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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39203091366054426242014-11-20T08:52:46.283+11:00eight acres of edenRaising beautiful children in a beautiful placeAnn at eightacresofedenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-39590704006610360352014-10-28T15:54:00.000+11:002014-10-28T17:54:30.107+11:00My Country Kitchen

Today I am sharing some pictures of my country kitchen. I have written about my kitchen before but I have spent some time recently rearranging how things are set out to make it more user friendly for my twin girls who love to bake.

I now am the proud owner of 3 dressers or as you may call them, hutches. The one in my kitchen is the largest and most solid. It holds most of my vintage china with its large spacious cupboards where I store dinner and entree plates, dessert bowls, trios and some dinner sets. As you can see from just peeking inside my cupboards, I have a big collection of English china. The little salt/sugar shaker is the latest addition to my collection. I can't resist anything with roses! Does the china get used you may ask? Absolutely! I have a vintage hire and styling business and the china has graced tables at bridal and baby showers, a Jane Austen themed Regency ball for a 21st birthday party and of course weddings! It has been on trips to country halls, private homes and 4 1/2 star hotels. Setting beautiful tables is a passion of mine and it's lovely to have something which can earn us some additional income from time to time. It also means I have more than ample hospitality supplies. No need to use paper plates or plastic forks. And of course should you ever visit me at home you can choose a teacup (over 200 to choose from!) and we will enjoy tea and fellowship together.

This dresser has drawers with inbuilt compartments perfect for my cutlery sets. This is the cutlery I use on special occasions and hire out for wedding receptions. I have silver plated place settings and a beautiful Royal Albert setting with gold plated accents that has been used for bridal tables. I recently purchased a set of Laguiole cutlery with pearl coloured handles which teams perfectly with my vintage plates as most of them have cream backgrounds. I just love their floral embellishments and scalloped edges.

I recently moved my larger glass jars of ingredients and baking essentials down from my cooks shelf to the dresser. Previously, my girls were forever asking me to get down the jars for them. Now they can easily access them and it saves me a lot of time! They are only 8 but have mastered a number of our favourite recipes. They are completely independent and I only help with removing larger trays from the oven for reasons of safety. Here's a few recent cakes they baked. They substituted mulberries for plums in this Annabel Langbein recipe. It is one of my favourite cakes. The other is 'Dorothy's Rhubarb cake'.. one of the first recipes I tried from a blog. The blogger shared her neighbour's recipe. I am sure Dorothy never realized her rhubarb cake recipe would become a family favourite in a home in Australia! There's a link to it on my 'slice of heaven' pinterest board if you want to try it. I love my cook books almost as much as I love my china and moved most of them up to my cook's shelf from the dresser. I love having everything accessible for cooking and it saves me so much time not having to rummage around in cupboards or drawers.

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My kitchen is by no means perfect. It has some dream elements such as an Ilve stove but it has limited bench space, a too small, narrow pantry and there is nowhere to house our large side by side fridge freezer which sits in the corner of our dining room for now. I am happy to live and work with the current arrangement. I have never forgotten our first missions trip and our visit to a slum area in Jakarta, Indonesia many years ago where the open sewer ran past the front of the ramshackle house and seeing the tiny stove in the corner of a room with its dirt floor where the wife cooked meals for her family and guests. The size of her kitchen and it's lack of facilities made no difference to the quality of her cooking or the warmth of her hospitality. It was a real lesson about learning to be content and I thought of my own dissatisfaction with the dated but spacious kitchen in our first home with its dark timber laminate cupboards and orange bench tops. What was I really complaining about!

And so I accept and work around my kitchen's limitations and thank the Lord for giving me such a lovely kitchen in my country home and providing what we needed for it at the right time at the right price. It's where I bake bread and make meals for my family, where my children have been taught and still are learning to cook and it's the first room our guests step into. Most of them gravitate to it anyway and it's homely furnishings and the aroma it produces sometimes makes them want to stay longer .. a lunch invitation often extends to dinner in this home and it's something I have learned to expect and prepare for.
I hope you have enjoyed seeing the pictures of my country kitchen. As Jane Austen famously wrote 'There is nothing like staying home for real comfort' and as for me.... my kitchen provides much of that comfort!

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-52407566425522611562014-10-08T09:32:00.001+11:002014-10-08T10:17:53.441+11:00A View From a Table

Today I have found a pocket of time on a glorious spring morning to share with you the view from my table. I purposefully chose this seat at the dining table to be mine as it faces the double glass doors and corner window which looks out over the front of our property. We are completely surrounded by trees. We have gum trees of course but there are also palms and the front of our home is framed by a Himalayan cedar and a Kashmiri cypress with its draping fronds creating a waterfall of green. These are evergreens so all year round we are surrounded with green.

From the corner window I can also look out on our side patio. Last year we planted a climbing rose to cover a metal arch and it has run rampant. It is covered in crimson pink blooms at the moment which truly give meaning to the description 'pops of colour'.

Every time I sit down at the table I am reminded of God's provision. I often say to myself 'Look at where we live'. When discontent creeps in after looking at images on pinterest or blogs of neat manicured lawns or a perfectly tended cottage garden I look out at my forest garden and God gives me a wow moment.

At my table surrounded by this beauty I enjoy my morning coffee at breakfast with my husband. Always around 6am or earlier in summer. We have always been earlier risers and we accomplish more as a result of this habit. At this table of course we dine together as a family. I also teach my children at this table. I have never had a separate school room. Who would want to be away from this view during the day when the resident honeyeater hops along the pergola ? Nature study comes naturally when you live here!

Sometimes we snuggle up on the couch to read, especially in winter but I do love sitting at the table to read to my children. We have just finished the Millie Keith Books. These are treasured books in my home. I read them to my older children and I am now reliving her adventures with my twins. The 4 year old boy loves Millie too. She seems more like a friend than a fictional character. Yesterday, we began Anne of Green Gables. She talks more than we do was the comment of the twin who is the family chatterbox!

It's also where I have my quiet time though it is hardly a quiet time when there are children playing outside making as much noise as the lorikeets flying over through the tree tops! I love to make a pot of tea and sit down with my Bible. The verse that jumped out from the page on this occasion was Psalm 61 verse 5... 'For you, O Lord have heard my vows. You have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.' A beautiful reminder of the Godly heritage I discovered when we delved into our family history for a project.

I hope you have enjoyed sharing the view from my table. If you do not have a view you can still create something lovely to look at when you sit at your table. Some flowers or greenery in a vase. A pretty cup to sip tea from. A stack of books that inspire you. Right here on my table are some of the things that sustain me and bring beauty into my life. What sustains you and reminds you of God's provision? Surround yourself with these things and see the difference it makes!

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-58540174855670750432014-08-18T17:15:00.002+10:002014-08-18T17:23:42.536+10:00A Special Visitor

This has to be a brief post but I thought my friends and visitors to my blog from overseas would enjoy seeing the close up shot of this beautiful young koala who climbed down from a very tall gum tree into a much smaller tree. So low he came that we were able to make eye contact! Isn't he just the most beautiful creature? He was not at all alarmed by our presence and when I stepped forward to take this shot with my phone he actually leaned forward and tried to grab the leather cord attached to the case. We joked that he wanted to take a selfie! It was all very exciting for the younger children who have seen koalas high up in the boughs of trees before but never this close. I think we spent about an hour in his company.

Enccounters like these help me realize what a beautiful country our family are blessed to live in with its unique wildlife. Not many people get to meet a koala in the wild though so we are extra blessed at Eight Acres of Eden. Of course whenever we have people from other countries come out to our home we never see a koala! It's always the way. A few years ago a group of young Canadians came out for the day. They went right into the bush straining their necks in the hope of seeing a grey bulge in the tree tops. No koalas obliged but would you believe the very next day a koala put in an appearance at the bottom of the drive!

Spring is just weeks again and September is the month when we expect to see and hear the koalas again.

Hope you have enjoyed seeing the picture of our koala visitor. I do have a close up shot from late summer of a red belly black snake but it's not on my phone and I'm mobile blogging. I hear the collective sigh of relief across the blogosphere!

Until next time.

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-82026532415932494652014-06-30T14:22:00.001+10:002014-06-30T15:07:12.415+10:00The Splendid Book for Girls

I could not resist this up-cycled journal that was created from a vintage book. The title and the cover with its old fashioned values just seemed to be perfect for my homemaker's journal. Inside the journal are some of the original pages from the book including an excerpt from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. The creator of the up-cycled journal included a note in the insert in the front cover that he found in the Splendid Book for Girls. It was a Christmas gift to 'Elaine from mummy and daddy' from 1956. The plain note book pages are divided into sections to use for whatever you want to journal.

This is what I used mine for....

1. Life Verses

The Scriptures and passages of the Bible that are so special to me. Some of my favorites are Deuteronomy 8 v 6 -10, Psalm 145, Ephesians 2 8 - 10, Psalm 144 v 12, Isaiah 54 v 13 and the verse which should be in every Christian homemaker's journal Proverbs 14 v 1. A wise woman builds her home... oh how I desire to be a wise woman!

2. Priorities

I like to remind myself often of what my priorities are. It is all too easy when our days are busy to jumble them up. No 1 is my relationship with the Lord but if I am truthful there are many days when my schedule does not reflect this. Number 2 is family - my husband and children. I have written down here a thought of mine 'My husband should have the best of me, not the leftovers at the end of each day.'

Following relationships I have used several more pages to outline some thoughts on homes. It is my homemaker's journal after all.

One of my homemaking goals is
'To create somewhere lovely that will delight the soul of others and refresh them, pointing them to the One who gave us everything.'

I recently came across a quote by Sally Clarkson which had to go into my journal.
She says 'I must bring the reality of God and His life into my home. My home must be a true and vibrant picture of the living God.'
This truly is my heart's desire.

There are more quotes from Godly women who have inspired me that I am still adding to my journal. I may share my favourite quote from Elisabeth Elliot in a post soon. I call it my homemaker's wake-up call.

3. Recipes

Only the best and most used recipes go into my journal. They include a rhubarb cake which is my husband's favourite dessert. Chocolate mocha pudding and lemon meringue pie which are the most requested desserts in this home are also there as is a peach cobbler recipe which is so splattered with batter in the cook book it is barely legible. Have been making this same cobbler for 20 plus years so it is a keeper! An excellent recipe for a loaf I came across recently that I make in my breadmaker is also referred to often. It's so handy having the journal sitting there on my kitchen dresser. I am still writing out the recipes and I will soon begin creating an address section.

 I am not adverse to technology. I have a smartphone which I am using to create this post and a new Samsung Note 8 that I just love because it fits in my handbag and comes with a stylus pen. I used it on Sunday to write sermon notes and it was just fabulous. You can create recipes and upload photos with the Note but I don't think I will use that function as the handwritten recipes in my journal hold so much more appeal plus there is no risk of deletion and old fashioned journals don't have screens that crack if dropped onto kitchen tiles! I am currently paranoid about dropping my new tablet as I wait for the cover I ordered for it to arrive. Interestingly, I chose a brown leather cover that had the look one reviewer said that ' reminded them of an old fashioned journal'. That was me sold for that particular cover!

I am all for keeping a homemaking journal simple. I don't write out schedules for housework or meal plans. I honestly think it is quite possible to over-complicate homemaking and housework with organizational materials and manuals. I just wanted one place to write down everything I need to reference or be reminded of on a regular basis. I can now dispose of all those separate address and note books that were cluttering up my home office. It really is my 'splendid' book!

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-33609110433593511772014-06-25T10:02:00.001+10:002014-06-25T10:21:18.328+10:00Ordinary Days

It's been some time since I posted. Life has been busy... too busy to write blog posts. Today is no exception. I have to drive my daughter to the airport. She is off to New Zealand. She will be meeting up with a Canadian friend. She is going snowboarding in Queenstown and visiting her grandparents in the North Island. She loves to travel.

For two weeks we will have just 5 children at home. Our son moved out of home in March. He has a fantastic position with an IT company in a city about 2 and a half hours from here. I miss hearing his Christian music blasting down our hall! That is probably the most stark reminder that he doesn't live here anymore... my hallway is so quiet! We speak on the phone often. In fact we probably have more conversations than when he lived just down the hallway!

So much more I could share but this home sweet home and my family require my attention. So this post is ordinary... no creative makeover projects, no inspirational pieces, no useful homemaking or homeschooling advice.... isn't there a tonne of that already out there on the net? Just one photo to share of a corner of my home. My tea tray which sits on my huge kitchen dresser... I might show you more of that one day. I now have three dressers and one buffet which are overflowing with china and tableware. I waited over 20 years to see my dream of having a kitchen dresser and lots of pretty tea cups to sip tea from. Now I have dressers and teacups in abundance! They make my home seem so homely.

And so to my photo. I have quite a selection of boutique teas. They are certified organic and blended here in Australia by a naturopath. I sell them at the markets together with the cake stands that I make from vintage china plates. English Breakfast is my default tea but I also adore French Earl Grey. For something more delicate I sip white rose and goji. The tea in the sachet envelope is saskatoon berry brought home for me by my daughter when she visited Canada. My other teenage daughter often makes a pot of tea late in the afternoon. We sit together at the dining table in our family room and share pins and discuss vintage decorating and table setting ideas. She is my vintage girl. The one who loves to dress smart and wear dresses and sometimes hats. She gets stopped on the street by strangers.... both men and women who tell her how lovely she looks!

So time to post not knowing if this will even appear in your reading list. The synopsis of the blogs I read when I do have time have all disappeared from my reading list apart from the top one. So not expecting many comments. .. especially for an 'ordinary' blog post. But needed to let you know I am still here. Still working out what I should share about at this blog. If I just share about our ordinary days would you still read? Okay, I have to go now. Leaving for the airport shortly! Hope you are enjoying your ordinary days!

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-56590779536436008342014-03-19T13:27:00.000+11:002014-03-19T13:27:43.113+11:00The Girl in the Corner

photo credit: lilongd via photopin cc

She stood in the corner of the room watching, waiting for the ballet class to finish. Nearby, a group of mothers who were all well acquainted chatted amicably among themselves. They didn't seem to notice the girl in the corner and seemed oblivious to her presence but I did. I was in the same position. I traveled from the country into the town to bring my little girls to their classical ballet class. I didn't know the other mothers and I didn't know the girl who stood in the corner. She fascinated me. She dressed conservatively and wore no make up. I wondered whether she was a member of the local group that re-enacted the Victorian heritage of the town - quite a number dressed in Victorian costume as a matter of rule. I knew I should really go over and introduce myself but with an older boy in tow and a wriggly baby on my hip who would soon need a feed, as soon as the girls had curtsied to their teacher I raced over grabbed their hands and quickly ushered them out of the hall to strap them into their car seats for the 40 minute journey home.

I regretted only smiling at and not speaking to the girl in the corner. The time was drawing near when we would be leaving our farm and moving across the Tasman. Then one week somehow she overcame her shyness and spoke to me. I knew it had been a courageous step for her as she asked quietly and politely whether my daughter would like to come over and visit. Her daughter needed a friend but I sensed that she was also asking on her own behalf and reaching out to me. I took up the invitation. She lived just around the corner and I let out a gasp when I saw her home. A stately Victorian town house with a walled garden. 'Wow, you live here?' She smiled. I had walked past it often and wondered who was fortunate enough to live in such a historic property. Now I was being given a tour of its interior. As our girls played together we chatted over a cup of tea. I told her about my life as a farmer's wife and she told me what it was like to be the custodian of such a grand old home. Caring for it took a lot of her time. I noticed the books on her shelves. Classics and the works of great men of the Christian faith such as Spurgeon and Tozer. A fellow believer, a quiet, and unassuming lady. A gentle soul. She was lovely company and how I wished I had made the effort to get to know her sooner. I saw the sadness in her eyes when I told her we were soon leaving to start a new life in Australia.

Perhaps you also know a girl in the corner. Maybe she attends your church, your playgroup or your ladies ministry meeting. She stays in the background. She sits alone or alongside the older ladies who have invited her to join them but are now engaged in conversation with their neighbour. You may even be that girl in the corner. You are ignored. You look around the room and you feel you don't fit in. I tend to think of myself as fairly outgoing but I know what it is like to be the girl in the corner. Even at church. The one place where the welcome should not be confined to a greeting at the door. On the occasions when I became the girl in the corner I can't really explain why. It's happened at gatherings both large and small. I once attended a swimming carnival run by a homeschool support group that I had not attended before. I barely knew anyone but I had so much in common with everyone there. I never expected to be ignored, to sit in the stands and occasionally have other women look up from their conversations and stare across at me but no one came and introduced themselves. Needless to say, I never returned to that group.

On other occasions I know many of the people in the room but it seems they are all caught up in conversations with the group they are with so I sit quietly at my table and sip on my tea and wait for the meeting to begin. There is lots of talk about sisterhood but barely a mention of motherhood yet most of the women in the room are mothers or hope to be mothers one day. Why don't they teach about being a wife and a mother? What about homemaking? I once had the opportunity to speak at a large gathering for women. Just a five minute slot in a packed programme. I chose to speak on the table and why it was the most important piece of furniture in my home. I shared about family and hospitality. That was over 10 years ago but recently a woman came up to me and told me that she had never forgotten what I shared on the table.

Maybe that is why the girl in the corner has come along. She's hoping to be able to glean some wisdom from an older woman. She wants to be a better mother. She dearly wants to hear others share their experiences of everyday life in the home - the place where she knows God has called her to be. And perhaps there might be someone, who like herself is also looking for a friend, someone she can confide in. Not a small group or a Bible study held at an impractical time that she has to travel to. Just one caring person who will call in to see her from time to time. Who will have time to stay for a coffee and some conversation. The next time she ventures out to a larger gathering her new friend will look out for her, she will introduce her to others. She is no longer the girl in the corner. You see she knew all along her value and worth to God. She didn't need to hear another message on that. What she really needed to know and experience was that others valued her as her Saviour did - that they noticed her, spoke to her more than a greeting or a passing 'how are you?' as they dash past to see the friend they really want to catch up with.

Dear friends, can I encourage you to look out for the girl in the corner. Especially, when you attend church or gatherings of women or even your homeschool support meeting. Scan the room. There will be a girl in the corner. She might be a young mother or an older lady. You might say but our church has small groups. She should join one, that is where connections are made and friendships are formed and yes that is true but not every person can get along to a small group. Distance to travel could be an issue or finances. Maybe she can't afford the petrol or doesn't enjoy driving at night. I experienced a road rage incidence once on the way to a woman's ministry night. I feared for my life as the car which had been speeding came up behind me flashing his lights, sounding his horn and sitting on my bumper as I drove at the speed limit. For a long time I avoided attending meetings held at night. Perhaps the small groups are held at an inconvenient time during the day. Or maybe the groups are overly age segregated which is one of the issues I face as a woman in her 40's. Too old for most of the small groups for women and families and too young for others, leaving me with very few options. I have young adults, teenagers, young children and a pre-schooler. I have much to offer younger mothers but few opportunities to minister to them.

Be open to the prompting of the Lord. He will place people across your path or maybe across your street who need to know that someone is genuinely interested in them. Who will smile, make them feel truly welcome and take the time to talk to them and invite them to come and sit with them. It may lead to a sweet friendship, an opportunity to minister or it may be the only time you meet them but they won't forget you because they no longer felt alone or awkward in the situation they found themselves in. I will continue to look out for the girl in the corner and I hope you will too.

P.S She might be visiting your blog.

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-53428731072062425992014-02-19T18:01:00.001+11:002014-02-19T18:01:17.062+11:00Whole Family Ministry

Today I am sharing the story of how we became involved in a ministry that has a special place in my heart. I have longed for a ministry that every member of my family could be involved with from the youngest to the oldest, where hospitality and the opening up of our home would play a pivotal role. A ministry that would not separate parents from children or take individual members out of the home for long periods. The Lord heard my prayers and after saying to Him ' Lord, we are available, please use us to reach out to people beyond the walls of our home and church' He answered in the most incredible way, fulfilling the desire of one daughter to be a missionary to China by bringing China to our doorstep.

It has been an exciting first year since the initial conversation with the wife of the Pastor of a church we had attended for a number of years before moving to a smaller church closer to home. How her eyes lighted up when I explained that my daughter had a passion for China and was learning Mandarin and she told me of a wonderful couple she had met the evening before who had established a ministry to Chinese students in our city.

Before long we had attended our first Chinese festival and were introduced to some of the students and the partners in the ministry. It became apparent that to be truly involved we needed to move back to our first church and give up the benefits of being involved in a smaller fellowship of believers.
Although we are now in a much bigger church we feel closely connected because of our involvement in this ministry. We have been able to befriend many of the students and welcome them into our home. My husband is a mechanic by trade and he has been able to assist a number of the students by repairing their cars and helping those who needed to purchase new ones. We became aware of the number of young people from Taiwan and South Korea who were here on working holidays and by helping out just one girl we were able to befriend many others in the same group. Some we have befriended on a more permanent basis and have been able to keep in touch with and others we met only once or twice. But it became apparent that they all loved being befriended by a family and being invited into a home. One day I received a text from one of the backpackers we had met just once. He wanted to know if he and his brother could come out and visit us again on the weekend. Of course we said yes and they turned up smiling and were delighted to see our children again. They played soccer in our backyard and jumped on the trampoline... for hours! We drove them to a lovely part of our valley for a short bush walk and invited them to stay for dinner as I could see they really did not want to leave! It was the last time we would see them as they would be traveling to Tasmania and New Zealand but I know they were impacted by the time they spent with our family.

There is so much more I could share about this incredible ministry and the harvest it is reaping but time does not allow. It is such an honour to play a part in it and our life as a family has been blessed in so many unexpected ways. The day one of our sweet friends told me that I reminded her of her mother who she was missing very much and after we had visited her on her birthday and made her a cake and presented her with flowers she told us it was one of the best birthdays in her life! I was astounded. Really.. a chocolate cake made by my children and a bunch of supermarket flowers could bring someone so much joy? Sometimes the simple things say so much. I am so grateful that the Lord prompted me to go and visit her in her temporary abode taking with us most of our younger children. We met a lot more young people from Asia that day as we sat with them and my husband manned the barbecue so they could chat.

These are just some of the stories from our whole family ministry and there will be more to come. The academic year has just begun and the students are arriving to commence their studies. Already this year we have helped out one young man with car troubles. He was a committed Christian and I sensed very grateful for the help and the opportunity to spend time with our family getting to know us. It is true that God does set the solitary in families and He needs more families who are willing to open up their homes to others, especially those who are on their own or in an unfamiliar country and missing their families. I am grateful that we have the time and have not over committed ourselves or our children to segregated activities away from the home. The freedom to say 'When can you come out? We are home most evenings' is a wonderful thing.
Are you involved in any whole family ministry? I'd love to hear about the opportunities that exist for families to come together to share their homes and their lives with others!

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-60947224345056081722014-01-02T12:17:00.001+11:002014-01-02T13:49:18.802+11:00A Degree and Debt Free

2013 came to a very exciting and fulfilling close after we traveled to Melbourne to attend our son's graduation ceremony for RMIT University. He gained a Bachelor of Technology (Computer Studies) and graduated with distinction. Those who have followed my blog over the past few years may remember his homeschool story. I am a strong believer in delight directed learning and allowed our son to concentrate on a subject throughout the high school years which he enjoyed which was computer programming. He began teaching himself to program at age 12 and at 16 he enrolled in a unit at RMIT University via Open Universities Australia (OUA). When his friends were sitting the HSC at 18 our son was partway through his University degree. His part time farm job provided income for the initial units and at 18 he set up his own web design business from home. I gave up trying to explain to people who kept asking when he was sitting the HSC. Blank stares ensued when I said he was already undertaking a degree. Now I am being asked what he is going to do now he has a degree! He is not unemployed. He has a successful business and we pray that it will continue to flourish.

We are so proud of his achievements and the fact that he was able to graduate debt free. As more design work came in, he enrolled in more units. The flexibility of the OUA programme made this possible. He studied at home and he worked from home. Exams were sat at an office in the city. Some days he would have an exam in the morning followed by a business meeting with a client! The years of hard work paid off and what a delight it was to take our first trip to Melbourne - which is now on my list of favourite cities for lots of reasons.

Students who study externally via OUA earn exactly the same degree as those attending the bricks and mortar institution. During our stay our son met up with some of the other OUA graduates putting faces to names of people he had met and befriended on online study forums. On graduation day students from RMIT marched down the street from the University to Federation Square. In the evening the graduation ceremony took place at Docklands Stadium. I had no idea how big RMIT was or how many students would be graduating. In a sea of thousands of cap and gowns, families watched on from the stands above as their sons and daughters waited for that moment when their name was announced and they could step onto their respective stages and receive their degrees. Large screens set up around the stadium meant we were able to see in much more detail this very special moment. I had to pinch myself a few times... it was really happening!

Academic achievements aside... what delights my soul more is knowing that my son continues to walk with the Lord. That his convictions concerning God's Word and the truth it contains are strong and steadfast. That he honours God with his life... how much more important it is to be qualified for Heaven through faith in Jesus!

We made the most of our stay in Melbourne. We walked for miles until we sussed out the trams (why are there no large signs explaining they are cashless and you need a card!) and I found the best little vintage shop in the universe where I bought my first chandelier. A real chandelier from the 1940's made of glass and not plastic unlike some modern reproductions it's for our vintage hire business but hangs outside under the verandah where it is easy to access and admire. Our trip home was eventful. A day of crazy heat that our van could not handle. It was 45 degrees (that's 113 f for my overseas friends!) as we drove through inner Sydney and the decision was made to stop for the night somewhere on the way home which meant we got to visit quite a few country cities and towns. I did most of my Christmas shopping in these towns and found Vinnies (a thrift store) that had vintage china at reasonable prices. Now that is quite something these days!

We were home for Christmas ... a quiet and intimate Christmas this year and an opportunity to relax and enjoy my favourite time of the year with my favourite people - my family.

2014 has already commenced . I pray that it will be a year of many blessings for you all. That God will reveal Himself to you more and more ...His ways, His plans, His paths. I hope I find more time to blog but no promises are being made. I hope that sharing some more of our homeschool journey has been an encouragement to someone ... maybe someone who is just starting out or a mom who is constantly being asked 'How is he going to get to university if he doesn't go to school?'. We have been there and know what that is like! The Lord goes with you wherever you go. He is with you every step of the way...so relax in that knowledge and enjoy the learning journey with the precious ones He has entrusted to you. Persevere dear homeschool friends.... you will not regret your decision.

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-66236420935633736082013-12-04T14:02:00.001+11:002013-12-04T14:13:40.177+11:00A Very Vintage Christmas

I'm writing this post and publishing from my smartphone which is a first for me. Perhaps it will allow me to post briefer posts on a more regular basis but no promises as December looks to be even busier with a trip to Melbourne planned the week before Christmas in order to attend our son's graduation ceremony from RMIT university.

I decided to concentrate my Christmas decorating to one room this year. Our open plan family kitchen/ dining room where we do most of our living! I set up our tree in the corner window and thought I would use some of the vintage props we purchased this year for our business.

I have also decorated our Stanley stove and will bring in more greenery for it closer to Christmas day. The picture I took a few years ago of our decorated candlelit stove seems to be getting lots of repins on pinterest at the moment.

This morning I brought in a little vintage step ladder and draped it with the long, slender fronds from the Kashmiri cypress which graces the front of our home. I adorned the steps with pine cones, tea light candles, doilies, a favourite Christmas book, added a bundle of cinnamon sticks embellished with a silk flower and now I have the perfect place to set out those little gifts that get lost under the tree!

Our Christmas tradition of making crackers for the table became a real family affair this year with my 8 year old twin daughters taking over! I had cut out some sweet pictures of British birds and nests from Country Living magazine. They made up the crackers from a kit, covered them in crepe paper and glued on silk ivy and white flowers. Apart from needing some help with tying on the ribbon, they made the crackers themselves with only verbal instructions. I was amazed at how they knew to fold in the edge of the paper to create a neat seam. They are so motivated to make another set which is a good thing as I have invited a number of the Chinese students and backpackers we have befriended this year to come for Christmas dinner. If they all decide to come we will have a full house! At least I will have enough plates with all this vintage china, cutlery and crystal I have collected and I have every intention of using it for my very vintage Christmas! Hear the collective groan from the children who know that it cannot go in the dishwasher! The very thought of serving guests food that we lovingly cooked and baked on plastic or paper plates is one that makes me shudder!

I have no idea whether this mobile app for blogger will let me upload more than one photo. So let's tap done for the text and see what happens!

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-26118060293888016592013-10-30T09:14:00.000+11:002013-10-30T09:14:34.507+11:00Her great Canadian Adventure begins!

I have to say I am a little envious. I have never met any of my blogger friends, not even the ones who live in Australia and it's only a dream to be able to fly to the other side of the world to meet those sweet ladies I have connected with, thanks to this blog, in North America. But my daughter is living my dream. Right now she is in Canada and has just spent the first few days of her trip in the beautiful city of Vancouver staying with my dear friend Camille from Flowers in His Garden. How grateful our family is to Camille and her family for showing such gracious hospitality to our daughter, picking her up from the airport and welcoming her into their home, looking after her and showing her the sights of the city such as Stanley Park. Camille has just put up a blog post about our daughter's visit so in a moment I will send you over to visit her where you can read more about her stay in Vancouver, see more photos and learn about some of the activities they managed to fit in during such a short space of time. I offered up profound apologies for sending over a tube of vegemite as one gift for the family (I'm English, can't stand the stuff and convinced you need to be a natural born Aussie or Kiwi to be able to digest it!) To compensate our daughter made the family her famous lemon meringue pie!

She's now on the prairie and has been reunited with her friend she met over here a few years ago when a team of young Canadians came over for a short term mission. She's also experiencing the coldest temperatures she has ever experienced in her life -12 c but feels like -20 according to the forecast she sent through! I'm sure it feels like -20 after you have come from one of the hottest springs we have experienced for some time. It reached the high 30's (that's close to 100 F for my friends overseas) in the week prior to her departure! During the next 2 weeks she will be taking a road trip with her friend visiting cities such as Calgary and Edmonton and seeing the Rocky Mountains. She's rather excited about the fact that there is a mall in Edmonton that has a roller coaster - really? She will return to Vancouver and spend another night with Camille and her family before flying out.

We are looking forward to seeing more photos of the country that is part of her heritage. My great grandmother came from a wealthy and prestigious family in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She married an English gentleman at Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal. All places I intend to visit when it is my turn to visit Canada!

My daughter returns home on my birthday and celebrates her 19TH birthday the following day. We are missing her, her cat is even missing her. We look forward to her return, hearing all about her great Canadian adventure and hopefully she will make me her lemon meringue pie on my birthday!

Do pop over and visit Camille's blog to read more about her stay in Vancouver and see those amazing fall leaves!

 http://flowersinhisgarden.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/down-under-up-here.htmlAnn at eightacresofedenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-80598298193078642402013-09-26T16:48:00.002+10:002013-09-26T16:48:38.689+10:00The Arbor

I have been wanting to share with you for some time now a picture of the beautiful arbor (or arbour as we would spell it in Australia!) that my husband built. It came about when I showed him a picture of an ornately carved Balinese style timber wedding canopy that I had pinned on my pinterest page from a wedding blog. 'I could build something like that' he said and that evening the ideas began to flow. He would design it to be transportable - in sections that come apart and are able to be reassembled on site. As our new family business is vintage china and accessory hire, our arbor needed to have more vintage elegance than the Balinese canopy which had originally caught my eye and that's when we thought 'veranda'... let's make it look like the entrance to a traditional Victorian villa home or permanent gazebo in a park or country estate, perhaps we could find some authentic cast iron lacework and work that into the design. I was starting to get excited... and here is where it became one of those 'meant to be' stories.

The very next day we went into town for a latte at our favourite cafe which has all manner of vintage wares for sale, a great place for any bowerbird. As I went for my weekly wander through the shop as we were waiting for our coffee, I just happened to glance down at the floor and saw four corner pieces of cast iron lacework from an old veranda. They were magnolia pink and I immediately knew they were meant to be ours. My husband could hardly believe it either and we promptly paid for what would be the most gorgeous feature of our soon to be built arbor.

We knew it would need more than just four corners of lacework to give it the look of a veranda and just one week later we found what we were looking for. A last minute decision to call in at an antique shop in another city where the china is usually too highly priced for our budget but out the back we discovered a shed stacked with all manner of furniture and vintage wares. Yet, another glance at the floor (it pays to look down!) and stacked under a table were more corners and panels of cast iron lacework. Not just any lacework but the exact match for our previous find and painted the same shade of magnolia pink. Could it be that they were salvaged from the same old house and ended up for sale in different cities? We were scared to ask the price as we had been looking on ebay and knew that people were asking hefty prices for authentic cast iron lacework so when the lady gave a very reasonable figure for all the panels we didn't hesitate.

We did go and look around some more salvage yards in the hope of finding authentic posts but old veranda posts are heavy and expensive so we had to settle for new turned posts from the hardware store. Lots of construction and painting ( Dulux antique white USA of course - my default paint colour) ensued but finally it all came together just in time for its first outing to a wedding expo - we already were showcasing our china and were given permission to take along and set up the arbor! We brought it home and set it up on top of our freestanding concrete water tank which has one of the best views over the neighbouring fields. The white arbor stands out with its verdant background of green and I try to imagine it set up in a field or on the lawn of a country estate. A chandelier sparkling in the sunshine and a couple about to take their marriage vows. We have had one genuine inquiry thus far for a wedding next year and if that eventuates I know from the setting they want it for, that it is going to look spectacular. We are hoping that it will be hired before then as I'm certain there are couples out there that want something different to the usual bamboo poles or flimsy metal garden arches for their wedding ceremony and not every park or country estate has a gazebo. In the meantime, I'm just enjoying having the opportunity to admire it every day and know that at least one of our children will one day God willing be married under the arbor their father built by hand. I can't wait until then for it to be used so I have plans for special tea parties under the arbor.

Hope you have enjoyed seeing our arbor and hearing of the providential story behind its construction. We are still hoping to find two more corner pieces to really finish it off and I know they are out there somewhere!

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-66778311848219294612013-08-07T15:41:00.000+10:002013-08-07T15:41:01.894+10:00Finding Time for Tea and a Blog Post!

I'm not sure whether this is an official return to blogging for me but today when the sun is shining and the afternoon feels more like a summer's day than the season of winter I made a decision to find some time to write a blog post and update you all on what has been happening at Eight Acres of Eden. So here goes!

Establishing our family business.

The main reason I needed to give up writing my blog for a season and I'm so glad I did. We have been ever so busy - not so much with actual bookings but in simply getting our name out there, networking with the right people and buying the right kind of products that people might want to hire for their wedding or special occasion. For those of you new to my blog it's a vintage china and accessory hire business and it's something we thought our region might appreciate. It's been costly (vintage china is not that easy to find here and op shops have realized its value so bargain finds are rare and at garage sales we are competing with the secondhand dealers!) and time consuming but it has been a lot of fun, we have met some lovely people and it is all worth it when someone tells you that the pretty china they hired for their event is what made their day so special! We have been to two wedding expos (another big expense!) and received a wonderful response. I was selected to style a table at one of the expos which will feature in a bridal magazine and had the chance to work with a very talented florist. So this year I have hired china for a wedding, a baby shower, a bridal shower and I have a booking for a spring wedding. So much more I could share but thought you would prefer to see the photos - just a few because my computer is just too old and slow.

A glimpse of my display at the bridal expo. Do you like the little silver sugar shaker that I found on ebay?

I turned my vintage picnic basket into a dessert station, stacking it up with pretty plates, bowls, cake forks and other vintage accessories. I thought this would be a great idea to set out alongside a dessert table.

Just one of my favorite teacups! I have over 200 trios and I'm now collecting dinner plates, silver cutlery and vintage glassware. Even when the trend for battered suitcases, fringed lampshades, lace embellished mason jars and old ladders at weddings is over I'm hoping that people will still want their tables set with beautiful classic china like this!

Wedgewood is now my everyday china! We were given this dinner set. It doesn't match in with my other English china which is mainly cream so we are using it for family dinners. It's from the 70's I believe and came with a matching ashtray which of course we don't need but the gravy boat is very useful when we have a roast dinner!

Family Life

Family life and the business have become intertwined. My daughter pictured above who just celebrated her 16TH birthday loves helping me with the business. It has helped her develop confidence when dealing and interacting with people and she has become a prolific pinner, finding so many wonderful ideas on pinterest for high teas and wedding decor. And I love the dresses she pins - so proud of her feminine style and it is obvious she understands that modest can be beautiful and fashionable!

My son celebrated his 21ST birthday recently. He is in his last semester of university study. Just 2 units to finish and he will have completed his degree. He continues to receive high distinctions. His web design business is becoming well established and he has plenty of projects to keep him busy.

Our 18 year old daughter is still a farm girl. Reliable, skilled and hardworking. She is very valued by her employer and she works just next door so she is still here and living at home which I am very grateful for. She has the travel bug though and is traveling to Canada later this year. She will stay with a friend she met here (her friend was also homeschooled) and I'm insanely jealous that she is also going to meet one of my blogger friends! I offered to accompany her and said I would carry her bags just so I could get to Vancouver where she will stay with my sweet friend Camille from Flowers in His Garden. But I am needed here. One day though....!

The twins are as lively and active as ever. Never a dull moment in this house even when they play chess! No my 3 year old does not know how to play chess but he watches and he is a fast learner - actually he was 2 when this photo was taken. Eight acres of Eden - you think peaceful, serene, quiet. Not a chance. It's LOUD! Double chattering, double laughter, add in a 3 year old with an impressive vocabulary, a cockatiel and budgies that try to compete with the children..... you get the idea! People often say to me' 7 children, how do you manage with them all living at home?' I don't think I could manage without them! It would be just way too quiet. What would I do if they were not here? I know the answer to that. I would clean my windows but I would much rather read stories to my children! I'm so excited to be reading the Elsie Dinsmore books to my twins now as I did with my older girls. The Life of Faith series I purchased all those years ago is now out of print so I'm very glad I kept it and one day I will read it to my grandchildren. I'm just hoping that this home will always be full of children so don't know when those windows will get cleaned! I will get to them - when I find the time!

And somehow I found the time to write this post. So much more I could share about family life and boy do I have some scary snake stories for you but that will have to wait for another time. I do want to show you something my clever, creative husband built. It's for our business, it's beautiful and I get to admire it every day. I can't wait to show you. It's the result of what happened when I showed my husband something I saw on the internet and subsequently pinned. He said 'I can build that'. Intrigued? You will have to wait for my next post which means just one thing ... 'I'll be back'! Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-88451332749144642072013-06-03T15:49:00.000+10:002013-06-03T15:49:18.790+10:00Taking Time Out for Tea

Beautiful china has become very much part of my life at home. It's also the reason why I must take some time away from writing my blog. As many of my regular readers may know our family has set up a small business in our region. This weekend I attended my first wedding expo showcasing the beautiful china, the handcrafted cake stands and other vintage inspired accessories we have been collecting over the past year to hire out for weddings, high teas and special occasions. Our booth proved to be very popular and the potential is there for this little business to take off. It's a lot of hard work and it takes time and time is so precious. The computer time I have during my busy days I must now commit to building the business. I simply cannot upkeep this blog and run a home and business at the same time. I have so many ideas for interesting and encouraging blog posts swirling around in my head but there simply isn't time to upload them.

I feel very blessed to have found a business that I can fit around my family. It's one that different members of our family can be involved with. My first born is my web designer - he finishes his degree in just 12 weeks time! I want to enjoy his company and keep on picking his brain whilst he is still living at home! One of my daughters is my assistant at markets and expos. The other children always come out and see us at the markets. My husband helps out a lot, we go hunting for treasure together. It has been his dream to have a family business and I want to give him my full support. I was very much affected by a prayer that our Pastor's wife prayed for all the wives in our church recently. She simply prayed that they would create beautiful homes for their families. I want to do that too and it all takes time. Even as I type this I am aware of tasks at home I need to catch up on after the weekend. Not much point in creating beautiful tables for others and not do the same for my family.

This is not goodbye. I will still be reading the blogs of sweet friends and leaving comments when I feel led to do so. I may post family news/events/home life snippets from time to time. I need to rethink my approach to the blog but my heart is heavy today. A dear friend of mine I met at the beginning of my blogging journey is taking a break from her blog for a very sad reason. On June 1st her teenage son went home to be with Jesus. He had battled a debilitating heart condition as well as Crohn's disease which Camille kept her blogging friends updated on. Each extra day following the diagnosis of the heart condition was a miracle and the Lord graciously gave Camille and her family another year with the fine young man they have raised and they saw their son become a man as he turned eighteen. I sent Austin and his family a package when he first became ill not knowing whether or not he would get to open it. He did and sent me a most gracious thank you note that I have kept. Many of you will already know Camille from her blog Flowers in His Garden. She is such an encouraging person and her posts always inspire and encourage me to stand firm in my faith, uphold the truth and trust in the promises of God. Please join me as you read this and pray for Camille and her family as they grieve the loss of their beautiful son. Reading her post today has jolted me into making this decision about taking a break from my own blog. I must be there for my family in this busy season of my life for none of us know how long we have left with any of our family members. Life is so fragile, so brief and I don't want to have regrets about how much time I spent writing a blog.

Hope you keep following and that the posts I have written in the past that will stay up here will continue to be useful and a source of encouragement to others. Cherish your families, create beautiful homes and gardens for them and live in them!

Until next time

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-64039052331039818542013-05-12T16:26:00.001+10:002013-05-12T16:26:45.104+10:00A Poem for Mother's Day

I had hoped to have a new post up by now but I have been so busy with life - home, hospitality, church and establishing our new business. I have upcoming markets and a bridal expo to prepare for - very excited about that! I didn't want to let Mother's Day pass by without a mention so I dug into my archives to repost a poem I first shared in 2009 and wrote for Mother's Day a number of years ago. I chose my new favourite photo of the smiler - my youngest son who is such a delight! I often tell him that he has a ministry of smiles, he doesn't understand what that is yet but we see the effect he has on people that come into our home - they simply fall in love with him. Every time I take hold of this boy's hand when we walk down the street I feel so special, so honoured to be his mother. A time will come when he will not need to take my hand so I just savour that moment and walk a little more slowly, it's these times I don't want to be over.

But there are days that are trying. Little boys (and girls!) are not always cooperative, they don't always want to hold your hand, they are not always willing to smile for the camera. This poem was written for a mum in her 'Hour of Need'. She's fictional but the situations are based on real life experiences - my real life experiences as a new mother. I pray these words minister to someone somewhere and that we all do our part to support others in their hour of need.

Enjoy!

Her Hour of Need

The toddler 's just walked mud on the floor
The Jehovah's Witnesses are at the door
The baby is crying, he wants his feed
This is a mum in her hour of need!

She hoped today, would simply run smooth
Because she's trying so hard to prove
That she's good at this job, her vocation, her life
A wonderful mother and loving wife

But dad just left an hour ago
In a bad mood, I'll have you know
The milk had run out, tea was black, Weetbix was dry
He didn't mean to make her cry
Drying her tears she thought
'I won't stress'
But then looked around and saw all the mess
Beds still to make, dishes to do
Jobs added up as she ran to the loo

But before she got there
A RAT A TAT TAT
'Oh no' she thought ' Who is that?'
'Good morning' they said
'I'm John, this is Fay'
'What do you think of the world's state today'
The mother smiled back at them
Her response could not wait
'Couldn't be better, marvelous, just great!'
Dejected, rejected they put Watchtowers away
And the mother returned to her stressful day

She picked up the baby and gave him his feed
Called over the toddler and started to read
All about Tigger and Winnie the Pooh
Piglet and Eeyore, Rabbit and Roo

The toddler enthralled, shouted
'Please mummy more!'
Then she remembered the mud on the floor!
Winnie the Pooh won this time around
And very soon there wasn't a sound
Two sleeping children were on her knee!

'Yipee!' the mum almost roared
Instead she whispered 'Thank you Lord'
And took some time out from her day
To talk with her God and quietly pray
For these two precious lives
Gifts from above
Hers to nurture, cherish and love
She prayed for strength, courage
These sort of things
To face the demands that motherhood brings
That God would lead her in His way
And fill her home with His peace that day

And God spoke to her spirit these words of life
You are a blessed mother and capable wife
Worth far above rubies which are precious and rare
My daughter I love you and deeply care
I sent you my Son to give you new life
And it is He who bears your pain and your strife
All your anxiety, the woes of each day
I can in this instant take away
Just cast them on Him
For He Cares for you
And right at this moment, start anew

The mother lifted her head, her heart filled with joy
Then she tenderly kissed each little boy
Tucked safe in their beds, she mopped up the floor
Till it was clean and sparkling once more
She finished her housework with time still to spare
So the evening meal she began to prepare

And into the garden, the Lord led her feet
To pick lovely freesias, their fragrance so sweet
Beauty and order had returned to her day
Because she had taken time to pray

So let's honour mothers
They are the hope for our nation
To raise a Godly generation
Encourage, support them, show that you care
Especially if you know, dad isn't there
Practically help a mum, do a kind deed
It may well be her hour of need

Dedicated to all mothers everywhere especially those celebrating today, down under! Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-6496295863971806642013-04-02T13:25:00.001+11:002013-04-02T13:31:41.100+11:00The Hidden Art of Homemaking at Easter

'There is no specific kind of house you must live in to be 'spiritual' - only the house the Lord has chosen for you, and the house with you in it. But whether it be a palace or a tree house, beauty is important, and this very simple form of producing beauty is really one of the most universally possible expressions of 'Hidden Art.' - from the ' The Hidden Art of Homemaking' by Edith Schaeffer 1914-2013 RIP

This Easter one of my favourite authors and homemaking mentor Edith Schaeffer went to be with the Lord. Her book 'The Hidden Art of Homemaking' forever changed my outlook on what I used to consider just everyday and even mundane domestic duties like cleaning, cooking and setting the table. She helped me realize that homemaking is indeed a hidden art and that you don't need to be affluent or a professional artist/designer/flower arranger to bring beauty into your home and life. I have entitled this post the Hidden Art of Homemaking at Easter as a tribute to Edith Schaeffer and to show you how I chose to express 'hidden art' by setting a beautiful table for our family's Easter Sunday dinner as we celebrated Jesus - alive, risen from the dead. Hallelujah!

An artist begins with a blank canvas. My canvas was a trestle table (I used 2) - those fold up plastic ones you buy at hardware stores. They are pretty ugly but are transformed with a covering. I used two cream crocheted vintage tablecloths that I purchased from an elderly lady. I appreciate the fact that someone spent hours at home creating these, that they would have been used for family dinners back in the 1950's/60's and are being used again.

The vintage china I used is from a dinner set I purchased recently. I knew it would be perfect for our Easter table. The silver cutlery was another recent find - at a market stall. I paid just $20 for a 12 piece setting that even came with a soup ladle and serving fork and spoon!

The crystal wine glasses were a garage sale find - just $2 each. I'm always buying up bud vases at garage sales. They are usually only a couple of dollars and are perfect for popping flowers into. No flower arranging skills needed. Just snip the stalks and pop into the vessel - you could use small jam jars or bottles if you don't have bud vases. I wanted to use purple flowers on my table after being inspired by some pictures from a post from mammka my newest follower, all the way from Hungary! Purple is the colour of Easter - thank you Mammka for reminding me of this! My younger children loved helping to pick the sprigs of purple salvia from the kitchen garden.

See how lovely they look going down the table!

I used another garage sale vase to hold camellias. It is the wrong season here for daffodils and tulips that are the usual centrepieces on Easter tables. These camellias are scented and grow near to my kitchen door. The shrub is covered in blooms at the moment.

My husband had to remind me not to become distracted by 'prettying the table' and forget about the food! The Easter lamb nearly didn't happen. Our oven has been out of action for weeks after the multi-function switch malfunctioned. Thankfully, we were able to borrow a tabletop turbo oven from a friend and it cooked our lamb to perfection! We used our pizza oven to cook the potato and kumara and our guests brought the colourful platters of salad. I set one platter out on one of my upturned vintage crates. Gotta love pinterest! Old crates that would have been firewood just a few years ago are transforming homes and tables! And I discovered tea towels fit them perfectly. I found my 'Faith' tea towel in a newsagents shop!

I also bought the one monogrammed with something that is dear to my heart and used it as a tray cloth. These tea towels were very inexpensive. I used vintage milk jugs to hold bunches of mint picked fresh from the garden. Lamb and mint are the perfect partners. Every garden/home needs a pot of mint.

And what would a Easter party be without a dessert table and chocolate! We don't make the Easter bunny the focus of our Easter but as rabbits are one of God's creatures and generally regarded a symbol of new life alongside eggs, I'm not concerned about using one here and there to decorate my table. And if someone was to ask my children if the Easter bunny had visited their house I'm sure they would have responded in the same way my daughter did one year with childlike amazement to someone who asked if santa was coming to see her. 'Don't you know? Christmas is all about Jesus! And even in the presence of chocolate, rabbits and eggs, Easter for my children is all about Jesus too!

Another market stall find - vintage scales in mint green hold a plate of gingerbread.

One of my cake stand creations hold sweet teatime treats - all purchased, as without my oven I could not bake in advance. My daughter and her friend managed to cook a chocolate mocha pudding for dessert in the pizza oven. We served it in vintage sundae dishes topped with vanilla ice cream and tiny, pastel chocolate eggs. For dessert we had to retreat inside as the showers became heavier but even the rain did not dampen spirits on this most spiritual of days.

 We attended an Easter production at church on Good Friday, an outreach picnic lunch on Saturday and on Sunday we came together as a family and gathered around the table that you see in these photos. We talked, we laughed, we enjoyed good food and good company at home in the beautiful setting that God has given us where we make our home and live meaningful lives. Was this any less spiritual than attending a church service? It was more than just a family dinner - you see the Lord was present and we had gathered in His name to remember His sacrifice at Calvary and to celebrate His resurrection. It was a celebration I felt deserved a beautiful table and I took delight in decorating it.

 My girls wanted to dress in special dresses and wear flowers in their hair. I'm sure Edith Schaeffer would have approved of our efforts to bring beauty and creativity into our Easter family gathering and it is with her words in regard to family gatherings around meal tables that I close.

'The 'conservation' of family life does not consist of sticking a rose in the middle of a table; it is a deeper thing than that. .... And in this need to get back to 'gracious living', to real communication among people living together, it seems to me one place to start could be the meal-time moments, and the careful preparation of the background for conversations at that time.'

  Edith Schaeffer 1914-2013 RIP.

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-48998261159439290472013-03-26T09:42:00.000+11:002013-03-26T09:42:17.052+11:00Homemaking - What I don't do.

I was trying to think of a topic for a new blog post and it occurred to me that when it comes to homemaking that we tend to use our blogs to tell others what we do - the food we bake, the rooms we decorate, the gardens we plant. If you have followed my blog you would be aware that I bake my own bread, grow some of our own food, teach my children at home, love to decorate my home at Christmas and have recently set up a family business. I have been asked by others how I do it all and the answer to that question is 'I don't.' There are many things I don't do - oh I would love to do many of these things but I have come to realize that I will never master every homemaking art, that I will fail miserably at some and that there are only 24 hours in a day and I must determine which of the home arts and household activities I choose to pursue and those I will let go.... so here is a list of some of the tasks I don't do. You might be surprised but I have my reasons. That is not to say I will never do them. There are seasons in a woman's life and who knows, maybe I'll dust that sewing machine off one day in the future. All I ask is that you don't judge me if I never get round to doing some of the following things...

I DON'T

1.Make my own laundry powder/liquid. I know many of you do. I made up a batch once and was disappointed with the results. It was also another activity to add to my ever growing 'to do' list that needed some serious editing and this was one task that I chose to take off and I don't feel guilty about it. I buy an Australian made phosphate free/septic tank safe laundry powder in bulk from the automotive parts shop - actually my husband usually buys it. As he is in the automotive trade he can buy it at a reduced rate.... after all mechanics do have dirty overalls that need washing! It's very reasonably priced and lasts us for ages.

2. Knit my own dishcloths I never learned to knit though I do know how to cast on and can do a few rows of garter stitch but that's the extent of my mastery of this home art. I was inundated with booties/jumpers/hats from the knitters among my family and friends when I had babies so had no need to pick up the needles and knitting never became a skill I needed to master. Am I upset about this? No, it's not something I am very drawn to but I can understand why many find it therapeutic. I'm happy to admire their creations and occasionally even buy a knitted item and in doing so support a local, handmade business and I'm grateful to those who buy the handcrafted cake stands and soy candles in teacups I make.

3. Make my own soap/beauty products I've certainly considered it. I have books with recipes for all manner of homemade beauty products. I know with some time invested I could master it - would have to be in the evenings when my young children are not around as caustic ingredients are involved in the process but it's another activity to add to the list. There are lots of soap makers in my region. I have friends who make soap. So for now I'm purchasing local handmade goats milk soap - the one I buy is long lasting and doesn't turn to a gloopy mess on the vanity. I'm very happy with it.

My twins in matching outfts.

Skirts and bows are handmade but not by me!

4. Sew my children's clothes - very often. I can sew, I own a sewing machine, I can transfer a pattern, I know what tailor's tacks are and what a seam allowance should be. I sigh when I see the beautiful hand sewn dresses that some mothers make for their girls. If I am honest, machine sewing frustrates me -when fabric puckers or a seam is not straight. My back is turned when at the sewing machine and I need to concentrate as I am very much a novice. I cannot give my attention to younger children as I can when I bake. My house falls into disarray if I sit for too long at the machine. I sometimes find hand sewn dresses for my girls at garage sales for just a few dollars and take delight in that but I buy most of our family's clothing online from a company that sells many designer garments at drastically reduced prices. Most of the time I am paying less than the cost of fabric and patterns. Recently, I needed a liner for a vintage picnic basket. I had found some gorgeous vintage fabric covered in roses. I considered making the liner myself but decided to ask a friend who is a skilled sewer and pay her for her time. She did a beautiful job. I did not feel guilty!

 5. Have an immaculate home. If you were to call over now you would find skateboards/scooters on the patio that could really do with a good sweep - when you live surrounded by trees, leaves on the patio are a constant.. Only needs a breeze. Gumboots piled at the door. All good intentions of organized shoe storage after adding numerous pins on my 'beautiful storage' board on pinterest have not been realized. If you come to my house and see the boots in a neat row please realize I did that frantically 5 minutes before you arrived! There are signs of children everywhere - legos, blanket cubby houses/dens and a trail of peach foam bullets down the hallway. Signs of mum everywhere - stacks of plates and china on the buffet unit and a huge drill press on the dining room table. Signs of dad and ongoing renovations - power tools and piles of Bunnings receipts. Signs of life in this home. People live here and do stuff!

6. Make every meal from scratch. I love to use fresh ingredients and most of our meals are cooked at home but I do make use of some pre-prepared ingredients. I always have jars of Aldi's organic pasta sauce in the pantry to make a speedy spag bol on days when we are running late. You will find snap frozen vegetables in my freezer and a jar of preservative free curry paste in the fridge together with a tub of Greek yoghurt and Aldi's feta cheese. I don't make my own pasta and I don't feel guilty about that but I would feel guilty about using pesto from a jar right now to stir through pasta as I have a huge crop of basil in the garden. It's quick and easy to make so the pesto is homemade but the pasta is not. I'm okay with that.

7.Always shop at farmers markets. I used to have an idealistic picture of the shopper I would be. It featured me in a flowing dress, wicker basket in hand perusing organic produce at the farmer's markets and selecting cheeses to pop into my basket along with a bouquet of flowers at the trendy deli store. The reality is a 30 minute dash around Aldi. I shop there because it saves me money and time, they have a good organic range and Australian olive oil at an affordable price. I don't shop at the deli for cheeses, pickles and oils because I can't afford their prices. There is rarely a bouquet popping out of my basket - it would cut my grocery budget and I can fill up jars with herbal bouquets from my garden for free. I shop less at the farmer's market after the last stall that had all organic produce at reasonable prices (and my main reason for visiting the markets) had to pull out of the market - I was informed by the stallholder, a result of losing funding for the supported employment project that ran the market garden and stall. I'm still bewildered about that.

8 Fret anymore over the things I never achieved or have mastered. I have mentioned this before - I am a failure at making macarons. Two attempts resulted in pastel pancakes. Still tempted to give it one more go because I know how good they look on my cake stands. I don't really care if they are a flop again. I'll be happy to stick to fair dinkum Aussie afternoon tea fare - slices, thick and chunky and rolled in coconut or dusted with icing sugar which will still be served and enjoyed at afternoon tea for years to come! Cake decorating is another skill that has eluded me so no Lightening McQueen cakes for my boy's birthday. I have no plans to join classes. As long as the cake has candles my children are happy!

These are more things I do not do but don't have time to list them all. I don't have guests every weekend even though hospitality is a passion of mine. I've kept this list to homemaking but there are other activities I don't do. I don't play the piano and we are not a musical family unless you count singing in the shower or worship time at church. I don't go to the gym, cycle, run or power walk. I don't have elaborate skin and make up routines. I don't write ebooks, speak at conferences or attend committee meetings. I don't run a ladies Bible study or lead any ministry programme at church. (We are involved as a family in a ministry to international students.) I don't keep this blog updated as much as I would like to.

What are some of the things around the home that you don't do? What do you not make from scratch? What are your homemaking/cooking shortcuts? What did you try but never master? Do you ever feel the pressure to accomplish all those homemaking projects you see pinned on pinterest or blogged about on blogs? To be good at lots of things and have 'pinworthy' pictures to prove it?

 A cake stand awaits macarons but I'm sure the family will not mind if they never eventuate!

Maybe next time I will share about my third attempt at macarons when my oven gets fixed. Still waiting on the part it needs and for the electrician to come back and fix it so all baking is on hold at the moment. Will it work or will I only have pastel crazy paving spread across my baking tray? Might be a fun post. If enough people dare me to try it I might give it a go, take pictures along the way and post them whatever the outcome.

May your Easter be most blessed as we celebrate life and remember the One who died and rose again that we might live and enjoy His presence forever.

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-21338774930501440612013-03-06T10:11:00.000+11:002013-03-06T10:11:09.646+11:00Pull-apart Breads and Garden Harvests

Sweet or Savoury? It's up to you with this simple recipe for a sweet or savoury 'pull apart' that uses the pizza dough cycle of a bread machine and is later baked in the oven after a short rising time. You could make it by hand of course but I usually opt for the convenience of the 45 minute pizza/French bread dough cycle of my Panasonic bread machine - purchased for $5 at a garage sale a few years ago. I have since found a friend another Panasonic to replace her old one, had to pay $15 but still worth it she says - they are the best bread machines!

For savoury scrolls all you do is leave out the sugar and rather than sprinkling sugar and cinnamon over the melted butter before rolling up you choose a savoury filling - cheese, herbs and garlic perhaps or my favourite - sun dried tomatoes, spinach (I have a year round supply in my garden!) and feta cheese. I make this bread at least 3 times a week because it is so easy. I favour the savoury version because I often make a sweet sourdough bread by hand with apricots and almonds. I will put the dough on at morning tea time and it is ready to bake to come hot and fresh out of the oven at lunchtime. You will find savoury pull apart breads at Brumby's and Baker's Delight but they cost a lot more than a conventional loaf. Why buy when they are so easy to make at home? And I must add the shop versions seem very stingy as they are rather 'flat' - we would need two if not three to feed our family at one meal. That's at least a $12 purchase.

Into the bread machine pan add the following
4 cups plain flour
1 tsp salt
21/2 tsps dried yeast
1/2 cup sugar (omit if you want savoury)
1/3 cup approx soft butter
1 egg
1 cup of warm milk

Start up your dough cycle and for me just 45 minutes later (as I get on with other things) the dough is ready to be rolled out. I roll mine out on some baking paper into a rectangular shape.
Brush lightly with melted butter and sprinkle over your filling of choice. You could use dried fruit with brown sugar or rapadura for a sweet filling. I always try to have green and red in my savoury filling ingredients as they peek through the scrolls when baked and look very appetizing! Roll up lengthwise into a sausage shape and cut into slices. I usually mange to get a dozen out of one roll. Place close together on a baking paper lined round tray or cake tin in a circle for a circular pull apart. Leave a gap in the centre if you want a ring/wreath. I usually use a spring form rectangular tin. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for about an hour in a warm place. Bake for about 20- 25 minutes until risen and golden in a hot oven. I use the fan bake setting at 180/190 c. The rolls usually rise up and fill the tin as shown in my picture.

For lunch we usually slice our savoury rolls and fill with salad and cheese or tuna. They are also great to serve with soup. I serve mine on a bread board for people to share and pull apart at the table.

Enjoy! Thought you would like to know what our garden is producing at the moment

Bananas! The recent storms brought down some of our banana trees but thankfully the bunches were ready. They ripened quickly and it's been banana bread heaven around here the past few weeks. Secret ingredient aside from very ripe bananas for the best banana bread - sour cream or Greek yoghurt. Result is delicious, moist banana bread!

Lebanese cress. I have sung its praises before. We have a never-ending supply. We grow one batch in a large pot but you want to see how it grows in or near water - prolific. When the lettuces wilt or go to seed we always have this amazing salad micro green/herb to fall back on.

Cherry guavas and passion fruit. Have abundant crops of these fruits this year. I have made one batch of guava jelly but need to make some more. My house smells of passion fruit at the moment! The vine that covers the chicken house is loaded. The children have been eating passion fruit for weeks now - they love them and bring up basket loads each day. I will have to declare today a jam making day. Or do I make lime cordial? The Tahitian lime gave a very good crop this year. We also picked our first kaffir lime yesterday and the rosella plants we only put in a few months ago produced - rosella chutney is amazing. We had just enough to make a couple of jars - already consumed. I also have it on good advice that there are Davidson plums on one of the trees we planted in the orchard. Not quite ready yet which is good - I haven't ventured down there recently because of my aversion (and allergic reactions) to leeches which are just everywhere after all the recent rain. I even have leeches outside the door and have found them in the house - yikes, pass the salt!

Time to plant again soon - autumn has arrived and in some ways it is even better than spring. The soils have been watered with the late summer rains and the raised beds are ready. The sun came out yesterday for the first time in weeks and was a cause for much rejoicing. Children were climbing trees, a son managed to have a tennis lesson and I actually folded some dry towels. Proud to say I never used the dryer once - it really ought to be retired completely as it has not been used for years, not since we put up our ladders inside and added a line under the veranda.

Time to go and make some bread and jam and hope you don't mind me blogging about such humble things!

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-35426698010620895732013-02-25T10:52:00.000+11:002013-02-25T10:52:44.790+11:00A Dresser Dream Fulfilled

It's been a long held dream of mine - to be the owner of a kitchen dresser. When we were newlyweds living in a tiny one bedroom flat in London with an even tinier kitchen I would flip through pages of Ideal Home magazine which featured beautiful and expansive farmhouse kitchens in the English countryside. When we were packing up tea chests of wedding gifts to send across the world to New Zealand I had to cull my stack of Ideal Homes so I pulled out the pages to create a scrapbook of the homes that appealed to me the most. Almost every kitchen picture featured a timber dresser stacked with china. I still have some of those original pictures and even though the magazines are from 1989 those farmhouse kitchens have a timeless quality with their AGA stoves, butler's sinks and timber dressers with open shelves.

The dream of a living in the country was realized and for the last 23 years we have been blessed to live in a beautiful part of the world in country towns and rural locations. Our first kitchen had orange bench tops and dark veneer cupboards and my husband built me a new kitchen with cabinets using recycled rimu, a New Zealand native timber - it was beautiful but it didn't have a dresser. We moved onto a 300 acre dairy farm with a stone farmhouse. It had a small kitchen with timber units but no dresser. We crossed the Tasman and the country living dream continued when we found our eight acres of eden. The redeeming feature of the interior of the owner built house constructed with a hodge podge of recycled materials was the fact that it had a new country style kitchen with solid cabinets constructed from brushbox timber. It even had a buffet unit - almost but not quite a kitchen dresser.

The buffet unit which used to live in the kitchen has moved into the dining room.

 It houses a growing collection of vintage glassware!

The dream of a dresser lived on but it was still very much a want and not a need until this year when my husband agreed that we needed a practical storage solution for the the vintage china we have collected over the last year which is going to be hired out for events and hopefully earn us some extra income as we set out to see another long held dream realized and establish a family business.

And so the search for a dresser began. One that would fit into our home which has limited wall space - one of the drawbacks of having so many French doors! I looked in secondhand shops and saw some very nice dressers and units but all were beyond our present budget. The dresser would remain a dream. We spotted a beautiful walnut sideboard in a vintage store. We both liked it. It had once been a dresser. It could be turned back into a dresser with added shelves but its price tag was already more than we wanted to pay. We debated and in the end I made the decision to walk away saying to my husband 'We'll kick ourselves if we walk into a garage sale and find a dresser.' As if that was going to happen.

Of course you know the end of the story. The very next day we walked into a garage sale. The owners were moving house and there it was against the garage wall, a timber dresser at an amazing price. We didn't hesitate, gave the lady a deposit and my husband raced off to the ATM and returned later to pick it up with the ute. When he returned the lady told him that she could have sold it ten times over. He was also treated to coffee and cake and the lady seemed very pleased to know that her dresser would continue to be loved by its new owner. It was quite a day for garage sales that day. I also found china and a beautiful floral quilt which now graces my bed!

Our road to nowhere during the floods of this weekend which kept us at home.

We used a beautiful vintage oil lamp in the evenings when we were without power.

Our home is on a hillside and does not flood, though during the high winds a large gum tree fell onto our farm shed causing thousands of dollars of damage. I will be calling the insurance company today.

You see the reason I have been away from the blog is nothing to do with having just been flooded in for days without power. No, I have been spending lots of time in my kitchen standing and staring at my dream dresser as I bake at my kitchen island. Yes, it is in the kitchen after the dining room wall where it was supposed to go proved too small thanks to an internal power box. The kitchen buffet unit was moved onto that wall and the dresser fitted perfectly on the kitchen wall. As it was narrower it created more space in the kitchen - much needed when twins and a three year old boy drag over chairs to help mix cakes around the island!

I now know why people love dressers. They hold so much china! The cupboards hold over 70 trios, dinner plates and bowls. The shelves display a Royal Albert dinner service and a total of 10 teapots and a whole row of bone china milk jugs. Favourite books are stacked at the end. A jug of herbs and a set of 12 modern vintage style teacups are set out always at hand for when a friend calls in for a cup of tea. The drawers hold vintage napkins, cake servers and cutlery sets. When I needed to pull out china to photograph for our website there was no reaching into the back of a deep and dark cupboard. I could see at a glance exactly which china I needed. Oh I could sing the praises of my dresser all day long! It was worth waiting 23 years for!

I resisted the temptation to take to it with the antique white paint. When you live in a house with white tiles throughout, a white kitchen would be far too clinical and there is something about the warmth and homeliness of natural timber that tugs at my heart and prompts me to not even entertain thoughts of white or faux painted finishes.

There is one more kitchen dream to be fulfilled. I have a wood stove, a cooks shelf, a dresser and all that is needed now is the walk in pantry. One that is large enough to hide away the big stainless steel fridge freezer and have enough shelves for all the jars of preserves, if our guavas and passion fruit continue to keep producing as they have this year. I made mango chutney over the weekend and thanks to having a gas stove top I was able to keep on cooking when the power was out. Time to go and make some bread now I can bake again. Any excuse to be near to my dresser!

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-72321766269336226802013-01-24T14:57:00.000+11:002013-01-24T14:57:14.939+11:00Editing My Life - blogging.

I recently spent some time taking an inventory which involved a pleasant process - counting teacups! I needed to know how many I owned for I have a vintage china hire website under construction. It is an extension of the little cake stand business I began last year. It started as a mother/daughter business but with lots of hard work and determination we can see the potential for it to become a true family business and I have the full support of my husband who encourages me to keep adding to the china collection so we can cater for larger functions! We have been spurred on by the successful outcome of our first wedding hire and can see so many possibilities. It really is the business of bliss seeing a beautiful table being set to celebrate the most special of days in the life of another person.

Once upon a time I didn't think I would need any more teacups. I had a few pretty ones, enough for a tea party with friends but now I need more and I'm having to try and find room in my home for them but my cupboards are full and overflowing with china. A large dresser is needed and somewhere to house it. Another piece of furniture may have to be sacrificed, it is likely I will have to do some rearranging.

I already have a busy life - a family to raise, children to teach, a home and property to look after. Am I crazy adding in another activity - a business? Can I do it? In my own strength I cannot - only with God's help, guidance and direction. As I try to find room in my home for all the china I also need to find room in my life for the business and all its commitments. And one of the ideas that popped into my mind as I counted up those teacups was to take an inventory of my life and then begin to edit. Editing is something I really needed to do and one of the big areas for me was blogging and that is the first area I felt the Lord prompt me to edit which is why you do not hear from me as often as you used to. I am not giving up blogging but only doing it when I am able and only writing posts which will either contribute to the record of the life and adventures of this family or truly benefit another person.

I'm still working out how to fit in the writing of my blog so to make time for that I seriously needed to come up with a new approach to reading blogs. I hope that the method I have chosen may be useful to someone like me who used to be enthralled by blogs and did so much blog hopping it's a wonder I didn't grow webbed feet and start croaking!

So that's where I started - I stopped hopping. It was so tempting to look down a list knowing there would be like-minded people out there or more likely an interesting post would catch my eye. The 5 minutes I intended to spend catching up with a friend could soon become half an hour or more. I decided to stop looking at blogrolls and not open or stay around posts which advertised blog hops.

I have not stopped visiting my friends - those sweet and lovely gals I have met from different places in Australia, the US, Canada, Scotland and New Zealand. I'm just not always on the doorstep. So if a friend is reviewing a novel which does not interest me I don't visit that day but if she is sharing a recipe which sounds like one my family would enjoy I'll pop over and pin it. And if she has some family news to share I'll take the time to say congratulations or let her know I am praying for her. If she has just made something for her home which I think is just gorgeous I'll most definitely leave a compliment or a word of encouragement.

And then the are the blogs that offer so much advice and inspiration for your life - for Christian living, homemaking, homeschooling, gardening, reading cooking. If you are interested in it you can bet your bottom dollar there is a blog or multiple blogs for it. Many are hugely popular with large numbers of followers. Here is where I had to do lots of editing. I decided I would choose one or occasionally two blogs for each of the areas I was interested in. Inspiration for Christian living - that was easy. I stuck with a well known blog I have followed from the start which has always inspired me to be a wise woman and build my home. Can you guess which blog that is? Clue - button is on my sidebar!

Homesteading was a little harder - so many to choose from but there could only be one. That button is also on my sidebar but it's not my intention to send people blog hopping! I read one other Australian blog which focuses on simple living and homemaking for it's local content and gardening advice for my climate. I limited the recipe blogs to just two - I read Annabel Langbein's as I'm such a big fan of her recipes and fresh, simple approach to food and the other is a blog where I once guest posted and the author not only has great recipes but a beautiful heart for hospitality. Good food and hospitality go hand in hand!

And finally there are blogs which I treat more like a magazine. Some refer to them as the beautiful blogs. They usually have more pictures than words and those shots are usually styled. Lots of visual inspiration. I can think of one which belongs to a most gracious lady and grandmother. I don't know her and have never commented at her blog ( she already has a tonne of admirers) but her gorgeous tea tables have given me lots of inspiration for my business and I'm very grateful that she takes the time to do this - do take note I mentioned she is a grandmother. Her children have left home. There are seasons for blogging and what you can offer the world.

And this is all I can offer now. I hope you understand. I'm still editing my life. I've made adaptations and there are so many goals I have set and projects I would like to try but I have said two important words to lots of those activities. 'NOT NOW'!! Some things I have let go of all together and if I never make a quilt this side of heaven well that's fine. I can only keep stitching together the pieces of this life that lie in my lap right now. If I don't stitch those parts well and attempt to add in more pieces it's likely that the quilt (my life) will start to come apart at the seams. Maybe sometime I will tell you more about what I don't do and why.... it's quite a list!

The new school term starts next week. My adult daughter is in Thailand working at an orphanage, it is her second missions trip. I can't believe I just called her that - my adult daughter. She grew up so quickly! I have lots of preparations for next week. Need to get my house back in order and my girls are begging me to start their lessons now. They don't want to wait until next week! I am needed so I'm signing off.

I'll be back - just not sure when!
Enjoy the rest of your week.

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-4176590050428387412013-01-02T16:00:00.000+11:002013-01-02T16:05:15.810+11:00A Simply Beautiful Christmas

Christmas 2012 was simple and beautiful. Simple because I chose to keep it simple - no new decorations or updated colour schemes as much as I loved the woodland themes that kept popping up on blogs and pinterest that would have been perfect for our home in its forest setting. So once again my tree was decked out in traditional red, green and gold. It was meant to be because someone bought my twins outfits that matched the tree!

My Christmas had to be simple because I have been so busy this past year and especially in the weeks prior to Christmas having set up a business making handcrafted cake stands and soy candles in vintage teacups that took me to markets all over the region. I did not have time or the inclination to spend hours in busy malls so I was glad that we had decided to keep gifts simple. I had bought a few gifts throughout the year for the children - puzzles, books and games. On one of the few occasions that I did venture into Target I found new swimmers and rash vests for the girls discounted by forty percent. This was something they needed and over summer they are spending lots of time in the pool. Even the most humble of gifts brought delight to the faces of children on Christmas morning!

Our beautiful boy celebrated his third birthday just before Christmas. He was thrilled with the big, beautiful quality Tonka fire engine with its moving ladder, bells and whistles. I don't think he minds at all that I found it at a garage sale for just ten dollars - in perfect, as new condition!

He didn't mind at all that his birthday cake was not elaborately decorated and looked nothing like the racing car and 'Lightning McQueen' cakes his sister had shown him on pinterest! He was more impressed with the sparklers I think!

Christmas Dinner was simple and beautiful. Simple because I chose to use what I already owned to set the table which was from the collection of vintage china I have gathered over the past year. All the plates, silver cutlery and table linen were found in garage sales! The cake stands are ones I have made for hiring out. The only new addition to the table was a set of pastel wine goblets and pale blue tumblers - the pale blue tumblers were found at Big W - 12 for $10 and the beautiful goblets were my Christmas gift from my children and were purchased online, days before Christmas. I was so thrilled when they they arrived at the Post Office on Christmas Eve. They made my table look extra special and setting a beautiful table is something I just delight in! And once again, I made the crackers from kits and recycled trims from previous years - mine were assembled on Christmas Eve as I had already made one set for a friend and almost ran out of time to make my own!

We set the tables up outside on the patio under the veranda. Three extra guests joined us - my son's girlfriend, my friend's son from Germany who is staying with us over Christmas and New Year and we managed to persuade a work colleague of my husband to come along who would have spent Christmas Day on his own. Initially, he was reluctant, he didn't want to impose but on Christmas morning we sent him this message - 1PM, Menu : Roast Turkey with pear cider gravy, lemon duck, maple roasted vegetables, spinach and paw paw salad. Dessert - pavlova. He sent a text back immediately 'I'll be there, what can I bring?'

The only menu item that did not eventuate was the spinach and paw paw salad because the spinach wilted in the intense heat of Christmas Day but the turkey which had sat in a brine overnight and then cooked in pear cider was just amazing. The most tender, moist and delicious turkey you could imagine thanks to the brine and the second consecutive year we have enjoyed this on Christmas Day - thanks to Annabel Langbein's fantastic recipes and tips which have made me a better cook.

 Pavlova was a must have dessert with having an overseas guest but I confess I did not make my own pavlova base but didn't want to buy one that had preservative in its ingredients. Most supermarket pavlova bases do but Aldi's to my surprise didn't and it was actually very good if not better than the ones I have made in the past. It saved me lots of time this year and all that was needed was to whip up some cream and pile on fresh fruit - simple and beautiful because of the fruit which is in season at Christmas time in Australia - peaches, blueberries, strawberries and mango!

Our Christmas was also beautiful because it was spent in a beautiful place. How blessed I felt as we sat down to dinner at home and looked out over the trees - the green of the forest seemed even more intense on a day filled with radiant sunshine. The cicadas were deafening but this is the sound of summer in Australia!

On Boxing Day we took our guest from Germany out for the day and showed him the World Heritage rainforest that is not too far from where we live. We debated over which waterfall to walk to as we had several we could choose from. We opted for the one which you are able to walk behind! After our walk we had a picnic lunch and met other people we knew who were also showing their family and friends from the city the beautiful corner of the world that we live in!

 It has been a simply beautiful Christmas and New Year. We have enjoyed picnics, dinners, movies, church services and outreaches, firework displays, hot days at the beach and cool days at the ice rink. We stayed away from the shopping malls except to buy groceries and essentials. The children and young adults have been bushwalking, surfing, swimming, ice skating and fishing. We have visited our new neighbours on two occasions - just popping in to say hello and spending two to three hours talking with them each time is a good sign that we are going to get along isn't it!

2012 was somewhat of an unexpected journey for me and yes, that is a direct reference to the Hobbit for I tend to identify with Bilbo Baggins for there is nothing I would rather do than stay in my hobbit hole with my pantry, my garden, my china and my doilies. Oh how I loved and laughed out loud at that part of the script in the movie and thought of the ever growing doily mountain in my home which is inevitable if you love vintage tables! And I could just blog about that and be happy but God knocked on my door this year and prompted me to go on a bit of an adventure. I have met a lot of people through starting up a little home based business which took me into the marketplace and the very heart of our community. We have started attending a bigger church which we love and feel very much a part of. The Lord has expanded our horizons, opened many doors and shown us the people around us who need to see and experience this life in Christ that we live as a family where every member loves Jesus and seeks to honour Him in everything that they do. What a joy it has been to welcome so many people into our home over the past few weeks. What a privilege to serve the Lord in this beautiful place where we endeavour with God's help to raise our beautiful children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

And as for 2013 and this blog. I have been seeking the Lord. It takes so much time to blog when your internet connection runs at snails pace. This post took a ridiculous amount of time today because of photos taking forever to upload. I'm still working out how to fit it all in and really appreciated the post  by Amy at Homestead Revival on her priorities for 2013. She is so on my page! So like her I will blog when I am able. I will not write guest posts or accept guest posts. Giveaways will be few and far between. Adverts will be unlikely to appear here unless it is my own endorsement for someone or something that I believe will truly be of benefit to others. As Amy stated 'I must be diligent about living it first' and I believe she is right, otherwise our message is empty and hypocritical. The theme of my blog will always be 'Raising beautiful Children in a Beautiful Place' for that is what God has called me to do. I cannot do that from the confines of an office from behind a computer even though my family are just metres away and home during the day - I am drawn away from them into another world when I am online. My blog was always intended to be a family journal but one that would encourage others to cherish and sow into the life of their family and the people around them, so I must return to sowing in order to be able to share with you the harvest to encourage you to be a sower that you may also reap. That is my heartfelt prayer. I invite you to join me on this journey again in 2013 and when I am not here know that I am at work in my eight acres of eden.

May your 2013 be a year when you sow and reap. Your family will grow up before your eyes and if they are still living at home it may only be for a season. It is a year for getting our priorities in order fellow bloggers.
May God bless you and all your beautiful families.

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-2506983190887508282012-12-18T10:32:00.000+11:002012-12-18T10:32:21.537+11:00Jesus at the Centre of my Christmas

I have quite a collection of Christmas ornaments. Some are rather lovely. Gilded angels, sparkly stars, shiny baubles and one of my favourites, a Saint Nicholas figurine dressed in a more traditional coloured robe rather than the familiar red and white suit which alludes to the long, commercial association with a certain soft drink. But there is one humble, handmade ornament in my collection. A wooden heart, painted red, embellished with the name of the One who is at the centre of it all - JESUS my Saviour, my Lord and my friend and the very reason I live. I always place this heart which bears His name high up, near the top of the tree in a prominent place and tell my children that the Jesus heart cannot hang from a lower branch but needs to be seen and placed up high because He is the most high God.

At a local shopping mall santa has been given a throne right in the centre of the forecourt. The queue to meet him is long, so I take my children behind the throne and show them a small glass case which holds a Nativity scene. Due to its location and size many people would not be likely to see it and walk past on their way to the supermarket. It has not been given a place of prominence. Whilst I am thankful that the Nativity scene has not been removed altogether, each time I step behind santa's throne and see that forgotten display I determine that Jesus will be at the centre of our family's celebration of Christmas. We sing a song at church 'Jesus at the centre'. One of the lines is 'From my heart to the Heavens, Jesus be the centre, It's all about you, yes it's all about you'. If we are a Christian and really mean that, then Jesus needs to be the centre of our Christmas celebrations too.

It's why at home we talk about Jesus and read stories about a baby born in a stable and shepherds, wise men and angels rather than 'The Night before Christmas. It's why I asked for a Willow Tree Nativity set one year as my Christmas gift and set it out each season in a place of prominence. It's why Christmas is mentioned on our family vision poster which states 'Christmas will always be a special time in our household, when we come together to celebrate the birth of Jesus in a beautifully decorated home, around our table adorned with flowers and candles, giving gifts to one another and blessing others, particularly our neighbours.'

We are right now planning on how we will bless our neighbours. It's sure to involve food baked in our kitchen and children will help make it and deliver it. One year it was gingerbread, another year jars of muesli and cinnamon buns shaped into wreaths. We have just found out we have new neighbours! My daughter and son met them yesterday. They have moved here from America. Christmas will be somewhat different for them here and a lot warmer. We will have to do something very special to welcome them to the community and Christmas is the perfect opportunity to reach out and extend a hand of friendship.

Christmas is always a season of hospitality and we love opening up our home to others. On the weekend our home was full of people as we welcomed a big group of Chinese students into our home. We greeted them with cool drinks on arrival. My daughter had baked a slice and crackers, cheese, grapes and nuts were set out - on cake stands of course! The students arrived with armfuls of food which I was not expecting. Dishes of noodles, salads, rolls and a huge watermelon. I was introduced to some of the students but our children did most of the befriending, the twins determined to learn as many names of the girls as possible and my toddler found himself a new best friend - one of the boys who gave him piggy back rides and lots of high fives. We had hoped they might get to see a koala or a wallaby but none put in an appearance. Thankfully, the snakes didn't cross our paths either when we headed into the bush for a walk which was led by the border collie and kelpie cross who were just as excited as the children to have all these people in our home. It was a day I will never forget and very much a reminder for me that we have been given this very special place not as a sanctuary from the world for ourselves but a sanctuary to be shared with others. I think the students enjoyed their visit. They took so many photos and a request was made for one to be taken in my country kitchen!

We are being sent lots of guests this year from overseas - and my friend's son from Germany is coming to spend Christmas with us. He is already in the country and has been working in Sydney and he's looking forward to his visit here. The last time I saw him he was 2. We are looking forward to returning the hospitality that his family bestowed upon us when we visited Germany. He's keen to learn to surf so those extra boards we have lying around will come in useful.We have also said we will be willing to have any of the Chinese students for Christmas dinner, most have host families - if any do take up our offer it will be a full house for Christmas! And that's the way I like it, surrounded by my family and welcoming friends.... with Jesus at the centre. Not just the unseen guest at the table but the One whose presence is sensed and experienced - not just in the church but in the home and especially at Christmas.

This will most likely be my last post before Christmas. I thought of sharing inspiration for Christmas decorating but if you need that you can go on pinterest or visit one of the 'beautiful' blogs where the owner has time to style, take and upload all the photos - I don't have the time to do that this year but wanted to share from my heart about what Christmas really means to me and as much as I love to decorate my home it's not about having the cutest tree or the best styled table with the latest in trend colour scheme. I didn't add to the collection this year and have no new Christmas creations to show you apart from cake stands which have featured in most of my recent posts. I have worked out I have sold at least 70 cake stands since I started making them! Any new ornaments will have to match in with the ones I already own and even if I were to change my style or scheme - there will always appear on the uppermost branches, a red wooden heart bearing the name of Jesus - the one who is and always will be the centre of my Christmas, my family, my life, my home.

May His Peace, His Joy and His Love be experienced in your home and heart this Christmas. I'll be back to share more from my home and my heart in 2013.

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-8328994594169542392012-11-19T09:39:00.000+11:002012-11-19T09:39:34.927+11:00 Books and Birthdays!

 November and December are the birthday months in our home when six out of nine members of our family celebrate birthdays! I'll share about the birthday bash first before I show you my gorgeous new books. We now have another official adult in the family as my daughter (the one in the photo below) turned eighteen. She arrived home just in time from a holiday in New Zealand to help with the preparations for her party. After having no rain for several months you can guess what happened on the day. Yes, the rain arrived just in time for the party with 50 people expected... we didn't want to retire inside now we have this huge outdoor entertaining area so we set out the market gazebo and tied a tarpaulin from the roof!

The Birthday Girl in Bangkok, Thailand.

 She has since traveled to Malaysia and New Zealand.

 She is returning to the the orphanage in Thailand for a second missions trip early next year.

We had decided against hiring a spit for a roast and purchased a gas fired pizza oven from Aldi for a great price. A gourmet pizza party where you get people to design their own pizzas is a sure fire hit and a lot less work as I can testify. It was so simple to get ready. We used Aldi's ready-made pizza bases (I usually make my own but not for 50 people on one night!) and had everything set out in order for people to spread and sprinkle on their bases. A choice of tomato, sweet chilli, barbecue or plum sauces. Platters of sliced tomatoes and zucchini, meats including chicken and pepperoni, bowls of roasted peppers, red onions and olives, jugs of fresh herbs and of course lots of mozzarella cheese! The oven cooked the pizzas to crispy perfection and they were enjoyed by all. A special pizza paddle found on ebay arrived just in time for the party and made the process of removing pizzas from the oven a breeze. I highly recommend you invest in a pizza stone if you are partial to pizza.

Dessert was the birthday cake - a chocolate cake shaped into a huge number 18 plus a few extra cheesecakes and sweet biscuits that guests brought along. An air hockey game set up in a corner kept younger children occupied on a rainy night and the families and young people present chatted, cooked and consumed pizza. We had a tea and coffee station set up in the corner of the kitchen. I even pulled out the popcorn machine and roasted up some of our green coffee beans. The aroma of freshly roasted coffee was incredible and the guests who tried our coffee thought it was great!

It truly was a fuss free night - no fancy tables (though I did slip a few cake stands onto the dessert table!) silly slide shows or long speeches, just a great night of fellowship with family and friends. How wonderful it is to have teenagers who want to celebrate their birthdays at home and don't need to 'go out on the town' or have an alcohol fueled event to feel like they are having fun.

It was actually my birthday on the day of my daughter's party. Couldn't really be avoided seeing it fell on the Saturday. I didn't miss out as I went out for dinner the night before with my husband leaving behind toddlers and teenagers. I was also blessed with books - three in total and they are my kind of books.

My daughter brought me home two books from New Zealand. The first was her gift to me and I am so looking forward to trying the recipes from Annabel Langbein's new book 'Simple Pleasures' which accompanies the second series of the Free Range Cook which is yet to arrive on our television screens here in Australia. Once I have tried a few of the recipes I might review it at my blog but give me time... I'm making lots of cake stands in the lead up to Christmas which doesn't leave me much time to make cakes or experiment with new and exciting food and recipes.

 The other book which also hails from New Zealand from the very region where we dairy farmed is Riverstone Kitchen - recipes from a chef's garden by Bevan Smith. Riverstone kitchen was Cuisine magazine's Restaurant of the year in 2010/11 which is a pretty good accolade. Why was it not there when we lived there? It was just 'down the road' from our former farm according to my daughter who spent a week in the South Island, mainly in the Waitaki. My mother in law bought this book for me on her annual salmon fishing trip and the chef must have been there when she popped in because it is a signed copy! The recipes like Annabel Langbein's focus on fresh, seasonal produce. I don't like pretentious cook books so any chef who is prepared to include his 'Mum's Date and Apricot Scones' in one of his cook books wins my vote. It all looks like good, wholesome and honest fare with ingredients I can easily source - apart from the whitebait which we last enjoyed on our holiday to New Zealand two summers ago and almost choked on when we were told how much it was worth!

I was presented with one more book on my birthday. As I unwrapped it, I thought at first there may have not been good sibling communication and I was about to get myself a second copy of Annabel Langbein's new cook book but no, my son had bought me 'Celebrate' by Pippa Middleton. Yes - the Pippa Middleton, the sister of Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge. No time for a lengthy review here but let me tell you I am loving this book. Beautiful photography and tonnes of ideas for, as what the cover terms 'British festivities for family and friends'. A whole year of them no less, organized into seasons. It is not at all pretentious and not in the least bit 'posh'. No over-styled tables or 'tablescapes' which require hours of work and artful arranging. Pippa keeps it simple and attainable.There are recipes, crafts, useful tips and games this British girl (that's me!) remembers from her childhood.

Barbecues, campfires, birthday parties and Christmas are just some of the occasions featured and the focus is on family and friends being together and having fun and making wonderful memories rather than 'entertaining' to impress. My kind of book - totally! There's even a chapter on Afternoon Tea and tiered cake stands feature in some of the photographs. Pippa suggests gluing glasses between mismatched plates to make cake stands. If only she had given me a call - I would have gladly drilled some pretty plates for her! I'll browse her chapter for a few more high tea pointers as in two weeks time I have a speaking engagement at a high tea. I'm sharing about how I set up my business 'Tiers for Tea' and talking about high tea in general. I'll set up a table with china, cake stands and other tea time accessories which shouldn't be too much of a problem to source! Only problem will be deciding what to take with me.

I never intended for this post to be so long but wanted to catch you all up with my life at the moment. I have markets most weekends up to Christmas. Last month we melted on a 40 degree day as did most of my soy candles in teacups - they softened enough to ruin and hot gusts of wind blew dust into the wax! I'm learning to deal with the disappointments which inevitably come when you are starting a small business. My website for the vintage china hire is coming along nicely and looks very stylish and professional. It fits beautifully on an iphone screen for easy scrolling. This lovely cake stand is part of the 'Coming up Roses' collection. I could have sold this stand ten times over but decided to keep it for the hire collection as I can imagine how beautiful it would look on a dessert table filled with chocolate truffles and strawberries or petits four! I've written up terms and conditions for hiring the china, making and cancellation of bookings and I'm realizing that I need to be firm and apply them for all occasions, even informal bookings.

It's almost December and I haven't even pulled out the Christmas tree. I hope to have my tree up this week but also want to set out a Christmas table and decorate it using my cake stands and teacups and take some photographs to show people how they could be used as festive centrepieces. Maybe my next post will be full of inspiration for Christmas, so come back for another visit soon!

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-49048903036104230812012-11-01T14:37:00.001+11:002012-11-01T14:37:54.835+11:00More Lessons from Plumfield

' The natural refinement which nothing but home influence can teach gave him sweet and simple manners; his mother had cherished an innocent and loving heart in him, his father had watched over the physical growth of his boy and kept the little body straight and strong on wholesome food and exercise and sleep, while Grandpa March cultivated the little mind with wisdom - not tasking it with long, hard lessons, parrot-learned, but helping it to unfold as naturally and beautifully as sun and dew help roses bloom.'

From 'Little Men' by Louisa May Alcott

This is one of the passages from Little Men that I just had to write down on the 'inspiration' page of my homeschool journal. So much wisdom in one short passage, especially for parents of boys! After many years on this homeschool journey I am in absolute agreement with Miss Alcott on the influence of the home. I have seen this outworked in the lives of all my children. The boy in this picture has an innocent and loving heart. He is gentle, generous and kind to all he comes into contact with and people take notice and tell me that he is the type of boy they want their sons to be friends with. I have found that the approach that Jo and her Professor used with their boys at Plumfield also works well with my boys and this son in particular.

He needs wholesome food - and we do our best to provide this by growing our own fruit and vegetables, making meals at home from scratch and limiting the amount of sweet, refined or takeaway foods.

Exercise - There was a time when we were involved in too many sports and extra-curricular activities. Realizing the pressure and unwanted stress this was bringing into our lives we pulled out of a number of activities, and found a sport that all of the children could be involved in on the same day at the same time which happens to be ice skating. It is a family and age integrated lesson (anyone of any age is welcome to join the class) and works in well with our schedule. My sporty boy also plays tennis but the rest of their exercise takes part in 'God's gymnasium' - the great outdoors which brings the added benefit of fresh air and no subscription or insurance fees!

He has always been a tree climber.

We nicknamed him 'gecko boy' when he was younger!

A gentle approach to learning. How I wish I had read 'Little Men' earlier on. I was rather inpatient for my first son to 'get it'. I relied on text books and 'busywork' and just wanted him to read fluently. Some lessons ended in tears and frustration. He just wasn't ready and needed more hands on activities and less work which required him to sit still and write out answers. Thankfully, I worked this out, gained the confidence to set aside the regimented, non-flexible curriculum and implemented my own 'delight directed' home learning programme using all kinds of resources. That same boy who did not enjoy putting pen to paper will finish his degree next year without the burden of a student loan to pay back. He writes assignments and exam papers and often receives marks of distinction and high distinction.

I am far more patient and relaxed these days. I understand that children learn at different rates. I allow my home to be a Plumfield of sorts at times. If you have read the book you will know what I mean. We don't have a carriage house to turn into a museum but there are often 'specimens' lying around (usually rocks as we have so much quartz on our property). Sometimes, it feels more like a zoo or rather the reptile enclosure. We know our frogs and we know our snakes.

 When it comes to the latter, we operate with caution and commonsense but have learned to set aside fear which is counter-productive. Can't resist showing you the snake that visited us last week. It came through a window into our master bedroom one warm evening and my husband did not see it on the floor but felt it brush past his feet. First time obedience paid off as the toddler who was following behind, immediately responded to his daddy's command and left the room. The snake was very obliging - it did not rear up or respond with aggression but slithered up and over into the nearby metal rubbish bin! I stood at the door and watched this with fascination. Once upon a time I would have run a mile!

 Much consultation of field guides and googling of images led us to conclude that it was a brown tree snake and it was released back into the bush after lots of debating and close up study - possible because it was contained in a metal mesh bin with a very heavy book placed on top and could not escape. It sure makes life exciting for a boy when you get to study snakes for real! My children are now familiar with the facts about the brown tree snake. That it is venomous but difficult for it to inject its venom as its fangs are located in the back of its mouth. We were very glad that it wasn't a highly venomous tiger snake but found out that the brown tree snake because of its stripes and nocturnal habits is sometimes referred to as the 'night tiger'.

I hope you enjoyed this lesson from Plumfield. I'm not so sure you enjoyed the lesson from Eden about snakes though but they are a fact of life here and something you must learn to live with. If you move to Australia and the real estate description of a property says 'abundant wildlife' you can be be assured that sooner or later you will encounter a snake. Maybe not inside the house (this is the 3rd snake to come inside in 10 years) but there again we have more than our fair share - over 8 different species observed over the years!

I have at least one more lesson from Plumfield to share but cannot promise an exact date for that post. My daughter (the little girl in this picture who is now 17) is in New Zealand at the moment and we are planning her 18TH birthday party for when she returns. I don't have to make her a cake, she wants to make her own! Her brothers have always appreciated her baking. Her younger sister has stepped into her shoes and has been enjoying having full reign in the kitchen! The photo above was taken when we lived in New Zealand. Notice the family resemblance - my boys were always blonder than my girls! I have lots of markets in the lead up to Christmas for my cake stand business. Right now I have to go and read another chapter of 'The Hobbit' to the boy who features in the photos for this post. We have just finished what he called the 'best book ever' 'Brandon Chase' by an author known as BB first published in 1944 which is about 3 boys who run off and live in the forest for almost a year who survive by hunting and fishing. Even my toddler would ask for this book to be read to him and when asked if he knew what it was about told me that the boys in the story climbed a big tree. Wow, how much they absorb when you read living books to them!

Until next time.

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-9151063098927118852012-10-17T10:36:00.000+11:002012-10-17T10:36:50.858+11:00 How we processed our home grown coffee

'It looks like coffee, it smells like coffee' this was the reaction as we examined the freshly roasted beans I held in my hands. 'But is it going to taste like coffee - good coffee or would all the work we had put into processing these beans over the past week end up literally leaving a bitter taste in my mouth? The beans went into the grinder and the grounds were ready to go into the plunger or French Press as some prefer to call it. The plunger was eventually pushed down and the first cup of coffee - our very own coffee was poured. As I had done much of the laborious task of removing the husk I deemed that I should be the first to taste the coffee and I am happy to report that it actually tasted pretty good if I do say so myself. There was no burnt or bitter taste. It had quite a smooth and creamy texture and for the last few days I have had the satisfaction of enjoying a cup of coffee each morning made from our own beans from trees that we had planted and cultivated.

It was a labour of love! I'm not sure if I want to go through the process each time we have a decent crop of beans but I think the reward of drinking our own coffee will see me try it again in the future.

Here's how we did it - step by step.

1.Harvesting the berries
The picture above was taken a few years ago. This spring, the seven Arabica trees, five of which are planted as a hedge along our driveway have much denser foliage and were covered in beans. The children were given instructions to pick every single ripe berry and they brought up over four and a half kilos of red berries.

2. Removing the skin/ pulp
We did this by hand, squeezing open the berry to reveal a pair of creamy coloured beans which are covered in a mucus like material. They feel quite slimy and slippery in your hand. This process needs to be done as soon as possible after harvesting. The beans went into a bucket and water was poured over the top. We removed any remaining skins/pulp and the beans that came to the surface - the 'floaters'. These are not good beans.

3. Soaking/Fermentation
The beans now need to ferment and this is achieved by soaking in water. We placed ours in a plastic bucket (don't use a metal bucket) and left them to soak for about 3 - 4 days. You can test for fermentation by taking out some of the beans and rinsing them. They should no longer feel slimy. The beans I tested felt dry and had a much grittier texture. I rinsed the beans thoroughly using a colander and repeated this several times until the water ran clear.

4.Drying
The article I read suggested that a dehydrator could be used to dry the beans provided it could be set at a constant 40c for the whole drying period. My dehydrator didn't have a variable temperature setting but I decided to chance drying out most of the beans in it and I lined the trays with baking paper and spread out the beans as evenly as possible. As it was a very hot and sunny day I decided to also sun dry some of the beans . I spread them out on a white sheet on our outdoor table. Last summer I had reached this stage with a small batch of beans but it was a very humid summer and with so much moisture in the air the beans went mouldy in a short space of time. I didn't want that to happen this time and I ensured that I brought the beans inside at night and waited for any morning dew to disappear before placing them outside the next day. I also stirred the beans several times a day using my hand to spread them around and bring any underlying beans to the surface.

The verdict - both methods worked but the dehydrator sped up the process. I used the dehydrator over 2 days turning it off at night and by the end of the second day I had noticed that most of the beans were now a blue/grey colour. It's very important to ensure that the beans are dried adequately - more than 12% moisture left in the bean will cause them to go stale/mouldy during storage. The article I was referring to throughout, stated to test for dryness by biting into a bean. It should be hard. If still soft and chewy the beans were not ready. Ours were definitely hard so they went into a container for a week before moving onto the next and most time consuming process of husking.

5. Husking
This is the removal of the papery layer surrounding the green bean. It is not difficult but it takes a long time if you do it by hand. It simply involves scraping away the papery skin and at first it was quite enjoyable and rather addicting but soon the novelty of husking had worn off for my little helpers and I was left to do it by myself. It took hours and hours! I would suggest rather than standing at the kitchen bench, to do it in the evening when you can sit down and watch a good movie. It might need to be an epic though or even a trilogy such as Lord of the Rings. The thought of drinking freshly roasted homegrown coffee kept me motivated and eventually the final green bean was popped into the canister.

 6.Roasting
The step I was most nervous about. The article I was reading had suggested roasting beans in the oven but a friend who grows and processes his own coffee told us he uses a popcorn maker. We bought a cheap $20 popcorn maker about a year ago with the intention of trying this method for our coffee. I had also watched videos on You Tube of a dude in Hawaii using a popcorn maker to roast beans, so with some intrepidation we put the beans into the machine, turned it on and waited for the crack we had been told to listen out for. The beans changed colour turning gold before darkening to a rich dark brown and we could clearly hear the crack. I was scared of scorching the beans and ruining the coffee and turned the machine off as soon as I thought they were ready and emptied them into a bowl. The aroma in the kitchen was wonderful and that is when we proclaimed 'It looks like coffee, it smells like coffee ...... and yes, it tasted like coffee. Good coffee and I am rather particular about my coffee. I like dark roasted coffee with nutty, chocolate tones. Ours is probably a more of a medium roast but it tastes oh so smooth and not a trace of bitterness.

We are very happy with the result. Our seven trees are not going to keep us in coffee all year round but for the next few weeks we will have the satisfaction of drinking our own coffee. I think I will go through the process again but if we were to have a much bigger harvest, say more than 5 kilos of berries, I think we would consider investing in a dehusking machine. I haven't checked what they cost but I'm guessing it's not cheap so looks like it will be husk removal by hand during movie marathons for the time being!

I hope this has been helpful to anyone considering processing coffee beans from their own bushes. Success is possible. It just takes an investment of your time.

Here's a link to the article that was the most useful for me as it takes you through the whole process. It's from the Queensland government's Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and although here are no photographs, it is very informative and written for people wanting to try processing on a small scale, their own coffee at home.

http://www.daff.qld.gov.au/26_19720.htm

If you live in a tropical/subtropical climate and can grow coffee, have you ever tried processing your own beans before? How did your coffee turn out? Would you do it again or did you decide it was too much work for too little coffee?

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-3920309136605442624.post-53595321092623120132012-10-05T14:17:00.000+10:002012-10-05T14:17:17.285+10:00Camping with Kangaroos

Spring has just been the busiest time for me and my family. I have had little time to update my blog as I have been busy doing other stuff... spring cleaning, planting gardens, harvesting coffee beans and attempting to process them at home, making cake stands, selling cake stands, buying china, attending a dinner, a bush dance and camping with kangaroos!

Let's start with the camping trip. We returned to a campsite which we stayed at a few years ago. It is in a National Park and close to the river. The only facility is a long drop toilet but firewood is provided. We set up our tents, our gazebo and spent several days off- grid. There was no mobile coverage so no texting, no phone calls, no blogging, no facebook. The children went swimming in the rock pools during the day and in the evening when the sun went down and it became rather chilly, we sat around a campfire and toasted marshmallows. Each evening the kangaroos would join us. It was as if they were drawn to our family! A mother brought over her joey and they sat and stared at us. As much as I don't relish all the preparations for camping and attempting to roll up sleeping bags and fit them back into their tiny bags causes me no end of frustration, I have to say I rather enjoyed this trip - no rain, no mosquitoes either and I had time to read a wonderful book called 'Almost Amish' by Nancy Sleeth which is the story of one woman's quest for a simpler, more sustainable life. Very convicting and the chapter on technology made me feel less and less guilty about not updating this blog!

We did leave the campsite to go and do other activities. We enjoyed our second trip to Australia's best theme park (in the opinion of my younger children) and it is nowhere near the Gold Coast. All the rides are made from metal pipe! It is a 'fair dinkum' adventure playground that still allows adventure unlike most of the 'ultra safe, low to the ground' playgrounds you come across today. Even has an animal park with 'fair dinkum' Australian animals. Forgot the camera on that day so these pictures were taken on our first trip there. This slide is actually quite high but there is a much bigger waterslide and it was open for the first time this year. Even I ventured up the steps and found out at the bottom how cold the water was!

It even has a roller coaster!

This guy was still there to greet us!

As was the friendly dingo!

The next day we introduced our youngest to the more sedate thrill of fossicking for sapphires. We didn't go out into the bush this time. Just went to a local caravan park that has onsite fossicking. He was soon absorbed in this activity which is so much fun for children - a real treasure hunt. They did find some small sapphires but nothing which was worth having cut.

Which was a shame because on Sunday I discovered that the sapphire my son found on our first ever fossicking trip had fallen out of my ring. On Saturday night we had attended a 'fair dinkum' Aussie bushdance. (Always wanted an excuse to use that description 'fair dinkum' in a blog post and now I have 3 times!) It was the best night with an amazing bluegrass band playing and we had so much fun. I'm just guessing that all the exuberant bush dancing, hand clapping and knee slapping caused my gem to become dislodged. This means one thing -we will have to go fossicking for sapphires again soon! And pray one of my children finds one!

I did find some other treasures on our camping trip. We stopped at some little antique shops that were crammed with lots of lovely china at very reasonable prices. I bought some plates to make into cake stands, silver teaspoons and other tea time accessories for the collection we are putting together for a vintage china/high tea hire service.

This little business is keeping me so busy. I have been attending markets and events around my local region. This is my stall at a conference for women that was held at a resort. I did very well on that day and had so many conversations about china and the joys of taking time for tea. So many people are thrilled to see that high tea is back in fashion and my stall brings back so many memories for people! My daughter loves working alongside me. We wear our vintage dresses to really look the part and dressing up the stall is so much fun. We are meeting people from lots of different places - from all over Australia and other countries during the tourist season. Have met a girl who does catering for high teas. We have done one event together and plan to do more - she brings the food, I bring the china. She also has a daughter who loves vintage style and she is the friend that my daughter has longed to meet! They both love the same things. I am so happy for her.

This is the recent addition to my china collection. It is one of nine antique and vintage china tea sets I purchased recently with some of the money the business has earned. We had the pleasure of visiting a home in the country to view and purchase the china. The couple we bought it from were so lovely and so hospitable. We were given a tour of their home. I thought I had died and gone to heaven! Wrought iron balconies, antique furniture, four poster beds, dressers and hutches full of beautiful china. I had to rearrange a few cupboards at home to house the china we purchased. And now I have to catalogue it all and turn the plates into cake stands.

Thought you would like to see one more picture of my collection of teacups and bone china trios. I now have close to 100 teacups and hope to double that in order to cater for weddings and larger events. It also means anytime we have a tea party at home every person gets to choose a pretty cup. No more chunky mugs and definitely no paper cups at this house!

So pleased to have finally updated my blog but I'm still not sure when the next post will be up. I'm learning that you should never promise blog posts. If we have any success this year in drying and roasting our coffee beans I might share about that but I have one more weekend before the last term of the school year begins. We have someone coming to stay next month and my daughter is traveling to New Zealand arriving home a couple of days before her eighteenth birthday for which she has planned a celebration - at home of course!

Looks like I'm going to be busier than ever. Please continue to pray for rain - there has been no rain for months apart from an occasional sprinkling. There is smoke in the air from a bushfire caused by lightening strikes further up our valley. The worst bushfire season in 40 years is predicted for this summer.

I pray your spring or fall season is as productive and satisfying as mine. Never feel guilty about not updating your blog. Spending time with the people that matter most in your life is far more important!

Until next time

Ann at eightacresofedenhttp://email@example.com