Cooking up a storm today

Free from study at last, I have spent most of today cooking.  While studying I became keenly aware of what I missed most: cooking, gardening, sewing. All creative pursuits rather than analytic.

The sun has just come out, but earlier it was raining so I opted for cooking not gardening. I like cooking on a Sunday as it makes the working week so much easier when good food is ready to eat on the run.

After eating nothing but store bought bread for months I set the bread machine to dough to make plaited herb bread. I cut the dough into four proportions, rolled each flat and spread a mix of dried thyme, chilli and olive oil, and then rolled into a long sausage.  It was very easy to twist two long rolls together. I left the plaits on top of the warm stove until more than doubled in size, then into the oven.  They smell wonderful. 

A couple of months ago I bought a cute pan to make 8 small loaves.  At first I didn't know what I'd use it for, but I bought it anyway ;)  Since then I have been making individual serves of zucchini slice: today's version includes zucchini, carrot and potato, a little grated cheese and slivered almonds on top.

I experimented with pumpkin and corn muffins too. Starting with a basic, unsweetened muffin recipe I added corn scraped straight off the cob and mashed pumpkin.  They look good don't you think?

These savoury loaves will be great for lunch with salad, or with a poached egg for breakfast.  I swapped ordinary flour for gluten-free, high protein besan (chick pea) flour to lessen my reliance on wheat and add nutrition. Add baking powder to make it self-raising and you can use it any recipe.  You'll find chickpea flour in health food stores or Indian grocery suppliers.

I haven't been eating cakes and biscuits so I miss baking them. I have baked some tiny muffins using honey, blueberries, strawberries, and buckwheat flour. These muffins are not very sweet and so tiny even eating 2 is significantly smaller than an ordinary muffin. A nice little treat! Besides I am taking these to work tomorrow to share.

One of our chickens died this week

We lost our Scarlet on Thursday. We are very sad. Taking on animals you know little about is a challenge and a risk. It involves a steep learning curve, lots of love and fun and a few heartbreaks. The heartbreaks are so wrenching: for me they involve so many feelings of failure, inadequacy and guilt. I keep on keeping on though. After indulgent wallowing for a while I usually pick up, decide its worth it and plunge in again. That's not to say I'm reckless, not when an animal is depending on me, I just have never entirely given in to the 'it's not worth it" feelings.

When I discovered Scarlet was sick my neighbour kindly offered to put her down for me as I clearly couldn't do it.  I declined though as I needed to make sure I tried everything to save her. The next morning I did take her to the vet and she was put down humanely. I am glad I went down this path because I now know it wasn't my fault she was sick and I learnt a lot which I will share here in the hope that it may help others.

But firstly a little about Scarlet. She was a lovely little white hen, although ended up a sort of dirty orangey colour because we have red soil here that stains everything. She, along with Scully and Kate came to live with us just a year ago at 20 weeks old, point of lay. She lay little white eggs - always easy to tell from the others'.  She was a very quiet, even tempered little thing, never one to make a fuss. And she loved green leaves of any sort. She would sneak into the vegie garden and eat still growing celery leaves or come running at full tilt when I hung a bunch of leaves in the coop. The other girls ate them but not ever with the passionate enjoyment of Scarlet. Aah sorry, making myself teary again. You know at the end of the day, for us, backyard chickens are pets. They give us eggs, convert scraps into fertiliser but also keep us entertained with  their clucking, their dashing around and derring do. Just the other day Kate, who is quite tall, had had enough of Benny the dog sniffing around her, lifted herself up, spread her wings and chased him right across the yard.    
Scully has an amazing set of lungs and always something to say.

So, what happened to Scarlet.

On Wednesday evening I went to lock them up for the evening and Scarlet wouldn't go into the coop with the others. She dashed all over and just refused vehemently. Not like her. As I was chasing her I noticed she had a prolapsed vent, not good. I won't go into gruesome detail, if you are concerned and want to know more check this link. Essentially the inner part of her bottom popped out. I brought her inside, cleaned her up, followed instructions to pop the prolapse back in and kept her in a box in the bathroom all night. The next morning the prolapse was visible again and her tummy was red hot. Vet time.

Sometimes prolapses can be fixed but not for Scarlet. The verdict was a systemic health issue, most probably cancer. Poor little thing, there was no saving her.

So what did I learn: birds don't show they are sick until the situation is dire.
Modern commercial breeds are often developing cancers as they are bred to produce lots of eggs and be culled at a young age.
I hadn't gone for heirloom breeds because I don't want a rooster or to breed my own chicks but apparently there are lots of older breeds that are not classified as heirloom, are hardy and long-lived, better for pets and for sooks like me who love them. So one day I will find a breeder and bring a different type of chook home to live with us.

Meanwhile I will look after Scully and Kate as best I can.

Goodbye Scarlet and thanks!

rain, rain, and more rain in Robertson today

It is pouring rain here today as we are hit by the outer edge of a cyclone which crossed further up the coast.  Please note we are not suffering, its just rain. Its lovely and welcome as the ground has been dusty dry and our neighbour's dams empty for a while.

Our hearts go out to both family and strangers who are cut off without power in Queensland and Northern New South Wales. And to those who have lost love ones and their homes. Its only 2 years since the last major flood so some of those who just got back on their feet will be losing again.

While cyclones and floods are devastating the north, fires are destroying the south. Its a big, harsh country of great and terrible beauty. It is rather fitting that this should happen this weekend as we celebrated our nation's birth which resulted in greatness but began with destruction.

So meanwhile we are home safe, with power, food, wine and nowhere we have to be. Tomorrow may be interesting as we assess our route to work and see whether we can get through or whether we need to stay home again.

I can but extend hopes of peace and safety to those worse off.

Eating from the garden

Still studying but not for much longer

I am working on my last assignment today. Its cold, damp and I'm home alone. I can hear nothing but the whirring of my hard drive and the snores of my dog Harry. There are no distractions, yet as always I feel jittery, bored and want to be doing anything other than thinking through this assignment.

I guess that is the main problem - I'm up to a part I don't entirely understand. For the background I pumped out 500 words without hesitation or pause. Now that it is becoming more challenging I am procrastinating.

My solutions: I am going to put on an oil burner to entice my senses and aid concentration. I'm going to get up and stretch a little and find some cheese and crackers to munch on. Then I'm going to work on another section that is a little clearer. I'll come back to the tricky one with more of a sense of success.

And in a little over two weeks I will be free: to sew, cook, garden and blog and share more exciting adventures than sitting labouring over an essay on Sunday afternoon.

Wish me luck.

thanks for the encouragement: another assignment done so back to my homespun life for a while

Thank you everyone for your encouragement and words of love during my academic freak out. Hopefully I'll pass - that's all I want.

Yesterday I was really struggling to concentrate but I needed to get it finished.
I decided to take a different take: I set up a little altar of concentration on my desk.
I lit a vanilla soy melt, put out my strawberry obsidian.
I made a card for myself: listing the things I could do after assignment 1 (tick), assignment 2 and the exams.
Last of all I set up our Tibetan singing bowl, played it for a while before powering through my assignment.

I submitted it today, so thank you, thank you, thank you.

Feeing frustrated and trapped - not terribly homespun right now

I have started studying two business subjects by distance education for the first time in almost a decade. Since starting this blog I have increasingly embraced a homespun life, working towards the life of my dreams.  I go through stages of doing nothing but sewing and others cooking and gardening in equal measure.  I gardened all winter so my vegie garden is a picture of abundance. I have a lovely cottage garden of flowers in the front and a steadily expandng fernery. We created a lovely lush lawn in the place of bare dirt in the back yard, a perfect picnic spot under large trees.

I have been eating home made granola and yogurt. Packing nutritious, tasty lunches every day and cooking great dinners as well.

I freely chose to do the study. I need to reach closure on a half completed qualification from what feels like a previous life. It will free me to undertake other study that fits better with who I am now and what I want for my future.

But I am not feeling free. I feel trapped. I keep telling myself that it really is only a few days of my life. That this too will pass. Good words but hard to take to heart.

It is perhaps the lack of balance in my life. Right now I feel guilty about taking time out from study to write this post. My darling niece arrived yesterday to visit until after Christmas and I feel guilty about taking time out from her. We need to finish painting the laundry and bathroom but I can't right now. My garden is looking neglected - I need to pull weeds, mulch with compost and lucerne and plant the next lot of summer crop.

But I must spend all my time out of work doing my study. My second assignment is due Monday. Once that is done I will have a month to complete the next two. So it really is only a couple of days until I can make my next batch of granola, refill the freezer, get back into the garden and enjoy the countdown to Christmas.

Why can't I accept that and be zen and embrace the opportunity in front of me?