Exmouth and Cape Range National Park

SO after a week in Karijini, we headed over to Exmouth and spent a few days in the Cape Range National Park. Unfortunately, like all camping this far north, the length of stay was determined by the quantity of supplies ie food, water and gas we could carry...It's also advisable to book ahead for this park because the camping spots are limited, tightly managed and in high demand. Next Time I'll pack for a month :-)

Karijini part 2

Karijini part 1

Long time no post, but so much to share. Plus, I got a new camera for Christmas so can begin recording my life again. yay! So...backtracking to October, I went road tripping north... one ute, one girl and a few friends one open horizon...and about 6000km
New Norcia
















Carnamah

Carnarvon

 Karijini!

 

 

 

I'm meant to be essay writing. I think I've got about 9000 words due in the next 16 days... so of course I've spent the morning loading programmes and music onto my new computer :-) I've also built a new pen for our little chickens- so not an entirely wasted morning! hehe One of the joys of a new computer is being able to get the photos off my camera! so here is a selection from the last ...6? months!

Out of hibernation

I logged into my blog today to get my 'green tomato cake' recipe and thought-why don't I write here anymore?
Its been 18 months and I think Im ready to start writing again. Don't care if no one reads it. I like the record for me :-)
So... what's on my mind this glorious summers afternoon?
one green tomato cake coming up :-) just made some beautiful tomato pasta sauce, am trying to work out how to thresh and husk the small aomount of spelt wheat we harvested a few weeks ago...and...Im thinking the blackberries down in the front swamp are probably ripe and ready to pick and the mini horses could probably do with some company. Not much has changed in 18 months has it??!
I'm also really aware that I should be doing my readings rather than cooking all day, but im still mulling over one of the quotes I read yesterday. Yes, its about death...but in a good way...what do you think of it?

'Death is the touchstone of our attitude to life. People who are afraid of death are afraid of life. It is impossible not to be afraid of life with all its complexity and dangers if one is afraid of death. This means that to solve the problem of death is not a luxury. If we are afraid of death we will never be prepared to take ultimate risks; we will spend out life in a cowardly, careful and timid manner. It is only if we can face death, make sense of it, determine its place and our place in regard to it, that we will be able to live in a fearless way and to the fullness of our ability. Too often we wait until the end of our life to face death, whereas we would have lived quite differently if only we had faced death at the outset.

Most of the time we live as though we were writing a draft for the life which we wil live later. We live, not in a definitive way, but provisionally, as though preparing for the day when we really will begin to live. We are like people who write a rough draft with the intention of making a fair copy later. But the final version never gets written. Death comes before we have had the time or even generated the desire to make a definitive formulation.

The injunction 'be mindful of death' is not a call to live with a sense of terror in the constant awareness that death is to overtake us. It means rather: 'Be aware of the fact that what you are saying now, doing now, hearing, enduring or receiving now may be the last event or experience of your present life.' In which case it must be a crowning, not a defeat; a summit, not a trough. If only we realized whenever confronted with a person that this might be the last moment either of his life or ours, we would be much more intense, much more attentive to the words we speak and the things we do.

Only awareness of death will give life this immediacy and depth, will bring life to life, will make it so intense that its totality is summed up in the present moment. All life is at every moment an ultimate act.

In Season- tomatoes

My tomatoes didn't make it to ripe before the frosts hit. Ok- so i planted them late and everybody knows that tomatoes don't 'do' winter...but I couldn't pull out those little plants that got me through summer. Now there's green everywhere and the plants have been laden with green tomatoes for months with no sign of ripening. so I did what I always do when I have too much of a good thing- google recipes!

The first few searches produced 'fried green tomatoes' which, despite the quirky movie of the same name turned out to be quite a disappointment. Sliced green tomatoes rolled in cornmeal, salt and pepper and fried. I only tried them once, but i suspect they only taste as good as the oil they're fried in - which is why all the recipes recommend bacon fat (clogged artery alert!!) and 'rice bran oil' just didn't cut it.

But persistence paid off and google produced a jackpot- Green Tomato Cake - WOW!
so, thanks to: http://southernfood.about.com/od/greentomatoe1/r/bl10712g.htm
the recipe goes like this:

• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil or melted marg/butter
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 cup craisins (dried cranberries)
• 2 1/2 cups diced green tomatoes
• coconut (optional)

Beat sugar, vegetable oil or shortening, eggs and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Sift in the dry ingredients, then the walnuts, craisins and tomatoes.
Glob into a greased 9x13-inch pan, top with shredded coconut and bake for an hour... or 2 at 180 deg C until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

someone elses perspective

I just love this post...he describes the nuanced joys and frustrations of being a development facilitator so well...
enjoy!
http://www.grist.org/article/simpson-onesky/P2

the Stables: from feral to livable...almost

The bad news is, a rat has died in (what will be) my bedroom ceiling. The good news is, my 14000L tank arrived last week and the plumber came yesterday and its all 'can do'...and my little house just might get livable before I freeze!!
here are a few pics of the progress over the last 5 months...

a different perspective

I had a look at my blog yesterday and realised what a strange combo it is. African header and side bar- paused in October last year. Sporadic Aussie content. Mixed up author?!

Its partly cos I don’t have internet at home or hours to spend updating things- but i must say it reflects my headspace pretty well. Divided.

I’ve had a few comments since I’ve returned, that maybe its time to settle down. Questions like “have you got travelling out of your system yet?” give me the vibe that people think the mobility of my life thus far isn’t good. Isn’t normal. I agree that it can make it difficult for me to connect. More challenging for me to understand others and them to understand me... But I also think its an incredible gift. The Bible says that as believers, our citizenship is in heaven. It calls us sojourners in a land not our own, and that is my experience. I will never feel a deep sense of belonging in this country or that because this world is not my home – one day I will go ‘home’ and spend eternity with my creator. But in the mean time, I am acutely aware of the transience of our lives on this planet. That all that we have in the West is not a right, but a privilege. We could have been born in the DR Congo, or Uzbekistan. We have obligations as world citizens as well as Australian citizens. I’m acutely aware that time is short and each day is a gift to be used in worship of God, the giver of all; and settled here, settled there, or travelling- I wouldn’t have it any other way.

FOOD!!!

One of the joys of living in the country – and not just the country, but the ‘fruit bowl of Western Australia’ is the abundance of fresh fruit and veggies all year round. Funnily enough, this also presents quite a challenge at times as these glorious fruit and veggies rarely arrive in little half kilo clear plastic bag portions like the supermarket. Nope, they are usually handed to you as you leave someone’s house, or left on your door step as a 20kg box of peaches, or 3 shopping bags full of apples or pumpkins or tomatoes...

Having lived where people don’t have enough to eat I can’t bear to waste food, so I’ve embarked on a eating in season, ‘waste not- want not‘ foodie experience. Although you may not be in the position where you’re being handed all this sort of stuff for free, it IS in season- which means it’s cheap, and if you have a deep freezer and some time on your hands- you might just find the following recipes useful!

Tomatoes Ok- so there not in season anymore, but were the first item I received in bulk. 2kgs from this friend’s garden, 3 kg’s from that friend and another few kg’s...and I started to feel panicy about what to do! Then I remembered the Jamie Oliver recipe I had tucked away in my cook book- and I’ve been on the look out for tomatoes ever since!

Jamie Oliver’s Pizza Sauce Recipe (I use it as a base for pasta sauce too)

1 clove garlic, crushed and fried about 30sec in olive oil. Then add

3 large tomatoes chopped (or a can of tomatoes if you live in the city and haven’t got around to growing your own yet- but seriously- you should grow your own- they’re easy to get started and are happy tucked away in a pot -or tyre! somewhere. I think you’ve gotta wait ‘til Spring now though)

1 bay leaf

6 chopped fresh basil leaves

1 tspn fresh thyme chopped (instead of paying heaps at the supermarket- I bought healthy herb plants from a nursery. Pinched a few leaves for my recipe and used the rest to start my own herb garden!)

And...( I don’t think this is part of Jamies recipe) half a masel stock cube, or salt/sugar to balance the flavour. Simmer for about 25min for a thick pizza base sauce, less for a pasta sauce. It freezes well, so you can have amazing pizza or pasta sauce all through winter!

Pumpkin My Aunty grows pumpkins and squash for market, so I get loads. I chop up as many pumpkins fit in my pressure cooker, scoop out the seeds (and save a few for my garden next spring) and boil in a bit of water till soft. Then cool, scoop out the flesh and freeze. Pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin scones. YUM! My fav pumpkin soup is Mums Thai pumpkin soup. This recipe’s been sms’sd all the way from Malawi!

‘just use half tsp cumin n coriander lots of ginger n garlic half can coc milk chick stock cude n sp to taste luv mum’

See how ya go with that one!!

Peaches According to one of the organic magazines I’ve been reading, peaches are the highest absorbers of any pesticides sprayed on them, so if you love peaches- it’s really worth planting one in your back yard...or front yard. I never liked peaches until I got a 20kg boxful from a tree down the back of my uncles paddock left at my caravan door. They were so good, a week later I found myself up that tree with 3 plastic bags getting scratched to bits rescuing the last of the fruit from the 4 rams that were circling me beneath the tree. They knew what was good for em. They camped out under that tree til the wind blew, or that crazy human (accidentally!!) dropped the delicious morsels for them.

Unfortunately peaches really don’t last very long-so, after I had distributed the bounty among friends, I had to stew the rest ( i haven’t got room in the caravan to do any bottling this year!). the texture of the skin puts my teeth on edge, so i roll up my sleeves and spend hours in juiciness peeling them, but once they’re stewed they make a mean pie or crumble without any lemon/sugar help.

Lyn’s Crumble

2 Tbspn butter, 1 cup plain flour, ½ cup raw sugar, 1 cup rolled oats, 1 cup shredded coconut, 1 tspn cinnamon or other spices. Combine to make the crumble. Sprinkle over prepared fruit (fresh or defrosted). Moderate oven until golden brown

Apples and Pears As above, OR they are very nice dried. There are heaps of ways of drying, but the consistent part is- soak thin slices of the fruit in lemon and water- then get em dry as fast as possible! Some people have fancy fruit dryers, some people thread apple rings on strings and hang them on their verandas in the sun. I use a potato peeler to get thin slices, lay them out on every rack I can find, then put the racks on the bonnet of my car in the sun, or in the oven with the fan heater pointed at them for an hour or 2. Warms the caravan, dries my fruit!

Figs, Mulberries and Blackberries These are all in one category, cos I always intend on somehow storing them for later- but usually end up eating them fresh cos they’re just so yummy. Picking blackberries helps reduce the spread of this noxious weed- just make sure the plants haven’t been sprayed. Ie no road side picking. Both Blackberries and mulberries make awesome pie fillings. If you don’t have enough berries- bulk it up with apple. Yum. They also all make great jams.

Figs- I had this wonderful ‘figs poached in port’ recipe that I thought about trying with the several kg’s of fruit I had collected at a friends farm. But the recipe had ALOT of sugar in it and I’m not a huge ‘super sweet’ fan. So I decided to sip some port while eating the figs- which was ok. But to be honest- i preferred the figs straight! Or dried, chopped up on my muesli. Mine didn’t last long enough to dry though (hehe).

Last but not least: Carrots We harvest 100’s of kgs of carrots a week at a friends organic farm where I hang out, so I’m always in good supply of delicious, sweet carrots. My waistline says I’m making WAY too much carrot cake, but I also love substituting carrot for pasta to make a light, refreshing meal. I saw the recipe on a vegan website once. Basically, peel your carrots, then using the peeler, make long strips of ‘spaghetti’. Saute a diced clove of garlic in some olive oil, throw in a few carrots worth of strips, toss until lightly brown on the edges, then serve up with your favourite pasta sauce.

My garden is now full of cabbage, broad beans, broccoli, cauliflower, garlic, Swedes, turnips and beetroot... so I’ll let you know how I go!

Farming life :)