Slow Living February 2013

Hello!

Well we have said goodbye to Summer in Australia and a big hello to Autumn, although I think the lovely weather is going to stay around for a few more weeks, Yay!

It ha been a really beautiful summer this year, the weather has been truly 'summery' and warm and sunny and perfect for outdoor stuff.  We have had a few ordinary summers in recent years , so it was nice to have a 'proper' Summer.

February has just flown along at a million miles an hour!  School and all the regular things have started up and we are back in the swing of 'normal' life.  It has been a lovely month, and it has felt like the holidays have continued as we have been able to do lots of relaxing fun things, with the weather being so good.  We had a couple of days of rain at the end to give the garden a good soak, just when everything was really dry, so very welcome.

Anyway, here is my Slow Living report for the month.....

Nourish - Well it has been another month of typical Summer eating around here.  Lots of barbecues,

 salads, and fresh veg from the garden.  I still threw a few roast chickens into the mix, just because they are so easy and it's a meal that everyone will eat.  I also made a few treat dinners with the deep fryer, a highlight being Chinese style lemon chicken - very delicious!  (thing I will post the recipe for the lemon sauce, easy and so yum!)

Prepare - I made a couple of batches of apricot jam while apricots were still plentiful, on batch is more like apricot sauce as I had a hard time figuring out when to take it off the heat and took it off a bit early. The other batch has set better and is like 'real' jam! So I have about 18 jars of apricot yumminess!

Green - Umm, not a lot doing for this one, we have sweltered through the heat without air-conditioning, so I hope our electricity use is down a bit,  and stayed cool by spending lots of time at the beach and my parents' place, who have a pool.

Grow - The garden has been producing well, even though it has been very dry.  We have been harvesting tomatoes, sweetcorn, beans, capsicums, lettuce, onions, carrots and a few baby potatoes plus various herbs.  I also have bed of cantaloupes ripening nicely as I hope they will be ready soon.  We have had very little rain so I have been relying on my tank and some mains water to keep everything going. There were some sizzling days where I lost a few things in the garden, but overall it has survived the summer fairly well.  My dahlias have also been putting on a beautiful display and giving my cut flowers for the house.

Reduce - I have been on a bit of a clutter reducing drive this month and have started giving our house a good clean up, I can see the surface of my gypsy dresser for the first time in a long while!  I have had quite a few boxes for the op shop, and there are more to come.  It feels great to have things in more order,  I hope I can get through the whole house with my new ruthless declutter frame of mind!

Create - Still working on my star stitch blanket and a few rows of the crochet along blanket, it has been pretty hot though for crochet!

Discover - I have spent a fair bit of time discovering how to set up an online store through Storenvy, and then setting it up, ordering stock, photographing everything, setting prices, etc !  Quite a big learning curve!  But lots of fun and very interesting and exciting!

Enhance - I have spent time at the Community garden and am trying to be a better blog community member up responding to comments left on my blog, something I am sporadic at, at best, even though I really like getting comments and appreciate everyone of them!    I also started a give away for my blog readers that has had a good response.  (there is still time to enter if you'd like !!) :)

Enjoy - February has been quite a social month, with a nice afternoon/evening spent with friends dining outdoors, many afternoons on the beach and a few evening beach walks.  I have also kicked my get fit plan into action and have walked over 150 km in the month, with a modest weight lose resulting  (3kg for the month) I am telling myself slow and steady wins the weight lose race! I am enjoying my walks and am finding the nike app very motivating!  

Joining in with Christine and the other Slow Living guys over at Slow Living Essentials.

How was your last month of Summer/Winter ? 

Are you looking forward to a new season too?

Slow Living January 2013

 Well, I have decided to continue on with my Slow Living reports for 2013, even though I missed December.  Happily, Christine at Slow Living Essentials is going to continue with the linky thing so it is a good reason to keep going.

Having said that, I don't think I have much to tell in a few of these categories, January was a time of holidays, sun, heat, and general laid back living, very slow actually, but maybe not so green and reducing!

Nourish - January was the month of The Barbeque in our place, a lot of our cooking was done outside and it was quite traditionally Australian i.e., lots of meat, charred snags, a bit of seafood and raw salad type veggies.

We were able to eat a lot of things out of our garden which was gratifying.  The lettuce mix patch was great and we had lots of green beans, capsicums and zucchinis and the start of cucumbers.  Also ate more summer fruit which was lovely, my favourite fruit salad of strawberries, watermelon and pineapple was a star for breakfast. (and makes a delicious juice mix too).

Green - Umm........Well, I did all the watering of my main vegie patch from my tanks, so saved water, and tried to use passive methods for keeping the house cool on the hot days, or else we just went to the beach for a cool off. And we ate out of the garden. Does that count?

Reduce - I spent the last week of January going cold turkey to stop my diet coke habit, I also reduced my vegetable bill quite a lot as the garden became more harvestable. 

Grow - January was a good month in the garden, lots of vegies started to be available to eat, and the pumpkins started getting bigger, tomatoes are going strong, but still green, I have about 15 cantaloupes getting bigger in my melon patch, fingers crossed they will ripen and we will have homegrown melons! Not bad for Melbourne! 

What else?  Sweetcorn are putting out their tassels and looking lush, although the cobs are still a while away I think.  Carrots are getting bigger and need thinning. The rattle snake beans have been delicious, although I am leaving the rest to save seed for next year.  I was looking on the Diggers website and the rattlesnake bean seed was nearly $15.00 a pack!!!( and it was sold out!) It is an heirloom that is so yummy!  Hopefully I'll have heaps of seeds to swap with anyone inVictoria who'd like to try them.

On the fail side of the ledger, my potatoes did not do well, I think  the compost I grew them in stayed too moist and they have started dying back too early. :( 

On the plus side, my dahlias started blooming in January. Yay!

We had lots of feathered visitors to the garden too, the rosellas, parrots, cockatoos and galahs have made a mess of my apple trees, I don't think we will be getting many apples this year.  We did get a couple of super delicious peaches though, I beat the birds to those!

Create - I have been playing around with a few new to me patterns and crocheted some hexie balls. I also received a commission in January to make a star stitch blanket, so have been hooking away at that too.

Enhance - Started back at the community garden, made a bit more progress on my crochet along and posted it for the group who are making a stripy blanket with me. Started a facebook page for little woollie, still trying to decide how to use this best.

Discover - We spent the long weekend at Cumberland River on the west coast of Victoria and found some lovely places to visit, stunning scenery and amazing views.  I read a great book about the Vietnam War, very engrossing, and it stayed with me long after I had finished it.

Enjoy-  Well, the whole month was a holiday from school and a great break from the normal hustle and bustle of our lives, we spent time with family and friends, went away and saw other parts of our state, had evening swims, lounged around reading and crocheting, slept in, ate and drank too much, went to the drive in, and celebrated a birthday.  All in all a pretty good month!

So that is a bit of a summary of our January, how did the first month of 2013 go for you?