Silkies

Today we were given two Silkie roosters by our wonderful friend Raelene. Favourite Handyman killed and plucked them, I gutted and hung them (just for a few hours given the high temperatures) and now they are in our fridge. Silkies are a very interesting bird (to me anyway). They have black skin and dark flesh. The feathers on ours were white though apparently they are found with other colours. They are small and apparently more tasty than other chooks and sought after by Chinese restaurants. They are also quiet birds (when alive) and they are currently top of my list for the kind of chooks I want.

I've spoken to two of our neighbours about me having chooks and they are both really enthusiastic. The lovely Barry even said he would like to hear them.

When we weren't doing murdering activities today, Favourite Handyman built a path between two raised beds out of newspaper, sand and recycled paving stones. It is fantastic. Fionn and I got the seed packets out and sowed some basil, swiss chard, Flanders poppies, calendula and parsley. Then I transplanted some lettuce and swiss chard seedlings into the garden while Fionn made a fountain out of the seed spraying (fine mist watering) bottle. Finally we transferred out comfrey plant from its pot to the front garden. It is definitely a statement of gardening values that I've chosen to use the spot which makes the first impression on guests to make compost materials. I'm much more into the living garden space that we enjoy every day out the back than the front part and the front garden is also very contained in terms of the comfrey not invading other garden spots.

I'm eagerly anticipating a delivery from Kings Seeds any day now.

I wonder when we will eat the one and only carrot which I managed to grow this summer? What occasion could be special enough?

Nasturtiums

A first last night: I finally tried eating nasturtiums. They tasted nice. Useful as we have heaps growing wild. Bigger story. I put them in a salad I made when the neighbours across the road (we are immediately bordered by seven houses plus have three neighbours across the road), whom I've met briefly once, invited us round for a barbecue. A sausage and a beer they said. Which reminds me just how classicly understated New Zealanders can be. It was a completely gorgeous spread. Very nice people too. It's a while since I've walked into a party and known no one at all and even me the chronic extrovert and seasoned 'it's-a-new-town-so-I'll-get-out-there-and-make-friends' person had to take a deep breath and keep walking in.

Anway despite the excellent company and excellent food, it turned out no one was a vege gardener and of course no one knew me well enough to recognise that everything in the salad (tomatoes, chives, different types and colours of lettuce, nasturtiums) was home grown. So I didn't properly get to show off. I've been gifting lots of food (home grown or home made) of late, and I don't think it is mostly altruism, it's mostly so I can show off.

pasta sauce recipe

I'm writing down roughly what I've been making so I have a record for next year. I used the pressure cooker as an ordinary pot because it is a good size and has a very heavy bottom.
3kg ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 large onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
other veg - 4 zucchini in first batch, 4 red peppers in the second
fresh herbs - oregano and thyme in this instance
1/4 C olive oil

Saute onions and veg and garlic in the olive oil. Add chopped tomatoes and stir fairly often. I have it cooking as I chop the tomatoes. I left this cooking for probably 90 minutes (stirring every few minutes, but it is more forgiving on stirring lapses than making tomato sauce), then let it cool and put it into freezer bags in lots of about 750gm (the size of large bought pasta sauce jars). I put the fresh herbs in on their stems and then pulled them out part way through. For the first batch, I also chopped some silverbeet up and put it in for the last half hour.

I opted for freezing after seeking advice on a few forums and looking around my recipe books and the internet. Seems tomatoes are borderline for preserving without something called a pressure canner. I can't be bothered with all that water bath stuff you have to do with preserving apricots so didn't want to try that either.

liberation theology article

Sometimes I think about religious issues, partly because sometimes I just do because I wonder about what helps us humans to be positive about the nature of humanity and to consider the greater good to be worthwhile vs nihilism. Years ago someone (John Gourley of Christchurch for anyone who has had the pleasure of knowing him) suggested to me that without God you were a nihilist and if you weren't a nihilist then you were for God whether you acknowledged it or not. I apologise if I have misunderstood or misquoted John, but it is an idea that I've wondered about ever since.



Anyway I got a notion to do a google search on blog + liberation theology while eating my lunch amd thought I would share this link from a group of students in the US. Some useful definitions there and some stuff that I wouldn't like to be trying to defend. I went to Rome with Favourite Handyman (then known to me as Favourite Travelling Companion as we then lived in a box not requiring any handywork) in 2001. I thought it would be special to me, given my Catholic roots, but it left me cold. It symbolises institutional corruption and one reason I don't regularly attend Mass. I certainly don't consider it unique amongst corrupt human-ordered institutions related to the worship of God. Or Allah or any other deity. All that wealth. Not the representation of St Peter that I find to be a positive force in my community.



So if you read the link, you may discern why I feel it unlikely I'll be throwing myself back into Church life during the 'reign' of our current Pope. Catholicism is part of my culture though. The music and symbolism, the stories, the call to social justice, they all gave a richness to my early years which suburban domesticity otherwise failed to do. I won't be letting Pope Benedict set all the terms of participation in a culture that does not have to be so hierarchical, conservative and right wing. I'm still a Lapsed Catholic and I still reserve the right to challenge any representative of hierarchy on whether they are acting for good or for bad.

a beautiful image

Take a look at this for evocative imagery and photos and a great stash of interesting articles. Should keep me going when housework threatens on rainy days.

more land! more land!

Not buying some - I'm supposed to be all about solvency you know.

But two great things have happened in recent days. First favourite handyman has been lopping, sawing and mulching the ugly and overgrown trees at the front of the garage. We'd never seen light on the ground (or indeed much ground) on that area once until earlier this week, and now we have the makings of another garden plot. I'm thinking potatoes or pumpkins. It borders the driveway/road so fruit might be too tempting for passers-by, and I need low maintenance type veges as I can't safely garden out there with Brighid (nearly one).

The second excellent development has been in invasive garden patch. This was also an area of total overgrown ugly-treeness when we moved in and I rather infamously tried to get lopping in there just three weeks after giving birth to Brighid and ended up contracting something weird and getting extremely ill. Still that was ages ago and (more gently) I've been working on the area since to the point where all the trees are chopped down and mint is flourishing there alongside nasturtiums, wild lillies, convulvulus, wandering jew and docks. That area has been used as a grass clippings compost in the past (pre-us) and the soil is lovely and dark and crumbly, just like the books tell you is best. Yesterday I finally got round to burying the rest of the Bokashi. As the lawn was rock hard, I abandoned my idea of digging a spot, preparing it with Bokashi and later planting our Feijoa in it. Instead I dug up part of the invasive garden. Full of roots from chopped down trees and other previously mentioned plants, but otherwise beautiful. So I'm inspired to put more work in there and get some edibles going in it. Current thoughts are rhubarb - that doesn't need full sun does it? It gets afternoon sun.

Last night I began stage three of the invasive garden patch by clipping huge flowering docks into an old potting mix bag. Don't know whether today will be about gardening or tomato sauce making.

I have a tomato bug and I need help...

Probably have them on my vines as well, but what I mean here is that, spurred on by yesterday's success, I'm keen on making more preserved tomato products. Some things I can freeze, and I'll be doing a few more batches of tomato sauce (I have a large pan but it will only take six kilos of tomatoes at a time). But I have the jars from the pasta sauce that I buy on special sometimes at the supermarket and I'm trying to work out how/whether I can make my own pasta sauce and preserve in the same jars. Our freezer space is limited and so preserving in jars is best if possible.

Any and all suggestions (recipes, tips and stories of your own success with this!) gratefully received.