What a great day.

Today was a great day. For a start I took a day off work, this is my second to last four day week and then I’m working full time for at least 8 weeks.

I’ve reminded myself that Wednesday is a terrific day to take off. It splits the week into two manageable sized chunks making time in the office not seem so torturous.

I started the day early, getting to my friend Helen’s house at 8am to learn to make cheese! 

Helen collected 20 litres of fresh cow’s milk that morning from a local dairy farm. The double boilers were set up and the cheese-making process began. We made camembert, haloumi and ricotta using Mad Millies products. Although I didn’t stay for the finishing process of the haloumi I did get a good idea on how it all works and I’m hooked. Now, I just need to find someone that I can barter some milk from.

I also planted a heap of seedling, not raised by me but purchased from the nursery. At least it will get me started. I set up the cloches I’ve had buried under a mountain of weeks in my old garden (and soon to be goat enclosure). I’m hoping I can rope Sam into helping me put in a new garden in the weekend. Towards the end of my planting mission I donned a head torch to aid in my moonlight planting. Here’s what I planted.

Vietnamese Mint – striped like a tiger and smells amazing!

Coriander

Flat Leaf Parsley

Curly Kale

Cavalo Nero

Hearting Lettuce

Butter Crunch Lettuce

Cabbage – green and red

Broad Beans

Spring Onions – red

Spinach - perpetual

And I relocated a couple of silverbeet plants that weren’t thriving and gave some TLC to a New Zealand spinach plant that got nailed by the frost. 

It is odd but I’m so excited to have perpetual spinach again. For years I had three very successful spinach plants that grew into shrubs with trunks and yet they continued to reward me with the most delicious leaves for my salads and quiches and as a stand alone dish steamed with a knob of butter. Whole baby potatoes steamed and finished with a twist of pepper, some lemon zest, finely sliced spinach leaves and a dash of olive oil, the thought of it makes my mouth water. I haven’t planted my seed potatoes yet but that’ll be on the cards once the layout of the garden is sorted.

I'm sick.

I’m sick. I hate to admit it, it feels like I’m admitting defeat. I’ve been in denial for about a week but I’m not resigned to the fact that I have a flaming red throat and feel like I’ve been swallowing saw blades for the last few days. I’m coughing, aching and sneezing.

The weather has kindly made it easy for me to stay indoors, wind and rain make it difficult to sand bench-tops outside so instead I’ve watched movies and made soup and read books. I must admit it has been pretty indulgent.

I’ve eaten too, lots and lots of soup. Here’s my recipe for a yummy chunky vegetable soup. Apparently grapefruit contains about 33mg of Vitamin C per 100 grams which isn’t as good as lemons or oranges but there seems to be more grapefruit trees laden with fruit than there are orange or lemon trees at the moment. My dad has always preached to us about the pitfalls of drinking store bought juice with such gems as “how many oranges did it take to make that glass of juice?” And then before you could even answer he’d add  “You wouldn’t eat that many oranges in one go would you?” And that’s a good point. However, I can answer dad’s first question with “Two”. I juiced two small grapefruit added a teaspoon of manuka honey and topped it with water to make a lovely drink. Whole fruit is great and I eat a fair bit of fruit but, partly thanks to dad’s warning, I don’t drink much juice. I drink a lot of tea and tisanes and plain old possum-poo infused Hunua roof water. I drank my first sip of grapefruit juice I was reminded of the first two days of my slippery slide to getting sick and how my throat was horribly sour every time I swallowed for two days before the pain started. Perhaps if I’d had a glass of grapefruit juice back then I could have combated it. The juicer that Sam bought me last year on my year off from conscious self sufficiency seemed like an odd gift back then but now I’m thrilled that he purchased it, more for its vintage appeal than anything else. My idea of a traditional juicer is the pointy thing that you strengthen your wrist twisting the juice out of a halved piece of citris. This new juicer from Sam is like a giant garlic crusher with a little spout, it is very efficient and feels very therapeutic.