Della: ‘I have generally eschewed these on FB, but this one is a little different from the norm, I think. Nothing flash, not the good china, not the expensive restaurant, just what I dished up for Steve and myself for tonight’s tea after a latish walk with the dogs. As a somewhat hit-and-miss vegie gardener, I often do a mental stocktake of the origin of what is on my plate. Tonight’s result was a pleasing one (though not untypical): lamb backstrap from our paddocks (marinated in our home-grown rosemary, garlic and lemon juice – olive oil and salt as ring-ins), home- grown beetroot, parsnips and silverbeet with purchased fresh corn and canned beans. I could have selected all home-grown vegies to prove a point, but this is just a random, typical meal, and I had no prior intention of doing anything other than eating it. I take more pride in this humble home-cooked meal (is that an accidental oxymoron?) than in the fanciest of restaurant offerings.’
PS: We have been mostly self-sufficient at least since we bought our first little farm back in 1976. We have also done all our own car repairs (and most other repairs), made many of our own clothes, even our furniture. In fact we built the house we live in with or own hands, even making the mud-bricks it is constructed from ourselves. Every saw cut, every nail driven was done with one or other of these two pairs of hands. We may not have made much money over the nearly fifty years we have been together, but we have saved a lot by such economies and can afford to live modestly on our own means, a virtue which we think is to be encouraged!
