to town with it. We got into a bit of debt and it took a few years to pay off, and taught me a valuable lesson along the way. I am not great with money even now, but I now know a thing or two about avoiding debt!

The one thing that my time in the Pilbara did give me is a great respect for the environment. Without getting too political, I watched the landscape change over the years with the development of new mine sites and supporting infrastructure. Our trip back last year was bittersweet, as the change was drastic in the years since we left. The Pilbara awakened in me a dawning awareness of the impact human behaviour has on the Earth. I am so grateful that our journey has brought us to place we are now, living a more frugal and sustainable life and teaching our children a different way than we would have if we were parents back then.

In lighter news, my lovely sister-in-law Mezz is hosting a handmade card swap over at her gorgeous blog Mezz Makes Stuff. It looks like a lot of fun, and I'll be joining in! You don't have to be a blogger to join in, so why not give it a go!

One of Mezz's lovely handmade cards.

Tomorrow for us is all about getting those darn fruit trees into the ground! I am sure I am only procrastinating because I know that once they are in, I am not moving anywhere until they have been bearing fruit for a good few years!!

Preparing For Change

Our family is about to embark on an adventure, one that we are very excited about. I have posted before about our goal to reduce Nath's work hours so that he can spend more time at home, and so that we as a family can live more closely aligned to our values of living simply, frugally, environmentally and in a community-focused way.

After much discussion we have decided that come September, Nath will be taking a year off from work to study from home. He plans to complete the Masters course (Mental Health Science) that he is halfway through, and also complete a Graduate Diploma in Grief and Loss Counselling. These qualifications will bring him closer to achieving his work and community goals in the future.

This decision will mean that he is home, full time. Obviously he will spend a proportion of this time with his head in the books, but he will also be spending much needed time gardening, playing with the kids, becoming involved in their school lives, watching them grow, nurturing our relationship, hunting, foraging, building on local relationships, making, fixing, growing and many other things that he has had limited time to do in the past.

Obviously, we will be living on significantly less money. We are okay with that. We are making plans and preparations to be able to do this without incurring great stress or sacrificing our QUALITY of life. We are looking into getting a milking goat and a hive of bees. We are building up our soils and constructing new garden beds. We are planning what we will be needing to grow, and when, and where. I will be making soap ahead of time so that it cures ready - one less thing we need to budget for. Little things like this, little ways of reskilling ourselves, will make all the difference.

Another change that we are busy preparing for is the change in the air that Winter brings. Winter Official is still a little over a month away, but the nights and mornings are cooling right down already and reminding me to do the seasonal 'change over'. First on the list was our clothing cupboards. I go through each of the kids' wardrobes, as well as our own, rotating summer clothes that will still fit next year to the top shelf, winter clothes to the more accessible shelves, and too small clothes to the charity basket. I 'stocktake' as I do this, making sure that each child will have enough to see them through the coming season, and making a list of things we are short on so that I can keep an eye out at opshops over the next few weeks. Next on the list is shoes. Summer shoes of Miya's that will fit Eden next summer get put away, Eden's summer shoes get handed down to smaller friends, and winter shoes are bought out for wearing.

After clothes comes sheets and blankets. I bring the winter blankets out of storage and give them an air. Some are for putting on beds and some are for a handy blanket pile in the loungeroom - perfect for sitting under and crocheting (or blogging!) I will need more winter sheets for the kids this winter as I have two children no longer in nappies overnight, instead of just Miya, and the odd accident means I need more on hand. Last winter we got by on three sets between the two girls but I wanted to add another couple of sets in case we have a night where both girls have accidents. Also, I anticipate that Brannen may well be out of a cot sometime this winter, so he will be needing single bed sheets as well. I have jumped on Gumtree and found a couple of well priced, secondhand winter sheet sets that I will pick up later this week.

Next on the list is our winter pantry. I stock up on soup staples, like lentils, split peas and beans, and restock my spice cupboard with all of those warming winter spices I use a lot of in the cooler months. Cinnamon, cardamom, chili, paprika, ras el hanout, cumin, coriander seed and curry spices are filled up and I make sure I have condiments like Worcestershire sauce, Tamari, and fish sauce on hand. I have many Fowlers Vacola bottles of passata, whole peeled tomatoes and diced tomatoes lined up in the cupboard ready.

In the garden, we plan what winter vegetables we will be planting. Potatoes, garlic, onions, kale, brassicas and soup vegetables all need to go in soon, so we are prepping beds ready and planning where things will be placed. We need a good stock of wood in the shed ready for when we need the wood heater, so we are making plans to fill our newly completed wood shed with wood from friend's blocks. The chainsaw needs a service so that it will be up to the task of keeping us in wood for the whole season.

I look forward to the cooler season.  I love getting 'layering' clothes out - scarves, and leggings and boots become my uniform! I love sitting in my rocking chair under a blanket with a nice hot cocoa next to me, working on some craft project or another or tackling the mending pile. I love the changes in the garden, everything is lush and green (especially the weeds!) I love the smells that are ever-present in the kitchen.... bone broths and soups simmering on the stove, curries and stews and scones and pies, fresh warm bread on the wood heater..... yum, yum!

Are you excited about the change in season?
What do you do to prepare?

Keep Your Cool

We are already a week into 2013, and I hadn't intended on being away from the blog for so long. Sometimes, though, it's nice to take a break from all the things we think we should be doing, and instead spend time on things we actually should do more of.

We have been camping, and swimming (lots of swimming!), and playing cricket, and frisbee, and having water pistol and water balloon fights. We've been bike riding, and scooter riding, and kite flying, and going to the beach, and sand castle making, and kayaking, and searching for fresh water mussels in the river. We have been to wineries, and breweries, and distilleries, and ice-creameries. We've been through a giant maze, and four wheel driving through a giant forest. We have been spending time with lovely friends, and lovely family, from near and far. Nath and I went to see Katie Noonan, Mia Dyson and Wendy Matthews, playing an intimate acoustic gig at my favourite hotel in the Hills. Miya learned to swim in the river near where we were camping, and now she is like a little fish, so full of confidence. A very happy sight, from my girl who screamed whenever we took her close to water when she was younger. She was the oldest of the eleven children we were camping with, and took to the role of pack leader with reckless abandon. Our little tribe of barefoot, grubby little campers became independent explorers and friend-makers, and were right at home among the tents and caravans.

What a lovely holiday.

Too soon, though, it is over, and we are back amidst washing and work and weekly routines. It was very hard to drop Nath at work this morning. I told him it felt like he was a book I had borrowed from the library, and now had to return. Like he doesn't fully belong to us anymore.

Nevertheless, this is where we are at and our days are largely about coping with the heat right now. While the news stories focus on heatwaves happening right across the Eastern Seaboard, our little town in the West quietly goes about it's business of enduring strings of days of 40-degrees-plus. Tomorrow, it is expected to be 45 degrees with a possible thunderstorm (which usually means no rain but bloody muggy!) and as I type at 7pm it is still 37 degrees.

Despite the heat, we have managed to avoid using the air conditioner (apart from a very short spell one afternoon, when Nath's brother and his wife were staying with us from the UK. Nath's brother was unwell for a day or so and definitely needed some cool air! They coped extraordinarily well for the rest of the time!), and we even handled the weather okay whilst camping when nearly every day was above 40. We are acclimatising to the heat again, this being the first year we have chosen not to use air-conditioning, and are finding other ways of 'keeping our cool'.

We get up early to do the things that it is just too hot to do later in the day, such as hanging washing, feeding and watering the chooks, or going for a run. We use the ceiling and pedestal fans and have the windows and doors open in the evening, overnight, and in the early morning, shutting the house up and drawing blinds and curtains at about 9am. We then try to do very little in the heat of the day, to keep as cool as possible. We drink loads of water and have a thirty second cold shower if we need it. That's usually enough to manage the heat. In the evenings, we put the kids to bed, then utilise the rest of the light to do some more of the labour-intensive or 'hot' work, like cooking or gardening.

It has been surprisingly easy to get used to. In some ways, it is almost easier than having the air-con running all day, because it can be hard to acclimatise to the outdoor heat when your house is a constant 18 degrees. I often wonder at people who have their house so cool, that they need to wear warmer clothing! Some days are harder than others (I don't cope as well with the humid weather) but none have been unendurable.

We have chosen to do this for frugality and environmental responsibility, but I definitely do not think this is the right thing for everyone. We are young and fit and healthy, and used to the warmer climate, and are able to keep hydrated. People who are elderly, or unwell, or not in good physical health or families with very young babies should definitely use the air conditioner in extreme heat. Hot weather can be dangerous for some.

So, how do you keep your cool?

Cheery Christmas Creating.

It is such quintessential Australian weather here at the moment.... hot and steamy one minute, dark and stormy and humid the next. I love sitting at my sewing table watching the summer storms roll in over the hills, bringing the hint of a cool breeze with them. I know that very soon, this pattern will even out to long strings of very hot and dry days and we will long for the relief of a summer storm or two!

Sitting at my sewing table is something I have been doing a lot of lately. Our handmade Christmas preparations are going swimmingly and we are all well into the swing of all things festive. I have enjoyed creating things for our home that we will love pulling out of the Christmas box year after year, and I love getting the kids involved in making things, too. They are little for such a short time, and I know it will be very special for all of us to look back on the things they have made during this time, in years to come.

Some of our makings:

The kids' crafting table!

Putting up the tree.

The 'holly' the kids made... from leaves out of our garden and old baubles.

Christmas lanterns we made as a family.

Mary and Baby Jesus

Together with Joseph, under the tree.

Peace bunting I made at my sewing night last night.

Joy bunting, hand stitched onto hessian flags.

We hope you and yours are having a merry, meaningful lead up to the Festive Season!

We Want Less Money

 
I guess we are a bit strange, because you don't hear that everyday! But Nath and I have been talking a lot lately about our goals and values, and what we want our lives and our children's lives to look like, and what our passions are, and what we would love to be doing with our lives if money and work wasn't a restricting factor.

We feel that the balance is wrong. Nath works five days a week, and is at home for two. I'm sure that to his line managers it may seem like sometimes life gets in the way of his work, but, to us, it sure feels like work gets in the way of our lives! Nath would love to be at home more, spending his days with the kids, in the garden, in the community. We don't want to be hermits. Far from it. We want to have the freedom to do things in our community that feed our souls, and other people's souls, and contribute to life in our area. It's very hard to do all of these things when you only have two days of 'free time'.

We also want to get to the point where we are growing, hunting for, foraging for or bartering most of our food. This would obviously mean that Nath wouldn't HAVE to work as much, but, to get there, one of the biggest resources we need is our time. It takes time to turn half an acre's worth of garden beds into food-producing spaces. It takes time to create new garden beds, and to plant, water, harvest, repeat. It takes time to develop hard gravelly clay into rich, fertile soil. It takes time to build chicken pens, sheds, repair things, make changes to things and learn the skills we will need to keep doing this. It takes time to meet local people, find like-minded neighbours, develop bartering/trading relationships, find places to hunt on, or forage for bush foods. These are all things we are squeezing into our weeks, sometimes to the detriment of family time.

So, our goal is to get to the point where we don't rely on most of our income. We are working towards reducing our outgoings to the bare minimum, so that, at some point, it will be completely viable for Nath to only work two days, three days max, per week. Obviously, we will need some income, and I don't plan on going back to work, but we are doing lots of thinking and talking around what Nath's 'work' (outside of the home) may look like over the next few years.

I'm pretty sure most of my readers are family (hi, family!), and we are raising up your little ones too. So we would love to hear your thoughts on this. Even if you are not family, drop us a line and tell us what you think. Is our plan doable, or totally insane? (Insane is ok.... sometimes I think we are at our best doing things that most people think are insane...) Do you have similar dreams? How is your work/home balance?

A Considered Christmas (Part Two - Joy)

Yesterday, I said I loved Christmas. I especially love how we do Christmas. Over the years, we have developed a few little rituals and ways of doing things to make our Christmas celebrations fit us perfectly as a family. There are a thousand ways of 'doing Christmas well', keeping the Earth and its people in mind, and finding a way that fits your family is essential, otherwise you will be unlikely to enjoy it or repeat the experience. With that in mind, I am going to share how we are preparing for Christmas this year in our house.

Decorations

This is an old photo - don't worry, our tree isn't up yet!!

This year, we are selling the bulk of our pre-children shop-bought decorations in favour of homemade ones. Some will have been made by me, such as our advent calendar bunting, and some will be made by the children. A couple of friends and I have organised to do a Christmas craft 'swap', where we each plan one craft activity to do with all of our children, and most of these will be Christmas decorations.

Gifts

This is probably the biggest area that we differ from the 'norm'. The gifts we give each other generally can't be found in a department store catalogue, and most of them will cost nothing. There are a couple of exceptions - I bought each of the kids a wooden toy from a friend's home based business, and I am buying Nath a hunting knife from a man who makes them locally. Most of our gifts, however, will be homemade. If we do happen to venture out to the shops for gift-buying, it will be to op-shops.

For extended family on Nath's side we do a Kris Kringle. Each brother (and partner if they have one) 'buys' for another brother. I use the term 'buy' loosely, as while there are no restrictions, a lot of us tend to homemake our gifts for each other. Since there are five brothers and four of them are married, it reduces the gift buying dramatically. For everyone else, it is handmade. Grandparents love gifts made by the kids, and we tend to give the kids' great-grandparents a homemade jar of something, and a photo of the kids.

We have stockings, which I made, but they are by no means stuffed full and consist of smaller handmade gifts (such as the halos in the picture - which didn't last too long!!). Our kids generally only get one or two gifts from us, plus their stocking, then maybe one to share.

Our wrapping 'paper' this year will be made from Christmas-y material for the gifts going under our own tree, or recycled paper painted by the kids for everyone else (our butcher is old-school and still wraps everything in butchers paper - I love it.) I am making all our gift tags by hand (apart from the ones the kids will make with their friends) over the next couple of nights.

If this all seems like it will take a lot of time, remember, we don't watch TV, and I save a whole lot of time by not needing to do Christmas shopping!

Food

I only buy one thing outside of my normal grocery shop - and that is a grassfed, organic, free range pork rolled roast from The Naked Butcher. Other than that, we just shop as usual, spending the same amount as usual, and make everything from scratch as usual. This year we are camping with friends from December 23rd until after the New Year, so we will take our standard camping fare along with us. Food gifts are made with things we generally have on hand anyway, or things in abundance in our garden. We even make our advokaat (alcoholic egg nog) from scratch!

Spreading Some Christmas Love

My lovely sister in law, Mezz, posted a question on her blog yesterday, which prompted some very thought-provoking discussion with our kids. What can we do to spread a little extra love and care around at Christmas time? Here is my comment on her blog after our discussion:

Hi Mezz,
Thanks so much for this post. We used it to provoke some very special conversation with the girls. We posed your question, then told the story of the REAL 'Santa Claus' (our kids know the man in the red suit is a fake!!) and talked about how in our area there are loads of people whose Christmases may not be very happy ones.
We decided to focus on our local Women's Refuge (there are often children staying there too) and the girls decided to wrap up some of their toys they don't use anymore to give as presents, make some Christmas cakes and Christmas decorations, and take them all in.
Unfortunately, most Christmas 'welfare' campaigns focus on people outside of our own communities. Its really important to focus back in. Our kids are so darn privileged, I worry that they may be growing up without a real understanding of some of the issues their own local people deal with everyday.

The girls made me so proud during this discussion! The ideas were theirs (except, of course, that we suggested where our gifts may go to), and we are very much looking forward to making extra decorations and cakes to brighten up other families' lives!

So, in a nutshell, these are our Christmas plans. Like I said, this way of doing Christmas suits our family perfectly, but I would love to know how you and your family celebrate!

A Considered Christmas (Part One - The Problem)

I love Christmas.

I need to make that clear, because I am about to embark on a little tirade about the Silly Season and I don't want anyone to think that I am coming over all Bah Humbug.

But, seriously, we as a society have completely lost touch with what this festivity is all about. I'm staying away from the religious side of Christmas here on my blog, and want to talk instead about what most people refer to as "the spirit of Christmas".

Apparently, having some Christmas spirit means talking endlessly about what major, plastic and mass-produced toy is on sale and where. It means trawling the shops, standing at checkout lines for ages, battling the crowds of thousands of other people who have the same idea about "the Christmas Spirit". It means racking up some serious credit card debt, or at least experiencing some financial pressure due to spending on presents, food, decorations, drink, a gift for Aunty Mavis' estranged husband.... the list goes on.

Apparently, every child needs at least fifteen presents with their name on them under the tree, otherwise we may as well pack the dear child up and send them to the poorhouse now. Apparently we need to fill up two regular sized shopping trolleys with every kind of 'sometimes' food under the sun, because we wouldn't want to go hungry on Christmas Day, would we?

The average Australian (singular, not per family) is forecast to spend $1600 towards Christmas this year. That's nearly DOUBLE the average household's (not single person) weekly disposable (after tax) income. Credit card debt peaks in the first quarter after Christmas each year, sitting earlier this year at an average of $4700 per Australian card-holder.

Does this not seem a little ridiculous?

And that's just the money side of things. We can also look at our Christmas over-consumerism in terms of the world's people, our local communities and the environment as a whole.

From The Buy Nothing Day website:

What is so bad about shopping?
It’s not shopping in itself that’s so harmful, it’s what we buy. The rich western countries - only 20% of the world population are consuming over 80% of the earth’s natural resources, causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage and unfair distribution of wealth. As consumers, we should question the products we buy and the companies who produce them.
The idea is to make people stop and think about what and how much they buy effects the environment and developing countries. Increasingly large companies use labour in developing countries to produce goods because its cheap and there aren’t the systems to protect workers like there are in the west.

I'm sure I have posted this video before, but the lead up to Christmas is a fabulous time to watch it again and be reminded of the need for more mindful purchasing. If you haven't watched it yet, please do. It's a major reason we started to live the way we live, and I am passionate about its message.

We can't shop our way to a better world. Every purchase we make has an impact (even the eco, fairtrade, sustainable ones). Every dollar we spend is a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.

Another aspect to consider (at any time of the year, not just Christmas!) is that in our own communities there are people who are doing it tough. As Christmas is a time of joy, celebration, family, friends and food, people who are marginalised, financially struggling, separated from family, lonely, suffering from mental health issues or in other ways not able to celebrate Christmas the way they may like to can find this time of the year particularly hard.  If you think there are no people like this in your community, you aren't looking hard enough. Does your community have a hospital? A mental health department? A women's refuge? A drug and alcohol agency? Centrelink? Employment agencies? My community has all of these, and I am in no way saying that everyone who accesses these services is not going to have a merry Christmas. I am merely saying that these services exist to support people who need support, so if your community has one or all of these services, you are likely to have people who are doing it tough living nearby.

This all sounds pretty bleak, I know. But I believe those who have more, have a responsibility to those who have less. My family is looking forward to a festive, funfilled, feasty Christmas. We just have plans to do it in a way that respects the Earth and its people, that spreads some true Christmas cheer around our community, and that teaches our children to want to make a difference.

Tomorrow, I'm sharing how our family will be doing Christmas this year (with not a shop in sight!) So stay tuned, for some real Christmas cheer :)