Liebster award

I am very honoured and thrilled to be one of five recipients, chosen by Astra, of the Liebster award.


Astra, bless you :)

Liebster, according to my Collins German / English Dictionary, is a German word, meaning favourite.  The Liebster Award is a way to show big love to bloggers which currently have less than 200 followers.


The rules are:
1 Thank the recipient and link back to their blog.
2 Reveal your top five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3 Copy and paste the award to your blog.
4 Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.


The five blogs I have picked, in no particular order, are:


1  http://africanbliss.blogspot.com  (Rae & Dino from near Joubertina in the Eastern Cape) :
2  http://companionplanting.blogspot.com  (Jeannine of Scottburg in KwaZulu Natal)
3  http://greenhavengoodlife.blogspot.com/  (Linda of Victoria in Australia) 
4  http://tanyahighet.blogspot.com/  (Tanya of the Isle of Man)
5  http://this-newhouse.blogspot.com/  (Mrs Mac's from North Idaho, USA)


... but, I can't help myself, I'm going to bend the rules, just a little bit, because there are a couple of others I'd like to mention too...


I don't know how many followers this next one has, as Mr H (from Idaho, USA) has no followers gadget, but has shared sooo much information / experience that I cannot omit him, and his blog is at...
http://subsistencepatternfoodgarden.blogspot.com/

and, then there are these too...
http://500dollartomato.blogspot.com/  (Tami of Piedmont in North Carolina, USA)
http://enjoyingthegoodlifeathiddenmeadowfarm.blogspot.com/  (farmer of Annaplois Valley in Nova Scotia in Canada)
http://johnnybgood46.blogspot.com/  (John of Northwest Kansas, USA)...


... and (this last one is cheating, as she has more than 200 followers, but she is such a totally off-the-grid person who has given me so many brilliant eco-kitchen ideas / solutions :) ) 
http://hardworkhomestead.blogspot.com/  (Jane from Western Pennsylvania, USA)


... oh, it's not fair.  There are so many others I follow that I'd love to share.  But, I have to contain myself...


Each of the above bloggers entertains, enriches, educates and/or inspires me, and I can't wait to see what their next posting is.  I hope you find their blogs as delightful as I do...


I obtain such enjoyment from every blog I follow.  Thank you - for taking the time to give of yourselves, to share what you know and what interests you, and for all the encouragement you give me.  I am richer for knowing you.

Colourful beans

This is my first year growing anything but green beans.

Linda, from Sought-After-Seedlings in Johannesburg supplies South Africa with Franchi Sementi seeds.  Browsing through her web page in anticipation of what I was going to plant this Spring, I came across Climbing Neckargold, a brilliant yellow bean...

And, scrolling further I came across the Dwarf Purple King

I am entranced with the purple flowers and stem on these plants.  I can't wait for some beans to grow - and grow big enough for me to harvest.  I am sort of sad that they turn green when they are cooked - it might have been nice to see purple beans on my dinner plate :)

What are your favourite beans in your existing or planned vegetable patch?

I regret not having been adventurous enough to purchase the Dwarf Borlotti beans too.  Ah well, something to try next year :)

Recycling for cleaning purposes

Like many other people out there I used bicarb and vinegar for a lot of my home cleaning - most of the cleaning which takes place, in fact.

So, from my wholesale supplier, I purchase bicarb in 1kg (1 lb) packs, and my vinegar in 5lt (1 gal.) containers.

I find lugging those containers around a tedious addition to my daily chores, so I gave that some lateral thought.

What I came up with is this.

For the bicarb, I decanted the powder into an empty spice bottle. The perforated lid makes the job of sprinkling bicarb quick and direct, with as little wastage / mess as possible :)

Empty spice bottle - perfect for sprinkling
bicarb on kitchen surfaces, or onto food which
has caught on the base of my cooking pots  

And, for the vinegar - I decanted that into a small spray bottle, added a drip or two of liquid soap and, voilà, I have a quick, easy to use eco-friendly spray which sits next to my kitchen sink, both here and on the farm.

A spray bottle filled with vinegar and a
drop of soap - stored next to my kitchen
sink it is perfect for a quick eco-friendly
clean up of my kitchen surfaces :)

Lugging these two items around is now a pleasure :)  In fact, as soon as I have another couple of empty spice bottles I am going to leave one of each in each bathroom.  Then there will be no necessity for me to schlep to the kitchen to collect what I forgot... again LOL

Solar baked Christmas cake

Last Saturday was predicted to be sunny and warm, so I woke up all keen and eager to make my (belated) Solar Christmas Cakes in the solar oven.  The weather in Cape Town has not been conducive to solar oven use apart from the one hot sunny day we had a week or so ago.  A windy, cloudy and sometimes wet Spring is lingering, and summer is still hovering in the sidelines.

But, on Saturday morning everything went well - I even had all the necessary ingredients on hand LOL  I awoke to a blue sky, and ignoring the wind, for that doesn't affect the performance of the solar oven, I got down to making the cakes. I tripled the recipe...

... and I scored 6 more egg shells in which to plant seeds...

In order to use the empty egg shells as
seed trays, the trick is to open the egg
shells as close to the  pointed end as
possible - that will allow for more sand in
the empty egg shell :)

... and found a small patch of sunlight on our wooden deck where I could place my solar oven to preheat.  In winter this deck is in complete shade.

Check out that little patch of sky at the
back - it looks promising, doesn't it :)

The cakes merrily baked away - this is after 20 minutes.

But, I think I got excited too soon.  One-and-a-half hours into the baking the clouds rolled over!  I gave the cakes a prick test, and there was still wet dough in the centre.  Damn!  What am I going to do now?  Can I afford to waste all these ingredients, and start again on another day...?

Or, should I switch on my (electric) oven and complete the baking process in that?

I decided on the latter.  But, idiot me, I placed the cakes in the oven whilst it was warming up - I didn't want to lose any heat from the mixture during the oven heating stage.  And I clean forgot that the oven heats from the bottom element and the top grill element - guess it is a year-and-a-half since I last used my oven - I can forgive myself for making such a stupid mistake.  But the result was that the tops of the cakes were burnt - some worse than others.  I tried waiting for the cake to cool down and "slicing" off the worst of the burn - and again forgot that fruit cakes need maturation time in order to mature and firm up.  Crumble, crumble, crumble... :)

Drat!  And I wasted 3/4 - 1 hour of electricity trying to salvage my cakes.

So I had to toddle off to the shops early yesterday morning in order to purchase more ingredients so that I could make a new batch of Christmas cakes - I'm also baking one for NGirl to take home with her, for RSon and for our two staff members as well.

I scored another six eggs shells - plus RMans
shell from his breakfast :)  From RMans shell
you can easily see how close to the top I break
the shell

I had a clear blue sky - and the photo below shows the cakes in their final hour of baking.  It was 26oC outside and 160 - 170oC in the oven.  Perfect:)

The other cakes won't be wasted though.  We don't normally make (or eat) Christmas pudding, but there is nothing to stop me from using one from the 1st disastrous batch in a fruit cake trifle :)

Here are the cakes as they continue their baking without their lids...

And here are the finished products :)

Now I'm happy.

And I am even more (if possible) convinced that my solar oven is the only way to cook!

Moist, heavenly smelling and perfectly baked :)

And serious solar cooking is once again on the menu in Cape Town - YAY!

Now, the rest of my Christmas preparations will have to wait until we get to the farm...

Advent

This year I decided to do a different type of Advents kranz.  A kranz is a wreath in German - and at this time of year is obviously a Christmas wreath.


It is, for me, symbolical of both the circle of life which begins with birth of a baby and the Crown of Thorns that was placed on Christ's head at his crucifixion.  It is an evergreen wreath and to which four candles are added.  One of the candles are lit on each of the four Sundays before Christmas, with all four candles being lit on the night of Christmas Eve - which, due to RMan's family roots, is when we celebrate Christmas.  (But MKid, as did our two, has a special Father Christmas gift under the tree on Christmas morning.  We did that in order to combine my English roots and heritage, with RMan's German roots and heritage.  It also allowed the children to participate in the "guess what I found under the tree" conversations with their peers / friends, and helped to prevent their feeling left out when their friends talked about Christmas morning.) 


Last year I made an indigenous wreath in a florist circle...

... and, as happy as I was with it, I found that moving / filling the base with water was a hassle - and messy LOL  And the candles kept falling over...


So this year I decided to make something different.


A square wreath!?

Most importantly,  it is one which I can easily transport to the farm for MKid's sake - we may be in an out of ordinary location for this our first Christmas on the farm, but that doesn't mean we can't have the normal trappings and traditional decorations.


This year, for RMan's sake and in memory of his late father who recently passed away, I have kept the conifer / evergreen theme.  But. I also like a bit of colour, so a couple of geranium flowers provided just what I needed.  Then a whimsical hint of Angel's Hair and I'm done.


We lit it last night, being the first Sunday in Advent.  And I like the wreath.  I also like being able to adapt each year to suit my whim.


Which one do you prefer?


But, for me, like so many others, Christmas is completely about celebrating birth, family time and continuing traditions.  It wouldn't be the same without them.  So, if I am able to maintain this particular tradition, whilst giving it a tweak now and then, what's the harm?  :)

Eco-friendly cooling

RMan spent the entire time at the farm last weekend preparing for the hot weather of summer.  I have previously mentioned that we took some recycled balustrades to the farm - for our front porch.  This is what we still have at our town house...

Recycled balustrades

... and I have other plans for that LOL


So, whilst I painted the balustrades which we had installed on the porch a dark green colour to match our green power room door :)...


... RMan got busy with organising some  shade...

Butterfly clips

He spied these at Builders Warehouse - Butterfly Clips.  I didn't have a clue what he wanted to do with them, but we both have our ideas on how we are making our farm comfortable for everyone, so I patiently waited for the plan to be unveiled :)


RMan attached an eye bolt to the walls of the house...

Wall mounting method

... and another eye bolt with threaded rod and a nut to the poles he had installed on the patio

Pole mounting method

Then he strung some stainless steel cable (recycled from the balustrades) between the eye bolts and spent many long, laborious hours installing each butterfly clip, one at a time, onto some Alnet Cooltone shade fabric we had purchased from their factory shop, and to the cable until we had this...

Butterfly clips on recycled stainless steel cable

Taa Da!  We have shade for the upcoming hot summer months.  And RMan has made it retractable - a very basic method, but it works!  Clever RMan! That means we'll still be able to enjoy sunshine on the patio in the cooler winter months :)

Finished product looking in (and please note
the beautiful newly painted balustrade - painted
in 35oC - hectic!  Best thing about that
was that the paint dried in 1/2 hour LOL)

But, we still have to install two wires in the centre, running parallel to the top poles, to prevent the shadecloth from sagging or ballooning in the wind.


And, finally, RMan fixed the shadecloth to the walls.  This he did, in the pouring rain, howling wind (and that wasn't easy!) and 35oC sunshine, by catching the fabric with some wooden battens and screwing the batten securely to the wall - no more flying of the shadecloth - at least on one side!  On the outer edge, by these two poles below, we'll have to make another plan.

Finished product looking out

Finally, RMan installed a mister system on the horizontal poles.  This system is very eco-friendly, as it uses less than a litre of water  / hour and it's cooling effect has to be experienced to be believed!  

Eco-friendly cooling

Reckon we're all set for summer now - so can someone please tell the weather.  Unlike the farm, cool, windy, rainy days persist in Cape Town, which is great for the dams, but not so good for producing fruit on my veggies.  My lettuces love it, but my tomatoes have yet to produce flowers, never mind fruit!

Welcome

Continuing the introduction of new friends to old friends, please won't you join me in welcoming John from somewhere in the United States.

As John is a chef, his blog is about cooking  - and other stuff such as how to make flour from acorns and information on a link on how to make a zee pot :)  (and a warning to Jane especially.  There is a graphic photo of a deer - please look away)


John, I reply to all comments (even those placed on old postings), but given the size of this planet, and the different time zones, it may not be today by your time, but will certainly be by tomorrow.  And, if I am on the farm it may take a little longer...LOL

Hello & Welcome

Continuing the introduction of new friends to old friends, please won't you join me in welcoming Sue from Northern Michigan.

Sue has two blogs - the first is a blog about life beyond gardening - a blog about stuff that keeps her awake - now that I can certainly relate to :).  I loved her posting about peeling a whole head of garlic in 10 secs.  And I love the photo's of the fall leaves and their stunning autumn colours! You live in a beautiful part of the world, Sue.

Her other blog is about her garden of raised beds (and recipes of what she is cooking from what she harvests) and her old stone cottage - oh, I'd love to see a pic of the outside of that cottage :)  I also love those photo's of her pumpkins in all their different shapes and sizes - you can tell I'm a frustrated pumpkin grower, can't you LOL


Sue, I reply to all comments (even those placed on old postings), but given the size of this planet, and the different time zones, it may not be today by your time, but will certainly be by tomorrow.  And, if I am on the farm it may take a little longer...LOL