Category Archives: Self-reliance

Refreshed and Ready

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You would think I would have had better things to do 3 days before we travel overseas but I decided to make new covers for some cushion pads to go on some stools for the kitchen.

When we first moved to this house I was unsure whether I actually wanted stools to sit at the breakfast bar at the island bench. I felt that they could make the space feel visually cluttered. In the meantime, we decided to utilise the space under the bench to store some of the buckets which hold bulk dry goods such as flours, nuts and dried fruit.

These will eventually be housed in the revamped and extended butler’s pantry but I am really not sure when that is likely to happen due the eternal dearth of tradesmen.

A few months ago I spotted a giveaway of 2 stools that turned out to be in the next street to us. They were in OK condition overall buy the cushions were covered in a faded yellow fabric that was rather grubby from having been stored in the shed. I picked them up and set them aside as a future project.

So, a few days ago I rearranged somethings in the wardrobe in the spare room, relocated the buckets of dry goods to the wardrobe and set about transforming the stools.

The first step was to remove the old covers. Deconstructing items carefully is a great way to create a pattern for their replacement and helps to understand how they are assembled.

Some strong calico from my stash created a neat, smooth base for the new covers.

I chose a lovely vintage cotton paisley print fabric which had been given to me some time ago.

I decided to adapt the design slightly to make the covers removable and the extension flap folds over to the underside of the cushion and fastens with velcro.

I am very happy with the end result.

The stools are exactly the right height for the bench and the backs are low enough that they do not create a significant interruption the the visual lines of the bench.

I also made a new set of tiebacks for the curtains in the family room to match the cushion covers. They replaced the ones that I made when we first moved in.

Saving Seeds

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My vegetable gardening efforts over the years have sometimes involved buying and sowing seeds but have mostly been a matter of buying a punnet of seedlings.

I know that this is not the most sustainable option for several reasons. The seedlings come in a plastic tray and they are often grown in quite different conditions to your location which does not always bode well for their success. Finally, many are hybrids which are not suitable for seed saving as they do not grow true to type.

At the beginning of October, I was fortunate enough to be given some lettuce seedlings by a fellow gardener who lives about 1km away from us. These were very successful for several months until the hot weather and then they bolted as lettuces tend to do in the warmer months. A couple of them grew to almost 1 metre tall with masses of flowers.

GMan was keen to clear out the garden bed where they were so today I checked them and found dozens of seed heads with literally hundreds of seeds. I collected them, rinsed the detritus from them and spread the seeds out on a scrap of calico fabric to dry.

Wish me luck with my first real foray into saving and replanting seed from my own garden. These lettuces have proven themselves very successful in our climate and soil conditions so I am hopeful of reasonable success.

Harvest Time

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When choosing this title I noticed that I had used it before in 2021 – except that it was in early November. It is now late summer here and everything seems to be ripening in abundance so we are fully occupied making sure that none of it goes to waste.

Here are a few of the things we have been doing in the past few days.

When we moved here we inherited two espaliered nashi pear trees which have borne prolifically. We did not net them so the parrots have enjoyed quite a feast but we have still managed to pick several hundred fruit. Once we discovered that we really like the fruit stewed, GMan has made it his mission to peel and slice the seemingly never-ending supply and the freezer is full of containers of stewed nashi which we will enjoy in the coming months.

It is now about 6 weeks since I picked the first of our zucchini and I been managing to use them at pretty much the same rate as we were picking them until the last few days. So, today I made zucchini slice. I have been trialling making them in individual serves in the airfryer for some time now and am happy that I have finally got the amended measurements and cooking times right. I will post an amended recipe in the next blog post.

I also grated several extra zucchini and have them packed in bags of 200g in the freezer for future zucchini slice making.

Meanwhile, the tomato sauce was simmering on the stove.

This was the result.

I made another of my experimental versions of basil pesto and am pretty happy with this one. Almonds instead of pine nuts. Some grated zucchini mixed with the basil makes it milder flavoured. Nutritional yeast rather than cheese makes it dairy-free, vegan and reduces the cholesterol. Yes, minimising the cholesterol intake is going to be more of a feature of my cooking in the future. I also add the juice of half a lemon as it makes it a bit less oily.

The bumper harvest has not been confined to just our garden and our neighbour’s. I picked up a bag of plums from a roadside giveaway earlier in the week. I stewed these and have some each morning on my cereal.

Processing gluts of home-grown, gifted or foraged produce can be time-consuming but it is a worthwhile activity which helps to minimise the amount of food going to waste.

A Load of Landscaping

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This was the view of the front of our house when we first looked at it just over 12 months ago.

It was relatively unremarkable but we were not keen on the wide expanse of dusty blue metal.

We have been working on how to change it but still enable access to the driveway at the far side of the house.

Most of the plants have been removed and/or relocated as most of them were in the far front corner which has been repurposed into a vehicle parking/turning area. GMan also removed all of the metal edging from that area but since it was one continuous length we have reused it to border the new garden area.

This is a photo from an earlier blog post.

The first of the plants have been in for some time now. We had a load of mulch delivered a couple of days ago so have been busy covering the ground with layers of excess newspaper sourced from the local newsagent and then covered with a generous layer of mulch. The product we chose is called ‘bush bark’ and provides the most natural-looking cover for this area of the garden.

There are not many weeds to suppress in this area but the addition of a thick layer of mulch should help to moderate the soil temperature, particularly on extremely hot days like tomorrow with a forecast maximum temperature of 37C.

The two small raised vegetable gardens will eventually be relocated but the zucchini and eggplant are happily growing there at the moment.

We still have a small area left to finish, but not in the heat tomorrow. GMan is also creating a wire barrier to isolate the stormwater drain from the mulch during heavy rain.

We are looking forward to adding some more plants to this area to provide habitat for the local birds and wildlife.

The Hub

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The kitchen is often referred to as the hub of the home but for us in this house the hub is definitely the office.

The office space is perfectly located as it is a walk-through space between the hall and the laundry, has an internal opening through to the informal family room and kitchen as well as having a view of the back garden and being within speaking distance of the the back patio.

This space is also the last to be properly organised and is finally done 9 months after we moved in. There are a couple of reasons for the delay. There was an assortment of paperwork and brochures relating to the house and the local area which the previous owners has kindly left for us. Some are useful but others are no longer relevant so we really had to sort them all out. Secondly, we had an assortment of peripheral equipment for the computer which I was unable to neatly position due to the layout of the desk.

Last week I found that the holes in desks for managing cables are not confined to bought furniture. So, we bought a couple of what are known as desk grommets and borrowed an appropriate-sized hole saw from the neighbour.

GMan created a hole in the desk and another in the divider under the desk so that we could feed the cables through to the power point.

This meant that we could set the equipment up on the desk with the power cords neatly tucked away rather than trailing over the front edge of the desk.

This is the view behind the monitor with the cables all tucked neatly out of sight.

Under the desk.

The other side of the divider.

The power board and cables are completely hidden by the shredder and bin of paper/cardboard to be shredded. I do this on a regular basis and add it to the compost. The covered item on the shelf above is the printer which we use very occasionally so we store it here when not in use.

We also finished sorting out the random piles which had collected on the desk and the addition of a shallow basket for paperwork that is ‘in progress’ or ‘to do’ keeps everything much tidier.

On the wall opposite the desk are these IKEA cupboards. Although they are not true built-ins they are attached to the wall and were here when we bought the house. It is great to be able to have our books behind the glass doors, mostly on view and accessible without gathering dust as they do on open shelving. One of the lower shelves stores stationery items.

I am happy with the result. Despite being quite compact (2m x 1.7m) it is now a much more useable space.

A Red Beret

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Tonight we are going to an event with a French theme. So, I decided that a French-inspired outfit would be a good idea and a beret was needed.

I watched a YouTube video on how to create a pattern to make a beret and then dived into my stash to find a suitable fabric. A piece of red uncut cord was the perfect weight and colour. For ease of fitting I chose to finish the inside edge with a piece of ribbing rather than the traditional binding.

There will be more details about the event and my whole outfit in the next blog post. Hint: There will be more of my sewing featured.

A Hot Day

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We have had a remarkably mild summer so far but yesterday it really kicked into gear. The outdoor temperature at our place peaked at 40.5C. This is not remarkable compared to other parts of the country but it was certainly enough to make us choose to stay indoors. With the blinds drawn and a couple of ceiling fans we were quite comfortable for most of the day before turning the airconditioning on in the family room for 2 hours in the late afternoon from about 5.30pm. The temperature was set on 24C and this soon made the room pleasantly comfortable.

I spent most of the day sewing and made two bags for a friend from fabric she had given me. They were mostly relatively small pieces of linen and cotton which had been carry bags from bed linen she had purchased at various times. I am really pleased with the results and looking forward to giving them to her.

Meanwhile, GMan was hardly being lazy either. He had picked 45 Nashi pears from one of our trees the previous day. This was after the birds had helped themselves. If we get organised and net the trees next year our harvest should be about doubled. Neither of us were smitten with eating the fruit raw so he decided to try stewing them. This was a raging success as they taste just like the tinned pears we both remember eating when we were growing up. It was a huge job to peel, core and slice them all but we now have one container in the refrigerator and several others in the freezer.

Today is a day of extreme to catastrophic fire danger across most of the state so we will be indoors, staying cool and most importantly, following any emergency reports and advice.

Choosing A Title

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After almost 13 years and over 1700 published blog posts it is sometimes a bit tricky to come up with an original title that is relatively short, snappy and relevant.

I can, and sometimes do use a title more than once.  In fact, this post was going to be ‘Home, Sweet Home’ as I have been away for about 10 days.  However, I found that I had actually just about worn that out with no fewer than 6 blog posts with that moniker.

Anyway, enough rambling.  I am arrived home safely on Tuesday afternoon following a trip to Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.  It was not under the best of circumstances as I attended a funeral.  It was for my cousin who is only a year older than me and sadly lost a battle with bowel cancer.

I chose to spend some extra time in Queensland with my daughter and granddaughters as well as my brother and sister.

I have unpacked, done some washing and prepared meals so nothing terribly exciting happening here at the moment.  We bought some fruit and vegetables yesterday and I spotted a couple of trays of mangoes.  This is not a common sight in Victoria so I bought a tray.  14 medium sized mangoes for $15.  I am planning to dehydrate some, freeze others and keep at least one fresh to make mango salsa to go with our dinner tomorrow night.

Tomatoes – A Test Run

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I am always looking for ways to store the inevitable summer glut of home-grown tomatoes. I make tomato sauce (ketchup) but there is a limit to how much of that we need. The recipe is here if you are interested. I also used to freeze cherry tomatoes whole for use in casseroles and other cooking. I have dabbled in making tomato paste and tomato powder. These have all been reasonably successful but somewhat labour intensive.

Our tomatoes are not ready yet but the neighbours have generously shared their harvest.

I had these spread out to ripen and today I selected the reddest ones and cut them into quarters. I placed them into a round cake tin with 2 large cloves of garlic and a handful of basil leaves (all homegrown) and a drizzle of olive oil. I cooked them in the airfryer for 25 minutes at 170C then blitzed them in the high-speed blender.

I now have a couple of jars of delicious sauce which will be perfect for pizza bases, pasta dishes or adding to other dishes for a rich tomato flavour. This was super quick and easy and I will definitely be doing it again in the future. I choose not to process the sauce but simply store it in the freezer.

Scrolling Idly

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Many would say that idle scrolling through your social media feed is an appalling waste of time and a bad habit. Generally, I would agree with these sentiments but randomly checking Facebook has proved to be very worthwhile in the past week.

One evening I quickly checked and happened upon a small cupboard for sale on Marketplace. I showed GMan as he had been saying that he needed a stand for his BBQ (also sourced from Marketplace). He was also thinking that some storage underneath the stand would be useful. I checked the dimensions of the advertised cupboard and we decided that it would be perfect for this purpose.

A short drive and $20 later and we had a stand for the BBQ.

I could not believe my luck when I managed to follow up that win with another. Yesterday afternoon I spotted a sofa which looked perfect for our family room. We had a sofa bed there which we had brought from Queensland and although it is good for a spare bed it is not the most comfortable sofa in the world. This ‘new to us’ leather sofa is in excellent condition and is a welcome addition for $190. The sofa bed has been rehomed in the spare bedroom.

Of course, you can’t pick and choose exact colours when buying secondhand. This shows the colour of the sofa and that colour of the back of the sideboard which is quite close to it. 

I am planning to find some fabric which incorporates the taupe and indigo/navy colours to make a couple of cushions for the sofa which will tie it all together colourwise. Perhaps something like this.

With a bit of creativity I think I can make it all work really well together.