Jackie's April message . . .
Contents:
Introduction
In the garden
Awards
New Books
Timetable so far This Year
A Few Recipes
Icebox Bikkies
Grandma's Apple
Tea Cake
A Very Very Berry
Jelly for a Very Very Merry Jelly Belly
Lemmingtons
Gardens for kids
Introduction
What eats grapes,
apples, pomegranates, pears, nashis, strawberries and grass, and leaves giant
droppings on the front steps?
I THINK the answer
is a wombat, but I'm not sure. But they are the most colourful droppings I've
ever seen, all made of bits of squished up fruit like a health bar, except
hopefully no one will pick that one up and try to eat it.
Or it might be a
fox's dropping. Foxes eat mostly fruit around here at this time of year- they
climb trees too, at least into the lower branches. Or it might be a possum's
dropping. but if it's a possum it's the biggest possum in Australia, because
this dropping is huge. So I think it probably is a wombat. Usually you can tell
wombat droppings from other droppings - wombat droppings are squareish and
sometimes broken into chunks, but that's when the wombat has been eating grass,
not lots of fruit.
Not much has been
happening work wise the last month. I've been crook- one of those things that
leave you feeling like marshmallow with about the same brain function as a marshmallow
too. I've mostly been lying on the sofa reading or watching the garden turn
into autumn and the birds, the wallabies et al eating it, which is a nice
restful occupation.
The baby wallaby
has left it's mum's pouch . It's eating the lower branches of the roses all by
itself now, while mum eats the top bits, and Grunter - Mothball wombats' son-
has gone mildly bezerk and pulled off all the red dahlias and scattered them
about his hole.
ONLY the red
dahlias, not any other colour, and only in that one spot. Any suggestions as to
why a ding bat wombat would want to pick a dozen red dahlias and scatter them
about his hole are gratefully accepted. Just when you think you are beginning
to understand wombats they do something totally insane. Well, not insane for a
wombat, just hard for a human to work out.
Anyway my brain
is slowly starting to tick again, so hopefully I'll get back to work in a day
or two, and start on the next Wacky Family, My Gran the Gorilla, due out 2005
but needs to be written now so Stephen Michael King can add his magic
illustrations to it.
In the garden
This
is the magic time- still dry, but a gentle autumn dryness now, with just enough
mizzle to keep it all green even if the soil is dust. (Mizzle is when it's
wetter than mist but drier than drizzle. The trees are just turning yellow and
red, there's fruit dripping everywhere you look- chokos and apple and late
pears for baking and quinces and tamarillos, the first of the limes and
avocadoes, lemons and lillypillies, chestnuts and pomegranates.
What to do in April
Everything: April is about the perfect month to garden- no wind like the breath
of hell, no frozen fingers, and the weeds have stopped growing so fast you
wonder if they're about to strangle you in bed. Start new beds, plant shrubs,
build steps or a lily pond.....you won't find a better time for garden
fantasies till spring.
Buy: Lots of spring bulbs. Look for heat-hardy Paperwhite or Erlicheer jonquils
and King Alfred daffodils and freesias, mini gladdies, ixias and ranunculi that
will grow anywhere. French tulips - no relation except I love the things - are
the best tulip for warmer climates. Remember - DON'T plant bulbs in small pots,
or they'll be one day wonders, flowering one day, dead the next. Plant bulbs in
the coolest soil around, not near hot walls or terraces.
Plant: Cuttings of lavender, wormwood, daisies and native shrubs.
Divide: Clumps of perennials like agapanthus, red-hot pokers, Easter daisies,
salvias, chives: any clump which just gets bigger and bigger. Dividing clumps
now will give you more plants, plus more flowers - big clumps often stop
blooming in the middle. Use a spade and commonsense ie slice, pull apart, and
plant.
Feed: Winter flowering shrubs or annuals; but don't feed any plant that might
be cut by frost, as tender new growth is more easily burnt!
... and take a
deep happy breath of flowers and fresh grass, because most gardens won't look
as good again till next November.
It's time to grow:
Flowers: white and purple alyssum, calendulas, poppies, pansies, primulas,
violas, wallflowers
Frost free areas only: coleus, gerberas, nasturtiums, petunias, zinnias
Veg: broad bean seed, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage seedlings, winter
lettuce seedlings, radish, spinach.
Frost-free areas only: any veg you can get your hands on!
PS Many charts will tell you can plant carrots, silver beet and beetroot in
cold weather. It's true these aren't killed by frost, but they don't grow
much in cold weather - and then go to seed as soon as spring warms up! Grow veg
that will really DO something instead.
PPS Plant a row of garlic chives along your flower bed. You'll get bright
mauve pompoms in summer, plus garlicky green leaves to chop into salads,
casseroles etc all winter. Once the clumps thicken up they'll help keep grass
out of the garden too.
Awards
Three US awards last
month-
DIARY OF A WOMBAT has been chosen as a finalist for the 2004 Book Sense Book of
the Year, and also named Picture Book of the Year and tied for Funniest book of
the Year in the Cuffie Awards.
HITLER'S DAUGHTER has been named a "Blue Ribbon" book by the Bulletin
for the Center of Children's Books.
New Books
Flesh and Blood- the
third and final book in the 'Outlands' trilogy is out this month, and so is Tom
Appleby, Convict Boy.
Flesh and Blood is set about 150 years in the future- a sort of utopian
thriller sci fi detective romance.
Click here to read about Tom Appleby, Convict Boy.
Schedule for this year so far:
April 15 11.30-1.00
How to Write your own Bushranger Story Workshop (For anyone 8 and above!)
National Museum, Canberra. Contact National Museum for more details.
April 15 2.00 - 3.30
Free Story Clinic at Belconnen Library Canberra
Bring along
anything you've written- it can be two sentences, a poem or even your 198 page
novel. There'll be a shadow puppet performance of Diary of a Wombat first,
then I'll talk for about ten minutes on how to make your stories better, and a
few ways to get them published, and then look at everyone's work in turn and
give you some help with it. Bring a book to read in case you have to wait
while I look at other work... hey, what am I saying. Duh. We'll be in a
library...just go browse. It would be great if you book, so we know how many
will be there, but if you haven't booked come anyway!
Release of Tom Appleby: Convict Boy
April 24/24
Falling Leaves Festival Tumut NSW
April 29: 12.00-1.30
Marymead Centre ACT.
'How to Get Kids Reading'...reading to your kids is good, but no where near
enough to get kids hooked on reading. This workshop will talk about the
particular problems some kids have learning to read and what to do about it,
different ways different children learn, and how to find the perfect book for
every child. Talk at the Marymead Centre, ACT, contact Marymead for more
details.
May 8 1-4 PM
Workshop on How to get Published, Braidwood NSW. Cost $10 which just covers
booking expenses and the venue (so if you are broke let the organisers know) ,
contact Peg Job, Braidwood, or the Centre for Continuing Education.
May 16
Announcement of the winners of the ACT Writer's Short Story Competition at the
national Library, Canberra. Entry forms from the ACT Writer's Centre
May 28/29
Charter's Towers All Souls Literary Festival, QLD.
June: release of My Dad the Dragon and My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome- the third
and fourth Wacky Family books
June,
5 (Saturday) 2-5 Pm
Griffin Centre Canberra- talk to Friends of the ABC on Wombats, Weeds and
Widdleberries- 15 years of radio books and TV
Release of To the
Moon and Back with Bryan Sullivan - the story of Honeysuckle Creek and the
journey to the moon.
July 2,3,4
Shoalhaven Literary Festival. No details yet!
July 8
free Club Cool talk at Dickson Library, Canberra
August 16,17,18
Book Week talks in Sydney. Contact Lateral Learning for details.
Release of Rocket into Reading- how to fast track your kids to reading
success
August 23, 24, 25
Book Week talks in Melbourne. Contact Booked Out for details.
August 23
Gardening talk at Mount Eltham 6.30- 8.00PM Contact: Narelle Liepa,
Environmental Projects Officer. Nillumbik Shire Council PO Box 476
Greensborough 3088 Telephone: 9433 3214
September 14,15,16
West Moreton Anglican College Festival of Literature, Karrabin, QLD. Contact
Megan Daley, West Moreton Anglican College for more details.
September 30
free Club Cool talk and story clinic, at one of Canberra's libraries.
October: release of Pete the Sheep with Bruce Whatley, a picture book about,
well Pete the Sheep!
Late
October
Bolinda School comes to visit!
October 18, 10
talks to school and the public at Border Town, South Australia and places
nearby
November 11-14
Ourimbah Campus Children's Literature Festival, Ourimbah NSW
Release of Phredde and the Vampire Footie Team- a story to eat with an
orange at half time
November 21
Open Garden Workshops in our garden. Bookings essential through the Open garden
Scheme.
A Few Recipes
A Very Very Berry Jelly for a Very Very Merry Jelly Belly
I suspect most
people don't like jelly because we get fed those horrible supermarket
artificial ones, tasting of...actually I'd rather not know what they DO taste
of. But a genuine jelly, all fruit scented and wobbly, is a joyous thing.
2 cups berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, jostaberries,
blackberries, red currants...or forget about the berries and go for thinly
sliced peaches or pears; even thinly shaved apple isn't bad if they are good
apples)!
1 cup white wine or hot water or genuine ie home made lime or lemon cordial
(But the cooking will get rid of the alcohol)
3 tbs castor sugar
juice of a lemon or lime
2-3 sachets of gelatine (Will need more for very juicy fruit)
Optional: pulp of 6 passionfruit
Place juice, wine and sugar in pan; bring to simmering point, take off the
heat, mix in gelatine, add fruit.
Pour into a bowl. Leave to set. this will take about three hours or even more
in warm weather so don't panic and add more gelatine.
Now place the
upturned bowl on a plate; run a little hot water over it FAST-no more than 2
seconds. The jelly will plop out onto the plate, looking all round and
luscious. Slice it like a cake. Good with cream, ice cream, natural yoghurt or
just by itself.
keeps covered in
the fridge for three to four days, but throw out if it grows mould!
Lemmingtons
These are even better
than lamingtons and a lot easier to make- a sort of orange muffin with
lamington icing.
150 gm butter or margarine
1 tbs orange rind
two thirds cup castor sugar
3 eggs
quarter cup milk
Beat sugar, orange
rind and butter; add eggs one by one, then add other ingredients. Place in
patty cases or a greased or non stick muffin pan. Bake at 200C for about 35
minutes or till light brown on top. Cool before icing.
Icing
two cups icing sugar
quarter cup cocoa
1tb butter
one quarter cup milk
1 cup - 2 cups coconut
Melt butter in a
saucepan; add other cocoa and icing sugar and half the milk, and stir till
thickish. If it is too thick add more of the milk.
Dip the top half
of the cakes in the melted icing then dip in the coconut.
if you are really
feeling chocolatish let the icing set then dip once more before the coconut
dipping
Grandma's Apple Tea Cake
I make masses of
these every autumn when we have apples spilling off the trees, and every time I
eat one I think of Grandma. This recipe isn't from the recipe book she left,
filled with notes from about 80 years of cooking- Grandma never needed a recipe
to make apple tea cake. But its the one I learnt to make watching her cook- and
waiting for that incredible apple and nutmeg smell to fill the kitchen so we'd
know it was time to take it out and eat it.
200 butter
two thirds cup castor sugar
3 eggs
1 cup Sr flour
half cup plain flour
third cup milk/cream/ sour cream/natural yoghurt
6 apples, peeled and sliced
1 tbs brown sugar
dust of cinnamon and nutmeg
Cream butter and
sugar; mix in eggs one by one. Add flours and liquid.
Line a baking dish
with baking paper, or butter and flour it. Pour in mix. There will be a fairly
thin layer.
Press the apple
slices into the cake mix, sharp side downwards. It should be thick with apple
slices. if not, add more. The cake will now be about four times as high as it
was. Sprinkle over brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. bake about 50 minutes or
till light brown on top at 200.
Eat and think of
Grandma!
Icebox Bikkies (or Cookies if you are American!)
200 gm butter/marg
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 generous cup brown sugar
1 egg
one and a quarter cups plain flour
half a cup SR flour
1 cup chopped walnuts pecans almonds
1-2 cups choc pieces
Cream butter and
sugar; mix in egg; add other stuff. Roll into a long snake. Wrap snake in
plastic wrap.
Place cookie snake
in the freezer for up to three months. When you want a bickie- or six- take
out the snake, chop off a few pieces- no need to thaw it. Put the rest of the
snake back in the freezer and the place the cut pieces on a greased and floured
or non stick tray and bake for 12 minutes or so at 200C or until each bickie is
just turning pale gold brown at the edges. Take out, let cool and crisp up.
Store in a sealed container.
A Garden for Kids
Do
any kids still garden nowadays? Apart from those hauled away from the computer
or video by gardening fanatic relatives?
Kids NEED gardens
- either their own or someone else's. Gardens are places where kids can pretend
they've conquered another planet, surf tidal waves, play soccer or teach the
cat to waterski in the lily pond. (Note to kids: cats usually object to this.)
Of course kids +
gardens = bicycle gashes on the lawn and roller bladed pot plants, not to
mention great handfuls of flowers hauled up by their roots... but none of this
is permanent, except for a cracked a pot or two. Kids just wound gardens- they
don't destroy them- and what they're getting in return (apart from sap stains
on the knees) is irreplaceable.
At the risk of
sounding all touchy-feely, gardens are a great place to transfer a bit of
wisdom to the next generation - not just about how to grow tomatoes, but just
the sort of chatting about the world that happens when you're working together.
My strongest
memories of my grandparents are in gardens - Grandpa showing me how to take a
grevillea cutting;
Jannie arranging camellias so their petals didn't bruise, and Great Grandpa
with his great fat dahlias. I used to think that you needed a big belly like
Great Grandpa's to really grow dahlias.
Gardening is
something that can't be learnt from books (even mine). You have to get your
fingers dirty to learn how to garden - and you have to have someone who is
prepared to teach you and share their garden with you, so you can find all the
other things a garden has to give.
Things Kids Need In gardens
Trees to climb.
Yes, they can fall
out of them, but they'll also learn coordination and... blast it, who cares
what they learn? The world looks different from up in a tree. Even adults
should try it.
Good climbing
trees include loquats, mulberries, Chinese elms - avoid trees like peaches and
nectarines that have brittle wood, and do check branches regularly for signs of
rot.
Space
Either paving or
grass, where they can roller blade or shoot balls at the moon or practice their
netball whatever their friends say is THE thing to do at the moment.
Cubbies
The best cubbies
are ones built by kids. Pre-fab cubbies look sweet - but how many do you know
that are used regularly?(Except by huntsman spiders).
Give kids a bit of
fence down the back and a few planks, or the cardboard the washing machine came
in. Kids have more fun making cubbies - and remaking them - than using them!
Pretty things.
Both sexes like
pretty things - though there may be a time in a male's life when he won't admit
it. Rose hips, golden beetles, coloured leaves, a million flowers. Do let kids
pick flowers, even if it leaves the garden a bit bare. But show them the less
obvious beauties too- and HOW to pick flowers and fruit so the plant survives
the experience.
Magic.
I used to spend
hours feeding the banksia men when I was a kid. We used to play tunes on gum
leaves too. You fold them in half and sort of hum and blow at the same time.
Show kids how
sunflowers follow the sun (except they often don't, especially new cultivars
with lots of heads) or lawn daisies sulk and close up when the sun goes behind
a cloud and hydrangeas change to pink when you lime them and beans always twine
round a post the same way (or do they?).
Try tying a bit of
string round a zucchini as it grows to make a ridiculous shape. Or paste brown
paper over a green apple or lemon in the shape of a kid's name, then when it's
ripe peel away the paper and their name will be indelibly on the fruit.
PS
If you want to
feed banksia men get a cup of water and a spoon and dry banksias. Spoon the
water through their lips - and, like all living things, the water will
eventually come out the other end.
Tucker
Kids love picking
their own. Even a kid who won't eat peas will guzzle them straight from the pod
in the garden. Every gardens should have at least one fruit tree for the kids -
even if it's in a pot.
Places to pretend
Too many gardens
are designed to impress the neighbours. Kid friendly gardens have lots of trees
and shrubs where they can hide and pretend they're in the jungles of Alpha
Centauri.
Things kids learn from gardening:
. hard work achieves things (mostly)
. hard work is more satisfying than watching a video (unless it's a REALLY good
video)
. patienceŠthose strawberries WILL get ripe
. fresh food tastes better (but remove the slugs first)
. yes, you can grow your own
. real life is more satisfying than TV
. it's possible to have a two hour conversation with your relatives
. things GROW- without the aid of computers or microchips.
Dangers for kids:
. Steep retaining walls and steps, that toddlers may fall down.
. Ponds. Kids mostly love watching goldfish. (The more, ah, enterprising kids
will work out ways to catch them. I once both caught and grilled my
grandmother's goldfish, which did indeed teach me a lesson.....)
Small kids can
drown in surprisingly little water. Either keep water fenced off from kids, or
have a solid reinforcing mesh cage just under the water - or both. (This also
discourages golden Labradors from leaping in there.)
. Dirt. I love dirt. No, make that I passionately adore dirt. But I also
respect it. Do let kids get down and dirty, but also teach them that dirt can
harbour dangers too. Make sure they wash (and dry) hands before eating; make
sure all dogs who visit your garden are wormed; keep kid's tetanus shots up to
date (and yours too).
. Pesticides fungicides and herbicides - keep them out of the reach of kids and
pets - including snail pellets!
. Poisonous plants
There are a heck
of a lot of poisonous plants in most gardens, but luckily most kids won't go
munching on your ferns, ivy, oleander or daffodil bulbs.
But young kids do
tend to take a chomp out of bright flowers, while older ones go for bright
berries. Usually a warning or two is all that's needed, but many kids nowadays
don't have much experience of gardens, and so no one may have warned them
before. Keep an eye on very young kids so you can hoik that daffodil flower
out of their mouth, and do warn older kids that some plants are dangerous.
(I have an
irresistible - and very sour - calamondin tree by our front gate. It's a rare
kid who doesn't pick one of the little orange fruits - then spit it out in shock
once they've tasted it. Which is a great excuse for Auntie Jackie's short
lecture on why you should always ASK before you pick and eat anything in the
garden!)
A few especially attractive poisonous plants to watch out for:
Any bulb - leaves, bulbs, seeds and flowers
Berries and seeds of arum lilies, melia trees, ivy, black nightshade, potato
vine, cotoneaster, lantana, buddleia, wallflowers, broom, daphne,
delphinium...in fact ANY seed and most berries are probably poisonous unless
they're being grown for food!
White
sap on poinsettia, acrid sap of agapanthus, arum lilies. clematis,
dieffenbachia
Bright flowers of datura, phascelias, and any part of foxgloves, yellow jasmine
or wisteria...and a lot of others too.