June 2020
And another week has flown by!
With me back at work during the week, it's been nice to have a small sense of "normal" return. If wielding thermometers and spray bottles and trying to remember your colleague's name when only half their face is visible is considered "normal," that is! The saying "It takes a village to raise a child" has never proven to be more true, as I attend to responsibilities at my day job. So very blessed by this village of mine who take care of Arienne at the drop of a hat, while her school is still closed.
Byron the builder has achieved so much this week, and Herbie the Herbinator oven is in his new home, with the electrician's stamp of approval! Many colourful adjectives were used earlier in the week to describe Herbie, as we'd carefully tiled around his reinforced metal stand (he weighs over 100kg after all), only to discover that he was too close to the wall, and Byron had to whip out the welder to build him a new frame, in between studying for an online exam. All was forgiven, however, when the "on" switch was pressed and powerful spaceship sounds and dials glittered, while Herbie heated up at lightning speed and his impressive capacity allowed us to bake a bunch of breads at one time. So as from this week, Byron the Builder can hopefully don a chef's hat instead of a builder's hard hat and focus on the business of bread baking!
Something I have learned on this Rooted Herbivores journey, is the sharing within a community. From a neighbour who supports us by buying bread and sharing business advice, to another neighbour who loans us his angle grinder, tile cutter, expert advice and happily hands out wheelbarrows of cement mixing stuff (ask Byron the builder for the technical term) to my colleague and friend Zinette who gifted us her family's excess tamarillo harvest. We're going back to the way a community used to function, by bartering our excess and helping each other out. Maybe the irony of Coronavirus is that we're learning to come together when we're isolated from the fast-paced lifestyle we had before with lots of meaningless contacts and little time to spend on meaningful contacts.
Back to the tamarillos! Have you ever heard of such a thing? I hadn't either! It's worth a Google, some very interesting fruit. We were gifted a whopping 6kgs of these organically grown, pesticide free babies. They look a little bit like pointy rosa tomatoes, with a tough skin (like if tomatoes had bullet proof vests on) and taste like the leftovers of a fistfight between a bunch of lemons, gooseberries and tomatoes. Chutney was the pinterest suggestion of what to make with them, and so the epic job of peeling, slicing and simmering began. A few hours later and we have jars of delicious tamarillo chutney on offer, which can be enjoyed with our delicious freshly-baked bread, of course. Also up on the website and available for order is our preserved lemons. This stuff will punch you in the face with flavour! Sour, spicy, salty, it can be eaten as is on bread (if you're brave enough), or cut into smaller sections as a powerful flavourant in soups and stews. Made from our home-grown lemons and chillies, a jar of this stuff doesn't last long in our home!
New in the garden this week is the emergence of ripening carrots. A must-add to your order, they will only leave the soil when your bread order is ready to go out. Pesticide-free, of course and grown right in my dad's garden. Arienne has had a few tasters and they pass the preschooler approval test! We also have some beans taking off, and at R10 a bunch, they're a really affordable protein-packed addition to your family dinner. Herbie's oven box happened to be the perfect size for a raised planter bed and we're busy lining it with soil to get our pea and beetroot babies in there, ready to repurpose and harvest by adding to the soil, not depleting it.
An exciting delivery arrived for us this week from Green Home. Sourced by Andrew, our problem-solver, these guys are local packaging producers with a focus on locally sourced, sustainably harvested materials to create packaging that is biodegradable and home compostable. So proud to send our products out in items that won't heap up on landfills or pollute our environment!
We continue to be blessed by the support of family, friends and colleagues who order items from us, send us messages of encouragement and share in our passion for creating high quality goods that can be produced in a sustainable way.
All we can say is thank you, thank you, thank you!
Chat again soon,
Claire
Tiler
Chutney maker
Gardener
Sarie switchboard (millennials, ask your parents what this means)