My Spring Garden - late December 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bread and Soup at historic St Peter's in Ballarat

 

 Bread and Soup and St Peter's.

At top, is the soup simmering away while Mass is on.

Those in serving in the Sanctuary remarked on the aroma 

all through Mass!

On the left is the Creamy Carrot & Coconut Soup.

On the right is the Butternut, Apple & Cinnamon Soup.

In the middle, is my Olive Bread.

I live in Ballarat where winters are very cold and very damp.  We haven't had snow this winter but it is not unheard of.  I attend St Peter's Anglican Church in Sturt Street, Ballarat. It is Ballarat's oldest church and famous for its historic peal of bells.  Now that winter is officially here we have taken to having Bread and Soup after the 10 a.m. Mass.  Yesterday, it was my turn.  I am basically a vegetarian so I was looking for something a little different in the way of meatless soups and I came up with these two which turned out to be very popular - with some people coming back for seconds.  So let me tell you what I turned up.  You can follow the original recipes (to which I link)  to the letter, if you choose.  I tweaked mine.  

Before I tell you the links and the tweaks, let me begin by saying that the basis of any soup meat-full or meat-less is a good stock.  This is the foundation on which the soup edifice is built.  Your basic stock can then be tweaked, modified, added to for a variety of wonderful soups.  Forty-eight hours ahead of my soup-making schedule, I made a huge amount of vegetable stock.  I used vegetables at hand, bought some others veges, and even threw in a piece of broccoli which had not been used for its original intention and now was past its prime.  I stored the stock in the frig - where, of course, as all soups and stocks do, it gained even more flavour.

Creamy Carrot and Coconut Soup

Tweaks here were few.  Needless to say, I multiplied quite a bit.  I roasted the carrots ahead of time to add to the flavour.  I used Coconut Cream instead of Coconut Milk.

Butternut, Apple & Cinnamon Soup

Tweaks here were:

• Roasting the Buttnernut Pumpkin to add to the flavour.  This is a good ingredient at the moment because Butternuts are plentiful.  They are wonderful for their sweet flavour and their tenderness - so please be gentle with them.
• I used one decent sized Butternut but added a few more apples.
• I used something called Dutch Cinnamon. I think it may be a little more flavourful than other Cinnamon. Anyway, it was beautiful in the soup.  After all, we do know how well apple and cinnamon go together. Now, I can assure you, it goes well with Butternuts as well.

As you can see from the photograph, I made my soup pots three-quarters full.  This was because there has been a problem in estimating numbers.  This was the third week. The first week too much had been prepared. The second week there was not enough.  The third week seems to have been just right and some people were able to come back for seconds as well..

I served this with my own bread, buttered.  I had some jars of sliced olives in the frig (they are great when you do your own pizzas) and turned my plain dough into Olive Bread.

All in all, the whole thing was well received.  The two soups were beautiful.  When I sup on the Creamy Carrot and Coconut, I think it is the best soup ever. And then when I sup on the Butternut, Apple & Cinnamon, I think exactly the same thing.

I highly commend these soups to Trad Padders.  They are different, full-bodied, flavour-full soups.  The people I prepared these for had not come across them before - so you also have the novelty value to impress people.  Happy eating!

 Next week at St Peter's

Justin is doing the soup.

It sounds wonderful.

It will be based on a chicken stock.

Come along!

All welcome! 

SEASONS: THE WATTLE IN BLOOM ~~ 2

Over at The Nature of Robertson,

my friend Denis has written about the entrance of Spring.

Last year, I published here my homage to the Wattle -

and my thoughts about the arbitrary nature of the dating of Spring.

Here is a fine instance of a Wattle in bloom in time for a revised Wattle Day,

August 1 if the powers that be want to take notice.

I was smitten by this species of Wattle so .....

an email to Denis asking for identification.

Here's what Denis said ~~~

It is a prostrate form of Cootamundra Wattle.
http://www.malleenativeplants.com.au/acacia-baileyana-prostrate-form-cootamundra-wattle/

This plant has been grown so widely that aberrant forms have appeared (naturally) 

and then (and this is the real point) have been recognised as worthy of cultivation, 

so they have come into commerce.

There is a lovely form which has purple tips.

But in many areas the true form has become a garden escape, 

and ends up being eradicated from nature reserves 

around Canberra as a weedy species.

To one and all - all the rich blessings of the Christmas season

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From Drop Box

SEASONS: THE WATTLE IN BLOOM

This tree was photographed in Eltham, Victoria on 31 July 2010

One of the things that annoys me is that we post-1788 settlers, don't pay sufficient attention to the seasons.  Decades ago, when I first visited, Kakadu in the Northern Territory and heard that the Aboriginal people of the area counted six seasons not four, I began to wonder about this.

I know that farmers and keen gardeners notice local differences.  I once listened to a group of old fellows from my church talking about gardening and the differences between planting and growing at Box Hill and Upper Ferntree Gully.  But do we rationalist, mechanistic modernists take this sort of knowledge seriously.

Spring, in the Southern Hemisphere, is listed for 1 September but how arbitrary that is.  The wattle is listed as a winter flowering plant.  And yet Australia has a special day, Wattle Day, on 1 September each year - past the flowering time for wattle but - surprise, surprise - marking the first day of spring.

So you see, I think we have things quite wrong.  Wattle Day would be better celebrated on 1 August - and Australia would be better placed to mark Australian Spring as commencing on that date too.

So let's give a thought to where we live.  We might have to centralise certain dates for the whole of the country - but lets acknowledge Mother Nature at work where we live and the different seasons and time zones of weather she has made for us.  It might just be the beginning of a whole new way of thinking about  Australian ecology.

Transfiguration - a festive re-creation

To-day is the Feast of the Transfiguration. Three years ago, the fruit tree beside my home office window was covered in blossom (the picture is from 2005) but my fruit trees have very few blossoms at this time and my magnolia seems to have blossom as a permanent condition since they have been there so long without flowering.
In the Northern Hemisphere, Easter coincides with new life in nature. In the Southern Hemisphere, Easter happens in Autumn when the leaves are falling and nature prepares for Winter.
I love the Feasts but, on those occasions when we observe those that are not Easter and Christmas, I think we talk about them in a way which does not give any depth to the experience. I think that, in the main, this is how the Transfiguration is treated.
The Transfiguration was a supernatural event intervening in the natural order of things. It was transforming and predictive of the new life to come. Just like the Southern Hemisphere is experiencing at this time. How wonderful then if people in the south of the globe could take this great season of the soul and transform it to mirror the wonder of regeneration that is happening in the environment. We could then experience both the transfiguration of our environment and of our spirits.

The Transfiguration Lyrics

The song is on this YouTube videa at approx 42mins

Wikipedia entry on the album, Seven Swans

The Week-end: Part 1 - The winter garden

Broad Bean - picture from Top Veg

Gardening in winter has NEVER been my thing - not even with the promise of the most beautiful and colourful spring annuals. But the habit - or lack of habit - of a lifetime has been broken. I have worked on the garden patch/es from last summer's rampaging, sexy pumpkins. The leaves from late autumn raked into big piles and rained and rained and rained upon by Melbourne's winter rain have turned into lovely mulchy humus. So this has been distributed. Soil disturbance revealed a worm or three which encouraged and reassured me no end.

Then on Friday afternoon I stepped into the plain old fashioned gardening wonderland that is Presti's Nursery on Ferntree Gully Road, Ferntree Gully and picked up some seedlings. I had already consulted Belinda's calendars (that girl is just so darn organised - and she has it all on a calendar on the kitchen wall, too!). So here is what I planted on Saturday morning:

Broad Beans

Snow Peas

Schallots

Leeks

Beetroot

Borage

The rain has seemed never ending in the last week or so with scarcely a sign of the sun so there has been some great after the planting rain. Now if the sun would put in an appearance, I am sure that would be a big help.

So, please Creator of the Universe, help this landmark Winter Garden to grow as you intend and give us in the coming spring a bumper crop.

BY THE WAY, last summer I planted rocket behind the tool shed. In typical rocket fashion, I got some harvests in but, far too soon for me, it bolted and went to seed. Now I have a lovely crop of baby rocket coming up behind said tool shed. Young, early greens.

The Light in Mid-Winter: a story for the winter solstice

To-day I go to Cindy-Lee's at Cockatoo in the Dandenong Ranges (I live in Upper Gully in the foothills) for an afternoon barbecue and story-telling and lantern-making session. Then we go to Belgrave in the evening for the Lantern Parade. For the occasion, I have written this story:

THE LIGHT IN MID-WINTER
A story for the Winter Solstice

The Earth is in winter once again. The Sun gets out of bed later to find the Day and tucks itself away earlier to bring Night.

But there is a place that we can’t touch or feel. We scarcely notice it when it is come and it is gone. It is Mid-Winter. The Winter Solstice. This is a very special time. Before this time the hours of The Sun are getting shorter and shorter. After this time, the hours of The Sun are getting longer and longer. Or we can think of it another way. Before Mid-Winter the hours of Great Darkness are getting longer and longer. After Mid-Winter the hours of Great Darkness are getting shorter and shorter.

The Sun is s-o-o important to us. It is the bringer of Life and Light. When we put our plants in the ground to grow our food, to produce beautiful flowers, and start big shady trees on their journey of life – our effort will be wasted if there is not Light. We need Light to live. And while plants and animals and human beings have adjusted and adapted to living with cold in most places on The Earth, we do need Warmth. The Sun gives us Warmth. Our life is in Light and Warmth – not in Dark and Cold.

Our bodies love to be warm. They do not like to be shivery cold.

But it is not just our bodies. We human beings are not just our bodies. We are spirit too. And sometimes, in our spirit, we do not feel warm. Sometimes, in our spirit, we do not feel full of Life and filled with Light. We feel the Dark and the Cold coming inside of us and this does not make us feel happy. Instead, we feel s-o-o sad. We don’t want to get out of bed. We don’t want to talk to people. We want to huddle into ourselves because the sunny parts of our lives feel as if they have gone away never to come again.

So what do we do when we feel dark in our spirit?

It helps to look around at the world created for us. When we make a garden we have to think of all that a plant needs. This includes thinking about the Light. If the garden is too shady because of big trees, we have to prune and shape the trees. The plants in our garden will receive more Light to grow.

We look at our spirit in the same way. We do this by sitting quietly. We sit quietly so that the spirit inside us can listen. We sit quietly so that the spirit inside us can be still and not disturbed. As we still our spirit inside us, it is like pruning and shaping that big shady tree. As we are sitting, as we are still, as we are quiet we find the Light comes to our spirit just as the Light comes to our growing plants.

A long time ago a man called George Fox learned about the Light. He said then – and his words have come down to us to this very day – I saw an ocean of darkness and death BUT – and this is a great, lovely, big BUT – and infinite ocean of light and love which flowed over the ocean of darkness.

Seasons of the Soul: Ash Wednesday 2008

THE LONG WATCH

I draw aside to-day:
into the quiet, the reflection
of the pool of life.

I watch the disturbance,
the stone of my being
cast into the timeless pool…

ripples moving outward
from the centre
of the sunken stone…

circular disturbances
of small circumference
enlarging to a fading edge.

The rippling of my life
is energy into stillness
moving beyond its entry point.

The ripples, equilibrium disturbed.
The still centre sinks
under the surface.

Rippling circular to centre.
Never a straight line,
never trajectory altered.

The disturbance continues
outward…
Until, far from its centre,
it ceases.

Brigid O’Carroll Walsh
Ash Wednesday 2008
6 February 2008
© 2008

Ethical eating: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Miss Eagle has just posted on Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle over at Oz Tucker. Pop over and have a read.

A month of Christmas - the supersized post

BEWARE! VERY LONG POST!

CHRISTMAS : The Prologue

December has been a month in which blogging has been problematic and spasmodic. First of all, there turned out to be the busy-ness of the Christmas season. This took me somewhat by surprise. This has been my first Christmas out of paid employment (I re-entered the workforce in 1977) when my health has been good. My life is scaled down and my energies are transferred into gardening and gleaning. I try to avoid membership in organisations that demand responsibilities and turning up on specific dates for meetings. I have become, through the limitations of ill health, expert in revising my plans. Not only can I retreat from Plan A to Plan B, I can retreat through the whole alphabet down to Plan Z. And without guilt - because I can't afford that.

But since September, my health is the best it has been in something like ten years. I have an occasional hiccup in the way of an "off" day but I am soon up and at it again. And I am quite determined to be up and at it again to build up stamina and endurance. Seven months of varying doses of anti-biotics have undergirded this return to health.

Financially, of course, things have had to operate on a different scale as I have become dependent on a restricted income. I learned long ago about the lilies and this lesson has been re-inforced across the years. To this early lesson has been added the principle of restoration. The precision with which the lessons of restoration have come into my life has never ceased to amaze me: even to having restored to me like for like. Not a substitute or something better - but a like object!

THE JOLLITIES BEGIN

St Thom's (in Autumn) : home base of my Community of Faith

So into this simpler and quieter time, the slightest ruffle of busy-ness can be quite surprising. I shouldn't have been surprised, though, because I had recently made two organisational commitments at St Thom's, my local community of faith.

Firstly, since about August, I have organised - along with two other women - a group called Dawn of Life. This is a support group for those who have lost their life partners through death. We are a group of about a dozen - mostly women as one would expect demographically - and we are growing as word spreads beyond the confines of St Thom's.

Secondly, there was a call for more people to participate in Open Church ministry. This is a commitment to keep the doors of St Thom's open each day, Monday to Friday, from 10am to 2pm.

So many churches in our urban/suburban centres are locked up tight against casual entry. St Thom's does not want to be part of this. We want our facility to be a place for people to come aside: to be quiet, to think, to rest, to pray. In winter time, we even provide a blanket and a heater for your comfort. We are also there if people need help or a referral relating to a need. So the fridge carries casseroles, there are vouchers for travel, for food. If needed, we have a pastoral care team to call on. Open Church sees itself very much in the Christian tradition of hospitality. Open Church = Open Door.

The time slot I was asked to fill was on Tuesday morning. The Tuesday morning timeslot happens to include a Bible Study group so, while bearing in mind my primary responsibility for being there, I participate in the Bible Study.

So here I found myself in the middle of three groups - two of which decided to have Christmas break-up lunches.

For the Dawn of Life lunch, two of us took overall responsibility i.e. having fallback positions if contributions were lop-sided. It was a great success and I had meant to take pictures. I took the camera. But was so involved in the whole thing, I completely forgot. So the beautiful table settings laden with Christmas candles, Christmas trees, and Christmas gifts can't be shown. Neither the stacks of beautiful food we had to feast upon. There is no sign of the Christmas Creche nor the large Christmas Tree. How could I have forgotten such an opportunity?

For the Bible Study break-up, my participation was not so centrally responsible but I did do the roast chickens with herb stuffing as I had done for Dawn of Life. So much nicer, we all agreed, than the over-the-counter roast chickens with the stuffing that no one seemed very keen on. Each lunch was a beautiful, friendly occasion which we all enjoyed. But as intrusions into a quiet life, they were quite eventful. Again, I forgot the camera.

But I do have some other pictures.

THE FRIENDSHIP TABLE

During the lead up to Christmas I was working on a project that has become my pride and joy. During 2007, I have discovered how much I love gleaning. I always have, I suppose, but this year it has taken on a whole new glow and focus as I have immersed myself in exploring the hard rubbish in, on and around Melbourne footpaths.

My ventures or adventures have been well rewarded.

My pride and joy (sorry, I don't have a before picture) is a dining table. It is strong and sturdy and this brought it home. It had a varnish or french polish finish but had been left in the weather. The varnish, what was left of it, had turned an olive green colour and the table top, which had borne the brunt of the elements, was rough.

Now, it is painted and decoupaged and glittered and I call it my Friendship Table and I look forward to many friendly moments around it. The pink free-form ribbon is as artistic as this non-artistic person is ever going to get, I believe.

THE GLEAN SCREEN
This was not the only glean to enter the Spirit of Christmas. In the background of the picture immediately above, can be seen a glimpse of the screen. When I first brought it home, Herself and I thought it would get painted and end up in the guest bedroom. Now, it well may be that this will happen in due course - but it ended up here in the carport with the Friendship Table. Because, you see dear Reader, the carport is where the table lives and the addition of the screen made it something else again. Through the screen we can look out to the back garden and that gives a whole new perspective. From the carport we can look out at the Dandenong Ranges National Park through a huge Red Gum on the footpath across the road. A beautiful vista.

The screen had to be decorated. This was done with floral garlands, some Christmas trimmings, and some Christian symbols. Which lead to the next thing.

THE CHRISTMAS BOWER

The ceiling of the carport was far from attractive. It is awful. But we could do nothing about that. But, delving into The Trad Pad treasures and provisions, some useful things came up. An evergreen garland, some Christmas wreaths, lace netting, and a pretty bauble - and, next thing, our live-in carport became a Christmas Bower.

One more thing needed to be dealt with. Our garden tap also lives in the carport - beside the back step. Underneath is a circle of dirt surrounded by stone with the rest of floor in the carport being concrete. Why this is so, we haven't a clue. Some months ago, I had potted lots of the pups from my chlorophytum plants. Now they have come into their own...

THE CHRISTMAS BLOGGING LUNCH

But first of all, there was the blogging lunch with Connie and Gina on the Thursday before Christmas. Connie only lives a suburb away and we had been planning to get together for s-o-o long and, at last, it did happen. It was wonderful to meet Connie. She is beautiful and vibrant and so creative. A charmer in every sense of the word. She came with flowers.

Gina will be no stranger to readers of this blog. She and Miss Eagle have been on many an adventure together. And we have more planned for '08.

One adventure will involve stirring the possum. For those of you who don't speak Strine (Australian), stirring the possum means livening things up. Livening things in this context usually means waking people up and making them think or take action. As well as opp-shop treasure hunting, Gina and Miss Eagle share a passionate concern about the direction that community care for the aged is taking. We hope to take this concern further - Gina already has with a specific blog - so expect further news. As well, we have some exploration in the pipeline. Again, expect further news.

Gina came bearing gifts - wonderful pressies. And, of course, Gina is proud of the opp-shopping that yielded these gifts on the shortest of shoe-strings. When she told me how little she paid, I accused her of opp-shop-lifting!

Gina picked up on my predelictions.

Christmas wreaths of my own making next year?

Herself has taken a liking to this & it is on display in one of her corners.

The heart shaped cookie cutters will be doing something different.

The yumminess of this is phenomenal...and with peanut butter!

And these candles are so swish!

I love biscuit and chocolate tins. These wonderful bikkies (well, I haven't opened the tin yet to taste them) has an old fashioned Aussie picture on it titled "Wet Ball" - from the dog slavering over it!

The wrapping paper! That is being kept for decoupage!

TECHNOLOGY DISASTERS

The day before our lunch my computer collapsed. My usual repairer was not taking any new work until January 2. He was helpful and provided another number but, to date, there has been no reply. Away? Overloaded with work? This had followed the "Honey, Blogger shrunk my header" episode. In the aftermath of this, I have discovered three column blogs - so if you pop over to Desert and to Oz Tucker you will notice a difference.

After a couple of days, a lot of patience and stretching my computer skills further than ever, I was able to get back in to find that my back up drive appears to have been corrupted. I can retrieve files but they will not open. These include all my pictures. I had uploaded my total collection to Picasa - from which all except a few have disappeared. I have a couple of other spots where photos are placed - but not the entire collection as I have always done with Picasa. So - so much for Picasa! Now in the last couple of days I am unable to download photos from my card through my card reader.

All this has taken time - precious time. And, as you are aware dear Reader, there are times that life has to be lived not interfered with by a computer nor talking about it on a blog!

SANTA ARRIVES IN UPPER GULLY
On the Sunday before Christmas, the CFA (Country Fire Authority) brought its usual Christmas good wishes to the citizens of Upper Gully with Santa arriving in the fire ute.

Santa arrives in Tarana Avenue...
...with his helpers
Santa and his helper greet our neighbour, Betty
The residents of Tarana Avenue farewell Santa

PS: Miss Eagle got a cuddle from Santa

JESUS: THE REASON FOR THE SEASON

The Nativity Scene at The Trad Pad

The dining room table. But we were't going to eat there.
The sideboard...
...with the collection of Rosemary's cakes...
...which don't get eaten but have become an integral party of the Christmas decor.

Then it was Christmas Eve. I attended two services: the kid-centred Family Service and Midnight Mass at St Thom's.

The theme of the Family Service was Signs. So many signs. How do we read the signs. How do we get a true perspective.

A wonderful, involving activity was a central feature - involving a hunt for angels which were signs of a jigsaw piece nearby. When it was thought all angels were found, a crucial piece was still missing. I thought there was something suspicious about the angel dangling from the Rev. Susanne's scarf and that bulge under her jacket!

All the Advent candles and the Christ Candle were lit

The floral arrangements were beautiful.

The Congregation was youthful...

...and did justice to the refreshments afterwards!

THE BIG DAY

Christmas Day was quiet - three single women in the Christmas Carport Bower. Herself, Miss Eagle, and Lee. A southern hemisphere summer Christmas lunch with seafood, cheese platters, cold chicken, salads, cold plum pudding and custard and very chilly champagne. The conversation and friendship was wonderful. And we have a plan to work on jointly. Sometime about April, we think!

THE REALLY BIG PRESSIE

Last, but not least, I want to tell you about the Christmas parcel from my sister The Director. I have taken photos - but the technology won't allow me to download. We were rather gobsmacked. A beautiful woollen shawl for me - perfect for the cool of a midnight mass - and snazzy black and white drop earrings for Herself. But the stunner was this large bag - large enough to wear on the shoulder and quite commodious. I wish you could see it, dear Reader. I know you would recognize the brand immediately. A clue? Think of an L and think of a V!

Now, Miss Eagle can be a bit clueless. She wouldn't know the difference between a Hermes and a Fendi - let alone a knock off from the real thing. Herself has a better eye - and she thinks this is the real thing.

The Director's corporate style adds up to it being the real thing. We think she would not be caught dead with a knock off LV. However, we know what a canny shopper The Director is and how she loves travelling regularly in Asia - the home of knock offs. Either way Miss E is thrilled to bits: because the bag in style and dimension suits her. So useful, so commodious. The brand? A beautiful bonus. Thank you, dear sister.