Before and After

Before:

After. Ta dah! (if you can just ignore all the weeds for a minute)
Isn't the pineapple sage along the wall flowering gorgeously?

Morning Rituals

My morning ritual - tea, breakfast and the newspaper on the front porch.  At this time of year the sun just comes up over the houses over the road.  Its a nice ritual in the rain too, the porch is sheltered and the rain falls just beyond my toes.  Reminds me that all is well with my world.  Reconnects me with nature.

"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep."
-  Rumi  

Hot Cross Buns

 

The sour dough farm turned out a few batches of hot cross buns.  A bit after the event, but still...  More satisfyingly chewy than normal ones, the audience is clamouring for more, so might need to rename them.  The bread of life.

Bunny Love Lessons

We have a bunny. Who lives in a bunny mansion, inside (called Fred, and a she, so slightly gender confused).  Now, for those that know bunnies, they are not the most responsive of animals.  Bunnies make no sounds, not purring, or squeaking, or whimpering, or growling.  So it is very hard to gauge their emotions.  With a cat, or a dog, you can usually be pretty certain what they are feeling, but not so, bunnies.

 

 

Our bunny spends her time sleeping or sitting, mostly.  Not a lot looks like it happening in her mind.  Very zen.  But sometimes she comes out of her mansion and then she will do a little ballerina dance, jumping in the air and sort of patting her feet together.  Totally joyfully abandoned.

 

 

But the thing that bunny loves THE MOST, is a cuddle.  A skirtch on the head is all good, but a full out cuddle - the best!  She sort of scrunches down and snuggles in, pressing against you. 

 

So...bunny life...just chilling, a little dance sometimes, and plenty of hugs.  Not a bad recipe for a good life, at all.

In Tune with Time

Gardens are a great way to reconnect with the seasons.  You watch the new shoots in spring, flourishing in summer, and gradual die back in autumn.  Nothing can be rushed, everything has its time, as old as the ages.

 

The other aspect of nature I reckon we have completely lost touch with, is time.  The rising and setting of sun, the natural diurnal rhythms. We have alarm clocks, and artificial light, and daylight saving, and 9-5 jobs regardless of the seasons or days.

 

So, when I went camping at Easter, one of the parts I really enjoy is the need to be in tune with the sun.  When it is dark, it's dark.  There is no more cooking, reading by torch light in your tent only goes so far.  Dark is for sleep, sun is for awake, as simple as that.

 

Sunrise behind the sand dunes

 

Sun coming up over the sea, magic!

 

As Easter is at the equinox, this means 12 hours dark.  Imagine! 12 hours to lie in bed and sleep!  Such a luxury in our age.  And to actually see the sunrise over the sea, and take the time to just watch it, total bliss.

 

Sunset over the campsite

Living Well and Bread

One of the things that I find the most satisfying and wholesome feeling, and that fills me with a sense that all is well with the world, is making bread.  I agree with Ms Fisher:

 

“Perhaps this war will make it simpler for us to go back to some of the old ways we knew before we came over to this land and made the Big Money. Perhaps, even, we will remember how to make good bread again.

It does not cost much. It is pleasant: one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with peace, and the house filled with one of the world's sweetest smells. But it takes a lot of time. If you can find that, the rest is easy. And if you cannot rightly find it, make it, for probably there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel, that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.”
― M.F.K. Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf

 

I've tried lots of ways over the years, had a bread maker going for a while (easy), did it the old-fashioned knead-for-10minutes (hard) way.  But now have discovered sour dough.  Absolutely delicious, but hardly any effort.  Although it does take a couple of days in duration, the actual time involved is just a couple of minutes off and on, throughout the time.

 

So here it is in pictures:

 

1. sourdough pre ferment, takes 2 minutes to mix, then sits for 8 hours

 

 

2. mixing the main dough, just roughly together, no perfection here.  Sits for an hour.

 

 

3. Then you get your wet hand in on the action and knead/fold it a bit - for those who have made bread the hard way, this is NOT kneading, just a little play.  Sits for a couple of hours.

 

 

 

 

4. I shape it and put it in a banneton, which is a fibre rising container.  Then I stick it in a supermarket bag and put it in the fridge overnight.

 

 

 

5. In the morning I turn the oven on first thing, tip the loaf out onto a baking sheet, and cook it for 35 minutes.  Fresh bread as I come out of the shower - so delicious.

 

 

 

 

And yes, it leaves you filled with peace, and empties you of bad thoughts.  Sour dough with homemade honey, even better!  I can't wait for sour dough and homemade scrambled eggs though.

Book swapping and zen-ness

 

This weekend has been wet wet wet.  So no digging going on here.  Or even walking around the site, half the site sticks to your gumboots, and after a couple of steps you have half a ton of clay stuck to the bottom.  Its been lovely rain though.

 

So, in the interests of trying to live well, I tackled a tiny bit of the junk in the lounge in an effort to create a bit of calm and space.  Unfortunately, our inorganic collection of junk was last week, so this newly found rubbish will have to go in the rubbish bin and recycling bin. 

Although I have just discovered these wonderful boxes where you can put unwanted books (and who actually wants to read most books more than one time?) and others can come and take them home.  How cool is that?  They aren't very big, so I will have to visit a few times over the next few weeks, to get rid of all the books that were double layered on my shelves.  But I am feeling very pleased with myself to have discovered them.