Walking in Melbourne

A rough outline of city walk 10/06/13

Being stuck in Melbourne, unable to drive and worse still forbidden from riding a bike I have been desperate for some kind of physical activity. It's taken me nearly two weeks to feel OK about doing anything at all but rest will only get you so far! At some point the body must have movement in order to recover!

A long time friend of the family likes walking so I asked if he'd bring me next time he goes... I thought we'd be bush walking so when he called he told me to meet him at Jolimont station at 10:30am...  for a city walk I was a little surprised.

Well beggars can't be choosers! I rode the train to Jolimont Station, hopped off facing the gates of the MCG.
We walked Fitzroy Gardens and up to the Queen Victoria Markets, which are very much the same as they have always been... crowded and full of tourists. My favorite spot at the market is the Deli. Back in the good old days the Queen Vic Market was about the only place you could find European style food... (Very exotic back in the 1970s and even the 80s) a lot has changed in Australia since I was a kid, I remember when spagetti was considered foreign food.

My friend is German, he does this walk fairly regularly, the first part of the walk includes stopping at the Vic Market for a Weisswurst sausage with sauerkraut. We arrived at the vendor and 'D' walks through a throng of Chinese tourists straight to the serving area, as he orders I realize the throng was actually a queue and he had jumped it! Funny thing was that the 20 odd Chinese were all so preoccupied texting, tweeting and god knows what else they didn't even notice. I was in no mood to queue half an hour for a sausage so I kept quiet. (It was delicious by the way)

We wandered around the market for a little while but it was all so predictable and crowded! We wanted jam donuts but gave up on this idea when we saw the line of people waiting! Hot jam donuts are a real Melbourne treat but who the hell wants to stand an hour in the cold waiting for one! This is something I just don't get. There were enough customers to keep at least 3 maybe even four donut vans busy all day but there seemed to be only one donut vendor in the whole market! Someone's got this market thing all stitched up!

Leaving the market we walked down to South Bank where 100s of Yuppies enjoyed their Sunday Lunch, then crossing St Kilda Rd we walked up past the Shrine of Remembrance and through the Botanical Gardens. The gardens made news recently when a bunch of vandals got into the succulent garden and chopped up all the tall cactus trees with a machete or something. Some of the plants were 30 years old! We didn't bother gawking at the damaged plants but wandered around the various paths and checked out the ponds where I was glad to see eels had returned after the drought.

From the Gardens we crossed the Yarra and wandered back through the sporting grounds, Enormous new stadiums for soccer and tennis, then back down to the river walk where the rail-yards have been converted into parkland. I couldn't believe how Melbourne has changed since I was I kid. These were the seediest, grittiest corners of the city. Places I used to wander around, amongst the true drunken underbelly of Melbourne. The parks and gardens were once the domain of gutter drunks and hobos. I used to wag school and bring my stash down here to drink... now it's all cleaned up. Families ride bikes and have picnics, there's a children's art centre in one of the old red brick track switching houses where drunks used to sleep. Trees have been planted, grass, sculptures everything has changed... It was fascinating and very pleasant to see.

Strong Men performing at Federation Square opposite Flinders St Station

By now my back was aching... I'd slowed down a lot but was still enjoying the walk. We climbed the steps from the Yarra trail and entered federation square. An undulating cobbled surface spread out like a natural landscape on the site which was once a bland concrete rooftop! There were thousands of people in the city all eating drinking and having fun. The dark and dreary miserably empty city has gone, now the city is full of life on the weekends.

Finally we made it to a coffee shop in China town, enjoyed a reasonable brew and a Danish before heading back to Flinder's St station for the train home. Total distance walked would have been about 15 km. Finally a day out for me. Mum and Dad are completely over having me pacing the house like a caged animal.

Tomorrow I go back to the Hospital for surgery on my gimpy hand. I have two fractured bones in my wrist that are not knitting properly and have to be re-set! Damn! Still no idea about the status of my back but at least my bowel is starting to work again... nothing like a long walk to sort that out.

Finaly the rain

A good morning is when I rise early and spend some time outside sweating toiling with a hoe in my hand or peddling my bicycle. After yet another very late night I didn't rise early, but, I did make it across to one of the local schools in time to chip in for a working bee. The school principal with support from the community has decided to open the, recently erected, gates and invite members of the local community to join them in creating a food garden! 

I may have got there late but I soon got into the action and yes I raised a sweat. (Not hard to do in the Darwin buildup, especially when your working with a body whose primary tasks have been striking a key board and lifting several coffee cups to the lips per day. 

I got home sweaty and covered in hay, happy!

Back at home the neighbors get kind of fussy about our messy garden and I can see their point but the back lawn is so much more interesting now than it used to be. I still mow it a couple of times during the wet season but I've really enjoyed watching it evolve naturally. Once it was a monoculture of cooch grass but now there's a variety of grasses and sedges popping up and seeding. The kids and I also threw a handful of rosella seeds around which are sprouting in odd spots through the lawn and will hopefully give us some fruit for jam when the dry season comes around. If the neighbors want someone to blame for our lawn they can look to Masanobu Fukuoka!

Oh yeah... the rain. It's been hot and muggy but there's been no rain for such a long time all the buildup greenery has wilted and shriveled. But tonight the waiting was over. Just as I arrived at a meeting a couple of suburbs away, a great wind came roaring through the verandah where we were sitting. Leaves came swarming into our sheltered gathering place with the ferocity of a tornado! Leaves and dust and scraps of paper were swirling around us in forceful willie willies that were blown horizontal by those huge gusts that always precede the first tropical storms of the season. Awesome! Pretty soon the rain was pelting down hard! After just an hour it slackened off to an even drizel and it's still going now 4 hours later. And the garden cries 'Finally The Rain!'

Blog post 445

Once again there's so much to blog about and so little time or energy to actually type!

This is my 445th blog post. There's nothing significant about Post 445 except that I just noticed in my stats that my last post was No. 444. Nothing significant about that either I guess. Actually considering the fact that I've been attempting to write something here since 2006 I'd say it's just another example of mediocrity! I'm barely able to write here once or twice a month and am struggling even with that.

They say that having one's train of thought constantly interrupted is a form of torture... But where are you going to find anyone who's so committed to interrupting you 24 hours a day? Who is going to sit around and wait for you to try and do something just so they can disrupt you or distract you, interrupt your conversations or just simply create so much white noise that your brain can't physically process anything? Throw things at you, wreck all your stuff, steal your last $2 and stick their grubby fingers between your guitar strings when you think you've finally found a quiet moment to recommence the lessons you started 8 years ago when a hard day simply meant you had to do some work between the hours of 9am and 5pm? Surely such a person could not exist! Well if you don't have kids you'll always wonder if it could ever be possible for someone to dedicate so much time to such unrelenting harassment. God Love Em!

If you've ever wondered what is the most hideous product ever devised for consumption by human beings let me introduce you to... Smiley Face!

Smiley Face :(

Smiley Face is some kind of over processed meat (and probably soy) product kind of like Devon (I've never tasted that either but it looks kind of the same). Besides being offensive to look at Smiley Face also smells like the refuse pit of a toxic chemical plant! It stinks! It smells so bad that when it's in the fridge it spreads it's stink over everything that is not sealed! It is an abomination and I wonder how it was ever classified as a food!

As with most things in my universe I have absolutely no say in what my kids get to eat! Around here I am the bad guy who is constantly grumbling about all the crap their mother provides them to play with and to eat. My concerns are duly disregarded and I am reminded to stop bringing everyone down and so my kids continue to eat what can generously be called Shit!

I'm bitching about this now because I spent the whole night on spew watch after my boy proceeded to eat 'Smiley Face' after having actually eaten a reasonable dinner... He spent the rest of the night spewing his dinner which was laced with the chemical stench of his favorite snack!

There I go again getting distracted with rambling meaningless nonsense... It was easier to maintain a clear train of thought back when I could get a decent night's sleep and my brain hadn't been turned to moosh by the torture I've just mentioned... supplemented by endless replays of children's videos with the volume on full!

What really drives me crazy about the kids though is just when you think they've been sent by the Devil to destroy your spirit and turn you into a blubbering zombie they come out with the most amazing stuff! In a flash they can switch from a state of absolute self interest to a being that is completely compassionate and loving! Within on short hour I have watched my two kids attack each other with fists and claws, burst into tears, play cooperatively and then fall asleep in each others' arms.

Poem about the Earth that child one whipped out yesterday

What's been happening? OK.

Long bike In Dry Rapid Creek Bed

Rapid Creek: Riding past the stables at Rapid Creek last week I found a Potty calf had escaped so I joined a lady who was walking her dog and we wrangled it back into it's paddock. (quite fun actually)

Taking the long bike for a spin out into the wetlands behind the airport I followed it down to the salt water and found that the fresh water had completely dried up in many areas so I explored along the river bed for a while. The seasons correspond quite nicely here in the Top End, we always seem to get a bit of rain just as the very end of the previous wet season's rain has finished draining from the wetlands. While down there I got a great view of a Pacific Bazar at head level just a few metres away.

Basil babies...

Garden: The basil seeds I planted with the kids have really sprung up and now I'm thinking about mass producing them for friends. The seeds all came from a single plant in our yard that has shriveled to a stick every dry season but miraculously resurrects itself when the humidity returns. (Besides smiley face the boy actually likes to pick the leaves and eat them straight from the bush)

Quilting: My Mum, who's on a quilting tour of the USA, had to spend 3 days in a motel in Boston M.A. as Hurricane Sandy destroyed a huge chunk of New York. There was a chance they would be affected but I don't think anyone was truly worried about their safety up there. Very sad for those who have lost family in the US and Caribbean. It was very unlikely her group would make it to Houston for the show but amazingly they did. I think they still have another week of their tour to go. Visiting quilters and exhibitions from San Francisco to Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Houston and onward! Who'd have thought making quilt would be so exciting? We've received a post card from an Amish village somewhere (Postcard just said Amish Village), where, she said everything smells like horse dung. Actually I've always thought horse shit smells kind of sweet. I asked if they have bicycles but apparently they ride them kind of like scooters, without peddles or chains... I hope she got some photos... Actually how weird... A tour bus full of 70 year old Australian quilters who buy their material new, custom printed arrive in an Amish village with cameras and probably Iphone's snapping away, come to steel their homely secrets. LOL what a circus that must be. Maybe they have to leave their technology at the gate...? That would make for a very quick visit.

Cruelty to the stranger: There's a bunch of other stuff I'd like to chat about like the fascist stunt pulled by the Australian Government to send all Asylum seekers who arrive by boat to inhumane camps in Nauru and Manus Island even if they have actually managed to arrive on our shore. Now that's an amazing act of bureaucratic brutality! Imagine you've successfully fled torture, murder, starvation, drowning and general fleacing by every opportunist from Burma to Australia, you hop on a boat, statistically doomed to sink and use all your resources to get to a country that you hope and pray will treat you like a human being. Get off the boat walk up to the house of parliament, knock on the door and declare yourself as a person seeking asylum from the worst of humanity. They look at you, smirk and have you taken away, lock you up and fly you off to a place where you're shoved into a crowded tent in 45 degree heat and told to wait until... (you're forgotten about!) If I had time I'd say something about that, with all due disrespect to our Elected fascist leaders!

Gardening for broke!

Demise of a green space
The little front yard garden took a pounding this year!
Having lost two wet season crops in a row this season I discovered the most sinister of causes... The gardeners contracted by our body corporate had poisoned all my lemon grass, basil and snake beans! I caught the guy actually applying the poison while I was off work one day and couldn't believe my eyes!

Over the past couple of years I'd had pretty decent crops of snake beans which were providing our family with some pretty regular snack food and great shade for the north facing window! Our kids had become accustomed to picking beans and basil straight from the plant and eating it on the spot. It was great to see them discerning the ripeness of beans and determining which should be eaten green or which should be saved for seed. All that had to stop when I found the gardener spraying our beans with Roundup! I was really pissed off to find these guys knowingly putting poison on plants that were obviously food, but it was devastating to know that it was my kids who could be poisoned!


Disheartened I watched our beautiful food producing plants shrivel and die within hours of being sprayed? I recalled a previous time when I'd been away for a couple of days and returned to find my healthy garden looking like it had just been napalmed! At the time I'd convinced myself it must have been a soil borne disease. At least the PawPaw in the backyard was spared!

I don't grow enough in the garden to feed the family but it is nice to have a little home grown tucker if only to remind the kids where food actually comes from... Of course we don't go hunting the tree monitors, fruit bats or frogs we find in the back yard, but a few vegetables makes a good start for becoming intimate with your food. We generally leave the wildlife to go about it's business relatively unmolested.

Food production continues
Last year during the build-up, my kids got hold of the Roselle seeds I'd been saving for some time when they should be planted (I wasn't actually sure when that should be). It was November and they'd left them soaking in the tadpole water for a couple of days. Then when the bucket was full of wrigglers (mosquito larvae) they tipped the whole lot out on a bare patch of dirt where the trampoline used to be....! What do you suppose happened?

Yep it was just the right time and conditions for planting Roselle seeds! So some time in December I noticed the sprouts and before we knew it there was a beautiful thick clump of Hibiscus sabdariffa growing in the back yard. COOL!


(Young Hibiscus sabdariffa)

So weeks rolled by and we watched the plants grow and eventually the flowers came. Beautiful! (Don't worry this story doesn't end in herbicide!)


(Budding flower)


(Yellow flower as seen early in the morning, they turn pink before falling off in the evening)

There were heaps of flowers each living for barely a day before they would fall to the ground leaving a small red calyx... as more flowers bloomed the calyxes (the Roselles) grew bigger with the ripening fruit inside...


(Bushes in full flower displaying some maturing calyx and fruit)


(Maturing calyx and fruit)

As the bushes were looking quite laden with heavy fruit and brilliant red calyxes we took off to Mataranka for a long weekend. Having just celebrated a birthday party and spent the remainder of our money on the trip away we returned with a budget deficit but discovered that the Roselle bushes had blown over in the wind due to the weight of all that fruit!


(Laden bush fallen in the wind)

Well what great timing! with little food left in the cupboard what better time to pick forage in the yard! The boy and I munched on the leaves as we picked a bucket full of crimson treasure from the back yard then I sat with our eldest and separated fruit from calyx preparing for the boiling of the Jam (luckily there was sugar an apple and half a lemon just waiting to go in the pot)! Our home has become an Idlers paradise! No more trecking miles away from home, through 7 ft high grass to raid spindly ant covered bushes! We can just go and pick the fruit right in our own back yard!

Looking back in the cupboard the next day my darling wife discovered some wholemeal flower and when I got home from work we delighted in our hand made fresh bread and spiky jam! Sometimes the very best of life seems to appear just when you think the cupboard is bare!


(The fruits of our harvest)

Thanks to the natural habit of our kids we now know the right time and conditions for planting Roselles!

Wabi-sabi!

Christmas Day with the family

I thought I'd make a quick post while Christmas dinner is roasting. (apologies to my Vegan friends)

So far we've had a great day. Only a few weeks ago we thought we'd be having a very quiet Christmas at home with the kids but after a few phone calls and some last minute bookings my parents and brother came up to visit for the week and we are spending Christmas Day with them. We've had a great time so far and the kids have really enjoyed the company of family.

Our day started with presents at 7:30am. Headed off to Church for a great service and plenty of singing at 9:30. Came home to more presents and an awesome Christmas Lunch of Cold roast turkey, cold salads and alcohol free trifle for desert. 

This year we had an idea, rather than throw out the wrapping paper we decided to use it for a table cloth, which had the added benefit of keeping me busy while the kids opened their presents... (Unfortunately it is necessary to distract me so that I don't complain about the, lack of quality and amount of packaging in kids toys these days, consumerism, waste etc... etc...)

My brother is a bit of a dark horse. He doesn't say much and rarely gives any details when we ask him what he's into or what he's been doing lately. Fortunately Mum brought some photos to show us what he's been up to and I was very impressed.

He never told any of us but a friend managed to take a photo of my brother The Christmas Window Artist! Good on you Bro!

It is easy to see the rampant consumerism connected with Christmas and be repulsed or cynically say that  what we do is a far cry from celebrating the birth of Jesus. This year I'm just enjoying the spirit of sharing with family and aren't too bothered by thoughts of hypocrisy and stuff like that.

Three days ago I watched 'The Road', again. The bleakness, desperation... The want for something more.
On Friday night a friend was speaking about what Christmas was like when he was in gaol. "...two slices of canned pudding with custard..." He expressed the sense of joy he felt simply standing in a Supermarket surrounded by fresh food and people happily preparing for their Christmas dinner which they would most likely be sharing with their families. He filled with awe and gratitude at the abundance that surrounded him. He did not take this for granted.
For some people Christmas is a sad and a lonely time, for others it's possibly a drama; full of obligatory chores and spending money. To others it's nothing more than a few days off work and a well stocked beer fridge...
Wherever you are I hope it is something better than just that. I wish you well for Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Fruit and loaves

This week has been a lean one... Somehow we spent most of this weeks food money last week!
My work hours have been reduced to just 4 days per week which one would expect to impact on ones take home folding money but actually my income won't be reduced until next pay day! The 'lean times' haven't actually hit yet but why postpone the inevitable? Right? LOL

So anyway we ran out of food money and have had to become slightly more resourceful than usual, (Err I am referring to the usual as it applied to the time prior to my reduced hours at work, which from this week is no longer the norm. Not the usual as we will soon have to become used to which may include hanging around the back of Supermarkets waiting for them to chuck out the old cabbage leaves.... Just kidding mum!)


(A chickpea curry with the perfectly cooked chapatis and rice is so nice!)

So where was I? Oh yes food! We kind of ran out of money but we still had a bunch of stuff in the cupboard. Necessity has inspired creativity on the home front and Sam has been busy! In the cupboard we had a kilo or two of plain flour, some Atta flour, rice, a bag of dried chick peas, a large onion, herbs spices, a tin of tomatoes, and a few other little scrappy things, there was a carton of milk and some butter in the fridge and some yeast in the freezer.


(Let them eat Scones)
Over the weekend Sam has made a bunch of really nice food. Starting with white bread on Friday, It was so delicious we ate it before I could get a photo. There were some green and yellow specks in it due to the fact that the flours was only meant to be used for playdough!

Last night she made enough chickpea curry with rice and chapatis to serve another two meals at least! (You make chapatis with Atta flour) We ate the curry tonight and it was superb. For desert we had scones with Jam... oh yeh there was jam in the fridge. The scones turned out perfectly! There's even enough flour left for another loaf of bread.

Now from just a handful of ingredients we've managed to create some delicious food that we probably wouldn't have bothered with otherwise. Now to top it all off the neighbor called out to me from across the fence this afternoon and gave me a bag full of bananas! Apparently their tree has fallen down under the weight of all the bananas it's carrying! Some how inexplicably the week has turned from a time of trial and hardship into a food bonanza!



(Bananas fall like manna)

We're living off the cream! Now it's moments like these that I've just gotta give thanks! Shalom.

Gardening (for food) in the town

(Bundoora Park Community Garden, Bundoora, Victoria)

It's been great to see a revival and growth in Urban food production, which is apparrently becoming hugely popular in Australia, UK and the USA. To grow your own food is now considdered to be cool... (Common practice in most other places)
A couple of years ago I discovered the Life Island website after viewing an amazing video about the Manor Gardens in Hackney, UK. At the time they were fighting to protect their 100 year old garden allotments from being leveled to make way for a sporting complex for the Olympic games... Sadly they lost the battle and the whole site has since been completely cleared! But! I will be very difficult to rebuild the sense of community that appeared to have existed in that special place and I was really saddened when I learned about the garden's demise.

Somewhere in my trawling of the internet I discovered that there was a cookbook produced with photos of the people and their special places in the Manor Garden. The Book is called Moro East.
I managed to order a copy of it online and it was delivered toward the end of last year. It's a wonderful book full of very rustic recipies and images, the cover features some beautiful Islamic art.

(Moro East Cookbook by Sam and Sam Clark)

It may be idealism or escapism but this stuff really inspires me. The book is wonderful and I like just flicking through the pages.


Sliver Gardening

Back at home our little garden is providing shade and green where once there was only the blinding glare and heat of too much concrete ... We've eaten a delicious pumpkin, snake beans, heaps of basil and enjoyed Lemongrass tea. We only harvest food occasionally but the aesthetic value of a food garden makes enormous improvements to our peace of mind regardless of limmited crops.

Baking

A little while ago on the Daily Headspa blog I caught this great video about baking bread and it inspired me to just get in there and have a go at baking some myself!
I love the smell of yeast doing it's thing and the whole chemistry and living dynamic stuff about bread really turns me on!
So as part as my mission to 'Become Free' I decided a 'Free Man' bakes his own bread... and being a pizza lover this principal should equally apply to that delightful food also!

I am not seeking perfection with this and freedom will come gradually I know so before I show you my results I'll answer a few of the questions I would ask of someone who I might suspect of claiming righteousness by publicizing his one useful act!

• No I did not grow the wheat, harvest it or mill it myself
• Yes I did buy my ingredients from the dreaded (No free advertising here you multinational destroyer of communities and thieves of farmers profit) Supermarket.
• No I did not use a wood fired oven
• Yes I did use plain flower, yeast, water, sugar, salt, and olive oil.... No I did not squeeze the olives personally.
• Yes I did kneed the dough with my own two hands.

So now that we've got that over with here are my results using mostly white flour (It's what we had in the cupboard) and a little wholemeal.


(White bread - my second attempt at bread)


(White bread - great tasting bread, delicious crust no yeasty smell)



(Vegetable and feta Pizza)

If you think the white bread looks a bit boring, unhealthy and doughy I agree! I'll try to make my future efforts a little more interesting. One step at a time.
I would like to add, for those of you who are contemplating quitting video games and dumping your telly... Just Do It! All I've done is bake a bit of bread and already I'm feeling liberated!

Basil and the bean stalk

Well it sounds like a great title for a really interesting story but alas I have no time for creative imaginings! So the story is as simple as the title suggests. Beans and Basil...


(Beans to the roof)


(Beans 1ft long!)

I did however have time to pick some of the Snake beans that are growing abundantly outside my bedroom window! I combined them with some fresh basil, a sweet potato, some green curry paste, coconut milk and Chicken. (My apologies to my vegan friends... and the chicken whose life was sacrificed for sake of pleasing my palate) They made an excellent dinner.


(Beans, basil and sweet potato)

I have no images of the meal because in our house all hell breaks loose at dinner time. To take a photo at that time would have left me vulnerable to attack by marauding midgets and would definitely have invoked the wrath of a tired and hungry woman!

A story about The People's Grocery

The future for Australia... Which would you choose?