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AN ABUNDANCE OF APPLES

All my readers who have down loaded the free E-book The Summer of the Morning Star will know that I turn my home Das Helwig Haus B&B into a ‘home away from home’ for Korean backpackers in the summer and autumn months. 2010 is the fifth year that I have done so. As these young people are all on Work/Travel visas and are allowed to work for two years in Australia some return to my home for a second year. Usually they are university graduates aged between 25 and 30 years who have had difficulty getting a job in South Korea. Not only do they earn and save money while in Australia they also study to improve their spoken English.  Some believe the added maturity, proven work ability and additional language skills will enable them to find a job when they return to South Korea.  Others plan to return to Australia for a third year on an educational visa with their saved money to undertake training within Australia to fill gaps amongst our skilled workers.

Korean Backpackers

The above photo shows a group of Koreans enjoying a barbecue meal in out gazebo in 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

MORE ABOUT MULCHING.

Golden ripple cherry tomatoesTo see a former post called Mulching Matters go to the Organic Gardening category in the November archives. I use several methods of mulching but they are all intended to serve these purposes.

• To stifle weed growth
• To prevent evaporation of moisture
• To keep the ground cool
• To prevent erosion

In that post I showed how I had used clippings from a fallen wisteria vine to mulch an area around self-sown Golden Ripple cherry tomato seedlings. I bought the first packet of seed from the Diggers Garden Club about 1994 and ever since then these tomatoes have volunteered to grow each year in my garden. All the fruit eating birds feast on them and then spread the seed throughout my entire garden. Mostly, I weed them out, but I always leave some plants to bear fruit each summer.

Wisteria mulch

Eight weeks after this green wisteria mulch was laid around the tomato seedlings we could begin harvesting these little cherry tomatoes for salads or for my favourite Lemon & Tomato Marmalade.

Read the rest of this entry »

BRUDERHOF VISIT 2010

In my last post I explained our connection with the Danthonia Bruderhof who in the past decade have established a community near Inverell in New South Wales. We have enjoyed many reciprocal visits. Two weeks ago we received a request from Mike, one of their school teachers, to bring a group of ten students aged twelve years for a visit with Eberhard.

Due to Australian immigration laws many of the Danthonia Bruderhof comprise young people who have desirable workskills needed in Australia. They have immigrated as teachers and nurses. Many are young married couples, with the other partner often having other useful skills. This preponderance of youth could lead to an unbalanced community without the wisdom of elders, if it were not for the older parents and grandparents who temporarily live with the community using Tourist visas to gain entry into Australia.

Even so, every year living memories of the early days of the Bruderhof in Germany are being lost with the death of members from the first community. Yet here is Australia the Danthonia Bruderhof have a living connection via my husband. Mike asked that a group of ten children, two teachers and a senior couple be allowed to visit for an overnight stay. He wanted these American born children to hear from Eberhard what life had been like for their Grandparents, or great-Grandparents in Germany during the 1920s and early 1930s. In return they offered to assist us with farm and garden work.

Eberhard and Mike

When this excited group of youngsters arrived they served us a a delicious German style kuchen they had brought with them for morning tea. Then after a discussion with Eberhard about the early days in Germany the four adults, Mike and Tabatha (teachers) with Joe and Nancy (elders), asked me what work I would like done in the garden. I told them the primary job was to harvest our abundance of produce - climbing beans, little yellow cherry tomatoes and cucumbers. Then the next job would be to wash down our extensive verandas and the gazebo area and prepare lunch. They had brought home made salami (they have their own butcher shop at Danthonia) cheese and bread. I supplied lots salads, fresh and pickled. The pickled vegetables included beetroot, zucchini and icicle pickles, made from green skinned cucumbers. Nancy was delighted with the icicle pickles, saying she was familiar with these from her youth in Canada within a Mennonite Community.

• ICICLE PICKLES - A TRADITIONAL CANADIAN RECIPE
• 2 gallons of cucumbers cut int 2 inch pieces
• Dissolve in hot water 1 pint of salt and a pea sized amount of bluestone - copper sulphate
• Cover pickles with boiling water and let stand for a week, stirring at least every other day
• Put a heavy plate on top of the pickles so they remain submerged in the brine
• Drain. Cover with boiling water. Let stand 24 hours. Drain
• Dissolve Alum (size of a walnut) in boiling water and cover the pickles
• Stand 24 hours. Drain
• Bring the following syrup to a boil and pour over the pickles
• 8 pints - 16 cups white sugar
• 2-1/2 quarts or 12 cups vinegar
• A handful of pickling spices in a muslin bag
• Let stand for 24 hours. Drain off syrup and bring it to the boil. Pour the syrup back over the pickles
• Repeat 3 more times - 3 days.
• Bottle

After lunch Mike took eight of the youngsters down to the dam, dressed for swimming, which they dragged with our net twice without finding any fish. It seems we need to restock the dam with Golden Perch fingerlings. They then went swimming in the river.

Nancy and two girls remained to assist me in the kitchen by preparing the little yellow tomatoes for Tomato and Lemon Marmalade.

Cherry sized yellow tomatoes

When the marmalade preparations were completed Nancy and the girls went swimming in the river while I stirred the pot.

I observed that keeping such an exuberant group of youngsters energetically occupied while under the supervision of an adult is a key to maintaining harmony within a group. They know they are loved and cared for.

Mike next took the youngsters down to our Glen Aplin primary state school, only 500 metres away, to kick and chase a soccer ball around the playing field.

Tabatha had brought big pots in which to cook spaghetti and reheat tomato sauce and precooked meat balls. It was great to sit back and watch the adults supervising some of the youngsters in our kitchen as they cut up onions and prepared onion ring fried in batter. Then we all moved into the dining room to eat.

Tabatha and Joe

While everyone enjoyed the onions rings, Joe and Tabatha served up the spaghetti and meatballs. There was still plenty of salad left over from lunch.

Main course

When harvesting the vegetables during the morning, the boys had informed me that our Sugar Baby watermelons were ripe. I agreed with them and after they were picked the melons the boys carried them off to our cold room for chilling. Our evening dinner finished with water melon slices.

Tabatha serves water melon slices

The dishes were cleared and the children changed into their youth costume before conducting a small service to show their respect for Eberhard. German songs and hymns were sung, interspersed with Bible verses read by each youngster. Nancy accompanied the children providing music on an accordion.

A sing-a-long

Bruderhof youngsters

Fay relaxes

All too soon the evening ended. Joe and and Nancy accepted the comfort of our guest room, while Mike and Tabatha took the youngsters down to camp overnight beside our Severn River frontage. They built a campfire and then rolled out their swags to spend a night under the stars.

You can read more about the way of life that Eberhard and I have enjoyed at Das Helwig Haus B&B in my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine.

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

PICKING THE PLUMS IN 2003

The entrance road to Das Helwig Haus B&B  is marked by a prominent sign designed and built for us by Danthonia Signs, a business which is situated about 2 hours drive south of us in New South Wales. Sign making provides work and income for a Bruderhof community. Who are the Bruderhof?

Das Helwig Haus entrance sign

There are, in the Eastern United States as well as the Dakotas and adjacent Canada , communities of Christian followers of Jakob Hutter (d. 1536), founder of the pacifist branch of the Anabaptists. This offshoot of the Radical Reformation, having endured persecutions, found their way to the New World, where they built agricultural communes and prospered. In the 20th century, a similar branch arose in Germany under the leadership of Eberhard and Emmy Arnold, first as a Christian pacifist collective, then as an intentional community.

The mother of my husband, Eberhard Helwig, then known as Lotte Peters, joined the Christian youth group led by Eberhard and Emmy in 1920. The Bruderhof began as just one among dozens of youth-oriented communes that sprang up in war-ravaged Germany.  Later Lotte married Irvine Helwig and Eberhard Arnold became the Godfather for my husband, Eberhard, born in 1926.

In a future post I’ll be writing about Eberhard’s youth in Germany, suffice to say now that for a period of time between 1929 and 1933, Eberhard’s parents left their four sons in the care of the Rhon Bruderhof while trying to establish a new life in Canada. It was during this period that Eberhard Arnold visited the Hutterite communities in the USA and Canada. After his return it was decided to shape the Bruderhof community in a similar manner to that of the Hutterites.

In the past decade the Bruderhof have established a community near Inverell in New South Wales, known as the Danthonia Bruderhof, and renewed their association with my husband. Read the rest of this entry »

GREEN CREDENTIALS

I begin this post about Peter Spencer by saying that my green credentials are obvious. When Eberhard and I bought our property in 1992 there was no garden surrounding the small timber house that was to grow to become Das Helwig Haus B&B. I set out to build the garden of my dreams and have achieved a remarkable result. We recently opened our garden for the Australian Open Garden Scheme. I’ve planted trees and shrubs in this organic garden to attract the birds, bees, butterflies and other living creatures.

White Buddleia - butterfly bush

Yesterday friends visited just as I assembled a new electric shredder. Although I compost leaf matter from the garden, I realized that most of my shrubs are now so large that when they are pruned back I needed a shredder to mulch their woody branches. Read the rest of this entry »

MORE ABOUT TREES

Some of my readers are wondering what it was that Peter Spencer wanted to do on his property. I’ll quote the words of Kahn Spencer posted on Agmates.
The people on this forum and those all over the world that are supporting Peter in his stand deserve to know what his motives are. At this point money is obviously a major concern, the bottom line is Saarahnlee and many other properties are no longer a viable business due to this legislature. So yes money is part of it but it is not the sole reason or the main reason for his stand.
The irony is that not only does Peter not have plans to do any major clearing on the property, he has spent a great deal of time and money researching and designing a forestry sustainability plan for the property. He had a goal several years ago, I remember because he would talk about it all the time when we were children, that goal was to selectively harvest and replant a variety of, mostly native, trees. By doing this the farm would be able to sustain a very controlled form of forestry without ever causing a significant reduction in the total vegetation. It was in essence a vegetation management plan. This devastating legislature will not even allow him to do that.

For details about the legislation and how Peter Spencer has not been able to get a hearing in the courts of Australia, go to http://loveforlife.com.au

Those of you who have read my November posts related to Peter Andrew’s book Back from the Brink will know that water not only flows over land, but travels downhill beneath the soil to our gullies and rivers, unless it is all taken up by the thirsty Eucalyptus saplings now stealing two percent of Queensland grassland each year. They are nothing more than woody weeds but are protected under the State vegetation laws

Romeo Lane Corner 2006

Read the rest of this entry »

SMOKE FILLS OUR VALLEY

We are experiencing a period of hot, dry weather. This is what the farmers need to ripen their tomato crops before Christmas. Have you ever noticed how expensive tomatoes are at Christmas time? The crops in the northern districts like Bundaberg and Bowen are finished and the backpackers are moving south looking for work. Here in the cool mountain highlands of the border between Queensland and New South Wales our tomato plants can not be planted until the frosts are finished. This year the farmers on the Granite Belt had heavy rain in May to fill their farm dams and the weirs across the creeks and Severn River. They have water to irrigate their crops and now have been blessed with a heatwave to encourage the quick growth and early ripening of their vegetables.

But last night the weather forecast for today included a severe fire warning. And yes, I awoke this morning to the sight of our valley filled with smoke.

Bushfire smoke

With visibility reduced by this pall of smoke I do not yet know where the fire is situated and if it is headed in our direction. What I do know is that thanks to our foresight in clearing trees in close proximity to our house and undertaking a controlled burn of our country at the end of winter, we will not need to evacuate our home. Read the rest of this entry »

A TALE ABOUT DAMS

To write in support of Peter Spencer and why he is on a hunger strike I need to tell my readers how country Australian land owners are being robbed of their rights to utilize their land. I will explain how our Australian Government can act, when it so chooses, to over-rule State Governments. Our farming property Das Helwig Haus B&B is free hold title, but increasingly what we are allowed to do on our land is being eroded by State and Federal laws. I do not have the freedom to now clear land, build dams or light fires - freedoms taken for granted by my Australian forebears.

Our fallow farm land

On the Agmates site Rob Wass explained How our Politicians (at all levels) Appropriated our land (property). Read the rest of this entry »

REMNANT VEGETATION

At last it appears that the main stream media in Australia seems to consider there could be a story in the hunger strike of Peter Spencer. There are to be a number of radio interviews today. See Peter Spencer.

It is my intention to continue writing daily posts and illustrating them with my photographs to discuss some of the State laws which have been imposed on country people in recent years. As an illustration, consider a frog dropped into hot water. It will immediately respond by jumping out. However, if you place a frog in tepid water and slowly increase the heat the poor thing will stay there until it can no longer jump.

Such has been the encroachment on the lives of country Australians by various State governments in the past twenty years. Each issue was hardly worth a fight until now when we suddenly find ourselves powerless in the courts of Australia. This is another issue that I’ll elaborate on at another time, but the courts of Australia do not have the power to over-rule State court decisions. It has been a hypocritical act by our Australian Federal Government to encourage State governments to introduce laws that then allow our Federal Prime Minister to claim the credit for meeting greenhouse gas emission targets, without the affected people having any right to claim restitution via the courts of Australia.

As many of you know we have a beautiful river frontage and that we have a license (another tax) to draw water from this river for irrigation purposes. I have not utilized this license to grow commercial crops. We have only drawn water for the garden and to irrigate the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies each spring.

Severn River

Read the rest of this entry »

EUCALYPTUS FORESTS = HOT BUSH FIRES.

As always happens when people people join a FORUM to support a person or project they start to discuss other matters. Thus while I’m writing these posts in support of Peter Spencer I can not do much more that let people know why this courageous man has gone on a hunger strike. It must also be noted that every time I write the words Peter Spencer the powerful Google search engines will recognize his name and give it more prominence.

I posted my words yesterday on http://fayhelwig.com supporting the stand of Peter Spencer, who is on a hunger strike to draw attention to the lack of compensation for Australian country people who have had their rights to utilize their land, as they see fit, taken from them by Qld and NSW Government land grabs. I gained inspiration to write another post after reading comments on http://agmates.ning.com/group/peterspencerhungerstrike

Despite the fact that CO2 is a potent plant food, and that doubling the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere would only result in a rise of 1 degree Celsius, why are we tying up vegetation? Wouldn’t it sequester more CO2 if trees were grown, the timber utilized, and then more trees grown in their place? Instead we have the ridiculous situation where vegetation is grown until senescence, then it falls down, cant be harvested or collected and adds to situation such as the recent ‘Black Friday’ here in Victoria? Comment from Colin J. Ely

Saplings clean much more CO2 out of the air and produce more O2. A plantation of new trees will help, rather than leaving the existing trees. Perhaps a compromise could be reached, a part of the land could be used as a plantation which could be used for logging once it has reached maturity. Just a thought. Comment by Leith Carnie.

Bushfire at Glen Aplin

This was the view from our farm boundary fence in October 2002 of a bush fire, on the other side of our Glen Aplin valley, which took the life of a local woman. The little clearing on the hill in the centre of this photo above is the Felsberg Winery. Read the rest of this entry »