A Joyful Keeper

The birds woke me up at 5.00 this morning. Instead of going back to sleep I decided to get up and enjoy the quiet in the house. I sat at my kitchen table and caught up on a few of my favorite blogs while I glanced regularly out the kitchen window to see the sun rise. Then I had a lovely chat with a friend from South Africa, on google talk….

When I do manage to get up early, I really enjoy it. I love to spend time reading the Bible and praying while everything is quiet. As my veggie garden grows, I know I will be out there in the early mornings before the heat of the sun, to do some weeding and picking. I used to do this on our other plots of land all the time. It is the best time to harvest veggies. And when we have chooks… well, I remember the first things I got from our last little homestead back in 2003:

Some lettuce, parsley, chives, strawberries and our first egg! I was so excited that I took a photo! Now I can’t wait till I can do this again here, at our new home….

After the early morning start, we had a very productive day. Imagine, I had an extra couple of hours in my day! Robyn had kindly agreed to have the children while I did some Christmas shopping. Elizabeth helped her decorate the cupcakes she made. Don’t they look great?! (And doesn’t Elizabeth look worn out?! LOL!)

I was able to get all the kids’ pressies at one shop - very painless! I had money to spend on them from their grandparents, which is what I did today. I already had a few presents for them, from us, that I picked up on specials throughout the year. It is a blessing since we don’t have a lot of extra money right now, just having bought this house. It is also wonderful to have my main Christmas shopping done so early in the month.

Tiany is hosting a Holiday Open House this week and I will be participating in that later in the week. I’ve also got a surprise planned for everyone this holiday season, so keep coming back here to see what it is! I won’t keep you in suspense for too long….

Off to bed now…. it’s been a long day! But such a lovely one. I wonder if I can get up as early tomorrow….!

Yesterday we went and visited our farm-to-be. We wanted to meet the owner and ask him a few things about the property. Dh wanted to know about the electricity in the shed, the water pipes, and other such important things. I wanted to know what
the fruit trees were, and how to look after the asparagus that was growing in the veggie garden!

The orchard is just wonderful! There are heaps of apple trees, plums, cherries, apricots, nectarines, …… a nashi tree, lemon tree, and… I think that is it! Some of them are looking a bit sick and need attention. Also, the frost got a lot of the blossoms, so I’m not sure how much fruit we’ll get this year. The drought hasn’t been kind to the trees either. I am hoping that once we get some water tanks going, and with some TLC, one day we will reap a good harvest.I asked advice about the asparagus. I’ve always wanted to grow it, but since it takes about 5 years after planting from seed to harvest it, I’ve never bothered (because we’ve never been in one place for that long!). So this is a special gift from God - asparagus in my veggie garden, ready to eat. The previous owner told us he got so much asparagus that he got sick of it and was giving it away! Then he cut me some to take home. I was so excited! Here it is:

I boiled it in water today, and used some of it to make these Asparagus Vol-au-vents. Oh, they were yummy! Even dh thought so! And I used one of the packets of white sauce mix that I froze during the week!

In three weeks time we will do the handover and get the keys. I can’t wait! I feel like we are so blessed. God is good.

 

Joy’s Asparagus Vol-au-vonts

fresh asparagus, boiled and cut into small pieces

one portion white sauce mix

three rashers of bacon, chopped and fried crispy

grated cheese, keep some aside to sprinkle on top

vol-au-vonts (I used small ones)

Add 1 cup of water to the portion of white sauce mix. Bring to the boil until it is thick and add the other ingredients. Spoon into vol-au-vont cases and sprinkle with some of the grated cheese. Put in a moderate oven until the cheese on top is melted and golden.

Enjoy!

As promised, photos of my spring garden. The weather has been fantastic, and we’ve even had some rain. I still managed to get my washing dry in between showers, and the bit of rain we did get was great for my newly planted spring garden.

Here you can see my potted Italian mix. I have a Roma tomato in this big pot, basil, Italian parsley, rocket and lettuce.

The canola has taken well to being transplanted. I’m sure it is appreciating some more soil, rather than the little bit it was trying to grow in by the wayside. Reminds me of the Parable of the Sower!

And last but not least, a new bunch of seeds in the mini hothouse. The rocket is already coming up! See the nice labels I made?! I printed them out and laminated them. These seedlings should be ready to plant by the time we move to our little homestead.

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend!

Today we went to meet dh’s parents in a town about a two hour drive from where we live. They had some things we needed to pick up, so we arranged a time and met them for lunch. It was a lovely drive, one that we have made a few times since we got back for various reasons. The first time we drove the route, we had just had some rain and the farmers were sowing their crops. That was about three months ago. This time, we could see what they sowed!

At first all we saw was green fields and then this bright yellow in the distance, almost like an artist took his brush and just swept across the background with yellow paint….

Up a bit closer we could see that the yellow was really millions of flowers:

It is canola, which is grown for its seeds to make oil and margarine. Now I understood why it is described as “golden”. During our two hour drive we passed field after field, full of these yellow flowers. Here is the canola plant up even closer:

And I just love this photo. It looks like the sheep are on an island surrounded by a sea of yellow!

I wished I could pick some to put in the kids’ nature journals, but I didn’t think it was the right thing to do. After taking all the photos on the way home, I saw some yellow flowers on the side of the road and said to my dh, “Is that canola too?!” We stopped and sure enough, it was. The seeds must have blown across the fence and onto the roadside. I was so pleased. I felt like I could pick these without touching the farmer’s crop. As I pulled the stems of the flowers, the whole plant came out because they were in such shallow ground. I put them in a bag and took them home.

Tomorrow the children and I will plant some of them in pots and see what they do. We’ll also press some flowers and leaves to put in their nature journals. I’ll also get the kids to sketch them and write a bit about canola.

I am just amazed at God’s creation. He is the Artist that painted the pictures above.

See this front porch? We’re trying to buy it. And the house that goes with it. And the 14 acres that go with that!

Yes, we’ve found our little farm, after a lot of searching. I haven’t been blogging about our search, but I have been praying about it. We looked at a few other houses, never thinking we could afford acreage. But our family’s hearts’ desire was to have a little homestead. (I know I’ve mentioned this before in some of my posts, like THIS one.) I thought we’d have to wait a few more years till we found something. Most things we looked at were just way out of our price range. Until we found this place.

We never wrote a list of what we “wanted”. But it was there in our heads, and we had discussed it with others. This farm has it all! Without asking Him for the specifics, God has given it to us! Here is what our list would have been, if we had made it:

An old house on acreage

A veggie garden

Fruit trees

Chook yard

Lots of sheds

This place is all and more than what we dreamed of! It will be a little tight in the house, but with 14 acres around it we should be able to manage!

Here is the view from the kitchen window. There is no dishwasher, so I’ll be enjoying this view a lot!

We put in an offer and it was accepted, so we are now at the money stage - sorting out the bank, etc. If all goes well, we should be able to move in the middle of November. I can have chooks…. and sheep…. and cows….. and cats… and dogs….. ah, thank You Lord! Alhamdulillah!

After I wrote the first post in this series (see here), I was surfing around and found an even more amazing way of growing veggies in a small space - growing tomatoes upside down! Louise also mentioned this in a comment (thanks for dropping by!). She tried it and it worked for her, although she said she would try a different variety of tomato next time.

This is soooooo funny!!! I will have to try it! I just have to find a good bucket… there are cheap ones at Safeway, but I think the handle needs to strong, so I will look at a hardware store I think.

It is really just a matter of using our imagination, isn’t it? Sometimes we are held back by convention and the way things “have to be”. I think in some things we need an open mind and be willing to try something new.

On to our veggies in pots…. We planted them on the 25th of July. I took photos of them today - almost two months later.

The peas are getting there, as you can see below. We will add some more stakes in a teepee fashion for them to climb up. The pan next to the pots are for gathering drips of water off the table. We use it on the plants.

The lettuce in the mini hothouse started off quicker than the seeds planted in the garden. They were protected from the occasional frost, and now they need to be planted in something bigger. We put in different varieties of mixed lettuce and e rocket too. As you can see, one variety lettuce did not have many seeds come up at all.

The lettuce in the garden took much longer to come up and was also hit by a frost one morning. But, it has now recovered nicely and is bigger than the ones in the hot house! In fact, some of the plants would do well to have their outer leaves picked and put into salads. They also need to be thinned.

I put some Nasturtium seeds in a pot as well. These are so easy to grow and can be used in salads. They are also coming along nicely.

Finally, Robyn gave me a head of lettuce that came up from seed in her veggie garden. Instead of using it right away, I gently took it out of the ground, put it in a pot, and sat it on my kitchen sill. I’ve been picking the outer leaves for weeks now, and it is still growing new leaves in the middle! It is handy for when I just want a few leaves of lettuce on a sandwich.

I will keep you updated on the homestead happenings on a small block of land! It is possible to grow some things without having acres of land! Not as much of course,… and I’d still like some acres…. but, for now… this will do me fine!

Back at the end of July I had the urge to plant some things. In case you didn’t know, we are currently renting a house - a big one, with a small garden. Not knowing how long we were going to be here, I decided that if I had the urge to plant, it had better be in pots.

So, I bought a bag of potting mix, pinched some pots from Robyn, and got started. The kids helped and were somewhat enthusiastic. Well, Daniel mostly ate an apple and watched, and then planted his core in a pot…

Matthew, who hates to get his hands dirty, planted some peas in a pod pot, and helped me by putting the seed raising mix for the lettuce into the mini hot house, which I still had tucked away in storage.

Elizabeth, as usual, was most excited and worked the hardest. I couldn’t keep up with potting mix. I finally let her plant some seeds in a spot in the garden. That kept her happy. Here she is planting her peas:

I have loved to plant gardens ever since Daniel was just a baby. There is just something about growing food for yourself that is so rewarding. We have not always had a lot of space to plant, but I made sure I planted something wherever we were, even if it was just lettuce or herbs in pots. I have planted tomatoes in the middle of the desert! Yes, they grew!!

I came across this the other day:

In the Bag

How neat is that?! Growing veggies in plastic bags - it’s worth a try! You don’t need to live on acreage to plant veggies. You don’t even need a large backyard. Pots and plastic bags will give you a little bit of that fresh taste of homegrown food.

This is my second post for today - see below for Monday Meanderings.

With cows and chickens and …… cress…..

Yes, I have started my veggie garden It is on my kitchen windowsill! Well, they say you should start small,…right?!

Sometime last year I stumbled across this article: What does it mean to homestead in 2005? by Crystal Miller about how she defined homesteading. By reading through her website I recognized myself - the articles about when she was dreaming about being on the land, but also all the things she does at home.

This is how she defines homesteading:

“I looked at the word “homestead” and kind of had some fun playing around with the word. I broke the word into two parts, “home” and “stead”. I came up with “steady at home” as one definition.

 

The modern day homesteading lady has a love of home and a desire to find purpose in providing for her family as much as possible with her own hands. Anyone from the woman who lives in a big city apartment to the woman who farms on 600 acres of land can homestead. Homesteading brings with it a desire to produce from your own hands and a satisfaction of having provided needed necessities for your family.”

(Have a look at the entire article here; there are many more words of wisdom!)

Lisa, from New Harvest Homestead defines Homesteading as this:

 

“The word “homestead” tends to evoke an image of pioneers living off the land. However, we have come to embrace the literal meaning of the word which, simply put, means to be “steadfast at home”. We want to encourage and assist Christians in rediscovering the practical skills and home arts which were once commonplace in our culture, but have been all but lost to the last couple of generations. We especially want to encourage women who want to give the majority of their time and energy to their families and homes, in contrast to a culture where women are constantly on the go.”

From the time Cameron and I were engaged, I began to read and read about being a wife and homemaker. What really interested me was making things from scratch. I was surprised to learn that there were still women who preserved their own fruit and veg! I was so pleased that our wedding gift from my parents was a preserving unit and some bottles!

After we married, God brought people across my path from whom I started to learn many of the skills that are part of what the above women call “homesteading”. I already knew how to sew, and sewed most of the children’s clothes in those early years. I learned how to cook from scratch. I learned how to grow veggies and freeze them for the winter. I learned how to bottle fruit and sauce. I made my own soap,…..etc, etc.

However, I didn’t consider this homesteading! It was only until we first had half an acre and then two acres and I had chickens, a huge veggie patch, and sheep that I thought I was “really homesteading”! And it wasn’t until we left our happy homesteads that I felt like I was no longer homesteading.

When I came across these alternate definitions of homesteading, I was so excited, because the truth is that all of these things, in varying degrees, are part of my life whether I have land or not. I bake my own bread, I grow whatever I can, I preserve what I can - no matter where I am.

When we were in the Middle East I taught other women to make tomato sauce from scratch and bottle it. I taught them to bake bread and make sundried tomatoes. I learned from other women to quilt! And all this in the middle of a desert!

God has placed the desire to be a keeper at home in my heart, and part of this desire is also to be a homesteader. Maybe one day God will bless us with some land again, but until then I am encouraged that wherever I am, I can be “steady at home”. I also feel very much that I need to make the most of my time of not being on the land to learn new skills. I know how much hard work it is with only a couple of acres to look after! At the moment I have nothing in the garden - no plants or animals. Instead of wishing I had more things to do outside, I need to be working on the things I can do inside. I can also plant a few things outside in the winter, which I will try to do soon. But let me take this time of “less outdoor work” as a blessing from the Lord, and use it to learn other skills and do things that I didn’t have time for in the past.

This too is part of contentment and enjoying what God has for me at the moment.