To Be happy is to be Grateful

Welcome Again.

Thanks fro visiting my blog , I do hope you enjoy your visit and become inspired to become a little more self sufficient.

It has been a while since I last update as I have been busy in the garden and with 5-6 garden beds to water and weed and tend it takes up a lot of my time. I do love it and I find I get lots of ideas on new things to plant , grow and ways to make the garden better. I also get ideas for my jewellery making while in the garden. And If I am sad or angry these feelings are also somewhat less when I have had some time weeding, harvesting and just pondering . In fact I am sure being in the garden is good for your mental health.

I always emerge from my garden with a grateful

heart and outlook particularly when I see what

nature has achieved in my absence and when I have just picked 4 kg of Cherry tomatoes and 6 giant Zuchinni's and a few other vegies. I just so love being able to be a little self suffiencent so we have some control of our lives and not be totally dependent on outside inputs.

We have a long way to go, but just helping ourselves a little does a lot for your confindence to keep going and with every little step you achieve more independencce each year. It is not easy, but nothing in life is so I say have a go and you will be pleased with the results.

So far we have been harvesting Cherry Tomatoes, Capsicums, Zuchinni, Cucumbers, Beans ,Corn ( nearly ready) , Potato, Garlic, Strawberry, Rocket, cabbage.

I am going to try and grow 1000kg again this year- last year I grew about 400kg of food.

Anyone interested in sponsoring me 1c per kg of food grown to be donated to a cancer research. Growing your own vegies and eating them fresh and free from pestiside has to be better for your health and may even prevent you getting cancer in the first place. By having this challenge and this fund raiser I hope to inspire others to grow their own therefore benefiting others health indirectly.

Send me an email if you are interested in sponsoring me and when harvesting is all done- arround june - July , I will donate the money to cancer organisation.

email me zanil.design@clubtelco.com

To end this post here is what I find to be happy ,is to be grateful for the things we have and where we are right now .

Now is what we have, so enjoy now and know that when all si said and done- everything does work out .


Regards

Lina

Winter Begins

Welcome all to my Blog.

What glorious weather we have been having and we also got a lovely drop of rain. Autumn /winter is such a good time in the garden as you can work all day in the garden and not get too hot like you do in summer.

Over the last few week ends my partner and I have been preparing this garden bed and it involved removing 50 wheelburrows of dirt out and back into this garden bed. Why did we do this? We did this as there was some deep rooted grass roots that if left here would just grow and take over the garden again. Steve my partner did most of the work, I helped towards the end.

I will get a photo of it once the plants grow a little more. I have planted garlic, Kale so far and will get some more seedlings soon. This week end has been very productive as I also planted purple snow peas. I cleaned out the chook shed ( very smelly work ) and dug up and cleaned the weeds out of another garden bed. I slept well that night as I was so tired.

Anyway I realised that you can get a lot done , just by putting your mind on the job.

I have been reading about attachments and detachments when it comes to our life . We could have attachements to our material things or our feelings. I was reading that if we let go of our attachments , we are able to do more and be more. Sometimes we may be attached to how we feel about something that is stopping us from achieving. Once we analyse why we are keeping these attachments and decide that we no longer need to and detach ourselves from them, we are free to do whatever makes us happy.- read this article as it explains it well.

On Being happy and contented , I know I talk a lot about being contented and I would like to clarify a few things incase I lead anyone astray. It is most desirable to be happy most of the time, but sometimes we do feel sad and that is natural and good for us to feel sad every now and then. I always say that if you never feel sad, then you would not know what feelig happy was like. Things happen to us that make us feel sad , as long as we go back to being our normal happy self once you have dealt with the issue at hand. Also being sad makes us analyse and perhaps change direction of our lives for a better outcome. Hopefully that clears things up.

In the end you have be happy with the person that looks back at you in the mirror.

Parting Advice:

Love makes us happy and smiling at people we don't even know can bring joy to them and you when they smile back. Practice simple acts of kindness often and you will be amazed. Material wealth rarely brings everlastings happiness, love does.

Cheers for now.

Lina

Rain - A Blessing- Brings New Life

Welcome


I hope you are leading a happy and contented life.
Well I was certainly happy when the rain came and down poured.

We needed the rain, and even though there was some damage to our newly laid drive way , it was very appreciated.

There is nothing like a good soak for the garden. Watering the garden with a hose is not quite the same.

My dying pumkin vines have spung back to life with a mutitude of new shoots and growth and now there are quite a few female flowers with fertilzed buds that will develop into pumkins.

My cherry tomotoes have also srung to life and I have been leaving the tomatoes on the vine to vine ripen. They have grown to about 2-3cm diametre. There is nothing like the sweet taste of a warm vine ripened cherry tomatoe to quench your thirst.

I even have a small melon vine that suddenly grew lots of new shoots and I may even get a melon or 2 before the season end, if the chickens don't hack into it.

The rain also coinsided with the hatching of our eight new baby chickens - 5 white and 3 black. They are so adorable and I have been having cups of coffee with them nearby. I sit and watch them scratch arround and listen to how mother hen calls and coos when I throw bits of food to them.

I hope your garden is growing well as mine is and that you are finding solace from the non stop busy days in your garden. Nuture your soul and spend some time in the garden. Not only will your be doing your mind some good , but also your health and reaping vegetables as payment of your hard work.

Tip.

The best fertilizer in any garden is the foot prints of the gardener.

Kindest regards
Lina

Medicine for the Mind and Soul

Connecting with Nature

Welcome once again to my posts.

These lovely photos have been taken at the Tulip Top Gardens in Sutton , Canberra. I have been working there for the last week and for the next week or so.

It is such a beautiful garden that I have spent some time after work just walking and sitting and admiring the miracle and beauty of nature. The blossom trees are a sight to behold and some blossom trees have two different colours.

The 500,000 bulbs have all been planted by the owners and the garden have been laid out beautifully. I am so glad that I have been able to work there. I am working in the cafe and you get to meet so many different people. My team members and owners are a great team to work with.

After work today, I came home to do a little bit of gardening myself as the weather is just perfect and the days are a little longer that you are able to potter in the garden till late afternoon. I was just thinking how blest I am to connect with nature when I am planting a cultivating vegetables and flowers. I just feel an inner peace and contentment when I am in the garden. It's a feeling that you have all that you need and there is no desire to be anything or be anywhere else, a feeling that you can do anything if you wanted to. It made me think that if we could feel this way more often , then it just might be this connection to nature that is the perfect medicine for your mind and your soul.

To be creative is my other passion and I also feel that anything is possible when I am in the middle of designing and creating when all my creative ideas come together. It is no wonder that I have become additcted. Nature and colours in nature have inspired some of my creations.

My advice is to find your connection, it may be that you love animals , or that you love walking through rain forests, or watching birds. Take the time to find your connection and I garantee that you will be happier and feel you have more time to spend with your family, friends and in general be more relaxed. Forget the endless to do list, it will always be there and the items on the list will get done, more so if you are relaxed about it. If we are constantly busy then we have not time to stop and take stock of the direction our lives are taking and to even get to know ourselves. When we know ourselves , we will know what we need to make our selve happy.

Please comment on this post- would love to read what you think.

Find your connection to nature and find an inner peace that is priceless.

Cheers,

Lina Z

CEO

ZaniL Design