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!

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.

Lushness

Wonderful rain has fallen (with short breaks allowing washing to dry). And more wonderful rain has fallen.

The garden has an incredible lushness. The garden is so green. It's a garden that's predominantly a range of greens. Sooo...it's sooo green. 

Lettuces, mizuna, mibuna, the variety of silverbeets, "Portugese cabbage" (seedlings of a non-hearting cabbage I got from the farmer's market), chinese cabbage - all those tender greens are loving this weather. We're having numerous "green" meals.

The cucurbits aren't doing well, attacked by powdery mildew in this rainy weather.

Tomatoes have flowered and set fruit but growth is slow (need hot, dry weather). Could be a poor tomato season.

The apricot and European plum trees are light-on with fruit this year. The grape is laden with fruit. I was tying up the selected canes onto the pergola and was thinking I should perhaps thin the bunches. A fleeting thought (likelihood of doing this = nil).

 

They're "Black Muscat" if you're interested. Delicious but seedy.

Continuing the green theme, these are the floss colours for an embroidery pattern I'm doing for a mazagine (family-speak for magazine, one of those little kid corruptions that seem to stick). An extremely lucky opportunity from the internet, somehow.

Just Some Stuff

I made a quick visit to one of my regular op-shop haunts last week. Two of the Wednesday volunteers, Gwen and Monica said, "We've got something for you", and brought out a pile of fabric. "You're always buying fabric here so we saved this for you to look at". I felt really honoured.

Since I am in the process of a big fabric purge I carefully selected two pieces and put the rest in the material box.

 

My fabric collection has become insanely huge. Boxes, suitcases and drawers full of it. Piles all over the place. It's hard to get your head around sewing and crafting when getting to the machine requires moving piles of stuff, and then moving it all back to enable getting into bed at night!

So, I've been through it all once, and the monster has diminished slightly. Another go should see it back to manageable proportions. Man, do I find it hard. Every piece suddenly seems rife with potential. The ideas that pop into my head as I sort make the process more difficult, even though I know they'll never be realised (who has that much time?).

Some use was made of my stash on the Sewjourn weekend. Here is the first thing I made, based on what I think was a "housecoat" from the op-shop (I pulled it apart to use as a pattern).

 

My top is actually blue and my leggings purple (and it was really hard posting a pic. of myself on the blog...). I"ll make this pattern again, I think, and fix up the neckline gape when I do so.

Some weeks ago I raised the sides of my vegie garden using besser blocks, those concrete blocks with holes in them. I filled the holes with soil and compost and planted seeds and seedlings. I am most pleased with the result (and they will keep the mulch in the garden too).

 

Coriander seedlings and strawberries.

 

Pick a salad. The hole goes all the way through the block so reasonably large things can be grown - the roots go out the bottom of the block and sally forth.

In Progress

So much in progress. It's a bit overwhelming. 

The hearth of our new cooker/heater/hot water heater. I looked and looked locally for tiles but nothing suited. For me, it was an excess of bland and ugly. Driving to pick up Giles from work one day...I  remembered. Ten or more years worth of broken china. I've always kept the patterned and coloured stuff. I'm about two thirds of the way through. Then to grout it.

Then there's the seedlings:

 

Which means I need to spend some time preparing here:

 

And then I need to make some clothes for me. Pants in particular. My last decent pair has been stained by "gardening in passing". You know, you see a weed or something as you walk past, bend to pull it out and before you know it you've been there half an hour in your "good clothes".

 

I'm a bit demoralised, I finished sewing pants that I began months ago. They still don't fit. Even after letting the darts out they're too small. Damn. 

I am really enjoying this book. Really. Much that is useful for me, and I consider myself a gardener with some experience. The magic square is one square metre which is the beginning of a larger garden or a garden that is in a tiny space. Or one that's manageable for a person with many other commitments. Add as many square metres as you can manage.

I read Lolo Houbein's Wrong Face in the Mirror: An Autobiography of Race and Identity many years ago and found it good. Then, recently at a market I found Walk a Barefoot Road. Haven't read it yet though, it's on the teetering "to read" pile.

I'm also in the throes of painting the latest round of built-ins.

 

This is the one in the kitchen, waiting for paint. There's also one in the loungeroom for TV/DVD/Video/CD Player, books and CDs. I'm doing this post while I'm waiting for the first top coat to dry.

There you have my excuses for posting sporadically. And also that the computer freezes for some unknown reason while I'm using Typepad - the only time it happens. I've learnt to save the draft after each paragraph and photo upload, since the only remedy I've found is to switch the computer off and resart. Anyone have ideas about this? It is very irritating, happening multiple times.

More Stuff Which I Am Most Pleased With.

Indeed.

A Kathie Winkle cup. I looked and looked at this oppy but no saucer, no plate, no bowl. Just the cup, and a mighty nice one too.

The bottom half of an olden days butter/cheese keeper. For putting stuff in, of course. It presently has seed packets in it, I'm in the throes of sowing seeds in punnets for summer veg.

The green glass is lovely. Green being my favourite colour and all.

A bounty of buttons.

My button collection grows ever larger...

This makes me laugh:

Plastic. How exciting! The poor woman can scarcely contain herself.

I've mucked out the chook run today and put the partially composted "muck" on the vegie garden. The dog helped herself to some of the less composted bits. Ugh. The chooks are revelling in the new straw I spread in their run.

Yesterday I met with The Man From The Council regarding my (cough) overplanted nature strip. I was worried that I'd have to pull everything out but the fellow was very reasonable. I am under instructions not to plant any more, and when things die to not replace them. I was mighty relieved I tell you.

More op-shop goodness soon.

My Favourite Season

Ah, Autumn...such splendid weather, long shadows in the afternoon, crisp mornings. I'm all invigorated.

Much gardening going on. For the next five minutes it's pretty much in order. I've planted a full-size tangelo. I have one in a half barrel, but...I want more! Tangelos and lemons are my favourite citrus. I also planted a dwarf Washington Navel orange in a large pot against a side fence. I lost my other orange tree when we built the deck at the front.

Speaking of which, it seems the pergola above the deck may be painted completely soon (oh please). One more coat and it's done.

It's taken two years to reach this stage.

Note Suska wolfing down her tea, and recently reupholstered chair seats. Red vinyl from Spotlight. Very pleased with the result. How I like my staple gun!

The vegie garden is all tidied. All the languishing half-dead summer crops have been heaved out. Except for Clare's late planted corn - she's determined to have a cob from it.

I planted seeds of lettuce, spinach, silverbeet, beetroot and sugar snap peas. Clare planted rocket. All are up, but I need to plant more peas, blackbirds have scratched some up.

Leaves are falling.

I need to pick all of these - they ripen off the vine.

When I look at them I'm always reminded of something Jackie French wrote about a visitor to her garden. An elderly Oriental lady who laughed quietly when she saw the kiwifruit. Jackie probed. Apparently, back home in China the fruit were nicknamed "golden hairy goat testicles"!

Gratuitous nasturtium picture. They are so perky now the hot weather has abated. Such a relaible plant (once you've reefed out those that grow where you don't want them to). They just grow themselves, don't they.

Just some Autumn light photos now.

I have another sick child. Goodnight.

Yum

Summer's bounty.

Hop Buds

After several days now of teen wrangling I feel, well, you know, jaded. It was a quiet pleasure to photograph the hop buds on the balcony this evening. Sometime soon must be a year of blogging for me. I remember taking photos of hop flowers and posting about it.

Within me is a completely horrible rant about a child of mine. Coffee with my best buddies (earlier this arvo), indicates fifteen or sixteen years is a time of change. My own experience bears this out.

I'd like to fast forward three years or so, but there's no opportunity, then, for her to come to grips with rubbing along with all sorts of people, accepting their shortcomings and strengths. Developing empathy would be very useful as well (sadly, not apparent as yet).

Strong desire to be somewhere else. Liklihood - nil. Equals, get on with it, I suppose!

Looking Down

Looking down from the balcony this morning I'm in awe at the lushness of the back garden.Height of summer is an extremely fecund time.

If I look up, that's quite different.

The Vegie garden is doing well.

No, it's not a good idea to have a tree planted in your vegie garden. However, the tree was there first. It's a European plum - Coe's Golden Drop.

Moving the barrels about created an impromptu vegetable garden. The spot is actually quite good. Morning and midday sun but shaded from the fierce afternoon sun. I think I'll make a permanent spot.

Clare's corn. Space restrictions mean I don't usually plant corn nowadays. Sweetcorn is grown commercially around here, it's fresh and tastes sensational, so I don't bother.  But Clare really wanted to plant corn, so, a spot was found. She is so proud of it.

Interplanted with lettuce and accompanied by a self-sown tomato!

Another thing, twice I've been nominated for for the You Make My Day award. I'm really honoured, but feel all funny about whom I'm going to bestow the awards.

The instructions to this award say you must give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration, and make you feel happy about blogland.

Well, may I refer you to the blogroll on my sidebar. More than ten I think, but all qualify. How am I to choose?