Freeplay

Children should not be entertained and told what to do all the time. They need free play to be able to experiment, learn, build, demolish and make mess. This is always preferable outside.

Children of all ages need a sandpit and water. Bricks, logs, rocks, pine cones, seeds to grow etc.

When the children get stuck into a project of play do not pull them away to do chores, school or eat. Bring them lunch, a drink and your camera. This does not happen every day, so when it does let them go with the flow.

If it is winter and mizzy outside have a play area in the garage or a playroom. Have playdough, clay, lego, etc. out for them. These things can keep them busy for hours. The other things I have now are tools and wood for woodwork. We have no set projects and they can tinker and make whatever they like.

The other fantastic thing to have for kids is a veggy garden. The first veggie I would get them to plant is Swiss Chard. It is a dark green leafy veg that is very nutritional and easy to grow. Then I would plant strawberries, and parsley mixed in between each other as they are companion plants. Kids love strawberries and parsley looks so pretty when growing well. Parsley scrambled eggs are the best!

Another things I would grow is clumping onions. This is great as it can be used as a spring onion, chive or the bulbs can be chopped up as a traditional onion. I always have soup celery in the veg patch as well. This is always good to add to a soup.

Sheth loves to plant carrots and garlic bulbs. We all love baby tomatoes and they grow so easily!

There are so many options have fun with the kids, let them pick and eat off the bush, it does not get better than that!

Frugal living

With the way the world is going economically, we need to look back to when our grandmothers, and even our great grandmothers, were moms. They were not able to just go to the shop and buy everything that we have available now. Most of the clothes people wore were handmade by mom. If a garment got torn it was put in the repair basket for the evenings when people still sat around, speaking about their day and the things they dreamed of doing, instead of being glued to the TV every evening.

When we tear a garment we throw it away and buy a new one! Realistically, the clothes we are buying are such bad quality that it is the only thing to do. We need to realise that the media has made it a new trend to buy, buy, buy. If I look at my Oma she has very good quality clothes that she has been wearing for forty years or more. When something finally wears out she will replace it with a new one of good quality.

How can we go back a generation or more? Well, how I am starting, is by knitting jerseys and socks for my family. I choose pure wool over acrylic as it is a better product. It does not stretch out of proportion. In general, I use an Aran tweed wool. My sock wool is 95 percent wool and 5 percent nylon. This gives it strength so that I do not ever have to darn socks. Yes, it is more expensive, but it is warmer, stronger and lasts much longer.

My eldest son passes his jerseys and socks down to his younger brother who pass them down to a friend or family member, and then it is still passed on further. The garments can go through five kids or more!

Every year we are blessed with pajamas from our cousins in England. Wow, it is good quality! Marie buys it on special as our seasons are different. When they get too short for the kids I crochet around the arms and legs of the pajamas and they get another season out of it. You can also add a nice cotton lace to it if you can not crochet.

When Hannah's nightie got too small she did not want to pass it on as she loved the fabric. I thought about it for a while and then made panties out of the fabric for her. She was well pleased with them. I also keep old t-shirts to make undies with.

Last month my hubby bought me some everyday panties from a clothing store that are meant to be good quality. Well, three of the five pairs are broken! As I said, sometimes making it ourselves may take a bit longer and cost a bit more, but in the long run it will cost less and last longer.

What are some of the things we could all do?

1. We could buy vegetables on special and deep freeze them, ready chopped, sliced or diced.
2. We could grow our own veg. Everyone could have spinach in their garden!
3. Buy good quality things and look after them. Yes, it will cost more initially, but in the long run it will be much more cost effective.
4. Repair things when they get broken. Do not throw them away! They probably has a few more years life in them.

If we do more and more of the things our great grandmothers did, we would realise that more moms could stay home with their children. There would be less rubbish on the earth, and a lot less wastage.

Fruit trees

We are on holiday at our homestead were my dad and sister live. It is Autumn and cold. It was 1 deg. Celsius yesterday morning. Thank goodness for down duvets and husbands that keep us warm!

Six years ago I bought twelve peach trees for the land. I gave six trees to my sister and planted six for myself. The soil around my sisters house is good sandy soil, but the ground around my house is clay. They planted their trees in an afternoon and it took us three days with strong labourers. It took two days to dig the holes in the clay soil and the third day we mixed compost, sand and clay together and put the two year old peach saplings in the ground.

Six years later and my sister has two trees left. They have been producing the most delicious beet peaches ever. They started producing three years ago with just five or six peaches, last year there was ample for her family of seven then and even for us. This year the peaches are falling on the floor as they can't be eaten fast enough.

Our six trees are all still growing, they are growing slower in the clay soil. They have started with their first five or six peaches each this year. I foresee huge amounts of peaches in the next three years or so.

The trees are organically grown with love, water and cow manure.

Eating our harvest!

When we moved to our house in the Western Cape we were blessed with a large garden. This is great as with three active kids you definitely need one.

One of the first things we did was plant Cape Honeysuckle along the fence line as there was only grass. I love plants and flowers. The Cape Honeysuckle attracts the Malachite Sunbird which is exquisite!

Our next project was planting a vegetable patch.

We now have the veggy patch and we have planted leeks, onions, clumping onions, eggplants and
lettuce in between our hedge plants.

We have harvested over 8 kg of jam tomatoes, an endless supply of swiss chard, beetroot, leeks, which I have frozen for soup, and green peppers, which I have frozen and given away. We have eggplants coming out of our ears.

The grapes that we are eating off of the vines, that were here when we moved in, are amazing.

Tonight Greg has made mushroom soup with the field mushrooms we have harvested out of our garden and the leeks that are also home grown!

Yum Yum!