fiveandtwo

Reading Round-Up

Reviewing my reading of last year I see that non-fiction has been the number-one-player. But, you know, I really enjoy fiction.

This year, I'll read more fiction.

Much of my non-fiction reading has been influenced by Sharon Astyk's  blog. Sharon's book "Depletion and Abundance" ecapsulates many of her blog posts. The book is excellent for those interested in peak oil, sustainability (environmental, household, global). I really enjoyed it - I'm reading it a second time!

Reading Sharon's blog has introduced me to other authors: Dmitry Orlov Reinventing Collapse (he's a good writer, it's engaging and funny), Alisa Smith & JB Mackinnon The 100 Mile Diet (I really enjoyed this, for the food seeking, their far-off house in the woods, and certain insights from Alisa that resonated with me), Michael Pollan The Omnivore's Dilemma and  In Defense of Food,  Rebecca Huntley Eating Between the Lines: Food and Equality in Australia, John Michael Greer The Long Descent.

The Best Gardening Book 2008 goes to One Magic Square by Lolo Houbein. This has to be one of the best Australian gardening books published for a long time. It makes gardening achievable for the beginner and the space, and time, constrained. One square metre is the beginning, you can advance to as many square metres as you desire (or can manage).It's very accessible, plans for the plots, tips and tricks, towards food self-sufficiency, information on food plants, I've used many ideas from this book.

 The revised edition of Jackie French's The Wilderness Garden was also a highlight. I hope this has introduced a new generation of gardeners to Jackie's easygoing Australian gardening philosophy. This lady has enormously influenced me. I think my garden would be much less productive without her ideas.

Biography has featured strongly in 2008. Siobhan O'Brien's A Life By Design (bio. of Florence Broadhurst), The Dressmaker's Daughter autobiography of Kate Llewellyn, Caroline Knapp's Drinking: A Love Story, Valerie Grove's Laurie Lee: A Well-Loved Stranger - can't now reconcile the man with his lyrical writing. Two Women by Laurie Lee was lovely...but, after reading the bio. I 'm cool towards this man.

Fiction. Adult fiction first. I read young adult fiction and magazines when I can't concentrate on anything.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy - bleak, but I like bleak. Tim Winton's Breathe, sigh...he writes so beautifully, this is not a favourite though. I'm not really interested in surfing. However, I imagine an immense sense of freedom out there on the board. Giles surfs whenever he can...if only I could get him to read as well. I think he'd like Breathe.

Helen Garner is one of my favourite authors, from waaay back when I wanted a Monkey Grip lifestyle. I was seventeen and wanted to, um, experience life. Ah, but I was already kind of bound up. Anyway, The Spare Room certainly lived up to my expectations.

Linsey and I went to see Rosalie Gascoigne and Rennie Ellis at the Ian Potter Centre last Sunday (day trip for me, she was going to the Big Day Out the following day). Rennie Ellis made a lovely portrait of Helen Garner (about 1975, I think). And Rosalie Gascoigne is pretty much my favourite artist right now. Not least because she didn't really get going until she was in her fifties. However, she did "make things" and practice Ikebana flower arranging (very sculptural) for years before.

So, back to books. Loved Bel Canto (Ann Patchett). Recommendation courtesy of suse. In my fiction endeavours I want to read more of Ann Patchett's work.

Did you read Year of Wonders? I really enjoyed it. Geraldine Brooks' second book March, a good read too. Now, this year, I want to read The People of the Book.

A splendid laugh/cry book was Debra Adelaide's The Household Guide To Dying. I read it on the train on my first Bendigo trip - I did laugh, and I shed quiet tears, some parts were achingly sad.

I'm not sure where Into the Wild (John Krakauer, oh did you read Into Thin Air, that was chilling) slots in, it's kind of fiction , but based on a true story. The author's current form of writing, actually. I'm glad Krakauer acknowledged his character had some skill in wilderness survival (as well as shortcomings, often deliberate, eg: not taking any maps). The film isn't really like the book.

Young adult fiction now, for a tired adult mind.

Finding Grace by Alyssa Brugman. Feel good with a moral: caring for others means you can find yourself. I enjoyed it, and wanted to pass it on to Leah. It's not cool to read books in her peer group. Shit. She was an avid reader, once. It pains me because I think it's a very important form of information and escape.

Best Mate by Michael Morpurgo (I think it's been published with a different title recently). The main character is a greyhound...what can I say. I loved it.

Cruel Nest by Gary Crew. I'm a fan of Gary Crew. Are they really YA, or short adult novels? Complex and disturbing. I was really taken by The Blue Feather a couple of years ago.

Other books that don't fit into a particular catedory:

Those Tracks on My Face by Barbara Holborow - recollectins of well-known children's court magistrate. An op-shop buy that I found quite moving.

Trading in Memories: Travels Through a Scavenger's Favourite Places (Barbara Hodgson). An impulse buy online, I don't think I'd have bought it had I perused it in a proper bookshop. It was lovely, I liked her descriptions of fossicking in far away places - researching novels etc.. Well, it just didn't resonate.  Barbara's interest in old documents, photos and the like - yes, I can relate, but...

The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley. Subtitled Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why. I bought this for my husband thinking it would be a magazine-style read (well suited to him), and it is, but quite a complex one. I found it really interesting, well researched, with a lovely human element.

Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping (Judith Levine). Professional middle-class couple, very well-off, examine wants vs. needs, and decide not to buy for a year.. Not a how-to guide by any means. Just try-hard rich people. Disappointing for me, fortunately a library book.

Barbara Kingsolver's High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never. More non-fiction from an author I enjoy and admire. This is an oldie, but a goodie. Goodness, is such a term still used?

 Two "health" books: The Big Fat Conspiracy by Melissa Sweet. A family health book, I like the author's surname! Second Good Health in the 21st Century by Dr Carol Hungerford. Found this one really interesting. So much so that I now take a multivitamin, a magnesium/selenium/zinc/chromium and a flaxseed oil omega 3,6,9 one each daily. The book is subtitled A Family Doctor's Unconventional Guide, and that it is. I doubt any of the doctors in this town would have the time for this approach, they are so strapped as it is. My original family GP, whom I had for all my babies, is too hard to get an appointmant with. Two months away? Doesn't work. Often it's three or four months. The GP I've been going to recently is now getting hard to visit - three weeks, six weeks? I find it really hard because my medical records are quite complex - it's a chore to go through it all with a new GP, as well as trying to forge a new relationship.

Now, Iv'e made inroads in the Read Fiction 2009 endeavour, thanks to the Bendigo trip and a train trip to Melbourne for Rosalie Gascoigne and Rennie Ellis, both on at Ian Potter now. You'll have to wait to hear of these excellent novels in 2010!

Hot Enough For Ya?

Yeah, we're sick, sick, sick of the blast furnace

Things we do to combat the heat:

First thing in the morning close all the windows and pull the curtains. When the sun goes down reverse the procedure and open everything up.

We're fortunate to have ceiling fans in most rooms. Wetting a lightweight cloth (eg. a sarong), draping it over oneself and lying under said fans works surprisingly well. So does dunking under the shower and standing under the fan (without drying off.first).

Swimming. We live only a few blocks from the outdoor pool, and there are some nice swimming spots along the Tambo River for young kids. My older kids, who can swim reasonably well, swim in the Mitchell River which is also only a few blocks from our house. It's deep though, too deep for novice swimmers.

 

At Bark Sheds on the Tambo River.

 

The dog doesn't mind a dip, but she has march fly phobia. Just some buzzing caused her to run to the car and try and launch herself in the (open) window to get away!

Note human feet in the background - that's the husband on his folding chair cooling his feet in the river. Another thing that's nice at home is to put your feet in a bucket of cool water.

I don't use the stove at all. We have a barbeque with a wok burner. You can't use both at once though! It's the burner OR the barby. The best precaution I took before this hot spell (hot spell? freakin' Hell's Gate) was to pick most of the lettuce crop, wash and dry it and put it in bags in the fridge. So, we've been having these salads...amazing what you can add, vary the dressing you make and Bob's your uncle: different salad every night! What I didn't pick of the lettuce crop has started bolting to seed and generally looks very sad.

The garden is surviving, mostly. A couple of pittosporum that hedge the driveway have very crispy leaves, not a good sign. I try and water the most vulnerable plants every night - vegies, things in pots, the portable garden which is in foam boxes. You know, if you hose your feet and legs as you water it's very cooling.

If you're a dog you dig monstrous bear pits all over the place, as the soil dries out and warms up, well, you just dig deeper...and deeper.

I've used some of the hot weather to make a prototype pair of pants - almost done. Here's a pic. of my sewing machine lurking in the gloom!

 

How about that sun trying to penetrate the double-layer roman blind (west facing window).

Here's the muslin nearly done. Then I am going to use it to make about four pairs of pants.

No "proper" sewing can be done - it's too damn hot to have an iron going. Why add to the furnace.

Oh yes, the muslin uses an old bed sheet from the op-shop. 

Thoroughly spoilt by a cooler start to summer, we are now copping it! Roll on the cool change (make it sooner, rather than later...please). 

Thoughts On Household Sustainability

Gosh, I have no pictures for this post. It came all of a sudden after reading an article in my husband's newspaper entitled "The Domestic Goddes Back In Town" (Herald Sun 31/12/08). It was all about women doing stuff from scratch, growing food, keeping chooks and rejecting the consumer model presented since the 1970's. Yay.

I was pleased to read such an article. While it had undertones of back to the land, herbal-type domesticity, quotes from various retail sources (Lincraft, Spotlight, reatail plant nurseries, chook hire businesses) indicate substantial increases in sales. There's interest for sure.

I was really pleased to see this in the Herald Sun newspaper, usually the last to feature such things (unless it's a paid work mother vs non-paid work mother issue).

In Happening News (for me) Jackie French's The Wilderness Garden has a new edition. I bought this book in 1992 when it was first released. Giles was a baby (he's now 16.5 years). It was formative. I have used all of Jackie french's books, in one way or another.

 (A photo showing her influence should be inserted here...). 

From around the same time came Earth User's Guide to Permaculture by Rosemary Morrow. Another Important Gardening Book for me. A recently published Important Gardening Book is Lolo Houbein's One magic Square. The Jackie French book, I'm so pleased it's been revised and re-released. That means a whole new generaton of gardeners will be introduced to her gardening philosophy, and hopefully their lives will be changed too.

I can see so many grandmothers and great-gradmothers shaking their heads at these developments. It would be as if we're "re-inventing the wheel". Certainly my paternal Grandmother would be aghast that we don't do these things anyway. My maternal Grandmother avoided all things domestic, she went deaf in her early 30's (before hearing aids were readily available) and became only interested in animals (in a sentimental way), not liking people at all. Chops & veg. was her standard meal, every night  of the week. Likewise my mother, but we had steak, sausages and pork chops for "variety". That was pretty standard at the time.

I can't imagine having meat every night. No, I can - but there's no way it would be affordable. The cost of a discrete piece of meat for each person (seven) in our family every night would be...well, it would blow the budget Big Time. The kids whinge a lot about having vegetarian meals often. In Giles' word, "Why don't you just cook a steak?". Sigh. I preach to the unconverted.

I've made a double batch of apricot jam today...and making things from scratch takes time. Always , it's a juggle between what gets our time and what doesn't. I am down to my last pair of trousers wearable in public. I really need to make a couple of new pairs. I get tired of the juggle sometimes.

I do like to make things from scratch, it's very satisfying. It's the juggling that's tiresome.

In spite of whinging, I am looking forward to 2009! Yes, I am! I hope the New Year bring your hopes to fruition. Hell, it'll be a good one.

Insert pictures of celebratory fireworks and the like.

Window Light

Sometimes he light is just right for taking photos.

   

Clare, and Ally, busy at the kitchen table.

A Very Muddled Week

Ally's description, "This has been a very muddled week". So accurate.

It started last Saturday with me going to the Curves gym (recently joined to deal with stress and apalling level of fitness) and developing a blinding, excruciating headache halfway thruogh the circuit. Carted off in an ambulance. Nausea and vomiting, photophobia. In retrospect, classic migraine symptoms.

It was decided, eventually, that I'd had a sudden migraine. Fortunately, I don't have these evil headaches very often, but in the past there's been some warning: a thudding headache that doesn't go away, thirst and fatigue. One coming on suddenly was rather disturbing. I was out and couldn't get back home under my own steam. What if that happens again?

I'll go back to Curves, but I'm really nervous about doing so.

Oh, and there's nothing like a shot of morphine to deal with pain, and Stemetil for nausea/vomiting (Maxolon didn't work).

Took a couple of days to throw that post-migraine weird, disoriented state.

A long appointment sucked up Tuesday. I did fly in to work and do the pays though - disgruntled employees weren't on my agenda.

The usual routine was thrown completely by now. Transporting kids uses so much time. With Giles, mostly I drop him and some mates at the favoured surf beach, one of the other kid's parents pick them up. It's still a 1.5 hour round trip to drop them off. Sometimes, if the bus timetable works, they can catch the bus both ways. Their favoured surfing area, Red Bluff, doesn't have a bus for them to catch home. V-Line buses = strange timetables.

I managed to buy some food and pick up Leah from Lakes Entrance, where she'd stayed with a friend. Leah looked pretty crook, she could hardly speak. Criminal sore throat. GP appointment...tonsillitis? All the glands around her jaw were huge. Can only imagine the state of her tonsils. Antibiotics prescribed and duly taken. I worry about her fluid intake. It's so painful to swallow that the poor kid just isn't drinking.

Thursday: buy more food. Take Leah to A&E because she finds it hard to breathe, and looks really "flat". Leah is admitted to hospital, IV fluids perk her up a bit. But only a bit. She's on her third type of antibiotic now.

Ah, but the waiting with Leah in A&E meant reading time! Good progress made on this:

When I read As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, well, I was going to Spain. Never did though. A friend who read it around the same time spent three months in Spain with her baby daughter.

I've enjoyed all of Laurie Lee's books. This one came from the op-shop. How lucky! A $50 book for a couple of dollars. I'm enjoying this biography.

This pre-order came too, last week:

Resisting starting it until I'm done with the Laurie Lee biography!

Back in the early 80's I read Monkey Grip. My impressionable seventeen-year-old self wanted in to that lifestyle. Never did though.

Egglites and Glow Bands

Just some pics taken recently. Clare and Ally got ""Egglites" for their birthday, and glow bracelets at a friend's party today.

Mucking around with the camera. One of the stupendous bonuses of digital. Mucking around is not expensive.

My greatest interest is light and its nuances.

I have a tripod for my film SLR, it doesn't fit my DSLR.

I like these blurry, ephemeral-looking images.

I've lent my film SLR to Linsey's best mate, she's had it for a couple of years now.

I swapped a Big Day Out ticket for two wonderful photos that were part of her year 11 folio. I've matted and framed them but undecided where to hang them.

I think my love affair with digital is its affordability. When I used film I took  loads of photos. Perhaps a quarter (if that) of each film was any good. Expensive. I had a special "photography" part of my strict budget back then. It was factored in because it was important. Most of the photos were family anyway.

The expense with digital is the photo paper, if you decide to print. I do print some, with the best paper possible, because I keep albums. Dry mount with the "who, what, when, where" description. No scrapbooking. Apologies to scrapbookers, it aint for me.

A bit o' fun with not much available light-no flash-slow shutter speed stuff.

Sometimes inspiration just happens upon you.

Greetings From The Furnace

In my old age (yes, I turned a year older yesterday - forty three!) I tolerate hot, hot days less and less. I mean, I spent the first twenty or so years of my life in the tropics and then lived for a while in Alice Springs, the heat didn't bother me. Hot was good, it was cold weather I couldn't handle.

Having a thick layer of body insulation doesn't help with heat tolerance.

We hole up inside until the afternoon and then Clare, Ally and I go to the outdoor swimming pool for some cool water therapy. Sometimes we go further afield to one of the not-too-deep swimming spots along the Tambo River.

Windows are shut and covered (kitchen featured here - it has the most interesting curtain). Ceiling fans whirl furiously. Hint for very pleasant evaporative cooling: put bathers on, hop under the shower and get all wet, stand under a ceiling fan turned on full. Lovely. Once upon a time I did it naked (very effective cooling) but but these days I'm reluctant to horrify the teenagers!

If you're a hot dog, you dig yourself a nice, cool hole in a strategic spot. This is just outside our back door, the air coming from under the house is pleasantly cool. To get full benefit you must stick your paws under.

Yes our weatherboards are disintegrating. Major project for this year: re-clad the house. I've almost saved enough. It has to be DIY though. Daunting to think about, but it'll be OK once under way...

If you're a cat you choose the coolest room in the house with a ceiling fan circulating the air just so, then you spend the rest of the day sleeping. I suspect our other cat is enjoying a sleep under the house.

Lemon  tree leaves silhouetted in the bathroom window. Before I shut that door to keep the morning heat from the rest of the house.

Please let tomorrow be cooler. I need to make plum sauce before the fruit is all scorched on the tree and the picked ones rotted. I am done with apricots - dried, jammed, chutneyed and scoffed fresh from the tree. That's a post in itself.

Flowers To Thank You

You're a tremendous bunch. Tremendous. I have felt so supported by your comments after my post about family illness and Leah's escapade. Thank you so very much.

Right now I should be dissecting a ham. Some to take away with us and some to leave at home. A dear friend has generously given us the use of their holiday unit at Cunjurong Point (near Ulladulla) for a week over Christmas. We're off tomorrow.

Being a list maker par excellence, I'm reasonably organised (except for the ham). First there's the menu for the entire week. There's only a bread-and-milk shop at Cunjurong Point (but I'm a weekly menu-maker as well). Then I have a list of things to pre-make (so I can have something resembling a holiday too). There's a list of other food items to take and, finally, a list of implements to take. This list includes things like decent knives, the camera with its battery charger, the large pasta pot, sunscreen, Father Christmas's offerings (shh)...I think I might be a tad anal.

Clare and Ally unpacked the clothes bag I'd done. Heh, apparently  I'd put in too many ugly clothes. Serves me right for trying to slip in some lovely handmade items. We've reached a compromise, however.

Cunjurong Point is a lovely spot. Quiet, with a great beach. Giles and Leah aren't too pleased about the lack of shops. They'll survive - I am looking forward to a lack of shops! Shops are insane at this time of year.

The dog, cats and chooks will be in the care of the lovely Jeannette of Pampered Paws and Whiskers.She feeds all of them and ensures they have fresh water, walks the dog, brings in the mail, puts out, and brings in, the rubbish bin. If you want she'll water your pot plants as well. Jeannette is pleasantly down to earth, and doesn't mind a bit of a yack. The whole deal is rather cheaper than kennels and cattery, and doesn't place extra tasks on rellies at this time of year.

This flower is rather special - the first from my oak-leaf hydrangea. I've had this plant for several years. This is its fourth abode, why I didn't plant it where other hydrangeas were thriving I don't know, but last year I did when I was re-establishing this garden bed after renovations. I had taken cuttings of most of the plants before the work started, so was able to re-plant with the lovelies that were thriving beforehand. It has grown now as if nothing ever happened, and hydrangeas like this South-facing, quite shaded position - of course.

Wishing all you blogland/internet lovelies a terrific Christmas. XXXXXX

Mangoes and Christmas Trees

We've been gorging ourselves on these!

Two dollars for four at one of our local fruiterers.

On Thursday I bought ten, on Friday I bought fifteen, today I bought twenty eight.

For a long time I didn't like mangoes. We had five mango trees in our yard when I was gowing up, we'd get heartily sick of them.

It was one of my chores to pick up the fallen mangoes and limes when I was a kid. These mangoes come from the town of my birth - Katherine, NT.

Of course I love mangoes now. And look at that unholy mess in the background. Numerous works-in-progress.

The Christmas tree is up, festooned with our motley assortment of decorations. I really enjoy the ritual of tree-decorating. Many of the decorations have their own story. There's the knitted ones made by my Aunty Helen, she died earlier this year. The "vintage" ones I found in a plastic bag in the shed of the first house we rented in this town - sparkly birds, cute plastic elves and the like. Wooden decorations my brother bought for us at the Vienna Toy Fair years ago. And of course the very special ones the kids have made over the years.

At night we put the twinkling lights on and it's just magic.

I've also been writing the Family Round-Up letter to go in the Christmas cards. I have to use the calendar to prompt me. So much happens in a single year! The letter goes to people I usually only keep in contact with at this time of year.

Op-Shopping and Two Requests

It's Wednesday. I did food shopping, as is usual. Then, if there's a bit left over - off I go to the op-shops.

This looks like  a length of fabric, but it was the covering of the mattress on an old fashioned camp bed. Caused me rather a lot of op-shop decision making. I didn't want the camp bed, I didn't want the mattress inner. I wanted the fabric. Camp bed probably scrapped, although it's in the shed awaiting transformation. Foam is now the base of the dog's bed.

\

A cute puzzle. Scorned by resident seven-year-olds. I think, though, if I sit down and do the puzzles with them they'll be accepted.

Covered button stuff - don't you love "no experience-no skill required". Good for... covered buttons, but also very cute pony tail elastics, embellishments of bags...and so on. I always grab them.

Souvenir teatowels. I love linen teatowels full stop.  To stumble across a cache of these, brand new, I was all a-quiver. I do love the plain and striped ones especially, but they're rather rare now. So any linen ones are welcome. Because they're used, they wear out. I always look out for replacements.

It's hard to read, but on the  bottom it says "They are rich who have true friends". A 1977 calendar tea-towel. I want to say more but I'm pressed for computer time.

More op-shop finds. Anchor Embroidery Booklet No. 3. Very pleasant graphics. I enjoy hand embroidery/sewing. These images appeal.

Swooning over these lovely vintage patterns. That pink dress in the front row. I made one very similar in my early 20s. Wore it to work regularly. This was the 80's s so considered eccentric. I loved these dresses even back then. Glad I wore that stuff in the 80's because now I am too fat! Wish I'd made more.

A new butter dish with cover ( lacking depth of field in the photography). Drat, drat, drat.

And now a request. Linsey has been doing a lot of art work using old wallpaper as the ground. Using water colour and ink mainly, doing a lot of figurative work. She's exhausted my supply of vintage wallpaper, and I've had no luck sourcing more in local op-shops. If you people would keep your eye out,  and put the word out to friends and rellies who frequent oppies. I would appreciate it. Any stuff found you can post COD (Email for the address). Floral stuff is favoured, the wilder the better!

Second request is for your experiences with food dehydrators. The last several years I've used my lovely sister-in-law's machine. A Sunbeam with the fan at the bottom. Very patchy results, uneven heat distribution, even with rotating the trays. Some fruit over dry and some  hardly done. I have read good things about the Excalibur Dehydrators, with a back mounted heat source & fan. Has anyone out there had experience with dehydrators? I have attempted drying fruit using sun. Unfortunately cloud/rain/cool weather comes. One time I was given buckets of field mushrooms. I used heaps and tried drying the rest. Going well until a Southerly change arrived. Hint: drying mushrooms inside in a low oven makes the house smell strongly of wet dog.

Cheers people.