Ephemera Paradiso

Roses, Hobies & Dams

BY AYESHA JOY CLIFFORD © 

HOT and sunny - time for adventures of the aquatic kind.

After four years of limited use due to FIFO and farming schedules and the three wettest consecutive years on record, our Hobie Adventure Islands have been reintroduced to water.

We set off early for the short drive to a nearby freshwater creek in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, Australia. 

First glimpse of the water in the early morning light was through wispy mist floating over glass-flat water. Ah - the joys of the early riser. 

After evicting the hornets' nests from the akker pin holes, we slipped two very dusty Hobies down the ramp and were away.

I've always wondered why so many people miss the best part of the day. This was our early reward.

Heading for the hills with the Mirage Drive pedals silently cutting through the flat water on the way towards the nearest creek inlet.

There was bird life in abundance out and about at this early time of the morning.

The stream narrows a little but there was still a nice channel and easy paddling and we decided to pull in for a stretch and to take in the views of this beautiful country.

I was amazed to happen on this little grassy area mowed by resident cattle. This looks like 
something you would see in Monet's Garden at Giverny not on the edge of rugged bushland.

This marvelous pink rose has bloomed where it was planted into a wall of precious pink petals and a mass of delicate colour. 

The Amazing Husband armed himself with his trusty Gerber and braved the thorns to earn a bunch of roses to decorate my Hobie. I understand now why Briar roses were used as security hedging.

After a bit of a rest and celebration fruitcake, we happily pedalled off for the return journey with a bunch of roses for my Hobie.

Happy pedalling!

Bore Success!

BY AYESHA JOY CLIFFORD©

WE hit the water jackpot in a couple of ways this week.

While the Amazing Husband has been Walking For Water (see previous post) we also hit our own water jackpot on The Pretty Farm.

This summer has been dry for the Northern Rivers of New South Wales..

Up to March 17, we had only just passed 100mls of rain for the year to date.

Just for comparison, here are the previous few year's totals for the same time:

• 2013 - 578mls
• 2012 - 428
• 2011 - 507
• 2010 - 368

 Records we have going back to 1905 testify to varying rainfall over the years. This year’s summer rainfall was low by any comparison for this part of the Northern Rivers on data available.  

Thanks to much fencing, a planned grazing regime and the past few wet years, we have good pasture residuals going into winter.

We have been wanting to sink a bore at our place for the past few years and had a site located by a local legend "Snow" last year.

Snow walked all over our place looking for water and I joked to the Amazing Husband that the site would be right in front of our house and guess what?

 BORE SUCCESS: The drillers thought we hit the jackpot with our new bore.

This was the outlook from the office this week: A rain shower coming in from the south-west and water flowing from the drilling rig - not far down!

Now I'm no expert on bores but that's pretty unusual according to the experts. 

"You should buy a Lotto ticket," they joked. We are already winners.

We struck a great flow, looks like lovely water (yet to be officially tested) at less than half the depth we were expecting (and about half the price!). Happy customers but I did feel a tad for the contractors. Ouch! Not to worry – they are busy at the moment.

So on that watery note, we're feeling pretty blessed here on The Pretty Farm.

We had 22.5mls of lovely, gentle soaking rain this week and a "really good" water bore drilled.

Now the “really” fun part: working out who gets to sit on the tractor and who gets to walk behind juggling that giant roll of pipe into the pipe layer to get lovely bore water around to all our paddocks.

The girls are going to be so happy!

Walk for Water

 

IMAGE from http://www.walk4water.com.au/.

BY AYESHA JOY CLIFFORD©

ALL excitement at our little farm here in the Northern Rivers this week - and it's all about water.

The amazing husband has been a man on a mission - WaterAid's Walk for Water fundraising challenge. 

He has been walking 10,000 steps a day to fulfill funding pledges to raise money to provide access to safe drinking water for people in 27 of the world's poorest countries.

With all the talk in Australia about dry times, it really put things in perspective to read about people - often very young girls and women - who really have no choice but to walk a long way -  up to 20km every day - carting heavy containers of drinking water.

Worldwide it is estimated 750 million people still do not have access to safe water.

I'm delighted that the Amazing Husband joined  Walk For Water and we're both delighted with the local generosity.

So far from the tiny community of Kyogle,  he has raised enough money to fund the building of at least one and probably two wells for drinking water. 

Kyogle is a small town (population 4000) known for its big heart.

The generosity of the community and businesses comes at a time when many are also donating to charities for Australian farmers as well as experiencing their own dry summer here in the Northern Rivers.

Congratulations to the team and thanks to generous Kyogle for helping others less fortunate.

Congratulations also to the Amazing Husband who has diligently spend this week clocking up the 10,000 steps every day and even doing a practice run on his birthday last week. 

More information is at www.walk4water.com.au.

Rivalry in the Afternoon

Joy Boosters in Boots

JOY boosters - Bartie is a fan of the bright new additions.

BY AYESHA JOY CLIFFORD ©

I'VE got big feet! 

Actually, for a lady, they're huge - nudging size 11.5. I've often thought of the Cinderella wannabees trying to squash their feet into dainty slippers.

Perhaps that's why boots have became a staple of my wardrobe.

Long before they were trendy and as a busy journo working in the Beef Capital, I would seek out boots in all shapes, sizes and colours that could comfortably accommodate my good grip on the earth, all day long.

I've had steel caps, gum boots, meatworks ankle whites, platforms, dance boots - an eclectic variety that has taken me from press conferences to dusty military fly-ins, to power stations, kill floors, floods and fancy nights out.

When I worked in Tokyo, my boots announced my origins as much as the Claybourn and blonde hair. They also opened many a conversation that ensured a solo traveller was rarely alone in a foreign country captivated by our wild spaces and wild places, and maybe not a little by our wild people. 

Boots add that something extra that is hard to define. The artistry and expression, the combination of creativity and practicality appeals to me.

When the Amazing Husband and I first began working together on his 24,000 acre property at Marlborough, he proudly presented me with a pair of steel caps.

A couple of months old now and these gumboots are yet to meet mud in the Northern Rivers.

Fast forward to our farm in the Northern Rivers and ankle-gracing boots lose all appeal walking through thick grass with docile red-bellied snakes often a little tardy in getting out of the way. 

Knee-high gum boots have become my farm fashion statement of choice through several years of consecutive flood and wet.

It's dry here now so perhaps it was time for a boot update too - a little joy boost in my day.

The Amazing Husband presented me not with roses on Valentine's Day but with something far more precious - candy-pink boots!

It is dry. We're culling cows. We're calculating herbage mass and DSE in our sleep. These shiny pink beauties are a shot of pure, frivolous joy in my day.

A reminder to daily look for the bright shots of  joy in the dust of life.

Our Magic Puddings

BY AYESHA JOY CLIFFORD ©

IN THE great Australian tradition of my favourite childhood story, "The Magic Pudding", we are having our own Magic Pudding(s!) moment here at "Glen Alvin".

In Norman Lindsay's famous children's story from 1917, the grouchy Pudding in his upturned pudding bowl hat had mystical rejuvenative qualities as he strolled about the Australian bush.

Norman Lindsay's "The Magic Pudding" from normanlindsay.com.au

Cake and pudding cooking have become a shared Christmas feature since we married and in their own way, our unorthodox cake and pudding production has its own magical quality.

I like to make enough to have throughout the year, pulling out Christmas baking for birthdays, Easter and perhaps the odd night in with a port and some aged dark, rich pudding in front of the fire in winter.

It's become our way of taking a little symbol of the magic of Christmas - and reminding ourselves to keep the spirit of Christmas in our hearts all year.

Bartie gets into the Christmas Spirit.

I was delighted when, for our first Christmas at our new farm as newlyweds, my husband purchased antique baking tins and pudding bowls from Ebay.

Holding them in my hands when they arrived, I sensed they had hosted many a successful baking and boiling but besides that - they looked just like the upturned pudding tin of "The Magic Pudding".

I lacked experience in big cakes and puddings, but in that moment, I knew these tins would not fail.

So a couple of weeks ago there was a combined effort to chop and select fruit. One secret ingredient is our fabulous Australian dried fruit. Ingredients vary from year to year. I like each cake to be distinct,  just like each year has its own distinct flavour.

This year's pudding and cake fruits drank up rather generous amounts of port, brandy and sherry lavished on them by the husband cook who tended the fruit for several days.

Chop...stir...soak...

The mixtures sat soaking on the stove far longer than usual. This is a farm and of course the animals come first. There was a round of cattle work to be done … immediately. Such are the joys of country cooking.

More sherry, more port,  more brandy ... stir ... soak.

The tins and bowls came out of the shed for their annual day of glory. It looked promising for a moment. The lining of the tins is an exercise in precision folding and stapling and drew close inspection from one little helper.

Posh inspects the vintage tins for inherited cooking wisdom.

But then …

An unusual egg shortage. After overflowing with eggs all year,  the cupboard was bare. Production slowed - perhaps the Festive Season? The crows ate a basket I left on the back veranda. I had to wait for production to meet demand.

More sherry, more port, more brandy ... stir ... soak.

We finally came to mixing and that’s where we truly had our own Magic Pudding moment. I slipped in copious amounts of secret spices and a full jar of glossy, black Beerenberg molasses for good measure. My gorgeous husband lovingly tended his fruit,  making last-minute additions.

Cats walked over the table, the sheep knocked at the screen door. World Christmas carols boomed and a couple of little ears listened over the fence.

  Enjoying carols at their first Christmas.

We probably broke many cooking rules and like most years, I have not much idea what finally went into the mixtures.

Perhaps it's because we are more used to mixing up feed for animals that weigh hundreds of kilos but this year's Christmas cake and pudding mixes just kept expanding into two enormous mixes that became two cakes and three dark puddings in the fabulous antique tins.

Antique tins work their magic.

Perhaps it's the flavour of all those little moments added together, blended with the real secret ingredient - love and attention, sharing and fun.

There could have been a couple of other secret farm ingredients that sneak in there too. It is a farm after all.

There was much laughter and love and sharing and finally after four hours of baking and boiling - an immense 10 kilograms of boiled and baked, rich dark beauties.

Somewhere in the mixing, the antique tins worked their magic and we had our own Magic Pudding moment. I don't know how it works but every year it does.

Magic puddings.

After all, that’s the magic of Christmas.

This year I'm keeping a few kilos of cake and pudding in the cupboard to remind me to keep the spirit of Christmas in my heart all year.

Merry Christmas to your and yours. Wherever you are this Christmas may you be blessed with the spirit of Christmas in your heart all year.