Nourish Me

19th of August

 

Days are lengthening and the soil is warming, slowly but surely. Rows of radishes will go in in a couple of weeks and before you know it the entire garden will be going orf. Seems to be starting a little earlier each year. Sally-Anne and I talked about this early spring-ing over the counter a couple of weeks ago, me picking her brains about beekeeping, she picking mine about letting one's hair go grey. A perfect exchange. We'll be getting a hive soon enough thanks to that illuminating conversation. Bookshops are great places for information gathering. Long may they live.  

Winter, she is o-v-e-r. The work now begins.       

 

impossible

I have a lot of love for vanbar. Today ed cheered me up, told me that the impossible film comes with no guarantee. It's an expensive, arty sort of film, and results can vary wildly. When it works, your heart will feel happy, but inevitably there will be duds among them. You just have to suck it up. The difficulty is part of the (beautiful) deal. 

Red is hard to catch. Am fond of this photo, taken in March, when things were a lot warmer. Temperature is key. By mid-winter the film, and the 1971 metal frame of the camera it lives in, is bloody freezing, and neither seem to warm up at our place even when I've got the fire roaring. 

It was -3 up there overnight. Little wonder the film is less capable in June. The black radishes you can't quite make above (due to focus, ahem, as much as the c-c-c-old) are best when pulled, scrubbed and mandolined, fanned out on a nice plate and dressed in a light and lovely way, or with a thicker tahini-miso-lemon combination, thinned with water. A killer dill, yoghurt and walnut dressing I'll tell you about soon would work, too.  

 

nesting

A single magpie chased a small flock of rare black cockatoos across our patch of sky on Friday afternoon, forcing the latter to swoop low and cry out, a dance driven by the comparatively tiny magpie to protect a nest somewhere high up in the trees. For six weeks before the Solstice tipped our planet happily back the other way, the temperature on the hill barely rose above 6 degrees. Most days were engulfed by mist and fog, and for a time, the ground would be frozen solid upon waking, a crunch underfoot borne of frosts, the likes of which I've rarely seen. Our little house - merely somewhere to sleep - became a refuge, something that had not, until that point, happened. Two weeks ago a break in the clouds showed the first hint of joyful waxing light, and that people, that was all the hint I needed.

I've decluttered, I've scrubbed, I've washed windows inside and out, re-alphabetised bookshelves, lugged furniture back and forth and even, in a fit of unheard of girliness, carefully laid out a swatch of pink sari fabric and arranged my Precious Things. Pre-spring fever is here, however prematurely it may at times feel, and I intend to make the most of it. This weekend left us tired and happy, windows and doors flung open to milder weather, to sunshine and fresh air and the promise of warmer soil. So even if winter decides to drop back in from time to time, the snowbells and jonquils are awake and there's no going back. Winter be gone; and like that, my heart is lifted once again.

 

 

pickling

Conversation, Salvation Army-bought jars in arm, in the carpark at Woodend on Friday afternoon:

"You picklin' things too, love?"

"Yep. Runner beans - if there's enough - and another batch of tomato-chilli jam. You?"

"Yeah, everyone loves me pickled shallots. Makin' more today." 

He tipped his hat to me and opened the door of his ute, and, as an afterthought, turned back for a moment. "Me own shallots, that is. That I grew."

He didn't need to offer that up, but I am super-glad he did.  

Have I told you how much I love life right now? The sunflowers are over - yanked out, composted, kaput - but there's still some of their high-summer cheer about.     

pre-spring

This photograph neatly sums up how our winter, our autumn and yes, even our summer has made me feel. Cold, wet, and grey, with a chance of spiky black stabbing bits getting you in, say, the eye if you're not careful, showering you with raindrops to boot as if to prove some depressing point. Victoria's lack of seasonal shift for most of 2011 - just a slow, pathetic drip toward winter from last September - seeped into my thinking, got under my skin.

One morning late in June, quite unannounced, tiny signs of spring began to emerge. One snowdrop at a time. Then last weekend arrived with glorious warmth, dry and blue-skied with temperatures to match. On Sunday, I wore a single layer and even then had to push my sleeves to my elbows. Bliss.    

Was beginning to think I was losing my tiny mind.

This chart, taken from this site, makes so much sense. Of course early settlers were longing for the more defined seasons they had at home in Europe finding themselves stuck on the other side of the planet, so far from what they knew. Of course they longed for the familiar, but that we still, 200-odd years later, stick to European notions of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter is kinda dumb. I love this chart - it explains why jonquils and snowbells show their faces earlier than the calendar months would have us believe.

Also, why I am sneezing as though it's spring...it IS spring. Pre-spring.