Yesterday was cooler so I tried to spend some time inside doing interesting inside jobs as opposed to the drudgery inside jobs that I do At Speed. So I packaged up more postcards to be sent. 
Then I worked in my new Cave. John calls it the Cellar. The local word for this room is the Fruit Room. As you know one of my goals is to be self sufficient. One day I would like to try and go a whole year just eating from the farmy and buying dry stores like rice and flour and beans four or five times a year. I suggested this to John and he said he would go and live with his mother for that year. 
I said You do know that it will not be long and we will be building your Mother a Nanny Cabin down the bottom of the garden. She is in on this you know! He shook his paper and remained behind it. In my cave I have room for all the vegetables preserved in jars. The pickles, chutneys, honey, vinegars, jams and oils. On the right of the image above you can see the cheese cupboards, there are three along one wall. There are three parmesan wheels in them now. I shall fill it this summer. My cheeses will age much better in there. 
It is all very well to preserve the summer produce for the winter but it needs to be stored in a designated space. And all the jars as they are emptied need to be stored somewhere other than the bottom of my wardrobe. This is a lovely old fashioned idea. A beautiful store-room. A whole winters worth of food is quite a lot of food. The cave is 8×12 foot. It is made entirely of recycled barn timbers. And the scent from the wood is just sublime.
Naturally one wall is for the wine. This room is on the North side of the basement and it is very cool down there. It has a solid door. The floor is the concrete of the basement and the ceiling is also sanded tongue and groove old barn timbers. There is one tiny window, that looks out into the feet of the plants in the garden above. 
This is the magnolia I planted to shade part of the verandah in the summer. I think it is called sunburst. But I am not good with the names of plants.
I am now on the hunt for a door for the root cellar so I can store potatoes, onions and pumpkins, etc. Though the old people say to put the apples and pears in the well house because they will ripen and rot everything in the root cellar and if I cover them in burlap sacks above the well they will be fine in there. So much to learn.
I hear of people going off the grid and filling their houses with batteries and gadgets and generators to make the electricity they previously pulled from the grid. Solar that fills a bank of batteries. Wind turbines that have components made all over the world and shipped across to us. I wonder whether this does not leave just as big a carbon footprint. I sense that I am wandering off into a life that will eventually only need very little electricity and fuel to run it and I do not want to leave a huge pile of rubbish behind when I am gone. A little is OK. A little electricity and fuel is OK. Sustainable.
Imagine if there was no dump and no garbage trucks and all the rubbish and debris we throw out each day was piled like an exclamation mark in our own back yards where everyone could see it. Over the years it would be bigger than the house. I tried to explain this to my visitors last week when they were hunting for store bought water in convenient plastic bottles. I tried to do the maths for them. I tried to explain that water in throw away bottles is a very new phenomena and we should be careful. They just looked blankly at me and said well where do you get your water from then. I handed them the water jug and a glass.
Good morning. It is cool now but fine and will get warmer. The sun is up and I will be outside again today! I love this weather!
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
94 responses to “The cave”
We have work to do, Celi. We have much work to do.
yes we do, and we will keep plodding along! c
Those postcards look amazing!
Celi, the postcards look splendid! and doesn’t your cellar look wonderful, oh so roomy. I would love a kitchen that large……..lol.
The only place left to store my preserves in the wine fridge……yup you guessed it with the wine, grains, beans and organic flours; the temperature is set at 14C.
Perhaps the reason the older folks say not to store the pome fruits with root vege is because the apples give off a gas when stored that ripens and fresh foods stored in the vicinity.
Oops the and after ripens should be any fresh foods.
I gotcha, and yes you are absolutely right, so I will be storing apples and pears in their own corner of the basement! c
What a wonderful store room. I think that preserved food should be enjoyed while it is sitting there in its jars. I used to preserve peaches and pears every year and loved the sight of them on the open shelves – in fact I could hardly bear to open them! You are helping this planet and showing the way to a better life for everyone – and having a good time as well. What could be better? I’m back in circulation now. If you check my latest post, you’ll see why. http://seasonalinspiration.blogspot.co.nz/
i went and looked and i am thrilled for you! No wonder you were quite.. finishing a book!! wow and as always thank you for the link, it moves me along faster! c
I love your cave! We make lots of pickles and preserves in the summertime and then just pile the jars willy-nilly in the basement and hope there’s not an earthquake. 🙂 Your shelves will let you enjoy the preserves twice: first to look at and then to eat!
You are so right Emmy, I love to look at them! Tho this makes it hard for me to EAT them!! c
What a lovely space you have there. Had to laugh that he’s going to live with his mother that year! lol
Morning patti! c
I love your cave! And the points you make are very valid 🙂
I, too, love this weather! I’m trying to put the idea of blazing hot summers out of my mind.
I like how you are guided by the wisdom of the old people. It is great that the knowledge is being kept alive and used.
To create an old fashioned life style we surely need to go back and ask how they did it! I mean they invented so many amazing things to get the job done! c
Love the cave…of course the first thing I thought of was that you had your own Cheese Cave, which of course is the coolest thing. 🙂
yes my little wheel of parmesan cheese have set up residence in there. i can’t wait to make some more! c
I want a cave too!! But I fear I wouldn’t know what to do with it.. and I know I don’t have any cheese around here that’s wanting for a spot in the cave. I shall be watching you closely.. you’re the new pioneer of our times!!
Maybe I should wear a long skirt and a bonnet!!! (raucous laughter!)c
That is a very nice cave Celi. I love the idea of it, but I don’t have enough room for it (or a husband willing to build me one 😉 )
Good morning!
I am a very lucky girl! c
You have an amazing amount of energy!
We have a wonderful recycle center in the town nearest to us. By being careful with what we buy, recycling, and composting, we’ve cut our garbage down to almost nothing.
I would so love for YOUto be self-sufficient for a year! There would be a lot of great blog posts, I know!