Progress on the chicken coop

I am excited that Dave has been making progress on the chicken coop.

Where Elnathan is sitting will be the base of the chicken house and the chooks will be able to run around and peck the ground below. There is an additional run behind. I think Dave has decided on a great design.

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Bible and singing with baby

Since having a baby, I've been looking for ways to continue to spend time with God and to include our son in this. I have realised that some of the devotional activities I enjoyed doing before Elnathan was born can now be done with him. For a long time I have enjoyed memorising scripture and singing praise songs. Both of these activities are great to do with a baby. I now have a time in our schedule where we do this together. I have been able to learn Psalm 103 simply by reading it with Elnathan most days. Now we are reading Psalm 145 and I have already been able to a lot of this. I have a folder of praise songs printed out from the Internet and collected from church services. I usually sing 2 - 3 with Elnathan. We use rattles as instruments to shake while I sing. Having Bible memory and singing time with Elnathan accomplishes two purposes. I am able to continue with these activities, which are enjoyable and important. Elnathan is learning that doing these things is a normal part of life, and he is becoming more familiar with the Bible and with praise songs. All this is accomplished in about 10 minutes a day!

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Making apple sauce and juice

It has been fun to preserve apples in the past few weeks. I have found that making apple sauce is surprisingly simple. You just have to cook the apples with a little water, then puree them. You can add sugar or spices to taste if desired. Then you process the jars for 10 - 15 minutes in a hot water bath. Apple sauce provides a much nicer finished product than preserving apple slices or stewed apples in water. I have found that jars of stewed apples get lots of air bubbles in them when processed, and if you pack the apples raw there is lots of wasted space in the jar as they shrink when cooked. With apple sauce you fit lots of apples in one jar and it looks lovely. It is yummy too, just to eat with yoghurt or on its own!

When I was making the sauce for the first time, Dave suggested that we also make juice. You do this by straining the apples before pureeing them. We used a piece of cloth and squeezed the juice through it. The juice is tasty, although you have to remember to stir it up before serving or it tastes watery. It can taste syrupy if you stir it. The first time we tried processing the juice in the water bath for 10 minutes. We will taste it before doing this again, as this method can negatively affect the taste. I froze the second batch of juice. The second time I took too much juice from the apple pulp. It is important to ensure that the apples still have a pouring consistency for your sauce. My second batch was more like paste than sauce.

Have you ever made apple sauce? Do you have any tips or ways of doing it that you particularly like?

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Our new gardener

We like to start them young here at the Drew Patch!

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Protecting vegetables from snails, grubs, birds and more!

Anna asked "Do you have any problems with animals (or other pests) eating your veggies from the garden? If so, how do you deal with it?"

We have to protect our plants from snails, slugs, birds, grubs, aphids, and caterpillars.

Snails and slugs cause havoc. I came across a fun post about snails and slugs that have been introduced to Tasmania. I have seen common garden snails, great yellow slugs, and striped field slugs. Yuck! They eat just about anything, including beans and celery. We combat them in two ways. One is to look for them in damp places, including under leaves and in corners of the garden. Secondly, when there are lots of snails and slugs we purchase snail bait and scatter this around especially vulnerable plants (particularly seedlings). This is one way we depart from organic gardening.

Birds, especially blackbirds, will disturb seeds, dig out newly germinated plants, and peck holes in young plants.  They will also eat strawberries. We place nets over vulnerable plants so that birds cannot get to them. It is important to elevate the nets using stakes, or birds can still land on the net and peck the plants through it!

Grubs can be the hidden culprit behind surprising events! When we find a plant that has had its root eaten through and its leaves are perfect but they have collapsed onto the ground, a grub is probably responsible. I try to immediately dig in the area to find and kill the grub. We have particularly found this to be a problem with beet seedlings. Sometimes several seedlings are destroyed before the culprit is found. I have also found grubs and caterpillars eating the tops of tomatoes.

Aphids are tiny green insects that can infest a plant and stop it from flourishing. This has been a particular problem with lettuces in our garden. We spray aphids with pyrethrum.

Caterpillars in our garden are the larvae of the cabbage moth. The caterpillars are bright green and the eggs are yellow or cream. The moths lay their eggs on all brassiccas, not just cabbages. I have even had some radishes and turnips that were severely affected, as these are in the brassica family. I try to regularly check our brassicas for the eggs and larvae of the cabbage moth. Even tiny caterpillars can eat a lot, so look very carefully. Lots of small holes in the leaves of your plants are a sure sign that you need to search for these pests.

I hope that this is helpful! What about you? Do you have problems with pests in your garden? If so, how do you protect your plants?

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Bottling successfully with the water bath method

If you would like to preserve fruit, you can use a hot water bath method. For this you need either a specifically made canner from a company like Fowlers (available at home and garden stores or secondhand) or a large pot with a suitably sized cake rack in the bottom. There needs to be sufficient space between the bottom of the pot and the bottoms of the jars, thus the need for a cake rack or something similar. I preserve using a canner that belonged to my grandmother, pictured in my post about loquats. The explanation Green Living Australia gives of the hot water bath method is quite good, although I believe you can do without new lids, funnels, and tongs!

I have used recycled pasta jars and their lids with success. However, I will probably discard the lids after opening the jars of preserved fruit.  I may use them one more time, but I am not sure how many uses they will endure. The official line is that they are only designed for one use, but many people have found that they can preserve successfully with recycled lids. The key is to use lids with the button that indicates whether or not they are sealed.

My plums and loquats were packed raw into jars and processed for 30 minutes using the hot water bath method. Here are the steps to successfully preserving raw fruit:

1. Wash your jars and lids.

2. Place fruit into jars and fill with water, leaving at least 1/2 an inch at the top of the jar.

3. Make sure the top of the jar is clean, and place the lid onto the jar.

4. Place into your canner or pot and fill with enough water to cover the jars.

5. Bring to the boil and boil for about 30 minutes.

6. Wait until the water is cool and remove jars.

7. As they cool, the seal should pop down. If it does not pop down when they are cool, refrigerate or freeze the fruit.

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Being pro-life: 10 things we can all do!

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with the abortion rate in your country? Do you wonder what anyone can do? Feeling overwhelmed can be paralyzing. There is so much to do, and most of it seems impossible, so we do nothing at all. Here are some suggestions for things I believe most of us could do.

1. Purchase a pro-life car sticker and promote life while you drive! We are hoping to get for our new car soon.I personally prefer stickers that depict women. We must appeal to and reach women, as they are the ones with the choice and they bear the life-long consequences.

2. Write to a politician about your views. Let them know that people still care about this, even when it is not in the news.

3.  Watch your words. I try to only ever say positive things about news of a pregnancy or birth, no matter what the age or circumstances of the person are. The truth is that God has created a new person. Although some circumstances are more difficult than others our first response should be to rejoice and praise God for his gifts.

4. Read a book and be equipped to know and explain what you believe. Two that I recommend are Why Prolife by Randy Alcorn (136 pages, Multnomah) and Answering the Call by John Ensor (150 pages, Focus on the Family). I own both of these books and I am happy to lend them if you live nearby.

5. Talk about pro-life issues. Many people are unaware of many abortions that are performed, and the reasons for them. They are also often unaware of the development of the baby and the effects upon women. This is true even in our churches. You can help to spread information. I must add one caution, though, that it is possible to talk about it to much! More than one person has had to ask me to stop talking about it. Now I think I've erred too much on the other side, and rarely mention it. Get a balance!

6. Think carefully about birth control. Did you know that some birth control does not just prevent conception, but actually stops a tiny life from being implanted in the womb?  I encourage people to read Randy Alcorn's booklet Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?. I believe that we should always prefer to have a baby rather than do anything that would take a tiny life.

7. Give money to worthy organisations. One group I love is Choices of Life. Bruce Coleman is an evangelical Christian and I know him to be a man who is gifted in taking the pro-life message into schools and networking with a wide variety of people.

8. Pray. God cares about the destruction of innocent lives. God cares about whether or not women are loved and supported, and whether they are informed honestly.   Only God can change hearts so that people love children, whenever they come. It is a great idea to pray with our churches, as this also reminds others of the importance of this issue. I need to do better at praying to end abortion!

9. Show fetal models to friends who are interested. I have the lovely touch of life models and they are great to show women who are expecting.

10. Embrace the gift of children, whenever they come! My friend Karen at The Sower's Corner is an example of this. Read her wonderful post and comments when she became pregnant at 46 . God sends us children in order to bless and build our families, and to expand his church and build his kingdom on earth. Wow! What a blessing it is to be fruitful in this way.


Many of the resources I mention are available from Heritage House in the USA, and Choices of Life is an Australian distributor for them.

Do you have more ideas for ways we can be actively pro-life? Please share your ideas or things you've been doing in the comments section.

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The Beginner's Guide to Preserving Food at Home

The Beginner's Guide to Preserving Food at Home: Easy Instructions for Canning, Freezing, Drying, Brining & Root Cellaring Your Favorite Fruits, Herbs and Vegetables lives up to its name! This book provides thorough coverage of a wide variety of produce, and several ideas for preserving each type of food. Author Janet Chadwick aims to encourage readers to enjoy local produce year-round. Here is a quote to imspire you!

When calculating the savings of a garden and home food processing, many people (always non-gardeners) will remark, "Yes, but how much is your time worth?" To answer that question you have to be honest with yourself. Would you really be holding down an extra job during those hours that would net you more cash in the bank? Can you put a price tag on the physical, emotional, and spiritual satisfactions that you derive from working the soil and producing the foods that nourish your family? Is the kind of food you feed your family important to you?

I borrowed The Beginners Guide to Preserving Food at Home from our local library. Australian readers should be aware that the book is American, and the measurements reflect that. You will need to convert from pounds and ounces to kilos and grams. The book contains no pictures, but it makes up for this with lots of content! It is definitely worth flicking through for fun one afternoon.

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Fried Zucchini

Another easy thing to do with zucchini and patty pan squash is to fry it in a little olive oil. This is great as part of a cooked breakfast with eggs and tomato. You can also use it on toasted sandwiches, in hamburgers, with pasta, or even in a green salad! It is one of my favourite ways to prepare zucchini now.

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Preserving plums

My parents have three English plum trees that bear abundantly. In the space of one week I bottled over 30 jars of plums! In this picture you can see that I use both traditional Fowlers jars and recycled jars with screw top lids. I actually prefer the recycled jars as they are easier to use. You don't have to worry about rings and clips. If you are worried about the seal on lids for your recycled jars new ones are available. I purchased some from Green Living Australia, but I have also found that the seal on old lids usually pops down. I have not had any failures as yet. After preserving all these plums I don't have many jars left (Fowlers or recycled), so I may have to collect some from friends in order to make the apple sauce I am planning next. 


In the midst of all the effort it takes to preserve plums, I sometimes wonder if it is worth it. There are a few reasons why I think it is a good thing to do. Dave loves me to preserve things, and is happy to help. My parents have an abundance of produce that would otherwise go to waste. It is environmentally friendly to use what we have and to reuse jars. Doing so saves on transport, food production, and packaging. Bottled plums (even without sugar) are yummy. Perhaps most importantly, we know exactly where our food has come from and it is organic. These jars of food are almost like bottled summer to me! As we enter a colder part of the year, each time I open one of these jars I'll be able to remember dappled sunlight filtering through leaves, the sun on my back, and the hands that helped me pick and prepare the fruit. I'll remember my little boy sitting under a tree and stuffing himself with fresh plums, covering himself with juice in the process!

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