24 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Articles, Biography, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: Bernard Black Bunny, Jenna Cesar, Oak Tasmania, The Superstars, urban farming
It’s been a hectic day, and it’s not going to ease up – so here’s a quick post for today.
After yesterday’s rain and being stuck indoors with books (bliss!) today couldn’t have been more different.
I spent a busy morning with the animals and trying to get my brushcutter working. I only use the thing a couple of times a year but it’s handy when the grass starts to get long, which is certainly the case at the moment. All the rain and then the sudden burst of warm weather meant the weeds have boomed this week and really need attending to.
Because I use it so infrequently, the brushcutter’s not running properly. So it’ll have to be serviced before I can really make an impact on the jungle!
Meanwhile, I had a delivery of sheep manure this morning. This is my preferred means of feeding garden beds and I’m pretty happy to have got 11 bags delivered to my gate by a really nice young guy who’s trying to make a living out of garden supplies. This much should last me almost two years, though a good deal of it will go around fruit trees, asparagus and the ever-hungry rhubarb bed!
Then I had to quickly get changed and pop down to a nearby coffee shop to meet my friend Jenna Cesar. She’s a fellow blogger and another online writing student who lives in Hobart. We had a lovely chat, and she interviewed me about the work I’ve been doing at Oak Tasmania with Callum and The Superstars. Jenna’s writing her piece for uni but will be publishing it on her blog in weeks to come and I’ll put a link up here when that happens.
After a quick lunch it was back to the yard to carefully move all the bags of manure into a pyramid (more like a ziggurat!) so it’s easy for me to access with my problematic spine!
My dear friend and former neighbour called around this afternoon too. I miss her very much – and so does the lovely Oscar. Karen rescued him a couple of years ago and when she and her daughter moved, there was only room at their new home for one bunny. So Snowflake (her daughter’s rabbit) went with them and Oscar stayed here with us, which is really lovely as he’s a beautiful little fellow. He was so excited to see Karen today he really wouldn’t sit still – it was just gorgeous.
He’s a dwarf lop and such a character! We couldn’t get him to keep still for a photo until we got Bernard out to say hello! This is the first time they’ve come this close to each other as their hutches are quite apart.
There was some growling – but to be expected with buck rabbits! Also, we realised that Bernard Black at 10 weeks old is already larger than Oscar. Not difficult really – but how big is he going to grow?
But once Oscar was removed from the scene, my little camera hog was his usual chilled and affectionate self ❤
For something different, tonight I’m going to gather photos together and put up some ads on Facebook for plants that are extra to my family’s needs. I realised that I really do have too many tomatoes and basil plants!
And tomorrow I’m at Oak with The Superstars ❤
Life is good here – hope it is with you too 😀
23 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Book Review, Writing
Tags: Cracked and Spineless New and Used Books, Doctor Strange, film studies, Hammer Films, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Comics, Sergio Leone, Sir Christopher Frayling, spaghetti westerns
After our short blast of summer, today was wet and surprisingly cool. So I went into the city and cleared my holds and lay-by at Cracked & Spineless New & Used Books. And I’ve spent the rest of the day reading and trying not to drool over my bounty!
As I’m sure many of you know, I’m a huge fan and student of cinema. I love the history and culture that surrounds and informs it, particularly the pop culture source material that cinema draws from. As a child of the 60’s, I grew up watching Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, so when Richard showed me this secondhand treasure today I really had to get it!
Sir Christopher Frayling is an academic and educator, and has written widely about pop culture. His style is scholarly but very accessible, something that’s often lacking in these kind of titles. But it’s obvious the man loves his work. I think I first came across him back in the late 90’s with a wonderful documentary and book Nightmare: The Birth of Horror.
Speaking of which, I also picked up today the revised edition of The Hammer Vault by Marcus Hearn.
This is a stunning collection of (often rare) artifacts from Hammer films, such as annotated script pages, unused promotional artwork, rare still shots and even private correspondence. The revised edition includes recent productions, including The Woman in Black (2012) which is a really lovely, old school Gothic horror film that is worth watching if only for a really fine post-Harry Potter performance from Daniel Radcliffe.
And finally, there was this beastie!
This book goes right back to the very beginnings of Marvel and it’s really fascinating to see how some of the enduring characters have changed over time. Equally, it’s fascinating to note how many of the essential traits of characters such as Luke Cage, Steve Rogers and Tony Stark have made their way across to the movies.
Recently, I went to see Doctor Strange (2016) and was thrilled that the production designers took note (and really paid homage to) the psychedelic and surreal artwork of Steve Ditko.
I think this book is a gem for anyone who loves pop culture history and comic books. Also, it really underlines how much the comics have informed the production values in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Tomorrow I’ve got a busy day. A load of sheep manure is turning up for the garden and I’m meeting a friend who’s writing an article about my work at Oak Tasmania, so I’m off for an early night of more reading 😀
22 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: asparagus, Bernard Black Bunny, NaBloPoMo 2016, Tasmania, urban farming, volunteer vegetables, worm farms
Hi everyone,
I spent a lovely day out in the yard today – no uni work to do. Woo hoo! So I had a chance to actually pay attention to a few things.
Like the worm farms. I’ve got two of them I bought a few years ago for converting all the kitchen waste that my chickens can’t have, (tea leaves, coffee grounds, potato peelings and so on) into lovely rich compost. I haven’t really taken a lot of notice of them since I emptied the bottom trays some months ago and put the compost out for the potato beds and wicking barrel fruit trees.
Well, imagine my surprise when I looked closely at the plants coming up in the gap between the trays today.
In the picture above are mostly Roma bush tomatoes that I dried back in autumn, and after saving what I thought was the best of the seed, put in the rest in the compost bucket. Note a tiny potato plant in the right half of the photo – that has come up from a peeling! I’m planning to pot the strongest tomatoes up and let them do their thing. I’ve found Roma is a great variety for growing in tubs.
Volunteers are actually really common in my garden beds. At the moment, I’m picking from several Golden and Ruby Silverbeet (Rainbow Chard) and Curly Endives that have popped up in quite unlikely places and every autumn I have Corn Salad (Valerianella locusta) and of course, there’s the potatoes.
It’s really hard to find all the potatoes at harvest time and it only takes one to see a new plant sneak up in the middle of whatever’s in the bed next. Usually, I pull these out as they are like weeds – unwanted interlopers! On the other hand, in spring, I always find new plants of the perennial Wild Rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia) that has made a home in front of the asparagus bed that I like to transplant or put in pots.
This is the asparagus I grew from seed last spring and planted out in autumn. Despite needing a thorough weeding, it’s doing really well – much better than first year crowns should – but I did spent quite a few months preparing the bed with copious amounts of sheep manure, seaweed and spent straw from the rabbit hutches. Also, I haven’t seen any berries yet (which identifies female plants) but with the slow start we had to spring, they might not appear until next month. The biggest stem was about pencil thickness so I might take a stem or two next spring but I won’t start cropping properly for another couple of years.
Most of the food I grow is fast to produce and crop – gone in a season. Apart from the fruit trees, asparagus is the only really long term food project I have, but I know it will be worth it. After weeding, I’ll be piling more manure and seaweed over it – and wait.
Patience is a virtue 😀
Speaking of which, this young fellow has no patience! This is Bernard Black charging in to eat ALL the food this morning, giving me the “get out of my way woman!” look on the way ❤
21 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Creative Writing, Writing
Tags: creative writing, Griffith University, love my life, NaBloPoMo 2016, online learning, screen studies, Tasmania
Well, I think I’ll sleep well tonight.
After yesterday’s long day gardening in the sunshine, all I’ve really done today is use my brain. And I must confess I don’t feel like there’s much of that left now!
This morning I double checked my assignment, made sure the format was correct and uploaded the beast into the ether!
After a celebratory lunch it was back to the grind. With one enrolled unit left for 2016, what units do I choose to study next year?
People have been asking me about what I’m studying so here’s the story.
Although I live in Tasmania, the southernmost state of Australia, my university is Griffith, which is based in Queensland. I’ve been studying online, one or occasionally two units at a time since November 2013, so it’s been a long slog. And consistent. Unlike being on a physical campus, the year is broken up into four study periods (SP’s) of 12 or 13 weeks and they go all year round. So I haven’t had a real break from study for three years.
I’m enrolled in an undergraduate degree course, (Bachelor of Communications) and I’m on track for a double major in Creative Writing and Screen Studies. After discussing it at length with folks online, and working out what was available in which study period, I’ve opted for my last 2nd year elective in SP1 Writing Crime and Contemporary Romance which starts in late February, and although I love pulp noir fiction, I’m not a chick lit fan.
Then in SP2 it’s the start of third year subjects and a Screen Studies unit, Media Audiences, which I’m really looking forward to. It looks at the theory and methodology around audience studies as well as constructing and interpreting qualitative and quantitative research and how it is applied to media policy and content. (Yeah, I know – it’s pretty dry but I like that kind of thing!)
SP3 is back to creative writing with Writing Gothic and Speculative Fiction an area I’m very interested in learning about and I finish 2017 with a cross over unit which applies to both Screen Studies and Creative Writing, Documentary Scriptwriting. This is going to be a fascinating and intense finish to the year with assessment work to research, furnish a proposal, write a draft and revised script. I already have an idea brewing for this!
Meanwhile, it’s late, I’ve got a headache and all I want to do is sleep. But it’s really hot tonight (24.2 C at 10:20pm!) and I have a whole week off before I start SP4 and Writing Poetry, my last unit for 2016.
I wonder how much gardening I can get done in a week?
20 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: basil, Bernard Black Bunny, eggplant, gardening, Griffith University, NaBloPoMo 2016, online learning, raspberries, Tasmania, urban farming
Today was quite spectacular – brilliant, sunny and really quite hot. Too nice to be stuck inside with assignments, so I spent the day working on getting the garden up to date because it looks like summer’s here!
It was too hot to work in the greenhouse today, so I set up a work area outside on top of the currently empty rabbit nursery hutch. With a cold bottle of water and a good audio book (Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C. S. Forester) I spent quite a lot of time getting seedlings into tubes.
It was a lovely place to work but here in Tasmania the sun is deceptively intense. I’m quite fair skinned and burn easily so I usually wear long sleeved cotton shirts, long pants and a hat when I’m out in the yard. Silly me forgot to roll my sleeves down after I did the watering this morning and after 10 minutes sitting working, I could feel my forearms burning. It’s not too bad tonight after a shower and plenty of soothing skin cream but I really try and avoid getting too much sun.
I potted up a lot of seedlings today – especially eggplants and basil – into toilet roll tubes. It’s an effective means of recycling an otherwise useless product and because the cardboard tubes disintegrate, it pretty much eliminates transplant shock when the seedlings go out into a garden bed or into a larger pot. If you’re interested in reading more, I wrote about it here.
Later in the afternoon, I made a wonderful discovery. I was weeding the path in front of the main raspberry bed when a flash of colour caught my eye – raspberry season has officially started!
And they were delicious – worth getting a little bit of sunburn earlier in the day 😀
To finish, Bernard Black is very well settled in and getting very inquisitive about his surroundings – and eating lots!
Tomorrow is submission day for final assignments and discussions about future units. In particular, what am I going to do for my final year project. I’ve got a few ideas but I really need to run it past some of my tutors.
Lots to think about!
19 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Baking, Biography, Cooking, Preserving, Produce, Tasmania, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: basilapocolypse, bergamot, Green Shiso, jam melons, love my life, NaBloPoMo 2016, preparing the garden for summer
I had a really good day today.
Because I’m back on schedule for my uni assignments, I decided to make the most of the lovely spring weather and spent most of the day in the yard.
There were rabbit hutches to muck out, chickens to talk to and (at long last!) tomatoes to start planting, and later, I did quite a lot of work in the greenhouse.
Around this time every year, life gets a bit crazy for me with lots of summer vegetables that I start from seed. These either need to be either planted out in garden beds (like tomatoes, beans and salad greens) or potted up for growing in the greenhouse (primarily basil and chillies).
This year is no exception, and this afternoon I potted up one of my favourite summer herbs, Shiso (Perilla frutescens), also known as Beef Steak Plant.
I use it shredded in salads and when the leaves are full size, as a wrap for sashimi and even for pickling and drying. I love it’s spicy, fresh flavour. I have a really good and simple pickling recipe here if you’re interested.
To have enough for fresh and preserving, I usually grow about two dozen plants in small pots and keep them in the greenhouse. I use a weak home made liquid feed once every couple of weeks
There was also a punnet of Bergamot (Monarda didyma) that I’m planning to use to attract bees, and add flowers to salads and for tea that yielded a dozen plants, more tomatoes and a punnet of five very healthy Jam Melons (Citrullus lanatus).
These very old fashioned fruit are a real blast from my childhood, when my mother would use a melon to make autumn fruits go much further for desserts such as pie fillings, tarts and of course, Melon and Lemon Jam. The melon is fiddly to seed but once cooked, the translucent flesh takes up other flavours beautifully. I was given the seed by a lovely woman in northern Tasmania and I’m really pleased these grew. I intend to grow the strongest two but don’t have large enough garden beds left to put them in! So, I’m planning to put them in big tubs and let them spill out across what used to be the corner of shame – now well tended pine bark around the plum tree.
It’s a little bit of forward planning (and maybe wishful thinking) but I’m hoping to have at least a couple of melons to use for making the last of the berries stretch that little bit further at the end of the season ❤
Tomorrow I’m potting up the first of the basil – the official start of “basilapocolypse” – and more tomatoes. Next week, some of the chillies will be ready to go. Then things will get really crazy!
18 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Writing
Tags: Griffith University, NaBloPoMo 2016, Narnia, online learning, T. H. White, The Once and Future King, Tolkien, writing for children and young adults
Hi everyone,
A very quick post today as I’m on the home stretch with my last online university assignment and playing catch up with some discussion posts I missed while I was sick. As some of you might recall, this unit is Writing for Children and Young Adults and it’s been another excellent undergraduate level exploration. I’ve learnt a lot!
One of the discussion post questions was especially provocative. We were asked to think back to adolescence and talk about a book or series that really resonated with us. Of course, for me and many others in the unit, our first thoughts were to Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, while for others it was C. S. Lewis’ Narnia stories, which while excellent in their own right, I have always found somewhat “vanilla” and a little too preachy for my tastes. (Having said that, I still think Lucy Pevensie is one of the best heroines in contemporary children’s literature!)
I found my self remembering T. H. White’s dark and somewhat forbidding retelling of the Arthurian legend in The Once and Future King series. This is all the more fascinating because I haven’t read these books since I was in early high school – around 40 years ago!
Even though I couldn’t recall everything that happened in the four books, the overall feelings I gained from them remain to this day. I particularly loved the first book, The Sword in the Stone, which introduces the very old and absent minded Merlyn, who is living backwards through time, and Wart, the inquisitive and innocent adopted son of Sir Ector.
Now I want to read them all again, to see if the magic is still there – or if my memory has embellished it.
It also made me think about the profound effect that particular books can have and the amazing power of words on the human psyche.
“Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity”
Hermann Hesse
17 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: Bernard Black Bunny, Griffith University, NaBloPoMo 2016, online study, sourdough bread, unexpected bunny arrivals, writing for children and young adults
So it’s Day 17, over halfway through NaBloPoMo for 2016 – which is pretty amazing in itself! But today we had a proper taste of summer!
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post the forecast was for 29 C (84 F) and the Bureau of Meteorology got it right! I managed to get some gardening done early and watered everything thoroughly. And when I went down to do the afternoon feed it looked like I hadn’t lost any of the new beans I recently planted.
Before I went down to the yard, I took the opportunity of a warm day to knock a small loaf of sourdough together. No yeast – just 2 cups of sourdough starter, 2 cups of bread flour, a little olive oil and water. After I kneaded it and put it in a greased loaf pan it looked like this. I covered it with a damp tea towel and left it to rise in the warm kitchen.
Earlier this evening (about 6pm) just as I was about to put it in the oven it had risen to the top of the pan.
And the finished loaf ❤
And this afternoon I pulled all my notes together for my last assignment, a treatment for a 16 page children’s picture book with instructions for the illustrations. Just as I finished the body of the book, I got a phone call from a friend who’s started keeping gorgeous little Netherland Dwarf bunnies – mini versions of my giant breeds. She had come home and found a tiny newborn in the middle of the floor!
After carefully checking the newborn kit and making sure it was warm, she checked her two does, one of whom she’s only had a few weeks. I suggested her new girl might’ve come to her already pregnant, But it appears her other doe was really a buck! I’m happy to say mother and baby are doing well. Human mother has calmed down now and is doing a fabulous job for a first-timer 😀
It’s quite tricky to sex (identify the gender) of very young rabbits and this kind of mix up happens more often than most of us want to admit. I’ve been caught out before and I find it difficult to reliably tell under about 10 weeks.
For instance, Bernard Black came to us a couple of weeks ago as a fully weaned, 8 week old identified buck. The day he arrived I checked and think that’s probably correct but I couldn’t be 100% sure.
Now, after what my friend has gone through, I plan to check Bernard again on the weekend – just to be sure!
A very beautiful and much bigger bunny than when he first arrived a few short weeks ago ❤
16 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Business, Cooking, Creative Writing, Inspiration, Music, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: Griffith University, love my life, Meraki Management, NaBloPoMo 2016, online study, organic gardening, simple pleasures, Tasmania, Tasmanian original music, Tasmanian songwriters, urban farming, Writing
I’m really tired tonight.
Last night I went out and celebrated Meraki Management’s 1st birthday, had a drink (yes, only one!), listened to some wonderful local, original music and caught up with lots of friends – it was lovely! There’s a fabulous vibe in Hobart at the moment valuing live music, which in many ways is bucking against the global trend. Long may it prosper!
This morning I slogged away at more weeding and prepared another area for tomatoes. It was overcast but very muggy, and as the morning progressed, the cloud burned away and it ended up being a really lovely day. But tomorrow is forecast to be increasingly windy and 29 C (84 F), well above average for this time of year.
I hope all my baby beans survive but this is perfect for the raspberry bed, which is looking like a wonderful (and early) crop this season.
With overnight temperatures only predicted to go down to 11 C (52 F) and no rain likely until next Tuesday, I’ll probably be up early and out watering everything before it gets too hot. Although I live close to central Hobart and have mains water, I like to use rainwater out in the yard. I’ve plumbed a gravity feed line down the the back corner and the greenhouse and I have a small electric pump that provides mains pressure. It’s a good system but I’m continually tweaking it. Over the coming months, I’m planning to set out extra lines off the gravity feed with soaker hoses that I can turn on and off as needed. It’s a big job and quite fiddly, so I’m happy to take it one bed at a time.
Tonight I had the house to myself and being tired, I decided on a very simple dinner. A piece of fresh fish, a little butter and everything else from the garden. I cooked off chopped garlic in the butter, added a sliced mushroom (from the compost bags again!) and once that had softened, I pushed it aside and put the fish in. Once I turned it, I tossed in shredded silverbeet and sliced fresh snow peas. I covered the pan for a minute or two while I got a plate and cutlery ready, serves the veggies first and put the just cooked fish on top. It was delicious!
Tomorrow after watering, I have to finish off my last assignment for my current unit. I decided to put myself way outside my comfort zone and prepare a draft for a children’s picture book. Maybe that’s what I’ll write about tomorrow for NaBloPoMo.
Sometimes I don’t know why I do this to myself!
Goodnight friends, be well and I’ll see you tomorrow ❤
15 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Music, Performance
Tags: angry when my body fails, health, hypothyroidism, Meraki Management, NaBloPoMo 2016, Tasmania
A very quick post today.
As some of you know, I’ve had a wild time the last few months and not in a good way! I haven’t really talked about it that much but I went back to my fabulous GP today for assessment and I feel it’s time to talk about it.
I’ve been feeling increasingly “off” for the last few months, always sluggish, tired and lacking energy. I put it down to lack of sleep, work and study pressures and all the deeply personal grief that’s made up this year. But a month ago it all came home to roost when I played a gig and nearly collapsed.
I was scheduled to play a laid back Sunday afternoon set for my friend Amy from Meraki Management and I wasn’t feeling great when I arrived. My brain felt foggy and everything about me felt slow – even my heartbeat was sluggish. I tried to shrug it off and just get on with it. But about halfway through my set, I felt like all my energy suddenly drained away and I could barely stand up. I managed to make it through but I knew I wasn’t well. I felt nauseous, faint and couldn’t stop shaking.
I was understandably scared. And I was really, really angry. How dare my body do this to me at all – but while I was working, doing what I love? Intolerable!
Thankfully, I managed to get in to see my GP the next day – and he is a friend to be treasured. For the last few years, through regular blood testing, it was clear my thyroid function was decreasing and there’s a genetic history of various thyroid disorders in my family. But now it seems my wayward gland has all but stopped working and I’ve been diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I started medication the following day and each day I’ve noticed an improvement.
Today I went back for clinical assessment and I have to do another round of blood tests to determine if this is the correct dosage, but it looks and feels like it was the right diagnosis. I think that alone made me feel better!
I haven’t been out much in the last month and the gig I played last week (also for Amy) was my first since “the incident” but I’ve been gradually finding more energy and suffering less exhaustion for no apparent reason.
And tonight I’m heading out to celebrate the first birthday of Meraki Management. This Hobart music management business has done some very impressive things in one short year and I’m really pleased I’m well enough to join in.
I’m still not feeling 100% but I’m on my way – I have a lot to celebrate too 😀
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Debra Manskey 