Category Archives: Rambles, Waffles and Digressions

Rambles, waffles, and digressions…

How to be Creative with Kids Around (Or How to Milk the Day for every Second it Has)

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permaculture garden || cityhippyfarmgirl

I’ve had a few questions over time on how I seemingly get so many things done in the day. I thought it might be easier to do a post, dispel a few illusions and set the base line once more.

First up stop cleaning, really just stop. Keep things generally tidy if you need to, or have one corner that is deliciously tidy, but apart from that, there are a whole lot more important things to do. Just leave it unless it’s absolutely necessary.

So what’s necessary you say?

Well that’s up to you, but scrubbing the toilet on a daily basis sure isn’t one of them and I’d rather be defined by the way my creativity breaks out rather than how well I keep the bathroom clean, (really, no one else cares.)

Secondly, work out what’s important to you, (hence the dropping of any excessive cleaning). If you really want to design a website, paint a ten foot canvas, draft a novel, draw up a permaculture garden, join an acapella group, or take pictures then do it. Don’t just talk about wanting to do it. Follow those words, and walk that talk. I know it’s not easy, (and it’s really not!) to find and make the time but if you nudge yourself closer and closer, five minutes here and there, make the plans, and start, it’s a beginning, and everything has a beginning.

Third point, set aside time each day/ once a week/ once a month to do what makes your heart sing and makes those excited bubbles in your belly pop. This is fuel, creative fuel and for me, no matter in what shape or form it is, it all goes into my own personal bank.

I like writing, and I like taking photos. I also up until recently have always had a child or children at home with me all the time. A long with the regular activities during the day that we do, I always set aside ‘time for me’. While it sounds indulgent, it’s what I can do at this stage, so I roll with it. I make sure she’s had her lunch, my coffee is ready and there is a dvd or activity ready to roll. This doesn’t hold her long, she always wants more food, and the interruptions can sometimes be every 30 seconds. But I do what I can within that allocated ‘me time’. If that means she’s sitting on my lap, head butting me like a young goat and placing her hands over mine as I (we) type well than that’s the way I get things done. Clearly I’m not going to win any Pulitzer prize winner novel-writing done in this manner, but…it gets some things done. Tiny nibbles of things done anyway. If I get to feel even just a teensy bit that I’ve done something I’ve wanted to do, I feel better for it. (Even if it’s just editing some photos…or a photo. I did it, and hooray!)

Number four, if I want absolute solitude time I have to either stay up later at night once everyone else has been tucked safely into bed or get up earlier than everyone else. I alternate between the early or late depending on what’s been happening. I’m naturally more of a morning person, but sometimes I just need more sleep. Again, I roll with it.

Which brings me to the very important number five point. Coffee. None of this instant stuff, but instead pure coffee. A simple stove top coffee pot is the highlight of my day. Just the one cup mind you, and it’s all perfectly timed that caffeine hit. Like I said, I get things ready before hand if I can at all. If that means grinding beans the night before in order to get that coffee made and sipped while the opening credits are being rolled out on the kiddo’s dvd or colouring in session. Well then that’s what needs to be done.

This book was a huge eye opener for me, in terms of reading how other creative woman juggled motherhood and creativity.

And this book too was also a huge eye opener as the comparison between the two books was bloody incredible.

Now I promise there’s no creative mother sainthood here, some days it all seems to slot in beautifully and other days…well there’s always tomorrow right?

These precious kids aren’t small forever and but then again life isn’t particularly long either. So for me it’s about squeezing as much into the cracks of the day as possible, because while my children are incredibly important to me. So is my creativity.

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This post is part two in a series on creativity.

Part one can be found here.

Loving…forgetting baked goods: Morning, Noon and Night

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hot cross buns || cityhippyfarmgirlcosmos || cityhippyfarmgirlfull moon || cityhippyfarmgirl

Loving… that moment when your son happily tells their father that they’ve eaten hot cross buns for three meals in a row! Not loving the fact that I kind of hadn’t noticed, but loving I was told after it all, and hey they were fed weren’t they? And that’s surely the main thing, right?…errr right?!

Loving…growing cosmos, lots and lots of them.

Loving…Exploring new places along old country roads.

Loving…late night visits to closed sea pools with full moons rising over the sea, and opportunities for wild kids to run just that bit wilder. Doing that, is seriously soul filling stuff after a week of things being fairly rubbish. (Now, did I mention that I had fed my kids unknowingly hot cross buns three meals in a row?)

Loving…new days.

This years Hot Cross Bun Recipe…juuuussst in case, you too run out of meal ideas.

Hot Cross Buns

300g sourdough starter

1 tsp dried yeast

4 1/2 cups strong bakers flour

375mls water (approximate)

handful of chopped dried apricots (or whatever dried fruit you like)

handful of chocolate buttons (optional)

1/2 tsp cardamom

1 tsp cinnamon

100g (1/2 cup) raw sugar

100g softened butter

1 tsp salt

Add all ingredients together except softened butter and salt- either by hand or mixer. If using a mixer, do so for about ten minutes. You want that dough really worked before adding the butter in, the gluten needs to be well developed.

Gradually add your cubed softened butter into the dough, also adding the salt. Continue to mix for a further ten minutes. If doing by hand, work it well.

Dough should look smooth and coming together off the sides of the bowl.

Place a damp tea towel or plastic shopping bag over the top of the bowl. This creates a gentle humid environment for your bread to rise. Leave it for an hour or so.

On to a really lightly floured surface, give your dough a brief three way fold or knock back. Back into the bowl for another hour or so.

Divide your dough into equal portions, (this recipe makes roughly 16 portions) rolling them into balls and then on to your baking trays. Allow them to prove for roughly another 1-3 hours, (depends on the temperature- dough should neither spring back or leave an indent) or overnight in the fridge. Again covered by either a damp tea towel or plastic shopping bag.

Crosses

75g (1/2 cup) plain flour

100-125mls water

2 tbls raw sugar

Mix ingredients together and use a piping bag to squeeze out crosses just before popping buns in the oven.

Bake at 200C for approximately 20-25 minutes, or until golden.

Sugar Glaze

1/4 cup raw sugar

1/4 cup water

Heat the glaze and brush buns as soon as they are out of the oven.

Eat with enthusiasm.

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Ever given your kids the same meal three times in a row unknowingly? Had a bit of a rubbish week, with the weekend being the perfect antidote?

Tell me, what are you loving at the moment?

[“Often life’s pleasures pass us by simply because we don’t take a moment to focus on them… Make a point of noticing everyday something that uplifts your spirit or tickles your heart… Stop to breathe in the joy of this moment and then tell someone about it. Share your joy and revel in it. When your joy is savoured, and then shared, it is magnified…” ROBIN GRILLE]

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Time to get growing

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cosmos || cityhippyfarmgirl

garden 01 || cityhippyfarmgirl

garden 02 || cityhippyfarmgirl

Yearning for something for a really long time, means that when it finally arrives…well it’s a bit bloody exciting.

So what did I yearn for? Sun.

Simply put, just sun.

Sunlight to grow things. I had grown what I could with 2 hours of direct sunlight for a number of years in pots on a rented shared corner of a concrete courtyard. I loved my potted permaculture garden, but with two hours of direct sunlight, well it limits things a bit.

So what can I do now? Now that I have 6-10 hours of direct sunlight?….Oh la la! The possibilities can make you giddy at the knees. Some people said wait, go slow, you’ve got years to get it going. Err, nope, no I don’t think so. I’ve waited in some shape or form for 20 years to do this.

Instead, let’s get in there straight away. Let’s definitely plan, and plan really well. And let’s not be committed to one idea, or even several ideas in the beginning. The first few years will be very flexible in their changes, lessons will be learnt and things will be trialled. It’s all deliciously new and yet it isn’t as well, I’ve been preparing, reading, learning, practising for what feels like all my life, now it get’s put into practise.

I firmly believe in the saying bloom where you have been planted…but I also believe in crop rotation.

And now with all that direct sunlight? Well. I think it’s time to get growing.

Heart felt living and lessons learnt

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flower 01 || cityhippyfarmgirl

I was on a roll this week, a subtle heart-felt living roll. Speaking from the heart and acting on it, that’s how I generally try to live most days, well, until I was stopped quite abruptly mid roll by a small girl with a tiny flower.

So what do I mean by the term heart-felt living? To me it means running with the emotion; acknowledging them, the words, or the feeling that’s inside of you at the time. Letting it free, writing it out, speaking the words, acting on it (and sometimes seeing what becomes of it). Most of the time, absolutely nothing becomes of it, but you feel good for having done what was in your heart at the time.

A card sent, an invitation to dinner, a tiny message of thanks and enough honest hugs to squash into a basket, that’s how this week was looking.

I like doing this, I like living like this, and as I get older I feel like it’s an almost missed opportunity if I don’t. There is rarely anything to lose by not acting, and only to gain. A smile, a word, an email, a gesture, a new friend, an open opportunity, a free mind, the possibilities are quite endless, just as the follow on effect from these actions.

flower 02 || cityhippyfarmgirl

So how was a lesson learnt from a small girl wielding a tiny flower?

My girl has always given small bunches of flowers to her friends, both big and small. She’s done this from when she first learnt to walk. Since moving, that day-to-day list of social interactions for her and her posies of flowers have shortened…a lot. I knew that, I knew she missed her people.

So lately, sometimes she would start to give simple items of a drawn picture or a picked flower to people who caught her eye. Someone who had lingered with conversation or a friendly shop keeper, (I also got rather a lot of them.)

This week, an important conversation between one of my other kids stopped me from giving my undivided attention to the flowers being slowly added to in my hands, and repeated requests to give some flowers to the ‘shop seller’. I muttered no, and at the end I unthinkingly upturned the whole pile as we got up and headed to the shops. A tiny gasp was heard and a wash of guilt dripped over me.

With shopping basket full, we stand at the shop counter waiting. She turns to me whispering whether she can give the ‘seller lady’ a flower? In her small hand is holding a tiny perfect flower, one left, from the pile I had unthinkingly upturned earlier. I smile and nod and she gives it to the lady.

Oh thank you sweetie! Oh that’s so kind!…I’ve had such a bad day, and you’ve just completely made it for me! Thank you.

As she places the delicate petals behind her ear, my small girl beams. The shop lady beams and I let another little wash of guilt slide on over.

So what was my lesson learnt?

Heart felt living, definitely not just a solo act that adults take part in. Kids, I think do it instinctively, and then it’s slowly seems to be taken away by us adults (who might even be  unknowingly, trying to bring it back into their lives.)

Now that I’m paying a little more attention, In different ways I can see that it’s just as important to others around me as well.

So here’s to heart-felt living. To more impromptu dinner invitations and stopped conversations on the street. To hastily scribbled tiny notes of thanks, beaming smiles and happily, to more bunches of tiny little flowers to kind hearted people who catch your eye.

flower 03 || cityhippyfarmgirl

 

 

Loving… summer days

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splash || cityhippyfarmgirl swim || cityhippyfarmgirlsea || cityhippyfarmgirl

Fierce heat and warm blue green seas,

that’s what summer days are made of.

While this is the last

 day left of the calendar season,

the summer days still linger on.

There’s still corn to be eaten,

 basil seed to pinch off,

and a pile of hidden tomatoes ready to ripen.

Hot nights and a scant breeze,

to gently nudge sleep

just a little closer.

…summer days you haven’t left us yet.

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What are you loving at the moment?

[“Often life’s pleasures pass us by simply because we don’t take a moment to focus on them… Make a point of noticing everyday something that uplifts your spirit or tickles your heart… Stop to breathe in the joy of this moment and then tell someone about it. Share your joy and revel in it. When your joy is savoured, and then shared, it is magnified…” ROBIN GRILLE]

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Thank you to all those who left such great comments on my last post. I loved reading them all.

You are an inspiring bunch, and I love that!

Permaculture and Creative (urban) Living

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permaculture and creative urban living

Having been throwing myself into all things permaculture minded for the past good few years, it was a little tricky looking over at all the identical perfectly mown lawns and not think of how I would like to quietly rip a good proportion of all that grass up.

Sure it wasn’t mine to rip up, but what an enticing dream it would be.

Instead of perfectly manicured ornamental gardens with impeccable weed free edging, there instead might be a line of fruit giving trees all the way up the street as far as the eye could see. All within easy reach of the foot path, all for people to pluck as they needed, and as often as taste buds sung out.

This line of fruit trees would also give a little shade to those that chose to walk the many uphills under a blazing summer sun. The ones that forewent the air-conditioned comfort of cars, that would drive on unseeing to all that food yet to be foraged by knowing fingers.

Or maybe there would be a canopy of beans to walk through, that might be right next to a forest of nuts and bananas, a pedestrian round about, with herbs circling in a mandala kind of fashion.

The possibilities are deliciously endless and certainly not restricted to the street side. So how does permaculture entwine with creative living?

Well in my mind they lie hand in hand, it’s an ability to think outside the square. To be able to create and be adaptable to the environment that you’ve been placed. Making do with what you have essentially, and in a sustainable fashion, thriving from within it. There are patterns, there are creations, and there are probably a multitude of pops of colour.

finding patterns

finding patterns

The more formal definition of permaculture…

What is Permaculture?

‘Consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fibre and energy for provision of local needs. People, their buildings and the ways in which they organise themselves are central to permaculture. Thus the permaculture vision of permanent or sustainable agriculture has evolved to one of permanent or sustainable culture.’ [David Holgrem]

Finding a definition of creativity is a little harder to narrow down. There are so many branches to the word, and as there should be, the word in itself is a creative one of which meaning depends on the user alone.

Not restricting the word to the art world, I did like this line though when reading through the many variations…

‘Creativity is the ability to transcend the ordinary’

And that brings me back to those perfectly damn mown lawns again.

Whether you live in a busy city studio with a cat named Peter or an off grid farm that is the dictionary definition of diversity. What would you do with a street full of perfectly manicured, grassed gardens? Tell me… or even better, what HAVE you done? I’d lovvvve to know.

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(This post is 1 of 3 in a series on creativity.)

Extra Bits 

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” Maya Angelou

Permaculture Principles– a mighty resource that will get you started.

Buderim’s “Eat Street”– Urban Food Street, a neighbourhood initiative that started from a conversation about over priced limes 7 years ago. This initiative now covers 11 streets, with people moving into the area, because they want to be involved.

Urban Farming- The Leaky Pipe

 

Keeping it real

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tomatoes || cityhippyfarmgirl.com

It was the array of vegetables quietly lying in their own individual plastic that finally broke it for me. I felt deflated, defeated and pretty bloody miserable to be honest.

Moving cities was always going to have its pockets of turbulence, I knew that. It’s a transition period where you have to nut out what’s what, who’s who, where’s where and build up from that right?.

I knew that, it all takes a little time.

So why was I feeling like I was carrying round a basket full of sad, looking down at my plastic encased vegetable dinner options?

Because I forgot. I did have options.

While I had been trying really hard to keep things as uncomplicated as possible, while I nutted out a seemingly endless supply of other issues that needed attending, packed a household, unpacked a household, grappled with a grumpy oven, the weather defied all odds, new garden beds were created and I mostly single parented the summer school holidays. For those reasons, I resorted to supermarket vegetables, some bought bread, and more plastic encased food than I cared to think about.

Except I did care, and combined with the transition of moving, it made for a pretty sad face round here.

Shopping had turned into being surrounded by an endless supply of uninspiring temperature controlled chain stores, empty conversations, enough plastic to make you shudder and all filled with people who I seemingly had little in common with.

It all felt so false. The mass-produced shopping, the plastic on plastic, the convenience of it all and the questionable happiness that people seemed to get from living like this.

Is that how it really is? Was this really my chosen road, the inevitable living that was bound to happen at some point, just because we moved?

Staring at those vegetables again, and something gently clicked back into place.

Hell no. This isn’t me, this isn’t us. I Don’t. Want. This.

Readjustment, realignment, and a good rethink.

organic feast || cityhippyfarmgirl

And so slowly I’m catching up. The local transport system was nutted out, travels further afield were taken. Local organic vegetables got delivered to the door which gave me some breathing room when I couldn’t get to the farmers markets, independent health food stores were located, the toilet paper came in bulk, the huge shopping centres were bypassed and I found the beginnings of a list of a few mismatched seated cafe’s that served coffee in cups the size of my head, (and from which I danced in caffeine fuelled happiness.)

While I didn’t want the plastic vegetables, and the convenience of everything being at my door step, I do acknowledge that I needed it for that transition period, (and not being sainted) may dip back into it in small amounts over the coming few months as needed.

While we are all still very much finding our feet and it really will take a while to set down new roots, I feel a hell of a lot more grounded knowing that there has been a bunch of bread just baked, there’s kombucha on the bench top, I’ve found places that I can buy basics in bulk, joined the local library, traded cucumbers for black soldier fly larvae over the back fence, made jam, made kasundi, roasted pumpkin’s and with a contented exhale, have once again sourced our families every day vegetables bought without a single, sheet, of plastic.

For me, it feels a whole lot better to be once again, keeping it real.

herbs || cityhippyfarmgirl.com

 

It’s a bit laugh, it’s a bit cry…

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tea || cityhippyfarmgirl

Last Monday had me doing something I hadn’t done before. Not ever.

I was at home…by myself.

Sure of course I’d been home by myself before here and there, but not like this. Not with the two older kids in a new school and the smallest at preschool for the first time.

This was the first time in 10 years, I didn’t have a small person at home with me.

10 years.

The transition for all of them seemed to be ok so far, (how long as a mother do you hold your breath on that one, and say yep, I think it’s ok?) and I was looking forward to getting through a to-do list that was being added to in a disturbing fashion.

Then somewhere between the list onslaught, there sat a little lump in my throat. I wasn’t sure whether to chuckle at the newness of it all or let a big fat tear roll out.

New chapter right?

It’s a bit laugh, it’s a bit cry.

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How about you, done anything new this week?

Did it involve lots of tea?

loving…shared local food and kindness

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bunches of basil || cityhippyfarmgirltomatoes for roasting || cityhippyfarmgirl

Loving… shared local food and kindness.

Wonderful and kind people, bringing shared and much appreciated food. A jar full of honey, an armload of fragrant basil, green tomato chutney, a bucket of red tomatoes, garlic, garlic garlic, a bowl of blackberries and a divine blackberry vinegar.

Cuttings, seedlings and favourite seeds. In a transition period when things can often feel different, unsure and completely out of place- being given these locally grown gifts for immediate nourishment and long term edible growing, it’s something that is incredibly grounding.

Brings a smile to the face and a fullness in the heart that no Westfield shopping expedition could ever hope to replicate.

Nope, not ever.

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What are you loving at the moment?

[“Often life’s pleasures pass us by simply because we don’t take a moment to focus on them… Make a point of noticing everyday something that uplifts your spirit or tickles your heart… Stop to breathe in the joy of this moment and then tell someone about it. Share your joy and revel in it. When your joy is savoured, and then shared, it is magnified…” ROBIN GRILLE]

Owning your shadow

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light || Brydie Piaf

Hello. My name is Brydie. For all professional creative goodness endeavours I am Brydie Piaf.

For six years I’ve blogged in the very comfortable space of cityhippyfarmgirl.com

In the last couple of years I’ve written in the pages of Earth Garden Magazine and online for Milkwood. In 2015 I signed up for a photojournalism course. It was something I’d wanted to do yet, but had previously lacked the courage to jump in. Through lots of self doubt and multiple excuses I stumbled forward, ultimately finding myself standing in the classroom doorway, five minutes late for my first class. Breathless from powering up a big hill on my bike, and heart stoppingly nervous.

Nerves didn’t stop me though, I did it… and it rocked my world. Through doing the course, my mind exploded, the bubbles of excitement in my belly grew with each class and with it the onset of different possibilities.

A new perspective was shown, a new website was created and new ideas began to sprout. Things were evolving, as I slowly unravelled towards a direction that gave me delicious air to breathe.

Along with these sprouting  ideas, Brydie Piaf was created.

While cityhippyfarmgirl.com isn’t going anywhere, I still have a lot to say, recipes to share and good, good people to connect with. Posts however, will be taken back to once a week for a bit, until I find my new rhythm, (especially while sorting things out for my family in a new city) also juggling new directions as they emerge.

My other site Brydie Piaf will be entwined a little here, until I work out just how to combine the two websites properly. The pages are a little different, but then again maybe they’re not. It’s a direction that I’m deliciously excited about, and can happily say if I had never started blogging six years, I probably wouldn’t be in this position now.

Time to step up

Time to step into the name that you were given

Time to own your shadow

www.brydiepiaf.com

January- The Catch Up Edition

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It always feels like December is the time to tie ends together and frantically bring the full year to a close. Why I always feel hurried at the end of the year I’m not so sure, it’s not like I haven’t had 11 months to prepare for it.

December however, has come and gone, and now we sit firmly in January. January to me is all about the catch up bits, the pause, the catch your breath before the year inevitably tumbles forward at a cracking speed.

So that’s what this post is about, a few catch ups.

artist as family || cityhippyfarmgirl

First up, you may have heard of Artist As Family. If you have you might also know they’ve been on a three month bicycle peddled book tour for their last year released book, The Art of Free Travel. I was lucky enough to get to their talk at Florilegium in Glebe, Sydney where I had my book signed, my thoughts expanded (and also some most excellent coffee at Brewristas.)

Two pages into the book this is what I had written…

“I feel soft, I feel middle class comfortable, and ridiculously indulged. I’m questioning everything I have. Everything I want, and every thing I thought I needed.”

Have you read the book? What are your thoughts?

urban goats || cityhippyfarmgirl

Now what else?…Goats. Yep goats.

If you ever thought your school would benefit from a couple of goats, well than I think you are onto a cracking idea. For this post I’m over at the honourable Milkwood talking about how you can convince your school to get a goat (or two!) like we did.

And while you are over at Milkwood, I’ve got a holiday bread recipe that you might like to tear a chunk out of, take for a picnic or freeze for later when the inevitable school lunch boxes return…and yes, they will come around again.

And that’s all for the moment people, catch ups are now caught up, and attention is now turned towards my very soggy backyard. 200mls in two days or something like that, rather wet on the toes any way.

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How about you? Has it been raining? Do you have a post I should have read and anything you really should be catching up on?

 

 

 

hello 2016…I’ve been expecting you

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sunrise || cityhippyfarmgirl

Well hello there 2016…I’ve been expecting you.

I just had a quick peek back to see what I’d written for the beginning of 2015…it seems I wished for a connected year. I’m happy to say, yes, yes it was. A deliciously intensely packed full of goodness connected year. There were paths that emerged, choices made, with options that were carefully considered and taken.

I’m also happy to say an incredibly full, connected and diverse life was lived, can’t ask for much more than that I say.

Some of those choices that were taken might become evident over the next little while within these blog pages, while others might take a while to be shaken out while I work out the how’s, where’s and who’s, (hang tight with those ones, but we will get there.)

One that I can say for now is, well, I moved. Yep, that was a big one. Still a cityslicker, with hippy tendencies and farm girl aspirations, just with a little more elbow room to move now. It’s a bit exciting to say, my making loaves of sourdough over the washing machine are behind me…hoorrah to that one too!

So new beginnings, a new start, new ideas, and a brand spanking new year…

2016 let’s get cracking.

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But what about you? What have you been up to? How was 2015? What does the brand spanking new 2016 year hold for you? Plans, ideas anything you want to share?

*** Also, also, also….it has come to my attention that for some wordpressy special reason there has been a glitch along the line with the email notifications and people receiving them when there is a new post up. If you haven’t been getting the heads up there is a new post email, please subscribe again and hopefully that will kick-start things once more. I haven’t stopped blogging, I didn’t stop blogging, a glitch somewhere amongst it all is to blame and until I nut that one out, just hold tight and hopefully all will be as it should be shortly. In the mean time, keep checking in, I’d hate for you to miss out on a post.