14 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Creative Writing, Inspiration, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: audio books, bluetooth speakers, garlic harvest, Harry Potter books, NaBloPoMo 2015, Paris, Stephen Fry, Tasmania, worm farms
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
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!
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.
13 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Baking, Brewing, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: baby rabbits, food glut, mushrooms on sourdough toast, NaBloPoMo 2015, rhubarb, spring, Tasmania, urban farming
So, Friday again – where did the week go? I had to take the day off work today, my back is not behaving itself and I’m going pretty slow at the moment.
Still, I managed to feed the hungry beasts this morning, check that everything survived the rain and enjoy a little bit of sunshine. In the midst of my “go slow”, I had some gentle exercise, pulled a few weeds and picked some rhubarb. I have six plants of “Victoria” – the green variety – that get fed heavily a couple of times a year and give back a load of wonderful, tart stalks from the end of winter until the end of autumn.
I tend to roast bite-size pieces coated in brown sugar instead of stewing these days but I’ve got so much I’m thinking of making sparkling wine and syrup with some, as well as the usual crumble and Rhubarb Fool. (Any unusual suggestions or recipes would be appreciated!)
Rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum) is actually a vegetable rather than a fruit but it’s generally used for sweet dishes and drinks. Just make sure to remove the leaves before preparing and never let your chickens have any part of the plant – the oxalic acid make it lethal for poultry or rabbits.
And speaking of rabbits, I checked the babies this morning too. All are thriving, getting chubbier and growing fur 🙂
I found fresh mushrooms last night from the compost bags so had a filling breakfast of mushrooms on sourdough toast. I’m heading to my local plant nursery for some more mushroom compost next week!
Do you have any favourite recipes or bright ideas for using rhubarb? Please leave a comment below.
12 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Creative Writing, Inspiration, Inspiration, Music, Produce, Tasmania, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: creative writing, exegesis, mushrooms, Neil Gaiman, online study, reading, Tasmania
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.
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
What’s your favourite way to spend a rainy day? Leave a comment – I love to hear from you!
11 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Baking, Biography, Creative Writing, Produce, Urban Farming, Writing
Tags: asparagus, egg glut, eggplant, Lemon Meringue Pie, study, Tasmania, urban farming
I consider myself a very lucky woman.
I’m surrounded by loving friends and family; I have ready access to good, clean food; I’m studying things that move and inspire me and I get paid to do things I love.
This was driven home yesterday when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Listened-To made his first ever Lemon Meringue Pie. I made the pie crust and stepped him through the process of separating eggs (something he’d never done before), making the curd, getting the meringue the right consistency and so on. He is a very accomplished cook but hasn’t much experience with baking. We used a recipe from and old CWA (Country Women’s Association) cookbook and reduced the sugar to suit our tastes. It was good for me as I realised that as bullet proof as the CWA recipes are, there’s a lot of assumed knowledge in them about technique.
The lemons came from my friend Sara, so we knew they were clean and chemical free and it was another way to deal with the ongoing egg glut. It was a very fun afternoon, with my son turning up halfway through to make everyone cups of tea, poke fun and offer suggestions. We had a great time 😀
The result was delicious, though we’ll reduce the sugar even further next time.
Smiley Meringue
Healthy new Eggplant growth
This morning I had a brainwave in the garden about my uni assignment – that I confess I haven’t fully written up yet but I’ll get there! And there were two delightful surprises that any gardener will recognise and understand.
Firstly, a well established finger eggplant in the greenhouse I thought was beyond hope has started shooting again. I grew three from seed about four years ago and because of the unpredictable weather we can get in southern Tasmania, I kept them in the greenhouse. All three overwintered quite well the first year but I lost two this last, very hard winter. At least there’s one left to gather seed from at the end of summer.
Secondly, and to my absolute delight, I discovered a punnet of very healthy asparagus seedlings at the back of a tray. Asparagus is probably my favourite vegetable, but I really can’t come at the shop bought article. It’s one of those things I only ever want to eat fresh from my own garden. It’s a slow process growing from seed, the viability is usually best in the first year and it takes 2-3 years to get plants to maturity. Then, you have asparagus for years!
I’ll be pricking these out into home made grow tubes in a couple of weeks and putting into a permanent bed in
Delicate Asparagus seedlings
December. The bed will be very heavily dug over and filled with as much old chicken poo and rabbit straw as I can lay my hands on. At the moment it’s full of potatoes that are in full flower and due to be dug in the next few weeks. Potatoes grow very well here and have been my “go to” crop for reclaiming lawn areas ever since I moved in but they do strip the soil of nutrients and asparagus are notoriously hungry feeders!
I’m incredibly grateful for all the good things in my life, it’s something that tends to get overlooked in the fast pace of the modern world. There never seems to be enough hours to do it all! Meanwhile, I’m hoping to get some more uni work done, some music rehearsal and just an hour or two of gardening later…….. 😉
What are you passionate about? Let me know in the comments – I love to hear from you all!
10 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Inspiration, Music, Performance, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Writing
Tags: Australian music, baby rabbits, Cassie O'Keefe, Griffith University, NaBloPoMo 2015, online learning, original music, professional musician, Tasmania, Tasmanian original music, The Homestead Tasmania
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.
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
08 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Baking, Biography, Brewing, Chickens, Inspiration, Inspiration, Lyrics, Music, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: happy human being, NaBloPoMo 2015, organic gardening, organic produce, super freak gardener, Tasmania
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
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
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
04 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Chickens, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: espaliered fruit trees, friendship, Sara Hewitt, Stargold, Tasmania, vegetable gardening
Today I had a proper day off and visited my friend Sara. Like me, she’s a creative soul – a writer, gardener and chicken fancier. I took a couple of bush squash seedlings and she gave me a few Roma tomatoes and a bag of fresh lemons off her heavily laden tree. (With all the eggs I’ve got at the moment, I feel a Lemon Meringue coming on in the next few days!) We catch up every couple of months, last time we did a big seed swap and laughed ourselves silly around her dining table.
My new Roma Tomato plants, potted up and ready for staking
Her garden is amazing, it’s quite small and she’s made fabulous use of the space, with fruit trees espaliered against a north facing fence, an unwanted bathtub the perfect home for strawberries and blueberries, tight block plantings bordered with container salad vegetables, a very efficient and productive greenhouse and an ingenious enclosed corner for her two chickens that can be wheeled across fallow beds.
Sara is also a nationally renowned psychic and astrologer and has been writing professionally for years, contributing regular columns to some of the best known magazines in Australia. She also has her own business Stargold and does readings for clients both in Australia and worldwide.
Over coffee, we worked out we’ve known each other for just over 30 years. We’ve shared houses, seen each other through numerous loves and break-ups, pregnancies, child-rearing and (more recently) health issues and growing into middle age as stylishly and (dis)gracefully as possible.
I treasure her friendship very, very much for two major reasons. Firstly, even if we haven’t seen each other for years there’s never any uncomfortable silences – we always manage to pick up wherever we left off without reservation. Secondly, despite the years we still have the capacity to make each other genuinely laugh – a truly priceless gift.
A heart-shaped Strawberry discovered in my garden
03 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Baking, Biography, Chickens, Urban Farming, Writing
Tags: baked cheesecake, cardamon, free range eggs, NaBloPoMo 2015, orange blossom water, organic produce, recipe, Tasmania
Henrietta, Queen of the Chicken Coop
My six gorgeous girls are working overtime at the moment and I’ve got a glut of eggs. I give them away to family but even so, they keep on laying. It probably has something to do with all the weeds I’ve been pulling out of the garden these past few weeks, which are full of delicious insects and worms!
So, even though I should be studying, with so many eggs on hand I thought I’d make a cheesecake with a twist.
Cardamon seeds, ready to grind – and six of the best from my chickens
I love the aroma and taste of cardamon in both savoury and sweet dishes, and it works superbly with citrus. Not having any oranges in the house, I got creative and put four tablespoons of lemon juice and about a quarter of a teaspoon of Orange Blossom Water, a delicious by product of orange oil distillation. It’s a powerful aroma and a common ingredient in desserts from North Africa and the Middle East to Malta, France and Spain. Like Rose Water, use it sparingly!
Cheesecake ready for baking
Orange Blossom & Cardamon Cheesecake (8-10 generous serves)
Ingredients:
1 prepared biscuit base (for a 28-30cm spring form pan)
6 large eggs 3/4 cup of sugar 500g cream cheese (at room temperature)
1 tab crushed cardamon seeds 1/4 teaspoon Orange Blossom Water (or more to taste) 4 tabs lemon juice
Method:
Break the 6 eggs carefully into a blender jar, add the sugar and cover. Pulse until the eggs are frothy and the sugar is combined. Spoon the softened cream cheese in, cover and blend until smooth. Add the crushed cardamon seeds (I do mine by hand, shelling seed from whole pods and grinding in a mortar and pestle – the flavour is much better!), the Orange Blossom Water and lemon juice. Blend this on a low setting until combined.
Pour this luscious mix into the base and bake at 150 C for approximately 45 minutes. I usually leave my cheesecakes to cool in the oven before refrigerating them. You could put sliced fresh strawberries or apricot on top – they go very well with Orange Blossom Water – or leave it perfectly plain. Either way, this is a delicious twist on an old favourite and I hope you enjoy it as much as my family and I did 🙂
The finished cheesecake, with tiny flecks of ground cardamon visible
What are your tips for using excess eggs? Please leave a comment below!
02 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Inspiration, Music, Performance, Urban Farming, Writing
Tags: friendship, Griffith University, joy, NaBloPoMo 2015, Oak Tasmania, Tasmanian stories, work
I’m a professional musician, writer and educator. My working week is made up of private students plus contract music and teaching roles. In between I have gigs and time to pursue and improve my own arts practice. Add to that, maintaining what amounts to an urban farm in the backyard plus part-time online study through Griffith University, and every week is pretty full.
I consider myself very, very lucky. The garden produces fresh vegetables year round, a good deal of fruit and some meat from our breeding rabbits, plus fresh eggs for approximately ten months of the year. Study enriches me in completely different ways and has provided me with different ways of looking at the world and my place in it, and then there’s music.
Music is my therapy and a major source of fun in my life – it always has been. And I’m lucky enough to be able to make money out of it.
My main work contracts are currently with Oak Tasmania, an organisation that provides support and services to people with disabilities. Every Monday I get paid to be a human jukebox and play all different kinds of music for a truly beautiful and diverse group of people. I enjoy it so much that I usually turn up an hour early and eat lunch with them before we start. In fact, I sometimes feel like I’m taking money under false pretenses – the clients have become friends and we enjoy each others’ company immensely.
Today I arrived as usual and started preparing my lunch, when one of my dear friends presented me with this beautiful little bouquet of home-grown roses because she appreciates me and what I do for her. I was so touched by the gesture I nearly cried.
My work is also my joy.
The roses are now in a vase, taking pride of place in my lounge room 😀
What are your work stories? Do you find joy in what you do? Please leave your story in the comments!
29 Oct 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Composition, Inspiration, Inspiration, Writing
Tags: Australia, blogging, creative writing, NaBloPoMo 2015, Tasmania, trying to become a better writer, Writing, writing challenge
Hi everyone,
It’s coming towards the end of the year (where did the last twelve months go?) and that means we’re getting close to National Blog Posting Month – NaBloPoMo.
The challenge is to write a blog post every day for the month of November and it’s really quite challenging to keep it fresh and interesting – from a writing perspective as much as for the audience. I’ve done it once before, two years ago. I had no home internet connection and did the whole thing from my mobile phone. If I can do that, this year is going to be easy 😉
If you’re inclined to challenge yourself writing-wise, click on the badge in the sidebar and get involved. It’s really a lot of fun and I personally found it a great learning experience.
Take care wherever you are ❤
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Debra Manskey 