I have been travelling for two months so Sustainable Sunday (the newsletter) went into hiatus. But now I am back on the farm. 😀 And in my own kitchen and my own fields. And my own kitchens garden.
Just like a chapter in a novel I would have loved reading, curled up with my sunburnt legs dangling over the arm of my big old bedroom chair, slipcovered by Mama in a chintz with Revolutionary War soldiers in various uniforms of the Continental Army, which I picked out myself at the Federated Store, reading a new library book, all the long, showery, summer afternoon, when I just adored reading books about English girls from manors & village cottages who studied at boarding schools with scary headmistresses, or bold girls who rode horses bareback, with their collie dogs running along on far away New Zealand lonely sheep farms, where mysterious boys worked as farmhands. I would have read this novel, all those long, long summer hours, while the curtains twitched in little breezes through the open window that carried nose-twitching smells of summer rain out in the dripping trees. I had to put the book down for our supper of fried chicken, all day green beans, sliced tomatoes & cottage cheese with chopped green onions & cucumber & then blackberry cobbler for dessert. After supper & playing out in the steaming sunset & long balmy twilight, I took up that book again & read by my bedside lamp while little white moths circled & bumped themselves into the lightbulb till Mama called lights out & came in to kiss me goodnight & close my door behind her. I turned out the lamp, climbed out of bed with my book, went in my closet, sat down on the floor beside my hanging clothes & read for another hour by flashlight till I just could read no more, closed the book & in my warm dark room, climbed back into bed & thought about the wonderful story I'd been reading all day, until I fell asleep & dreamed of sheep & horses & collie dogs & strange lands beyond the sea. Tomorrow I would read on till the very end, sorry to close the book, but hoping the author had written Volume 2 of the adventures of that girl & the mysterious boy on that farm in New Zealand way down below the Equator almost to Antartica. Tomorrow I would be waiting hopefully at the library door till Miss Ora MacCown unlocked it.
This is the most divine comment. You are a great storyteller. I can just imagine you in the wardrobe, reading. And your supper sounds so American - with that steaming sunset. Yes. Quite lovely. Thank you!
That is quite a newsletter. I had trouble tearing myself away from the NZ farm and gardens off the past. Similar -my grandparents farm/house- informs my rose-tinted memories. But I got to the water discussion. We harvest all our household water from our roofs. We have about 37000 litres / 10000 gallons storage capacity. We drink it from the taps without filtering. On the most basic level if you are harvesting roof water into tanks/reservoir the necessity is for very regular roof & guttering maintenance. Lack thereof results in leaf and debris laden gutters which adversely affects water collection quantity & quality. And the quiche base... clever & yum.
Just like a chapter in a novel I would have loved reading, curled up with my sunburnt legs dangling over the arm of my big old bedroom chair, slipcovered by Mama in a chintz with Revolutionary War soldiers in various uniforms of the Continental Army, which I picked out myself at the Federated Store, reading a new library book, all the long, showery, summer afternoon, when I just adored reading books about English girls from manors & village cottages who studied at boarding schools with scary headmistresses, or bold girls who rode horses bareback, with their collie dogs running along on far away New Zealand lonely sheep farms, where mysterious boys worked as farmhands. I would have read this novel, all those long, long summer hours, while the curtains twitched in little breezes through the open window that carried nose-twitching smells of summer rain out in the dripping trees. I had to put the book down for our supper of fried chicken, all day green beans, sliced tomatoes & cottage cheese with chopped green onions & cucumber & then blackberry cobbler for dessert. After supper & playing out in the steaming sunset & long balmy twilight, I took up that book again & read by my bedside lamp while little white moths circled & bumped themselves into the lightbulb till Mama called lights out & came in to kiss me goodnight & close my door behind her. I turned out the lamp, climbed out of bed with my book, went in my closet, sat down on the floor beside my hanging clothes & read for another hour by flashlight till I just could read no more, closed the book & in my warm dark room, climbed back into bed & thought about the wonderful story I'd been reading all day, until I fell asleep & dreamed of sheep & horses & collie dogs & strange lands beyond the sea. Tomorrow I would read on till the very end, sorry to close the book, but hoping the author had written Volume 2 of the adventures of that girl & the mysterious boy on that farm in New Zealand way down below the Equator almost to Antartica. Tomorrow I would be waiting hopefully at the library door till Miss Ora MacCown unlocked it.
This is the most divine comment. You are a great storyteller. I can just imagine you in the wardrobe, reading. And your supper sounds so American - with that steaming sunset. Yes. Quite lovely. Thank you!
That is quite a newsletter. I had trouble tearing myself away from the NZ farm and gardens off the past. Similar -my grandparents farm/house- informs my rose-tinted memories. But I got to the water discussion. We harvest all our household water from our roofs. We have about 37000 litres / 10000 gallons storage capacity. We drink it from the taps without filtering. On the most basic level if you are harvesting roof water into tanks/reservoir the necessity is for very regular roof & guttering maintenance. Lack thereof results in leaf and debris laden gutters which adversely affects water collection quantity & quality. And the quiche base... clever & yum.
You've set the scene so well. I look forward to more. xo
Also - no keys! I am not sure there even was a keep for our house in those days. I’ve a good frittata - I call them FRIDGE-atta!