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.

Feisty little furry friends

Free and moving well up a post for gliding away.

BY AYESHA JOY CLIFFORD ©

WHO ever said life on the farm was dull?

Not me that's for sure.

I was collecting the eggs today when a life and death drama played out right in front of me.

I heard odd noises coming from our old fig tree and looked up to see a large tree snake that has been hanging about the house for a few days, sticking its head into a hole.

Suddenly a ball of fluff came flying out of the hole and landed on the barb-wire fence in front of me. I had the phone out to take photos of the snake but ...

This little fellow escaped one predator only to get caught on barbed-wire. Help was not far away though....

The little glider promptly twirled about in a bit of a daze in the bright light and got some of its floppy side-fur caught around a barb.

I jumped on the four-wheeler and raced to the shed for pliers. When I returned, the glider seemed quite calm, so I proceeded to strip off my shirt to cover its head to stop it biting me while I cut the wire on either side.

This was wildly unsuccessful. We have had these little gliders come in under the eaves often when it's rainy, and they are usually quiet when nestled at the top of the plumbing pipes.

Not today. Understandably feisty after escaping a snake and being caught on wire, the ball of slippery fluff promptly bit me painfully hard while making a huge racket as I was trying to cut the wire.

I admit a few naughty words escaped me before my furry little friend also escaped me, the wire and made a bolt for the nearest post.

I was none too keen by now on trying to catch it, what with bloodied indents from its sharp teeth stinging my finger and evident even through rubbery gloves and those vague thoughts about when my last tetanus jab was.

All this action escaped the attention of the phone camera but it must have been some sight to anyone driving by at the time - a shirtless woman in gumboots, expletives perhaps flying a bit too freely, kneeling in the grass wrestling a “shirt”.

Once free, my furry little escapee scampered up this post, staring at me long enough for this blurry photo, before gliding a few metres away again, and running up a different branch of the fig tree.

I'm not sure what its chances of survival are with any injury. I hardly ever see anything caught on the barbed wire around here apart from me when I'm trying to get through fences.

I lost track of what happened to the snake and just realised the eggs are still lying out in the rain.

Enough excitement now - I have one very sore finger and I'm staying in for the rest of the day for a keyboard workout - but I am thinking of you my little furry friend with every painful tap of the finger...

Good luck little one. I so hope you make it!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

BART wishes all a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

BY AYESHA JOY CLIFFORD ©

I'M looking forward to a colourful and creative 2014.

2013 marked the sixth year in NSW for two dust-loving Queenslanders who moved to the green and wet of the rainforest from our dusty home in Central Queensland.

This year has heralded the end of FIFO farming for the Cliffords and been our year of the sheep. Welcome Bart!

After almost four years of my gorgeous husband calling in from mine sites in places as diverse as Woomera in South Australia and Telfer in the remote north-west of WA, I have had a husband home on farm. Praise the end of the super-commute from the Northern Rivers to the Pilbara...every 10 days.

Super commuter ... the super FIFO husband hangs up his miner's hat but not before a Telfer New Year partying with the dingoes in WA's spectacular Pilbara.

I won't even begin to explain the innovative things I have done with fencing, cows and pipe repairs in the absence of one amazing multi-skilled FIFO farmer.

Necessity is the mother of invention and my innovations have raised a few eyebrows as they have been uncovered and upgraded in the past six months.

Perhaps it has been the past few years of FIFO farmer's wife anonymously tinkering away on our farm or the power of a woman in her forties - whatever, after a bit of time off-the-record, 2013 has been the year to get back to my creative heart.

WISHING all a 2014 as colourful and creative as Toowoomba's Carnival of Flowers.

2014 will mark 25 years since I was first launched on an unsuspecting public as a cadet journalist in Rockhampton.

I never suspected I would still be writing and creating and enjoying it 25 years later. I never suspected I would be a FIFO farmer's wife chatting to cows and a sheep daily either...

Our green haven is a world away from the deadlines and pressures of mainstream media and I doubt many of my former colleagues would understand my passion for our farm, animals and the quiet life - which is actually anything but quiet and produces urgent life-and-death deadlines of its own at times. 

Thankfully the Internet has given me an opportunity to keep writing and enjoying the best of both worlds. Something I am very much looking forward to sharing and expanding in 2014. 

So here's to the wonderful achievements on our little farm in a big country in 2013 and looking forward to a colourful, creative and productive year in 2014.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.