The Learning Is Everywhere

Lewi's week in a list:

Blue Pool.Went to a garage sale at Tanja. Had a drink and melting moment at The Pickle Factory in Tathra. Had a catch up with Jacob at his house. Had a catch up with Jacob at our house. Made a salad. Trampoline. Story CD's {Just McBeth and Worm Story}. Read Return to Del. Read the Natural History Book. Drawing. Drawing. Drawing. Wii. Finished Mario Galaxy 2. Had a catch up with Ptolemy and Taj and Luca and the girls. Swam at the river. Had Breasy over. Computer and computer games online. Blogged about favourite animals. Watched an animal doco on the ABC {Loved the bird bits. Some of Lew's favourite birds were on this}. Planned to blog and research some more about the Iiwi finch of Hawaii. Had a catch up with Rommy. Visited Sarah's. Played Connect Sports at Sarah's...and more...

Some days it doesn't feel like a lot of learning is taking place. Sometimes a whole week can feel like that. But thankfully, through unschooling eyes, I can see the learning really is in everything Lewi does. If I was to break up everything we've done over the week and analysed it through 'educational' eyes then I know there was a lot of learning going on. It's just hidden in our lives because it's embedded in all that we do. It's natural. It's real life stuff. It's learning, no matter who's eyes we want to view it through.

Unfortunately this week felt like a so-so week. We had some tensions - mainly between Lewi and I. It feels like a disconnection issue to me. He's getting older and he's changing. I need to get with it and reconnect with him on that level rather than where he was at 6 months ago. I've found this is often a hiccup that has occurred along my parenting journey. I'm often behind the eight ball because I'm still in the mode of yesterday when tomorrow has already come and gone. Sometimes it takes me awhile to catch up. I hope to hurry up.

11 is definitely a different age. I'll get used to it. I love it, don't get me wrong. He's a gorgy boy and there are so many pros to hanging out with an 11 year old. It's just different and I can sense the need for making a few changes in my own behaviour to allow room for him to grow and develop and move forward into his older years.

My boy is growing up, there's no doubt about it.

A Sunny Sunday

 

Today we had our little church get together in Bermi. It's always so lovely to meet together, especially after we've had a bit of a break over the New Year.

We normally bring something to share and have a feast afterwards and loads of cups of tea.  Today I did a sourdough loaf and brought honey and butter and some pretty flowers for Helen.  I popped them all in my new garage sale basket. It felt really special and lovely. I love food, especially freshly baked bread and flowers in baskets. {I think that could be a whole other post topic}. So I couldn't help taking a few little snapperoos of the basket.

  Before church we stopped into the Bermi markets to say hi to Joanne and Sarah who had their stalls there today.      We also got some lovely ground flora honey from the Mimosa honey man. Yum! I happened to grab a bargain too, a ceramic thingy that goes on top of electrical thingys...insulator? Is that what they're called? After church we met Sarah, Gerard and the kidlets down at the beautiful Blue Pool. It is such a lovely spot to swim. The water is crystal clear and blue. It's clean and fresh and, yes, a wee bit cold, but it's such a lovely experience swimming in there, no waves to freak us out and no sand to disappoint. Lewi spent the whole time with his head under the water looking at fish with his googles. He's always in his element at the Blue Pool.     This is how Lewi is for most of his swimming time. Meily's the opposite. She likes to keep her head out of the water.

It was a little freaky today though as there was a fair bit of wave crashing happening over the rocks and into the pool. It wasn't too bad but I kept having to steer Lew away from the ocean edge ~ quite a difficult task when his head's always submerged. He becomes extremely hearing challenged!

 

For dinner I picked some fresh vegies from the garden and Lewi made up a salad for us to have with our corn fritters. A nice, easy, fresh dinner for a hot Sunday evening.

I really love Sundays like these, minus the heat of course.

How was yours?

 

Garage Sale & Op Shop Finds

I haven't been to a garage sale in ages. I'm not sure why...could be the whole selling thing that has caused me to pull back a bit and hold off on the collecting for awhile. Today, though I couldn't resist. The garage sale was the closing down sale of Georgina's Cucina at Wapengo. I had meant to keep the date for this sale in my memory but, like many things these days, it disappeared and I had forgotten when it was being held. Thankfully Sarah saw it in the local paper and rang me to let me know she'd be picking us up within the hour.

 

Lewi was so not wanting to go. I had so many, many hopes for this boy to become a garage sale loving kid. My dream of garage sale hopping and auction venturing with my enthusiastic child champing at the bit ready for a bargain and hunt has all but vanished. It's not going to happen. He hates them. He wants to sit in the car and not come anywhere near them. I think I've over done, just a tad, and now he's moved right on through to hatred of anything that resembles recycling or vintage. Argh!!!

But, the lovely lad did agree {ever so unwillingly} to come along today. Phew!

It was lovely to visit this place. It's been a spot that I've wanted to get my sticky beak nose into for a long time now. I had plans of doing a cooking class with Georgina for my birthday this year and a long term plan to go on a Tuscan food tour with her sometime in my life time but, alas she has sold her property and is moving further south, to Melbourne.

So there was no possible way I could've missed this garage sale.

Here are my purchases...not the biggest of bargains but lovely none-the-less...

Actually, the jar and Johnson Brothers bowl {I'm collecting this set} I bought on our way home at the Tathra Op Shop for a hefty 80cents for both!

Oh, and did I share my Pambula Op shop finds of last week? I don't think I did. Here it is...

I love it! It's a cute retro blue teapot. my first try of it was a cuppa with Rae  and some munchy chocolate croissants. It pours beautifully. Bonus!

I so love garage sales and op shops. Fun, fun!

What did you get up to this fine Saturday?

In My Garden

So I've realised that setting specific days aside for writing certain posts is not working for me! I thought it would help with my organisation and blogging goals but it's actually caused me a lot of stress and worry and, well, failure. I have missed some already and it's only week 2 or 3???? Anyway, so what I've decided to do is try to commit myself to posting about my chosen topics each week at some point, rather than having a dedicated day for each one. That makes me feel a lot more free and relaxed and, if you know me at all then you'd know  that free and relaxed has got to be a very good thing.

So, although In My Garden had initially been dedicated to Fridays I am now freeing it up for any day of the week {so too Time For A Recipe and In The Nest and maybe even The LEarning Is Everywhere???}.

OK, now that I'm all explained out {and I've justified my slackness} here's a look at my garden this past week...

Woo hoo! The tomatoes are finally starting to ripen. It's been a long time coming but sooo worth it. There's nothing better than fresh, home grown tomatoes, is there? One has a big bird bite out of it already. The little buggers!

This is the first cuey of the season. Late late late.. It's got a little split in it but I'm sure it'll be edible.

The King Purple climbing beans are starting to go mad. So happy. I love these things. Not only are they great to eat but they look so pretty in the garden. The deep purple bean is gorgeous against it's bright green, leafy leaves. Lovely!

  Hello! Snow peas in summer???? Yep! They're edible too. They self seeded from my winter/spring crop and I've got a few plants now fruiting.  My good old faithful is in full bloom again...Pierre de Ronsard of course! These are the beans on the Indian Bean tree. They look so edible and yummy. But I don't think they are???? This tree is like a beanstalk from Jack and the Beanstalk. People are always commenting on how much it's grown and continues to grow. It obviously loves water and wet feet as it's had that pretty much all summer. It's the only explanation I have as I haven't treated it all that well {unless neglect is a form of plant love???}.

Oh, and I should have really shown you the state of my lawn and the weeds in some of my flower gardens. But I haven't due to total embarrassment. They are shockingly bad. I've conquered many but there's now just as many more to attack. Oh the pros and cons of a wet summer!

How's your garden growing this week?

Sourdough

 

Last week I finally made sourdough bread. It's something I've been wanting to do for years now but I've been putting it on the back burner because the whole 'starter' thing freaked me out. Two good homeschooling friends of mine have been sourdough bakers for yonks and they've tried to reassure me, over the years, that the starter is nothing to freak out about. Typical of me, I didn't believe them.

A couple of weeks ago, while Dona and Taj were visiting, we started talking sourdough. I began with my thing that I always say: Yep, I'm keen but the starter thing freaks me out bla bla.

The next day Dona rang me to let me know that she was making the starter for me and that she'd already...started. What a lovely girl.

No more 'can't do' sourdough excuses! After a week of the starter doing it's thing, Dona arrived with the jar of golden help and hands that were willing to get me on the sourdough track.

This is my journey into the land of sourdough baking. There's now no turning back. It's easy too ~ they weren't lying!

This is the freaky starter. Turns out it's not at all freaky. Once it's been doing it's thing for 7 days it's ready to use to make bread. Then all you do is keep feeding it {adding rye flour and water accordingly} to keep it alive. You can have the same one going for years. Pretty cool.

So you need: flour, water, salt and starter.

 

For a nice size loaf I added 3 cups of flour to a bowl.

   Then I added about a tablespoon of salt, 2 cups of starter and 1 cup of warm water.

Mix it all around until it's a sticky dough.

   For the kneading part you need another cup of flour to add to the board or bench to prevent stickiness. It will absorb the whole cup of flour and end up a lovely, slightly tacky dough after 10 minutes of kneading. It's a workout!

  

Dona helped me with some kneading and showed me her style...:)

Then I popped it in a lightly oiled, clean bowl and sprinkled a little flour on the top of the dough. I put a muslin cloth {kindly brought for me by Dona} on top and left it alone for a loooooong time. The idea is that it takes a bit of time for the starter to do it's thing. It's different to normal yeast, which is quick rising. Normally what people do is make the dough in the evening and then leave it to rise until the morning. Then you can pop it in the oven for a yummy fresh sourdough bread breakfast. {Lowish oven for about an hour until you knock on the top and hear that it's hollow sounding}.

   Then VOILA! Yummy, yum sourdough bread. Crunchy on the top, warm and delicious in the middle. Pile it with butter and honey and try not to eat the whole loaf in one sitting.

**this photo is actually the second loaf I baked. The first one was a little heavy and very sour. I left it waaay too long to prove which attributed to the very sour taste. It was still nice enough but the second loaf was much better.

Big, BIG, BIG thank yous to Dona for helping me become a sourdough girl. You are so lovely xxx

{Also, thank you to Melinda for continually telling me how easy it is and who is great at giving handy hints along the way xxx}

So now I'm a sourdough queen!

In The Nest: Australia Day

In The Nest and Australia Day have collided with a big bang so I'm feeling some blending coming on.

I must admit, I've never been all that big on Australia Day. Don't get me wrong, I love this country that we a blessed to be in. I know it has clean air and water and is fairly low in population. We can vote. Women can work. We have a female prime minister. We've got welfare payouts and people can live quite comfortably surfing their way around the country on the dole. I love that the Aussie way is to choose lifestyle over work or energy output. We're that relaxed...pretty cool.

The thing I've always struggled with though is the whole invasion thing. As tongue in cheek as I was about a paragraph ago, I do feel really strongly about the lack of understanding and empathy for aboriginal people in this country. It makes me sad to think that my heritage has caused great suffering for the native people of this land and there's not a heck of a lot I can do about it.

Every Australia Day I have so many mixed feelings. Of course I'm as patriotic as the next white Aussie.  But I am equally as ashamed of our heritage and the devastation that it caused our  native people. I don't have the answers for continual reconciliation but I really feel that a sorry was the absolute least we could do. It was a start.

So, on this Australia Day/In The Nest I want to give the aboriginal people of this land the limelight that they so deserve. Their artwork is something that so many of us are familiar with and possibly even have hanging somewhere in our own nests. Most regions in Australia have their own aboriginal art identities. Our region is no exception. We have some wonderful local, Aboriginal talent. Cheryl Davidson {Follow the link and click on the Sustain magazine cover. Go to page 44 and read the artist's profile} is one such person. Have a read about her in Sustain. Inspirational! Now for some images of Australian interiors that have been inspired by Aboriginal art.

Here's to the aboriginal people of this great south land ~ from those of us who wished that things could've turned out differently.

Happy Australia Day!

Technorati Tags: Australia Day Aboriginal Art

Shaker Style

 

As promised Cate and Julie, here is some Shaker style inspiration.

{world of stock} 

The Shakers {a religious cult beginning in the late 1700's} style can be summed up using two of their favourite sayings:

1. Whatever is fashioned, let it be plain and simple and for the good

2. Beauty rests on utility

So it's pretty obvious that functionality and purpose was key to Shaker decor. They were not into decorating at all, no feathering the nest for them, but they did believe that the 'quality of their work was a testament to God' so every piece of furniture they made was made to perfection. They were amazing tradespeople.

Simplicity and clean lines, uncluttered open spaces and natural materials ~ these are really important elements in Shaker design.

So if you're thinking Shaker style then think ~

Ladder back chairs with woven tape seats

Timber {cherrywood and maple mainly} furniture without padding or soft furnishings was common - no comfy sofas for the Shakers!

Peg rails

Ample storage

Oval shaped boxes

Timber floors with flat finishes

Neutral wall colour

Limited colour palette of red, blue, yellow and greeny-blue

{fine art america}

{coro flot}

Want to know how to bring some Shaker style into the 21st century? Take a look here for some Shaker inspired interiors.

I love it all! Simple. Unobtrusive. Humble. Beautiful. Natural. Timeless. Ecclectic.

What do think? Is there a hint of Shaker in you?