by Krista | Jun 16, 2014 | Winter
Winter is truly here with icy winds and frosty mornings. I love it.
Until this weekend I was still wearing flip-flops and sundresses, but now it’s time to truly bundle up and luxuriate in all things cozy and warm.
It’s been a busy time on the farm as we welcome 8 new chickens to our farmyard brood – 5 White Sussex and 3 glossy black Australorps. They’re all beautiful and good-natured and have already started laying! Atta girls! Our goat mamas are bagging up and should be delivering adorable kids any day now. I cannot wait to cuddle them. And my incubator experiment looks like we may be getting some baby chicks within the week. I do hope so! I’d love to have fluffy little babies in the house for a couple of weeks.
I’ve been making homemade apple cider vinegar, a big crock of sauerkraut, jars of apple butter, and bottles of ketchup (tomato sauce to my Aussies). I’ve dried boxes of apples and tomatoes, juiced pears, and planted the last of my winter veg: snow peas, sugar snap peas, shelling peas, celeriac, onions, and ruby Brussels sprouts. It’s so great to wander through my gardens each afternoon and see so many green things shooting up through the hay mulch.
With all this busyness, my goat-herding treks into the bush have become my down time to relax and enjoy the beauty around me.
The drops of dew glistening on fallen leaves never fail to delight me.
The twists and whorls of old wood look especially marvelous topped with crispy brown leaves.
After a good rain this weekend, all sorts of lichens and mosses are flourishing, bringing their feathery beauty to fallen logs.
Gum leaves in sage and magenta carpet the forest floor and our goats happily gobble them up.
Isn’t that lichen amazing?! Looking like the tiniest of wrinkly cabbages and curling lettuces.
I’m charmed by these pale green gum leaves rimmed with deepest pink.
When I was a little girl playing in the woods near my grandparents house in northern British Columbia, I would always search for beds of moss to lay down on. As long as they weren’t soggy from rain, they made the squishiest, softest mattress, wonderful for stretching out on and gazing up through the pine trees to the sky.
I haven’t found beds of moss here in Oz, so these gorgeous clumps of lichen will have to do. Not so handy for sitting on, but they are every bit as intricate and magical.
What’s your favorite thing to find in the woods? xo
by Krista | Jun 13, 2014 | Winter
One of my favorite things about medieval encampments is wandering around the various camps to see what they ate during their time in history and their part of the world.
I was amazed to learn that there were no potatoes, tomatoes, or peppers in Europe during medieval times. In spite of this lack of modern staples, food was varied and delicious with oodles of nuts, fruit, vegetables, herbs, and spices.
It always gives me an urge to go foraging and collect baskets full of mushrooms (which I don’t even like!), hazelnuts, berries, and great sprays of elderflower, feverfew, and dillweed.
In our medieval Bedouin camp we do hot breakfasts and a hot dinner of roasted meat and savory veg. But for lunch we stick to cold foods that are easy to lay out and scrumptious whether you eat right away or drift in after medieval combat or a riveting discussion on ancient fever treatments.
We start with pickled onions and an array of olives.
Our lunches just wouldn’t be the same without Ann’s cheeses that she makes in camp: crumbling, mild cottage cheese…
…and cool, creamy labneh. They both go beautifully with salty olives or darkly sweet prunes, figs, and dates.
If we have time to make them, we bring our own homemade sausages mixed with Hungarian paprika and lashings of fresh garlic. Otherwise we turn to the butcher for an assortment of delicious cold meats.
Along with the savory bites we have baskets of Turkish flat bread and bowls of all sorts of nibbles: almonds and walnuts, dried apples, almond-stuffed dates, and honey-soaked figs.
Needless to say, we never go hungry.
What is your favorite easy, cold lunch? xo
by Krista | Jun 12, 2014 | Winter
Early morning is my favorite time at our medieval camp. I love stepping out of our Bedouin tent into the misty dawn, pulling my scarf tight around my shoulders against the chill.
My friend Ann is always up early with me and our first order of the day is building a fire and heating water in a big iron pot to make a steaming cuppa. Our friend Stacey made delicious medieval teas for us and my favorite was the chamomile apple tea. Mmm, it smelled so good.
On chilly mornings it is pure bliss to wrap cold fingers around a piping hot mug of something delicious. We get as close as we can to the fire, shuffling around to avoid random gusts of smoke, willing the sun to hurry up and warm our bones.
As the first rays of sunshine flood the camp, we haul out pots and pans and start cooking a hearty breakfast of fried eggs…
…a massive amount of bacon…
…and our new favorite addition – fry bread.
It is deceptively simple with only three ingredients – flour, salt, and yogurt – yet absolutely scrumptious.
Simply mix everything together into a soft dough.
Roll out into thin rounds.
Or any other shape you prefer. We go for free form. 😉
Place in an oiled pan over the fire and cook about 3-5 minutes per side until golden brown and cooked through.
They’re great as is or slathered in butter, topped with honey or jam, or folded like a taco and piled high with fried eggs and crispy, smoky bacon.
Do you have a favorite food you like cooked over the fire or BBQ? xo
Campfire Fry Bread
Ingredients:
1 cup plain flour
1 cup self-raising flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup plain yogurt
oil for frying
Directions:
- Mix all ingredients together, kneading to form dough.
- Tear off golf ball size pieces, flatten and roll out thinly.
- Heat oil in pan over campfire. Add fry bread and cook 2-3 minutes until top puffs up. Turn and cook another 3-5 minutes until cooked through.
- Serve warm.
by Krista | Jun 5, 2014 | Winter
I woke up this morning feeling so much better after a ghastly virus that knocked me flat this week. I’m so thrilled because tomorrow Bear and I leave for History Alive where we will meet up with our medieval group, Blackwolf, for four days of medieval camping, eating, and general jollity. I’m so excited!!
Today was spent bustling about packing garb and foodstuffs, organizing medieval weapons, and gathering herbs, spices and other fun things for my medieval medicine display.
I’ve got my bone saw ready, bandages rolled, and various concoctions bottled and corked. Our animals are all tucked in and cared for, the dishes washed, laundry done.
Now all that’s left is a good night’s sleep before piling in the car at first light and heading off for adventures of a medievalicious kind.
Soon our modern clothes will be folded away, replaced with handmade items of linen and wool that are so comfy I could sleep in them.
I’m looking forward to meals of roasted meats, late nights laughing and talking around the fire, and sleeping outside with fresh, cool air blowing in off the river.
What are you looking forward to most about your weekend? xo
by Krista | Jun 4, 2014 | Winter
“Understanding is the first step to acceptance,
and only with acceptance can there be recovery.”
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Sometimes life comes along and says, “OK, luv, it’s time to hibernate for a little while and do some work in that precious soul of yours. It’s going to be hard and hurt like blazes, but you’ll be OK and it will be worth it. I promise.”
What life doesn’t say is that it’s going to involve a rather large mirror that forces me to see me, all of me, for quite some time. This would be rather cheering if the mirror only reflected back all the good and lovely things about me. Alas, it doesn’t. It shows everything. And those first glimpses can be rather jarring. Selfishness, impatience, unkindness. It takes a lot of courage to keep looking.
That’s what I’ve been doing these past few weeks, summoning up all my bravery to Keep Looking.
Sometimes it requires looking at abuse from my past.
Others it’s looking at the ways I’ve hurt others or behaved badly.
Neither of them feel good. Horrible, in fact, and I need time to grieve, be angry, feel shame, be sad. But the Horrible doesn’t last. As I’m able to Keep Looking, I start to gain understanding about how and why these things happened. Gaining understanding fills me with mercy towards others and myself. And as the mercy comes in, acceptance follows, and the power those things had over me is gone.
Understanding, mercy, acceptance, peace. They all start with Looking. And the Looking starts with Courage.
Sometimes I find the courage within myself, standing there brave and tall, ready to take on the world.
Others I need my courage ignited by kindred spirits.
This post by Wild Rain.
This one by Melody Ross.
This book by Sue Monk Kidd.
My inner dialogue is changing. I’m learning to cheer myself on in goodness:
“Way to face that unkind reaction of yours, luv. Well done saying sorry. You’re going to do so much better next time.”
“Good job biting your tongue when that person hurt you and you wanted to lash out. And great job standing up for yourself and letting them know in a kind and respectful way that it’s not OK for them to treat you like that.”
“Proud of you for owning up to what you did wrong there and taking the first step in restoring the relationship.”
We are all so messily, beautifully human, trying our best to be kind and generous and loving but messing up thoroughly now and then, usually because we’re stressed, exhausted, sick, and not taking time to care for our very precious selves.
Through all this Looking, I’ve observed that I behave so much better when I proactively care for myself every single day.
For me, self-care is doing the things that help me be the very best Me I can be. Spending time with kind, loving people, reading books, posts, and articles that support and inspire me in the things that I value, writing just for me, getting enough sleep and enough water, going outside for exercise each day, doing special things for my loves, eating good things, doing something creative, indulging in little things that make me happy: a book that makes me laugh, breakfast out with my hubby, a square (or 3) of dark chocolate with sea salt.
Our front veranda is my self-care mecca at the moment. The winter sun comes through first thing in the morning, filling it with warmth and light. I bundle up, brew my tea, tuck in a cozy red blanket, and spend as long as I need to writing in my journal and gratefulness book, reading, thinking, resting until I’m ready to face the day with courage. It’s become such a happy place for me that just glancing at it throughout the day brings me back to that feeling of peace and assurance.
I always get a bit scared when these hibernation times arrive, but I’m learning to welcome them as dear, trusted friends who truly have my best interest at heart. I’m learning to give myself the time and space I need to work through whatever I need to. I garden and cook, herd the goats in the bush, work on projects with Bear, sew and study, quiet things that allow my mind to process and heal. It’s good.
How about you, luv? What does self-care look like to you? xo
The twists and whorls of old wood look especially marvelous topped with crispy brown leaves.
After a good rain this weekend, all sorts of lichens and mosses are flourishing, bringing their feathery beauty to fallen logs.
Gum leaves in sage and magenta carpet the forest floor and our goats happily gobble them up.
Isn’t that lichen amazing?! Looking like the tiniest of wrinkly cabbages and curling lettuces.
I’m charmed by these pale green gum leaves rimmed with deepest pink.
When I was a little girl playing in the woods near my grandparents house in northern British Columbia, I would always search for beds of moss to lay down on. As long as they weren’t soggy from rain, they made the squishiest, softest mattress, wonderful for stretching out on and gazing up through the pine trees to the sky.
What’s your favorite thing to find in the woods? xo
