Slow Living in November

November has been even more beautiful than October. The magnificent early Summer landscape has helped me to stop... and breathe... and slow down… and give thanks… as we hurtle towards the end of the year. Join me, along with Slow Living Essentials as I remember, remember the month of November. 

NOURISH

Beetroot has surfaced in our tunnel and added it's paradoxical earthy vibrancy to our meals. We are harvesting two heirloom beetroots: Chioggia which, with their pretty concentric rings, are just big enough to pick, and Detroit Dark Red. We also have commercial Crimson Globes. The Detroits have grown big and round. Their colour is truly deep red, their taste more earthy and sweet with a softer cooked texture than the Crimson Globes. The Globes are brighter in colour, firmer with faint concentric rings, but a slightly sharper flavour. Votes are even as to which beet is better.
Forget pickled beets. I decided to experiment with this exciting vegetable. We have enjoyed it tossed in apple cider, tansy and olive oil then roasted and served as a side dish. I have added it into salads, grated raw and in cooked chunks. The Asian salad pictured below was spectacular.

Most unusual, but a definite must-make-again, were the roast root vegetable, bacon and rosemary mini quiches that I made for the market. Along with the beets I roasted a few red onions, little round Paris Market Carrots and freshly dug garlic. 

PREPARE

There's something comfortingly rustic about plaits of garlic and red onions drying in the kitchen. The onions didn't last very long though. I used them up faster than they could dry. All the November cream from Rosie and Joy was turned into many kilograms of butter for croissants, except for a few cups of cream that became peanut butter and chocolate ice-cream for a certain birthday boy. Almost all of their milk became cheese. Most of this preparation was for a market, sadly not my rather empty freezer or pantry. After the market, at the end of the month, when I was about to put my feet up, the apricots arrived, all golden and luscious and needing urgent attention. Now we're jamming…

"We're jammin: I wanna jam it wid you. We're jammin, jammin, And I hope you like jammin too." (Bob Marley)



REDUCE / RECYCLE / REUSE

Reusing, recycling and reducing is everything Elastic Mom is about. A tear through Decadent Dad's T-shirt shelf left him a few shirts less and his workshop a pile of wipe-it-all-up rags more.
Tomato sauce bottles line up in our storeroom, waiting for homegrown tomato sauce to fill them, but then I found these adorable stickers. I am head-over-heels in love with my cute Free State farm milk bottles. I have a set of four stickers but, being Elastic Mom, I'll have to wait until our existing milk bottles break before I can line up my pretty new bottles in the fridge. Considering the current breakage rate, I won't have long to wait.
Just when I thought that was it for new ideas, I noticed a pile of paper bags waiting for recycling. All our November market baking left us with strong flour and sugar bags. Simple. Use-It-Don't-Lose-It. Fold in the top. Punch holes. Tie string and there we have carrier bags for our market customers. They look trendy too, you know, African Chic and all that.

GREEN
Our broad beans were looking wistful, so we watered them with a little epsom salts. While we were at it, we fed the roses and poured it around some pesky ant holes. A few weeks later we were rewarded with a new crop of beans, a flush of roses and fewer ants.

GROW

Brilliant red poppies, along with Hunter our young Rhodesian Ridgeback,  have cheerily greeted visitors entering the gate. Poppies on either side and Hunter in the middle. Quite formidable. No sneaking in quietly around here.The poppy seeds I sprinkled in the flower beds last Autumn burst into bloom after the late Spring rains came. I adore their joyful shout of red, especially when blue cornflowers, columbines or purple campenula are their bedfellows. They have made a striking display, enhancing our view. (Can you spot our cows enjoying the grazing?)

Our vegetables are also flourishing. The potatoes are big and bushy and we haven't been able to resist a little grabbling here and there. Lovely word, grabbling. It's exactly what we do under the roots when we sneak a few for supper.  The runner beans are racing up their stakes. The strawberry popcorn is looking healthy and strong. Our tunnel is such a pleasure, I think our vegetable garden and all it has to offer warrants its own blog post. (Our Joy cow seems to be in the picture quite a lot lately.)

CREATE

While Elastic Mom and Decadent Dad have been busy baking and making all things market related, our competent kids have continued the creativity. His hand blisters were proudly displayed after this hand-carved bow was completed. Strings of stars decorated our Christmas-themed market stall, bringing their own blisters on her scissor-tired hands.
My heart was delighted to walk into my daughter's bedroom and hear music playing, and see her stringing beaded bracelets. Peaceful creativity. Unhurried. Just because.
Halfway through the month she completed her 365 day self-portrait challenge. It has been a pleasure to see her photography skills develop as her project progressed. Every so often I snuck in a behind-the-scenes pic of my own. Take a LOOK at the portrait she produced from the scene below. Her brother's role was just to spray her. She set up the scene, the camera, and took the photo herself.

How does one pose when being sprayed by a high pressure hose?

Her blog is well worth a visit. All of her 365 Self Portraits are on display. Take the time to read her last post. Slow Living on this farm has given her the time and freedom to discover her passion.

DISCOVER
I am a late-comer to the entertainment and education of watching River Cottage and all things by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Although rather extreme, his fascinating Cook on the Wild Side series amused us in November. I share a moderated version of his "passion for food integrity and consumption of local, seasonal produce", and have indulged in a little foraging of my own this year.

ENHANCE
The big community event of our month was our three day market stall at the local Cabin Cherry Capers. It was exhausting but worth it. Our whole family pitched in to make it a success. Our little business, Rosewood Country Kitchen, was exposed to more local, appreciative customers. There's nothing like a buttery croissant-tasting or cheese-tasting to draw people in. I love meeting different people at these markets. We live near the border of the tiny country, Lesotho, so this seemingly remote Eastern Free State farmer's market attracted a cosmopolitan range of customers. My stall was visited by leather-clad motor-bikers, burly conservative Afrikaans farmers with their poppies, elegantly dressed Basotho couples, Chinese factory managers,  missionaries, travellers passing through, vegetarian humanitarian workers, transient engineers, barefoot little boys and foreign diplomats. I met someone who worked with my Uncle on the Katse Dam many years ago, someone else whose godson is attending the faraway college we are sending our daughter to next year and even managed to find a home for a farm kitten with the new grocery store manager in town.

 

ENJOY
Our precious son turned fifteen this month. We celebrated his birthday with a picnic in the Peter Pan forest beside the barn. Friends joined us for a feast under the poplar trees.We set up chairs and tables. The adults sat in the shade. Happy voices rang out as children of various ages enjoyed the day. The boys made a base. The girls posed for photographs and wandered chatting arm-in-arm in the dappled forest light.
Our poor birthday boy was recovering from tonsillitis which left him tired but happy nonetheless.

Bed time for babies: Our daughter bringing in Hope and Thorn for the night.

 Fifteen years ago we cancelled the application for our little daughter to attend preschool and decided to educate her at home. Our journey, starting as play dough on the kitchen table, stories with a little blonde toddler on my lap, counting with blocks, and learning shapes and colours, has come a long way. Together we studied the stars, battled over trigonometry, discussed the difference between Roman civil law and natural law, shared poetry teas, and generally filled our days with rich learning. 

November marked the end of her homeschool journey, the day she closed her last book and completed Grade Twelve. Words fail me at the gamut of emotion tumbling through my heart, everything from pride and joy to an aching emptiness now that our school days are over. 

Next year she is off to explore new horizons. 

Slow Living in August

Dry August blew dust through the cracks, chilling my parched skin, draining the dams and withering the drought burdened veld. My bone thin Rosie cow struggled valiantly through the month, suffering endless injections and tonics as we persisted in trying to boost her after she went down with milk fever and some unknown ailment shortly after her calf was born.  This time last year we had green oats pushing through the soil in the field next door, now all we have is a sandy, bare wasteland. Our cows have chomped their way through my budget, needing veterinary care, as well as more lucerne and dry hay than I would care to mention. All hopes of an early spring, and the accompanying rains, after a warm July were dashed as winter, in its dying throws, sent the morning temperatures plummeting down the thermometer again. Join me, along with Slow Living Essentials, as I reflect on the month that was.

NOURISH

After a forced freezer clear out, I have continued in the same vein, planning meals around the remnants of last year's harvest. My family have stepped up their cooking duties and now they each see to one breakfast, lunch and dinner a week. That leaves me with only four days of cooking a week, and frees up my tightly crammed time to see to other things, like my sanity. This new arrangement has resulted in some rather tasty meals as they all enjoy their time in the kitchen. My son baked this beautiful loaf of herbed bread for one of his lunches.

We also learned the rewarding art of handmade pasta. 

Another psychologically big step for us along the self sufficiency road has been growing our own meat. This month I made a very tasty coq au vin from one of our young cocks. My brave husband also helped to dress (undress is more like it) five sheep on the farm next door. I will spare you the pictures, but they did a surprisingly clean job. We were very kindly given a whole sheep which will last us for many months to come. Considering that until recently, I would prefer to only eat filleted meat that came in a supermarket package, this is a huge step for me. 

PREPARE

My slightly-more-deserving-of-her-name-now cow, Joy, has been faithfully giving us at least 5 litres of milk a day. So we have been regularly making yoghurt, cream cheese, feta, gouda, chabrie, ice-cream and butter. The goudas are the only cheeses that last long enough to count, as the rest is all gobbled up in a flash. 

GREEN

I nearly killed my brassicas last month by making an aphid spray that was a little too potent. This time I followed a recipe:

APHID SPRAY

20ml cayenne pepper

10ml liquid soap

4.5 liters water

1 t garlic

Typical Elastic Mom style, I winged it on the cayenne pepper, using dried peppadews instead. It seems to work fine. I mixed it all together, soaked it for a few hours, strained it, then sprayed it. It smelled delicious.

GROW

Many hours have gone into the nurturing of our haphazardly germinating heirloom seeds, only to have our darling cat use some of them as a kitty toilet, and another darling forget to water them while I was out. We sadly lost quite a few tender young seedlings. I refuse to give up and keep planting more seeds, each time experimenting with a different method of starting them off. Hopefully my experimental research will produce the goods at harvest time. 

REDUCE

Reduce the budget, reduce waste, reuse or recycle...

Coiffure en plein air

Now who gets a view like this in an ordinary hair salon.... and whose hairdresser is dressed in full camo gear?

CREATE

My hubby takes almost all the credit in this department this month. He completed the installation of the beautiful cedar wood bar he designed. Considering this is his job, I suppose this is more work than hobby, but his creativity more than makes up for my present lack. The top of the bar is made from a single piece of cedar wood. The chairs are cedar wood too. 

I love his clever use of lighting.

He also turned some of last month's loofahs into back scrubbers.

Our teens have put all their creative effort into photography (hers) and drawing (his).

ENHANCE

We visited an NGO in town where they were teaching people in the local township community how to grow their own food gardens to help themselves in spite of their poverty. 

This lovely lady giving the lesson is a regular supporter at my stall at the local monthly farmer's market. This month she sweetly brought me some succulents to pot. Besides my kitty piddling in two pots, any other ideas why some of their leaves are yellowing?

I sold out at the farmer's market, all except one jar of apricot jam. The rest: cheeses, croissants, honey and jars of jam, were snapped up by eager customers. Many of them have become regular visitors to my stall. 

Community in the country is very different to what we experienced in the city. Participating in the farmer's market and the local farm watch has helped us to get to know the people in our community. The neighbours from the surrounding farms help to fight veld fires, and look out for each other, dropping everything to respond to a call on the radio. I appreciate their genuine concern and dedication to each other and us. Thankfully my men have only had one night of fighting fires this month. 

DISCOVER

Home education is a lifestyle of discovery by definition. My daughter is busy completing a basic bookkeeping course at the moment alongside her other studies. Although I keep my husband's books well enough to submit the data to our awesome cousin who helps us with things financial, my knowledge of formal bookkeeping is shameful, so I am enjoying learning alongside her. 

I can't resist another punt for Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle which I am now reading  for the third time, and reading aloud to any family member who cares to listen. Our experiences here are so close to what she describes in her book, we have been chuckling over the similarities. We are now at the end of winter and "waiting for asparagus". This book has had a profound influence on where we source our food. 

ENJOY

There is a delightful café style restaurant at the old station in town. I took my two there for tea the other day. We sat outside on mismatched chairs, drinking tea and hot chocolate and munching baked treats. All around us there were pots of pansies and pretty things to see.

Farm living can sometimes be lonely. We were delighted to be invited to a cheese and wine lunch by some friends of ours. The lady of the house decorated the tables in black, white and red. She must have spent many days preparing for a magnificent spread. It was just so special. 

I couldn't resist a chuckle when I saw our young friend feeding her many hungry orphan lambs all at once.

Foraging Again

A few weeks ago I was merrily driving down the dusty farm roads on my way to town with my children when I spied a few Tsamma melons, wild melons or cattle melons (same fruit, diverse names) growing half-hidden in the long grass of the verge. These melons are like sour watermelons, white inside. I pulled over despite my daughter's protests about being late for her driving lesson, and loaded the whole lot of them into the back of my car. It turned out that there were about fifteen of them hidden in the thatching grass.

We chopped some and fed them to our delighted cattle and turned some into melon preserve. The same recipe is used for a watermelon rind preserve. It is a typically South African recipe, wartlemoen konfyt.

 Basically you peel off the green rind and scoop out the flesh (which went to the chickens). Then chunks of the inner white rind are soaked in a slaked lime solution overnight. The next day boil the rinsed chunks of rind until they are soft. Make a 1:1 sugar syrup and boil the rind in the syrup with some chopped ginger and a quartered lemon until the pieces are shiny and translucent. 

I am looking forward to trying some wild melon preserve with chunks of blue cheese once I get back into the swing of cheese-making again. 

Now I just need to find a use for that beautiful long thatching grass that lines our roads at this time of year. The local Basotho ladies cut it and weave it into traditional hats and brooms, as shown in my May Slow Living post. They also use it for thatching their homes. Maybe I should ask one of them to teach me how to weave it.