News from Nowhere

Hello. It's been a while!

Spring is here in the Yellow Wood and my attention strays as always to the very tiniest of beings.

A beautifully striped moth in the bathroom.

A delightfully furry caterpillar on the front windowsill.

A daddy-long-legs exploring on the porch.

I hope the world is treating you well wherever you are.

Feronia xx

Winter is Coming

Summer has at long last left us - very late, this year. Although we are moving towards winter, it always seems to me that everything is so much more alive right now. Rains dampens and soothes the dry ground and all sorts of plants dare to show their faces without fear of being charred by the sun!

So it is that nasturtiums are starting to peek through the new grass on our newly-made terrace in the backyard (one day it will have a thick thatch of grass and we'll set up a table and chairs there) and our sadly useless passionfruit vine is shining with raindrops (I say useless in that it produces inedible fruit).

Brooding

One of our three beloved chickens - Joyce - has spent the last month and a bit brooding. I had no idea what this actually meant and when she first retreated to the coop to sit in her box, we were worried. She hunched in on herself and fluffed up all her feathers. She emitted sad little noises and her comb was red-hot. This is not good, we said to ourselves, certain that one of our previously happy little crew would not be with us by morning.

Then we did a little bit of reading. This was brooding, in which a chicken imagines that she needs to stay in her nesting space all the time to hatch eggs. Really kind of sad, when you think about it, guarding and nurturing eggs that don't exist or aren't hers (because, ironically, they stop laying). Poor love. And she would not move, except under considerable protest, when I lifted her out of the box and into the yard during the day. Otherwise she wouldn't have eaten or drunk any water. This went on and on and we read some more - leave her be, she'll come out of it in no more than three weeks. Three weeks passed, then four and nearly five. Oh, my aunt said, you just dunk them headfirst in cold water! That snaps them out of it! We were horrified at the thought of little Joycie receiving such torture, especially in her delicate and rather melancholic condition, but eventually it had to be done. Prolonged brooding has its own consequences.

And so it is that she has now emerged back into the yard to resume her daily frolic with her coop mates, Gladys and Jean. She is now moulting - an after-effect of brooding, apparently - but it's good to have her back. Unfortunately we have now had to build a little enclosure for the chickens (hence the chicken wire above) because they were gradually digging up the entire garden but even in a slightly reduced space, they still seem to be having a lot of chickeny fun!

Hello

Erik Werenskiold, On the Plain

Hello! I am truly so sorry to have been away from the Wood for so long. Suffice it to say that 2014 has not been the best of years for our family so far.

But we persevere, because it's all we can do. It's all any of us can do. I am literally taking things from one day to the next at the moment, never looking too far ahead, and so I thought it would be good to take a look at what I am doing right now.


Reading:  Phillipa Gregory, The Red Queen

Listening: Wardruna (LP)—“Runaljod – Gap Var Ginnunga” (this translates as Song of Runes - The Gap was Yawning) and The Young Tradition (song), “Lyke Wake Dirge”

Eating: Homemade custard—my hubster is the best cook!

Watching: Vikings, season 2...Hey Ragnar— Boo, Hiss!! Also, The Returned...genuinely creepy

Making: A knitted poncho for Joyce, one of our chickens (poor baby is moulting badly)

Dreaming: Of mysterious Norwegian forests

Enjoying: The slow arrival of autumn

So, what's occupying you right now? 

Feronia x

Spring Clean

I am in the midst of a major pre-Spring clean. Lying around the house last week without anything to distract me, I realised that there a lot of things about the house that I'm not happy with and want to change. Now. A lot of those things hinge around the fact that we have way too much stuff for the space we're in. So, on the weekend, I attacked the kitchen cupboards, finding a disturbing amount of dried and canned goods that were well and truly expired (2009 called, and they don't want that cake mix back) Out it all went! I moved all of my cooking and crafting books onto the now cleared kitchen shelves so that I can use the kitchen with its big table space as a crafting area during the day,  and all of the foodie stuff is now neatly stowed away in the now almost empty kitchen cupboards.

The living room is basically ok. I am working on getting a lot of the framed photos off surfaces and onto a 'memory wall'. Our masses of books I am slowly culling to either sell (hopefully) or send to the op-shop. The bedroom with its rising damp issues (love old houses!) is the domain of my husband at present, given that it's problems are structural rather than cosmetic. This leaves me staring down the barrel of the abomination that is the study which is currently a home office/craft room/storage room and dressing room.

So much stuff.

But some little part of the old bower-bird me has rebelled. I have found pieces of Crown Lynn Genuine Ironstone (made in New Zealand) ceramic in op-shops before and have been gently (but not overwhelmingly) charmed by its sweet 60s patterns. Yesterday at the op-shop, though, I found this beauty. I bought the two bread-and-butter plates that they had but I talked myself out of the four matching dinner plates. But I'm going back for them today... I'll just throw out some of our old, boring dinner plates. Then we'll need the new ones. Right? Right?

Baking Days and Mondays

This weekend just past was the Queen's Birthday weekend here in Australia. The Queen's birthday is actually in April, but we take a day in June to acknowledge it. Go figure.

The weather is rather bleak at present - grey days for the most part, rainy and cold - and as any owners of old houses will know, it is in this sort of weather that your house starts to look, well, how can I put it...crap and depressing. And so it is here. Everything is cold and damp! Things that we overlooked in the summer are now very, very obvious in the cold, grey light of a winter's day. So, while my dear husband wrestled with covering the windows in plastic insulation strips, I...baked! Well, the oven keeps things warm, right?

I found the recipe for the Bayou Buttermilk Biscuits in a great book I am reading at the moment - Motif for Murder by Laura Childs. I love a 'cosy mystery' and Laura Child's books are always good fun. And so...here's how you make Bayou Buttermilk Biscuits (great as a side with soup - I think they're a kind of American scone, really).

2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons shortening (I used butter)
1 cup buttermilk

Combine all dry ingredients. Chop in butter until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Add buttermilk and mix to form dough. Roll or pat out to a 1/2 inch thickness on a floured surface. Cut into rounds with a glass or a biscuit cutter. Bake at 400 degrees fahrenheit (200 degrees celsius) until golden. Makes between 12-18 (I got 18!)  

And this happy chappie below is 'Paddington Bear's Favourite Marmalade Cake' from Jane Brocket's Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer. Perfect with tea for toasting Her Maj.

Cycles

Our chickens are laying eggs! Four have been produced so far (the one above is the very first), but only three were edible because the fourth had a hole pecked in it by chicken or chickens unknown (apparently this means that they need more calcium in their diets - which we have now remedied). I have to say that eggs from your own chickens taste so much better than other eggs!

The year is gradually moving towards winter. It is especially cool today (though the chickens are itching to get out of their coop as always) with rain and a pretty fresh wind. This little fellow retreated inside attached to the clothes being brought inside from the clothesline. I carried him outside again, but he wasn't having it, so I held out my hand and he chose a spot on the bathroom wall.

Fowl Friday (sorry)

Our dominant chicken, Gladys, is in the middle, second-in-command Joyce is off to the right and shy girl Jean is hiding amongst the lemon leaves.

I don't think I've mentioned that our little group here in the Yellow Wood has expanded by three recently - a couple of weeks ago we got ourselves three chickens. They are still a little stand-offish around us and won't be picked up except under great sufferance but they are gradually (at their own pace, thank you very much) becoming more and more a part of our domestic landscape.They are absolutely bursting to get out of their coop in the mornings when I go to open up the door, they fly over the top of each other from any part of the yard when they hear me at the back door, eager to see what foodstuff I have on offer this time (or simply to see what it is I'm going to do), they stick together like glue (though they do have very distinct personalities and a - ahem - pecking order) and come nightfall (which is now of course coming a little earlier), they get themselves back into their coop and snuggle up together for a well-earned rest.

So...

Embrace the day with vigour
Approach any opportunities that come your way with great enthusiasm
Stick close to those that love you
Know when the day is done and it's time for some respite

...I think these chickens might just be onto something!

PS We will be collecting their eggs with gratitude when they start laying, but our dear girls themselves will not end up on our plates.

A room of one's own

I might have mentioned before that our house is a little on the small side. Or, as my husband puts it, "we just have too much junk!". So, as I've been building up a steady supply of jewellery making bits and other crafting goodies, I've realised that I actually have nowhere to do any crafting. The study is currently full to bursting with books, work-related stuff and fimo, beads, balls of wool, knitting needles, sewing needles, the sewing machine, pieces of fabric, embroidery hoops, knitting looms, tools...you get the idea. So where to work? On the kitchen table doesn't really work because it always has to be packed up fairly quickly again. My husband has been doing his woodwork under the carport but there's no real space for me there. Then it dawned on me - the sleep-out. So, over the Easter break, I am going to clear up the sleep-out, throw out a lot of stuff that simply doesn't need to be there (unopened mail from 1998??) and make a little spot for myself there. My own little studio. I am quite looking forward to it.

I have been avidly watching Downton Abbey on TV these last few nights - they've been screening double episodes of season 1 since season 2 is on its way. I love it. But then, I have always been a huge fan of period dramas, trailing all the way back to the Merchant-Ivory extravaganzas of the 1980s. So I have to say that this spoof on 'bonnet dramas' really tickled my fancy.

We're having something of an Indian summer here at the moment - summer is having one last blow out as we move into Autumn. Apparently Friday will be 30 degrees! It's lovely outside - flowers are blooming and the air is alive with bees, their legs heavy with pollen. Of course, there are some of us who really know how to enjoy the sun!

Glimpses

I made a plain cake with tinned pears in it on Friday night to take to dinner with my parents. All the pears sank into the middle of the cake! It tasted fine but I had actually hoped they would perch on top and look pretty like some sort of swish tarte tartin in a French bakery... I tried again on Sunday with tinned peaches and I was quite pleased.

I am reading a lot of Romantic poetry at the moment while researching my novel-in-progress and in doing so I stumbled across the film about John Keats which was made a couple of years ago, Bright Star. I love this scene, with a room full of butterflies. What a lovely notion.



We're having something of an Indian Summer here at the moment. Summer proper really seemed to have died away - I was putting extra blankets on the bed and getting the jumpers out of mothballs - and yet we're now having a spell of temperatures hovering around 30 degrees (celsius).

Colours of Summer

The tomatoes and smaller capsicums are from our garden, as are the lemons. We can't claim those luscious apricots as our own, or the huge peppers. But what a gorgeous array of colour is exploding in the various bowls I have dotted around the kitchen this week! It's the sort of vibrancy that an Australian summer does so well.

Fly like a starling

As we were preparing dinner last night, I looked down at some of our garden's herbs on the chopping board and I thought: "I reckon post number 424 is about time for a giveaway!" Or something like that. So...if you would like to have a very pretty thrifted doily framed in an embroidery hoop to hang on your wall, I would love to send it to you as a way to say "Thank you!" for popping into the Yellow Wood to have a wander around. All you have to do is this...name the song title suggested by the herbs above! A winner will then be randomly generated on Friday and I will happily send this little bit of vintage pretty off to anywhere in the world!


This breathtaking video of a murmuration of starlings has been doing the Internet rounds lately but it is just so incredibly lovely, I just had to post it. Enjoy!

Life is beautiful

We have had some beautifully sunny days of late - Spring is definitely here! The garden is bursting with life - some of its own accord, some cultivated. On the weekend, my husband planted tomatoes, zucchini, artichoke and a blackcurrant bush so there's lots of treats in store.

In the Candle's Glow

We ate Elizabethan style again last night. Mince meat, a few cloves, a sprinkle of nutmeg, a little salt and pepper, chopped-up dates, sultanas. Next time I think I would serve it on a bed of rice or cous cous and perhaps add a little sauce of some kind but it was still very tasty and quite different to the tastes we usually have too.

We ate by candlelight, and listened to a CD of traditional Viking-era songs that I bought in Copenhagen. Really nice. Good to step out of the ordinary now and then.

Round our way

The skies are still rather foreboding around here at the moment. It is windy today, cold and spattering rain.

As always though, there is the comfort of thrifted goodies! I found this plate at a flea market in Copenhagen and I think I have finally found the right spot for it. I'm not sure that I want to find a spot, though. Once everything is put away, the holiday really is over!

I have also developed a strange penchant for thrifting ceramic money-bank pigs. The one above is a souvenir of Munich and the one below California (clearly). Such cheery little fellows!

And spring is on its way. The plum tree is beginning to blossom...always a lovely sign as the seasonal wheel turns.