Who knew choosing a chook would be so hard?

It was a Sunday afternoon when we found ourselves driving out through the suburbs of Sydney to collect our chooks. A beautiful Spring day, we stopped off to have brunch with friends on the way.

‘What great weather’, we commented to each other while eating bacon and egg rolls in their garden.

‘It sure is great weather for collecting chooks’, said Ned with a big smile.

Yes, I thought, this is the right time for us to be doing this. The kids were going to love it.

Although, Stuart may have been the most excited. For a week he’d been researching breeds on the internet.

‘Wow, look at this’, he had said with alarming regularity. ‘The Black Mottled Ancona, how beautiful is this bird!’

I looked over his shoulder, first noting “nervous and restless in confinement”.

‘Well what about the Belgian D’Uccle?’

‘Ummm. You want a “broody and fidgety” chicken?’ I replied feeling more nervous.

‘Well, come on. Let’s not just get a boring chicken. I want something interesting and attractive. Let’s do it properly!’ was the reply.

Followed a few minutes later with...

‘Yes, I’ve found it! We HAVE to get this breed that lays blue eggs. Look at how beautiful it is and the kids will love blue eggs!’

I felt bad dampening his enthusiasm but seriously the last thing we needed was a chook who was “nervous and flighty and prone to the sniffles”.

An awful thought crossed my mind. ‘You do realise we are not going to become people who show chickens competitively?’

‘Mmm. I suppose not.’ He looked disappointed.

But now here we were, safe in the knowledge that the chicken breeder had already told Stuart on the phone the breeds that would best suit our 3 children family in the middle of the city. After arriving I casually reiterated that we were really after docile, friendly chooks that wouldn’t get broody and would lay eggs regularly.

Then Stuart spotted a white chicken with what looked like a huge pom pom on top of its head.

‘How cool is that one!’ he pointed excitedly.

The breeder smiled and shook his head. ‘You’d need a roof on your run. Those ones love to fly’. ‘Let me show you what you really want.’

With our three chooks calmly sitting in their shredded paper-lined box ready for the drive home, Stuart asked the kids to name them.

‘I want the black one to be called Chippy!’ said Ned.

‘And I chose the brown spotty one so that’s mine and I’m calling her Clucky!’ said Lily.

Louis looked for a while at the little red chicken, as yet un-named. ‘I think Axy’, he said.

‘Axy?’ the chicken breeder and I both said.

‘Axy as in Axe-man’ Louis laughed.

I think the irony was lost on him.

‘You can’t call a chicken that!’ I said sounding too much like my mother. ‘What about Henny Penny?’

‘Let him call it what he likes’, replied Stuart perhaps still smarting from not getting the exotic, neurotic breeds he really wanted.

I tried again on the drive home. ‘Kids, are you sure you don’t want to think of some more interesting names?’

‘What’s wrong with their names?’ asked Stuart. I realised that as he had named his first pet Budgie the Budgerigar this wouldn’t be a conversation worth continuing.

I comforted myself with the knowledge that it was more important that we had three docile non-flighty birds... Or so I thought.

When Home is... a Gatehouse, a Palace... no actually a Water Tower

How is it already April, the end of first term, the start of Autumn and the first quarter of the year already gone? And how is it that we will be heading off to the other side of the world before the year is out without having had any thoughts of booking flights or accommodation?

For all these reasons, the last couple of weeks have seen me think very little of ‘home’ here in Sydney and panic about a temporary home in the UK in many months time.

Oh yes; with me it’s always about the accommodation. And knowing me as well as a certain English friend does, it’s not too surprising that she sent me the link to The Landmark Trust website...

We’re in London – rain hail or shine – for a special friend’s wedding. Not the royal wedding, obviously (although her father did tell me recently that my friend is a descendent of King Edward I) and while accommodation is sorted for that weekend, we aren’t flying all that way for two days. So where to stay for a couple of weeks either side?

Well, thanks to the Landmark Trust, I can see a few options.



Wolveton Gatehouse caught my eye first: built during the reign of King Henry VIII. Thomas Hardy came to tea here in 1900 and the towers were thought to have been built during the fourteenth century. The fourteenth century! The Jacobean fireplaces still work; actually they still may be the greatest source of heat with the website suggesting to light the fires and wear an extra layer as the ‘Dorset nobility would have done hundreds of years ago’.

But wait! Where else in the world can you say you stayed in a water tower? After future King Edward VII fell ill with Typhoid in 1871 and his son with the same illness three years later at Sandringham, an investigation into the water supply was ordered. It seemed the castle was built upon numerous cesspools and new waterworks needed to be designed. Part of this design needed to include a service reservoir: this is the 32,000-gallon cast-iron tank that tops the Appleton Water Tower.



The engineer responsible for the design realised the tower would command superb views and the second floor room was made for the royal family and their guests ‘when shooting parties or picnickers required a base during the day’.

Today not only this room, but the whole tower is available for a family of four – and I think Louis could squeeze into a bed with either Lily or Ned too.

But if we really want to feel what it was like to be royalty, why not stay in a palace? Why not, indeed, when Hampton Court Palace offers a two bedroom apartment for rent?

Well to be truthful, it wasn’t ever an apartment that King Henry VIII visited. It was actually built for the Officers of the Pastry and lies in the service wing of the Tudor palace.



It was enlarged, though, by Henry VIII who enjoyed entertaining lavishly and even had extra kitchens built, one solely for the baking of pies.

Imagine, a kitchen just for pies... I think I’m leaning towards a few nights here.

Suddenly I don’t mind the year running away from me.

All pictures © The Landmark Trust website

When Home is... a Rickety Cottage and Garden in the Barossa Valley

How do you get a Barossa girl, who at the age of 17 declared ‘I will never move back to the Barossa’, do just that? For Cherie Hausler, it was thanks to a rickety 160 year old cottage ‘looking for the love it deserved.’

‘It’s funny how a place makes its way into your heart and quietly keeps growing there as you go about the business of life experience,’ says Cherie about the decision to move back.



After many years of living overseas and in other Australian cities, Cherie, who met her husband at highschool, felt the long list of memories they had in the Barossa drew them back.

As did the cottage despite its sorry state; ‘just short of sheep running through it’.

‘There was no garden to speak of (see sheep), and layers of patch up jobs in the form of alternating mission brown, antique white and heritage green paint, nearly clouded the beautiful bluestone cottage it originally set out in life to be. Nearly.’

‘There were signs of grander days gone by; the original German bakers oven poking through the overgrown wormwood, a gnarly old apricot tree still managing to bear fruit, and inside the lovely thick walls with deep-set sash windows, and a peak of hundred year old floorboards calling out from under the 70's carpet.’

But it still felt like home, the moment the couple walked in; ‘It immediately had such a nurturing feel to us. Once we felt that, it may not have mattered what the place looked like at all, we knew we had to live here.’

Having lived in the house for the last six years, the couple have made many changes; ‘We have resurrected as much as we could, always paying respect to the age of the property and the history that has gone before us. The cottage is about 160 years old, so we had no intention to modernise it. One of the first things we did was have the layers of paint sandblasted off the stonework and were so excited to see the giant bluestones emerge from the dust!’

‘We have done some basic things like patched walls and filled in missing architraves, and re-plumbed the kitchen. But things like the new cupboards have all been made by local craftsmen who understand the floor and walls may not sit at 90 degrees to each other, and have the skills and sensibility to create a seamless update or replacement.’



‘Floor coverings and ceilings have been replaced (or removed in the case of the floorboards that were hiding in our bedroom) and the whole house has been repainted inside but we are very conscious of not doing 'too much' - it's a farmhouse and we don't want it to lose that humility, it's part of the “come as you are” feeling that makes the house so welcoming.’

As a freelance writer and food stylist, it’s not surprising that the kitchen is Cherie’s favourite room in the house; ‘We have a space that allows people to be involved, or watch from a the dining table, as food is brought in from the garden to the mixmatched tables that make up our kitchen "island".’

‘Having a woodfired oven that heats the room in winter and also turns out some pretty impressive pizzas helps too.’

But it’s also the view from the kitchen window that is perhaps her most favourite; ‘I still get excited to look up from washing beetroot in the sink to see cows looking back at me through the kitchen window. The fact our neighbours are all four-legged definitely hasn't worn thin yet!’



Gardening has always been an interest – ‘we've managed to find some soil to grow something no matter where we've lived and how small the space available’ – but it’s only now they have the space that Cherie has been able to ‘live out the ideal of a big veggie patch and orchard, that I constantly romanticised as a city dweller’.

‘Gardening is such a brilliant way to soften the edges of day-to-day life. Maybe it's too cliche, but that connection to the earth really effects every part of you, whether you choose to notice it or not, it will always make things feel better when your hands are in the soil. Sitting down to a meal made up entirely of what we've grown in our garden always makes me pause a little before eating. There's grace in gardening, for sure.’



This love of gardening has led to a new business venture: Scullery Made Tea. Cherie hand blends her teas using locally grown seasonal fruits and herbs which are dried and combined with whole leaf tea. While always a tea lover, she says, ‘The idea that I could grow a 'patch' of lemon verbena as opposed to a pot of it definitely drove the tea making venture.’

Collecting quite a following, her teas are now sold in cafes and gourmet stores throughout Australia.

Living here has definitely sharpened Cherie’s focus on food as well as tea; ‘Having the chance to grow food and eat by the seasons is something I am constantly inspired by, so it naturally pops up in most of my work one way or another just because I'd rather talk about that than most other things!’

It’s perhaps not surprising that the meal which most says ‘home’ to Cherie is one that is grown in her garden; ‘I know we've all done pesto to death but it really is comfort food taken to a whole new level when you can pick your own herbs. And I'm not talking just basil, although I adore our basil in summer. I love going out to the garden and letting it decide on dinner for me, so throwing in nasturtium leaves, stinging nettles, marjoram, oregano or even calendula can make up pesto in our house.’



‘One of my absolute favourites is stinging nettle pesto, especially as nettles appear the same time as our geese start laying their beautifully rich eggs, so homemade gnocchi is usually part of the deal. This is the world's easiest gnocchi too, regardless of goose eggs or not!’



Stinging Nettle Pesto & Goose Egg Ricotta Gnocchi

‘This pesto recipe is completely and utterly inspired by Louisa Shafia’s in Lucid Food, but I couldn’t believe I didn’t have any garlic in the house, or quite ready in the garden, when I went to make this, so I substituted the garlic with fresh chives and it was so nice I think I might make all my pesto without garlic for a while. It still had that lovely garlicky warmth but without the ‘burn’ that raw garlic can sometimes leave your tummy with. And I used verjuice instead of lemon juice. And threw in some capers. You get the idea.’

‘The ricotta gnocchi is something I’ve been making for so long, because too many of my other gnocchi efforts turned into potato soup, that I make this by feel now so if the quantities aren’t exact, just add a little bit extra of one thing or another.'

'It’s pretty much bullet proof, so there’s quite an amount of leeway to play around before you’d get close to mucking it up.’

For the pesto...
1 bunch unsprayed, organic stinging nettles (or equivalent in basil)
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
1 bunch garlic chives
1/2 cup pinenuts
1/4 cup verjuice
1 tbsp organic capers
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt

For the gnocchi...
1 free range goose egg, or 2 free range chicken eggs
300g ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups unbleached organic plain flour
1 cup wholemeal spelt flour
sea salt

parmesan to serve

To make the pesto the only effort will be the initial dealings with the nettles, after that everything goes in the food processor and you’re done.
Make sure you have rubber gloves on or at least use tongs to handle the nettles prior to blanching. They’re quite mean at this stage.
Remove the leaves from the stalks and place into a saucepan of boiling water for only a minute.
Remove and let drain and cool completely.
Once the nettles have been boiled they can no longer sting you so feel free to pick them up in your bare hands and squeeze as much water out of them as possible before putting them into the food processor with the other pesto ingredients and pureeing with enough extra virgin olive oil to make a smooth consistency paste. Season to taste.

For the ricotta gnocchi, mix the flours and salt in a large bowl, and making a well in the centre, add the ricotta and beaten egg(s). Use a wooden spoon to pull the ingredients together and form into a rough ball. Take a handful of the dough, leaving the rest covered in the bowl so it doesn’t dry out, and on a floured bench work it into a long ‘sausage’, about 1 1/2cm in diameter. Use a sharp knife and cut the sausage into gnocchi, slicing through about every 1 1/2 cm. Gently squeeze the gnocchi away from the sausage with your thumb and first finger, as you cut it, to give it a bit of shape. Let the gnocchi sit on a floured board until you have cut all the pieces, making sure to keep them separate so they don’t try to stick to each other.
When all the gnocchi are cut, drop them into a large saucepan of boiling water and cook until they pop their heads up to the surface. This will tell you they’re ready. Drain and serve immediately with pesto, some parmesan and an extra drizzle of olive oil.



To read more of Cherie’s recipes and life in her Barossa Valley cottage, read her blog, here.
To find out more about Scullery Made Tea, visit the website, here.

All photos © Cherie Hausler

When Home is... Haunted

Have you ever walked into an old house and felt uncomfortable? Have the hairs on the back of your neck tingled as you have stood in a room? Or have you noticed cold spots in a room no matter how heated it is?

Conversely, have you walked into rooms of houses that feel happy and welcoming? How many times have you talked to others about a house having a ‘lovely feeling’ but being unable to explain why?

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about house ‘feelings’ lately. While writing an article about the history of our house and learning about the families who lived here since the 1890s, I felt those families with me as I walked up and down our staircase; all of us connected through our love of this house. Despite the poverty of our suburb 100 years ago and the hardships all the families would have endured, I felt this building had been a happy home many times over.

‘Your house has such a welcoming, warm feeling’, said the magazine’s photographer as she took our photo on the staircase. And she wasn’t commenting on the interior decoration. It was the same feeling I had the moment we walked through the front door on the first open for inspection day.

A very different reaction to the one I had earlier this week as I walked into a B&B in the country. The B&B was part of an historic homestead, which once would have been majestic but today is very rundown. We were in a separate wing to the main house; the nursery wing which was built in 1920. Walking up a steep staircase we came to a series of attic bedrooms connected by a veranda with a bathroom at the end.

The bedrooms were charming: fireplaces, sloping ceilings, multi-paned windows looking over the back courtyard and all the original farm outbuildings, and the original beds, wardrobes and dressing tables from the 1920s. In true Victorian style, Lily’s bed was so high she had a little staircase to climb up into it at night.

The kids were beside themselves – it was like living in a dollhouse. Stuart thought it completely charming and spent the 24 hours there daydreaming about having enough money to buy it and bring it back to life. I couldn’t wait to leave.



I was surprised at my reaction; I love quirky houses, the older the better. And original furniture too! As for ghosts... well, The Ghost and Mrs Muir has been a favourite since I was a teenager. But there was a coldness to all the rooms. They felt sad and empty. Even down in the courtyard looking up to those attic windows I felt a sense of not being welcome.

I climbed into bed with trepidation. Neither of us slept well that night. We woke every time the house settled or the wind rattled the window. Stuart blamed the light from the veranda which we left on in case one of the kids needed the bathroom. I blamed the feeling inside the room. It didn’t want us there and we were gone by 9am the next morning.

As we drove down the farm road away from the homestead I wondered what stories that nursery wing had to tell. It seemed to be sagging under the burden of the past. It didn’t want to bear witness any longer but it wasn’t prepared to share either.

As we drove out the gates I felt a sense of relief. Until Ned spoke.

‘I loved that house. When can we stay here again?’

‘Yes, when?’ chimed in the other two.

So much for children having a sixth sense.

When Home is... a Blueberry Farm in Canada

Eleven years ago, Heather Cameron was a florist living in Vancouver watching organic farming shows on television and dreaming of becoming a ‘country girl with a veggie garden even though I only had one plant out on the deck.’



Today she is a magazine stylist who, along with her husband, runs an organic blueberry farm 40 minutes outside of Vancouver and sells her own line of jams.

Heather’s story is one of taking the opportunities life throws at us, following those opportunities down a path and then following other paths never before considered that open up along the way.



‘I am exactly where I am because of my choices – I could be anywhere if I had decided to stay in the city. I know I always felt I was a country girl at heart. I love the city, but I’d always rather explore the outer areas. Beyond the city, where the calmer folk are.’

Heather and her husband didn’t set out to buy a blueberry farm; ‘it came with the property that we liked. We had no idea what we were doing.’



‘The house was hideous inside. UGLY!! But, I could see good bones, and knew I could fix it. Eleven years later, we are still fixing it – but it’s awesome and it’s ours. The farm was overrun with stinging nettles and blackberries; very neglected.’

So, with a hideous interior and an overgrown and neglected farm, how did Heather manage to make this property feel like home? ‘I painted almost everything white – including the oak kitchen, ripped off the wallpaper – found in every room, including a wallpaper border along the top of each wall. Ripped out all the carpet... Wait – it’s easier to say I gutted the place.’





Being a florist, she had originally planned to plant flowers on the farm and use them for weddings and events; ‘We were growing roses, hydrangeas, sweet peas, lavender, and snow ball viburnum bushes. It seemed like a clever plan – buy land, grow flowers, make lots of cash!’

But here was the first change of path; at one particular ‘very posh’ wedding little bugs came crawling out of the flowers onto the white tablecloths. ‘A nightmare come true’. Heather stopped using her own flowers and started buying them at auction.

To get more exposure for her floristry business, Heather decided to invite Victoria Magazine up to the farm; ‘I sent some images – and by images, I mean actual photos in an envelope. I think I even handwrote the note. No jpegs at hand back then. I said I make great pie, and if they come, I’d bake them one. They came. Seems rather easy, but I sent a lot of pictures of my work, our yard, my mom and me.’



During their afternoon of drinking tea, eating pie and sitting in the garden, the editor asked Heather if she had even considered a career in styling. ‘I had no idea there was such a job. Making things look pretty?! Seriously?! Seemed like a fun gig.’



And so began another path, working freelance for a variety of magazines setting up scenes and creating stories with pictures. In the meantime they cleaned up the farm and kept the blueberries. Having always enjoyed preserving food, Heather decided to make a few jars of blueberry jam to sell each year when the farm opened.





‘My jams are simple – not fancy, but memorable. I use old fashioned/slow cook/small batch methods, no pectin. This gives you half the sugar and twice the fruit. It’s like the Great Grandmother’s use to make, before we all got over processed and covered in sugar.’



Heather had been perfecting her recipes for years, originally taught by her mother-in-law; ‘She taught me what she knew, then I improved upon that. There was a lot of trial and error. I remember exploding peaches in our apartment in the city. I didn’t process them properly and they fermented. Not pretty.’

Then last year the freelance styling work dropped off thanks to the struggling magazine industry and yet another path opened; ‘A friend asked if I would make her jam for her new restaurant. The magazine industry had tanked, so I had a lot of time on my hands. It snowballed from there. Other friends with bakeries asked for it, then more shops, then I approached a trendy Vancouver grocery chain and they took it... It wasn’t my plan, but I love it.’





Today, Heather now has her Missing Goat jam label, ‘I’m not a serious gal, it had to suit me and be memorable’, their blueberry farm is now certified organic and growing and the family has grown to include three-year-old Lily.



They have ducks, originally bought to eat up the fallen berries at the end of the season, but now ‘part of the family’. In Spring there will be chickens; ‘I can’t wait to throw all my scraps to them.’



From all these unplanned paths that have been explored perhaps the biggest surprise is how much this farm feels like home to Heather in a way she never envisaged before her daughter’s arrival; ‘I thought of our home as a business, not really a family home. I always loved it but now it’s a real gift.’



‘Seeing Lily in the garden, grow pumpkins and sunflowers... Pick fresh berries and vegetables, camp in the yard with her dad... She’s so lucky – we are so lucky. I think I took it a bit for granted before she came along.’






For more information about Heather, visit her blog A Day in the Country
For more information about the Missing Goat Blueberry Farm, visit the website

All images © Heather Cameron

When Home is...leaving the city for the country

Have you ever considered swapping city living for a rural life? I know I have and I often wonder what the reality of such a lifestyle change would be like. Writer Hilary Burden made this move five years ago when she left an apartment in London for an old weatherboard house in Tasmania. For Hilary it was more than just a physical change of space; this move has also changed her sense of ‘home’.



‘Home was never about the place I lived - it was about me. Now my home is totally connected to place - in all senses of that word; ie town, region, community, seasons, livelihood - my life is local.’

Hilary had been looking for a significant change and had reached a point in her life where she felt it would be possible; ‘I decided my time living in a city was over. I wanted fresh air, fresh produce, fewer people, less congestion. And I no longer needed a traditional career or professional status. Being independent and child free, I realised I could live anywhere which was a tremendously liberating feeling.’

She was looking for a home on the east coast of Tasmania and had put in an offer on a rundown farmhouse which fell through; ‘I was pretty despondent. Then I saw the home I'm in now in the local paper. The ad was headed "Character & Space". It was just a classic old weatherboard house that needed some TLC. I arranged to visit and, like they say, knew instantly this was the one. I visited in August when the front paddock was full of daffodils. Maybe that helped too.’



Hilary’s only expectation about living in the country was that she wanted to live a balanced life at a slower pace. ‘This was a very conscious decision, and at times I've had to be quite ruthless about what I let in and out. This is what I love. That what I aspired to is unfolding around me and making me happy. Observing the seasons has been key to achieving this I think.



Observing the seasons has also been key to how Hilary’s sense of home has changed; ‘Home was the door to my flat being closed behind me. Noise, crowds and pavements shut out. I lived where I worked which made it home. Now I live where I live and work comes second. And I leave the doors open when I'm home.’



Her garden is one of the things she loves most about her home now – ‘this is a reflection of the doors always being open’ – and an outdoor lifestyle has also led her into a new business venture. Hilary, along with her partner Barney run ‘Hilbarn’: a fresh fruit and vegetable box delivery service bringing seasonal produce to Launceston. They collect seasonal produce from across the state, including buying from roadside stalls, organic farmers and people who sell only by word of mouth.



And now, instead of ‘seeking favourite things to do in the day rather than reflecting on the day itself’ as she once did when living in the city, Hilary loves ‘opening the doors and windows on the day. Hearing the birds wake with song. And making sure I'm not chasing the day.’

For more information about Hilbarn or to read Hilary’s blog, click here.

All photos © Hilary Burden