Patience, Persistence and Purpose

This is written by my daughter Fleur who has five children under 9yrs and lives in the Queensland bush near Laidley.  I think it’s worth sharing.  Enjoy!

For the last two years, my family and I have lived in a rural setting on nearly 900acres of nature refuge.
Since the day we moved here, I have had grand plans of becoming a ‘self-sustaining’ homemaker – the type of woman who is up at dawn baking and makes her own cheese, soaps and cleaning products. Her home is always clean and smells of fresh lavender and apple pies. Her family is happy and free –spending time with each other, or simply curling up with a book under the Jacaranda by the dam. The veggie garden provides all the fruit and vegetables for her healthy family and she sews gorgeous creations to sell at the local markets along with fresh eggs and baked gingerbread.

Sadly, a year and a half on, I have planted and killed nearly two dozen hardy herbs, my lavender is brown, I have three chickens who lay a total of two eggs a day between them (I thought I had four chickens, but one turned out to be a Rooster), and the bread I made this morning had to be thrown out to the donkeys (it was so tough, the chickens had a go at it and walked away!).

However, I will continue to persist, and over these last couple of years I have indeed picked up a few ‘essential’ skills that every homemaker simply must know.

My greatest ‘must know skill’ I have taught myself is – through much trial and error - to make yogurt. I have always been an avid yogurt fan – greek, natural or flavoured, I don’t mind, I like them all. I noticed one day an ‘Easi-Yo’ yogurt maker in our local supermarket (in ‘town’ a half hour drive from our home). I bought it and began making my daily yogurt. I convinced my husband it was to save us some money (as the price of yogurt seems to go up and up), but really, I just wanted to feel ‘homely’- like I was ‘providing for my family’.

For a few weeks I was happy with my ‘Easi-Yo’, but then realised that I was actually spending quite a bit more money given the quantity I was consuming. I figured that people must have been making yogurt themselves before ‘Easi-Yo’ came along, so I did a bit of online research and came up with a few different recipes that I was eager to try. I even bought a ‘yogurt’ culture from the United States to guarantee my success! Sadly, my yogurt did not become yogurt, but rather turned into a sour sort of runny milk. It smelt and tasted bad.

Not to be deterred, I started to experiment using my knowledge gained from my ‘Easi-yo’, the recipes I found online, and my own stubbornness of not wanting my yogurt to get the better of me. Weeks later, I still had not found a perfect combination of temperature, time, ingredients and taste.

Starting to feel quite discouraged, I left my yogurt obsession for a couple of weeks after that, and went back to store-bought natural yogurt.

However, one day, I happened to have a dollop of yogurt left in a container, and an unopened long-life milk on the bench. I figured I’d give it another go, and with a bit of heat, a cup of milk powder (for extra creaminess and thickness), and my good old ‘Easi-yo’ container to regulate the temperature, six hours later, I discovered I had created my perfect homemade natural yogurt! Delicious!!

From this seemingly unimportant feat, I learnt a great deal about persistence, timing, research and having a belief in yourself that you can do anything (even when people are telling you that you should be wasting your time on some other type of worthwhile obsession!).

A few simple observations shows us that we seem to be living in a world that wants everything ‘Now!’. If we need an answer to a question, we want someone else to tell us.  If we want a new item, we go out and buy it. If we want some delicious creamy yogurt, we run down to the shops and we grab it. We are moving so fast, and it is just so that we can move on to the next thing, and the next and the next.

Taking time to focus and experiment, change tactic and experiment again, we are able to learn patience, determination and pride in our own work and results. These sorts of skills are valuable for anyone - especially children who may already be used to getting and having everything their way instantaneously.
Patience, persistence and purpose - who knew a little pot of yogurt could teach so much?!

Fleur Brooks, Qld