Autumn Colour

Autumn has arrived on the farm. The days are cool, and the nights are cold. Country Boy thinks that I feel the cold too much, but I always have, and he also knows that if I am not warm, I am not happy. The fire is going 24 hours a day now.

After the cold and wet of February and March, April turned warm and dry again, so the trees are all confused and have taken their time to change colour. Normally the seasons are much more pronounced here than in the city.

Most of the acorns have gone now. Country Boy has collected lots to feed to the pigs.

The trees along the creek are all starting to change colour, and they are beautiful.

There are bushes of bright berries everywhere. I know that they can be a bit of a weed, but they are beautiful. There are so many bushes along the road on the way to work. I keep meaning to stop and take some photos.

The days are getting shorter now. By 5pm it is getting dark and cold. The chickens take themselves to bed rather than needing to be chased back. We need to make sure that the wood is stacked outside the door so we don't have to go for a walk to the wood heap first thing in the morning.

Another beautiful time of year on the farm.

Meal Planning

Last week I wrote about some of the issues that we face living the (so called) simple life. One of the things I have had to start taking seriously since moving to the country has been meal planning. Before we moved here I already meal planned, but usually only a week at a time.

These days I plan four weeks at a time. That way I know I have everything, and I don't need to go to the supermarket too often. I stop in at the IGA in the small town near by for extra fruit, milk, and bread in between big shops. It has only 3 short aisles, so I am never going to get carried away with impulse shopping.

When I am planning my meals, I now also have to anticipate what produce we are going to have available from the garden, and think about what I have in the freezer. At the moment pumpkin and pork are needing to be used and my menu reflects this.

Whilst I love not having to think at the end of a long day, meal planning takes away some of the creativity and spontaneity that I love when cooking. Because I shop to the meal plan, if I get a sudden rush of inspiration, I can't always make it because I won't have the ingredients - that 20 minute drive to town is usually enough to crush any inspiration!

Here is my meal plan for the next four weeks. Like all meal plans it takes into account what we are up to.
Shearing starts this week, and though we don't have to cook for the shearers, we will be busy and need food that can be put together fairly quickly (or already in the freezer).

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Chicken Wraps	Pork cutlets,  mash and veg	Mushroom risotto	Spaghetti carbonara	Away	Away	Pumpkin Soup
Pasta marinara	Chicken casserole	Leftovers	Pork chops with roasted apples and creamy mustard sauce	Vegetable Bake	Homemade pumpkin gnocchi in sage butter	Roast Pork and veg
Fritters	Spaghetti Bolognaise	Vegetable quiche	Left overs	Sausage and veg	Marinated Pork Ribs	Homemade chicken pies
Thai pumpkin soup	Stir fried chicken with rice	Pork Sang Choy Bow	Stuffed Potatoes	Chicken curry with naan	Pa’s Birthday Party	Homemade pizza

What is on your meal plan this week/month?

The Simple Life?

One of the most common comments we get when people talk about out tree change is "wow - I would, love to do that". The conversation then tends to go on to talk about living simply, growing vegetables, home cooked food, spending time with family, space, peace and quiet, living in a small community etc. Don't get me wrong, I really like our country life, and yes, some things are simpler, but some things are harder or more complicated too.

: Because we live so far from everywhere, we have to plan our food carefully. I try to do a big grocery shop once a month. Typically this takes 2 shopping trolleys. We always have a list on a noticeboard, where we write down everything we need to buy. If we don't get something in town, we generally do without it until we next go shopping. I do go to town to work several days per week, but with the amount of time I spend travelling, I avoid doing shopping too often.

: Shopping for clothing, home wares, or anything other than groceries is quite hard. We can go to the big town, but it becomes quite an ordeal. I have started buying a lot more over the internet. Clothing for me is the most difficult because I am picky (you can't tell how something is going to look without trying it on!). We went to a large shopping centre during the holidays, and I bought up.

: My work is an hour and 10 minutes (100km) from home. After only a short commute when we lived in the mountains, the extra time it takes to get to work gives me less time with family. It is also costing a fortune in petrol, and really putting a lot of kilometers on the car.

: It is fantastic to be able to grow such much of our own food, but it also takes a lot of time. Country Boy is a keen gardener, and studied horticulture at uni, so he knows what he is doing, but it is still labour intensive. Once  the crop is grown, it has to be harvested and then dealt with. It takes a couple of hours everyday to deal with it all. I have had to be creative in how to preserve the food for later, and cook a lot of product up to freeze for later use.

: Growing your own food means you can't just leave it for a week if you have had enough. Animals need to be fed everyday, and fruit and vegetables will rot if you don't pick it and deal with it.

Do I like our tree change? Most of the time. But it's not all cakes and pretty views; the simple life is not that simple.

A Village Tale And A {Recipe} Pumpkin Spice Cake

In our village is a soldiers memorial hall that was built after World War 1. It provides a focal point for the village, which doesn't even have a pub! Most events in the village are held there. Over the weekend, we went to the annual fundraiser for the hall. It is always the same. An auction of cakes and produce, followed by a community dinner.

The local real estate agent volunteers his time to auction all the goods, and there is always some friendly competition to buy the sponge cakes (one, made by a 96 year old lady, went for $80). The cooking is always great and the prices high - all for a good cause. The local kids take turns to carry the produce to the winning bidder.

The menu for dinner hasn't changed since the 1960's, with the exception of the change to carrots from mashed pumpkin - which required a committee meeting. So we had our sweet and sour chicken casserole with carrots, peas, corn, and mash, followed by stained glass jelly (a triumph of gelatin), tinned fruit salad and ice cream. In true country style, there was sliced white bread on the table, and tea was the drink of choice. It truly felt as though time had stood still for the last half a century.

I would have loved to have taken some photos, but that would have totally marked me as city girl.

My contribution to the sale was some jars of fig jam, pickled cucumbers, home made tomato sauce, and these pumpkin spice cakes. They taste amazing, and best of all, they use pumpkin - which is an essential criteria in our house at the moment.

Bet you are wondering how much they went for! They went for $11 to $14 - I was pretty happy about it. And I also have one in the freezer for later.

Ingredient
1 1/4c brown sugar
100g butter
2 eggs
1c mashed pumpkin (approx 600g)
2c SR flour
1/2 t bicarb soda
1t cinnamon
1/2t ground ginger
1/2t nutmeg
1/4t cloves

1c icing mixture
hot water

Method
1. Cream the brown sugar and butter until pale.
2. Beat in eggs.
3. Stir in pumpkins
4. Sift together flour, bicarb soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg.
5. Stir flour into the wet mixture.
6. Pour into a lined loaf pan.
7. Bake at 170*c for 50 minutes.
8. Allow to cool.
9. Mix icing sugar with enough hot water to make icing.
10. Spread icing over cake, then sprinkle a little cinnamon over the top.

Try them, and I am willing to bet you would pay $11 too!

This Anzac Day

Yesterday I did what thousands of school teachers did around Australia; I went to my schools' ANZAC day commemoration assembly. Every year, regardless of what school I am at, I always get to see kids displaying the best of themselves.

Kids led the commemorations, sang songs, read poems, gave speeches about what happened in Gallipoli and in conflicts since then. They listened with respect to members from the RSL who spoke emotionally of their experiences in war. They stood and sat quietly when asked, and coped when there were small problems with the sound. There were plenty of tears in the eyes of both staff and students.

Some of these kids are old enough to have served in previous wars.

The prevailing wisdom is that young people today are lazy, and disrespectful, that they have never had it so good, yet they lack responsibility and maturity. As a teacher it is easy to get discouraged when faced with kids whose behaviour is not good, and forget that there are many fantastic kids too.

Men and women have gone to war in the hope that their sacrifice will make Australia a place of freedom, a better place for future generations. Recent generations have never had to face the prospect of all out war like their ancestors.Perhaps our kids have never had it so good, but isn't that what the diggers wanted for future generations; a better life?

This ANZAC day I am remembering those who sacrificed so much for our country. I am also filled with hope. The young people of today want to remember and pay their respects too.

Lest We Forget

In Through The Front Door....

Hannah loves to create. From our perspective it is often a mess, but she is always making something or doing some craft. Our house is often always covered in her creations, and we frequently have to do a cull when she is in bed (no darling I haven't seen your butterfly mural since I put it in the bin last night).

My parents came for a visit on the weekend, and my mother took the opportunity to teach Hannah how to knit. She is making a blanket for her dolls bed. She picked it up very quickly. My mother taught Hannah a little rhyme to help her remember the steps:

In through the front door,

Run around the back

Back through the window

And off jumps Jack.

The End Of The Harvest - A Recap

The garden has finally slowed down. For the first time in months, my bench does not have bowls of tomatoes on it. There is still carrots and spinach in the ground, to be picked when we need it, but our harvest has ended.

So here is a run down of what I have done with our summer harvest.

Blackberries
Our blackberries were amazing. I made my own blackberry vinegar, and Country Boy made some berry vanilla yoghurt iceblocks. I also froze a heap of them and put them in snap lock bags for winter. I'm planning pies and crumbles over winter.

Peaches
We picked several bags of peaches which grow wild on trees by the side of the road. I stewed a heap of them up and they are also in the freezer for later use.

Tomatoes
Country Boy got a bit excited at the thought of growing his own tomatoes, and may have gone overboard. We were getting 3-4kg every day during the peak. Tomatoes were a mandatory part of every meal.

I made a heap of passata (Italian tomato sauce) - I have about 25 containers in the freezer. I also made about 20 jars of homemade tomato sauce. My father in law is a big fan of the tomato sauce, and it will go quite fast. I also dried a lot in the oven to use in pasta.

Figs
There is an old fig tree in the paddock near by. The whole family loves figs, and we have been known to just stand in front of the tree and scoff them. Despite this, we couldn't eat them all fresh. I made about 20 jars of fig jam (my father in laws favourite), and also dried some to make sticky fig puddings later (stay tuned for that recipe!).

Rhubarb
We don't actually have rhubarb plants yet, but my mother in law gave us a heap of rhubarb because she knows I love it. I made a big pot of rhubarb with strawberries, which was divine! I also made a rhubarb crumble cake - yum! Like nearly everything else, I have a couple of containers of rhubarb in the freezer.

Zucchini
We had a humongous lot of zucchinis. For a while they were a compulsory part of every meal. We had a joke that the kids had to guess the 'secret' ingredient in every meal - it was always zucchini. We have eaten a heap of zucchini slice, and have grated zucchini into all our pasta sauces etc. I have about 15 bags of grated zucchini in the freezer to use through out winter.

I also invented my own zucchini cake, which was yummy (which reminds me, I still have one in the freezer too).

Pumpkin
As I posted last week, we are over run with pumpkins. I have already roasted some and made soup. I also made some pumpkin and cinnamon scrolls. I am also using the small, orange, nugget pumpkins to decorate the house - not really food related, but they look so pretty!

Cucumbers
We still have several cucumbers in the fridge to use up. Country Boy made a whole lot of dill pickled cucumbers. They smell like the ones from Mcdonalds, but taste a whole lot better. He also tried to make cucumber soup, which was not the hit he hoped it would be.

We also have a heap of spinach, carrots, potatoes, and squash that we are still eating.

One of the things we wanted to do when we moved to the country, was to grow more of our own food. It has been a great experience for us, and we have learnt a few lessons.

Firstly, just because you can grow that much food, it doesn't mean you  have to. We do not live near a main road, so there is no point putting out a table of produce out with an honesty box. Luckily the pigs will happily eat any produce we can't deal with, and is starting to go off.

This is my small second freezer - full of produce!

Secondly, our kitchen is hopeless. Designed in the 1950s, it lacks storage, and could not be more poorly designed. In the longer term, we need a big pantry where we can store all this produce. We had to buy a second freezer (on a garage sale) to deal with all the food (and the pork from the pig). I also bought a huge pot, because even my stock pot couldn't fit enough in it.

Lastly, dealing with all the produce and keeping the garden going takes a lot of time. It is fantastic to get all this food, but the pay back is that you need to spend a lot of time dealing with it.

Luckily it will be a few months now before we hit the winter harvest.

Three Little Pigs?

Now that one of the pigs has gone, Country Boy decided that we needed 2 more. He was concerned that the remaining pig would be lonely. Being a city girl, I was unaware that pigs get lonely, but I'm always happy to learn.

Yesterday he bought 2 new piglets, and put them into the pig pen, where it remained for approximately 10 minutes (at a guess).

About 40 minutes later I was looking out the back window, when I saw a little piglet run past, just outside the yard.

It was cold and wet, and getting dark, so Country Boy jumped on a motorbike, and he and his father tried to catch them.

An hour and half later, he came back in. They caught one and put it in the shearing shed. The other one had disappeared, and in the dark, it was impossible to find.

Hopefully this morning, Country Boy will able to find it.

*This morning the missing pig had found its way back into the pig pen. Seems he didn't like the big wide world. We now need to work out how he got out, and fix it!

{Wordless Wednesday} My Beautiful Girl

Cannot believe how fast my beautiful Hannah is growing up. Wish I could keep her little forever.

Linking up with My Little Drummer Boy for Wordless Wednesday

{Recipe} Pumpkin And Cinnamon Scrolls

After our weekend pumpkin haul, I am on the look out for recipes to use up pumpkin. I cut up and roasted 2 large pumpkins on Sunday. I used some to make pumpkin soup, and froze some already roasted for later use.

On Monday Country Boy took the pig to the abattoirs, and I stayed home with the kids. The trip to the abattoir took several hours so I was wanting an activity to do with the kids. Cooking together is always fun, with the added bonus of getting to eat at the end.

So we made pumpkin and cinnamon scrolls. I made the recipe up, though no doubt, there are lots of similar recipes around.

Ingredients
125g butter cubed
3c SR flour
3T sugar
1c mashed pumpkin (you could use baked or boiled pumpkin).
3/4c milk (the amount of milk you need, will depend on how sloppy your pumpkin is. Start with about 1/2 c and slowly add more if you need it).
Filling
60g butter - melted
1c brown sugar
3t cinnamon
Glaze
1c icing sugar
3t maple syrup

Method
1. Use your finger tips to rub the butter into the flour. The flour should look like bread crumbs, be slightly sticky and have no visible butter lumps.
2. Stir in the sugar
3. Add the pumpkin and milk, and mix to form a soft dough (only add enough milk to get the dough right).
4. Lightly knead the dough until smooth (not too long or it will be tough).
5. Roll the dough out to form a long rectangle. The dough should be about 5mm thick.
6. Brush melted butter liberally over the dough.
7. Spread brown sugar over the dough, making sure you go right to the edges.
8. Sprinkle the cinnamon over the top of the brown sugar.
9. Roll the dough into a spiral to form a long thin sausage.
10. Cut the dough into 3cm lengths.
11. Place the cut dough pieces in a greased oven proof dish, so that the spirals are showing. Make sure you leave space between each spiral as they will spread as they cook.
12. Bake at 170*c for about 30 minutes.
13. Mix the icing sugar and maple syrup together in a bowl. You may need to add a teaspoon or 2 of water to get the right consistency.
14. When the scrolls are baked, remove from oven. Allow to stand for 5 minutes then drizzle the maple syrup glaze over the top.

Best served warm, but trust me, it won't last until it is cold!

Pumpkins and Pork

Autumn has well and truly come to the country. All though the days are still warm, the nights are cold; we had a frost the other night so most of our summer plants are dying.

The pumpkin vines are all black and withered, and we can, at last, survey our haul, and oh my, what a lot of pumpkins we have.

On Saturday afternoon we spent an hour pumpkin picking. We have a heap of cute little nugget pumpkins. They look so pretty, that I just pile them up around the house. They aren't the best for eating - rather floury, but  I think they may be good for making into gnocchi, and scones because they are quite dry. I am just going to cut them in half and roast them in their skins, and then scoop out the flesh once it is cooked.

We also have so many Queensland blue pumpkins. Hannah counted 47, but some are a bit squishy on the bottom, or a bit too small and green to eat - the pigs will enjoy them. Despite the squishy ones, there is still way more than we can hope to eat.

Country Boy is planning on getting another couple of piglets to raise. It has been a great experience for the kids, being responsible for feeding the pigs and chickens. We have gone out collecting acorns from under the oak trees to feed to the pigs (apparently acorns make pork taste really good - and the pigs love them too!). Country Boy even got some old sheets and spread them under some trees to catch the acorns - he is quite committed to tasty pork! The pigs also get all our scraps.

I love the way our scraps aren't wasted. They go to the chickens, pigs, or the worm farm. Our animals have a pretty fine life here in the country. I love the way I can trust our food here too. We have grown so much of our own produce that the freezer is heaving, and I have had to clear out a shelf in my cupboard where I keep all my work stuff (all teachers have one of these) to fit all the jams/pickles etc that I have made.

Country Boy is taking one of the pigs to the abattoirs today to be processed. I was a bit concerned about how the girls were going to take this, but they seem unusually matter of fact about it. I over heard a conversation where they were talking about how you would chop up a pig. Hannah was sure the easiest way would be to chop its head off first. It was hard not to jump in and try and 'steer' the conversation, but I need to let them process this fact of life with out my projecting adult concerns on to them.

We get the meat on Thursday or Friday, butchered, and ready to eat. It will take a couple of hours to package it all up, and freeze it. We will be eating pumpkins and pork for a while to come now!

Dessert Philosophy And A {Recipe} Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake

In both Country Boys' family and mine, dessert is taken very seriously. It's not something we have every night, but when we do have it, it is an event on its own. I kind of think that if you are going to have dessert, it might as well be good. I want to enjoy eating foods that are blatently unhealthy, not just eat them because they are in front of me.

The first time I met Country Boy's grandparents, we were invited to lunch in the house we are now living in. I was struggling to eat the most enormous lunch ever (to be polite - you know how it is when you are first meeting potential inlaws). I finally apologised that I could not eat it all. Then Grandpa said "but you will have dessert won't you - its got dates in it!". Since then we have had a running joke, that if a dessert is good, it must "have dates in it". As it turns out, Grandpa loved any dessert with dates in it - his dessert philosophy was 'dates make a good dessert better'.

FIL seems to believe that dessert should always have icecream with it. I served up the most amazing chocolate, raspberry pavlova at Christmas, and he was still looking for the icecream to have with it! Trifle with icecream was another 'odd' combination (in my opinion anyway).

My own father is a big fan of a pavlova. After he has finished dinner, he without fail leans back in his chair and asks "so where is the pavlova?". He might love a good pav, but I haven't ever seen him knock back any dessert, ever. He is well known in the family for his love of desserts, and for how quickly he can down them.

Country Boys' dessert philosophy seems to be the more chocolate and dairy, the better the dessert. He loves a good cheesecake, but is particular about them - he won't eat just any cheesecake. Like me, he would rather not have any dessert than have one he doesn't really love.

Over the weekend, my sister and her family came for a visit. Country Boy saw this as the perfect opportunity to make a great dessert and I who am I to stop him (see we are a perfect match). We have a cookbook where we stick recipes we find in magazines or on line and would like to cook. Country Boy had a rifle through the book and found a recipe for chocolate hazelnut cheesecake.

So here is an amazing cheesecake recipe which I cut out of an old magazine years ago, and have never got around to making. If I knew which magazine I got it from I would happily credit it. The base is amazing - like a Ferrero Rocher, and the cheese cake is silky without being jelly like (which often happens with gelatin). Lets just say that the kids didn't get to taste this one!

Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake
Base
200g dark chocolate - melted
1/4 c hazelnut spread (nutella)
1 1/3 c ricebubbles
1/2c chopped roasted hazelnuts*

Cheesecake
500g cream cheese
300ml thickened cream
1/2c caster sugar
1/4c hazelnut spread
100g dark chocolate - melted
2t gelatine disolved in 2T boiling water
2 egg whites
Melted dark chocolate to decorate

1. Combine base ingredients and press into a lined 24cm springform pan. Refrigerate until set.
2. Beat cream cheese, cream, sugar and hazelnut spread until smooth.
3. Pour int melted chocolate and dissolved gelatine, and mix thoroughly.
4. Beat eggwhites to stiff peaks in a clean bowl.
5. Slowly combine the eggwhites into the cream cheese mixture with a metal spoon.
6. Pour mixture over the base and refrigerate 2 hours or until set.
7. Melt the extra dark chocolate and put into a snap lock back.
8. Cut the corner off the snap lock bag and drizzle the chocolate over the cheese cake.

* You can roast hazelnuts in the oven by placing on a tray and putting in a hot oven for a few minutes, stirring frequently. Don't get distracted because they can easily burn.

So tell me, what is your dessert philosophy? Do you have one or is my family just mad?

True Fashions On The Field/Paddock

When we went to town yesterday, there were pictures in all the stores, showing beautiful women wearing gorgeous clothing, whilst swanning around 'the farm'. For some reason Autumn is associated with sitting around farms in the fashion industry. I had a bit of a giggle, because knee high boots, long skirts, and chunky knitted cardigans are about as unfarmish (my new word) as possible. They look gorgeous providing you don't actually want to go anywhere, do anything, or touch anything.

So today I am showing you my fashion guide for those of you who don't want to be laughed off the farm should they ever visit a real working farm.

This seasons colour scheme is the same as it is every year: A broad range of khakis, browns, and greys. Mix it up with a bit of dark blue if you really want to splash out. These colours will blend beautifully with grass stains, dirt, manure etc. High visibility shirts are entirely optional, but are becoming increasingly popular. Fluorescent yellow has that unique ability to look bad on everybody! Forget white, cream, or other pale colours, because they will not remain that colour for long!

In the foot wear department, boots are the obvious choice - Forget heels, they will just sink straight into the mud. Likewise, don't bother with lace up boots, the laces will just get dirty, and water will get in when you are wandering down in near the creek.

What you want are elastic sided boots. A triumph of function over style, they are easy to take off so that you don't tread sheep poo on the carpet inside. Ideally they should be scuffed up, with some form of dried animal manure stuck to it, for that touch of authenticity. Team them with some thick sock so you don't end up with blisters.

Knitted cardies look gorgeous but are also fairly impractical in the farm. The knit will trap dirt easily, and won't keep you warm when riding a motorbike to round up stray sheep. The knit will also catch on the long grass when trying to tackle that stray sheep.

Go for a close weave jumper or jacket. Preferably something not seen since the 1970's for a good reason. That way when it gets trashed you can always get another. Op shops are your friend!

Skirts - Don't bother with them at all unless you are going to town. Riding a motorbike with a skirt on is neither comfortable nor attractive. Granted, only the sheep are likely to see your undies when you try to hop off, but the thought of thistles and prickles getting up the skirt is making me cross my legs just thinking about it. The farm is not the place to recreate Roman Holiday.

Cargo pants may have gone out of fashion 10 years ago everywhere else, but not here on the farm. The cargo pants don't rip easily, and all the pockets may make your hips look big, but they can also carry small tools, tape, wire, and anything else small that you might need. Who cares if your thighs look big, it's how much you can carry that counts.

Here I am 'modelling' the farm look for 2012 (and every other year).

Accessories - This year we are looking at broad brimmed hats, as we do every year. Beanies are optional in cold weather, however make sure you keep to the palette of khaki. No one will take you seriously in a multicoloured beanie with a massive pompom on the top (I speak from experience on this point).

Toby and Country Boy 'model' the fashion for men and children

Kids fashion follows a similar style to adults, with the notable exception of foot wear. Childrens footwear should ideally be rubber gum boots in a loud, gender specific colour.

Should you need specifics on how to plan your outfit for your next visit to the farm, I am only too happy to provide personalised style advice!

Shopping And Acorns

We are doing a massive shop today. We have left Toby with my mother in law, and are taking the girls with us. It's a one and quarter hours to the nearest big shopping centre (read mall), but we are heading there because we (OK I) need clothing.

There are some towns nearer to us, but they are some what limited, unless you want to buy floral print skirts and elastic waist pants (which I don't).

The other downside of small towns is that all the shops you want to go to are spread up and down the street, which, while picturesque, means you need to hop in the car 7 times just to get everything. Of course this also means getting kids in and out of the car 7 times.

So we are heading to a big town where I can park the car in a carpark and get everything in the one place. It's kind of crazy but I am looking forward to it. We will probably only have lunch in the food court, but that is fine by me.

While we are in town, Country Boy has big plans to collect acorns from some oak trees. He wants to grow some more oaks to put around the farm, so he needs to get acorns from some specific species of oaks. For reasons I don't even pretend to comprehend, he has a book telling him what species of trees are found in what streets in town (who writes these books??).

One of the things I definitely miss about the  mountains is how convenient it was to get anything we needed. Shopping has become an ordeal, and it takes so much time to keep us supplied with what we need. I buy a lot of things we need on line, but I am not confident to buy clothes with out trying them on first. The plan is to buy every bit of clothing I need for the next 6 months so I don't need to go again anytime soon!

A Weekend In Words And Pictures

The long weekend was spent with my sister and her family. Every time we have visitors I get a bit down, wondering why I agreed to move so far away. Despite this, we had an awesome weekend.

Playing in the creek:

Collecting sticks:

Making Easter baskets:

Finding eggs:

Jumping on the trampoline:

Digging in the dirt:

Linking up with My Little Drummer Boys for an (almost) Wordless Wednesday

For Better And Worse

It's our wedding anniversary today - 13 years since we got married. Not sure if Country Boy has noticed yet (maybe he has a large piece of jewelry hidden away and is just waiting to surprise me - NOT)!

We met at university, and got married when I was 22 and he was 25 - young compared to most people. We knew we wanted to get married so why not get started.

Since then we have been through ups and downs. We have gone overseas, lived with my parents for a year to save money, bought a house, had 3 gorgeous kids, and moved house several times. Between all the bigger events in our lives, we have had lots of fun doing all the day to day things as well as some trying times when the mundane has got just too mundane. I can still honestly say I would rather spend time with Country Boy more than anyone else - he is still my best friend. We don't argue or fight (mainly because Country Boy doesn't do arguments), and have always managed to resolve any disagreements amicably. We have been very fortunate that our worse really hasn't been that bad.

We aren't doing anything to celebrate this year. We really need some time at home. Just being together as a family is a celebration.

13 years is a long time in some ways (my Dad would say 'you only get 10 for murder'), but in other ways we have along way to go. Hope the next 50 years are just as good. Love you Country Boy!

A Good Friday

The house is clean and decorated for Easter. We have been to church to remember what Jesus did for us when he died on the cross. The weather is perfect, and we are relaxing on the veranda, waiting for my sister and her family to join us for the weekend! 

I Solve A Blogging Conundrum

I got an email offering me an "e award". Apparently the editor of some website in America thinks I "have a really great site", and if I want they will make me a personalised button for this e-award that I can put on my site.

In other words, they want me to put an advertisement for them on my blog, for free, and then be grateful for the opportunity! I got cranky*. I am not some naive sucker who is going to fall for that flattery, but I bet people do.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how I was getting a few offers to try products etc, and I wasn't sure how to handle them. I really wonder how much (if any) thought went into selecting my blog.

I hate that so many companies seem to see bloggers and blogs as cheap/ free advertising for their products. It seems to me that there is often little thought going into whether the product is actually suited to the blog or readers, or whether it is going to add something of quality to the blog. Country Boy calls it the shot gun approach. For those of you not familiar with country analogies, a shot gun sprays out lots of little pellets in the hope that something hits. It is not particularly precise, but you will usually hit something if you point it in the right direction because of the quantity of pellets.

I have read some truly excellent sponsored posts on the blogosphere, whilst others seem just to be regurgitating a press release. Generally in the better posts, I can actually see the link between the product and the blog.

All this has been floating around in my head. After much thought, and discussion with Country Boy, I have come to several conclusions:

1. I will not be accepting offers of free products etc for reviews or sponsored posts. If I do write about a product I love, you can be sure that it is because I love it.

2. Any 'buttons' I do display are there because I like the site, and because it is good 'karma' (not that I believe in karma, but you get the idea) to display the buttons of blogs whose linkups you participate in. I'm not going to be accepting 'awards' from websites I have never heard of.

3. I will not (at this stage anyway) be putting advertisements on my blog either. This blog is just a hobby for me right now. I don't want to turn it into a business, and deal with all those issues. I like that I can choose what I write about with out having to think about search engine optimization, or ensuring that I put out a post every day to drive traffic to my site. My stats after 8 months continue to grow, but are erratic, and I couldn't care less. I don't know if they compare favourably to other sites or not, and it does not matter.

For a while I was considering signing up with an agency and putting some ads on. I wouldn't mind being able to go to an occasional conference on blogging, and the ads could help subsidise that. Also having this blog costs me a little bit of money for domain registration and other administrative stuff. After talking about this with Country Boy, I have decided that if I want to go to conferences, then I will just pay for them myself. Country Boy supports this - he doesn't really understand why I like to blog, but he is an ever patient husband and doesn't query how I spend our money. We are fortunate that we have enough money to meet all our needs and some of our wants. I am not going down blog to business path right now.

What will I do you ask? I am just going to sit, relax and continue to write, and enjoy the view. Problem solved.

* I didn't get cranky enough to write a cranky pants email back though, I just wrote that I wasn't interested and thanked them - wuss!

P.S. This is what I have decided for my blog, if you have different thoughts/ have ads/ do sponsored posts, that is entirely up to you. Please don't get all offended by what I have written. I may well change my mind in the future.

{Wordless Wednesday} Remembering China

I cannot believe that it is 3 years since we visited China. Looking back over my photos, I cannot wait to visit again.

A rubber plantation outside of town

The local takeaway shop

Portable BBQ - Chinese style

Hannah and Meg model their 'traditional' outfits

Dragonboat racing on the river during the festival

Local minority groups wear their traditional outfits

Parading down the street, dancing.

Better start planning and saving!

Linking up with My Little Drummer Boys for Wordless Wednesday.