Homeschooling

I realised this morning that I've not updated here since Feb (apart from yesterday's wee post).  So much has happened in the past few months, all revolving around Homeschooling.

I've always wanted to Home educate my kids, even waaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2004 when there were only two Chirpies I talked about it with my Canberra friends (waves to K, S, K, S and H). What stopped me from pursuing it? Well, I doubted myself. I thought that I would be isolated in the home with the Chirpies, no support and no social life. That I couldn't do it as I had no training. Sound familiar?

Well back in Dec 2012 we started our Australian summer holidays and I again mused wistfully on FB (did I mention that I spend way too much time on FB :/  ) that I wished that I could HS the kids. Several of my friends suggested that I test it out over the summer break and see how I felt at the end (I suspect that they thought that I'd be ready to bundle them up for school again come Feb).

What I did do was enjoy down time with my kids, spent time doing what we've always done, joined up with a couple of HS groups to test the waters and dragged DH to a Home Educators seminar to see what other support was out there for us.  The timing was incredible. There was a slight 'issue' with our youngest about school and DH (after he drilled the Seminar lecturer with soooo many questions) agreed for us to do this.

Well suddenly there I was applying for registration to start HS the THREE Chirpies (and their wee brother) all at once! Cue image of Atlas with the weight of the World on his shoulders! I think that for about 4 weeks I was dreaming curriculums, lesson plans, Charlotte Mason, Unschooling, Natural Learning and Waldorfy stuff!  We had our preliminary meeting with our Moderator (Lovely person who is very supportive and informative), who asked what style we were following and which resources we were accessing. At that point we were leaning very much towards Charlotte Mason due to the elder Chirpies having been in the 'Schooling system' for many years. We wanted to transition them gently to a more relaxed style. The Moderator was really happy with this and said that he'd see us again in two months to see how we were going.

So how has it all gone? Brilliantly! We're really into our stride now (somedays we do have things that fall in a heap) but on the whole we spend our mornings doing our lessons and at 12 we stop. Yep, we stop for lunch and then it's out into the World to discover Nature, be with friends, do activities and be kids!

The kids are THRIVING. They are confident, relaxed and loving H/S. They have music lessons, circus skills,  we socialise so much that I have to demand we have at home days so that I can catch up on stuff! Their latest project is to overhaul a part of the garden so that they can build a fairy village (in a weak moment I showed them a link posted on my FB wall by H)

This has been a blessing for my family. We are enjoying watching how the Chirpies learn, plan and grow. I should have listened to my heart and done this years ago!

In a World of so much chaos, loss and sadness

I'm feeling very blessed today;

~ The Chirpies had an awesome self directed day of homeschooling and finished up all their work by 12.
~ Eldest daughter brought home lunch for the family so that sick Mumma didn't have to think about it.
~ Chirpies have planted out a large pot of pea seeds, raked up the leaves from the Mulberry tree, weeded around the Mulberry tree and are after more chores to do in the garden
~I've preserved a years worth of tomato ketchup
~My lemon tree is heaving with golden juice ladened orbs
~The Sun is shining warmly and all of my family are alive and in relative good health (I have a cold but you know what, if that's the least of my worries then I'm one very lucky woman)

How blessed are you today?

Huge changes at Wit's End; We're Homeschooling!

After many years of dithering about, wanting to Homeschool, doubting myself, wondering if I could/should do it, DH and I decided to go for it.

We're a Homeschooling Family!

I'll be setting up a side blog about our journey but shall be making it invite only to view/read.  Please feel free to flick me a message and if I know you irl or have known you for years online I'm more than happy to give you access :)

http://thechirpiesatwitsend.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/the-decision-made.html

Menu plan for February 2013

Breakfast choices

Yoghourt and fruit

Toast with toppings

Boiled eggs, rice, pickled vegies

Oatmeal with honey

Rosti with poached eggs

Lunches

1. Scrolls
2. Sandwiches
3. savory muffins
4. Quiches
5. Salads
6. Cornish pasties
7. arranchini
8. Rice paper rolls with fillings
9. savoury mince tarts (puff pastry)
10. chicken empandas
11. homemade sausage rolls

Need to bake 3 cakes per week,

yoghourt,

fruit tubs-

fresh fruit

Llelo and I to have leftovers from the night before's dinners.

Dinners

1. Vegetarian curries - potato lemon and coriander, dhal, dhosa, lentils with lemon and mint
2. Steamed fish packets Chinese style with steamed rice
3. Butter chicken and rice
4. Chinese style beef pot roast
5. Portuguese style fresh sardines
6. Hugh's vegetarian chilli
7. Fritatta Empty the fridge
8. Smoked fish, leek and potato soup (HFW pg 82) Changing this to smoked fish, chorizo and potato soup
9. Nigella's roast chicken (on red peppers with lemon in cavity etc), rice, roast spuds and vegies
10. Chinese Chicken Rice
11. Falafels, hoummous, pita breads, tabbhouli made with quinoa
12. Roast chicken wings with roast spuds, fennel and onions (HFW pg 131
13. Thai fish curry and rice 
14. Ham, black eye beans, potato and carrot soup (boil ham bone, add 1 tb worcestershire sauce, 1 tbl apple cider vinegar, 2 teas black pepper)
15. Quiches
16. Fish pie, peas and corn
17. Crab cakes rice  and salad
18. Beans and tomato soup (HFW 97)
19. Homemade baked beans and rice
20. Mackeral, celery, orange salad (HFW 208
21. Lamb, spinach and chickpeas (HFW 256) Fried polenta chips and salad
22. leftover chicken rice chicken with noodle soup
23. Empty the fridge sushi
24. caldo verde
25. roast pumpkin, chickpea and quinoa salad
26. Sweet potato blackbean red pepper stew with cous cous
27. Sweet and sour prawns, rice, chinese vegies
28. Butternut pumpkin and chickpea patties http://foodblogandthedog.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/butternut-squash-and-chickpea-cakes-with-salsa-raita-and-red-onion-maramalade/
29. Spag bol for a treat for Giaan?

*Still in freezer

Ok, So I have to buy the following for this menu:

6 chorizos

2 chickens

1kg mince

2kg's chicken wings

Smoked fish

Dried chickpeas

quinoa

Eggs

Milk

Fruit and veg

Coconut milk

Flours etc.

January's total food expenditure worked out to $180 per week for our family of seven. Not too bad I guess. Will see how it goes for February and if I need to tweak it more to bring it down further.

One of the many things I miss about Canberra

A couple of days ago I was gifted about 4kg's of grapes from a friend.  The Chirpies ate and ate and ate until the bowl just sat there looking at me, still full but ignored.  Mangoes called, plums called, even apples seemed more appealing that the thought of more grapes.

At times like this I really miss my old mate, Nature witch. I'd pick up the phone and she'd immediately inspire me to do something/anything with those grapes. We never did get together so that I could learn her skills in winemaking :(  Anyway, I grabbed my copy of Preserving the harvest and decided to make some Grape Jelly (I'm guessing it's a clear grape jam by the method used). I had no idea that the boiled up liquid from grapes was a delicious shade of pink! 

Rummaging in the fridge I also came across a kg bag of plums that I picked up from the sad table on Wednesday for 99 cents.  They were sad on Wednesday so are definitely sauce today!  Chinese style plum dipping sauce from here the only changes I've made are subbing five spice for the dried mustard and upping the sugar a bit.

The other thing I miss about Canberra? That if you knew where to look you could eat for free!  Plum trees, apricots, lemons, berries all on verges, hanging over fences of walkways mostly all fallen fruits just there for picking up, making into jams, sauces and juices, After six years in Perth I've not managed to find such a range of free abundance :(

That is unless my readers (is there anyone left?) are willing to enlighten me?

Menu planning again

I really must stop using face book and get back into blogging. Having everything in one spot and not having to search through heaps of posts and updates makes so much more sense.

Anyway, I did up this menu plan up on FB and am now transferring it over to here. Originally I was going to make it for a fortnight but after some thought realised that adding in a heap of vegetarian meals that I could stretch it to a month (still adding in the meals as I get inspired)

Breakfast choices

Yoghourt and home bottle peaches

Toast with toppings

Boiled eggs, rice, pickled vegies

Oatmeal with honey

Lunches

1. Sandwiches -toasted, cheese, 
2. Portuguese mussels with bread and rice
3. lentils with lemon and mint
4. Crab cakes and salad
5. Beans and tomato soup (HFW 97)
6. Rosti with poached eggs
7. Homemade baked beans and rice
8. Mackeral, celery, orange salad (HFW 208
9. Lamb, spinach and chickpeas (HFW 256) trying lamb for the first time ever on the kids
10. Fried polenta chips and salad
11. leftover chicken rice chicken with noodle soup
12. Empty the fridge sushi
13. caldo verde
14. Poached eggs on homemade bread toasted
15. fried noodles with leftover char siew and choy sum

Dinners

1. Char siew with rice noodles, choy sum and sauces
2. Vegetarian curries - potato lemon and coriander, dhal, dhosa, 
3. Steamed fish packets Chinese style with steamed rice
4. Butter chicken and rice
5. Chinese style beef pot roast
6. Portuguese style fresh sardines
7. Hugh's vegetarian chilli
8. Fritatta Empty the fridge
9. Smoked fish, leek and potato soup (HFW pg 82)
10. Nigella's roast chicken (on red peppers with lemon in cavity etc), rice, roast spuds and vegies
11. Chinese Chicken Rice
12. Falafels, hoummous, pita breads, tabbhouli made with quinoa
13. Roast chicken wings with roast spuds, fennel and onions (HFW pg 131
14. Thai fish curry and rice 
15. Ham, black eye beans, potato and carrot soup (boil ham bone, add 1 tb worcestershire sauce, 1 tbl apple cider vinegar, 2 teas black pepper)
16. Quiches

Total expenditure for the month: 

 12th Jan 2013 $80 meat/fish

13th Jan 2013 $30 for a 5kg leg ham

15th Jan 2013 $56 fruit and vegies

Decluttering AGAIN!

Huge almost untouched stash of wool just sitting in plastic storage boxes.  Just sitting there, mocking me.  I can hear the needles in the other box whispering, sending secret coded messages to the patterns in yet another box.  They are all conspiring to escape from their imprisonment.  They have all somehow sent a coded message to Coffeee from the DTE forum, who has posted a link to a link to a link to a .....

Well, the upshot of it is that I'm going to challenge myself to the Granny a Day Challenge from Meet me at Mike's.  A Granny square a day is doable, yes?

You all know that I'll be posting in a years time "What the hell do I do with 365 Granny Squares?"

Sauce time!

Last week a box of tomatoes at the markets cost $45.  Yesterday they were reduced to $7.  There was no way that I was going to buy them last week but this week Im-a-making sauce.  Not sure if I'm going to bottle  them as I can only find plastic lined lids (only got three Vaccola bottles), so I will probably just portion this up and freeze it.

Musings, lemons and chaos

Did you miss it?  Miss what?  "Another" important event on the calendar? Something that may not be of importance to you but is of deadly importance to the  "One in seven people Worldwide" who go hungry every day.  Yes, in 2012, one in seven people are going hungry every single day.

October the 16th was World Food Day.

This has really touched a cord with me (again it seems like I am waking up from a three year fog).  The numbers are just staggering;  870 million people are going hungry right now!  When I blogged about this issue five years ago (as did a lot of you) I naively thought that it might get better but it's not :(

What is really mind blowing to me is that this comes at a time when local growers and farmers in Australia are being forced to cut prices by the two large Stupidmarkets (or shut up shop and go out of business!).  They are advertising how low their prices are, and yet there are people in our suburbs who are going hungry right now!  I'm guessing that there's absolutely no money or profit in ending poverty or hunger.

Around the World there's drought, floods, the rumblings of a Global food security crisis, and yet I bet you've got an eggplant or lettuce in your fridge slowly turning into compost. Or a blackening limp carrot stuck to the lump of ice at the back (knows from personal experience....) We're still all throwing out way too much of the food that we're buying!  This is one of the reasons (apart from the health benefits) that I'm starting to get into fermenting and preserving in such a big way,

"No Honey, I've not folded the washing/vacuumed the floors/picked up the toys today, I've been busy making jams, pickles and other things that go 'Hiss, pop, bubble'"

So what am I doing to try to walk the talk?

• Getting my garden back up and producing again
• Bartering for what I'm not growing myself
• Buying Local.  Living Local.
• Preserving as much as I can by bottling, fermenting or freezing (I'm seeing the limitations of freezing - power outages  lack of space, cost of buying and running another freezer)
• Starting up a group of local likeminded people to come over and share our lifeskills knowledge (this idea has been heavily inspired by Eat at Dixiebelle's blog and her Urban Homesteading Club

As I've said before, my floors are always crunchy, my table is always sticky but I am getting my passion back for what's important in my life;  making good lifestyle choices for my family, networking with my community and giving back something to the Universe.

Now speaking of giving something back....Teacher gifts for yep, Christmas.  This year they're going to get Preserved Lemons.  I bartered lemons for greens yesterday, I have jars and lovely salt, so that's what's on the agenda for today.  Hopefully by the end of term they will be deliciousness in a jar.

Hold on you say, you've written about 'Musings' and the 'lemons' where's the 'chaos' bit?  Ummm yeah, I need to sort out this mess today as well.  My system isn't working and it's making me stabby.  Very stabby!

Any suggestions? 

Speechless!

Me, after reading the Liberal Party's Climate Change page on their website.

The Liberal Party are obviously speechless as well!  Apart from the title which proves that they can't spell (or proof read)

http://www.liberal.org.au/issues/environment/climate-change

Bartering

Not much but a start!

I took this bag of chard, silverbeet, fennel and herbs to swap for some fresh lemons at Playgroup.  I love the whole idea of bartering and want to do more as my garden yields more.

I truly believe that all thought and deed are energy and that if you nurture the positive then you get that positive energy back.  Whether by bartering, volunteering, talking to your plants or just giving a stranger a smile.

Blessed Be!

There's a hippopotamus in my oven becoming cake (muffins)

Cake fail or cake win?  You decide :p

I overfilled the fancy muffin pans I bought and they all came out like this;  added ears and eyes (goji berries) and voila, Hippos!

3am insomnia

I've been getting up earlier and earlier for the last few weeks.  This morning it was 3am.  As soon as the Wee Lad wakes for his feed (yes I'm still breastfeeding him at 19 months and yes we're still cosleeping) it seems like my brain kicks in and I keep thinking of all the things I have to do.  Well, I suppose that I don't have to do them, I choose to do them. Things like what's pictured above;

Making my own pectin
The resultant apple mush from making my own pectin going to go into the Chirpies breakfast muffins
Chopped tub of vegies to make my own picalilli.
A loaf of bread proving on the benchtop

I could actually buy all of these products.  I'm sure that a jar of picalilli costs about $2, Apple sauce the same, a good loaf of bread (preservative free) around $2.50 or more and pectin, well I have no idea.  However I only paid $5 for a huge box of apple seconds and have so far made a heap of dried apples, apple  butter (2 litres!) and now the pectin and apple mush.  A far more cost effective use of my money, if only I didn't feel the need to wake up so early!

So I'm sipping on my first cup of tea, writing this and pondering how else to use up the second bag of free organic oranges I was given;  I'm thinking frozen orange juices for the Chirpies school lunches.  A few months ago I bought some refillable pouches from www.pouched.com.au which I've used to do frozen yoghourts very successfully.  Yep, I think I'll get the citrus juicer down and get stuck into filling up some pouches :)

There's nothing quite like a simple orange cake

Yesterday I was blessed and gifted with two large canvas shopping bags filled to the brim with organic homegrown oranges.  You have no idea just how juicy an orange, less than 10 minutes from the tree can taste.  Honestly, there were over 15kg's of oranges!

We gorged ourselves on fresh cut oranges and orange juice for breakfast and now I've just made the whole orange cake from the DTE forum (sorry, my phone takes the crappiest pictures).  What a way to finish up a lunch of homemade fritatta (cheese and broccoli)  and homemade sauerkraut (recipe from Wild Fermentation)



I'm going to have to make several of these cakes as they only use up one orange and we've still got at least 30 left (I like cake far more than I like marmalade :p )

Says it all really doesn't it

Rising food costs in the Northern Hemisphere due to drought

We're not immune to this here.  I'm sure we're going to see a steep increase in the cost of food.

What's really scary though is the rate at which we're becoming dependent on just two stores; Coles and Woolies.  What happens when they stop keeping prices down and there is no longer any competition from smaller local retailers?  Yep, we'll be forced to buy from one of those two.  At the prices they want to set.

Getting there

Almost built!



The chook house is almost built.  DD started to get blisters so she's having a couple of days off to let her piano hands recover :p

I wish you could smell this

Organic vanilla beans in vodka for two weeks.



I wish that I knew how to rotate the photos on my phone!

Inspired by a couple of friends at a picnic the other day I thought that I would up the ante on my diet and not only bake Gluten Free but also try to make as much of the baked goods dairy free as well.  That's all well and good until I pop a slab of cheese on my delicious Quinoa crackers!

Another friend has linked me to a Vegan cake which she swears by.  I'll take a pic and tell you how it is in about an hour :)

The tastiest bean dish ever!

Yesterday I cooked an amazing dish.  No modesty allowed here because honestly, everyone in the family ate this and loved it.  I couldn't believe just how simple it was despite having three steps to it.  Basically it is blackeyed beans cooked with sliced chorizo, onions, peppers and dressed with some wine vinegar and parsley, topped with pan fried fish and oven roasted potatoes.  If you have the beans and potatoes precooked in the fridge it literally takes only 30 minutes.  I love how delicious simple Portuguese food is.  Oh and Miss Boo (age 6) helped to make it, that's how simple it was.



I'm sure that I've mentioned that I've been getting up in the morning at 4am so that I can get some quiet "Me" time?  It started because the Wee Man drags me to bed almost as soon as he's finished his dinner at 7pm.  That's it, my evenings end when the bees go to bed!  After weeks of waking up at 4am and trying to get back to sleep I decided to stop stressing about it and just get up and start my day. This morning's routine has been;
Beans soaked
Water kefir nourished
Start the preps for the night's dinner
Waste some time on FB (cutting back on that!)
Another dishcloth knitted while watching Rick Stein on iview.
On my second pot of Honey Vanilla tea *rants and wails about no longer being able to drink coffee* while I write this and contemplate scrubbing my floors.

I've also toyed with the idea of going to an early morning yoga class.  Let's just say that it's been put back into the toy box for now :p

Before I use it to clean my pantry

A knitted dish cloth.  Very basic and it took me three hours to knit up whilst toddler wrangling and pottering around the house doing other things.

Busy day in the kitchen

I'm always busy in the kitchen.  There's never a day when I'm not cooking, baking or soaking.  Now I've added fermenting and dehydrating to the to-do list as well.  Those things however don't take up much time as there are a billion little probiotic workers doing all the hard slog for me.

Yesterday really was a kitchen preserving day after I realised that I'd had a market fail last week and somehow ended up with 4kg's of carrots.  I think that some part of my brain thought that juicing them would be a great idea :/  Carrot juice has never been a favourite of mine and for all it's awesomeness, the TMX doesn't 'do' carrot juice, you end up with a thick carrot mush with the juice and pulp super blended.

So what did I produce yesterday?

2 x 500 gram  bags of apple sauce
1 x 2kg bag pasta sauce (with hidden carrots, zucchini, onions)
1kg tub of raspberry jam - this was from the TMX book but I don't like it.  Far too little sugar.  It's going to make cordial instead.  Guess I'm making more jam today.
1 gluten free date, walnut and carrot cake adapted from Hugh's Veg book
1 gluten free loaf of bread from Quirky Cooking's blog
1 regular loaf of bread
1 500gram bag of honey garlic roasted carrots to make Carrot Humus - again, Hugh's veg book
1 freezer meal of butter chicken (I cooked double the amount of dinner so that I could have a 'fall in a heap' meal) from the Indian Cooking Thermomix book






And today's plan?  Well I need to make more jam, start making snacks for the return to school next week, mend hems, polish shoes, whiten socks SOMEHOW (guess who threw a new red towel in with the whites?)  Get out into the garden and do a little more weeding. The Sun's almost up here in Perth so I'll finish my cup of tea and grab the gloves and get out before the bees wake up.

Edited to add.  I've decided to add a challenge to myself and the Chirpies;  I'm going to knit a dishcloth today from http://downtoearthforums.com/showthread.php?t=6136&page=9 and I've challenged the Chirpies to a read-a-thon.  Their reward (and they will each get a reward) will be a packet of seeds of their choice which they will plant, photograph and document the life cycle of their seeds.