Easter in Isolation

Hello everyone!

I hope you have had a lovely Easter. DH and I walked on the beach this morning, and look who I found! Yes, the Easter Bunny on Easter Tuesday, taking a break after a busy weekend.

It was a bit different this time, wasn't it? DH and I watched the Perth Anglican Cathedral services on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, from his study. The Cathedral was empty except for a few essential people -but they did a good job at helping us all have a meaningful expression of the faith, despite the difficulties associated with the Covid19 pandemic and required social distancing measures. 

The weather was very hot indeed last week -but thankfully the autumn feel is back again now. As so many of us are now at home and trying to keep busy with growing some of our own food -and it is winter vegetable sowing and planting time now-so we need a bit cooler weather to help them along.

We are finding it so helpful to try to get outside in nature each day -my garden will be looking fantastic because it is getting so much attention! The pumpkin below was the first one I picked this year. It is a bit small, but I have great hopes for a very large one now growing under the grapefruit tree. My grand children took home a large basket of produce from the garden this week -herbs and fruit and flowers. My grand-daughter commented:  "your house is a garden wonderland!'

My improvisational quilt was finally finished this week and it is now hanging up in the hallway. I am pleased with the way it turned out. I call it 'Summer Ices" because I was thinking of gelati all the while I was working on  it. I am looking forward to being able to go back to the gelati shops at Hillarys Boat Harbor when all this is over, and enjoying a meal in a restaurant with other people in tow! 

I took my 'nanna trolley" out to the shops to get some milk from the local shop. I pick a good quiet time, and use a local grocer where there are fewer people. I like supporting the local businesses. I like the walk through the quiet streets. 

On the way I saw some chalk drawing on a fence: a palm leaf, a crown of thorns, a cross and an empty tomb.

DH has completed a project in his workshop. He found a broken small table at the Tip Shop, and thought he could repair it and make it useful again. He was able to use a new tool to make the top with a nice edge, and spent some time sanding back and refinishing the legs and repairing the frame. 

I have some lovely fabric on the design wall and am now considering a new quilt, using the new fabric and some scraps. I am missing my regular visits to the local library but DH got some new books for his birthday -and I will get to share the joy of those too. DH and DS both had birthdays this weekend. We celebrated in a bit of an understated way.

So we are keeping busy enough, with all of these projects.

I hope you are the same but if not, here are some inspirational sites for you, in case you need a few ideas to be going on with:

The Radical Homemaker :

http://theradicalhomemaker.net/farm-views-and-politics/lessons-from-the-not-so-happy-homemakers/

Lucy on how to get by in these crazy times
https://www.frugalwoods.com/2020/04/09/uber-frugal-week-day-1-know-what-you-spend-and-where-you-can-save/

Important information from David Holmgren, co-founder of Permaculture and writer of Retrosuburbia -now you can 'pay what you feel for the book! “Pay what you feel” asks you to respond from the heart as you choose what to pay for what I hope will be life changing content. Retrosuburbia now on download- pay what you can! 
See the launch here https://youtu.be/ly4k_Wg9YAs

Get active in the workshop
My good friend Greg has had to take his woodworking classes online -check out his videos here
https://youtu.be/_10R8uezg6M

How to grow seedlings from scratch from Pip Magazine
https://www.pipmagazine.com.au/news/raising-seeds/?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=self-reliance-blog-posts&utm_term=raising-seeds-video&utm_content=lookalike-website-visitors&fbclid=IwAR1cWo-3E36kauGA9z0H2ST49ymtKzsRcvT5dr_XMB6ULFdFpTMssi-dQbY

Thanks so much for reading this far. I love to read your comments!

Late summer actvities -garden and sewing room

It is late summer and the frangipani has been stunning, over by the pomegranate tree where the fruit is getting red, hanging like so many absurd Christmas decorations. This is the time of the year when my garden doesn't have many flowers, but after a few hours of rain the other day I think my roses might be thinking of a new flush of flowers. 

I am harvesting basil every few days and making pesto which goes straight into the freezer. As long as I prevent them from setting seed I can get more leaves for a little bit longer. I was pleased that I found some lemon juice ice cubes in the freezer for my pesto, as my Meyer lemons are weeks away from being ripe, and the Eureka hasn't been prolific after it's huge haircut in the winter. 

I set up my seed cart and have been propagating every few days. The marigold seeds I collected have already sprouted! These are for my DGD who wants to grow flowers at her new place when they get here.  It is a wonderful feeling to see your seeds come up -I have just been out to check and I believe the clove basil is up, as are the spring onions. My curry leaf tree has black berries on it at the moment, so I am experimenting with growing them too. Next few days I am going to be making some newspaper pots for further seed raising. 

We experimented with some large olive barrel pots in the hard sunshine near our garden shed -lots of heat and unrelenting sunshine. The tomato I planted was a bit of a disaster, the capsicum is OK but the fruit is getting sunburn. I have moved the tomato with DH's help, to a shadier place (yeah, I know, all the books say 'full sun' but I don't think they mean Perth sun at 43C). I will be moving more pots over the next few days. 

In my last post I mentioned I had set up an ironing station at the end of my sewing bench. This has turned out to be one of those amazingly helpful additions to my sewing room- I can roll my chair to the iron and back to the machine in just a moment. The quilt on the design wall is an improv one I am working on at the moment. 

 We are still going down the beach a couple of mornings per week. This week I found some seaweed with tomato like ends.

I have a collection of shells - they are sometimes on display and sometimes I have to go looking for them. Today I found them in a basket on my potting bench, all covered with spider webs! I am now cleaning them up -maybe it is time for a turn inside again (without spiders of course). 

We were back at DH's sister's place this week. I put up some pelmet/valances I made with the free curtain fabric I picked up a few weeks ago. DH fixed some kitchen shelves more securely so that they won't move if she puts something on one of the ends, or inadvertently bumps them.  

DH is progressing well on the removal of the finish on the bed we bought at the tip. Next step will be putting a darker stain on it and then a wax finish. 

So that is our week's activities, thanks for visiting and thanks for all your kind words about our bedroom furniture from last week's post. 

Finally: 

For your enjoyment: a wonderful segment on a family living on a quarter acre block and being radically permaculture inspired people.  Click here 

Happy Easter! Being simply festive

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, suggests we mark festive days in our homes as a way of adding meaning and celebration. We have a number of easy ways of doing this at Easter. 

I have a small box of Easter related items which we keep in the garage on a shelf. It is easy matter to change the displays and freshen everything up.

In my lounge room I have an Ikea shelf which I use to display my collections of icons. As the liturgical season changes through the year, this changes too. These little LCD battery operated lights are less fire risk, and look pretty too. 

This icon is the scene where Jesus breaks down the gates of hell to free the captives inside. 

No one gets left behind!

DD found these two bunnies in her op shop. As the grandchildren are coming for the next few weeks, I imagine they will be popular. 

Symbols of Easter: a collection of decorated eggs, a hen terrine, and some pomegranates. 

The picture is from Lindisfarne and is of the Wild Goose, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. 

Bunnykins become the Easter Bunny- on my mantle. 

The other side of the mantle

Apart from this, we keep simple Easter traditions: Hot Cross buns in our house are only eaten from Good Friday onward. No cheating -because to eat them at other times of the year is to spoil the fun of special food at Easter.

Fish on Good Friday evening meal.

Simple meal on Easter Saturday: we had cheese and home made sourdough bread and sweet potato hummus and salad. 

Sunday is a feast day: we usually do a roast.  We also have chocolate! 

I wish you all a Happy Easter or whatever it is you can find to celebrate at your place. 

Happy Easter!

My DH challenged me, some years ago, to decorate our home for Easter, as well as for Christmas.

Each year I try to add something to the collection, rearrange something, make it fresh.


Here is this year's display. Above - an icon of the "Anastasis"- the pictorial story of Jesus leading the captives out of hell, forms a dramatic focus of our 'meditation wall" along with a small gold frame in which the "Agnus Dei" or Lamb of God, is pictured along with the words "He is Risen"
There is also an icon of Pantocrator -"The wisdom of God" -along with crosses from various places around the world.



Above is the display on our dining table and wall -focusing on a traditional Easter symbol of eggs and chicks. This year I added to my collection of decorated eggs from the Oxfam shop.

I thought the colours of this quilt were bright and fresh for the Easter season, which is full of joy, so I have hung it in the entrance to our house.

Finally, I popped a little Easter Bunny in a basket full of home made decorated eggs!

Happy Easter Everyone!

(We are at New Norcia this weekend, celebrating with the Benedictine Community)

Happy Easter. I hope you have much to celebrate. Life is good.

Inspiration

Here is a pic of what I found at the Op Shop today -the cute apple tin and a Victorian-image- covered notebook. I also picked up some more boxes and tins (you can never have too many), and some cotton yarn.

I am getting so excited about my up-and-coming long service leave. We have booked ourselves in to a fabulous hotel on the ocean -with open fire in the bedroom-for our anniversary in Victoria. I have been looking at what shows are on in May in Melbourne and beginning to book them too.

I have been getting so much inspiration about craft and art projects from all sorts of sources. I will have so much time for all the craft I can't do when I am at work. There is beginning to be quite a list! Meanwhile I am enjoying Curlew Country -and I love her list of favourite blogs too.
Like Sal's snippets who has a pic of some bunting she made - I have bought some fabric to do something similar as part of my Easter decorating. These ladies from blogland in the UK have the same love of vintage and country and craft and thrifting as I do, and they fill my need for pictures of the old country too!

This is what my Easter table looks like this week, after my DH spoilt me with these lovely flowers. I hope to post pictures very soon of the next stage of my Easter decorating.