October 2011
A Letter to a Wombat
Dear Mothball Wombat,
I met you nearly 17 years ago now. You were sweet and brown and stroppy. Now you are big and grey and even stroppier.
I don’t think we have ever been friends. You think I’m your servant and, in a way, I think I am too. I do know I owe you a lot. You are the wombat in Diary of a Wombat, Baby Wombat’s Week and Christmas Wombat. If it hadn’t been for you I’d never have written the books, worked with Bruce Whatley on other projects, maybe never even written more picture books at all. Whenever I’ve put a stroppy character in a book – be it a dinosaur or human – I’ve thought of you.
You don’t know it, but the creek you cross each evening as you march up to the front door was poisoned two months ago. Everything that lived in the creek died – the fish, the frogs, the tadpoles. I was scared when I didn’t see you for a week, but then there you were bashing at the door and chewing at the doorknob, demanding I give you wombat nuts, even though there’s plenty of green grass.
       I cried a bit knowing that you were safe.
       If there aren’t stricter conditions placed on the mine two kilometres above us, you may be in danger again and again. The State and Federal governments aren’t good at making developers obey conditions.
       You don’t know any of this, as you sniff the boots outside the front door, wondering whether to chew them up or not. There are so many other animals and birds and plants that may be destroyed here, too. You are a large and courageous wombat but this is a battle only humans can fight for you.
       We’ll do our best.
       Love (because I always have loved you, you great galumphing marsupial, even when you bite my leg),
Jackie

The Mine
       How do you fight a marshmallow?
A month ago the State and then the Federal governments gave approval for the Dargues Reef mining development just up the creek from us that will generate 8000,000 of toxic waste above our valley. They put conditions on the mine, but…
It’s a very big but…
Neither the State nor Federal governments enforce conditions like those. When trees were taken illegally for wood chipping on the NSW South Coast the contractors were sent letters more or less saying, ‘Tut tut, don’t do it again’. The most that happens is a small fine. When Gladstone Harbour was poisoned and the reef creatures killed, the Federal government did nothing to stop the pollution, even though the Great Barrier Reef is a World Heritage area.      
The law says protected species must be protected. But what use is a law if it’s not enforced? It’s like punching a marshmallow – it bounces back because it’s full of air, all sweet words but not much substance.
As I write this three groups are appealing the State decision on the mine and processing plant, and the Araluen Producers Association and the Protectors of the Environment are appealing the Federal decision, with the help of the wonderful Environmental Defender’s Office. We’re raising funds to pay barristers and experts to fight for what governments should have done for us – to protect the land, the people, the animals.
If we can win more stringent conditions for this mine, then it will help other people win better condition to protect the environment too.
Last week, in Tasmania, a friend said, ‘It broke my heart when they dammed Lake Pedder. We tried our best but couldn’t stop it. But slowly I saw that Pedder had to be lost because so many people realised that all that beauty was gone, and they decided to fight for decent environmental protection laws.’
We had good environmental protection laws made back in the 1970’s and 1980s. They’ve been lost bit by bit. Now so many people – and so much of Australia – are under threat from developments where no one has done enough research to see what the possible or likely effects will be, how many and how much will be destroyed.
       We need to fight again to make sure that development conditions are specific, not slippery phrases that don’t mean much, and that if damage occurs then it needs to be repaired by the developer.  But mostly the battle is to make sure that State and Federal governments can’t pretend that nothing has happened.  If we can get more stringent conditions for this mine- and specific conditions about what will happen if the conditions are broken- then it will be easier for other people to get conditions like this too.
And if anyone can help – with expertise, or raising funds, my email is jackiefrench72@gmail.com

Book News
Christmas Wombat is in the stores. I even read it to Mothball, and she didn’t try to eat it. She didn’t pay much attention either, but I thought that the fact she didn’t bite the cover was a good sign.
Christmas Wombat, gloriously illustrated by Bruce Whatley, is what happens on Christmas Eve when the wombat meets Santa’s reindeer in a battle for the carrots across the world. I think my favourite part is when the wombat meets the polar bear… but there’s no way I can describe that. You’ll need to see it for yourself.
Nanberry: Black Brother White – the story of four extraordinary people in the early NSW colony: Surgeon White, who hated Australia, loved a convict girl, a loyal father not just to his white son but to the black one he adopted; Rachel, who escaped the gallows to become the richest, most loved woman in NSW; Andrew, their son, who became a hero of the Battle of Waterloo, finally coming back to Australia; and Nanberry, orphaned by the smallpox, who would stride between the white world and the black, as a sailor in the merchant navy and a Cadigal warrior and leader of his people.
It’s as accurate as I can make it, two hundred years after it all happened. But it did. They were heroes, incredible and they need to be remembered.
Other books
A Waltz for Matilda (perhaps my favourite book) came out last year, as did A Year in the Valley, a book (for adults) about life here with the wombats and the trees and garden and friends. Queen Victoria’s Underpants is the (almost) true story of how Her Majesty’s underpants led to freedom for women.
       The revised Chook Book is in the shops too now – twice as big as the original edition and much changed and updated. It’s all you ever wanted to know (and probably a bit more) about how to keep chooks in your backyard or at school.

Schedule for the Year to Come
Here’s what in the diary so far, though there are several other tentative bookings that aren’t listed here. And really, really and truly (or my husband and best friends are going to take away the car keys) I can only manage one trip of four days a month at most – including travelling time away.
This year I’ve said ‘no’ to things for months and then at last in a weak moment said ‘yes’, but I have made a not very New Year resolution: next year I will keep a small amount of time quarantined for myself, for friends, for lunches in the sunshine. Please do understand – most days I get at least one invitation to talk, sometimes six, which means I do have to choose the ones that will reach the most people for the least amount of traveling time, and I’m not really up to driving more than four hours a day. I would love to say ‘yes’ to everything, from reading stories at a kindergarten 600 km away to opening garden shows.  But until I can be in two or six places at once, I can’t.
This is what the calendar has so far, but there are already another half dozen trips pencilled in.
Friday, October 21: Youth Literature Day, Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre.
Friday, October 21; Gardening talk, Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre. How to grow just about everything (except chocolate) in ten minutes a week.
Sunday, October 22:  Talks about creating Flood and Christmas wombat with Bruce Whatley, and the real wombat behind the stories. Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre.
Monday, October 24: Youth Literature Day, Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre.
Tuesday, October 25: Albany, Youth Literature Day.
Wednesday, October 26: Albany Young Writers’ Day.
Thursday, October 27: Youth Literature Day, Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre
November 12 and 13: Open Garden workshops at our place. Contact The Open Garden Scheme at act@opengarden.org.au for bookings.
November 18: Talks at Sydney book shops on Christmas Wombat. See next month’s newsletter for more details.
November 19:  Picture Book workshop at the Sydney Writer’s Centre. Contact the Writer’s Centre for details (20 places only). 
November 30: Eureka Day Dinner and Talk at the Irish Club, Canberra.
December 10: Talks at book shops in Melbourne. See next month’s newsletter for more details.

Schedule for 2012
March, Saturday 17: Harvest Festival. Moruya, NSW.
March, Sunday 25: Talk at Old Parliament House, ACT.
May 7, 8, 9, 10: Talks in Brisbane. Contact Helen Bain at Speaker’s Ink for bookings.
June 5: Talks at the Australian Jewish Museum, Sydney.
July, somewhere around the 8th: Talk at the Australian Literacy Educators Association Conference, Sydney.
July 22-25: Curtis Coast Literary Carnivale, Gladstone, Queensland.
August 12: Perhaps in Perth for the West Australian Association of Teacher Assistants Conference, and possibly doing a few other talks once I’ve gone that far.
August 22, 23 (Book Week): Talks in Brisbane. Contact Helen Bain at Speaker’s Ink for bookings.

The September Garden
Have just discovered what happens when you plant for forty years and then have three years of decent rain. Result: paradise. (Complete with snakes. Long fat ones this year, well fed on frogs and lizards.)
The roses are dripping from the bushes, the silverbeet shooting for the sky, the avocadoes a yellow haze of flowers and the apple bloom all in white.
       I planted tomatoes three weeks ago – the earliest ever – and despite a few frosts they haven’t died. They haven’t grown, either, but at least they are still there, and the zucchini are even putting out a leaf a week. When the soil warms up they’ll all go whoosh.
       Which leads me to: Plant. Plant now, plant lavishly, plant everything you need to eat or have longed for. It doesn’t get much better in the garden than ‘right now’.
       So plant: Amaranth, artichoke, asparagus, basil, beetroot, white beetroot, beans – bush, climbing, perennial or beans to eat dried, broccoli, broccoli raab, burdock,  cabbage – Chinese, Savoy, big, little, green or red, capsicum, carrots (I love the small round ones or long purple), cauliflowers, (white, green or purple), celery, chives, chrysanthemum (edible-leafed form), celtuce (a lettuce grown for its thick stem), chicory for tangy salad leaves, corn salad greens, cress, chilli, chilacayote melons (a perennial melon – eat young like zucchini), corn, celeriac, choko, collards, cucumber, eggplant, endive, fennel, kale – tall green, curly, ‘black’ or coloured ornamental, garlic, garlic chives,  Jerusalem artichoke, kohl rabi, gourds, leeks, lettuce in a hundred different forms from small red to giant frilly, marrows, which are what happens when a zucchini grows up,  melons, mitsuba, mibuna, mizuna, mustard greens, okra, ocrah (a purple, drought-hardy salad ‘green’), onion, parsnip, parsley, peas, peanuts if you want to risk a crop before next winter, pumpkin, radish, rocket (or roquette if you want to be fancy), rockmelon, rosella (may not get a crop in our short summer), salsify, scorzonera, spinach (English), strawberry (seed), swedes, shallots, silverbeet, sweet potato, tomato, turnips (try sweet Japanese white ones, crisp as an apple) watermelon, winter squash (a sort of large, hard-skinned zucchini, for storing), yacon (a root veg) and zucchini.

Fruit trees
If you’re not longing for air-conditioning yet or having long cool swims in the creek at midday, you can still plant potted fruit trees. Again – plant lots and water and mulch well, and in one year (in the case of raspberries or paw paws in the tropics) or three or four you will eat the fruit and think: thank goodness I planted back then.

Flowers
As the song says, ‘Give us bread but give us roses’. Plant a rambling rose up your fruit trees to disguise the fruit from birds and insect pests too, and you’ll have the glory of a November filled with flowers as well as the fruit to come.

Two Barrels of Non-Self-Sufficiency
       Okay, this bit is not for those passionate about self-sufficiency – or even for the very organised. This is a plot that you plant out once a year and then keep eating.
       Take two large half wine barrels. Make sure it they have holes in the bottom. Place them in full sunlight – or at least three hours of sunlight a day.
       Plant a lemon in the middle of one. Prune the branches as high up as you can – you want a long stick thing instead of a trunk, that way the soil underneath will get more light.
       Plant Wandin Winter rhubarb around the base, then strawberries around the edges so they trail out and over.
       In the next barrel plant a grape vine. Train it UP and away as far as possible, again to maximise light – a tomato stake and lots of wire will do this (tie it up to the eaves if necessary, if you don't have a pergola or nearby fence).
       Now plant garlic chives around the trunk and masses of parsley elsewhere.
       This will give you rhubarb, parsley and garlic chives whenever you want them (we add the last two to almost everything except for chocolate cake), lovely ripe fragrant strawberries in summer and bunches of bloomy grapes in autumn, at least one lemon every day in a couple of years’ time, plus grape leaves (dip them in boiling water for 20 seconds before stuffing them or eat VERY young ones in salad) and lemon leaves – ditto. I found this in perhaps the earliest garden book ever written by John Evelyn – he heartily recommends extremely young lemon leaves in a salad and so now do I.

A Few Recipes
Lime tart
This is the way I made lime tart yesterday. It may not be the way I make it next month, but last night’s was very good indeed – and only took ten minutes to make, no rolling out and mess.

You need:
A bowl to mix it in
An oven-proof dish to cook it in
Pastry:
Rub together until crumbly
Half a cup of plain flour
2 tbsps butter
1 egg
half a cup of ground almonds.
It should gradually start to come together but add a little cold water if it won’t stick together. Press it lightly into the baking dish.
Bake at 200º C for 10 minutes.
Take out of the oven.

Filling:
Half a cup plain flour
 4 big eggs (I used six tiny Auracuna eggs)
1 cup caster sugar (or 1½ cups if you like it sweeter)
1 cup lime juice (or 2/3 cup if you don’t want it too strongly flavoured)
1 cup cream

Beat together till it’s all mixed together.
 Bake at 200º C till set, about 20 minutes.
The filling amalgamates slightly with the pastry and it is very, very tart and good. Eat hot or cold or in between.

Broccoli with Cheat’s Cheese Sauce
Yes, the sauce is high in fat. On the other hand, you don’t need very much to taste wonderful, and it’s fast and good.
Boil 3-6 heads of broccoli for about 1 minute, till they turn bright green. Drain.
 Mix:
1 heaped tbsp cornflour
1 cup grated cheese, cheddar, gouda or parmesan or pecorino
1 small bottle cream
Put on a low heat, stirring till cheese is melted.
Place broccoli in an oven dish. Drizzle over sauce. Bung in a very hot oven til it’s heated through again, about 5 minutes. Eat hot. As I said, a little of this sauce flavours a heck of a lot of broccoli.
Also good with Brussel spoutrs, the classic cauliflower and cheese, or even if you have a total glut of asparagus and want a way to turn it into the main course.

Asparagus and poached egg
Perhaps my favourite dinner…
 Boil asparagus till it turns bright green, then another minute. Drain.
Top with a poached egg. Let the yolk dribble down onto the asparagus and eat both together.

How to poach an egg
You need a fresh egg, otherwise the white spreads and it looks messy. Also fresh eggs and fresh asparagus is what makes this a complete spring-time delight.

Put a pot of water on to boil. When it bubbles, break an egg into a cup then slide the egg from cup to boiling water. As soon as the white is white, not transparent, lift it out with a big spoon, or a slotted spoon if you have one. Let all the water slide out then put the egg on the asparagus.
Note: Bad cooks with older eggs add vinegar to the water. Don’t. Your egg white will taste of vinegar, not egg.