Hello, how are you?

Hello.
It's been a while.
5 years. Where did that time go?
Reflecting back, I can't remember why I stopped blogging. Perhaps life consumed me? It has been busy.

The farm venture began, lived a while and then collapsed. Water issues...its demise was not surprising. We laughed, loved and broke our backs weeding carrots and packing boxes.

The bean has grown. He's nearly 8.
D1 has left home and is finishing a teaching degree. She loves it.
D2 plans to start Uni this year. She's not convinced its a good idea.
The Bloke and I are still together. Still happy.
The Phd is done, it went well. I won awards.
The garden grows.
The old job finished. I started a new one. I moved to Melbourne for a year. That was hard.
Im back.

I started a business after a visit to New York. Its been operating since the Summer of 2012. It sustains us. It's doing well. Like us on facebook  I love it. It's simple and involves most of the things I love; food and people and organic farming. This is now my job.

We did buy a boat. It's waiting for us in France. The bloke,  the bean and I leave for the first leg of our adventure on April 21, 2016. Thats why I dropped in. To begin the next chapter, to start writing again. I have the time.

Jupiter Creek Organic Farm

Been a bit busy with a new venture...

Since I began this blog my life has changed considerably. As an interested loca vore and 'green' advocate, I started writing on all things sustainable as they applied to me; birth, mothering, consumering, living etc. Never did I imagine that I would end up a director of  several eco- businesses, one going well, one in liquidation and a new one on the horizon. I have learnt so much over the last few years, a journey which many of you readers would have followed. With the demise of  our previous local food business that i was involved in, due to many reasons which I cannot mention publicly, some of us from that business have scrambled around trying not to squander such emotional and intellectual investment, intellectual property and community goodwill and have managed to fall on our feet and start a true CSA here in the Adelaide Hills. We have found some wonderful land owners willing to share our journey and vision of an organic, demonstration, community focused accessible farm who just also happen to have an amazing amount of spare, irrigated, fertile land and infrastructure; cold storage, warehousing and a fleet of under-utilised refrigerated vehicles ( not to mention WWOOFers) just perfect for us to start an organic farm and true CSA organic box delivery scheme. We have been madly tilling, weeding, ploughing, weeding (did I mention weeding?) fundraising, planning and applying for organic certification over the last five months for most of the farm: the market crops, beef cattle, orchard, chickens , future pigs, ducks and wild foraging area for mushrooms. We put a down payment on the tractor in the picture, tomorrow. We have a herd of beef cattle, sheds for free ranging chooks, biodynamic compost piles, volunteers, 60 acres  two of which are under our new market crops and loads of vision.  The boy bean ( and occasionally a surprisingly enthusiastic very biggest bean) and I have been farming on the days when Im not at my regular job and yes, the PhD is finished. I will keep you posted as to when we launch. Exciting times ahead.
https://www.facebook.com/JupiterCreekFarm

Earth Station

It was an awesome festival, except when I lost the kid (the ecstatic one in the pic). That was definitely not fun, just as dusk was upon us...by the creek...music blaring..crowds pumping..no chance. Some guy spotted him after some frantic ask arounds and handed him my way. Had a wine.
Rod Quantock was my non music highlight with his musings on our non sustainable lifestyles, missed HRH Cate B speaking, but the small's not really that interested in sitting for two hours listening to a panel discussion on sustainable living. Music-wise, the sounds coming from the The Congos Konono No.1 was very hip shakin and toe tappin and deeply grooving. We did a lot of that; grooving, some eating and the occasional bit of chillin' in this very awesome new WOMAD event which mixes music with action and education in the most amazing location. And we really realised that the kid likes to move.

Haiku Friday

Digging and weeding
shared dreams with visionaries
sweet day on the farm

well, that was fun!

I woke up last week to a hacked site. Bleugh. Trawling through trying to find the offending code somewhere within the html backend took days. Finally, Im back online- the offending 'warning' popup has gone and I'm back to a safe site. The really stupid thing was it wasn't my site that was actually hacked, just someone else's, somewhere that had a link to this site, who had malware detected on their site. Try finding that needle in the haystack...the problem with this Blogger blogspot gig is that Google 'controls' the site so you cant get 'clean' until they clear you, and you have to ask and prove yourself to get cleared, what a pain! But, I have learnt some stuff. Anyone else had a hacked blog recently?

Haiku Friday

bulbs are seasonal
and they're political too.
Don't buy the zapped stuff

pear public service post

This is a repost of a recipe winner from a few years back and is one of the top hitters on this blog. It really is a ripper of a cake - quick n easy and perfect for pear season.



last weekend it was pear paste, this weekend i decided to use Haalo's recipe from cook (almost) anything at least once for a pear and walnut cake. i love any cake or bread with fresh fruit; figs especially, but i only use figs in cakes if i have just so many figs that i know they will start fermenting before we can get around to demolishing them all, they really are so special that they should be eaten au naturale. But pears, apples, peach, i love using up excess fruit this way and we have so many walnuts still left from last years bumper crop that Im always looking for ways to use them. Although, i usually only cook cakes like this when i know we have extra people around to eat it all on the day, like we did yesterday. This is seriously a very delicious cake and it took about 5 minutes to make. Seriously.


The recipe i used is exactly as Haalo has written but i threw in the bag end of chocolate chips that were only going to get pilfered by the kids.