Slow Food

One of the things I learned in Italy (did I tell you we went to Italy last year?) was how to prepare and enjoy simple food. We stayed for  a week with an exWWOOFer in Laverno, just south of Pisa. This is in Tuscany, where the climate is so very similar to ours, here in the Hunter. They grow olives, grapes, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber and everything else that grows well here. But, unlike us they grow food everywhere. Looking out of a train window allowed us to see the lengths people will go to to grow themselves food. Small allotments, including a shed to stay in over the weekend, are prolific in Tuscany. They are all along the tracks, in small odd shaped areas between the tracks and a road and invariably have olives, kiwi fruit and grapes growing. Tuscany is renowned for it's olive oil. Some of the allotments are tiny, some are around an acre. Italians love their food. But not the highly processed, fast food that is so prevalent here in Australia. No, Italians love fresh seasonal,local produce.The only fast food outlets I saw were at railway stations and airports! I only saw one large shopping centre. There are mini markets in the cities but mainly people shop at markets that are set up within the city that change daily depending on vendor availability. All sorts of produce can be found at these markets along with clothing, furnishings, and bric a brac. There is bread, cheeses, fresh seafood, and fruit and vegies. Here's a little three wheeler van selling produce in Turin.

and a market in Venice...

Here's another market in Venice, floating this time..

I loved that I could walk to the markets everyday and buy anything I needed from an open air market. And I loved that I could go to a cafe and have an espresso and freshly baked pastry or a glass of wine or beer. I loved that I could go to the drinks cabinet in a cafe and take out a beer from alongside the fizzy drinks. I loved that we would be given some nibblies to have with our beer or wine, free of charge.

 I loved that we could sit and play cards at the cafe while we drank our beer. (notice the cards don't have any numbers...very tricky!)

And when we got back to Elizabetta's (wwoofer) she knew that we would have been indulging with the local food and wine and she would say that we were going on a diet that night and would serve us up lightly steamed fresh vegies with a liberal amount of olive oil.

Elizabetta showed us how much food meant to the Italians. It was all about choosing fresh local food, cooking it simply, with friends, a glass of beer close at hand, and savouring it, seated around a simply, but beautifully set table. Eating slowly with a glass of wine, talking and laughing. One night, after a day in Florence, with came home and found a friend of Elizabetta's was in her kitchen preparing some food for us. He had a fresh salad, to be eaten first. Followed by some lightly steamed vegies. As our contribution Elizabetta showed us how to make a simple pasta dish with broccoli, which had just come into season over there (Autumn). Start cooking the pasta and in the last 5 mins drop in broccoli. While that's cooking fry up garlic and onion in a lot of olive oil. Combine with cooked pasta and broccoli. Add more olive oil and serve. One of the most delicious meals ever. Simple and fast.  Elizabetta said to use whatever seasonal produce is available for this dish so that's what I did for dinner last night. Overwhelmed with the amount of zucchini, beans and tomatoe we have at the moment I wanted to use up a lot of them. With some of the garlic and onion we have hanging on the verandah drying ....

and some of the excesses from the garden....

I made up a very simple pasta dish reminiscent of the broccoli pasta from Italy. I fried the onion and garlic, then added zucchini, and beans and lastly tomatoes. Serve with pasta with lots of olive oil and parmesan cheese. Delicious!!

There is lots we can learn from the Italians.

Around The Farm

2014 has been declared International Year of Family Farming and so to celebrate I would like to share snippets of our family farm. So once a week for the rest of the year you can join us here for a slow tour of the farm.

The 2014 International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) aims to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farming by focusing world attention on its significant role in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas.

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Life has been very productive down on the farm (I try not to talk too much about how busy we are. I know that everyone is busy so they don't need to here it from me so I'll just use the term productive). For us, and many other farmers I know, have had to diversify as growing vegetables just doesn't pay the bills. Well not yet anyway! So we have channeled our skills into helping us make a living while still staying on the farm. We both have a background in education. Mark has experience in adult ed. and I have been involved in early childhood and special ed. These interests of ours have evolved into workshops on living sustainably , permaculture and Biodynamics. And my passion has always been for the littlies.

This past week has seen a combination of all of these. We have had a workshop on Preserving the Harvest where we made passata, fig jam, sauerkraut, and bottled pears., and semi dried tomatoes. That was Saturday , the official start to our year.

Sunday I helped my friend with her wedding quilt...

My friend's aunt joined us for the day, and we managed to get all pieces sewn together.Very soon I will have photos of a finished quilt.

Tuesday was the very first of our Mum's and Bubs tours. I was beginning to think that there wasn't going to be any takers for the tour, but within just a few days it had filled to overflowing. We had 16 mums and grandmums with 38 children between them. What a beautiful morning we had (even though it was very very hot). We fed all the animals, collected eggs and played and ran about.The adults enjoyed catching up with friends and meeting new ones. Here they meet one of the hens...

Two families that visited were homeschoolers and they made a day of it. After having a picnic lunch they spent some time drawing , inspired by the animals they met that day. Nutmeg and Cinnamon were very popular.

And later on during the week Sir Bowie Charles had a pedicure...

His little hooves are trimmed every six weeks or so by a lovey friend who runs a business called Barefoot Trimming. She is one of a number of people who have dispensed with shoeing horses and advocates horses going barefoot. All of her horses are now barefoot. She has done a wonderful job on Bowie, whose feet were in a bad way.  He is a favourite on the farm tours and parties!

Around The Farm

2014 has been declared International Year of Family Farming and so to celebrate I would like to share snippets of our family farm. So once a week for the rest of the year you can join us here for a slow tour of the farm.

The 2014 International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) aims to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farming by focusing world attention on its significant role in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas. 

 

* * * * * * *

We are a little out of routine this week, due in part to the public holiday on Monday. That put our food boxes back one day, and what with some lovely visitors popping in at various times, I'm behind with my blog posts. And I have promised to share our well kept secret with you all. It's some thing that we've known about for some months now, but we were asked to keep it to ourselves until it became official. We were officially told just before Christmas, but I have been a little nervous about telling anyone, in case it put a jinx on it. It's all been a little unbelievable and dreamlike and if I shared it, it all might just go up in a puff. But it's time.

 

As you may or may not know, Mark and I run a small farm on the outskirts of a rural city. It's a family farm in the sense that Mark and I work all aspects of the farm on our own, with very occasional input from others, via internships, volunteers and , in the past WWOOFers. We specialize in sustainable agriculture through Permaculture and Bio Dynamic practices, using open pollinated seeds, collected here on the farm or purchased through specialist seed saving companies. We promote local and seasonal produce through our Community Supported Agriculture and open up the farm to the community as a model of peri urban agriculture.

Our farm is diverse. We carry a variety of livestock including ducks, geese, chickens, pigs, guinea pigs, a pony and house cow. We grow vegetable crops, nut trees, fruit trees, olives and grapes. Together all these aspects make up the farm organism. The interplay between each group is what makes our farm so productive, and allows for very little input from off farm sources. We build our soil using good organic practices with the added influence of BD preparations. Waste from the market garden is fed to livestock and their manures are fed back to the garden and pasture via the compost heap.The ducks and chickens form part of our pest management and we are rewarded with eggs. The chickens and pigs do what they like to do best and cultivate our soil. The guinea pigs mow between our garden beds and we use their manure in the compost. Weeds are used to make liquid fertilisers which are added to fish emulsion made from a local carp eradication programme.

Keeping all these inter related processes running smoothly requires a full time commitment by us, the farmers. Working so closely with the farm organism allows for a very strong relationship. It allows us to engage daily in a most positive way to the building up of this complex whole.

And so, having been aquainted with the workings of our farm over the past few years, through farm tours and various social gatherings, the local Slow Food's convivium has chosen us, as representative of the Family Farm ideal, to represent them at Terra Madre in Turin Italy this October.

Terra Madre sneek peek

 

We are lucky to have our flights and accommodation paid for the 5 days of the convergence. We are yet to decide on what extra travel and sightseeing we can make time for while we are there. If you have any suggestions they would be gratefully accepted.

I think I'm still slightly in shock. Such an unbelievable opportunity for which we are truly grateful.

 

Balance In a Slow Living Kinda Way

Somebody said that there New Years focus will be on achieving a more balanced lifestyle. One where work and play will have a more equal share. Now I don't know how equal mine will be but surely making room for a bit more play wouldn't go astray. And so prompted by a Christmas gift from my daughter Meg and her partner, I have ventured out into a new playing field!!!

 Yes, that's right, a ukelele!

 Here's Evan with mine on Christmas day. He thought it was his 'tar. Just the right size for a little boy.

Evan with his Poppy and Poppy's blue ukelele

Two of The Do Riders, with some extra ukelele players, playing at Mark's 60th just before Christmas. 

Ever since we found out that Mark, from our favourite local band, The Do Riders, was giving ukelele lessons we thought we would give it a go. But you know how these things go, all the good intentions, and nothing gets done. Well the gift has inspired us and Monday night was our first jam sessions, which is what it is, really. In hindsight we should have had a lesson or two first but I had fun none the less. Next time there will be a lesson beforehand.

We met in the beer garden of a local pub and Mark ( from the band) led us in some songs. There was some great singing, along with the strumming. A talented bunch!

In the past families made their own entertainment with sing alongs around the piano. I know that's how my dad's family spent their evenings.I didn't have that experience as a child although I do remember my dad whistling and singing as he went about his day. He was also good at reciting a little poetry. Mark certainly has memories of bush poetry recitals around campfires and such when he was a youngster. But when I was a child TV replaced this for our evenings entertainment. And now we have someone else making our music for us, at the press of a button any time we like. Fast music, just like fast food. It's time to bring back the slow music. Certainly in my case it's very slow, chord changing is just one finger at a time!

Market Gardening the Permaculture Way

A typical medium sized box.

Mark and I started growing food for others just over ten years ago, with the goal to provide fresh, biodynamic produce. We wanted this food to reflect the seasons and be typical of the everyday variety of food that people would use during their week. We also wanted to keep our market local. It was at this time (not long after we moved from the little mud brick house) that we stumbled upon the concept of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) through a book called Farms of Tomorrow Revisited by Trauger Groh and Steven McFadden. This form of production links our farm directly to the people who will consume our food and it fits in well with these permaculture principles:

• Apply self regulation and accept feedback: This system allows for immediate feedback --  If we are growing things that our customers don't want we can discontinue production. On the other hand, if there's something they do want, we can try and cater to their needs. If our customers are struggling with menu options with regard to what's in their box, we offer menu guides and recipes. Within this principle also lies our decision to only provide food for those living in the local area. This self-regulation arises from the awareness of our personal responsibility for the appropriate use of a finite resource as well as building connections in our local community.

• Produce no waste: We only produce enough of the perishable types of vegies to satisfy our customers' needs, so there is very little waste. With produce that can be preserved, we offer preserving workshops at a discount to our customers so that they can take advantage of the gluts of the seasons. We reuse all packaging for things like salad mixes, snow peas, berries etc. in the form of donated recycled plastic containers.

• Integrate rather than segregate: The CSA model is seen as a co-operative relationship between the farmer and subscribers. Our subscribers support us as farmers to produce their food. We in turn listen to their needs and deliver to them the produce they desire. They are in effect part of the farm organism and are encouraged to visit and participate.

• Use and value diversity: It goes without saying that we are a polyculture for all the obvious reasons, but as a CSA farm we love the opportunity to provide a diverse range of vegetables for our customers.

• Creatively use and respond to change: By providing seasonal produce, with recipe ideas we are helping our customers to respond to change creatively. It has been difficult for some of our subscribers to adapt to a menu plan based around seasonal produce rather than the year-round availability of all produce in the supermarkets.

• Use small and slow solutions: Local food distribution of ''perishable food reduces food miles and speed. (Perishable food brought from great distances demands fast transport).'' David Holmgren, Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability.

And of course our mandala market gardens, inspired by Linda Woodrow's book Permaculture Home Garden, are based on permaculture principles.

Permaculture is not all about growing food. It's about embracing the ethics and principles of Permaculture in all aspects of your life. If this excites you as much as it does us, why not come along to our next Permaculture Design Course due to start in October, for two weeks of thought provoking, life changing fun.

Another Day Off

Our calendar is clear for today. There isn't any playgroup, or interns. There isn't a workshop to run or a birthday party. We don't have a farm tour or a guest lecture. There's just Mark and me and the farm to run. But there's always animals to feed, that just happens everyday. 

Did I tell you our guinea pigs had babies?

A lovely addition to the child friendly activities on the farm

We are full time workers here on the farm. To get away from our work we literally have to leave home. And like any other full time workers, the ordinary day-to-day living stuff has to be done on our days off whenever they pop up. So today is scheduled as one of those days. A day to clean a very much neglected house, make some yoghurt, juice the last of the oranges and do a little baking before the busyness starts up once again.




Gramma pies - a little overdone (must learn to focus on one thing at a time) but still delicious

Our needs and wants are very basic which I think allows us to live the lifestyle we do. The work we do is not so that we can buy more stuff or more convenience, it is just our way of life extended out into the community. Last week, we were guest speakers at a permaculture meeting. Our topic was The complexities of simple living. I was prompted to recall how I started on this path and I can't remember exactly, but I do know that when my children were small I was conscious of the influence of convenience, consumerism, marketing and brand names that threatened to engulf us and I was very cautious of it even as family and friends were embracing it. Even then, I felt isolated because of my thinking but could see the adverse effect it was having on those around me as they fell deeper and deeper into its clutches.

I eventually found Steiner Education and was able to surround myself with more like minded people. I continued my self-motivated education on all things alternate, coming into contact with more and more people who were living a much simpler life. It really hit home for me when asked to house sit for some friends. We stayed in their mudbrick cabin (really a double garage) for two months. These friends have been a real motivator for our lifestyle changes. We often call them our mentors.
Their little house contained everything they needed. There were no internal walls, so the bath and washing machine sat alongside the kitchen. The dining table was wedged in between the kitchen and lounge and as you walked in the door there was a piano. Their bedroom was a little loft reached by a set of stairs which divided the little house in two. For heating there was a little pot belly stove. And all around the ceiling there was strung washing line. We marvelled on that for a while wondering why they would do that when they had a perfectly good clothes line out the back. But then it rained and it dawned on us that, because they were on tank water, the best time to do the washing is when you know that the tank is going to be refilled. To dry the clothes while it rains means you need a lot of indoor drying space!

The house was very cosy. We loved living there for the two months and were quite sad to leave. They had used every inch of space well, but everything was second hand. It was here that we decided to see if we could go a year without buying anything new and we did. It was here that we went TV free, (it has slowly crept back in, but certainly isn't a large part of our lives). It was here we learnt about preserving, reusing things, reducing waste and enjoying a much simpler way of life. It was this couple who inspired us to make sourdough bread, to bake and to make yoghurt. They inspired us to hand-grind our coffee and to roll our oats. Veronika inspired me to use a spinning wheel. They continue to inspire us to this day as Veronika comes to the farm once a week to volunteer in our garden. She does this, she says, for inspiration! We tell her all the time that she and her husband are our mentors and she scoffs at that, but it's true.

We look back at that time very fondly, and we strive for that level of contentment every day. We weren't as busy then. Mark and I both had full-time jobs away from home and were able to relax into our life there. Now our full-time jobs are on the farm and we are busier than ever, but we choose to reject convenience and rejoice in the complexities of our simple life.

After the talk at the Permaculture meeting, one woman approached me with her story. She was so moved by her experience that she was lost for words. She and her partner had started by growing their own food, something neither of them had done before. She said that it came close to being a spiritual experience for her.

Are you on a path of simple living? Have you got someone that inspires you?

Autumn Celebrations.

 

 

No fear be near when vapours rise,

Mist Dragon preys to weaken.

Let iron force through blood stream course,

Courageous autumn meeting!

What a beautiful Autumnal evening we had for our festival. Our friends were greeted with a beutiful display of our summer harvest, with a basket of goodies for each of the band members.

 Remember back here I talked about my musings over our topsy turvy festivals. We got together with some dear friends and organised an evening that suited us all in our search for more meaning to our festivals.

Here we are readying ourselves for Eurythmy

We started with Eurythmy which is a creative artistic interpretation, created by Rudolf Steiner, relating to the sounds and rhythms of speech. For our celebration we enjoyed participating in an interpretation of the above verse.

As the nature forces draw back into the earth in autumn, the picture of light and dark, Michael and the Dragon presents itself. During autumn our darker side, (intolerance, irritability, crankiness etc.) our dragons so to speak, can surface. We can enlist the help of Michael, to draw on our courage, to subdue these dragons.

After our performance I took those who were interested along with me on my evening rounds of the farm. We fed animals and collected eggs, locking away any of the livestock who may be bothered by foxes. The children were particularly eager to participate in this activity.

We gathered once again as the sun was setting to enjoy the evening meal with contributions of food lovingly prepared and brought along by all. We even had Dragon bread.Thanks Diana.

Luckily the head was still left next morning so that I could get a photo!

As the night got darker we lit the fires and lanterns and danced to the music of Ozamigos. Evan loved the music and danced and danced and danced.  Notice the beautiful jumper he is wearing, lovingly knitted by his Aunty Meghann for his 1st birthday.

 

 

Here's one of Evan dancing with his Pop. They actually had to stop so I could get the photo but you get the picture! Evan can't take his eyes of the band and verbally complained whenever they dared to take a break. He obviously enjoyed his meal  judging by the amount that is still around his mouth. It was dark after all.

 

It was a great night and for me, a lovely way to bring myself into the Autumn.

 

 

 



Permaculture Ethics and Principles

Permaculture Ethics and Principles are important to us ,it's what our lifestyle is all about. They are put very nicely in this little video, taken from here   Sit back and enjoy.