Turning 60

Getting older is better than the alternative......

So, I hit another milestone this week! I’m not the sort of person to put myself in the limelight, but I did want to mark it somehow. That might see strange saying that, when I actually write about myself and our life all the time on here and have done for the last 15 years on my other blog as well. But I do love to spend time with friends and to cook for them. And it’s good to acknowledge the big “0” years.

Kim organised a surprise birthday party for my 21st. My 30th came without any fanfare, and in fact the lack of fanfare and presents, meant that I’d had enough of living in the bush! I’ve written previously about my cooking in bush camp, and I wasn’t the full time cook by then, but I was still living out in the “camp” at that time. I was homeschooling the two oldest kids and had the two little ones running around as well. Completely forgetting a present for me, was not something he has repeated too often since! And in fact, he has been way over the top in a few instances!

When I turned 40 I organised a party for myself - of close friends and family. We were living in Rockhampton at the time and had teenage kids and teenage nieces. I had prepped all the food, and they did most of the work serving and cleaning up. I think. I don’t remember exactly, but I do remember having a great time.

Then when I turned 50, I decide to have a Locavore Party. We also celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary and it had been 25 years living on our property “Anabank”. That was a big one. I called it a locavore party because all the food was locally sourced. It was a very large event - with so many friends from different aspects of my life. My family were also all there - except Maitland…..

I have now turned 60 and thought about having a big do and then thought against it! We’re having a big family gathering at Easter and had thought about having a working bee this coming weekend, which is when I would’ve had a party if I was going to have one. So, I had decided that I wouldn’t mark 60…..maybe I would do something when I’m 70! Instead, I had a few small gatherings.

Kim and I meet up with some ex-Baralaba friends each month and this month was just last weekend, so I decide that was a good enough celebration. Then I had lunch with my book club ladies, and that was a little celebration. I rang my hairdresser, who is also a friend, the other day to see if she could cut my hair and my daughter in-laws’ hair at our place rather than hers, so that I could look after the bub while DIL was getting her hair cut. She could only do the day of my birthday, so I said - “why not come for lunch?” This turned into inviting a few other joint friends for a simple, quiet, lunch to celebrate my birthday. I think I’ve now celebrated my birthday quite well!

I am so blessed to have such good friends.

We ate some good food too……

This is the grazing platter I started the festivities with. The grapes and the nuts were not homegrown or homemade.

I came home from Baralaba last week, in time to tidy up the accommodation in the shed for our wwoofers. We have a young German couple here and they have been helping me get some order in the garden. In return for this, I’ve been teaching them a few things about food! The couple work in hospitality - he’s a chef and she’s front of house and they really wanted to learn more about food from the ground up. They liked the idea of preparing food from scratch, using food that is grown on farm, making bread, cheese and processing our own meat. Yes, they’ve come to the right place.

We’ve made cheese, sourdough bread (from freshly milled wheat), dug up garden beds, transplanted strawberry runners, collected manure and spread it, mulched and weeded. They’ve learnt how to milk a cow both by hand and machine. We’ve separated milk and cream.

Hopefully we’ll kill a few goats while they’re here and probably some roosters too. They’re keen to learn and we’re happy to teach and share what we know, so it’s a win/win.

Harvesting

My garden is a mess as mentioned, but I still pick something to eat each day. I came home from Baralaba late in the afternoon, took some steak out, harvested some veg from the garden and cooked a completely home grown meal.

Kim and I ate our first home grown pineapple. This was both exciting and delicious!

We picked rosellas and the wwoofers made jam. The made it while I was at book club the other day, but it wasn’t set enough so the next day they tipped the jars back into the saucepan and cooked it for a bit longer. Ended up setting very nicely!

Quite some time ago, I planted out some Sunchokes (Jerusalem Artichokes). I thought I’d had a complete failure and then the other day I saw this pretty yellow flower and remembered planting them. The harvest was not the best!

Not sure if this next one is a harvest or a forage…..We have a friend that has 2 avocado trees in their paddock. They’re right beside the road and last year I asked for permission to forage, but the season was almost over. I thought I’d get in early this time and they are just starting to fall. This is what we could reach - next time we’ll have to take our pole for harvesting tall fruit. I have discovered that you can freeze guacamole, so I’ll make up some batches and freeze in Ziplock bags. Fortunately, the limes are ripe now too!

We cut a big bunch of bananas today - we haven’t had any for a few days, so it’ll be nice to have them again. I like a banana on my early morning toast……

Eating

Avo on toast - one of my favourite foods. But this time, I was out of bread, so I made some bunya nut flour flatbreads as a toast substitute. These worked very well, but they can’t be rolled out too thin as they break up when you go to put them in the pan. This is 100% home grown. My goal has been to find a flour substitute that I can grow and this could be it! I do like my real bread though…….

I like the idea of making alternative breads so this will go into the recipe file along with my other bunya flatbread, which is made with the bunya meal and can be rolled thin like a tortilla. I’ll share my flatbread recipes with my paid subscribers shortly. While I’m talking about bunya nuts, I made some biscuits today with the BN flour. I’ve used 3 egg whites (left over from the icecream I made) and they hold together nicely. Macadamia and choc chip.

Chloe makes an oven baked risotto, which is pretty tasty so it prompted me to have a go. I didn’t add cheese and it’s more of a baked veggie rice than a risotto. I’ll share the recipe when I make it again and remember to take notice of measurements! It was really tasty served with roast chicken and gravy.

Cheese making - we’ve made farmhouse cheddar, ricotta, quark and fresh cheese this week. I’ll have to make some mozzarella soon so that we can have pizza!

Preserving - apart from the rosella jam, there’s been no preserving happening, although I do need to can some more broth. Today I saw something on facebook that I want to try - fermented sweet potato stems. They cut the leaf stem into 20cm pieces and fermented it in brine with ginger, garlic and chilli and then once it was fermented nicely, they chopped and added it to a stirfry veg! I want to try that - I shall let you know my results.

It’s wonderful to have wwoofers because I get so much more done. The downside is that it keeps me too busy! I’m feeling a little weary and have been having trouble finding time to write. I’ll send out something to my paid subscribers in the next day or 3, so if you’re interested in learning about all the flatbreads I like to make, then subscribe now so you get it when it hits the press.

Until then….take care…….