Back To Basics Challenge ~ Week 19

This has become a two week check in this time. I wasn't able to finish it the other day.

Sowing seed or Planting

I think we only planted a modern flower an heuchura.

Planning for The Future - meal planning, the next seasons garden plan, working out storage plans or more long term goals and projects like plans for digging root cellars

I have been looking at a preserving pan on the Ezibuy site. It looks very nice. I wonder if the money I saved when we made our own jam on a sweltering February 8 can be an excuse for buying it? More on the pans etc. here.

We made a new pumpkin & bean recipe. It has middle eastern spice in it. It turned out great, we put the four main ingredients that are listed on the jar of the spice as we don't have it (McCormicks website). Have made a note to buy some, although it worked quite well. There are so few recipes to work with when you are doing a pantry challenge that sometimes you have to think outside the square.

We used 1/4 teaspooons of cumin, tumeric, paprika, coriander and small amounts of nutmeg and cinnamon.

I am seriously thinking of buying these online seeds. One year I went to a bit of trouble finding punnets and packets of sweet peas to plant in March. They made a lovely show. Some were shorter growing ones. Some did come back the next year. You can find lots of Yates seeds at that hardware shop online.

Working for the Future - storing food, managing stores, preserving, building that home made cob or solar oven, adding house insulation, saving for manual grain mills etc

We tried a new recipe that is really great on cutting down meat. It was really nice. Like frajitas with more basic ingredients. I posted the recipe.



Today, my husband and two younger girls took the dog for a walk in the morning. The middle daughter asked if she could pop into the op-shop. She found a desk for AU$15 and after the walk we organised a list of things to buy and set aside some money for the desk. They went to pick it up. Then they washed it on the lawn. It dried fairly quickly and there was a space to put it in her room. Now we have a stable surface, that is not a machine table for her computer and it is finished.

Building Community - volunteering, donations, joining an existing community group, forming your own community group, taking a cake to a friend having a hard time, calling someone you just let drift out of your life, etc

I suppose just talking about the fires, and keeping people's spirits up. Trying to keep up with it as one of the places was a community I lived in. I suppose talking about it when necessary and not talking about it when people are struggling with it.

I have had some kids around after school a couple of times.

Learn a new Skill

My daughter built on her fishing skills. Here I talked about her eel fishing experience. She loves fishing that much that she wants us to move to the Saphire Coast so her Dad can take her fishing all the time. She was said officially to be the fishing star of the school camp with two flatheads and her photo taken.

It has been interesting reading blogs about the subject of air-conditioning relating to the hot week we had ending last weekend here, the day after the Black Saturday fires. I have been to the chemist during the week to discuss my heat rash. Here is one of the posts I read, and the other, I have lost, but it discusses boredom. I also feel you lose a month of being able to do things like decluttering when it is hot.

I may be updating my rabbit hunting skills. My daughter asked to go see a car for sale. We drove into the road alongside it, rather than stay on the main road or turn around and miss it, and saw two rabbits. A great place to take our hunting dog for a walk. There has been a lot of talk about keeping ferrets at our house lately, but I am not keen to go back to keeping them just yet. As what usually happens with rabbits, there were none the next day. They seem affected by the conditions.

We have our new crank radio for listening to news about fires if the power goes out. It works very well, you can buy them from Dick Smith.

I reacquainted myself with baking old-fashioned puddings, this one modernly easy. Sweet Impossible Pie with cream.

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