Renewal

05 Jun 2016 3 Comments

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Inspiration, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Hi everyone,

Winter has arrived with a vengeance – hard frosts last week and now milder temperatures but heavy rain and flooding with a big east coast low running down from the sub tropics. And the beginning of winter is also the renewal date for my WordPress account. What better way to celebrate than write a blog post about renewal ❤

I’m still recovering from the horror virus that’s doing the rounds and having to take it quite a lot easier than I anticipated the past couple of weeks. But I’ve been busy finishing off one Griffith University unit (Television Studies) and starting another (New Media: Communications in the Electronic Age), though my brain really isn’t up to being terribly academic at the moment. While it’s seriously throwing out my schedule, being ill has reminded me that sometimes it’s more important to sit back and watch things grow for a wee while.

Whenever there’s been a respite from the cold and more recently the rain, I’ve made a point of going down to spend time with the bunnies and chickens and simply revel in the garden and its amazing renewal with the recent rain – and just watch things grow for a little while 😀

Some of my favourite plants are the small, often forgotten little herbs. Most people who cook grow them, but often we take them for granted but at the right time of year, in the right light they are incredibly beautiful to look at.

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This is the tiny and delicate Orange Peel Thyme (Thymus richardii ssp. nitidus) which comes originally from Sicily. It has a gorgeous thyme fragrance, mixed with orange zest and grows like a mat, making it ideal for containers or rockery edges. I really like it with chicken dishes but it also works well with apple jelly.

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Above is the delectable Lebanese Oregano, also known as Greek Oregano or Zaatar Leaf (Origanum syriacum), undoubtedly one of my favourite culinary herbs. The soft blush on the leaves is typical of this upright herb, that grows into an open shrub that can get quite straggly if it isn’t cut back each year after flowering. The taste is quite intense and different to either Marjoram or Oregano and it is a wonderful herb for barbecue meats, roasts and chopped finely over baked vegetables.

And after a few days without looking at the vegetables and quite a lot of rain – look what I found! This was the first head from the late summer/autumn plantings and it was delicious, lightly steamed 😀

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Of course, as I’m sure all you fellow gardeners will understand spending time even just walking around your patch makes you think of all the work that needs to be done. Gardening is a never ending job, always a work in progress!

All the rain has meant the weeds are coming back in force and it’s going to take some dedicated time over the coming weeks to stay on top of it. Spent raspberry canes need cutting and in some cases, dividing and transplanting into a new raspberry bed. The rhubarb is ready to be divided too and the plum and nectarine trees need some final pruning to tidy them up now they’ve finally dropped all their leaves.

Also, I’ve got new fruit trees arriving soon and there’s a lot of preparation to do for them. I’m quite excited though as most of the new trees are on dwarfing rootstock and all will be going into half plastic drums that I’m going to set up as wicking containers similar to the balcony boxes I did back in January. I’ll be doing a blog post about it and photographing the process. (The balcony boxes are doing well by the way, with onions, chicory and coriander still going strong and three about to be replanted with winter greens – rocket, spinach and vitamin green).

Watching the frost pattern last week also made me consider planting some out of season potatoes in pots in the greenhouse as an experiment. Another project for another blog post when I’m recovered 😀

Meanwhile, the baby bunnies are growing very fast and will be ready to be sold next weekend as pets or grown on for butchering in another month or so. While some people have issues with this, I like to take responsibility for at least some of the meat I consume. And I do the slaughtering and butchering myself so I know they are humanely dispatched. This will be the last litter for a while as I don’t like to put either of my doe rabbits through the stress of winter birthing and rearing. I find it’s better all round to wait until spring.

I’ll leave you with the first Marigold in full bloom – the only one that grew from an old packet of seed.

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Take care wherever you are and whenever you can, take time to watch things grow  ❤

Sickness and Shakespeare

21 May 2016 9 Comments

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Inspiration, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,

It’s been a wild week – in more ways than one!

In truth, I feel more than a little cheated. After unseasonably warm weather, I was out in the rain and wind and got cold early in the week. I even picked ripe strawberries earlier in the week!

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I started to get the sniffles on Wednesday and by Thursday I was a mess! I’ve spent (for me) a lot of time in bed with David Tennant and a box of tissues.

Now before you get the wrong idea, I’ve been watching and (when I’ve been able to) reading a lot of Doctor Who for my current unit at Griffith University. Doctor Who has become a legitimate area of academic study, which makes me even more inclined to consider post grad work in Screen Studies! So I re-watched a good deal of the Tenth Doctor. Although I really like all the actors cast as the Doctor, I think Tennant has been my favourite so far, largely because of his versatility 😀

So I’ve been watching Tennant in Hamlet (Doran 2009) with Patrick Stewart and Much Ado About Nothing (Rourke 2011) with the utterly brilliant Catherine Tate. That led on to Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V and (somehow) to Excalibur (Boorman 1981) which features the late Nicol Williamson as Merlin, one of the greatest actors of his generation and reputedly the best Hamlet ever.

Last night I moved on to The Hollow Crown: Richard II and tonight I’m planning to snuggle up with Jeremy Irons in The Hollow Crown: Henry IV and if I last long enough, Tom Hiddleston in The Hollow Crown: Henry V. Apparently, there’s a new season coming out this year and I also want to  – more DVDs I need to find room for 😀

As you might have gathered by now, I love Shakespeare. I was thinking recently with all the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death that I should re-watch what I’ve got and replenish my collection. For me it’s the musicality of the language, the silliness of the comedies, the depth of the tragedies – it’s pure comfort food when I’m feeling like this. While I’m still sniffly, it’s nothing more than an autumn virus but it’s left me very foggy and aching.

Those of you who follow my blog will be pleased to know that the Elderberry Cordial I made earlier this year is a winner! I’ve been having a hot cordial before going to sleep and it’s really helped break this virus – and it tastes lovely 😀

So there’s been little gardening but the autumn vegetables are booming (next week I must plant onions!) and the six baby rabbits are turning into eating machines!

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Finally, (and I’ll likely be soundly told off for this!) it was this beautiful little cherub’s 24th birthday earlier this week and I think this is my favourite photograph of him as a little boy. I cannot begin to express how much this man has changed my life – undoubtedly for the better – and how proud I am of him and to be his mother. Of the many things I’ve done in my life, he is without doubt the finest.

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Anyway, I’m off to bed with Jeremy Irons and an Elderberry Cordial. Wherever you all are, I hope you’re well and happy ❤

Do you like Shakespeare? What’s your favourite play? Leave a comment below – I love to hear from you all! 

The Bride of Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer – Book Review

01 Apr 2016 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Book Review, Creative Writing, Inspiration, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,

As some of you are no doubt aware, I love reading as well as writing and have a Goodreads account that I’m starting to use more. Here’s a review I wrote this morning of a little pulp novel I picked up recently from my favourite bookshop, Cracked and Spineless New and Used Books. Thanks Richard 😀

The Bride of Fu ManchuThe Bride of Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I remember reading a lot of my father’s Sax Rohmer books when I was a child, so this was both a trip down memory lane and some light reading over the last week or so, nothing to do with uni study.

One of the things that I’ve always liked about Rohmer was his ability to write action and suspense and this one in particular has lots of the evil Dr, which makes for good reading. The premise of Fu Manchu developing a new insect-borne plague to unleash on the world is really quite good and inspired many other writers (including Ian Fleming) and is still a viable plot device in the 21st century.

Of course, the few women are pigeonholed into the usual stereotypes – bumbling domestic bit-player (Madam Dubonnet) femme fatale (Fah lo Suee) and the helpless heroine who constantly needs saving (Fleurette) and the men really don’t fare that much better! Alan Sterling, the narrator for this outing is about as bland as a hero can be, but how he reacts to some of his trials is quite good.

But this is a book of its time and irrespective of the incredibly dated gender politics it’s still a good pulp read.

Do you enjoy reading? What are your favourite genres/books/authors? Leave a comment – I love to hear from you! 

Remembering Jeff

26 Feb 2016 6 Comments

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Inspiration, Writing Tags: , , ,

It’s been a strange week. I finished assignments for the end of another university unit, happily getting back into the swing of music teaching for the year, was generally feeling pretty wired and as a result, hadn’t been sleeping well.

Wednesday morning I woke in the pre-dawn glow, thinking of a friend who has been very ill. I was probably dreaming about Jeff, he’s been popping up a lot lately. Anyway, I found out a couple of hours later that he passed away peacefully in his sleep around the time I was waking.

Jeff Weston was bigger than life itself and the world is a much duller and quieter place for his passing.

He was, like all of us, a mass of contradictions. Cantankerous, incredibly generous, brash, opinionated, thoughtful, loud, gregarious and possessed a truly wicked sense of humour. And he influenced so many people he met in his very long and full life.

There are many stories I could tell, in fact I think it would make a great book! As a very young man he walked the rugged south west of Tasmania, was a teacher, farmer, one of the original members of the United Tasmania Group, which gave rise to the Tasmanian Greens, he travelled overseas, married and had four beautiful and talented sons, he opened his farm and home to travellers and loved (and actively supported) creative arts and especially live music.

Last year, when things started to look bad, Jeff decided to have a “living wake”, so he could see his friends and say goodbye on his own terms. We had passed messages but hadn’t seen each other for a decade and typically, picked up pretty much where we left off. It was one helluva party and it was so good to see him.

But the story I’ve been thinking about most the last few days I wasn’t there to witness, but it touched me very deeply and gives at least an idea of the kindness of the man.

My elderly mother lived in South Australia and had recently moved into a nursing home as she was no longer able to look after herself properly. Jeff was travelling from Tasmania up to a block he leased in the Kimberly, in remote north western Western Australia, where he could spend winter in a more comfortable climate. He knew I was worried about my mum and she about me but with recent personal dramas, I simply couldn’t afford to visit her at that time.

So, without my knowledge, Jeff went out of his way to my home town, tracked down the nursing home, and not only introduced himself to my mother, but found a lovely bunch of home grown autumn roses to give her. He spent most of the afternoon with her and according to my mum, told her many things that he never said to me, but which put my mother’s mind at rest in that very difficult time.

Above all things, he was my friend and was there for me at a time when my life was very hard. For that, I will never forget him.

Vale Jeffrey Dubrelle Weston 1927-2016 ❤

Jeff, at the center of the action

Jeff, at the center of the action July 2015 

 

Assignments, Goodbye and Hello – Day 26 NaBloPoMo 2015

26 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Creative Writing, Inspiration, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Hurrah! I submitted my last assignment for my current university unit this afternoon 😀

I nearly always find this part of units rather bittersweet – I’m a step closer to a Bachelor of Communication but I have to say goodbye to some wonderful people I’ve been studying with. Part of the deal with online study are the discussion boards, which act like a virtual tutorial group, and often these are assessed. In this unit, (Creative Writing, Forms and Structures) I’ve had the pleasure of exercising my brain cells with some really lovely people, and I will miss them.

On the other hand, next week I start a new unit, (Writing the Short Story) and I’ll be saying hello to a new group of people to discuss and share work with for the next 13 weeks. This unit will take me up to March next year, which is the start of Study Period One of the academic year. I decided on my units for 2016 a while ago and enrolled in them today – the last of my second year subjects.

I also realised this afternoon that I’ve been studying online continuously now for two years. It’s quite an achievement for me to stay that motivated and engaged, particularly without any campus interaction, but I’m interested in the work and the teaching through Griffith has been excellent. I’m majoring in Creative Writing and Screen Studies, two subjects close to my heart, but I wish there were more screen units – I really loved them with a passion!

And this is my 100th post on this blog – I’m astonished! As I’m coming to the end of the NaBloPoMo challenge and starting a new unit, I’ll be pulling back from blogging a little. My goal from December 1st is to post once a week rather than every day.

Meanwhile, I’m taking the evening off and chilling out – I’ve got a few days solid gardening to do before Study Period Four starts!

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Sleepy baby

More Small Joys – Day 24 NaBloPoMo 2015

24 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Baking, Biography, Cooking, Creative Writing, Inspiration, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I’ve had a great day – bustling and busy – but great nonetheless. This morning I fed and watered the hungry hoards and said hello to the baby bunnies, who are all growing at a phenomenal rate! Their eyes are open and they are getting quite inquisitive about the world.

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I picked raspberries (a daily job now) and I’m hoping to have enough to make a spectacular birthday cake for myself next week 🙂 When I went to give Boudica her daily raspberry leaf treat, I discovered someone had come out to see mummy and see what she eats ❤

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There were six eggs from six chickens this morning, so after watering the greenhouse, I pickled another dozen eggs using the recipe I shared  here recently and started another loaf of sourdough bread. This weather Wee Beastie is very active and needs more attention (and feeding!)

My son came over and hung out, he’s in the process of moving out of his old place and in with a friend who lives just up the road from here. I think he was just sick of sorting out the junk from the stuff he wants to keep and needed some chill out time. So we kicked back, drank lots of tea and watched cooking shows on television. We’ve agreed to have a birthday dinner at home for me next week – Roast Pork with all the trimmings, maybe some new potatoes from the garden – which will be perfect!

I’m gradually getting my head around this final assignment, which is due Friday afternoon. I’ve opted to write three poems for plus a 500 word exegesis. Although I’m a professional songwriter (and prolific blogger) I don’t have much experience with poetry and it’s a form I find quite fascinating. Interestingly, I’ve found the easiest way to start is take and idea and just write. Stream of consciousness seems to be the key way into it for me. Then I edit and arrange the words on the page so they make sense to me – and hopefully my tutor! So my poems are largely about the strange weather we get in Tasmania, the changing seasons, growing things, musicians and music.

The sourdough went in the oven late this afternoon and, as a light dinner I took fresh sourdough slices, slabs of Pork Brawn I made on Sunday and crumbled over feta cheese I made a few weeks ago. We put the slices under a hot grill for about 10 minutes – until the feta started to melt – and it was so delicious! The sharp saltiness of the feta worked so well with the rich, meaty Brawn on the fresh sourdough.

I was also reminded by HeWhoMustNotBeListenedTo that everything on our plates was made by me. It was a very satisfying moment……

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So, tomorrow will be even busier – sand and pine bark chips are arriving for a project in the back end of the garden. I’ll have pics to show you all tomorrow night 😀

Garlic Time – Day 14 NaBloPoMo

14 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Creative Writing, Inspiration, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I’ve spent the afternoon in the garden, listening to Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, avoiding listening to the news. Reports of the attacks in Paris came through this morning here in Australia and I’ve found it incredibly distressing. I love that city dearly and have been thinking of friends who live in France (all safe fortunately) and what they must be going through.

I pricked out seedlings into grow tubes, said hello to my ever-growing flock of worms and fed them scraps, planted out vegetables and generally lost myself in Quidditch, Polyjuice Potion and Harry, Ron and Hermione’s escapades.

As an avid reader, I think audio books are brilliant, particularly for works I’ve already read. But as a writer, I’m convinced anything worth reading should be read out loud. I even read essay drafts for university aloud and it’s surprising what I can learn from the exercise. Perhaps it’s the musician coming out in me, but I hear flow and tempo problems far more easily than I see them on the page.

For my gardening time, I have a wonderful little bluetooth speaker I picked up cheaply that connects easily to my smartphone. I usually put them both on an upturned pot and chill out while I work.

My baby speaker with Kunyani/Mt Wellington in the background

My baby speaker with Kunyani/Mt Wellington in the background

Late in the day, I decided to have a look at the main garlic bed. We’ve had quite a bit of rain the last few days and I noticed a few of the giants had toppled. It’s one of those plants where harvesting is crucial for long term storage and rain at this stage can mean mouldy heads. I adore garlic and I’ve been building up our stocks over the last few years, to the point where I might have enough for more than six months this time!

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The start of this years’ garlic crop!

Note the pencil – these babies are huge! And this isn’t elephant garlic, but a particularly pungent local variety I’ve been growing for the last five years or so. The laundry smells amazing tonight, by the way!

I’ll be pulling the rest tomorrow and once they’re cured for a few days, I’ll be trimming the roots off and plaiting them for hanging in the kitchen 😀

Do you grow garlic? If so, how do you store it? Please leave a comment below. 

A Lazy/Busy Day – Day 12 NaBloPoMo 2015

12 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Creative Writing, Inspiration, Inspiration, Music, Produce, Tasmania, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing Tags: , , , , , ,

Well, I’ve managed to do not very much today apart from write, and (so far) I’m pretty okay with it.

There’s a big easterly rain front over Tasmania and there’ll be little gardening action until Saturday afternoon. Usually, I’m the kind of person who has a checklist of things that I want to achieve every day, even if they’re ongoing tasks like music rehearsal, feeding “Wee Beastie” my sourdough plant, or tending to the animals. Writing tends to be shunted aside for when there’s time, especially at the moment, which is the busiest season in the garden.

Instead today, I’ve been writing poetry pieces for a university assignment and scoping out my 500 word exegesis. The concept of an exegesis is interesting, it’s a lot like writing liner notes for a recording or an introduction to a book but digs a little deeper into what informed the creation of the piece. In fact, many writers have used introductions as a type of exegesis, and they make fascinating reading for students of writing like me.

I recently read Neil Gaiman’s Trigger Warning, his latest collection of short fiction and I was really inspired by the introduction. Apart from the generalities, he offers a few notes about each story and it was really very instructive.

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Meanwhile, I imagine the water tanks are full again *happy dancing* so I’m going to find my raincoat and head down the yard soon to collect eggs, pick salad for tonight’s dinner, do the evening feed and check for any new mushrooms. I buy bags of supposedly spent compost and usually get quite a lot out of them this time of year – and today’s humid, wet weather is perfect. Hopefully, there’ll be mushrooms on toast tomorrow 😀

Mushrooms from the garden - note the pencil for size!

Mushrooms from the garden

What’s your favourite way to spend a rainy day? Leave a comment – I love to hear from you!

A Quick Update – Day 10 NaBloPoMo 2015

10 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Inspiration, Music, Performance, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Wow, it’s Day 10 already – one third of the way through the month of blogging! It’s a little scary how fast the time has flown but I still haven’t run out of things to write about 😀

As many of you will be aware, there was much excitement on the weekend when the beautiful Boudica Bunny gave birth on Saturday morning.

I’m very pleased to say that all seven of them are very healthy, plump little bunnies, obviously being fed and already showing a light sheen of (mostly) white fur. There’s a couple with speckles of black skin like their mother but I think most of them are going to be like their father Beelzebun, who’s a crossbred Californian/New Zealand White. Newborns are more or less hairless and look like little pink peanuts but within the first week they grow an awful lot of fur! By this time next week they’ll be starting to open their eyes and get curious about the world.

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For the next fortnight or more I’ve got loads of work coming my way, mostly with regard to my final assignment for my current online unit at Griffith University. I have to complete a creative piece (short story, short screenplay or three poems) and a 500 word exegesis about my process. I’ve decided to go with the poems as it’s closer to lyric writing which I feel comfortable with but different enough to be of value to my learning. Interestingly, I’ve been reading far more prose lately but it’s flavouring my work in an interesting way. I hope my tutor agrees!

And next Thursday I’m playing a gig at The Homestead in Hobart, supporting my good friend, Cassie O’Keefe. I’m really looking forward to it and hoping we can find the time to rehearse some material together between now and then. If you’re in southern Tasmania, Cassie’s playing a set this Friday the 13th at the Worlds End in Sandy Bay, which I’m hoping to get to.

So, posts will still be daily – I don’t want to stop now I’m a third of the way through – they’ll still contain bunny and gardening updates but they might be a little shorter…….

To finish, here’s a photo of Boudica and my other doe Bella, when they were little girls – about four or five months old. Note the overturned bowl, something Boudica still does when she’s finished her daily kibble ration ❤

Bella & Boudica

Bella & Boudica

Freaks or Future? – Day 8 NaBloPoMo 2015

08 Nov 2015 1 Comment

by Debra Manskey in Baking, Biography, Brewing, Chickens, Inspiration, Inspiration, Lyrics, Music, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

Late last week, Woolworths Australia released a new advertisement, featuring high profile personal trainer Michelle Bridges. The ad is spruiking a new line of frozen meals the supermarket chain developed with Bridges. During the advertisement, Bridges described people who grow their own food as “freaks” and suggested that precooked frozen food was preferable to fresh fruit and vegetables. As you can probably imagine, the uproar on social media was big enough to make the supermarket pull the ad almost immediately. There’s an article worth reading at the Guardian Australia.

Well, I guess I’ve been called worse in my time.

But it got me thinking about all the ways growing my own food makes me healthier and happier. First and foremost, I get a lot of physical exercise all year round gardening. Some of you might be aware I have a degenerative spinal condition, coupled with body-wide osteoarthritis. Over ten years ago, my then GP told me that I’d most likely be in a wheelchair within a couple of years. Not bloody likely! Occasionally, it lays me low and I need to use a walking stick but fortunately, acute episodes are rare these days. My current GP is convinced that my half an hour minimum in the garden has improved my core strength, muscle mass and general well-being – not to mention raise my normally low vitamin D levels and provide me with food.

And then there’s the food.

I started gardening at this house a week after we moved in, almost six years ago. I have potatoes for eight or nine months of the year and free range eggs about ten months. I grow enough garlic now for almost the whole year. I still buy brown onions and some carrots but stopped buying salad greens and herbs after about three months. The last couple of years I’ve been breeding meat rabbits as an ethical source of protein and I’m researching growing mushrooms and installing a beehive next spring. I’ve tweaked my salad greens into seasonal delights, and now we look forward to winter too because that means sweet, frosted kale, silverbeet, chicory, endives, corn salad and (my favourite) English spinach.

Baby raspberries

Baby raspberries

Fruit begins with rhubarb in September, and progresses through strawberries November and December, raspberries, boysenberries, youngberries, loganberries, silvanberries and (for the first time this year) blueberries from December to April and apricots, nectarines and plums from January to the end of March. I also have a peach and double graft apple I’m espaliering that will probably fruit next summer and a lemon tree that will be planted out in the autumn. And everything is picked fresh the day it’s needed so the nutrient levels are high.  There is excess – I always grow too much – but it’s given to family and friends and I make cider and peri with excess fruit, fruit leather and dried chillies, beans and kale chips as well as freezing.

Blueberries starting to form

Blueberries starting to form

Also there’s a creative aspect of getting my hands in the earth – it makes me feel good about the world and gives me inspiration to write. When I’m in the garden, I lose all track of time and get to think about things I need to. I’ve solved some really big problems over the years out in that garden. I plan and plot and think about the season to come as well as the one I’m living in, it’s a window to the future.

And finally, there’s those wonderful moments when you can sit back, rest, enjoy and just be…………….. ❤

My favourite spot under the Chestnut tree

My favourite spot under the Chestnut tree

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