snow . sunflowers . dairy free is not for me!
Lots of photos today from Illinois and Melbourne A divided life in layers. I prune and train my tomatoes in Melbourne within twelve hours of my American family in Illinois getting buried in snow.
As the sun rises in Illinois. I sleep on in Australia.
The snow in Illinois is deep already. Way too early in the winter. But weather is like that - it is immune to humans emotions. It does not care for our rules and timelines.
These photographs were taken by my long suffering husband. At his dawn today.
Then my friend sent me these ⬇️ from later in the day. Around the farmyard.
And my absolute favourite of this volley of images ⬇️
While they all feed and water the animals fast then shuffle at speed back through the snow to the house and the woodstove, I am here in my warm little garden in Melbourne. Getting a little sun.
At the same time. Under the same moon.
Believe it or not we are eating piles of veg from this garden. I don’t garden in rows here - I let the wild nature of plants lead me - it looks wild but it is actually carefully curated. And timed.
Lots of layers here too.
The beans are beginning to set. Growing at the base of the sunflowers and tomatoes. We will be eating a handful tonight. There are a lot more in the way.
The potatoes are starting to look a little sad - which is a good thing - it means the potatoes are growing under there. Using up all the nutrients. We will break one of the bags open when the visitors arrive next week.
We have discovered that baby is cows protein intolerant. I won’t go into the symptoms but they were very clear. Anyway we are now dairy free. (And egg free in case this was exacerbating the inflammation). The majority of kids grow out of this condition. However for the foreseeable future the breast feeding mother and baby are dairy free. And I have gone out in sympathy. And you know how much we love butter!
It is so boring! I love food. All food. And butter makes it all better!
And now we are laughing at how many of my recipes have milk or cream or butter in them! 😀
For instance mashed potatoes are just not mashed potatoes without lashings of cream and butter. No cheese on toast! Oh the horror! No more macaroni cheese or mamas world famous creamy dill chicken. Pancakes! Pavlova! Roast potatoes with lemon and feta. It is hell. I am going to starve to death!
But I am not going to cook these delicious creamy saucy meals just for myself and have the sad eyes of my daughter watching me eat them.
So. We the household is now officially dairy free and egg free too. (Just in case those eggs are making it worse) and I am making vegan zucchini rissoles to go with dinner. Sigh. Wish me luck.
Baby’s condition is already improved and he is still cheerful and putting on weight so we are doing the right thing.
What are you having for dinner?
I hope you are well. Are you well? Staying safe?
Love Celi
It looks like Christmas in Illinois, though the snow can be real PITA when it comes to feeding the animals and driving!
Your Melbourne garden is looking amazing. Shame about the cow milk. This may not help, but I looked up lactose intolerance recently and was astonished to discover that aged cheese is almost lactose free. It's only fresh cheese which is high in lactose. Othrwise, what about sheep or goat milk?
The Ancient Egyptians "milked" lettuce for it's white juice - I think I might have mentioned this before. The practice was taken up by the Greeks and Romans, who made pasta with lettuce juice. To cut a long story short, the Latin word and the word in all Latin based languages, for milk comes from Lactuca - lettuce! However, the English word for milk comes from the German Milch.
The things we do for our children