Onion weed

I gathered an armful of onion weed this morning and cleaned and prepared it (like spring onions, chop off roots and about half of the green part, rest to be used) and put it in the roasting tray with some huge winter carrots from my Dad's garden and some celery from my garden. I drizzled them with oil and let it cook at 150 celsius for about 60 minutes. The roasting tray was quite full and the veges wet from being cleaned so they half steamed and half roasted. Then I whizzed the mix up in the food processor and wondered what I might do with it next.

Next I played round with broccoli pesto after seeing a recipe online which I didn't actually follow because I have banned myself from the computer for all but 20 minutes in the evening. But mine was similar except I used parsley for the non-broccoli green.

Tonight I cooked pasta and then sauteed some anchovies in a pan and added the onion weed/celery/carrots mixture and a bit of tomato sauce. I mixed that with the cooked pasta and then topped each plate with the broccoli pesto. It tasted nice. Not likely to win any awards and certainly not restaurant fare on aesthetics, but "Thank you Mummy, I like this" from the boy who was very doubtful throughout the cooking part did very nicely for applause.

We got our first egg on Saturday and then two yesterday and two today. The run is too wet for them though - increased vulnerability to disease. So we will stake the run into the ground and add plastic to keep it dry. We are now talking about building the glasshouse this summer and making that their winter home while I plant winter veges into the current run spot. Then swap over in summer so the glasshouse can grow tomatoes.

I gave my Dad two sub arctic oregon tomato seedlings which I had grown on Saturday. Mum and Dad were over to watch Fionn's final in the rugby league. Hoki dared to beat us once this season and they paid for that on Saturday. Those little 5 and 6 year old boys and girls in Fionn's team thrashed Hoki soundly. I never thought I'd be a sporting girl, but Saturday was full on excitement. Well well well.

Back to gardening. I also gave Dad some of my pumpkin and zucchini seeds. The climate in his garden is quite different to here and it will be interesting to compare results. My neighbour was talking about the article on heirloom tomato varieties and health benefits in the weekend but didn't know where she could buy seeds or plants. I lent her my Kings Seeds catalogue. Spreading the word on genuine food diversity one friend at a time.

Yesterday was the local Lions fertiliser fundraiser. I joined the queue for sheep manure, blood and bone and powedered sheep manure. I didn't want superphosphate, but happy to put the other things on my garden.

rich risotto

Tonight's risotto was very flavoursome. Possibly the richest rice broth I've made. I think these were the successful steps.
1. chicken stock with lots and lots of carrots. My Dad gave me some huge carrots from his garden recently and I used one raw chicken carcass ($1.49 from the supermarket), lots of carrots, bay leaves, black peppers, two onions and a head of garlic. Cooked in the slow cooker for about 20 hours.
2. I used lots of roasted garlic in with the broccoli and peas for the vegetable part of the risotto.
3. At almost the end of cooking, I added most of a packet of feta cheese and lots of black pepper.

In pursuit of poo

Today I raked out the floor of Raelene's chook house and bagged up the chook poo/bark mix and took it home. I've put one bag on my small (1 x 1 metre) new raised bed. I just spread it on top of the current layer of mulch. Under the pea straw mulch that was already there I could see plenty of worms, a few slugs that I gifted to my chooks and some utterly sodden soil. Too wet to be forking it over. I grew a zucchini in this spot last Summer and let the zucchini flop over the lawn. This time I'm trying to make a more distinct bed and current (but may change 17 times) plans are for herbs in there. Maybe I'll rescue the strawberries from their sad relationship with the garlic and move them to this garden, maybe not.

The soil everywhere is sodden, including the chook run. So this afternoon I shovelled some river sand onto it (we have a stash left over from filling the sandpit) and then a bale of straw. They had a great time fossicking in the new straw and I'm hoping prevention of a bog will be easier to manage than trying to unbog a chook run bog.

At least it wasn't a rat

But it was a mouse. Alive in front of the muesli container at 6am this morning. Foot jammed in the mousetrap. I didn't even see it until I'd taken out the rolled oats container beside it.

I am really glad I am a married woman. Cos killing that mouse was a little beyond me, yet I sure wanted it dead. I get a bit girly about rats and mice.

Favourite Handyman killed it on the kitchen floor. I didn't query that - in no way did I wish to risk the job being handed back to me.

So now I have washed the floor where the murdered mouse .... was. I might even wash it again soon. Like before I go to bed.

It's expensive, being squeamish about murdered mice. I bought Indian for dinner at great cost to avoid using the kitchen before the floor washing. I couldn't wash the floor while I was at paid work and I couldn't wash the floor while my daughter was awake.

Germination

I have six parsley seedlings. Parsley can take a long time to germinate and I often find the germination rate is not fantastic. Two plants (I have the giant Italina flat leaf variety) are enough to see us through the year. Last year I had too much from my enormous plants and gave heaps away. This year I am putting parsley in hummus every week and finding two plants perfect for a fresh supply of medium aged leaves. It seems to grow even in winter.

I also have tomato and basil and lettuce seedlings, a few of which have reached the two true leaves stage. I'll be keeping them inside quite a while longer. Quite apart from the risk of frosts and the endless rain still keeping the gardens in a bog-like state, the slug population is still too sizeable. There are many more to be found and fed to the chooks yet. Once the weather dries up I can start using the beer traps as well.

My potatoes are sprouting nicely. They'll be staying in the shed for a while yet. No point planting them in a bog.

The onions are doing fine in their new plastic medium sized home. I think I'll leave them there for at least another month. I've changed my plans for where the chooks and the spuds and the onions are going yet again. I think I'll keep the poultry palace where it is for six months and put the potatoes in their initial spot (which they've moved in and out of in my mind about six times now). They're going where the tobacco went last year. This is the spot which will become a glasshouse, probably in Summer 2009-10. The chooks will move up to this spot after potato harvest, probably about February.

Saw Raelene the wonderful yesterday. I'm going out to her place to clean out her chook house later this week. More compost. Mmmmmmmmmm can't ever have enough of the fabulous compost which chook house clearings make.

Ros-from-work got chooks the same time as us. And one of her chooks has laid an egg already. Sooooooooo. Maybe we'll get our first egg soon. Round the smoko table I've been collecting tips on the best foods for encouraging egg production.

knitting

I've finished my cardigan. Photos will come. Photos do eventually get posted here on most projects, just often verrry late. It's lovely and warm and I think even styley and I'm wearing it now.

I had been looking forward to a break from knitting so I could read some books, advise some people on cloth nappies, maybe even do some mending. But I missed knitting. Don't know what's going on there. I have started reading The War for Children's Minds by Stephen Law though. Stepehen Law's website is here. Not that I've read that properly either yet (been knitting my brain away) but it's there if you feel like it. I've been thinking about education issues until literally my head has started to hurt and his book gives me a chance to think about things from a different perspective, one not rooted in questions about where my children should spend their days.

My current knitting project is a sleeveless hoodie for Fionn (5). I'm knitting it in black and yellow stripes. They are his favourite colours and he has chosen both the colours and the stripes so that when he lays on the grass wearing it, he will look like a bumblebee. I'm using Perendale wool, 100% wool and New Zealand made. It's lovely and soft. I bought it locally at the lovely wool shop here in smalltown where the ladies are fabulous and these days I even have a discount card as I'm a member of the local knitting group. While I was at the shop buying wool the other day, the owner showed me a sample of the new range about to come out. It's called "Charity" and it is 100% wool, New Zealand made and designed for making charity knitting affordable. It will be $2.99 for a 50g ball (if I have remembered correctly) which is truly fantastic. Wool at functional prices instead of expensive leisure craft prices.

There are some wools on the market made (or at least processed) in China. I've made my disapproval known. I don't spend money on wool and time on knitting (both of which surely could be better spent on red wine) in order to support sweat shop labour and excessive fossil fuel transport costs.

Lucy Jordan

When I was 23, I bought a tape of Marianne Faithfull's greatest hits. I went around Central Otago doing paid research and getting to meet fascinating people and see some of the most awesome vistas I have ever seen in my life. I decided I wanted to try smoking cigarettes. So I did. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the legal kind. I never told you I was a sophisticated thrill seeker type teenager did I?

The Ballad of Lucy Jordan song has always stuck in my mind, both the snatches of lyrics which have stayed with me and the tune. A couple of months ago I looked up the full lyrics online - it is after all less than 12 months before I hit 37.

I'm not sure about the lyrics. As in I'm not sure how exactly to interpret their meaning. I'll come back to that, especially next February I expect.

But I do remember the sense of freedom as a young woman with a degree and the conviction that I could do more or less anything that my male peers did. Peeing standing up absolutely anywhere being the main exception.

I'm wearing purple as I write and I describe myself as a feminist with pride.

Wanna know what I did today? got Fionn ready for school - changed lots of nappies - washed everyone's clothes - made school lunch - made hummus - made chocolate chippie biscuits - made pizza for tomorrow's lunches - made apple crumble for today's lunches - made stirfry beef for dinner - fed chooks - collected Fionn from school - collected slugs for the chooks - fed the chooks twice - sowed borage, pumpkin, zucchini, chamomile and swiss chard seeds - tidied up part of the lawn - bathed children - knitted - listened to the National Programme - wondered when Winston Peters will ever disappear from the face of NZ politics - pondered various issues in education

I have choices regarding how I participate in this world. Choices granted partly by virtue of living in a wealthy democracy and partly due to the hard won achievements of women before me who believed that women should be able to inhabit the public space. Helen Clark is where she is as a result. I have choices too and the fact that my current choice is that my world is largely domestic and involved in looking after children makes me no less of a feminist.

So, back to the garden. Spring doesn't warm up particularly quickly here on the West Coast and although there are spring bulbs out and the air is warmer, the garden isn't exactly rushing headlong into increased productivity. The soil is very wet and lots of rain is forecast for this week. Fionn and I found a lot of slugs today and I squashed a number of slug eggs. We also found an ants' nest.

I'm not sure what kind of day today was lunarly, but there are plenty more things to plant/sow next week. Next year I think I'll get a lunar gardening calendar. I never know what the best practise recommendations are at the beginning of every second month when I'm waiting for the next issue of Organics NZ to hit the newsstand at my local health shop.