Jembella Farm: December 2014

Saturday, 20 December 2014

Honey biscuits because it's Christmas in the Barossa

At this time of year every good Barossa Hausfrau has made honey biscuits.
Well, this is what I was told many years ago as a child growing up here in the Barossa and since I returned to live here after many years absence I made the decision to embrace the culture in many small ways and this is one of them.
And with unlimited supplies of honey from Brian's hives there's no avoiding the task.
Chris Doecke is the honey biscuit queen, and as I sat watching her rolling out dough on her kitchen bench last week I gained another hint to achieving the crisp thin honey biscuit that many love, including Brian and I. Thanks Chris, I was taking it all in.
I've never heard Chris complain about anything and when I had a little whinge about the tediousness of icing them all she had the cheek to say she actually enjoys it! So, today I iced my thin and crispy honey biscuits with a whole new attitude. I'm going to enjoy it, and enjoy it I did.

Nothing fancy, just a bit of colour and a touch of added sweetness.

On the stall for the next few days are Honey Biscuits and freshly made Apricot Jam as well as all of the usual honey and jams.
It's been a big jam making week as the trees have yielded buckets full of the gorgeous juicy fruits that we so love. Not one to waste a thing, we've got jam and preserves "from here to next Christmas"!

I wish all of my friends here on the blog a wonderful Christmas that is all you want it to be. I hope you get to spend time with the people you love most, enjoy some special food and have plenty of belly laughs.

Our brief this Christmas is to give a gift that is either hand made, found, or purchased from a charity shop (op-shop) to the value of less than $10. All of us have so much and so many have so little, so we've agreed to donate our Christmas money to The Fred Hollows Foundation again this year.
We've also made a donation to one of our dearest friends who is being treated for breast cancer and is supplementing her conventional medical treatment with alternate therapies which are so very expensive.
The boys have had fun wandering the op-shops and using their imaginations to come up with suitable gifts. Being no stranger to op-shops, I wonder if I may have opened up a new world of shopping to them. I hope so.
So that leaves me still pondering what I will find for gifts early next week. Oh dear, looks like I'll be wandering the op-shops. (Heaven!!)

About Us

Whether you're living in an apartment, in a house in the suburbs or on acres, you can live frugally and sustainably. There are many things you can do to save money, eat ethically and healthily, reduce waste and live an enriched life.
We are Sally and Brian and we live in the Barossa Valley (South Australia) in a 100 year old house on sixteen acres with 2 dogs, 7 cows, 2 alpacas, 5 geese, 35 chickens, 78 sheep and a few bee hives.
Our way of life takes team work and dedication, but over the years we've learned to be more productive without seeming to put in quite so much effort. We've learned through making mistakes and taking a different approach to what the conventional ways would be. Still learning every day and constantly researching old and new methods, we believe that our lives are greatly enriched, we are healthier and we couldn't imagine any other way of life.
Considered to be living The Good Life, people love to visit us on our small farm to learn about our simple living philosophy.

Why do we do it?
Our love of good food, concern for our health and respect for all animals. The further we got into living on the land the more aware we became that most of the standard practices of growing food were not satisfactory. We couldn't eat with a clear conscience.
Milk from sad cows, pasteurized and homogenized into white liquid. Meat from distressed, hormone and antibiotic pumped livestock. Vegetables and fruits grown and sprayed with chemicals. What to do? Grow our own!
Slowly we grew our knowledge and took one step at a time, becoming proficient in one skill before moving on to the next. The learning curves were steep. We fell over and got back up again. There has been some derision and criticism of our approach from a few, but that's life when you swim against the tide.
If we are not the "norm" then so be it. There is nothing "normal" about growth hormones fed to beef, anti-biotics and chemicals fed routinely to chickens, cruelty and disrespect for farmed animals, meals in a box, GM foods, strawberries and tomatoes in winter.
Thankfully the World is waking up to cleaner and more ethical food. We didn't know back then that Organics and Bio-dynamics would become the "new black". The tide is turning and our swimming is becoming easier.