Welcome back!

Nasturtiums in the Kitchen garden 

I didn't intend to be this long away from posting. Over 3 months! Stuff has happened though. How to unpack it all without writing a saga? I'll just say what you all might be wondering. We're still here and the whole family is doing well. Health hasn't changed since we last caught up, but there's always room for improvement, right? I don't believe in waiting until you NEED a doctor, before listening to your body. 

On the mend

After rain

 

The new swale alteration, before my weird accident involving it, is doing as I'd hoped. It's been much fuller, with heavier rain recently, but my hand wasn't up to taking photos then. About 6 days is how long it took, to use my hand properly again. It's almost like it was, mobility wise - being able to twist my wrist now. However, I still can't put as much pressure on it, when it comes to gripping, pulling, or even typing on the keyboard. Which is why I haven't replied to all those wonderful comments, you all left.

Then this happens...

 

Oops

I tried taking a picture of my injured hand, one handed. My chest played a crucial role, stabilising the camera, because David is currently at work. Thankfully he wasn't yesterday morning, when the weirdest accident happened. I was surveying the swale I was working on recently, to plan my next step. Turning towards the ramp, to get some tools near the house, a huge hornet comes flying at me. I try dodging it, but everywhere I moved, it re-positioned to go for my face. 

Sweden's controversial COVID-19 approach

Someone is finally saying, what I have been thinking all along. Trust Sweden to make rational decisions. Not the political hot-potato, countries try to juggle, so no-one gets burned. We have to face the reality that deaths WILL come of this pandemic, but what is the long-term cost of trying to hold off facing the toll? Dr Bjorn Lomborg, Danish Political Scientist, is starting the discussion, no-one wants to hear - but inevitably, society will have to face. 

Patterns in nature

Aloe vera, currently in flower

While contemplating my recent series on developing healthy immunity, the pandemic was not far from my mind. Just as I had to learn what diabetes was, and why it effected me, I would cast the same discernment over the current strain of coronavirus. It's the only way to understand what exactly, we're dealing with. What I have learned, isn't really discussed in the mainstream.

'Miracle' tree

Just above net, when first planted

Happy Easter! And what an apt time to write about the Miracle tree. Or Moringa oleifera. I've been on the hunt for this tree, for a while. As I'd often heard it referred to, as the "Miracle" tree. Why would it be called that? Well, first I had to track one down! It proved to be difficult to find in my area, although many backyard nurseries were selling it on the Sunshine Coast. I eventually found a seed supplier, and was excited when several of them germinated. Unfortunately the two-year drought hit, and all died in my shade-house, except one! The tree you see above.

Rest & reset

Feet up in the lounge room

I've come to the final piece of the puzzle, to amend a compromised immune system. I've discussed food, mood and movement already. It all connects to the gut microbiota, to the brain and finally to the immune system response. It's a very basic overview. The ecosystem of our body, has a lot more layers of complexity. Yet it's enough to grasp the interaction, required for the most efficient biological systems. And how we can play our part developing them. Now all there is left to address, is rest.

Moving your moods

"Thinker" on the mantel

Thanks to those who shared their experiences, in the comments section of my post about probiotic foods, and strategies for building healthy immunity. I especially liked the sound of Meg's, pro/prebiotic potato salad, because it contains apple-cider vinegar. I forgot to mention, apple-cider vinegar is another great, and easily accessible fermented food. It's something I've made in the past, and should do more of.

Learning & laughter

Approx 25 minutes

While writing posts on improving immunity, I wanted to share some valuable advice from other trusted sources. There's an interview with Sally Fallon, who works closely with the Western A Price Foundation. She speaks about the coronavirus and how we can deal with it, through food. It was refreshing to see some common sense used, instead of confusion around the coronavirus. There are some lessons to take from past pandemics.

Eat what now?

Joey says: "Australia, eat your greens!"

Thanks to those who engaged the comments, of my last post. It's incredibly valuable to read how others translate their situations, during this unprecedented time. I was going to discuss why the Medical industry, has a hard time providing answers (beyond, a cure). But was heartened to see some further advice being dispensed recently.

Lessons from disease

Constructive mess

I've been on hiatus with some construction projects. They always seem to take longer than I imagine. I haven't been oblivious to what's happening in the world right now though. Because it's impacted us in some significant ways. The kids are now at home, for the foreseeable future. Not because I believe in the social distancing strategy - I'll share my thoughts about why, soon. Rather, it conserves our resources to use this opportunity to keep them home. Serving the same goal I guess.

Closing airways

The last few days, have been a blur. David took Peter to the emergency room at our local hospital, when he had problems breathing and was vomiting. By the time they got there, he was very limp and barely conscious. They saw him immediately, and a team of medical staff quickly ensued.

Fell asleep (with his sister) at midday ~

Mario and Luigi came to hospital, along with his favourite blankey

David and Sarah took the day-shift at the hospital, and I took the night-shift. He responded quickly to oxygen, but struggled to keep food down. I'm grateful we live in a country that will treat our children, regardless of whether they have health insurance or not. Because we didn't have to worry, when an overnight stay was advised.

He's back home now, and all is returning to normal. Except we are now treating him, for asthma. It only occurs when he has a respiratory infection - which is likely what he caught from school. So his medication is socked away, and ready to use, when required.

I have some gardening posts I want to get around to soon. For now though, we're just taking time to recuperate.

A dose of medicine

 Not quite the oranges and lemons ~

of St Clement's

Lemons and limes from our trees, instead. They gave us a crop before they started to curl up their leaves in the drought. Now there is fruit on the ground everywhere. There's only so much we can eat, and preserve, before the tree could hold no more fruit.

 Rindless

Our citrus is pretty hardy, so I'm hopeful they'll recover until the next drop of rain. But I've got to be thankful for what I received, and actually do something with it. There was a part of me that said, "you're too busy", to make marmalade, and "haven't you got enough to do already?"

Absolutely, the temptation was there - as I was constantly nursing family members back to health, at the time. But it niggled at me constantly, the thought of my bare trees, when they did eventually drop all their fruit.

Kumquat Jam

I'm glad to say, I ignored the temptation to ignore the fruit. Actually, it was the trees which inspired me, to fight back my own mortality. If they could hold onto their fruit despite the lack of rain, surely I could muster the strength to do something with them?

So I made marmalade. Albeit, not perfectly. I still need more practice with reaching the gel point. My Lemon, Lime and Ginger marmalade, was too runny, and my Kumquat jam was too thick! But I'm really glad for the practice, and it still has a lovely flavour.

Kent (or JAP - Just A Pumpkin) pumpkin!

Now I have a pumpkin I'm thinking of turning into chutney, next. Recipe found here. I'm nursing myself through my own sickness (thanks family for sharing with me, lol) but part of the healing for me it seems, has been finding ways to overcome, regardless.

My kitchen, and preserving foods I love to eat, is part of my medicine cabinet. Not just the food itself, but the moving of my parts to make it happen. So pumpkin chutney, here I come!

Is there any delicious foods, coming out of your kitchen, lately?

Smoothies & Sourdough

Poor neglected blog. I had a few posts in the pipeline, but they didn't quite make it to publish. Life happens, and then the muse is lost. Which isn't helped, by catching two colds, in the flu season.

My immune system needed a boost, so I drank more nutrients through smoothies. It's a lot easier on the tummy, when food tends to taste, "blah". I'm on the mend though, and back in the kitchen, brewing all manner of strange concoctions - besides smoothies!

Like waking up my sourdough starter, "Griffin", in preparation for the Toowoomba Simply Living Group, meeting on 21 October. Where I will be conducting another sourdough workshop.

In the background, there's some sweet chilli jam I made too - which I also hope to feature in the workshop. Recipe to follow, because it's an amazing condiment and great way to preserve chillies.

So here's hoping for good health and a return to normal operations.

Quick update

Just letting everyone know I'm still around. I damaged my arm muscle recently, and until a day ago, it was excruciating to type. Anything I managed was one handed.

Rather than dwell on sorry appendages, I thought to share a photo of more dexterous times, at Lake Apex in Gatton. I could blissfully use both arms, back in early June.

In the meantime, I'll be out of commission for another week. Move those shoulders and elbows for me people, as a nod to your fabulous, flexible limbs! I will join in the partying soon.

A new smoothie

So I was weeding the vegetable patch yesterday, in the cool of the afternoon, and I pulled up some beetroot, which I thought had succumb to the heat of summer. They had wilted, tiny leaves. But to my surprise they had small bulbs, and I thought of what I could make with such a meagre offering from the garden.

A recent post from a friend, had me contemplating a beetroot smoothie the following morning. So that's what I did. I cleaned, boiled and then removed the skin of the beetroot.

Ready to go

Now I don't have a fancy piece of equipment to make smoothies with, so in the past, they've been kind of chunky, with my regular blender. My Bamix stick-blender, on the other hand, probably had more chop. So I decided to give it an extra helping hand, by cooking the beetroot first and making it easier to pulverise.

 Frozen, cooked and raw ingredients

I sliced the cooled beetroot, got some frozen strawberries from the freezer, and readied a small portion of cashews for protein and healthy fats. From experience, I knew I had to help the cashews break down easier too. So in came the handy grinder, which attaches to my stick blender.

First grind

This made a rough meal, to which I added a teaspoon of flax seeds. After a bit more whizzing, it broke it down into a smoother meal. Flax seeds are a good source of manganese, vitamin B1 and Omega 3 fatty acids.

 Finished meal

Then it was time to load up my tall jug with everything, and see what my stick blender could do. I changed attachments of course, and ditched the grinder. As it whizzed around in the jug, I added some water and apple juice, to make it less thick and a little bit sweeter too. But not too sweet. I found it did need the apple juice to connect all the flavours.

 A beautiful red smoothie for breakfast

The texture was the best I've managed with my limited equipment before. Not chunky, just not liquid smooth. My taste tester, was delightfully enthusiastic as well.

What is this delightful concoction?

Not that you can tell by the picture, because it looks more like an impersonation of Heath Ledger's, Joker, from "The Dark Knight" movie, don't you think? Peter really liked it and so did I. It gave me quite a buzz for the morning. I also used the leftover beetroot juice, for mixing into our chicken feed. What was left of the beetroot leaves, also went to the chickens.

So I reckon I got my value's worth, from two surprise morsels in the weed patch vegetable garden.

My confession

Remember when I said, I was a perfectionist with all the details surrounding Christmas? I knew it didn't make me feel good at the time, but I've always accepted that's just how I normally function. So I came up with a list of how to organise Christmas better, for next year.

I like my list and I'm going to try sticking with it, but I also came across something today, which made me question my perfectionist tendencies. Perhaps there is a way to function beyond perfectionism?

12 steps to get beyond perfectionism from Harish Kumar 

I found myself, nodding my head, many times through the slide show. I wanted to share it on my blog, as a reminder to me, but I also thought it might help the inner perfectionists out there, who read my blog too.

I suspect I might be three-quarters perfectionist, so not quite the full barrel of monkeys. How many barrel of monkeys, perfectionist, are you?


Disclaimer: I may not actually be a perfectionist, or neither, you. As standards can be relative among individuals. End disclaimer, and pass a banana over, will you?

A new project

Click images to enlarge

So what can you do when there's not much money, but land is at your disposal? Well, you can make dirt, or you can just as easily, move it. I can't think of anything more enjoyable. And that's exactly what David embarked on doing today, with his trusty hand tools, a bit of sweat and even the shirt from his back!

We like to keep our work simple.

The beginning

We're renovating a patch of land, which we originally dumped tree trunks on and attempted to grow some volunteer plants from our compost. It made some lovely soil, grew some grass and even sheltered insects from the sunlight, but nothing which originally sprung from the compost, actually lived very long.

 The plan

That experiment was a dud, but we realised the area would make a great pond - something we could direct water from the main gully to. But first we had to pull up those decaying logs. By we, I mean, David.

Termite candy

I was able to steal a few moments from Peter napping inside, to take some pictures of David's handiwork. There were logs in various stages of decay, as well as plenty of broken down sticks. There were even some amazing fungi growing on some of the logs. So many things happening in this area we disturbed just a few years ago.

Natural bling!

As David moved the logs out of the way, there was some fairly good topsoil to put aside for later.

I like how we mostly use hand tools in our land work though. It takes a lot of time, versus the mechanical methods available, but its cheap and if you look after your tools, they never break down.

A great way to spend the day

The other benefit of using hand tools, is that it helps keep your own organic matter, maintained. We once used hand tools because we didn't have the money for mechanical ones, but now its something we're happy to adopt - not as an inferior substitute, but as a means to connect with the soil, and our own bodies.

In turning the soil, we turn our muscles and both are the better for it. I get my workout, when I dig the swales.

Before

So this is what the area looked like, once the pile of logs was removed. David got busy with the shovel and carted that topsoil away. Then it started to look a lot more civilized.

After

Because we're digging this area down, to make a pond, these small trees will have to go. In fact, quite a few trees, outside this picture has to go. But its all for the purpose of making something better. We'll plant more trees of course, and building a place to hold water, will increase the network of living organisms.

The tree leaning in the foreground, was the first one to meet David's mattock.

Digging up the tree

It was the second tree, I have since been informed, was responsible for breaking the mattock! Its not called Australian hardwood, for nothing. What was I saying about hand tools never breaking down?

That mattock has seen some mileage though. We bought it, when our first mattock split its wooden handle. After we got it repaired, we had two invaluable devices for moving dirt with. They helped build the many retaining walls around the property. It's done some serious dirty work!

But now it seems we're back down to one. I know any mattock we buy to replace it though, will be money well spent! David's back out there with some shovels an axe, and determination to take out one more tree, before the day's through.

As an interesting side-note, when I looked for labels to put on this post, I found Health, Land and Water management. Seeing those three things together, I realised, that's what its all about - our health and that of the land and water. We come outside, nearly every day, for those very things.

Lovely limes

There are so many uses for limes. I love them! Especially when they're overripe and turning yellow. More juice, so more deliciousness for me.

Just add water

I stumbled across a wonderful new use for limes though, which I will surely be using over the summer months. A little squeeze in a glass of water, is so refreshing to drink. I was worried about this summer, as its normally when I drink a lot of diet softdrink!

I know, softdrink isn't good, but water doesn't seem to quench my thirst in summer. Just outside my backdoor however, was the answer.

Lovely, lovely limes!

By the way, I've tried this with lemons before, and it was not as refreshing. So if you've never tried it with a lime, give it a go!

PERMACULTURE & PEAK OIL: Beyond 'Sustainability'

Here is the link to an interview with David Holmgrem I mentioned earlier. It sets the scene for my analysis of people with mobility issues, looking for solutions utilising permaculture, in an energy decreasing future. The interview goes for 25 minutes.

While the interview itself doesn't specifically deal with people with mobility issues, it does discuss the design process of recognising the means to proceed forwards. There is an emphasis on close networks which effectively cut out the "middle man" in today's economic model. In nature, conserving energy is efficient, so when something isn't necessary, nature will simply evolve without it.

Ironically, limitation is something people with mobility or developmental issues, have to negotiate on a daily basis. Their struggle is in part due to the fact, in today's society we run at a pace which is unsustainable in nature. It would never set individuals within a species to run so uniquely by themselves, let alone at such a frantic pace. Tapping into fossil energy, makes that possible for our species today.

But as the future generations have to start negotiating without that concentrated form of energy, it is perhaps best to start with those in our society who are adept at living within their limitations. They can teach us a lot. Not too surprisingly however, the "Middle Man" in our economic model has captured the market on those with mobility issues too. It has found ways to charge money to take care of them. In a fossil energy depleted future however, no one will be able to afford what it costs and our society will have a lot of people stuck in a helpless situation.

Thankfully, there are examples of individuals within a species, encountering mobility issues in nature too. They aren't discarded, they are merely amalgamated into the species and even inter-species relationships of survival. Pods of dolphins and herds of buffalo, as a whole, band together around the young, the pregnant and those who are the weakest. The strongest hold the outside, while the weak are pushed into the centre - and this is how the group survives as a whole. Alone, they can be picked off but banded together, it takes a lot more energy to take them down.

This is why I find it surprising (although understandable, as we're still in the early stages) why the permaculture design process, has developed a system which doesn't include specific weakness of our own species, at its fundamental core. It recognises care of people, care of the earth and fair share, at the core of the other twelve permaculture principles, yet I struggle to find any working models today, which incorporate those with disabilities into that new permanent culture.

Perhaps this is part of natures evolutionary process within our species, as we transcend into an energy depleted future though? It makes sense to send the strong and physically capable in to break new ground first. They can then hold the outside, as we send our more physically challenged into the centre. But how then, will those relationships look? We don't want a repeat of history, where women, children and the elderly are treated as second class citizens, while the strongest are glorified and given the most rights.

Raising this subject today, is mostly about engaging the conversation - getting it out there into our thoughts. Because we've been fed by the economic middle men for so long, we've forgotten our responsibility to those who need the centre of our group the most. As a whole, in our new energy depleted future, we will need each other. This includes the most weakest. Because if we cannot take care of them, the strongest will be left to fight it out amongst each other. That is rarely an efficient use of energy and bodes poorly for survival of a species as a whole.

So contemplate if you haven't already been forced to, what your future would suddenly look like if a weak member (or a few) suddenly entered your life. What would you have to change, being more able-bodied, or perhaps used to a certain luxury of time to enjoy your leisure activities? Things would have to change, otherwise you risk endangering your own survival. This is what an energy depleted future will look like. We are going to have to change how we relate to others, in order to survive as a whole.

I notice in many of the permaculture models we have working well today, it concentrates on animals helping us to maintain a healthy environment, and potentially reducing our workload. Of course the emphasis is on "healthy" animals. This is great if you're consuming them, because they should be healthy to get the maximum benefit. But I'm concerned that we're placing too much emphasis on being capable 100% in our human counterparts too.

As we step down from fossil hungry, to a fossil reduced society, we're initially going to have an imbalance of slightly more incapable people. I don't mean those able-bodied people who never learned how to grow their own food, but rather, those billions of people who make up the statics of illnesses which are dominating our society today. We will need to find a respectable place for them.

If we don't start the conversation on that front, we'll be caught in a future where the economic middle man, suddenly drops the sick and incapable. What if they were one of your loved ones, or that of someone you knew? If you have abilities, shouldn't they be put to more use than simply putting food on your own table today?

I know every time I'm out in the garden, digging a swale or planting a tree, these activities count more than just for me. They will touch some other living creature in due course - be that flora, fauna or a generation of people I will never meet. And yet I don't talk about that. I talk about me, "doing" an activity. That's all well and good, but I'm starting to notice the absence of a bigger picture in my frame of reference. And I wonder if this is something we have to be aware of, in our future societies conversations. What we talk about the most, will be adopted as mainstream practice.

Having the notion of care of the earth, care of people and fair share is wonderful in theory, but we have to start practicing it, as if it means our very survival. Because sometime in the future, it will.