Sandflies, Cyclones and Pumpkin

Bananas

2012-02-06T09:15:00.000+10:00

I knew that it would about a year before we got any bananas from our plants and I was only slightly off. Our two large plants are now starting to break out in bananas and it is only a matter of time before they are grown.

There are quite a few suckers on the bottom and the largest will stay there and the others I am going to plants down near the creek.

These bananas are sugar bananas and will be lovely. I once read a letter in the paper, I think, that there are so many lovely bananas out there why would you stick with the Cavendish bananas which apparently are grown for their mass production but not necessarily for flavour. Sugar bananas are certainly much nicer.

So while these are only babies right now, it won’t be long before we are eating sweet little bananas.

We are also getting paw paws, a few from the creek trees and a couple from the garden. I put in the extra trees so the spoilt chooks could also have paw paws as they love them but I am going to plant more for us. I have made paw paw chutney and there are some other recipes I want to try out as well as eating them for breakfast, so the more the merrier. Just as well they are popping up all over the place at the moment.

I have also got this little stash of potatoes. They are not very much to look at but I just throw them in the ground and they pretty much take care of themselves so I will continue. They also taste very yum, just eaten whole.

I have photos to post but am having internet problems so will post them when I am able to. We had a big wind on Saturday due to a low/cyclone (Cyclone Jasmine)passing and as our internet is currently wireless it has been hit and since. So, along with all the debris and some trees down around the place, the rain being sucked away,and our shade sail ripping, our internet has been sparodic and obviously is still playing up though is slightly better than yesterday, I think :) So I am just going to post this while I can.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Once again, all the “crazy” preppers are proven correct in that you must be prepared. Whether you stay at home or have to leave you must be ready for it. Here in Australia we are having floods (again) in Queensland and New South Wales, and in Europe they are having a very cold snap where more than 300 people have died. Emergency services are flying in basic essentials and medical supplies to people stuck in the floods, but really, don’t you think we should have more than a couple of days food and medication in the house? Besides, in the course of normal life, who really wants to keep running to the shops all the time because you have run out of vegemite, butter , flour or the essential chocolate? Not me :)

The Creek

2012-01-28T10:19:00.000+10:00

Now our number one and only son has gone back to school it feels like we can get back into things properly instead of swanning around because we are on “holidays”.

Yesterday I went down to our creek garden where there are paw paws, pigeon peas and pumpkin growing and cleared out a fair bit a guinea grass, a bit easier to do now it has rained. Loving the rain right now.

Anyway, we can now see the creek, which is running now it has started to rain, and the paw paws are now visible instead of amongst it all. This garden is a low maintenance, take of itself garden, so no watering just mulching and they just grow, that is the way a lot of it should be, and gardening shouldn’t be that hard. If you do it right it can just go its own way.

I actually have a permaculture DVD which shows a food forest being grown. They plant everything in such a way that everything gets what it needs to grow and everything gets along and people don’t need to do very much at all, if anything.

I love that wildness of it, I guess that is why I take delight in things popping up in weird places in the garden, and never pull them out just because they aren’t in a row or have sprouted in the “wrong place. Love seeing things grow out of the straw from the chook pen, which I guess is the main reason things pop up in strange places, makes it interesting.

So, back to the creek. We have decided to build some steps down to the creek and a retaining wall so the dirt doesn’t’ get washed away, the actually comes up quite high when there is a storm but we don’t’ often see it as it also goes down quite quickly. We do however see the debris left up fairly high and don’t want all out soil going with it.

I have always wanted to make it a picnic area down there with a fire pit to put a BBQ plate over. If we put in steps and manage to keep the guinea grass down it would be, actually already is, a great stop to sit and enjoy. I love this spot on the property, even when it is overgrown.

Building steps at the creek is now officially on “The List”, don’t know when we will get to but it is on there and will happen – eventually.

ON OTHER MATTERS

While reading my morning news this morning, and I must get my daily news fix, I came across this article about plastic going into the food chain via our clothing. We try to have clothing made of natural fibres, I find synthetic material uncomfortable so make every effort, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Undies and sox always seem to have something extra in them. Anyway, apparently little bits of plastic comes out of this synthetic material with every wash and into our drains and out into the oceans and into the food chain. Check out the article as it explains it better and I will certainly be making more effort than normal with our clothing purchases.

Here is an article about how Australians don’t’ care about where their food comes from. The link was posted on a thread that is going on the Simple Saving forum about how the Australian Food and Grocery Industry is in Crisis. I would like to think that most people care, but I know people who don’t, however I also do know people who do care and hopefully that will spread.

Just A Catchup

2012-01-24T09:03:00.000+10:00

Our number one and only son has gone off to his first day back at school for the year. He is in Year 10 this year and has gone into a senior uniform and looks very smart in his white shirt, though I wonder how long it will take before there is pen or some such thing on that white shirt.

Our number one and only son also did not look like death warmed over, which he should have as he hasn’t been getting out of bed before 8 or 9 am most mornings for the last seven or eight weeks of the holidays, so 6 am is completely foreign to him. So I guess it is mixture of a little enthusiasm, which will probably be gone by tomorrow and the extra early night I made him have.

So yesterday was spent making lunch box stuff, sausage rolls with zucchini and carrot in them (of which we ate the first batch so we had to make another lot), cheese and ham scrolls and banana bread. I am all cooked out, hopefully we made enough to keep us going for a little while at least.

We have been getting enough rain, at least a drizzle every day, that I haven’t had to worry about the garden, though we have been mowing to keep the grass down.

There is not a lot in the garden as it has been too hot but the snake beans are coming along well, gigantic cucumber seedlings still surviving, some rocket, bok choy, pak choy, eggplant, little capsicums and we may have a couple a paw paws ready to pick soon.

I have some okra plants which I grew from seed that are very healthy, I was told it is too late for okra but mine are quite strong.

We got enough mangoes off our small trees to make one batch of chutney and eat some for breakfast so I am really happy about that. There are some small fruits on other trees like a few of oranges, two limes, one mandarin and I think that is it, we really need to fertilise and put more mulch on.

One of my cacti has a lovely flower on it and I have actually taken a photo this time. The only thing outside that doesn’t’ need looking after are the cacti, they thrive on neglect and produce lovely flowers.

Our Dragon fruit is also going really well in pots, I didn’t know that they grew so fast, I have spots for them to be planted out but need to get some posts for them to grow up and some soil. It will be nice when we eventually get some fruit off them.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Here is a post at a blog called ZenHabits about bad habits. I was thinking about all the New Year resolutions that a lot of people make but a lot of the time they don’t know how to keep that resolution, this post gives some ideas. You should read the rest of the blog while you are there.

There are a lot of blogs I enjoy visiting, sometimes I only get to zoom through to catch up, and Domesblissity is one of my favourites, I think mainly because there is lots of yummy food being discussed. A few recent posts to check out are Make your own bulk mixes for baking and Man-sized packed lunch ideas.

The Greening of Gavin is another blog I visit and so should everyone, and this recent post is one I enjoyed, especially the bit by the Dali Lama at the bottom, everyone should think about it.

Water

2012-01-16T08:25:00.000+10:00

We are so lucky to live in a developed country where we have water on tap, literally. There are millions of people in our world who don't have access to clean water or water that is close to their homes. We only have to turn on the tap and out it comes into our kitchen and bathroom sinks, into our showers and washing machines and onto our gardens.

Growing up we had to be careful with water as we had no town water, we had rain water and used dam water for washing and we had think about what we were doing. My parents have lived back in town for many years now but still conserve water even in the rainy times, and these habits have been good during drought.

So here I am living without town water and relying a lot on the rain. I really do think about rain a lot as we go without it for so many months and the tanks levels drop so we really do need to keep our water usage in the front of our minds.

It really makes you appreciate water though, for the most part, the majority of us don't think much about it at all, we turn on the tap and out it comes, but what happens if one day it doesn't happen? How would you feel?

In the last few weeks we have had our water pump for the house die, and then it was revived about a week or so later and now our bore pump died but I don't think this one will come back.

It was suggested to me to use the house rain water tanks to water the garden, the wet season is coming so it will be right. The wet season might be coming but it isn't here yet, I thought it had started when we had rain last time, but it wasn't, it was just one lot of rain. So I could use the house water, however I could do this maybe once as the house tanks are under half and the wet season is late. Gardens use up a lot of water and using up our house water is not a good idea.

So yesterday I was bucketing the rinse water from the washing machine onto the garden so everything wouldn't die, it has been rather hot here. We managed to get an electric water transfer pump, and while it isn't powerful enough to get the bore water up, it easily sucks out water from the dam and I can now hand water the garden from there. It will work for the short term till we can replace the bore pump.

Would you believe it, it rained last night. It was very exciting and of course I went out to listen to the water falling into the new little tank out the front, a lovely sound :) This new little tank has a tap on the bottom and we can drink out of it if we need to so it is great to hear it filling.

We ended up with 57mm in the gauge this morning, so the tanks got filled a bit, and the garden and orchard got watered so I am very happy, I really hope this is the start of the wet season for us.

Things Come in Threes

2012-01-13T10:25:00.001+10:00

Something that I don't understand is when people ask how our farm is going. We don't have a farm, we have a very large suburban block of nearly 6acres out of town, not a farm. We don't grow crops and we don't rear animals, we have a vegetable garden, some fruit trees and some chooks that think they own the place and can do whatever they want, so it doesn't really describe a working farm where we make a living.

Anyway, one thing about having a very large suburban block is it does take more work and of course more things to go wrong.

To get water into the taps of the house requires a water pump, if the power goes out no water and if you don't listen properly and take notice of what it is doing and turn the tap on, off, on again it will cut out. So of course over Christmas this happened and it died completely, a blown circuit thingy. This was eventually going to happen as it was getting worse and harder to restart but it was not a good time.

My very smart partner in crime and life figured out how to bypass it but every time we wanted water we had to turn the power switch on first, this was because everything was shut down for Christmas. However, seeing he is so smart, he fixed it and we are now back to normal but we do need to replace that circuit thingy, and living with having to switch the power on every time we wanted water for over a week was a pain. All good now though.

The next thing is our dog's ear is puffing up. She had this last year on her other ear and it took three operations to fix, so far it is not very large but we are keeping an eye on it and hoping it will just go away :)

The third thing is one of our small water tanks split and we lost all our water out the front. It wasn't a huge amount of water but it was the water we use for the chooks and dog and feet washing and so on. We had always planned to replace those tanks with a larger one, but of course things only happen when they become a priority and get bumped to the top of the list (this is because it usually costs a fair bit to do stuff so only do it when we absolutely have to).

So this became a "must do" thing as we need the water, so I had to whip out the emergency fund and we built a frame, filled it with crusher dust and put on a 2,500litre tank. It is only small but it will provide, when filled, the water needed and we can also drink out of it too. It has a tap on the bottom, high enough to fit a bucket under it and it is all ready to go, just need some rain now, come on rain.

The fourth thing that happened is we had to leave one of the small chicks, now three and a half months old, out for the night. Our number one son and I were going out for the evening and that one chick would not go back into the pen. It ran all over the place including down the creek embankment and falling down the creek, luckily dry. So running late I had to go down, make my way through all the bush and get it out as it would never have found it's way and it just had to stay out.

When we got home, do you think we could find it? No. So after a shower and in my PJs with boots on I went bush again to continue looking, back down the creek in case it fell down again. I was thinking that maybe it was perching on a branch somewhere and I was right, on the skinniest branch ever of course, halfway up, as I was down in the creek, halfway up the vertical bank, I eventually found it in the dark. As I certainly couldn't get to it either up or going down, she had to stay there and hope a bush python didn't get her during the night.

It was one of this lot that wouldn't go in the pen.

I got up really early the next morning to go find her in case she couldn't get back up and had fallen down the creek again but there she was, at the crack of dawn, wandering around the pen no worse for wear. At least she slept in the safest place she could find.

We have been making this very yummy feta cheese with my new cheese maker I got for Christmas and we just can't get enough. Feta on biscuits for lunch, yum, also a bit of homemade mango chutney with it is nice, well I like it but my partner in crime and life doesn't (the chutney with feta that is) but that just means more for me :P

So life is busy, I have been sketching, reading, crocheting, gardening, cooking and when school goes back in a week and half we will get back into a routine, which much as I like not HAVING to get out of bed so early, routine actually works best for all of us.

ON OTHER MATTERS

This article at Survival Mom reminds me to continue to learn new skills. I like learning new stuff especially if it is useful. My current new skill is the cheese making, which my partner in crime and life are learning together. My other new skill is rope climbing, not sure how useful it is but it does contribute to my fitness level, there is skill and getting over it in your head and a bit of strength. Anyway, I plan on learning more skills this year.

Check out this recycling project, pipes being used for book shelves. It stirs the imagination :)

If Down To Earth isn't a blog you visit regularly then you are just plain crazy and you must go and have a look, it is lovely. Check out this post and then read all the others.

Now, I have just have to figure out why my laptop screen is fading, everything I have tried so far hasn't worked so it is something beyond me and I must wait on the expertise of my partner in crime and life. Better be something simple and not something to add to the list of "things come in threes" :D

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-03T07:46:00.000+10:00

Here we are at the beginning of another year and we have so many plans for the next twelve months, including not to spend so much money :) guess we had better creative.

We had a very nice Christmas and New Year, Christmas Day being spent kayaking and eating lychees on the river, very decadent in our minds. I never saw in the New Year as I fell asleep, late is 10pm for me, can't imagine how I managed when I was young.

I got a cheese making kit for Christmas and so we have made feta cheese and mozzarella cheese using organic bio-dynamic local milk and so it turned out just lovely. It is so easy so there is lots of cheese on our horizon.

Here is the feta being put into the container to drain and set.

This is the mozzarella being stretched before being rolled into balls.

Here is the mozzarella about to be eaten on biscuits, very nice :D

I have also been looking, though not very actively, for a couple of stools for the verandah. We came across these old office stools being sold for $6 each where we play squash so we grabbed two, if there had of been more room in the truck I would have gotten more.

I was hoping to have enough material left from covering the benches to cover these, but it was not so. I did have some other upholstery material so as you can see one is purple and one is yellow, gotta run with what you have.

I have started crocheting a blanket as I need to use up my wool before my wool buying addiction has me getting some more. We don't have enough blankets anyway for people who live in the tropics and now live up the mountain where it is colder.

Our place now has carpet all the way through it. I am not a carpet person at all but it will keep the place warmer in the winter, keep the dust down a little and it was cheap. At $4 a metre we couldn't pass it up, it was cheap as they wanted to get rid of it so we got all they had and it has done the whole place.

So we have just laid the carpet in the bedroom and it is way better than cement I can tell you. I bought a little cordless, rechargeable, electric carpet sweeper in the after Christmas sales and so can zoom around with that each day to keep it all clean. It actually sucks up quite a lot and as long as I give a good vacuum all over once a week, I think that is all we should need.

I really need to catch up on everyone's blogs as I haven't had time and I am sure everyone has been really busy the last few weeks, it will be interesting to see what everyone has been up to and if they have any plans for the year.

Happy New Year :D

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-19T08:32:00.000+10:00

I can relax now. My Christmas preparations are finished so I can stop whinging about it all now and enjoy. I don’t have to go near the shops this week and only have to go into town for my final Tai Chi class for the year and probably pick up milk, though now I think about it we are going into town on Saturday but we are just playing squash and not going near the shops as it would be crazy.

We had our Tai Chi lunch on Thursday and while not everyone turned up and it was a bit hot, we had a good time. How could you not enjoy lunch, especially with friends? It is a nice spot at the boat club and the ocean makes a lovely view and of course deciding which boat we would live on and what we would do on it.

I have made some mango sauce last week and so we have enough sauces and such to last us a while. Just need to label them now before I forget :)

The garden is a bit wild again and so I am getting that organised as a lot of things won’t grow over the wet season but am planting what will. So I have put in more gigantic cucumber, snake beans, rocket and okra, though I am not sure if this will grow but I am giving it a go as I have space. We have plans to improve the garden next year, it will be larger, easier to manage and produce more, it’s a theory anyway.

I went to get sweet potato from the garden yesterday and they are all gone, bandicoots have tunnelled all under the garden and eaten them, I found one half eaten. Obviously I need a better plan for this patch.

I planted out some paw paws and hope they survive the transplant, we actually have a few popping up in strange places.

This week I have recovered the benches on the front veranda. The old covers have faded and had who knows what spilt on them, so time to be redone. I did this 18months to nearly two years ago but being outside does take its toll. I think they look very bright and fresh.

My partner in crime and life had some money from his birthday and bought two coffee plants which have put in pots on the veranda. They will hang out with the lime, lemon and orange trees which are already there. I like having pots on the veranda and will continue looking for edible trees that are suitable for pots to go across the front.

We have had some much needed rain this week, of course not enough but enough to make the grass instantly shoot up. It has also been nice to not have to water the garden every day, you can never water as well as some rain.

Here is my partner in crime and life doing what he does every day come rain, hail or shine, spending time with the chooks. For wild chooks, there are a few who have more front than Myers (it is called greed), though there are some who dart in and out to get some bread and others who won’t come close.

So wishing everyone an amazing and safe Christmas (in case I don’t post again this week), wishing everyone the spirit of Christmas and make sure you pace yourself with your eating and drinking (you will feel so much better for it) and drink lots of water :P

Merry Christmas

Tomato Sauce

2011-12-09T11:29:00.000+10:00

Well, the Christmas thing is in full swing, can’t avoid it till about February when the “After Christmas” sales are over. Actually, I suppose you could but you would have to drop out of society for a while and for most of us we have to live in the world despite wanting to be a hermit.

So onward we go into Christmas. Our number one and only son has managed to keep himself occupied so far, but it has only been a week. Only 7 weeks left. His school report was OK when it arrived yesterday in the mail, though of course his best subjects were the ones that actually interest him, computers, art and robotics/tech (woodwork), boy subjects.

I haven’t grown many tomatoes this year just cherry tomatoes so the other day I bought a box of tomatoes for $5 for making sauce. It is the yummiest tomato sauce ever and it is difficult to go back to the bland store bought sauce. I have made four batches all up, requiring 2kg for each batch and there is some left over for eating.

We use the sauce not just for on meat but on homemade pizza, and savoury scrolls and in any cooking at all really, we can go through quite a lot. I have also given some away to my friends which I love to be able to do.

It really is the best season here as all the fruit is on. There are mangoes and lychees everywhere and well, don’t’ really need more than mangoes and lychees, what more can I say.

ON OTHER MATTERS

I read the news every morning to catch up with what is going on here in Australia and around the world and this morning was the news that yet another factory will close down. It is a wheel manufacturing plant in Adelaide for Harley Davidson and 212 people will lose their jobs in 18months. There have been other closures recently as well, so some more people will be having a more serious Christmas.

However, there is this article at Survival Mom titled 15 Ways to Celebrate Good Times in Hard Times which reminds us that it isn’t only about gift giving but experiences and rituals. Our number one and only son has always loved birthday cakes (can’t not have one) and the Christmas decorations (which he seems to want to put up earlier and earlier every year).

Art Finds Kate always has lovely art work and this is a very sweet piece. My own artist friend Kate gave me a sketch book and pencils for Christmas and I will be making good use of them these holidays as well as doing some paintings (not sure if I will be game to post pictures of my work as I am not that good though I do enjoy it). I need to practice as I have said I would come to their art group next year, not sure I am game for that either so might hide in the corner. One of my mottos is to always try the things you fear as it is usually not that bad and you will probably have a good time plus it saves lost opportunities. Just took notice of the title of Art Finds Kate's post :)

Shopping Bags And Fair Wages

2011-11-29T10:01:00.003+10:00

We are certainly getting near the end of the year now, I can see it just there. Last week I had the first Christmas lunch for the season with some amazing women, they are artists and crafters and writers and have incredible imagination, talent, compassion and love, and they all have a wonderful laugh. I am so thankful they are in my life :)

Our number one and only son finishes school this week and next year is in Year 10, can't believe it, he is still a skinny thing, though is now getting taller and starting to broaden in the shoulders. So eight weeks off school and we have to have a plan. There will be painting and drawing, building and mowing and he will also once a week go off to work with my partner in crime and life.

This silly season always gets me thinking about a lot of different things and the one I am thinking about at the moment is sewing. I have made these shopping bags, which are reversable depending on what colour you are feeling on the day,(because I have an unnatural obsession with shopping bags but not shopping) and I love them and plan to make a few more.

However, with everyone so obsessed with getting a bargain when shopping, it makes me think about the real value of things. Now these bags that I have made I would think they would be worth about $1000. Yes that is right. Do you know why? The time and effort put in to making these seemingly simple bags, for me anyway as a non sewer, was a fair bit, despite the materials only being about $15 for one and the other about $2, as it is made from op shop sheets (like my clothes).

I also expect these bags to last for at least 200 years for the time, effort, broken needle, bent pins and the physiological trauma. Yet we expect to buy things, new, for $5 and $10 with no thought for the person who made it, and if it breaks tomorrow well, they are only cheap so we will go buy another. Is there an eight year old child out there making our goods for just enough money to survive on and don’t’ tell me they should be thankful for a job that only pays them just enough to survive on and not being able to go to school, instead of having no job, because that is not good enough.

Parents who barely have enough money to feed their kids, and they are probably still hungry anyway, or can just put a roof over their heads, don’t tell me they should be thankful for only JUST being able to do these things. Have you seen the documentaries that show the conditions that some of these people live in? I know it isn’t always like this but it is like this a lot.

So when I make these very simple things (and get frustrated as it takes me about twenty times the amount of time I think it should) I think of people around the world making products to earn just enough to buy food for that day just so we can pay a pittance for something because we don’t want to spend a few dollars more so that people can be paid a fair wage and so that children can be children and get an education.

So while you are out spending all that money for presents for family and friends, just think about who has made the product and how do you think they will spend Christmas. If they only earn enough to survive day to day, I don’t’ think they will be having Christmas, and yet we really didn’t want to pay more than $5 for that top or pair of shorts or $2 for that toy.

We should pay a fair price for our products, we should value our things more and we should not take more than our share. So while out shopping with the crazy people, while pushing past people and small children in your rush to buy that thing that is on special and you only have to pay $12 for it rather than say $20, just stop and think. Has someone been paid a fair wage for the work they put in to this thing you are about to buy? Because I can tell you, that if you had to make this thing yourself, you would demand a hell of a lot more than just enough to eat for the day.

Take a look at these articles if you don't believe me and think about some ethical gifts this Christmas, or even just making sure you know about the product you are buying. The amount of articles are endless and I dare you not to cry.

Look here
Workers exploited in Melbourne sweat shops
Living in a garbage tip
Nestle 'to act over child labour in cocoa industry'
Look at this.
Child sweatshop shame threatens Gap's ethical image
Nike Shoes and Child Labor in Pakistan
Sweat shops in Australia

Christmas Card Basket, Fisherman Pants and Shopping Bags

2011-11-20T09:34:00.001+10:00

Talk about time flying. Where does it go, I need to get moving on Christmas, have my first Christmas lunch this week and need to make some cards to go with the small presents I have made, oh, and finish the presents.

I need to see if I have any Christmas cards, I don't send out many at all and the list gets shorter each year. I only send to people that we don't speak to very often and they are people who we are often only in touch with at Christmas time, otherwise I think it is a waste of resources and time. Christmas cards only get thrown out after Christmas anyway and are not given a second thought, like a lot of gifts really, put away in the cupboard and forgotten. We really live in a throw away society.

So, here is a link to instructions to use up all those Christmas cards we will get. I have made one of these before and really like it, however I will only make them for people who will appreciate the effort put in it.

So while I have been making some small handmade gifts, I have also been doing some other sewing. I have been making myself fisherman pants and skirts, a couple of which can be worn in public and a couple of which can only be worn around the property.

Here is one of the fisherman pant I made, I love them, I only wear comfortable clothing, no point in wearing anything less.

I have made them out of bed sheets and doona covers that I bought from op shops. Material is sooooo expensive and so this is my solution, and I get some unique patterned clothing. There is also plenty left over to make some shopping bags, I just made a pattern from those green bags we all have, and now I will have some unique shopping bags too.

I had originally made a pair of fisherman pants out of this lovely material I had bought and it cost me about $40, it has skeletons on it and is a dark blue and I love them but not the price. Also I am scared I will stuff it up and so I now I can get a pair of pants, a skirt and a shopping bag for about $10, depending on how much I pay and how big the material is, but you get the idea.

So, today, I had best finish weeding the garden and sewing up the shopping bag which I have half done, after a cuppa tea I think though :)

Barramundi and Eels

2011-11-09T09:24:00.000+10:00

We have finally put some Barramundi fingerlings in the dam. We have tilapia in there at the moment and as they are a pest fish we need to get rid of them, especially as our dam overflows into a creek.

So we went off to the fish farm, a place a bit out of the way, went a bit further than we should down the road. Lots of shacks and keep out signs and cars that have not moved for a very long time, the indication being that the bush is reclaiming them. We decided that we had gone too far and needed to turn around and go back. Found the place we needed to be, no signs just rather large gates.

So we went and paid our $220 for two hundred 50mm barra, from a place with a long driveway and more than a few dogs. He said just come down the driveway, you know how people say you can’t miss it, (yeah right) well there was a shack not far in so we were still unsure but we just kept driving and got there to the right place.

So when we got home we placed the bag in to the water in the dam so the temperature could adjust and then we released them, not that they seemed to want to go but they did eventually.

The unfortunate thing is that a day and a half later I was walking around the edges of the dam and in the shallows in the gully I saw a massive eel. Oops. Just what we don’t’ want so we are now desperately trying to catch all the eels so they don’t’ ea all our barra. And they are ugly, sorry, but they are, ugly and slimy. And we now really hope we haven't blown our money.

So far we have caught two eels, a fair size too and hope to get them all out, we only want barra in there so they can grow and then we can eat them. Oh, and we are going to eat the eels, they are in the freezer now and we just have to do some research on cooking them as we haven’t cooked eel before.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Here is an article called The Case Against Buying Christmas Presents, I actually have this bookmarked in my favourites and go to it from time to time. It is a good read with good points, so check it out.

On the Simple Savings forum there is a thread that has come back about Banning Plastic. We try not to use plastic for lots of things but we fail miserably, though we seem to be better than some people I know, so I am now back on the wagon to ban more plastic from the house. Here is a link to a blog that has some tips and alternatives to using plastic.

Cyclone Season

2011-11-01T09:42:00.000+10:00

We are zooming through the year and are now in full Christmas mode, well, the retailers are anyway, I am still in denial and resisting. I already have to plan, and let others know, when things are finishing up for the year and starting back next year and I haven’t decided what is for dinner tonight.

I think today must be the official start of the cyclone season as they have been discussing it on the radio and reminding people to get ready. So I guess we had better work on our list. They say (as they do every year) that we will get a few cyclones and a couple crossing the coast, hope not but it happens.

We are quite prepared and always are every year, however there is always more to be done, and really, when you are without electricity you want to be as comfortable as you can and make sure you have enough chocolate biscuits.

Seriously though, we actually have enough food and water and I am always stockpiling more and I am not one of the many, many people who every time a cyclone is coming rushes to the stupidmarket to stock up on baked beans and cartons of coke, I am serious, I have seen it, it is crazy.

Everyone knows at the beginning of every season that we could a cyclone or two and they go on and on about it on the radio and also the TV and people are still unprepared. Honestly, if you don’t have at least a few days worth of food and water (minimum) and a small camp cooker (only about $15 at just about anywhere and about $5 for about four canisters to go with the cooker) you are stupid. I don’t normally go around calling people stupid, it is actually a pretty horrible word, but you are stupid if you aren’t ready.

Here is our little camp cooker which you put a butane canister in, so cheap.

We have about four ways to cook, lots of food to cook and lots of other food that doesn’t need cooking. We have a generator, the silence that comes with no electricity is deafening, so we can have lights and fans and the water pump going. We have a couple of radios and rechargeable batteries, we have torches and lamps and tarps. We have fuel drums for the generator, ropes and tape, dog food and chook food. However there is always more you can do to prepare.

I never feel like we have completed our preps and so this year we are going to get more fuel drums, star pickets, rope and tarps. We did get tarps last year but want at least one more good one and we got a star picket puller outer thingy (very handy) but we need to replace our star picket dolly as we broke it putting up our fence.

Here is just some of the basics we have on hand. Don't forget the coffee for all you coffee addicts out there, no point in only buying a small jar, it is not like they aren't going to drink it.

Don't forget the Billy and pan, can cook nearly anything with these two things.

We don’t need any food but I will stock up on some more snack food and easy to make food like Mac N Cheese. Not actually a fan of these, and we don’t eat them under normal circumstances (except when they are about to run out of date and our number one and only son gets to eat them for afternoon tea) however they are easy to make up and you can add other things into them to make them a bit healthier. And when you are getting ready for a cyclone to hit you don’t have time or the inclination to cook a full on meal, so these are fast and easy and filling.

As you can see, the container needs fixing, camping gear around the place, boxes, bikes, kyaks, but this is our shelter during a cyclone and we want it to be comfortable.

What I also need to do is check out the container with all our gear and go through it and check that everything is where I think it is and maybe do some rearranging to improve things. Things have been moved around out there through the year and some things not put back where they should, don’t want to be doing this at the last minute.

This was the best thing that happened to me for my 40th birthday. A good friend gave me this tool box with BBQ gear in it, including dish washing liquid and a tea towel. It has everything needed in it and you just pick up the tool box knowing it is all kitted out.

So the things that I want to buy are on the list, if we don’t get them it will be OK. It all costs money and what we do have has been gotten over time, however everyone should have the basics and not have to panic at the last minute as always seems to happen. We live here, the wet season comes around every year, we all know about cyclones, and they talk about it in the media to make sure we all remember, there are no excuses. It still amazes me that people ignore the warnings.

One last thing I just thought of to have on hand is some cash. If the power goes out there are no ATMs so no money. I remember after Cyclone Yasi earlier this year and a girl on the news only had $5 and no way to get her money out of the bank and no food, all I could think was what was she thinking? We all knew that the cyclone was coming and she didn’t’ get ready even then, I didn’t feel sorry for her, I just thought she was stupid. That sounds harsh even to me, but we have to help ourselves as much as we can and use some sense.

So it is out there now, we all know what our seasons do, every year there is a wet season, cyclone season, a winter with snow storms, whatever it is wherever you are. You know it happens every year, you know there is a chance you will be without power or won’t be able to get out of the house for a few days, so get ready people.

Here is the BOM site that tells you about cyclones.

This BOM site tells you how to get prepared for the cyclone season.

This is an article from our ABC site tellig us to get ready for the season, just in case someone doesn't believe me.

And a link from the ABC article to the Queensland Government about cyclone preparation.

Finally,We Have Some Rain

2011-10-21T09:58:00.002+10:00

IT IS RAINING, YAAAAY. We were starting to think about what to do about our water situation. Didn’t want to buy water, so we increased our water saving to extreme water saving and we checked out the old bore hole which is in the middle of the property.

Here is the old bore, the chooks like hanging out here sometimes :)

Turns out that water is very sweet. My partner in crime and life dropped a rope down to see how deep it was and turns out it is quite deep (can't remember how deep), then he brought up some water in a tin and WOW, very nice. So we are going to get the water tested (just in case) and put a pump on it and then we can use it for anything including pumping into the tanks for the house. My partner in crime and life is also looking for a windmill to put on it, which would be pretty cool :D

It really makes us wonder though, why another bore was put in with a pump and all the taps around the property connected to that, and the water is awful, to put it mildly. It smells bad, tastes bad but is potable, it is fine for the gardens and the outdoor shower but that is it, and yet there was a perfectly good bore already here, the mind boggles.

This is last week

This is this morning

With all this rain our dam has gone from a puddle back to a dam. Most of the water has come from runoff from the road and hill and it just so happens that there is a sort of gully that runs from the road down to our gully into our dam. If it wasn’t there, there wouldn’t be so much water and we would also have to wait for the dams above ours to overflow.

The chooks are very bedraggled and have a “not happy Jan” look about them as they are used to the very fine weather where they can go where they want and do what they want. Their pen is also a bit of a mess and we have been working to improve that and need to put more roofing on as there is now so many of them that they need to be able to come out of the house and into the pen.

The Lime

The Lemon

The gardens are very happy and I have more corn to put in and sweet chilli and eggplants. Though I really need more garden space and so have to expand. I have also bought a lemon and a lime tree to put in pots for the front veranda, always wanted plants out there and if you are going to bother it may as well be something productive. I also love the smell of citrus flowers, I think it is the prettiest smell of any flower, and to have them on the veranda means I will be able to smell them anytime without having to walk to the orchard. These trees are also supposed to be quite productive. Now I will be searching for elephants.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Honestly, I wish people would stop putting up yummy recipes on their blogs as I just have to make them and then eat them (of course I have to sacrifice myself to see it they are any good). Here is the latest one I am going to try from Domesblissity, it is a Caramel Apple Crumble Slice, sounds terrible doesn’t it ;P

At the Simple, Green, frugal Co-op is a post about Handmade Manly gifts that I am going to check out a bit closer as this is always a bit of a problem. I can make girly gifts as the world of craft seems to revolve around girly gifts but manly ones are a bit harder, so I think we can use all the help we can get.

This is the second article this morning I have read about population growth, urban density, the housing problem, lack of infrastructure and that sort of stuff.

Getting Ready For Christmas

2011-10-11T10:41:00.001+10:00

School is back and we are going full throttle into the fourth and final term of the year. The silly season is upon us and the Christmas decorations have been out for a while now, I think Christmas would be a very nice time but for the commercialism and expectation of lots of money spent.

We only buy gifts for the very young on each side of the family, and even then I personally don’t do the buying giving the job over to the grandparents. The reason for this we live interstate and it would cost a small fortune to send through the post, so we hand over some money with vague instructions for gifts. If I had to do it personally, I am really not sure it would get done as I hate Christmas shopping, especially when everyone has everything and nothing is left over for special occasions.

I have started on some handmade gifts for friends, and these are the gifts I enjoy the most as I enjoy making them. This year I am crocheting some dishcloths and sewing a shopping bag, I think, I always make chocolate balls for my Tai Chi classes and I am thinking of some other stuff too, though I may run out of steam.

The Dam is getting quite low, this area has a lot of water in it during the wet season.

We still haven’t had any rain and our water saving skills are really coming in handy, at least we know how to get by and still be clean (always a bonus, to be clean and not smell). We are putting the hose through the window and filling the washing machine with bore water, filling buckets with bore water or saved rinse water from the machine to use to flush the toilet and having navy showers (you know, turn on the water and get wet, turn off the water and soap up, turn on the water and rinse off, done). We are really looking forward to the wet season.

The gardens are going along OK and are growing, though the watering I do is never as good as a good shower of rain. I really want to expand some of the gardens, widen them actually, and build my banana circle near the gully, however I will wait till it starts to rain, not much point in doing it now.

I have some good looking loofahs growing, I have left these ones to grow large to save the seeds and use for cleaning. The small ones, when I get more, will be used in cooking in things like curries, they aren’t very nice steamed.

Our chicks are growing fast and running and jumping and doing the things that chicks do. The big chicks hang out by themselves as they are at the bottom of the ladder and get picked on a bit by the others (life is hard in the flock) and the golf ball chicks are now bigger than a golf ball but the term has stuck.

Best get back to the full time job of running after the chooks, growing food and saving water while trying to stay cool and not get sunburnt, in our, currently, dry heat.

ON OTHER MATTERS

I am going to make these biscuits today, how can I not. The title of the post over at The Glass Half Empty caught my eye straight up “The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie” and how could I not look. So of course, now I have seen the post, how can I not make them? I will sacrifice myself and be a guinea pig to see if they are good, however, I am pretty sure they are, how could they not be, they have chocolate chips in them.

I haven’t been over to “The Greening of Gavin” for a while, not because I don’t want to it is just life is busy and I have a lot of blogs and sites in my favourites it is hard to keep up with them all. However it is time to catch up with what Gavin has been doing, check out his blog, it is always interesting.

Walls and Benches

2011-10-03T08:05:00.000+10:00

The school holidays are just about over for us, today is the last day. They have been reasonably productive for us, as in we have gotten a few things done. We rarely go away during the holidays due to work, the inflated price of everything and the crowds, would rather have a weekend away at another time.

So, we have gotten in the electrician to finally hook up our number one and only son’s room with electricity and he will be back to finish the job soon. There will be plenty of power points, two ceiling fans and two overhead lights, and while he has had power out there by means of an extension cord, there will now no longer be cords running everywhere. Good thing to get done before the wet season begins.

So while the electrical cords have been run through the room, we have had to put up the internal walls before the rest can be done. Actually, I didn’t do it, but my partner in crime and life and our number one and only son did. Now all that has to be done is get the electrician back to finish up, we can then paint the walls and it is done (thank goodness).

The other thing they have done is weld up some bench frames. My partner in crime and life brought home two heavy bench tops from work that were going to be thrown away, but they would be perfect benches in our work container. Can never have too much shelving or bench space.

So, they went and bought some square steel stuff (I am sure there is a special name for it but it won’t save the rainforests if I know it or not so therefore it is not important) and made a plan.

Our number one and only son did some fantastic welding and there you have it, two very useful benches. We gave the front part of the container a bit of a cleanup, put some of the gardening stuff into the bore shed with some of the other gardening stuff, and we have some very useable space in the container.

The other thing that I finally got done was the irrigation through two of the garden beds that I have had to hand water all the time. It is so dry at the moment that it has been difficult and having some irrigation through them makes it that much easier. Though, of course it would be better if it just rained :D

ON OTHER MATTERS

Something we haven’t heard of for a long while is having a hole in the ozone layer, I had completely forgotten about them. There have been other big news things we have been concentrating on for a while but I guess some things don’t go away no matter how much you ignore them.

Here is a link to a site that I am going to check out, it is called Go Self Sufficient, it is a site from the UK and it looks like some interesting articles.

I read an article in my ACF magazine about this woman who is trying to live plastic free and I have just found her blog. I am sure we can all find some inspiration here.

The Self Sufficient Life, A Dream?

2011-09-30T11:46:00.001+10:00

With all the news about the economy and wild weather events even the non crazy people are talking about self sufficiency. The last few years more people are talking about it and doing something about it, even on a small level.

Our new batch of chicks

There are news articles about how people are starting backyard gardens with a few chickens, and community gardens are starting to pop up around the place especially in big cities.

We have always wanted to be self sufficient, since we were first married. With the idea of building a mud brick cottage, a large (and of course very efficient and prolific) garden and the healthiest and juiciest fruit trees. We have always had a garden of some sort even just a few herbs and tomatoes and in a few places only a fruit tree or two as we moved around with the military, and our first home that we bought only had a very large mango tree and not really any room for more. The property we dream of has to be large, like a thousand acres, in the middle of nowhere, with permanent water supply, no neighbours, and good soil (not much really).

Welding up some new bench frames

However, we have always done a lot of reading, we have books that we bought twenty years ago that we still use and of course now we have the internet for information and forums to link up with other like minded people even if we can’t find them in real life. I have also done various crafts and a few courses and my partner in crime and life is also very handy and has done various things too. We are also trying to teach our number one and only son, got to practice for the life.

Our books shelves have lots of books on gardening, herbal remedies, self sufficiency, cooking out of the garden, survival in hard times, building stuff, medical and of course craft so I can make our own clothes (cough cough, in my dreams).

A smoky sunset

So finally after all this time of making plans we are on five acres with clay soil, not really that far from town, a seasonal creek, still on the grid and we can see the neighbours. We still dream about that other place though, of course I am older and a little tired, it would have to be a bit established and I still want my laptop with an internet connection. Don’t need a phone or TV, I can live without those but I love the internet and watching movies. I want it all, the simple life combined with modern technology and all the creature comforts of course, don’t we all want that?

The reality of self sufficiency is it is harder than you want to think, and not relying on anyone else is a dream. There is no way I can make my own clothes, especially without an electric sewing machine and not even really then. We need fuel and power to run the water pump for the rain water tanks and the bore pump, I sure there is another way but I am still looking into it.

A lovely paw paw from the garden, great for breakfast :)

My garden isn’t as large as I would like and I have to buy my soil to make raised beds due to the clay. We eat out of it but it is really only supplementing what we buy. The fruit trees are young and while they may get a few fruit, are a few years off full on production and they are in clay soil so we are always mulching and feeding them.

Pete and the hens free ranging as nature intended

The chickens are actually what I imagined. As they are free ranging, they are not eating as much store bought grain and we have now more than doubled our flock size with all the chicks. Another six to twelve months and we will be getting eggs out of them, of course they are all hens and no roosters that we have to get rid of, also another dream. They are also good entertainment value, though going bush with my cup of tea to find them isn’t something I want to do very often.

We are still working towards that dream, there will need to be some sacrifices as the dream doesn’t actually exist, but it doesn’t mean we will give it up, nor does it mean we won’t be happy with what we have. However, we will always be striving to improve where we are, as we do love it here, but we can also have goals and dreams (like I can dream of travelling the world) and we should have them, and still love our life as it is.

I REALLY Want It To Rain

2011-09-23T09:48:00.000+10:00

It is trying hard to rain. It was hearing some sprinkling on the roof that got me out of bed this morning. Only yesterday I told my partner in crime and life that we should put some bore water into the rain water tanks as they are getting so low.

I actually don’t want to put bore water in the tanks, though a lot of people do. We have started using bore water for the washing machine as we still have a water guzzling top loader, next year we will have a front loader which will use less than half the amount of water, it will make a huge difference. Though for the time being, putting the hose through the bathroom/laundry window and filling the machine will have to do.

We have started having two minute showers instead of five minute showers and of course we do all the other water saving things without a thought as that is just what we do all the time.

It has just been so dry, the grass is crispy and you can hear it crunching under your feet. We are seeing a lot of wallabies around as they come looking for feed, I always wave at them, and they look they want to wave back as they sit up and look at me, but don’t want to encourage the crazy woman :D

Our second lot of baby chicks have started hatching out in the last couple of days and we have been told it won’t be long before we are totally out of control with chooks everywhere. Hopefully there won’t be any more hens going broody, we have had enough of not many eggs and with the three chicks from the first batch and now (so far) three from this batch, we have just doubled our flock size.

Well, I had best go put some fuel in the bore pump and put the hose through the bathroom window and fill the washing machine as we always seem to have washing to do. Also, I really want to encourage it to rain and a good way is to hang washing out, lots of it.

ON OTHER MATTERS

In case you didn’t know, an old satellite is about to come crashing back down to earth. I have been reading articles for a few weeks about this and they now think they know when and where it is going to come down.

Once again an interesting post and some good ideas from over at Organised Castle about reusing things you have around before you recycle. I love the old school table that has been decorated, and the shoe box that is used to store stationary. I do this one too (I keep all shoe boxes, from the few shoes we buy, and I think it drives my partner in crime and life crazy, so maybe that is a little why I do it) and I use old gift wrapping paper to decorate them (yes, I keep all wrapping paper too, and all old envelopes become shopping lists and to write notes to each other on).

Grams Survival Kitchen has a post about how she is going to cook recipes (and eat of course) from a Little House on the Prairie cook book. I used to watch this show growing up and so will watch this with interest.

School Holidays

2011-09-19T08:56:00.000+10:00

We are now into the school holidays here, and I have no plan. Luckily our number one and only son can occupy himself, until he runs out of ideas and then tends to sit in front of the Xbox or computer, so far so good. He will be coming into town when I do my Tai Chi classes and he can go to the library and help me with any shopping that needs doing. We have plans to help a friend get a homemade swing set from her parents, and also have a sewing day at her house where the kids can then swim in her pool if it is warm enough. We are also going to do some painting, as in art, and I promised to get him a large canvas to paint on, I am going to paint our chooks (on canvas, not on the actual bird).

I finished my hot water bottle and am very happy with it, not sure if I have mentioned this before or not.

I also made myself a little cap/beanie/hat. It is only light and is good for cool evenings or mornings.

We haven’t been getting many eggs from our lazy chooks, actually, we have been lucky to get one a day. However things seem to be picking up and we have gotten a few more the last few days and we found four eggs in a nest in the bush, so that is where some of the eggs had gone.

We managed to get a photo of the SIXTEEN eggs that two of our hens are sitting, crazy chooks. The two hens are Blackie and Dirty, and my partner in crime and life hopes none of any hatched chicks imprint on Dirty as they will end up delinquents and Dirty will probably forget they are there.

We are letting the chooks free range for a fair bit of the day, early morning when it is cool, lock them back up when it is too hot for them, and then back out again in the afternoon when it has cooled a little.

Mondays are my big housework day and I also want to do some cooking today as we are pretty much out of snacks. So had best get some breakfast and then get on with it.

ON OTHER MATTERS

My partner in crime and life pointed me to this good article “Wiggling out of agreement, one policy at a time” regarding our politics here in Australia, should definitely check it out.

There is going to be a lot of this going on now “Siemens pulls out of nuclear industry”.

I have come across this you-tube video in a few places so it is obviously doing the rounds, it is about a solar water bottle, you must watch it. It is amazing the difference some things make in people’s lives. Here is a link for it through The Apartment Prepper’s Blog, so you can also check out this blog.

A Growing Garden

2011-09-13T10:33:00.000+10:00

My garden seems to finally be on the way with it nearly all being refreshed and replanted except for a small bit. I got some horse manure from a friend who has brumbies and hopefully the garden will kick along.

The corn is quite high and very healthy and we would love to plant more but we are running out of space. I really don’t think the garden is big enough. There is also sweet potato growing amongst the corn, leftovers from when I actually allowed sweet potato to grow there, hopefully they are compatible.

There are cherry tomatoes popping up EVERYWHERE. So there will be no shortage there, though I did plant a grosse lisse tomato plant just to get a couple of large tomatoes and it is very healthy. I actually discovered a decent sized tomato underneath all the growth. I also planted some basil around it too as companion plants.

One whole square is now dedicated to Ceylon spinach and it has room to grow on its own and is a great addition to the garden.

I have planted the zucchini seedlings out and planted some more seeds. We also put in winged beans, also in a patch of their own, so hopefully they will grow better this time. And in the small section next to the winged beans my partner in crime and life planted Egyptian spinach seeds which will probably go better than when I tried, just because I wasn’t’ the one that planted them (he also is able to grow chillies while I can’t, don’t’ know why).

The loofas are going well with the little bit of warm weather we are getting, and two of them now have baby loofas on them. The chokos are also now starting to pick up with two doing better than the other two.

I also have snake beans (which I must not touch as I always seem to break off bits) and the cucumbers are also starting to grow well. The green things like bok choy, pak choy, lettuce and rocket are, as always a huge success, I love that they are quick growing and I can start to pick them fairly young.

I have a couple of potatoes finally popping up, some already there that won’t be long before they can be picked, and a few more sprouting that can be planted soon. I always check the potatoes I buy for any that are sprouting and save them for the garden; I always buy local potatoes that come from up the road.

The sweet potato patch is starting to regrow, though not as quickly as I would have hoped because of the bandicoots, but I think it is under control. I have one more patch to dig up, though don’t know how much is left in there, also because of the bandicoots, but I am sure they have left us some, and then I can also refresh and replant that one too.

Well, best go finish crocheting my first hot water bottle cover so I can get on with the others and then maybe some dishcloths.

ON OTHER MATTERS

More bad news on the economic front in Europe, Alarm sweeps eurozone as crisis deepens, don’t know how much the media hypes this up but we still need to take notice.

In case you hadn’t noticed I have put up a list of links to the recipes that I have put on my blog. Sometimes I go looking for a recipe, can’t find it and know I have put it up on my blog, so thought I would make it easy and put the list there. It probably won’t stay in that spot so when I have time will rearrange, but I do like know it is there.

At Vintage Foodie is a recipe for a chocolate caramel slice. I think I have made this one before and it is yummo, evil, but yum, so I think we might make it on the school holidays and just keep it for then, or my waistline will re-expand, is that a word? Well, I can say it so it must be.

Here is a crochet pattern for a vintage sweater. I love these sorts of patterns, I don’t think I will make any but I still like them and you never know I might decide to make it. I even found a vintage pattern for a hot water bottle cover, who knew?

Ginger Beer

2011-09-09T09:41:00.001+10:00

Another week has zoomed by. Not long till Christmas now, I have plans for Christmas and just need to manage my time better so I can get organised.

I have been making ginger beer the last couple of weeks and I had forgotten how easy it is to do. We used to make quite a few years ago, bottled into glass and had a few explosions and ginger beer going everywhere. Now however, I have plastic bottles and it is so much easier, our number one and only son just loves it, so I am going to have four boxes going around so there is always some there ready to drink.

I don't know where this recipe came from but the ones I have looked at on the internet are much the same.

GINGER BEER

The Plant

In a sealed container place 8 sultanas, juice of two lemons, and teaspoon of lemon pulp, 4 teaspoons sugar, 2 teaspoons ground ginger, and 2 cups cold water. Leave for 2-3 days then feed daily with 2 teaspoons of ginger beer and 4 teaspoons sugar for one week.

The Mix

Pour 4 litres boiling water into 4 cups sugar, stir until dissolved, and add juice of four lemons. Strain the plant/lemon into ginger beer mix with fine muslin and squeeze cloth dry. Add 7 litres of cold water and bottle. Leave for 2 weeks before using

To keep the plant alive halve the sediment and add two cups of cold water. Feed again for one week.

Notes

Three sultanas can be added at the bottling stage, when the sultanas float ginger beer is ready to drink. Use of plastic soft drink bottles will avoid the problem of bottles exploding.

We tried ours after one week and it wasn’t very fizzy, and of course just to test it out had a bottle a day after that to test the readiness. The batch got a little fizzier each day, so I think 2 weeks is a good time to wait before drinking, though being the first batch we couldn’t wait, the flavour was great though.

We actually bought empty plastic bottles because we don’t buy soft drink, we have a soda stream for when we want some soda water or our number one and only son wants a soft drink on the weekend. It was about $15 for a box of 15 750ml bottles which are of course reusable and you can buy replacement lids when needed.

My partner in crime and life is now wondering what else there is we can make ourselves. Of course the list is endless and interesting. We currently brew our own beer, from a kit of course, but it is way cheaper than buying cartons. Say you buy a carton for approx $40, it varies of course, well we pay about $20 for three cartons plus some time and effort but not a lot.

The cost of the ginger beer is not a lot, say 50c per lemon or free if you grow your own, some ginger maybe a couple of dollars, some sugar also a couple of dollars, and some time and effort. I am going to say (because I can’t be bothered to cost it properly) about $5 for 15 bottles of ginger beer. I am not including the cost of the bottles as they are reusable and you could get them for free if you asked friends to save their empty soft drink bottles for you.

So the whole ginger beer thing is a success and so easy, makes me wonder why it took me so long to get back into it, there is barely no time involved and very little cost. So I will be continuing to make it and we will also be looking for more things we can make ourselves, it is very satisfying and nice to just know we can do it.

ON OTHER MATTERS

I read the news on the internet every morning, even when I don’t have a lot of time I have a quick zoom through just to get a gist of what is going on in the world that day. On goes the computer first thing and a quick look at a few sites to see what is happening here in Australia and in the rest of the world (I always think of the ripple effect, what is happening overseas could very well affect us here).

And so, here is one bit of news that caught my eye this morning, regarding chooks not really being free to roam despite claims by producers. Well, we all knew this was happening but hoping is wasn’t, well I was anyway, so here is the link.

Here are some lovely quilts made by Jan at Outside the Lines. This is something I would like to try my hand at one day because I think they are beautiful as well as useful, I just need to get some more focus so I am not distracted and don’t finish. So check out someone who has patience, and obviously skill, and see what can be done, I love them.

I so need a wood pile like this one in the photos on Red Woman blog. I will work on it for next year. In the mean time I am also going to check out some of the interesting looking blogs she follows, listed on the side of her blog.

The Weather Has Turned

2011-09-02T08:59:00.001+10:00

The weather has turned. I went outside one evening and the air was warm, it certainly felt to be the change I had been looking for, don’t need a hot water bottle at night now.

Though, talking about hot water bottles, I have bought some more and am crocheting covers for them so they will be ready for next year. I have realised that one hot water bottle is just not enough for me. I also have gotten out my beanie patterns and so will make beanies for us for next year, mine will be purple. I used some of my pocket money to buy some wool that was on special (didn’t really need it but I wanted it and that is what pocket money is for) and got green and purple wool to add to my collection, so hot water bottle covers and beanies it is.

Our baby chickens are growing at an amazing rate and the mothers now take them out of the pen. They seem to stay close by, though yesterday they ended up down near the garden. We are amazed at how active they are, they can run and jump and do all sorts of things, they are very athletic.

We have put the side gate in our boundary fence and can now get to the other side without hanging over the creek. We will now be able to mow and go out to gather back the chooks that roam over there, though they don’t really go over there much now. So now we just have the front gate in the driveway to go.

The garden is zooming along now the weather has warmed up, I still have a few gardens to fill but need to get some manure first. We have a banana circle to build and more potatoes to plant. I have had to fix the sweet potatoes as the bandicoots have gotten in and dug it up, so hopefully it will fine now. The corn is high and we want to plant more, and I have zucchini to put in too. I must get in and plant more seeds in pots so they are ready to go in when the garden is good to go.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Hasn’t there been so much news this week, here in Australia our politicians are out of control, they have officially identified the remains of Ned Kelly (our most famous bush ranger), BlueScope has gotten rid of a thousand jobs and backyard vege gardens are becoming cool.

I am really not very good at sewing and need pictures and everything, so I have come across some instructions to make my favourite pants, fisherman pants. I wear these all the time and they are so comfy, I even have fisherman skirts. I want to make some myself out of my choice of material and while I am pretty sure I could figure it our, having some help is very handy. Now just have to go buy some material.

Baby Chicks

2011-08-26T09:08:00.000+10:00

Have had a very busy week with hatching baby chickens, visiting in-laws and Tai Chi. Had lots of cuppas out with the in-laws which has been nice. I also did a Tai Chi demonstration with my group for Seniors week, we do it every year and it all went very well, everyone looked great.

We have had four baby chicks hatch out, unfortunately, one has died. The other three however are very strong and being looked after by two mothers.

The chickens have obviously not read the book on what they should and shouldn’t be doing as they are doing things that we haven’t read about. Like sharing mothering duties, sharing nesting boxes, we have seen three in the one box, plus the babies.

The babies are very cute with black markings, one has a complete racing strip down its back. Don’t they grow fast? Feathers start growing straight away and they get bigger while we watch them. I really hope they are all girls as we can’t keep boys.

There is a reality about having animals and that is the life and death cycle that comes with it all. The weak ones are rejected, some die, some are picked on by others if they are different. Watching the social structure and interaction, the hierarchy and togetherness. It is all fascinating, but sometimes harsh, and while I understand the whole thing that it is nature, it doesn’t mean I can’t be sad about it.

However, I also can rejoice in it too, the new life that we are watching and the way they look after each other is wonderful.

OK, back to being very busy. We are off to the markets tomorrow and I hope to get some seed potatoes to plant, and maybe some other stuff too. The in-laws go home next week and then back to routine, for a while at least.

Where Has Our Son Gone?

2011-08-17T09:35:00.001+10:00

It is interesting as time goes on to see how our number one and only son grows. As he is our only child everything is a new and once only experience.

However, at the moment it seems that aliens have abducted him and replaced him with a clone who helps without complaints and even makes biscuits. He ironed his school uniform without so much as a murmur and is holding intelligent conversations with not much grunting, groaning, yeah, nah, dunno or can't remember. What is going on? He is only 14 years old and needs to be difficult and uncommunicative for at least another four to six years years yet :P

As for me this week, seems that I am unable to cook without burning food to the bottom of saucepans. Don't normally do, but I will have the visible evidence of burnt on rice in one saucepan and also stewed apples in yet another saucepan(which I am hoping to salvage by turning into apple crumple and smothering with custard to disguise any burned taste, if not, then the dog never seems to mind).

My partner in crime and life parents arrive today for a two week visit, they will be staying in town as we can't cater for overnight visitors in our shed house. We have plans for a picnic, local markets and a few trips out to various places.

Still waiting to see if any baby chicks hatch out but we are ready with water and chick food if that happens. Now another hen has gone broody, Orange, the one with more personality than you would believe, though she is trying to take over Pink's nest and this morning they were in together. If any chicks hatch out it will interesting to see who they bond to.

ON OTHER MATTERS

I have lost my favourites button along with my million or so favourite sites, I am sure I will find them somewhere, just not in the next five minutes :(

African Aussie has a good post about free stuff in the garden. I love posts like this as I am inspired to grow more of my own like beans now as we use lots of beans here. New recipes I have tried, and liked, this year include: baked beans, vegetarian sausages, a new curry recipe and of course beans and rice. May as well grow my own.

As I always love recipes (and I have certainly tried a lot of new ones this year)here is another one from over at Organised Castle I am going to try. We always like to have lots of stuff for lunch boxes in the freezer, so we will cook up Anzac Cake,might do it this morning.

I want to send my wishes to Marie (who writes Eclectic Homeschooling) who is going in for a hip replacement. Thinking of you from the other side of the world.

I really liked this post at New life on a Homestead. We all wish we had more time and more energy to do stuff, however I think the best idea on this post is to ditch the TV. Really, you are just killing your brain when it comes to TV, and I really hate reality TV,footy talk shows, modelling shows and various other shallow, mean shows, and there seems to be a new one out every five minutes (I see them advertised while killing my own brain in front of the idiot box). I do watch TV, but generally pick what I watch and it is only at night and not during the day, still, think how much time (and life) we could regain by getting rid of the TV, maybe just have it so we can watch a good movie or doco.

World Events

2011-08-12T09:15:00.000+10:00

I have been so distracted by the events of the world this week that I have forgotten to post. There has been the economic events in the US and Europe and the riots in the UK and the ripple effects of all this. There have been other events that haven’t been quite mainstream (at least not in my world) like the aircraft carrier that the Chinese have refurbished/finished putting together, and is now out and about in the world, and another earthquake in Japan in the same region of that devastating one in March.

I think I may have an un-natural obsession with the news, however I do like to know what is going on in the world as the ripple effect of events can be far reaching. It is not only the events of something just up the road that affects us, like the horse that died of Hendra virus a bit ago and we had Bio-Security come and visit us on our little piece of land, but events on the other side of the world like the economic turmoil going on right now, don’t want to look at what that has done to our superannuation.

However, in between all this world distraction, life goes on.

Pink, one of our hens, should have some babies any day now, she has six eggs under her so we will see how many hatch out.

I had a lovely lunch with friends on Tuesday, life sure is good when you can eat great food (lovingly made by one of the wonderful friends) and enjoy the company of intelligent, funny women.

I went a loaded up the car the other day with more fencing stuff, so hopefully we can finish of the boundary fence and then in a couple of weeks put on the front gate. I also got more chicken wire to fence off more of the garden so I can plant more stuff (I am a bit behind with this as I need to fence first), we will also be putting wire around some of our tree as the chooks just love scratching around them and the trees are too little to cope yet. The ones we will put wire around are some of the natives, the tamarinds and probably the passionfruit, luffa and chokos.

My partner in crime and life made pickled eggs yesterday and they should be ready in a week. Even though we get eggs every day, we had to stop eating them so we have enough to pickle, he used twelve. The next thing will be pickling onions, which we also haven’t done before.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Where does the radioactive waste from Fukushima go? Are they doing enough? On reading this article, it doesn’t seem like they are.

Here is a post at Penniless Parenting that I completely agree with about wooden toys. Plastic is toxic and doesn’t last for as long and when you play with wooden toys you can feel the difference in quality. I don’t really play with toys, much, however I do know what will last and what is not poisonous and I believe it is worth it to pay a bit more and in the long run it does work out cheaper.

Here are a couple of articles relating to China’s new aircraft carrier,for those who missed it, “China's refitted aircraft carrier platform sets sail for first sea trial” and another here from The Courier Mail.

The Fence

2011-08-03T14:18:00.000+10:00

We have finally started fencing our property. The job is not as large or hard as we thought but not easy either, depending on whether the ground it hard or soft, and it is harder on my partner in crime and life than it is on me (he has stronger muscles than me so has done more).

The fence became a more urgent thing with the chooks starting to roam far and wide, so the fence came to the top of the list. And that is how most things get to the top of the list, they become urgent.

So the chooks are sort of contained, with the smaller ones popping through with no trouble and the larger ones squeezing through too though less often than the others. So we will run some chicken wire along the bottom of the fence and while we know they can fly, hopefully they won’t.

We actually haven’t finished the fence yet, we are halfway across the front of the property, and so have a little to go, also the gates. We won’t be fencing across the back along the creek as we want the wallabies to still be able to come onto the property and get back out through the bush, but at least dogs won’t be able to get on from the front. It will also discourage strangers from just wandering in, we hope.

ON OTHER MATTERS

This post from Survival Mom reminds me that we need to go through our boxes stored up above our room. We are still missing things from our move that we do go in search for and can’t find, so a declutter of the boxes is overdue, and also label the boxes with the things we keep. This job is starting to move closer to the top of the list.

Check out the photos on this blog of all the fresh fruit, I am drooling, wish our fruit trees would hurry up and mature and fruit. The blog is called The Prudent Homemaker and I just came across it the other day and am still looking through it, looks good.

I really enjoyed reading this article about an energy efficient village, what they did and the details of it. Although we are seeing this more and more, I still think we don’t build our homes good enough, so this is encouraging.

Bushwalking

2011-07-29T08:44:00.000+10:00

Last week we went bushwalking at a place just up the road from us. It is amazing how close some beautiful places are. Actually, when I say bushwalking, I also mean that there was a bit of rock climbing as well.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves even though we didn’t go far. It was really just a “lets check it out and see what it is like there” trip, so next time we will pack our lunch and go further, this time we had to turn around when we got hungry as our lunch was in the truck. Another thing we will have to do is get a proper map and take the compass, it is not really off the beaten track but I do like to know exactly where we are.

There were a lot of people camping close to the parking area and not going far which suits us as we wouldn’t stay around there, no-one seemed to go walking anywhere so we were on our own.

There are more areas further along to check out, though there is a fair bit to explore right where we were. Can’t beat the Australian bush, there is something about it that can’t be found anywhere else; I would take the bush over the beach any day.

ON OTHER MATTERS

An asteroid has been found not too far from earth. Have a look here.

Here is a post on how to save cucumber seeds at Life on a New Homestead.

I really enjoyed this post at Fast, Cheap and Good: Sustainability One Choice at a Time. It is titled The Green Thing, you have to read it.

At Apartment Prepper’s blog is a post titled Supply Check about checking things like batteries in torches and dates on First Aid supplies. I have found the same thing here at my house recently, paracetamol that has gone to the bottom and is outdated, I also went through my car kit. So check out the post to remind yourself to check things.

Jobs For A Cold Weekend

2011-07-22T10:04:00.000+10:00

It has turned cold here again and I am having a love affair with my beanie and scarf, they are at the very least my new best friends. I look very sexy (not) in my pink stripy beanie and scarf, but they are made from lambs wool and angora and are very warm which is the main thing, don’t care what I look like as long as I am warm.

Hopefully the cold won’t last long this time as I have planted out seeds and they have popped up, I have put in gigantic cucumbers and snake beans and I want them to survive. We also have corn to put in and best do that this weekend. Last year’s lot produced so well that we were able to freeze some of it for later which was great.

Our other job for the weekend is to put more blood and bone on everything, the garden, the orchard, the natives, and of course the tamarinds. Everything is having new growth at the moment and it also looks like we will get a few mangoes off the mango trees. The very short one that produced about six mangoes last year has flowers on it again and so does largest one, the tall skinny one looks like it is getting new leaves, so a win all round. These were some of the neglected trees that were here when we bought the property so it is good to see them coming along with some water and food, takes a while.

Today we are going to go bushwalking at a place not far from here, yesterday was my birthday and we usually go away camping for the weekend as it is always a long weekend here (Show day today) but this year we haven’t and may go away later in the year. So instead we are going bushwalking, my partner in crime and life has made me this terribly evil chocolate log and they will be cooking me a lovely roast for dinner tonight.

If there is time I also want to do some cooking. A lovely lady from my one of my Tai Chi classes has been emailing some lovely recipes so I want to make another one of these. Yesterday I also bought some granny smith apples that were on special so I can make Eric’s Apple Pie (also known as Poppy's Apple Pie) and mini apple pies.

Yesterday I didn’t do anything for my birthday as our number one and only son was at school, my partner in crime and life was sleeping the day away (I suppose he has a good excuse as he does do night shift) and I had to go to town and I had a Tai Chi class. So there wasn’t much time for me to do anything, however before I left for town, my partner in crime and life dragged himself out of bed after about four or five hours sleep to give me my homemade (the best kind) birthday card, which was just lovely.

So this weekend is about doing what I want, I always like to make a week of it, even if I just feel like I am doing what I want. I actually like to spend time on my own or just with my partner in crime and life and one and only son. So this week, when I went to buy star pickets I also had a little shop and bought myself a much needed new top, it was fun, I don’t normally like shopping but during this week I do.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Along with my fascinations with hardware stores for tools, books and my computer, I also love stationary. Can’t say why, but I love folders and notebooks and pens and pencils and all that. So I totally get this post from Survival Mom, every time it is back to school here I get extra stuff to put in my drawers and homemade pencil pots.

I am always on the lookout for recipes that don’t have a million ingredients, are healthy and don’t have meat. We do eat meat, I believe we are meant to eat meat, but I think we eat too much meat, I like to have on hand a lot of recipes that don’t have meat so I can throw them in every other day if I can. So here is another one at Penniless Parenting that I will have to try out.

A good post from Canadian Doomer about lessons learnt from camping. I always learn that I like being comfortable, and I would rather have good quality long last stuff than lots of cheap rubbish (like good camp beds rather than cheap ones). However, there are some more things to think about on her list that I think should be taken into consideration, so take a look.

Eggs

2011-07-18T08:24:00.001+10:00

Now our chookies are laying regularly I am thinking about eggs a lot. I am thinking about how often a chook lays and how big the eggs are.

You know how we have always been told that it takes three minutes to boil an egg? Well the eggs I had been buying would take at least five minutes and sometimes that was not long enough, but the eggs we are now getting from our hens take three minutes.

So, obviously there are a lot of hens out there that have been breed to lay rather large eggs compared to what they would naturally lay. The eggs we are getting are quite small compared to the ones we were buying and this bothers me as what is this doing to the hens that are bred for laying large eggs? Probably nothing, but still, there is something about it that bothers me.

Our hens are all laying and we are only getting three or four eggs a day out of six hens, their natural laying cycle being an egg about every 26 to 30 hours, so our hens lay in the morning and in the afternoon.

You can see how small our eggs are in the egg cup, but they have cooked perfectly in three minutes, and they have a regular sized yolk, just not so much white.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Here is a good article about greening your wardrobe that I liked,it has a bit more information than just recycle, op shop and don't use a dry cleaner.

And while I am on a roll, here is one about going green like celebrities, and I thought they were all selfish and rich, not really, didn't think that:D I knew that some celebrities were doing some good things.

School Is Back and Carbon Tax Is In

2011-07-12T09:30:00.000+10:00

School is back and we can now get back into routine, though I am not keen to be getting up early and to an alarm. I quite enjoy being able to wake up naturally even if it is still early, and then staying in bed a bit longer because it is too cold to get up :D

I do think it may be warming up a bit though, it was a warm 12 degrees this morning as opposed to a cold 12 degrees. It happens. So I didn’t feel the need to light the fire this morning, though our number one and only son complains about this, however I do have on my scarf and a blanket over my legs, and hope that I am not required to move about much till things warm up a bit more.

We also didn’t light the fire last night and though a little cold, if you go to bed early with a hot water bottle for a read you get toasty warm. So this actually works well to save electricity. There are fewer lights on, just a reading light, no TV, we have no electric blanket, no computers still running, no one becoming brain dead from the TV and computer games, and we end up with more sleep, so really, it is win win all around.

Talking about saving electricity, I need to clean out my fridge and bar fridge (so overdue to do this) and turn off the bar fridge. We can do without it and the extra in electricity, though we won’t be getting rid of the bar fridge as it is handy at times like Christmas when there is extra food in the house. However my mum was asking about our electricity going up and apart from the carbon tax I am sure that it was going to go up anyway, so does that mean that it is going to go up extra? Time for some research.

So off with the bar fridge, the small chest freezer has been turned off for a long time anyway and we use our esky with frozen water in juice bottles for keeping our drinks cold. We also plan to put in a gas wall oven on its own gas bottle when I have saved up the money (after we have bought a front loading washing machine and a few other things that have to be done first) We already turn off the lights when not in use (though I am sure that our number one and only son needs a reminder of this for his room out there) and turn everything off at the wall when not in use and now I am running out of ideas.

And, no matter what we do, electricity is still going to keep going up, we will be paying more even if we use less. I think we need a new plan, don’t know what but there has to be a better way.

Anyway, we have nearly finished tiling the splash back in the kitchen, actually, I really just supervised as there wasn’t enough room for the two of us and my partner in crime and life has done a great job. We still have another row to go, it is just that we ran out of tiles, (not a lot of planning going on), so on Thursday when I am in town I need to go pick up some more.

However, in the mean time, it has already lightened up the kitchen and it looks cleaner. So with the new sink and new benches (actually, covered benches) I think we are nearly done with improving the kitchen, just have to get a new gas oven and that is about it.

ON OTHER MATTERS

The carbon tax here in Australia is all the talk at the moment, and here is an article about what families think and I found the comments underneath most interesting. Carbon tax is also in Wikipedia and it has a pretty good explanation of it, worth checking out. Also, here is an article with links to working out how the carbon tax will affect us, it has a link to the Government’s calculator and also a table with links for broad individual circumstances.

This is going to come into effect regardless of whether you agree or not, so, it is best to understand it and work out how much it will cost you using the information being given to us. So, go do some reading, information is good :)

Be More Efficient

2011-07-08T10:55:00.001+10:00

We have a busy life, everyone we know has a busy life, and so I try and do things the most efficient way I can. While having this busy life we also want family time and relaxing time, all that, basically having our cake and eating it too. We also do a lot of things to impress others or make ourselves seem like them so we are not different and fit in, but life is hard enough as it is without all that.

How can we do it all? We need balance in our life or we burn out, we still need to do the work that needs to done but we also need to take regular breaks, and we don’t need to do it all. Having breaks doesn’t mean the going away on a world trip type of break (though that would be nice) but having enough time every day that is down time, where you get to breath, otherwise, heart attack here you come.

So how do we do it all and get to rest? Well, I am going to give you my theory on it, I was thinking on it at 4am this morning when I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep.

We need to make our lives more efficient and less complicated in all areas of our life and we need to decide what is important and what isn’t, what is worth worrying about and what isn’t. If you do things the easy way or differently to others it doesn’t make you lazy, it is just doing it the best and most efficient way for you and for your life, live your life the way you want, not the way others think you should.

Here is my list of some of what I do.

• Plant a low maintenance garden including the edible bit
• Plant the garden in one area and not all over the place (hard to water)
• Put in irrigation and have hoses everywhere so it all reaches
• Put more than one thing into the oven at once
• Cook large batches of meals and freeze the rest for tired nights
• It is OK to have toast for dinner every now and again
• Don’t buy clothes that require ironing
• Buy only good shoes and only have a few, same goes for clothes, really, how many clothes can you wear at once, easy for decision making
• Don’t vacuum everyday
• If things are a little messy that is OK
• Spend 15 min per room cleaning and tidying no more
• Delegate, don’t hog all the jobs for yourself
• Lower your standards a little, not the hygiene bit, but get your kids to hang the washing out and when they do it differently to you (and weirdly) don’t worry, it is hung out and that is all that matters
• If the dishes are done and the beds are made all is well, actually I am going to scrap the beds bit, now my partner in crime and life is on night shift the bed doesn’t get made as there is always someone sleeping in it, so I’ll just run with the dishes. Nothing worse than not having enough teaspoons for your cuppa teas, so as long as you don’t have four days worth of dishes piled up your good.
• It is OK to have stuff, it is what makes your house a home, as long as you love it and you aren’t falling over it, there is no problem, ignore other people. Being a minimalist is fine if that is what you choose and having different stuff and hobbies to other people is fine too.
• If you go out and everything is not away it is OK, do it when you come home, it is not the end of the world.

Just remember, when you are 100years old, what are you going to regret? Not doing the dishes before you went out that time, or sweeping the floor before visitors arrived? Or will you regret going on that picnic, going to that museum exhibition and painting that scene that moved you? Everything doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be you, you don’t have to please others only yourself, so sometimes just let it all go and do it tomorrow, and I bet you won’t regret it later.

We can have it all, often a lot of us have help to have it all (childcare, pay someone to clean the house once a week) and those who don’t run themselves ragged trying to keep up with it all and burn out, so we need to do things more efficiently. So, as Gunnie in Heartbreak Ridge said “well, you have your boots on, you’re good to go” or something along those lines,sometimes that is all you need and don’t worry about the rest, at least not today :D

The Chookies Are Happy

2011-07-06T09:26:00.000+10:00

My chookies are enjoying being able to come out of the pen and wander around and eat all the bugs and grasshoppers and stuff. They are enjoying dirt baths in the garden and digging up all the stuff they are allowed to.

They are really fun to watch though I have discovered they do not respond to verbal commands. Telling them “no” does nothing or “stop”, or “don’t dig there”.

They will wander quite far if I let them and I have found them down in the gully on the way to the orchard, but can’t let them do that as there are still large dogs wondering around so I keep a close eye out. So far so good. So generally, while they are out I am out too doing some work so I can make sure they aren’t getting into trouble.

They really like the banana trees and the paw paws, I guess because the dirt is really good, so I have had to put wire around all the things that I want protected. Two of them did manage to get stuck inside some wire and not be able to get out, they really aren’t the smartest, and they don’t like to be picked up, but they got out in the end.

I was going to fence the garden, but have decided that just putting the wire around what I want protected is better because I can move the wire around and they can get into old gardens and scratch around and I can still mow without any problems. Though, not having to mow would be better, but I am still thinking on that problem.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Don’t know if I have put this up before, maybe I have, regardless, here it is again, maybe, as it is important that we are informed. An article from the Greenpeace site about GM food, which is something we really don’t want. We don’t know enough about it, and the labelling of our food is poor so we are probably eating GM food and don’t know it. Everyone should find out more about GM food, we should be informed, and if they can’t answer the questions, in a good way, GM food shouldn’t be out there at all. Personally, I don’t think we should be mucking around with our food in this way at all.

I really don’t know why I am amazed every time I come across an article like this. That there are people out here who think that killing everything so they can put money in their pockets is a good idea. According to this article, they are using Agent Orange to kill off the Amazon forest; it is killing the plant and animal life. Words fail me.

This is a old, but relevant post from the blog Not Buying It. The post is called Extreme Frugal Living: The Ultimate Household Budget and while it is not a long post it has a good point about budgets. There should be two categories, what you need to survive and everything else. There are a lot of people right now who should take this under consideration as things are tough and some people are drowning in debt, and of course the costs of everything is going up. What you need to survive and everything else.

Gift Giving

2011-07-01T08:39:00.000+10:00

One thing about having your own blog that it is not dedicated to any particular subject, means that I can write about anything; religion, politics, the environment, my chooks, climate change, peak oil, my chooks, gardening, the weather and anything that crosses my mind at 2 o’clock in the morning :)

So today I am going to write about gift giving. It has come up recently so I have been thinking about it, and it is only 6months til Christmas, so if you think that is a long way away, think again.

I believe that a lot of people give gifts out of obligation rather than because they want to say “I care and am thinking about you”. This isn’t everyone, and I don’t even think this is the majority of people, but I still think it is true to a certain degree.

The thing I really don’t like about gift giving is the consumerism of it all. We are bombarded with advertising every Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, end of financial year, telling us we must buy all this stuff. It is shoved down our throats and people feel entitled to receive.

Now I am not saying that we shouldn’t have stuff, our much loved things (like my books) are the things that are a part of us and make our house a home, make life comfortable and enjoyable. I just think we have too much and we want it all now. I am including myself in this category so I am not just pointing fingers here.

So when it comes to gift giving, it is very difficult as we already have it all. Kids have toys coming out their ears, we have DVD’s and CD’s as they are cheap to buy so we get them when we see them. And that is the other point in all this, everything is cheap. Which also means that a lot of things also break in five minutes.

So because we have it all, because it is so cheap that we just buy it whenever we have the impulse and also because finance is easy to get (how many credit cards do you really need? Probably none) how can we appreciate anything that is given to us as a gift because someone has thought about us and wanted to give us something that says I care?

However, despite the fact that every year I have an internal (and sometimes external) rant about Christmas, and the fact that it is often about how much we get (I think about Harry Potter here where his cousin counts how many gifts he receives and it must be more than the year before) and how I hate consumerism, and we have way too many things and all that, I still give gifts. I try not to give useless crap, try not to give anything that will break in five minutes, try not to give dust collectors and try not to give anything that is ugly (plenty of ugly things out there).

So here are some gift ideas, usually coming to me in the middle of the night,, not all are exciting but hopefully useful or wanted and not expensive. Though I must say for myself, my favourites are handmade things that are useful (or pretty like a child’s drawing) and anything I can eat or drink.

YOUNG CHILDREN

Beach towels
Colouring pencils and pencil case
Bed sheets
Torch
Backpack
Sack of crap (my personal favourite, a reusable bag full of the stuff they aren’t normally allowed to eat, lollies, chips etc)
Wooden toys (not plastic, these will last longer and if you choose carefully aren’t full of toxins)
Water bottle

TEENAGERS

ITunes card
Sack of crap (this really is a big hit)
Tools (for their developing tool box, this is for boys and girls)
Gift card
Magazine subscription
Movie Voucher
Cool water bottle

ADULTS

Magazine subscription
Chocolates (and other yummy food)
Movie vouchers
Handmade useful things like: Crochet/Knitted dishcloths
Crochet topped towels
Coat hangers (so many people use
plastic coat hangers, Yuk)
Homemade edible goodies
Water bottle (everyone carries their own now)
Stuff for the garden – seeds, gardening gloves
Gift card

Donate to a charity on someone’s behalf, there are ones that will send out cards to let them know that you have bought them a gift of school supplies, or chooks or garden seeds or whatever you choose, which is helping people in this world who need it. This is a personal favourite of mine, let them know beforehand this is what you are doing, they may have a favourite charity.

You can always go the way of not giving gifts, but you can have a party/BBQ instead, at a park or at home (not my choice prefer these things away from home as then there is less cleaning up) and celebrate that way, with good company. Giving the gift of time instead of spending money you may not have.

There are lot of people struggling financially and we really need to think of other ways to celebrate these occasions, to not overindulge, to feel obligated to spend huge amounts of money that we may not have. We also need to be appreciative when people do give us gifts, that someone has been thinking about us and taken the time to purchase or make us a gift.

We live in such a throwaway society that we barely think about it when giving or receiving gifts, we just do. I would love to see us go back to homemade gifts (though a lot of people laugh at this) and small things like hankies (I love pretty hankies) or pretty stationary to write letters on (though I am an email person myself). We need to think about these things more, be mindful of our gifts, giving and receiving, not mindless.

Free Range Chickens

2011-06-27T08:05:00.001+10:00

Well, finally got the courage to let the chooks out and it wasn't so bad. No crazy dogs came and ate them, they didn't fall down the creek and they didn't fly up in to the trees.

Took them about half an hour to come out and then they roamed over the paddock. The second day they just came out and in the last fifteen minutes discovered the garden, and on the third day they remembered the garden after only being out for about ten minutes and came running past me to get to it.

Pete thinks it is a blast to fly up on top of the pen. You can actually see him thinking about it, looking up at the top, crouching down a bit and up he goes, with my partner in crime and life and myself saying "no, no, no".

It is good to see them roaming around, though they do need supervision, they are like children, they dig stuff up, roam too far (when you don't have fences this is bad) and they are so easy to watch as they are funny.

ON OTHER MATTERS

There can never be enough lists on how to save electricity, and over at Down To Earth there is a recent post about this very thing. A lot of these we already do or want to do (like get solar panels) regardless, it reminds us of what we should be doing so we go do it.

Here is a thought provoking post titled "Could You Live Without The Grocery Store?" at Life On A New Homestead, about processed food and chemicals in our food. Check it out.

This article about a mouse plague here in Australia that I didn't know we were having makes me think about other things I have been hearing. That there is a rabbit plague and also fox numbers have increased, has the weather improved? Yes it has. Maybe because we have had rain and conditions are good compared to the years of drought.

Bushfire

2011-06-24T10:19:00.000+10:00

There has been a bushfire yesterday and overnight across the highway and a lot of bush is gone and black. When I came home from town yesterday there was smoke everywhere and fire up the side of the road and last night our shed/house just smelled of smoke right the way through including the bedroom.

I hope no buildings were lost in the fire and all the animals managed to get away, though I don’t like to think of these things, a fire does do the bush good with regeneration. However all the smoke was not very pleasant but the line of fire on the very top of the big hill looked pretty in the dark.

I think I am addicted to my chooks, I suppose as addictions go this is not a bad one. I find I am planning for things like a chook orchard around the pen and keeping an eye out for more logs for them to walk on and watching them as they interact as a family/flock, good and bad behaviours.

I haven’t named them all as the names seem to develop over time. There is Pink because she is a pinkie colour, Miss Orange AKA Little Miss Naughty and Miss Black, not forgetting of course Pete, named because we wanted to name him that. The other three hens don’t have names as the names haven’t come to us.

Anyway, they seem to fascinate us more than we thought, even my partner in crime and life is addicted I think, but for our number one and only son they just exist here. Can’t expect much more from a fourteen year old though :D

ON OTHER MATTERS

This is a site I pop into from time to time about pandemics, the flu, infectious disease outbreaks and such around the world. If you think there is nothing of note going on in the world in regard to diseases check out the Avian Flu Diary.

This article titled “The true history of Dole, banana plantations, chemical pesticides and human suffering” is reminder of what chemicals can do, and that there are lot of people out there in the world that are exposed to chemicals even though we don’t see it every day.

A post from Taiwanxifu should give everyone pause for thought. This post reminds us we should be aware of our food in all ways, how it is packaged, how it is processed etc etc.

I Am Over Winter

2011-06-21T09:18:00.000+10:00

I really can’t wait for the cold weather to be over, I know what winter is like so bring on summer. I want to wear shorts and not jumpers. My world was cold and foggy this morning and I know I have a lot of things to do but it is hard to get motivated when my fingers won’t move.

So here is what our place looked like at the crack of dawn this morning.

Also, here is the moon this morning, it is all glowy. I am using words like that a lot at the moment, no other words come close to this discription, even telling my Tai Chi class to be more flowy (it is a technical term, I swear).

We are planting more natives on the boundary, they are callistamon’s so they will have very pretty bottlebrush flowers. We are using these as screens as we like our privacy, just have to wait for them to grow.

I have two pumpkins on my vine at the creek, the paw paw trees are starting to get some fruit and the strawberries are starting to flower and we have gotten a couple strawberries to eat, very sweet. I have planted some seeds out but it is too cold for them to germinate and some animal have been digging some holes, I seriously need to get a fence up.

In another week we will be letting the chooks out to free range for a short time in the afternoon. I am a little nervous about this but it seems the pig dogs are gone so it should be OK. I will only be letting them out late in the afternoon so they will only be roaming around for a couple of hours, but I do need to get a fence up around the garden. When I go into town for Tai Chi on Thursday I think I will stop by the hardware store and get some fencing.

Pete the rooster has settles in very well and at night he sleeps right in the middle with three hens on each side. Though, there does seem to be some fighting amongst the hens and I am not sure if they are fighting over Pete or they just don’t like each other, but the mean skinny chooks do seem to pick on the plump motherly hens.

ON OTHER MATTERS

I haven’t been on the computer much and have a lot of blogs to catch up on but here are a couple that have caught my eye this morning. I am following this food storage challenge at Denley Diaries, I like having enough in the cupboards to cook whatever I want whenever I want, and also for events just like the wild weather causing havoc in the southern Australia where people have lost power and trees are down and so on.

Another blog is The Glass Half Empty, she has had Rooster issues, as in too many. I don’t have those problems but I know people who do.

I thought this article titled Why The World Isn’t Getting Any Smaller was an interesting read.

Meet Pete

2011-06-16T15:58:00.000+10:00

I have been AWOL this week as my parents are visiting but they go home next week so I should be back to normal after that and posting regularly.

In the mean time, please meet Pete. He is much bigger than Dave but he seems to be very nice.

Order has been restored to the flock (we could see it happening before our very eyes) and the hen that had been at the bottom of the pecking order and wasn't doing very well is now a favoured companion of Pete's. He is looking after her and she no longer looks like she might keel over at any moment.

We were hoping he would fit in alright with not many problems but actually feared there would be big fights. However, he just hopped out of the box and went over and said "Hey, I'm Pete" and they said "Oh, OK" and that was it. It was actually a bit of an anti-climax :D

Pete crows a bit in the morning, and at lunch and in the afternoon, but he doesn't go on and on so we are pretty happy about that. Might hear him about 5.30am once and the hens must tell him it is too early and I don't hear him again until about 6am.

So all is well in the chicken world :)

I Love A Modern World

2011-06-08T10:00:00.000+10:00

The world was grey this morning, like in black and white photos. There was fog and then grey cloud coming up over the mountain making everything grey and unreal.

The paperbarks are all out in flower now but luckily only a few bats have been coming in for them, they don’t smell but they look good.

I have organised for a new rooster to come live with us, we will be picking him up on the weekend. Hopefully this will sort out the hens and pull them back into line, I have given them notice that this will be happening and to live it up while they can :D

The creek garden is coming along very well, the paw paws are flowering though no fruit yet and the pigeon peas are also growing well. The cow peas aren’t so good but the pumpkin has some little pumpkins that have set that look like they will stay on.

I actually don’t know how people survived back in the day when they were mostly self-sufficient, I have more failures than successes but I can go to the shops and buy what I can’t produce. Back in the day they couldn’t do that, especially if they lived out the back of beyond in the bush, it must have been so hard, no wonder they died young, life would have been tough.

Just basic living would have been hard; getting enough wood for the fire, to cook and keep warm would have been exhausting. Trying to grow enough food to have actual whole meals would have been hard, think about how you would get water to the garden without hoses. My creek garden has no tap at the moment (long term there will be I hope), and the creek has dried up so I am filling juice bottles with holes punched in the bottom and wheelbarrowing them across the paddock :(

All I can say is I love electricity and modern inventions and technology and hope I never have to live without them. While I want to be as self-sufficient as I can, I know there is only so much I can do.

I know I have said these things before, but I do think about it a bit, especially when the power goes out and we have to do things a different way, or when cutting a bit of wood to keep the fire going for a few nights, and that is with a chainsaw and decent tools. I think about it when my seedlings die or something digs into the garden, and I think about it when I go get a trailer load of garden soil because I have clay. I am just glad I live in this world and not way back when, at least I have a load of books for reference (and the internet) if I need to know something. Thank goodness for technology.

ON OTHER MATTERS

I liked this post at Survival Mom about how to complicate your life. We all do things the hard way sometimes (or a lot) and it is often unnecessary, we could do things the easy way like not taking on too much and being able to say no to people. However a lot of us can’t do that, we just have to take the hard road, need to change that.

The Harried Homemaker Preps has a recipe for a natural bug spray for the garden that I think I might try. I am pretty sure I have come across this before, however, I actually don’t use anything at all on the garden but think I might give it a go. I have caterpillars and have grasshoppers, so maybe this will help, I don’t think it will hurt.

Here is the latest post from Modern Muse regarding plastic and rubbish in general, I really need to go back over her blog.

I Hate Being Sick

2011-06-06T13:49:00.000+10:00

Don’t you just hate being sick? I hardly ever get sick so maybe that makes it worse, I’m not sure, Anyway I have a cold and while it is not really bad it is very, very annoying.

However, despite having a cold we have been out chopping wood. I am getting fairly good with the block spitter, having to get used to the weight of it compared to an axe, at least it doesn’t get stuck in the wood like the axe.

We have fertilised all the fruit trees in the orchard and also the bananas, tamarinds and passionfruit. A few things were looking a bit sad as we are a bit slack in the feeding department, we water but don’t fertilise too much, a habit we need to improve upon. You don’t get the best out of your trees or garden if you don’t refresh the soil and look after it properly.

My partner in crime and life has brush cut around the garden edges as that hasn’t been done for a while and it was a little out of control. I have also planted the Abika (New Guinea Spinach) into a garden bed and pruned it with the hope that it will take off and the cuttings will also grow. Hope so as it is a very useful plant and I have neglected it for too long.

We really need to get a new rooster sooner rather than later, the balance of power within our small flock is squewif, we can see the difference since Dave died. So I must ring up and see if there is a young rooster that is available to come and live here, hope so, as it would restore the natural order of things, we can see that it is not right without a rooster.

So things are ordinary here, just doing what I have to and waiting out my cold, even a small cold makes you feel like not doing very much, but that is what you should do when you are sick otherwise whatever you have hangs around longer. I am also a big believer in hankies, I carry hankies everywhere, however when we have colds I think tissues are best so we can get rid of the germs into the fire, anywhere away from us so we don’t spread it around.

So I am going to go and not do very much and try and get rid of it, must go make up a hot lemon drink, I have a recipe for a concoction that was given to me a few years ago and have hardly ever used it as I don’t often need it.

COLD AND FLU

When you feel a cold or flu coming on (may be too late for me)
Cut 2 lemons into quarters, place in a saucepan and cover with water and simmer for aprrox 5 mins. Take out the seeds and blend everything including the skins. Store in a jar in the fridge.

Place 3 teaspoons into a cup with some water, hot or cold, and some honey. Drink.

ON OTHER MATTERS

There is a post at Organised Castle blog that inspires me to be more organised. She has been organising her pantry (would love a pantry like this one) and sewing, these are the posts that have me getting up doing these things too, and the little dresses she made are gorgeous.

African Aussie has some great photos of butterflies on here blog, I am going to use them for inspiration for painting, when I get the courage to pick up a paintbrush, as at the moment I am just looking at my brushes and psyching myself up.

Here is an interesting article about bananas which I am going to have to do some more research on. While it is true that I mainly see Cavendish bananas in the supermarkets, it is also true that I can’t remember seeing a Cavendish banana plant for sale, only other varieties. So I need to check this out some more.

Carbon Tax

2011-06-01T10:43:00.000+10:00

There has been a lot of talk about the carbon tax that the Australian Government is going to put on business and the affect that it will have on households, especially lower income households. People of course have very strong opinions about it, so strong that I am unable to have a conversation about it and express my opinion. So instead of talking about it I am going to write about it, no-one can talk over me or interrupt and I will feel better as I have had my say.

Without a doubt, a carbon tax will cost us financially at home. The government will tax business, who, will in turn, pass on those costs to us, and life is already getting more expensive as it is. The cost of food, electricity, fuel and all the rest of it that comes with life are on the rise, and a carbon tax will just make it worse.

The thing is, big business will just pay the tax (which we will actually be paying for) and continue polluting anyway. No affect on climate change there. What about the effect on exports? We won’t be able to compete with other countries that can produce cheaper than us and aren’t doing anything to curb their affect on the climate.

Another alternative would be to set targets to reduce carbon pollution over a set amount of years, just make it law, we have to do it. I like this idea better, we have to do something about what the pollution we are producing is doing to the planet. However, households will still be paying for it, the costs will still be passed on like with a carbon tax.

There are always many aspects to any discussion, especially when the topic is something like climate change. Why should we be the only ones doing anything about climate change? We produce less carbon emissions than other countries, our efforts won’t make any difference to climate change as those countries aren’t doing anything.

Personally, I don’t see why we have to wait for others to do something before we act. Why can’t we lead the way? Someone has to be first to do something about climate change, if we all had the thought that there was no way they would do anything ustil someone else did it first, no-one would do anything, ever.

Most of us agree that something needs to be done, however most of us don’t’ want to pay for it. We want to continue to live the way we currently are, with all out high tech energy consuming appliances, we agree that polluting is bad but really can’t be bothered to do anything about it. We complain that life is getting more expensive, how are we going to put food on the table for the family, how are we going to afford to pay the electricity bill and keep the phone connected?

The way I see it, we don’t’ have many choices. The government is going to do whatever they want, taxes are being created and are going up, business is still going to be polluting, the cost of everything is still going to be increasing and we still have to pay for it all.

I can really see only one solution for households. Use less. Consume less. Buy less. Reduce, reuse, recycle, and repair. Between climate change, peak oil and various other factors we are being left with little choice. It doesn’t matter if you believe in these things or not, it is irrelevant, people are struggling to cope with the cost of living regardless of the reason.

You only have to read the news to see that people are not coping financially, that countries are not coping financially. We can’t continue to live the life that we are because we can’t afford it, the planet can’t afford it.

People are losing their homes, kids can’t afford to leave home, forests are being torn down so we can have furniture, GM food is being promoted as the way to produce more food for food security, people are starving to death, people are obese yet malnourished, plant and animal species are dying every day, we are experiencing extreme wild weather around the world, tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding, more people have allergies than ever before. I could go on all day with this list.

I know this all started with talking about carbon tax, but we can’t’ afford to not do anything. A lot of us can’t afford to do something, but regardless, the government will do whatever and we will pay.

OK, so now we have to make some sacrifices. It was always going to come that, either financially or our lifestyle, but probably both. We can’t’ afford to continue to live the way we are with no thought to anything except to complain about how much our lifestyle is costing us.

So here is a short list of some things we need to be doing to cope with the increasing costs of life, it helps the planet, keeps money in our pockets and not placing it in the hands of big business and the government.
• Reduce – use less, think about whether you really need it
• Recycle – buy second-hand
• Re-use – use things over and over till they can’t be used any more, don’t use disposable single use products
• Repair – instead of instantly replacing a broken item, see if it can be fixed or if you can fix it
• Learn new skills, like sewing, cooking, lighting a fire for camping, changing the headlight in the car, mending clothes, hanging a picture, changing a tyre, knitting, crocheting
• Have tool box in the house with hand tools in it, no power tools
• Plant a garden, no matter how small
• Compost all kitchen scraps, keep all paper and cardboard to use as mulch
• Turn everything off at the wall, turn off the standby switch
• Cook more than one thing in the oven
• Don’t buy more electrical appliances, is there an alternative, or can you live without it altogether?
• Spend more time with those whose company you enjoy, go on picnics, have BBQs, play games, instead of sitting around the TV, computer and Xboxes
• Borrow from the library, swap books and DVD’s with friends, use the toy library
• Give our kids less, we all complain how our kids have too much, too many toys or expensive gadgets, well, we paid for them, so let’s stop. Get them useful things or experiences or better yet spend time with them, build things with them.
• Buy groceries on special, and shop with a list and a calculator
• Now this one is going to be a bit controversial. How about we bring up our own families instead of paying others to do it for us. We raise our own kids, do our own cleaning, and cook our own food from scratch. I know it is not for everyone and not everyone can afford to do it, but instead of working full time and paying for all those things you don’t have time for maybe work part time instead. However, I do think that if you choose to have children you should bring them up yourself, that there should be one parent at home, otherwise why have kids if you don’t raise them. I often hear that people can’t afford to pay for child care and now they have to stay home as it is too expensive to do anything else. Well, what is wrong with that? What is wrong with raising your own kids? You chose to bring them into to the world. If you want, go back to work when they are at school, but why work to only then hand over that money to someone else to look after your kids? Told you it was controversial.
• How about we turn off those electrical things and read a book or play a game, be in the garden, take a walk or play with the kids. Make a go-cart, play golf (mini) in the backyard, have friends over or meet up with friends at a park and picnic and play cricket. Go fishing or to the beach.
• Don’t spend more than we earn, don’t take on debt, if you don’t have the money then you can’t afford it
This list is endless, and others have made lists like this, so there are plenty of ideas out there. These things save us money and use less planetary resources, we would pay less tax on goods and services because we are not using them and we would be doing our part for the planet without it costing so much. But we must remember that we can’t continue living this lifestyle because it will cost us one way or the other.

So if the government brings in the carbon tax, which they probably will, we need to use less. Doesn’t mean that our life has to be less enjoyable, just a bit different (or maybe a lot). That we have to produce more at home and give up the takeaway, not go to the movies but have movie night at home on a Friday night with a borrowed DVD and homemade popcorn. There is nothing bad in that.

We have to have a plan for our families to get around carbon tax and peak oil and the rising costs of everything. You see, I want to live on a healthy planet, I want money in the bank, I want kids with no allergies, and I want to be able to go camping out bush with trees and animals. And I want my computer too, I do love technology but will probably have to give some stuff up, I could give up all phones, landline and mobiles, I have no issues with that.

I want it all but I can’t, so this is how I plan on getting around it, it does mean giving up a bit, maybe more than we think, but I think we will gain a lot too, maybe we will get back some of the stuff we lost when we took up spending so much time glued to the TV, computer and Xbox. Things like the skills of cooking and sewing, building furniture and gardening, we will get to know our families, we would have more time for the important things like our kids instead of them being at home alone until 6 or 7pm at night waiting for parents to get home from work.

The kids will benefit the most I think. Better relationships with their parents, the parent’s actually spending time listening to their kids and just doing stuff together. The kids don’t spend so much time on their own, they have good adult influences in their life and don’t learn their behaviours from other teenagers but from the adults in their lives. Being able to talk to parents about the things that are bothering them so they don’t’ bottle it up. Just thinking about teenage drug abuse, pregnancies, suicide, cyber bullying makes me shudder. Our kids will also have a planet to actually live on too, big plus really.

So all this from the carbon tax that the Australian Government will probably introduce, no wonder people write books. So now I have given my opinion, I would rather have a conversation as people have so many good ideas and other opinions that I may not have thought about, but sometimes that is not possible, so here it is. And now it is out there, I hope we find a way around it all soon, it would be nice to have our cake and eat it too, I will just continue reading and gathering ideas and listening to what people have to say and hope we all come out the other end OK.

RIP Dave

2011-05-31T15:28:00.000+10:00

Just a quick post to say that Dave the Rooster died this morning.

He was a sweety pie and gorgeous to look at. Was a big shock when I went up to the pen this morning, everyone else seems to be fine, wonder how this affects the flock? There is nothing obvious about how he died, though some specualation between myself and my partner in crime and life. He has been buried down near the creek garden.

I am quite sad and will miss him.

RIP Dave.

To Microwave Or To Not Microwave

2011-05-27T09:38:00.001+10:00

Our microwave blew up about six or eight weeks ago and we now have the dilemma of wether to replace it or not. Personally, I have not missed it but our number one and only son has, mainly as he likes to reheat leftovers.

So I am sort of going backwards and forwards between yes we should, and no we shouldn’t replace it. I just can’t seem to justify buying one for a few reasons. I can think of other things to spend my money on for starters, and I am in the middle of reading Depletion and Abundance by Sharon Astyk and am thinking more about the energy we are using and how to reduce our consumption. Buying another microwave, another appliance, isn’t probably the way to go.

I do already think a lot about our energy consumption, we turn lights off when we don’t need them, most things get turned off at the wall, the oven even gets turned off at the meter box because it is inside and we don’t need the digital display on. We have solar hot water and when we do buy appliances we try and get the most efficient one we can afford, we are currently researching front loader washing machines to replace our top loader, though mainly because they use less water.

We just can’t keep on using up our resources willy nilly with no thought to the future, and I agree with Sharon Astyk that we need to find better ways to do things, to live a gentler life but not necessarily the way we are now. We are currently trying to find ways to create energy to replace the fossil fuels so we can keep on living the way we are now, but that is just not sustainable and probably not possible.

See how much plastic is in my freezer? And I don't like plastic and try not to use it but look at this.

If you think about all the things that we use, for example, oil for, it is frightening how reliant we are on it. Not just to put fuel in our vehicles, but all the plastic in our lives, take a look around your house and see how many things are made of or partly made of plastic. That is only a small part of it too, once you look into it the whole issue is just so huge, but most of us barely give it a thought.

Is this the alternative? Not convenient for everyone though.

So what is the alternative to microwaves? I know a lot of people use them all the time, but we don’t cook in ours except for rice, and rice actually cooks better on the stove top in my opinion. So we have been using the gas stove top more, which isn’t exactly using less energy but is not buying another appliance.

Our number one and only son is also learning to eat some things cold, that you don’t always have to heat stuff up. For example, cold pizza for breakfast is good, homemade of course, and custard doesn’t always have to be warm, ours is only warm after we have made it.

So I will continue to think on the microwave dilemma and by the time I have decided we probably won’t have missed it for a long time. So for now we will keep on looking for alternatives, like a hot water bottle instead of a wheat bag, using water heated on the fire and then the next day emptied onto the garden.

ON OTHER MATTERS

There is an electricity shortage in China due to their coal plants shutting down generators because of finacial problems. They are already looking at power shortages anyway, so this will make it worse, guess they are already looking for the alternatives.

I found this article an interesting read about the world population and the economy, gives you something to think about (not that we don't already have enough).

It is now widely reported that there are bugs out there that are resistant to anti-biotics and we are heading into a future where anti-biotics will be useless for us. This article is about how the use of ant-biotics being given to animals that we eat is partly to blame for this.

Messenger From The Universe

2011-05-23T09:46:00.000+10:00

Monday again and I am getting ready for the week. I only have one class this week which means I have plenty of time to do stuff at home and get it all done (in theory).

My friend Kate is turning out to be the voice in my head this year. You know how you say you are going to do things and then put them off for whatever reason, for me it is sewing and painting, and then the universe sends you a messenger. Mine is Kate, because of her I have started back into sewing and yesterday I got out my easel that my partner in crime and life made me quite a few years ago.

Kate is an artist and a writer and just tells me to get in and do it, and she is so right, you shouldn’t put things off. I always enjoyed painting even though I am not very good, enjoying something is more important than being good at it, so I am dragging everything out and am going to do it all, in between gardening and chopping wood and making bread and baked beans (my latest favourite food to cook).

Our number one and only son had a friend stay over on the weekend and they enjoyed themselves. They got out the go cart and rode it down the road and I just sing la la la if they want to tell me about any stunts they tried to do, ignorance is bliss sometimes. They also got the BBQ started over at the dam and cooked sausages and onions for lunch, food always tastes better when cooked outside.

We bought a block splitter the other day, after realising that the axe just wasn’t up to the job of splitting wood. So all the unsplitable wood got split, which is great as we were wondering how we were going to do that, and is now stacked on the pile, sort of, it fell over actually, so I will have to go and restack it in a safe way.

Amazing what you can do with the correct tools, we are gradually getting a nice collection. It is important to have tools, I have seen people who have a shed with virtually nothing in it and wouldn’t even be able to hammer a nail into anything. I think it is crazy, and I have a collection of tools which are just for the house. I have been thinking recently that I need a larger tool box as I currently only have a small tool box and a cardboard box with my stuff in it and I want one with wheels. I love the hardware store.

ON OTHER MATTERS

I have to stop reading other peoples blogs (not really) as they tend to write really good posts on food and stuff, which just makes me hungry. Blogs like Domesblissity and Taiwanxifu seem to have lots of pictures of yummy food all the time (I know, that is what people write about) and I can’t stop myself from reading them.

These are the things I love hearing about and of course now I want to do it too. Making canvas bags out of recycled material that had been used for another purpose. I love bags but not the sparkly ones but the ones I can use every day to drag my shopping home in, I have quite a few. In saying that however we still manage to have plastic bags in the house though I don’t get them, they still make it home one way or another, imagine how many I would have if I didn’t care about it. Imagine if I didn’t’ always take my canvas/reusable bags shopping and didn’t always refuse plastic, we would be inundated, even our number one and only son who is nearly 14 years old refuses plastic bags, and we still get some at home. Anyway, have a look at this article about how they are going to make canvas bags to give away after doing the largest hand painted canvas in the world.

Check out this article about this house that looks like a crop circle from the air, it is in Victoria Australia, made from local materials and I think it looks alright, they have pretty good views out their windows too.

In Pakistan, because of an energy crisis and the rising costs of electricity, they want to introduce an energy bill so that in homes and in industry they must use energy efficient appliances.

I Got Locked In The Toilet

2011-05-20T09:12:00.000+10:00

We just can’t afford to blink as time just gets away and we can’t get it back. Hasn’t the week gone quickly? Friday is here again.

The most interesting thing to happen to me this week is not that my cucumber seeds have popped up or that we had a lovely peaceful Tai Chi class, but that I got locked in my friends’ toilet yesterday :))

I went and was having a lovely lunch with a couple a friends, sitting around the pool, and as you do from time to time, I needed to go to the toilet. So off I went, did my thing, and went to go out and the door handle came off in my hand. Put it back on tried to turn the handle and it really wasn’t working, so I was standing there in disbelief looking at the handle in my hand like someone in a comedy. What do I do? Bang on the door in the hope that someone will hear me or wait until my presence is missed? I went with the banging on the door.

Didn’t take long for my friends to hear me, but what did Kate say to me? “Why did you shut the door?” Now I know that at home that there is no point in shutting the door as we have always had dogs that come barging in and we also seem to hold many conversations while on the toilet, but at other people’s homes we tend to shut the door. So of course my answer to the questions was “Because that is what people do” or something along those lines :P

So there was much noise on the other side of the door, I was trying not to laugh because it was just too ridiculous, and we were still no closer to opening the door. There was a thought going through my mind that maybe they would call some ~~hunky fireman~~ trades person to get me out, but it was not to be. I asked for a screwdriver to be passed through the tiny toilet window and I undid the only screw on my side and they did something on their side and I was out.

I have done many things in my life, a few a bit embarrassing but at least I can say I have done them and now I can cross this off my bucket list and have no regrets that I have not done it :p

So back to my ordinary life. I have planted more gigantic cucumbers which have come up, I have put in more snake beans but they aren’t to be seen yet nor are the winged beans, better more in. The potatoes are come along well with this latest lot looking good.

I always plant the bottom of the spring onions I buy so that they will continue growing in my garden and I won’t have to buy them, this bunch are coming along quite well, though I won’t cut any of them just yet. The next thing for me to plant are radishes (not too many at once like I did last year) and also some more rocket.

Dave the rooster is looking very good now and he is trying so hard to crow but isn’t quite there yet. He sounds more like a broken record, however he isn’t failing in the sex department as the few eggs we are getting are fertilised (and I saw them one morning which was too much for my brain to cope with at 6.30am). He is a very sweet rooster, and he is very pretty, and I think he knows it :)

One last thing, I made baked beans for our dinner last night, so yummy, I had never made them before and I made the quick version, what a success. I had been reading how others have made them and would never go back to the tinned ones, I so agree. Our number one and only son agreed too and next time we may make the slow cooker ones but the quick ones were pretty good, and there were no extras in them like additives or flavours or colours or anything.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Apparently the world is going to end tomorrow and it even made mainstream news on the ABC, the zombies are coming. And here is the link for preparing for the zombie apocalypse as I couldn’t make it work from the ABC site.

There is a post about Nutella cup cakes at Moo said the Mama. I am thinking that our number one and only son might like these, never heard of them before but seeing as he is into Nutella at the moment why not? However none for my partner in crime and life or myself as we are still off the bad stuff like sugar (it is too hard to lose when you are getting a bit older so sacrifices have to be made) but maybe just one to see what they taste like :p

At Chicky-Bit Run she has come over to the side of, well, I am going to say good here but not implying that she wasn’t good before, regarding GM food, she watched The Future of Food. Take a look at her blog and see her thoughts regarding this, we all need to do this, including those of us who are already there, never hurts to revisit these things (as long as I don’t get nightmares).

The Planets Are Aligning

2011-05-14T09:20:00.000+10:00

We got up early this morning to have a look at the planets aligning. Two very bright stars and two others not too far away, it is not going to happen again until about 2056 (I think) so it was worth braving the cold.

Talking about cold (and I will probably go on about it while it is cold) it was 12 degrees C inside when we got up at 5.30am, and while my partner in crime and life walked the dog I got the fire going and loaded up. So while it is still cold, the fire has taken the edge off and the kettle is boiling away for the many cups of teas I will have this morning.

We are going to be doing some work today to increase our warmth inside. We are going to do some more wood chopping (takes a lot of work to get enough wood to have a pile sitting out there) and we are going to block off our air vents in the roof that is letting out all the hot air.

The vents work well for our tropical climate (the shed/house is designed for the tropics) but for our little bit of cold weather in the middle of the year it is bad, we have enough gaps with roller doors and stuff without the vents as well. So for just a couple of months we will block them.

The dam was looking very pretty this morning with a bit of mist over the water and the sun coming up. There are some beautiful pink flowers out at the moment which make it look even better.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Some words of wisdom have been posted at Happy Family, Healthy Family that I think we should all take notice of. These are things we should really think about so we can go out and live the life we should.

I really hate (and that isn’t even a strong enough word for it) factory farming, and am yet to watch more than half an hour of Food Inc. Anyway, here is an interview with someone in the know regarding the future of factory farming.

It's Cold Then It's Warm Then It's Cold

2011-05-11T09:48:00.000+10:00

It looks like I am posting twice today but I am not, but kind of am. Everyone has been having trouble posting but it has now been fixed and I am posting again today, kind of :D

Seeing I can’t sew at the moment I have decided to make use of the cold weather and get into my crocheting. I actually have many projects I want to do like dishcloths, drink coasters, more blankets etc but have decided to make myself a vest. Just something to throw on when I get a little chilli, been wanting one for ages and seeing I have heaps of wool to use up now is the time.

The only thing is I hope I have enough of the same coloured wool to complete it and not have to change colours as I refuse to buy more wool. I actually am using three different colours at once to make up the thickness so if I have to change hopefully it won’t be so dramatic. I also am using a 10mm crochet needle which feels a little odd as I am not used to using such a large needle, but it makes things go quicker than usual.

After going on about how it was getting cold, it got warm, but now it is cold again. So the fire was lit up last night to keep out the chill brought about by a cold front coming through, the fire is also lit again this morning. Now I know this isn’t cold to some people but it was 13 degrees Celsius this morning, and that is cold for us.

Today I have to do some cooking as we have nothing to eat in the house, I think I will make some bread, biscuits and muffins, depending on the egg situation. Unfortunately I can’t make anything too yummy, as without a doubt, it will be unhealthy, and we are staying away from the bad stuff for a while. So I will have to search the recipes as all the good ones usually have chocolate chips in it and other such stuff.

ON OTHER MATTERS

This is a blog that I have recently added to my list from The Survival Mom Blogring and I just love the name Second Star on the Right. It looks like it will be interesting and the photography is pretty good.

I really like Scathing Weekly blog, and this post, as usual, is good. This woman can write well and hold even my interest (I am easily distracted, which according to a scientific report I read yesterday means I have a larger brain :P ). Though how she finds the time to read all these books is beyond me but she does, and her reviews are always fantastic, never thought I would find a review of a financial book interesting, but she gets me in :)

I am always looking for healthy meals that are also yummy and I think I will try out this lentil recipe at Down To Earth. I do have a few similar but the family is hard to please so will press on with the search. I think I will try this today as we are going to parent/teacher interviews this afternoon and it will be easier to have something hot to come home to rather than have to cook then.

This article at Treehugger about used car tyres being made for pots is just another example of recycling. I want one of these pots for a wood bucket for my fire :)

I Think I Should Go Back To Bed

2011-05-11T08:44:00.000+10:00

Some days you should really just go back to bed, and it doesn’t take very long to realise it. By eight o’clock this morning the dog had ripped up my brand new sewing pattern that I had bought the other day (and we all know how expensive they are, now I have to wait until I get more pocket money to replace it), and I had burned my toast (not that I think that eating crunchy cardboard is especially nutritious but I like it under an egg, time for a review of this practice). Just waiting for the third thing, these things always come in threes if you are superstitious, just like it is bad luck to walk under ladders, not :)

Time to move on with the day and do something positive, I was going to cut out the new pattern but will now maybe do some gardening, being outside is always nice. Might take out my IPOD for some music to sing along with, it is good to sing really loud (especially knowing no-one can hear you).

My shirts turned out really well. I made up the practice shirt so I could get all the mistakes out of the way, however when I made up the good shirt I just made new ones, goes to show how long it has been since I have sewed anything. However they turned out really well and unless I point out the mistakes I don’t think that anyone will notice.

I used buttons on the practice shirt but the real shirt has what is called frog closures, though I did find that one of the five frog closures I bought was a different colour white to the others, obviously not all white is the same. So I currently have four for the shirt and when I go back into town I will get a fifth one (maybe that was my first of the three things to go wrong).

I have some more potatoes popping up in the garden, I have actually spread out the plantings so I should have a succession of potatoes. My garden planning is improving with time, lots of time.

I am able to pick our next pumpkin today with one left on the vine, I am going to have pumpkin soup for lunch. Now I have to do some extra nurturing of the pumpkin patch down at the creek so it starts to produce, I miss pumpkin when I don’t have it.

Now we are getting a reasonable amount out of the garden, I am making these things do rather than buying to make up for we are missing. I think this important so there is no wastage, using what you have and it makes you use your imagination by not having the exact ingredients for recipes (something I need lots of practice in). And besides, that is one reason why I have a big garden, so I don’t have to buy everything to feed us.

ON OTHER MATTERS

The economy is never far from my thoughts. The Australian Government is delivering its budget today and apparently we have a booming economy, what the? While on the other side of the world, things are getting worse in Greece, they just can’t seem to sort themselves out.

At the New Scientist site they have lots of good articles but this one caught my eye about fish. It is about how they are growing up fast and whether it is evolution or environment (seeing we are decimating fish stocks). From there, there are other good articles along similar lines.

The recent post at Aspiring Millionaire is a good list of how to stop spending. The best one I find is to just not go to town at all, like this week, the last time was Saturday and the next time is Thursday, can’t spend if you are not there. Check it out.

I also liked this post at Fast, Cheap and Good: Sustainability, One Choice at a Time, about differing philosophies in regards to weeds. What is a weed to one person is another person’s dinner :D

It's Cold

2011-05-06T09:51:00.000+10:00

I know it isn’t officially winter yet but it is getting cold, not so much down the mountain, but here up the mountain it is. It has been a bit fresh at night so last night for the first time this year we lit the fire and it has been relit this morning as it was 12 degrees, and need to keep it lit for a little while yet as I have to boil the kettle for a cuppa (any excuse really).

We seem to now be getting two eggs a day, at least we have for the last two days, so I have stopped buying eggs and making do with what we are getting. So there is a bit of rationing going on (love an egg for breaky) but I am sure that we will be getting more soon.

I am not sure if you realise but not all sweet potatoes are the same. There are orange ones (our favourite which we can’t seem to grow as well as the others) and there are red ones and white ones. I have planted all three, but only seem to pull out red ones. The red ones aren’t very good for roasting or boiling as they are dry, but seem to go very well mashed (with other mashed stuff like pumpkin or regular potato) or in soup (though haven’t done this yet but I bet it is good). So need to get some of those other colours growing.

A friend has lent me one of her gorgeous shirts to take a pattern from and make myself a shirt. It is has about ¾ length sleeves and toggles for buttons, it is lovely, AND she gave me some lovely material to make it out of. Thank you so much Kate :D

I have been wanting to make some clothes this year as I am having trouble finding anything that I actually like in the shops. I am now in my forties (though still feel like I am in my twenties but with the wisdom of my life experiences) and there is so much that is just SO not suitable. I am not young but I am not ninety either, so what can I wear? So this is my start as I have been procrastinating.

So am making a practice shirt to start as it has been a while since I have sewn, and I want to make sure that I can do it. I have draw out the pattern, I bought some material (a king sized doona cover) for $5 from an OP shop I was passing yesterday so if I make a mistake it doesn’t matter (much) and I may end up with a doona patterned shirt to wear in the garden.

ON OTHER MATTERS

There are is a wicked looking recipe for caramel mud cakes over at Domesblissity. Now, no yummy cakes for me as we are detoxing at the moment, which basically means no sugar and stuff for us, but I can look longingly :D

Here is a blog that I haven’t been to for a while but need to go and read. It is called Farmama, about a mother, organic farmer, wife (where does she find the time to do it all, I am guessing no TV and good time management).

This post at Peak Oil Hausfrau is about gardening in our front yards and get rid of our high maintenance lawns, I agree. Grass doesn’t do anything much except needing constant mowing and watering, instead we could replace it with edible but good looking plants and trees.

While surfing the net (as I do) I came across this site about recycled craft, lots of different projects, and though I haven’t done any of them, I like to think I will one day :)

A Catch Up

2011-05-04T10:14:00.000+10:00

Well, I have had a break from blogging for two weeks and am ready to get back into it, it is good to take a break from stuff from time to time.

I now need to start to clean up the garden to plant more things, the only problem is that the things that do well, do REALLY well and take over everything. I need a plan. I have also had to start watering by hand now the wet season is over, it was nice to not have to do it and be a truly lazy gardener, to be able to eat out of the garden and not to have to actually do very much. There is more work in the dry season, guess I just can’t have it all :)

The winged beans have finally gotten beans on them and we had them in our rice last night, I saved the seeds out of the largest one. Quite nice and should grow all year.

I have picked the first paw paw grown on the property, and it is large enough that I can easily share with the chooks when it is fully ripened. The paw paws down the creek are growing like crazy and it looks like there are two male and two female, so pretty good, only need one male so may take one out.

The pigeon peas look like they are going to get peas on them soon, I noticed when I was cutting some leaves to give to the chooks. They are good food for the chooks and grow well, I just cut off the stuff sticking out to try and keep them under control, but I do need them to get peas on them so I can collect seeds for planting and giving away.

There is still only one chook laying, the smallest skinniest one, the big fat ones aren’t doing anything except eating. They just have to start soon. Dave the rooster has also started trying to crow, it is quite funny, like his voice is breaking :D

ON OTHER MATTERS

At the blog A Northern Life is a post about peak oil (yes I am still on about that) and a link to an article about how “THE AGE of cheap oil is now over – and that’s official “. If you are thinking that “hey, we haven’t run out of oil yet, what’s the fuss?” near the bottom of the article “Dr Birol said more oil reserves “might be there”, but access was not.” Anyway, check out the blog and the article.

Check out Wangara- Our Muddy blog, we went and had a brief visit and I so love mud brick houses, it was gorgeous, lovely house and lovely property. I loved just looking around it and seeing what they have done and what they will do, and my partner in crime checked out the solar panels and stuff which provides the electricity. If you haven’t caught on yet, they are off grid with their power and water and some food. Yes, they produce their own electricity, catch their own water and have a vege garden.

I am against growing genetically modified (GM) food and also the lack of labelling, however we are now growing GM food here in Australia (we have also let Monsanto get a foot in the door). If you want to know a little more, you can check it out here.

Garden Organisation

2011-04-20T10:56:00.001+10:00

I have to actually water the gardens now as the wet season comes to an end and there hasn’t been much rain to speak of.

I have realised over the year that I have spread my gardens out too much and it has required way too much work to water everything, so I am in the process of gathering the gardens together. I am nearly there, and putting in irrigations plays a huge part in it.

I think I got a bit carried away with having so much space to play with that it was too exciting :D I did have things together but some of the early stuff was put in bad places and I now have to dig these things up to move them with the rest. If I don’t, these things just don’t get watered often as they are away from the main garden area.

I have planted out the louffa’s and choko’s with the passionfruit, and plan to put in another row with passionfruit, so having four rows total beside the containers. I am unsure if I will put irrigations on these or just water these by hand, I am thinking a good soaking twice a week might be enough with enough mulch on top.

The garden around the edge of the driving circle that goes around the main garden rows is another one that doesn’t require watering every day, but I will put irrigation in this one. I have the potatoes, pigeon peas, galangal, ginger, turmeric, rosellas and bananas in it.

The main garden has all the high maintenance stuff that needs looking after all the time, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers etc and so I put the water on it most days. Thank goodness for bore water otherwise we would be screwed, but we wouldn’t live here if there wasn’t bore water, you have to have water :)

I did have a plan for the gardens at the beginning, and I have mostly stuck with it as it was a good plan, however I did stray a little on occasion and it now have to work to fix it. I am sorting out the stuff that I won’t bother with, finding the stuff that works, and meeting people who are doing the same as us and swapping seeds and ideas.

Like a lot of things in life, it is a life long journey and there is always more to learn, just because you have done something for years doesn’t mean you know it all. Sometimes you repeat the same things, the same way, without ever expanding your knowledge or learning to do things better, more efficiently. Live and learn :D

ON OTHER MATTERS

I am a chocolate addict, can’t help myself, you can keep me very happy by giving me chocolate, I have a friend who doesn’t like chocolate and I find it amazing, how could you not, though I probably eat her share in this world. Now, onto the point, “Only 3 per cent of the world's global chocolate supply is ethically certified to have been harvested without the use of forced, child, or trafficked labour.” I try and buy fair trade chocolate most of the time, don’t always and I feel guilty for it, but will from now on it really doesn’t cost much. However, we are so used to buying things so cheap that we don’t’ think about the high cost to others just so we can have a cheap chocolate bar or a $3 t-shirt.

I liked this post about plastics at The Non-Consumer Advocate, I like reading peoples thought on stuff like this.

There is also this old post at Living on a Dime about how many clothes do we need. I think we (as in we as a society) have too many clothes, too many cheap clothes (that is whole other issue) and not enough quality clothes that last the distance. Also, when do we have the time, or the occasion, to wear a room full of clothes? We have been carting around an old wardrobe that gives us about 2foot of hanging space each (we never seem to live anywhere with built-in’s), we have some drawers each and that’s it, we seem to have an adequate amount of clothes for our needs and wants.

Second-hand Shopping

2011-04-17T08:46:00.001+10:00

The week has just flown by and now it is Sunday and I have to get ready for the next week. Where does time go? You certainly can’t catch it and store it in a jar for later when you need it :)

I spent Friday with a friend at one of our local towns and had a wonderful day. We scoured the second-hand shops and purchased some lovely biodynamic veges to take home.

I found some old knitting and crochet patterns for 10cents and 20cents each which made me very happy. These old patterns are a little bit of an obsession, I always keep my eye open for them. I find that they are patterns that never date, generally quite easy (which works for me very well) and are useful, not some doodad that has no purpose (seen plenty of those).

Another book I picked up is about another subject I like (well, I suppose I wouldn’t get a book about something I wasn’t interested in) is about the weather. I paid 50cents for this one, and it is not just any old book about the weather, it is about reading the weather by watching animals and plant life, fascinating :)

It is even better that it is an Australian book, so the animals are of course Australian, talking about emus, black cockatoos and brush turkeys. So if an emu only has a small amount of eggs (they can have up to 20 eggs though usually 9 to 12 eggs) this could indicate a long dry spell. Crocodile nests have been found a lot higher up the bank than usual before flooding (I need to take note of this one).

This book also has a chapter on weather rhymes and lore, like this one – Ring around the moon; rain before noon. Ring around the sun; rain before night is done. Apparently cirrostratus clouds can produce halos around the moon and the sun and this often indicates unstable weather. Who knew?

I also picked up some chokos (for 10cents each)for planting, two green and two white, had never seen white ones before. I killed my last lot so this time they are going in raised beds. I have a lot of choko recipes I really want to try so hopefully these ones will take.

When we got our biodynamic veges I got some potatoes which they had on special. They were on special as they were soft and sprouting so I am going to plant them and see if they are any different to the other potatoes I have planted (which are going very well by the way).

So today I had better go and get so more garden soil to plant the chokos, I also have some other seedlings which really must be planted out.

Yesterday my partner in crime and life chopped up a tree that had fallen, it was waterlogged and must have gotten top heavy and so over it went. We thought we might have been able to save it, however, despite looking skinny, it was tall and heavy and we couldn’t shift it. So now it is firewood.

I have to say a big thank you to African Aussie as we exchanged seeds this week. I hope the rosellas go well and I have some research to do on gem squash and jicama.

ON OTHER MATTERS

At the Australian Conservation Foundation there is an article about why we should be nuclear free, especially in light of the disaster in Japan. I have come across other articles about this same issue and I guess we will be hearing about this for a long while.

Save money and cut carbon is the heading of this article at New Dream. We certainly do need to cut carbon and we always want to save money, but we don’t want to change our lifestyle too much (also known as having our cake and eating it too). So there are more of these articles popping up to help us out.

Seeing my current interest is about peak oil, here is another article about it titled Peak Oil Stage.

Brigadoon

2011-04-12T09:16:00.001+10:00

This morning I feel like I just stepped into Brigadoon, it is so misty and I had to squint to see the chook pen across the paddock.

I don’t have a lot to say today but I feel like writing and being school holidays I have time. I am up early as usual but don’t have to do anything as our number one and only son won’t stumble out till much later and my partner in crime and life wont’ be up until nearly lunchtime. So I am enjoying the peace of the early morning.

Though, I am listening to a CD that was a gift from one of my gorgeous Tai Chi friends, it is called “music as medicine” and it so suits this peaceful early morning. It is Nawang Khechog with R. Carlos Nakor and has chants, Native American flute songs, and Tibetan flute songs and is truly a lovely album. I can’t thank my friend enough for thinking of me and I will be using it a lot in our Tai Chi classes and at home.

My other current favourite album is Robert Plant and Allison Krauss called Raising Sand, it is easy to listen to and has some great songs on it, which is why I am listening to it so often, obviously :)

I found a fresh egg for my breakfast this morning, there is still only one chook laying about every other day on average, but can’t be long until the others catch up. They certainly do things in their own time :P

My seedlings are coming along well, I have cow peas and pigeon peas, one winged bean (the ones I really want to grow and am having trouble with but have managed to get a couple growing in the garden but I now no longer have any seeds and probably can’t get any more according to my source). I have a few little paw paws popped up, the seeds were given to us and have come from the best ever red paw paw, so we shall see.

Winged beans are a tropical legume from New Guinea and so of course does best in the tropics where there is a lot of rain fall. It is apparently called the”one species supermarket” as most of the plant is edible. You eat the bean, I won’t say obviously because sometimes you can’t eat the beans of plants, but also the flower, leaves and tuberous roots. So you can see why I really, really want to grow this bean, I just need to get some more seeds which I should get as my plants seem to be growing. They are currently living in a jungle of wild tomatoes and gigantic cucumbers.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Did you know that it is fifty years today since the first man went into space? It was the Russians who went into space and safely came back in a short trip that lasted 108 minutes, how amazing would that have felt? Personally, I would love to go into space but believe I would be happier going there with Star Trek technology than randomly floating around like it looks like we currently do.

Over a Scathing Weekly was a hilarious book review that I just loved, there was serious bits too, but now I have images in my head, probably set in for the day :P

Here is an article I found interesting, “Energy crisis leaves Nepal in the dark”. I never knew.

I really have to include these articles here, here and here on the decline of the bee population. We can’t survive without bees so this is a huge concern. I am happy to report that we have wild bees here on our property and regular bees have been seen in my garden.

Bacon Hock and Vege Soup

2011-04-11T09:15:00.001+10:00

School holidays have started for us and so it is time to come up with some stuff to do that isn’t too boring. One rule that we are continuing with though is no TV, computer or Xbox between 10am and 5.15pm (when my partner in crime and life goes to work for the night). We start at 10 am as it gives me time to write a blog post if I have anything to say that day, check world news and pop into everyone’s blogs for a quick read.

Yesterday we lit a fire in our fire pit and cooked some sausages for a bit of afternoon tea, nothing like food cooked over an open fire :)

We had an old bacon hock in the freezer that really needed using so my partner in crime and life made up a bacon hock and vegetable soup in the camp oven and popped it on the fire. It was so yum.

That is the one of the many advantages of living out of town, we can light a fire and have a BBQ and nobody cares. It also costs us nothing to cook except some dead branches that we collected from around the property, which is good when you have to cook something for a few hours.

We have decided that we need to collect the recipes that we like into a folder. We have lots of camp oven recipes but we forget which ones we like as we don’t actually cook often enough in it, so we are going to collect the recipes and cook more outside. It also means that we can toast marshmallows, YUM :D

ON OTHER MATTERS

I have read a few blogs recently on what people keep in their bags, for some reason I find this very interesting, maybe because I cart a fair bit around with me. The latest blog about this is at The Apartment Prepper’s, one thing on her list which I hadn’t thought of (but should have) is a solar watch, I need to look out for one of those. My partner in crime and life had one once, good watch until it died.

There have been some disturbing articles recently about how we are going to have to live without antibiotics, as we have overused them and bugs are becoming resistant to them. There is this one at ABC news from last week, this one from the UK from last year and some more info here. However I found articles going back much further warning of this, and of course there has been other talk for quite a while, but it is now back in the mainstream news. We should all be concerned.

Here is another blog that I like that isn't in one of my side lists but is in my favourites, it is called Vintage Foodie, check it out, it is a good one.

Our First Egg

2011-04-08T10:19:00.001+10:00

We have finally had our first egg. It is a little thing compared to regular eggs, but I guess they will get bigger. Self sufficiency is now one step closer, YAY :))

We are not sure which of the girls laid it, but it is only one of them as the next day there was another little egg, and I expect another one today. We are hoping the others will follow her lead, whoever she is.

You can see the size difference between the eggs, the cute little white one is about two thirds the size of the other.

We haven’t eaten them yet, we are just looking at them, however when we do I expect them to be great. Even though I am too scared to free range them at the moment (and I have to fence the garden) they get plenty of greens. Once or twice a week we go and cut grass and weed the garden and take them a barrow load for their pen, they pick over that for ages.

It is raining and windy here at the moment and we are not spending a lot of time outside, so this morning I just ran out and cut them the leaves of some snake beans, kang kong, sweet potato and pigeon peas along with some grass before the rain hit again. I will do that again tomorrow, it only takes five minutes and they get their daily greens.

The paw paws that I planted down at the creek so I can give the chooks lots fruit are coming along really well. In the mean time the other paw paw still has green fruit which just seem to be getting bigger and bigger, I guess they will eventually ripen.

Talking about sweet potato, I went to see if there was some ready to go the other day and pulled out this large red sweet potato. I decided to stop at one :P

ON OTHER MATTERS

On this dreary day I popped over to African Aussie and discovered this fantastic photo of a heleconia to put some colour into my day. There are some other great photos too :)

Despite the fact that the cost of fuel is on the rise we seem to be putting more cars on the road, building more roads to accomodate these cars and taking away public transport. At treehugger there is this article about freeway air pollution, now I know this is not new, we all know that air pollution affects our health, but doesn't hurt to have it put back into the front off our minds so we think about what we are doing.

Global food security and shortages seem to be talked about all over at the moment as people are becoming more concerned about it. Especially with all the current world events on the news every day, it is in our face making us think about it (though there are still people out there who are blissfully unaware and some who don't care). Anyway, at Pat Veretto's Frugal Living Blog, is a post about "why we will experience a food shortage".

New Chairs and Coconuts

2011-04-04T14:29:00.002+10:00

We have had a great weekend. Our number one and only son had a friend stay over on Saturday night and we had friends come for lunch on Sunday, and I made Tzatziki dip for the first time ever using one of our homegrown gigantic cucmbers (actually, only using half of it). I turned out gorgeous :D

We went into town early on Saturday and played squash, picked up some groceries and bought us all new office chairs.

We all needed new chairs for various reasons, our number one and only son has one that is older than him and the wheels are falling off, I needed one as I didn’t have one and my back was aching from sitting on the organ stool, and my partner in crime had one that he broke soon after getting it (it was a cheap one so can’t expect too much).

We spent slightly more than cheap, and the quality is so much more. The men ended up with typical colours, black and brown, I wanted purple but have to make do with red, there was also not a lot of choice as the trucks with stock are still stuck on the other side of flooded roads.

On Saturday afternoon we lit a fire, the boy’s tried for about two minutes and insisted that the wood was too wet and wandered off, so my partner in crime and life went and had it going in about five minutes. We took over the BBQ plate when the fire was nice and hot, gave them some sausages and tongs and left them to provide for themselves. They also toasted a whole bag of marshmallows on sticks, and then I think the rain kicked in a little, but they enjoyed themselves.

We had friends come for lunch on Sunday and they are on a similar journey as us but they have 3 acres. It was good to compare notes on what we each are doing and we also exchange seeds and seedlings. Last time I was up there I came home with seedlings of natives and this time, we sent them home with strawberry plants, Aloe Vera, gigantic cucumber seeds, a gigantic cucumber and wild cherry tomatoes so they can eat them and save the seeds.

Apart from being a cheap way to get the garden growing, we sometimes get things we didn’t know about before and if I happen to kill off my stuff, I have somewhere to go and get more seeds. The seeds are all heirloom, non- GMO, organic, not stuffed around with ones that we CAN save seeds from. Not like the ones you buy from other companies that are sterile, and you can’t continually grow generations of. I still buy seeds from the good companies even though I can save the seeds, sometimes I don’t save the seeds as it is too difficult or I kill off my plants.

I have rosella plants that are about fourth or fifth generation :D I also gave some seeds to the Botanical Gardens as a friend volunteered there and theirs all were lost (can’t remember why), she knew I grew them so I saved seeds for them. It is good to spread the love, feels good.

We were given some coconuts over the weekend, some for our non laying chooks to eat (honestly, they have the life of Riley) and five sprouted ones to plant. So we went and planted them this morning between the driveway and the boundary fence but not close to anything that coconuts will drop on and destroy.

We have been wondering what to do with that area, it doesn’t do anything but grow grass, it is close to the boundary and the people next door have their shed (which they live in) close to the fence so we had think carefully about it. Being a fairly wet area the coconuts should go well there and we don’t have to look after them much.

Today I have made a chocolate cake and two pumpkin fruit cakes, all very yummy. So going to go have some more cake with my cuppa tea.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Talking about seed saving, I am obviously not the only one thinking out it. Over at Just A Prepper's Place she is also talking about it.

There is a news article at ABC news about how fruit and vege prices are high due to our natural disasters. There is also more and more talk about global food security. One thing we can personally do to help ourselves in regard to high food prices and food securtiy is to grow our own, regardless of how small an area you have. High food prices and food security are concerns that are not going to go away.

Something I didn't know is that American milk is banned in most of Europe, Australia and a couple of other places due to the bovine growth hormone. Over at Living Prepared is a post about it with some links. Personally, we drink biodynamic organic local milk, it is gorgeous, the correct colour for milk and supports our local farmers.

A Year Of Firsts

2011-04-01T10:25:00.002+10:00

In a previous post I wrote about all the things we had done this year and it got me thinking about all the things we had done for the first time.

I remember helping my parents put a fence around our property when I was a teenager, using a wire strainer and putting in posts (helping as much as a teenage girl does anyway) but I had never built a chook pen. The amount of research that went into that alone was huge, planning how it would look, where it would be and what materials, we had to consider bush pythons and roaming and wild dogs.

OUR DAVE

We personally have never had chooks, though growing up mum had chooks, ducks, geese and turkeys, and while I know a little about them, we still did our research and got information including a book on chooks,“Raising Chickens for Dummies” :D

My partner in crime and life didn’t want a rooster either and my only memory of roosters was big arrogant things that chase you, but our Dave is not like that at all. We have been told that rooster’s chase you when they think of you as competition which happens when you hand raise them and think you are another rooster, ungrateful things :p

I remember going around the paddocks to pick up all the rocks and throw them into the trailer with my parents (I actually don’t know what they did with all those rocks, maybe around the gardens, can’t recall) but I had never built a path. We had to do this as we were making muddy tracks to the doors and bringing more of the outside in.

While I have nearly always had some sort of garden, I had never built one from scratch, let alone have it so successful. Things have either not grown at all, or grown humungous, can’t figure that one out. I can’t seem to grow corn from seed but have these amazing paw paws coming along.

I have always had herbs and maybe some tomatoes but had never grown potatoes. My small experiment of potatoes worked so well I have more in now and plan on creating more potato patches.

I had never used a ride on mower before and not sure if my partner in crime and life had either, however seeing the one we have is old and needs fixing from time to time, he now knows a lot about ride on mowers. We find it an enjoyable thing to do, very meditative, with nothing else to do but be alone with the plovers following along behind looking for bugs.

We had also never built an outdoor shower, never had to climb a ladder to get onto the mezzanine level to get to the desk top computer, never lived in a big shed, never even thought about getting a shipping container (never knew you could even buy them), never bought water tanks and have never had an actual orchard with quite a variety of fruit trees (always wanted one though).

I am sure that there are many more things that we have done for the first time in the last twelve months, there are so many things you would never get to do unless you have a bit of acreage. We always wanted a larger property however this one is proving to be plenty of work, especially as we are working to become as self sufficient as we can.

It wouldn’t be as much work (or fun) if we just lived here and didn’t do as much with the place, some people do that, I guess they just want to be out of town. Each to their own, the world would be boring if we were all the same. However, I think you get much more enjoyment by doing all the things you could do when you have acreage, if you have the space why not grow a vege garden, plant fruit trees and bush tucker, have some chooks?

A bush bean and yet another wild tomato :)

A lot of people I know can’t understand why I don’t want to go in to town, “it’s not far, you’ll still come in”. However what they don’t get, even if I explain, is that we have be planning for this for over twenty years (yeah, we are a little slow but other stuff got in the way), and we are where we are, because we want to be.

So I just want to stay on our property, work on the garden and trees, work on growing as much of our own food as I can, and look at the chooks while I wait for them to lay eggs. If I wanted to be in town all the time I would have stayed there, we have a lot of plans that we have been working on for a long time and I just want to be here to do it. Can’t do stuff if I am running into town every five minutes because I can’t say “NO” to people (getting them to accept no is also a problem, and me not caving in), I am getting better at that.

So we obviously love it here and plan on staying for a while, we have a lot of work yet to be done, more gardens, more trees, a fence, some ducks and maybe geese (still thinking on that one). We are going to learn to make our cheese (we can get cheese making kits so we are checking them out) but not sure about getting a milking goat (apart from the trouble they cause, we can never leave home again).

Another luffa seedling has popped up, better get their bed ready.

There has been talk about getting bees, but we need to do a lot more research before we get into that, and there is the thought (planted by someone we know and now my partner in crime and life wants to do it) to build a wooden pier/bridge thing onto the dam. See, so much to do, so little time, and there are always more ideas popping into our heads, it is all so exciting.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Over at City Roots Country Life, there is this post about making bread, Emma has some good tips about making bread and some links. I actually cheat when making bread, I use bread mix, but I am going to make it from scratch, this year, I swear, I am inspired :D

Yesterday there was talk of petrol getting to $2 a litre which is rather disturbing. Someone said that it wouldn't, but hey, petrol is already at $1.45 a litre here and desiel is about $1.50 a litre, maybe a little more. Not really such a big jump to $2 a litre is it? And really, who thinks it will go down?

At Treehugger, they are sailing around following the plastic pollution in the oceans and we can follow their journey. This pops up from time to time on documentaries, but it is out there all the time killing ocean life. I like to think they won't find much, but I have seen photos of what it looks like, here are a couple of links here and here. Take a look, it is horrific.

I Have A New Sink

2011-03-29T09:49:00.001+10:00

I have a new kitchen sink, and WOW, how great is it to wash the dishes in an actual sink :D

The other sink was plastic and stained and could never be cleaned, why anyone would install a second-hand sink in that condition is beyond me. However it is now finally gone and been replaced with a shiny new one and also a new tap which also works better than the old leaking one.

There was some discussion over how much to pay for a sink, but in the end it didn’t come down to price it came down to quality, we didn’t pay a fortune but we didn’t get the cheapest either. The cheap one didn’t feel nice, had shallow tubs and seemed thin, you have to feel it to understand.

There was quite a few taps to choose from, though they were all roughly the same with slight differences and of course different prices. We actually chose much the same as we had but it is more water efficient, doesn’t leak and we installed it correctly (the old one has been installed incorrectly, the lever to the back and it leaked and we were unable to change the lever and it was easier to just get new one).

While we were about it we solved our kitchen bench issue. The benches had been installed upside down to make them fit the kitchen and were (like the sink) YUK. We thought about recovering them but couldn’t find the laminate stuff, we thought about tiling them but word had it that was not a good idea for various reasons, and then we were just going to replace them, which seemed the easiest thing to do.

So we have been looking for benches for quite a while but obviously haven’t really found what we wanted (didn’t know what that was but we knew that we would know when we saw it). While replacing the sink we had to make a new frame to fit the sink into as the original hole was slightly too big, we decided temporarily to use ply until we replaced the bench tops. All of a sudden we decided to put ply on top of the whole thing to finish it off until later on, it now looks so good that it may be permanent.

The ply surrounds the stove as well as the sink and is on the extra bit of bench, we have put on a stain/varnish and we don’t use that bench for food preparation just the kettle, juicer, toaster and electric pan so all good.

So, suddenly I have a nice looking kitchen that works well, I can do the dishes in the sink (though will still use the plastic basin for really dirty dishes as we can’t put oil and stuff down the sink as it will kill our septic system), I can use the bench top without cringing and I actually want to do the dishes because the sink is all shiny and clean and I no longer mind touching it (though I am sure this urge will pass).

So that is my exciting week so far and I keep admiring how great it looks and what a great job my partner in crime and life has done, with some help from our number one and only son. Of course I had the most important job of supervising, only so many people can squish in under a cupboard or saw a piece of timber.

So now the next thing will be the splash back tiles behind the sink and stovetop, there has already been discussion over what, how and colour. Wonder how long before we find what we are looking for seeing we don't really know what we want :D

ON OTHER MATTERS

There is always talk about where there will be a double dip recession and so here is another article regarding this in relation to the price of oil. It is about the US but of course these things affect us here too in Australia and I believe we must keep a close eye on things going on around the world. The Ripple Affect, what goes on in another part of the world will affect us in some way, maybe small, maybe big, but it still does all the same.

Talking about sinks and doing the dishes, over at down to earth Rhonda has just done a lovely post on doing the dishes. I love her blog, it is so clean and wholesome and it is no wonder she is so popular, she writes lovely.

I have a lot of blogs I try and follow, I try and read them regularly as there are so many interesting ideas, opinions and lives that people lead, and they give me so many perspectives on lots of different things. I have listed a lot of those blogs on the sides of mine (though there are still more that I follow that aren't up, only have so much room for my lists), to see them all at once click the show all button at the bottom of the list.

A lot of work goes into writing blogs, and so I just want to thank my fellow bloggers out there in cyber land. Thank you for interesting reading and for allowing me (and everyone) the opportunity to read your thoughts, to glimpse into your lives and to learn from you. Not everyone agrees with other people's opinions or ideas but isn't it great to have the opportunity to be able read about it and sometimes to discuss it. Isn't technology fantastic, (I love technology) I wouldn't know any of you otherwise and am glad that I do :D

I Picked A Pumpkin

2011-03-25T09:15:00.003+10:00

I have just picked the first pumpkin that has been grown on the property, and there are two more that shouldn’t be long. These things are always very exciting, to be able to produce your own food.

The good thing about pumpkin is that there is so many things you can do with it that you really can’t grow too many. Pumpkin soup is always popular, pumpkin scones and muffins and a most favourite in our house is pumpkin fruit cake. This recipe is my mum’s that she has been making for years, don’t know where it originally came from but my partner in crime and life just loves it, and so think it is time to make one :)

PUMPKIN FRUIT CAKE

4 flat tablespoons butter (1/4 lb)
1 cup sugar
1 – 1 ¼ cup boiled pumpkin
2 cups SR flour
2eggs
1 pkt (2 cups) mixed dry fruit.

Cream the butter and the sugar, add eggs, then pumpkin, fruit and flour. Mix very well. Cook for one hour in moderate oven – 180 degrees.

I still haven’t planted out my seedlings but I really must, they need space to grow. I don’t think they will get any bigger in the little pots.

This weekend it looks like I will do a gardening workshop over where a friend lives about an hour and a half away. It is a good drive but we get to visit at the same time, just waiting for her to ring me today with the details, hope it works out.

If I do get to go, I will be able to take my friend some strawberry plants (ours are just going crazy), sweet potato runners and a gigantic cucumber which they can eat and also save the seeds from so they can grow them too. Gotta share the love :D

Looks like today we are going to go and get a new kitchen sink and tap. Our current sink is plastic and stained and disgusting, so since we moved here we have been using a basin in the sink to do the dishes.

Also the tap leaks into the cupboard underneath, my partner in crime and life was looking to fix it but word has it that it would be better to just replace it, so that is what we are going to do. Then, we later just have to replace a couple of bench tops.

I was given some homemade dog biscuits this week from a lovely friend (who made them all in heart shapes) and included the recipe. Our dog is allergic to preservatives and additives and we have to be careful what we give her, though she is addicted to peanut butter, and so these biscuits are peanut butter ones. The recipe came from the allrecipes.com.au site, and apparently there are more recipes.

DOG BISCUITS

280g wholemeal flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
315g unsalted natural peanut butter
1 cup low fat milk

Preheat oven to 190 degrees (fan forced), grease baking trays. Stir together flour and baking powder and set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix together the peanut butter and milk. Stir in the flour mixture until well blended. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Roll out to 1cm thickness and cut into shapes using biscuit cutters. Place 2 cm apart on the prepared trays.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until lightly brown. Remove from baking trays to cool on wire racks. Store in fridge.

Now I know that I should have been making these all along but sometimes you just need a bit of a push. The dog just loves them, I know what is in them, and they are cheap to make, can’t ask for more. Thanks Robyn :D

ON OTHER MATTERS

This post at Monkey Butt Junction is one after my own heart. She tracked her rubbish for the day and then made a list of what she could have done better. As she said, recycling is good, but reducing the amount of stuff we use is better. Unfortunately, a lot of things are packaged in plastic, and there are only so many tins that you can cover and make into pencil pots :P

While surfing around I found this article that I found interesting about global energy wars. It is true that regardless of the affect on the environment or whether you believe in peak oil or not, our consumption is only increasing (you can't deny there are more cars on the roads) and that we are paying more and more for fuel, electricity etc and the price will never go down, only up. Certainly makes me think about alot of things, the ripple affect is huge.

I listen to Dr Karl on the ABC radio a lot while driving to and from town (commercial radio stations drive me nuts with their stupidity) and so I thought I would check out his site. He is a very interesting guy and knows lots about lots, so I am going to spend some time on his site, fascinating stuff :D

Look What We Have Done

2011-03-23T10:24:00.001+10:00

I have been thinking about all the things we have done in the last year since we bought our five acres up the mountain. While we still have a long way to go, we have also done a lot. The big and most important things have been done (and some small things) and now we can plod along to get the rest of my many lists done in the next twenty years :)

The biggest two things was building a room for our number one and only son, and while not quite finished he can actually live in it, and putting in two more water tanks (important as we have no town water). So we now can be working on the inside of the house. Actually, I can also probably add a clothesline to the most important things we have done list.

We have worked on the old ride on mower, replacing worn out parts and keeping it going, still cheaper to do that than get a new mower, which one day we will have to, but for now we don’t. I really have thank my very handy partner in crime and life for being so smart and knowing how to do so many things :D

We have built (from a blank slate) vege gardens, planted fruit trees in orchard, bush tucker and other native plants. We built our incredibly secure chook pen, put chooks in it and haven’t accidently killed them (always a bonus). We have put irrigation through the gardens and orchard, which will make it so much easier in the dry season.

The things we have planted include:
• Bananas
• Paw paws
• Pigeon peas
• Rosellas
• Strawberries
• Tamarind trees
• Sweet potato
• Potatoes
• Snake Beans
• Wild cherry tomatoes
• Gigantic cucumbers
• Mulberry tree
• Carombola/Star Fruit tree
• Lemon/Orange/Lime trees
• Indian Guava
• Pumpkins
• Various Herbs inc Aloe Vera
• Lychee tree
• Peanut Butter tree
• Custard Apple and Black Sapote (chocolate pudding fruit)
• Various bush tucker for us to eat, and some to attract the birds
• Passionfruit

We built a small yard around the house, are currently building paths so we are not constantly dragging the mud inside, filling holes in the driveway, chopping wood so we can light our fire during our few cold weeks in the middle of the year (yes we are big girls when it comes to the cold)and trying to keep our property clean in a greenie way so the wild ducks, frogs and other wildlife will want to stay here.

There is also the outdoor shower we made looking out over the dam which is connected to bore water, the fire pit which was already here but we cleaned up to make it better.

We put some insulation on the walls inside the house, we have a bit of lino down on the floors but need stacks more, replaced all the door handles in the kitchen, moved the water pump from inside to outside (so much quieter now).

While we have done an awful lot, there is more to be done.
• Plant more fruit trees, vege gardens, bush tucker and natives
• Fence two sides of the property
• Put more floor coverings down
• Get power to our number one and only sons room and put internal walls up
• Replace kitchen sink and a couple of bench tops (this is starting to get urgent)
• Put some cupboards in the bathroom/laundry
• Another water tank off our number one and only son’s room
• Paint the shipping containers
• More paths
• Get ducks
• Put internal walls in the house
• Enclose the veranda
• Build a carport
Some of these things are obviously very long term plans, and of course it is only a short list of some of the main things.

However we are very happy with what we have done in the last twelve months, some of those things were expensive, but necessary to get done as soon as possible. We have now of course run out of money, so will just slowly do all those other things as we can, but nothing is urgent now.

I think I can safely say that the most important thing we did was the water tanks, there was only one here and having the extra two is so much more important than a lot a people can imagine, that is all our water for the house. When the wet season is over there will not really be any more rain for roughly six or seven months, maybe a little, but nothing that will make a huge difference. We will be back to very quick showers and recycling the water in a hundred different ways, these are some of the things that help to make life interesting :)

ON OTHER MATTERS

With price of fuel only going up, and of course we are all watching it at the moment with all the events going on around the world that affect it, Aspiring Millionare wrote a blog about a book on keeping our petrol bill down. We can all use some help.

I was reading this article about the Great Artesian Basin here in Australia and how it could be at risk because of coal seam gas extraction. We can't afford to lose our underground water, they are already ripping our natural resources out but water is life, we can live without many things but not water.

Don't forget that this Saturday is Earth Hour, so turn off your lights at 8.30pm and show your support for the environment, I have signed up. There are also events happening around the place, for example, if you are in Sydney, and go to First Fleet Park on the Sydney Harbour Foreshore, they have entertainment and stuff happening. Go to their site and check it out, and don't forget to turn off your lights :D

Pumpkins and Paw Paws

2011-03-20T09:58:00.003+10:00

I am having a day at home alone today as the men have taken the boat and gone fishing. I should be cooking and stuff but really don’t feel like it, maybe later.

Yesterday my partner in crime and I went to mulch and weed down the creek around the pumpkin and paw paws. In his enthusiasm my partner in crime and life ripped out the pigeon peas, only could find one to hopefully save, NOT HAPPY JAN is all I can really say about that. A lot more mulch needs to go on today, another job to add to the list.

The paw paws are coming along beautifully, so healthy seeing they were stunted little things in a pot. I plan on planting more down there and around the property, I eat them for breaky and so do the chooks, so can never have too many. We have also decided to plant some bananas down at the creek too, never have too many of them either :)

That is one of the things I want to do, apart from producing food for us, is producing food for the animals. We now have the chooks and the things I have planted for them so far are the paw paws and the pigeon peas.

We also plan on having ducks and I am considering geese. The geese would become the watch dogs of the place as we will be getting no more dogs, so the geese will make all the noise if there is anything unusual going on, but I am still thinking on these things.

One of chooks has been proven to be a rooster and I am very happy about it, my partner in crime and life isn’t so sure, but I believe it is a very good thing, of course it has to be the pretty one. As yet still no eggs but it is going to be soon (I am sounding like those annoying people who are always going to do something but never do yet they still talk about it a lot), I know it is going to be soon as nature is bound to just take over and they won’t be able to keep those eggs in :P

I have the biggest passionfruit, and they feel heavy too, only one of the plants is producing but it is making up for the other one which is not. Can’t wait to get some more in, another thing for the bottomless list.

I have been making some changes to my blog, a bit of rearranging and hopefully improvement, the blogging thread on Simple Savings has helped there, there is so much to learn.

I have lists of blogs I like to keep an eye on, people write about the most interesting things, however I have found the list so long that I needed to do something about it.

I wanted to be able to see when people have written a new post, but can't have them all up, so have decided to still have them all in there, but only the five most recent will be seen on the page. It will keep rotating through so different blogs will be up there depending on who has posted.

On Other Matters

I became a member of the Australian Conservation Foundation this year, it was an important thing for me to do, putting my money where my mouth is. I get a magazine six times a year and also get regualar emails to keep me up to date, outraged and remaining aware of what is going on. A lot of what I do in my life is because of these issues.

I have just finished reading Choosing Eden by Adrienne Langman. Great easy to read book about peak oil and why they chose to move to the country and create a permaculture farm in their mid fifties. Proving what I believe, that there is no excuse for doing nothing, everyone can do something even just small things.The Oil Drum is just one recommended site I am checking out.

I took a zillion photos of the supermoon last night, all of which turned out much the same, a white glowy thing in the middle of a black picture. There has been some speculation about what this means for the earth, however I got up this morning and nothing worse than what has already happened, happened while I was sleeping. Here is just one link to an article about the Supermoon, but there are many.

The Good Life

2011-03-18T08:17:00.001+10:00

I have been having a sort of content week, it has been busy as usual, but the evenings have been quite nice.

Our number one and only son has finally moved out to his room, with a long extension cord and no internal walls, but he is very content too. Once his furniture went in (after all the drama with the vinyl floor covering) he just moved on in, we thought he was a bit hesitant, but I think he was just waiting for his stuff.

The main residence (that sound very grand but really just means the big shed) is now very open and the middle roller door can now be opened again, and WOW what a difference that makes. The outside truly comes in, all the light and air, all at once, and of course all the bugs and dust too, but I can live with that as it is all so open and spacious (well, it will be spacious when the rest of the junk in the middle of the floor is sorted).

The bookcases have been moved and sorted out (I like order in my books so they are all in categories), the computers are together making a little office area with the printer, and my old desk from my teenager years holds my laptop and other stationary stuff but not clutter. Old drawers with animals painted on the front by me and two drawers missing, hold paper, telephone directory, sticky tape and all that sort of stuff.

I have gotten out my cotton mats that I love and my partner in crime and life doesn’t, and they are now on the floor and look just great, helping to cover our cement floor. The antique (supposedly) Chinese desk has candles, crystals, Buddha and a dragon on it, oh, and of course incense holder.

I feel like drumming every day now, and we have a great Djembe that sounds fantastic very loud. It doesn’t matter that I have no rhythm, I love it and no-one can hear. I heard an interview on the ABC radio a while ago with Emily Rodda and she said she realised that it didn’t’ matter if she wasn’t good at writing (obviously is) but she enjoyed it and that is the only reason needed. I really like that and try to remember that every day.

The afternoons this week have been so great. The doors wide open, letting all the light and air and space, dinner cooking, music up a bit loud, usually something folksy like the Indigo Girls or Joni Mitchell, The Waifs or Jack Johnson (not sure he is folksy but you get the idea) , and a glass of wine in hand. The birds in the trees are making some noise getting ready for the evening, so are the cicadas, and maybe we will see the wild duck families waddling around (one family is nearly grown but still together and now a new one has popped up with three very little ones, hope they survive out there in the world).

The world just falls away for me. It is out there outside our boundary, and a lot of the time I don’t want to go out there, just being content to be here on my own and doing my thing. I could easily not go out there at all except that after a bit I do crave some great company despite myself. But the rest of the time I can just be here, all that out there doesn’t matter (also except for my craving to be up-to-date with world news and to be aware).

Anyway, I hope most of my evenings are like this and my days too. Pottering in the garden and hoping one day to have enough to feed the family mainly from it, encouraging the chooks to lay some eggs (they have to be so close now), having a glass of wine while watching the sun set over the horizon while the bats fly over in the darkening sky looking for something to eat, or the rain falling in a fine mist over the bush, and letting the world just disappear. This has to truly be the good life.

Japan

2011-03-16T09:48:00.000+10:00

I was going to write about other stuff today but the most talked about and devastating thing is of course the disaster in Japan. This disaster is on a scale that most of us cannot fathom, even seeing it on TV and the internet cannot make us understand fully how it feels to actually be there, it just gives us a glimpse.

It is just another thing that brings home to a lot of us that the world is a very unstable place. We (as in we the citizens of Planet Earth) currently, just this year, have had flooding, cyclones, earthquakes, civil war, job loss and more that I can’t think of right now.

The disaster in Japan has been made worse as it started as a natural disaster, the earthquake and then tsunami that has killed thousands and wiped out infrastructure and livelihoods. Now because of the natural disaster, another one that was created by man is taking place, a nuclear one.

I am not a fan of nuclear power, though I know it works well and can see the good, the fallout from any problems, I believe, always outweigh the good, especially if there are alternatives. Though, in Japan with their climate I am not sure the alternatives would be enough, there are always two sides to the story.

In saying all that though, maybe we are too spoilt and our expectations for our very comfy life too high. We live a life where we expect everything now and not have to work very hard for it. Even growing our own food is a lost art that people cannot even imagine, doing the actual physical work would make some shudder.

I have heard people say that it is just too hard, let me tell you, I am a very lazy gardener, and it doesn’t require too much effort to have some herbs and maybe some tomatoes and beans in the garden, potatoes are another chuck in the ground and let grow thing. Sure we have to water them and put a bit of fertilizer and mulch on, but it really requires very little time and effort.

Anyway, the point being, actually one of the points I want to make is, that being prepared the way a lot of us are is a good thing, from having a generator, extra food, first aid kit, torches and batteries. I have heard it said “Why bother, if all you are going to do is lose the lot, it is a waste of money”, a lot of the time though you don’t lose the lot. It may be just your job you lose, not a flood or a cyclone that takes everything out, then you will be glad that there is extra food in the house and a garden out the back. Or you have to leave the house and go to an evacuation centre and you are glad that you have a bag ready to go with the essentials in it (I can’t imagine having to stay in the same undies for more than a day).

Another point is that maybe mother nature is trying to balance herself, we are polluting like there is no tomorrow, (though some progress has been made in this area but the government really needs to do more) and this is her way of trying to make it right. That is not taking away from the disaster at all, just trying to look at it from another side.

We will be hearing for a very long time about the disaster in Japan, about the devastation of so much loss of life, personally, I have trouble imagining so many people just gone. There will also be the economic side, the infrastructure problems, the power and water, and also what it means for the rest of the world who trades with Japan. Many things are made there, what are we not going to be able to get for a long time?

Even though our discomfort about not being able to buy that new car from Japan or get some electronic part is in no way comparable to what has personally happened to these people, the ripple effect is enormous.

On Other Matters

I enjoyed this blog at Scathing Weekly I Don't Want To Be The Girl Who Killed The Printed Word

Also Mands on a Mission is not going into the supermarket for the rest of March and is going to doing lots of cooking and adapting, I think that alot of us could easily go to the supermarket less and save some hard earned dollars. Cross off the shop.

I am trying to cut our plastic in our life, and not succeeding very well mind you. Found this good blog over at Simple, Green, Fugal Co-op

Here is a blog on Penny Pinching, and while I know most of these things, I still like to read about it to keep the ideas in the front of my mind.

Here is a short article about the nuclear disaster in Japan that explains a little about it.

Saving Electricity

2011-03-08T10:23:00.000+10:00

I am a big greenie at heart and in practice do my best. There has been a lot lately about electricity going up and so with this (just one of many things) in the front of my mind, I thought I would put my thoughts out their into cyber land.

Apart from saving money, I also want to save the planet and pollute less and have my one and only son growing up on a clean planet, it is the only one we have, can’t go anywhere else. We have to remember we are citizens of planet earth, in every respect.

According to The Australian in March last year, electricity had risen by about 35% in the previous three years. We all know that it will continue to increase, and I know for my family, that no matter what we do at the moment, we can’t get our bills down, unless of course we want to live in the dark without our technology.

Here is a site that tells you why electricity is going up, it also has other articles about electricity, it is an alright site. Of course there are many articles out there if you Google them, so have a look.

Now we have a fairly small bill compared to a lot of people we know, about $100 a month, which to some seems quite small, and to others is still a lot, depends on family size and what you do. We don’t think we miss out on anything, we have three computers that we use, a desktop, a laptop and a mini laptop and various other technology, which we love.

We do however turn everything off when not in use, and here is our list:
• The microwave off at the wall,
• Oven off at the meter box (which is inside for us),
• LCD/LED TV turned off a the switch at the front of the TV
• Toaster unplugged and put away when not in use
• Computers turned off at the wall when not in use
• Currently small chest freezer and bar fridge turned off
• Printer turned off a the wall
• Lights
• Fans
• All appliances off at wall

These things are manual appliances, not electric
• Can opener
• Manual hand beater (instead of an electric one)
• Wooden spoon (also instead of electric beater)
• Broom to sweep instead of vacuum cleaner all the time

When things need replacing we search out the most energy efficient things we can afford plus also deciding if we really need it. When the bread maker blew up (there was actual smoke coming out of it) we decided we could make bread by hand, and in the end bought an electric beater that is on a stand (always wanted one of these and never had the room till now) and it has dough beaters, so it can perform more than one task (but still only use when really needed). We need the electric beater for bread as I suck at kneading bread dough :D

On the electric beater thing for second, one thing I try and do is only use recipes that need to be beaten with a wooden spoon, so I don't have to get out the electric beater. I am lazy and hate getting out, using and washing up unnecessary things :P

Apparently a lot of people get their electricity disconnected as they cannot afford to pay the bill, in my mind, one of the things to do is to use less electricity in the first place. What would I do? Even less lights than we do now, we already have energy saving bulbs and turn off the big lights and turn on a small lamp when we settle in for the night. Go to bed earlier so all the TV’s and computers are turned off (though of course this could result in more children for some and that is definitely not a saving).

There are also things like having a no technology day once a week, during the school holidays instead of going all hard arse about it, computers and TVs etc had to go off at 9am and could be turned back on at 5pm, it worked well and our number one and only son did other things like read some books on how to make stuff, one thing he made was a wire fish trap.

Join Earth Hour on March the 26th and turn your lights out for one hour, you could make it a once a week or month thing, listen to the radio instead, reconnect with your partner and children and have a chat about things that matter. Sit in the dark and talk about things like how can we stop children from starving, or rainforests from being destroyed and the orangutan’s habitat disappearing, save the cassowaries from starving now their home has been flattened and their food destroyed by the cyclone or just how to grow our own food and support local farmers and producers when buying the things we can’t grow or make. There are many things I can talk about while not using electricity.

At some time we plan on putting in sky lights to bring more light in, we use fans and have no air conditioners, I think it is important to challenge ourselves to find the alternatives, for so many reasons. I know that I am not saying anything that we all haven’t heard before, but I think it needs to be there in our minds all the time, and maybe we should just say it louder so everyone can hear it properly.

While I would love to have a stand alone/off the grid solar electricity panels on the roof and be self sufficient in electricity like we are with water, we just can’t afford that, and at this point, we can’t afford solar panels that are connected to the grid. So I have to think of other ways to use less, and also hope the government gets their butt into gear and builds big solar and wind farms so the electricity I am buying is renewable and clean.

So now I am off to plant some more potatoes, I have about four that have come up so will put in more today, and then have a cuppa tea and read some more of “Choosing Eden” by Adrienne Langman about Peak Oil and what they did to change their lives. So I guess that will be my next deep and meaningful :D

Loads Of Rain

2011-03-07T09:14:00.001+10:00

We have had a huge amount of rain overnight. Our gauge only goes to 150mm and it was a bit above that, so I measured it with my fingers and think we got about 167m.

It was raining so hard last night that we watched TV in the bedroom while my partner in crime and life “watched” (which is another word for “slept”) the TV in the lounge room with all the rain noise.

When I took the dog for a walk this morning I discovered that the creek had come up so far that everything was flattened. All my little paws paws and pumpkin plants where flat on the ground and the mulch was gone, we haven’t seen it so high in the time we have been here.

When I went down with my partner in crime and life he found, while walking through the debris, a passionfruit plant with fruit on it. Must have been growing amongst the guinea grass and lantana, so I hope it recovers.

The creek had also gone over the bridge leading out to the highway, washed a bit of road away and there was debris on the bridge itself, with lots of flattened grass around.

There are some road closures in town and lots of traffic having problems getting around, hope our number one and only son has made it to school, he was disappointed that the bus made it up the range :P

We use two sites to watch the weather, the BOM site and also Weatherzone.

Gumboots and a Sarong

2011-03-03T18:45:00.001+10:00

Do you think that gumboots and a sarong are proper farm attire? Not really sure that many would agree but it is oh so comfortable, everyone should try it :D

After an afternoon of total indulgence, which in my world means hanging out with great women for hours and not thinking about going home, my jaws are sore from laughing and smiling for so long. I don’t do this very often and completely enjoy myself when I do, nothing beats such great company and interesting conversation.

Between lunch, a couple of wines and a swim, the conversation swung between books and Tai Chi, and other secret women’s business. I hope to enjoy this indulgence again, it is very uplifting....and fun :D

So on getting home, after kissing my partner in crime and life as he goes out the door to work, past me on my way in , I put on gumboots and a sarong. Such is life living in the tropics, I think we can get away with nearly anything up here :P

Why We Stockpile

2011-03-02T09:53:00.001+10:00

Doesn’t time fly? We are now into March and the year is already getting away from me. I had things that I wanted to have started by now but life has gotten in the way, but they are on the list so I will get around to them.

The rain is still hanging around and everything is sodden, no mowing can be done but cooking can be, so have done a bit of that.

Before the rain started back we were getting some lovely sunsets.

Now the rain is back it is all mostly grey and the creek is running high a lot of the time.

We have started replacing the door handles on the kitchen cupboards. We have been trying to decide what to replace them with for a while and decided to go with plain black, which looks better than plain white. Such a simple decision after all, it is a wonder it took so long :D

My plan for this week (despite it being half over) is to organise my kitchen cupboards a bit better. I am following a food stockpile challenge on the Simple Savings site and really need some organisation. I do always have a stockpile, however it is unorganised, I don’t really know what I have, and there are things that don’t have dates on them. One of the things I have recently started doing it putting the date of purchase on everything that doesn’t have a date on it, like tinned food, at least then I know how long it has been sitting there and it is also easier to rotate.
So now I am going through the cupboards, checking everything and make a separate space for a stockpile. It is good to follow a plan, even though I am much organised in other areas of my life, this is one of the areas I am not.

It is important that we have a stockpile of food, water, first aid, toilet paper and toothpaste etc, despite what others think about it. Some people think we are crazy, though we actually don’t tell many what we do (of course this is going out into cyber space for all to read, so now everyone, potentially, could know :D ). We have lived in the Top End for, I think, 16 years, firstly in the Northern Territory and now in Far North Queensland, and flooding and cyclones are always around. We have been lucky in that we haven’t been overly affected by these, missing out by only timing, or a smaller category cyclone, or by just a short distance on the map, it is really only luck.

Of course there are other reasons to be prepared, like job loss (we also have done that one, not for long luckily), bank computer glitches (that is a new one but not one we have been affected by, yet), rising prices (electricity is the big one this year I think, though of course food is also the other at the moment), crazy weather, and you could probably add your own thing to the list of what you want to be prepared for.

After the recent Cyclone Yasi, my very lovely partner in crime and life has told some mates that he is proud of his crazy wife, as we were quite prepared and apart from a few last minute small things, we were all good. We also didn’t have to go crazy at the stupidmarket buying trolley loads of food like I saw many others doing.

We have been cut off from town (when we lived in town) by flooding on the roads, and there have been blackouts, loads of rain and cyclones, it is the price we pay for living in a fantastic part of the world. And we are prepared to pay that so we can live the life we want, have great weather (mostly), grow a garden all year round, have like-minded friends who get us and accept us (I dyed my hair red with henna the other day and all have accepted it wonderfully :D ) and sometimes we get to go diving on the Great Barrier Reef, can’t ask for more.

So I had best go and do some organising and admiring of the new door handles (part of the organising, makes me feel better having a nicer looking kitchen), and I also better do some more cooking. I am having lunch with friends tomorrow so I think I will make a banana cake, I have a great recipe, actually, better make two, one to take and one for us :D

The Rain is Back

2011-02-25T09:26:00.002+10:00

I have a fellow blogger in the family. My partner in crime and life’s cousin’s daughter (saying family is easier) is blogging about their life on property outside Goulburn and their mud brick home which they are renovating (and we are hoping to visit when we go down there in April). So “hi” Mel, I am looking forward to seeing what you are doing out there. I would put the link to her blog in, except I can’t, but she is linked up on the side there under “My Blog List”, it is called “ Wangara – Our Muddy”.

Ok, so here are the pumpkins that I also didn’t see, I swear I was looking :D

After a rather dry spell for a wet season, the rain has kicked back in with a vengeance and the dam is overflowing and in 24 hours we have had (I think) just over 200mm (or about 8 inches for those who still work in the imperial system).

So after watering everything when it wasn’t raining, it is all now rather soaked with the downpour.

I had to wear my gum boots to the car yesterday to go into town to teach my Tai Chi class otherwise I would have been ankle deep in water no matter which way I went. I did take other shoes with me as I didn’t think that gum boots would have been very fashionable around town.

Today I have to do something about the chook pen as the girlies are very unhappy with the water and won’t come out. So I guess I will go cut some grass and stuff and get some hay and put it in the pen, good mulch for later.

I have some seedlings growing in pots, though I do find this frustrating as not a lot have come up. There is a little native something or other (need to ask my friend what it is) and some other non food producing plants and just a couple of food producing plants have germinated. Though the rosella has picked up and decided to grow despite me thinking that it was a no show. There are only three pigeon peas and two cow peas and no corn (yet), though I do blame a lot of this on the bandicoot who gets them if I forget to bring them inside at night.

I have made another garden bed and planted rosella seeds in that one and want to make tea (and of course jam) out of this lot, but I do have quite a few months before I am at that stage. I also thought I would get the potatoes under way, I am hoping they will start to grow at this time of year, I will just have to wait and see. As soon as I see they have grown I will start to make more potato patches as they are the easiest things to grow.

Time for a cup of tea before I go do something constructive but quiet (my partner in crime and life is now doing night shift) so best go put the kettle on 

Gigantic Cucumbers

2011-02-21T08:52:00.002+10:00

One of the things I try to do is to plant things that will grow all year round and produce most of the time. Of course it depends on the type a vegetable I plant too, not all types of tomatoes will grow all year round but the wild cherry tomato plant that is growing like crazy right now is one that will.

I kid you not, these are cucumbers.

In a previous post I wrote about these cucumbers that were given to us, they grow all year round and produce massive cucumbers. I saved the seeds and planted them, they grew and grew and grew.

Would you believe that I didn't see these in the garden? Really, I didn't :D

Anyway, they are very crispy, and if we can't get through them I am going to pickle them or give them to the chooks, they will love them.

So far I have found that snake beans, wild cherry tomatoes, sweet potato and gigantic cucumbers will grow through the wet (and the rest of the year). Those are the things with actual food, other things are the leafy greens like ceylon spinach, kang kong, betel leaf and rocket. There is also rosella, pigeon peas and paw paw, all can produce all year if I planted them to do that.

There are also a few herbs that survive all year too, I still have in the garden parsley, chives, curry plant, some sad basil and oregano. I think I could throw together a meal of some description with only these things, it might not be much but I could do it.

Anyway, I now have to keep an eye on the other cucumber out there as it isn't very far away from being ready to pick, and I will have to have a good search to see if there are any more that I missed :D

Passionfruit

2011-02-16T15:24:00.001+10:00

I think I just may be going to get some passionfruit, very exciting :)

I have had about four or five flowers on the largest plant, the other plant doesn't seem to be going as well. I do want to plant a couple more plants as passionfruit are very yummy.

I cleaned out the chook pen this morning and took them in some fresh grass and weeds. All the old stuff I took down to the creek where I have planted some pumpkins, I layed down cardboard boxes that I had been collecting and threw the mulch over the top. Take that you weeds.

Our chooks still aren't laying but I am sure they are getting close (I know I have been saying that for a while but I think it is true this time), they are clucking and carrying on and getting to the right age of about six months.

They are now, however, further away from being free ranged. I would love to do that and haven't up till now because they have been too young, now I am afraid of dogs. The other day a pig dog came onto our property and was attacking them through the wire, luckily all are fine, however, if they had been out they wouldn't have been. So I will just keep cutting them grass and giving them the weeds and stuff from the garden till we one day fence the property with dog fencing. Expensive I know, but it will mostly keep the undesireables out.

On a happier note, our number one and only son was in paper this week because he had written an interesting account of his experience of Cyclone Yasi. Even though the paper got his story slightly wrong, we didn't put our chooks in the cupboard, and it did sound like we sat around all night drinking lots of beer, we had a couple, it was a great story.

The weather is threatening to rain, I can hear the thunder but I don't think it is going to do anything, so I think I will go and have a cup of Rooibos tea and go watch :D

I Am A Book Addict

2011-02-12T11:06:00.002+10:00

I am a book addict. There is no way around it, I love books, big books, small books, books of every colour and about many different subjects. I can barely make it past a book shop without going in to see if there are any new books on gardening, self-sufficiency, climate change or how we are killing ourselves by eating food that has chemcials in it. Or just a good adventure book :D

When I decided to revamp my blog and update my favourite book list, I, as usual, had a lot of trouble, so I decided to go all out and just make headings and list lots of books. I just got out all my most favourite of my favourites, very difficult decisions had to be made, and I had piles of books around me which I still had to cull down.

I think I have the self-sufficiency subject covered with just three books. The Australian Self-sufficiency Handbook, which is obviously Australian, The New Complete Book of Self-sufficiency, which is from the UK, and The Encyclopedia Of Country Living, which is American. All are large with lots of useful information, I love just opening one of these books and reading whatever is on the page.

My bookcases are still not very organised from when we moved in a year ago, I know that sounds slack, but I am waiting for our number one and only son to move into his room and then I will have some space.

I have quite a lot of reference books as I like to have information at hand at any time. The health books have come in handy many times, not for things you should go to a doctor for, but for the rest. Also good for interpereting what doctors say and if you can't get to a doctor, like in an emergency. Hope I never go down that road, but having the information at hand is reassuring, and of course knowing first aid.

I have heard people say that we don't need books as the information is on the internet. That is true, but as any one who prepares for the unexpected knows, the internet is not always there, power can go out for various reasons, the internet can go down even if you still have power.

I also print out useful information from the internet and put it into folders for easy reference, in case the internet goes down :)These are also in a bookcase.

This year however, I won't be buying any books :( I alreaady have lots and I am going to save my money and buy rope :D I am going to use the library for books, magazines, CDs and DVDs. I have access to the library catalogue online and can reserve them online too, they send me an email to say my books are there and I just go and pick them up.

Besides the "save the books in case the world ends" reason for having books, I love the feel of a book in my hands. The feel of the paper and the sound of pages turning (quietly of course), it is also the feeling of knowledge sitting in my hands, and all the adventures. I just love books :D

Survival Mom Blogring

2011-02-11T08:32:00.003+10:00

I have been accepted into a blogring on the Survival Mom site. It is for women only and it is great to be able to link to other like minded women who are blogging about their lives.

The Survival Mom is a site I visit regularly which has lots of great information on prepping and links to other sites too. Now I just have figure out how to add the logo to my blog :) I am a little slow on these things but will get there, go check it out in the mean time.

We had a double rainbow the other day and it was a full one too.

We have had a bit of rain this week and even though everything is quite damp, the sky has looked spectacular.

The clouds have been really black.

The sunsets spectacular.

I planted out some seeds in pots the other day as something has been eating the seeds I have planted in the garden. So I planted corn, rosella, pidgeon peas, cow peas, jalepeno chillis and yam beans and guess what, something ate some of those seeds too, right out of the pots. Pretty sure it is a bandicoot, so I will replant today and make sure I bring the pots in tonight

So best go do something despite the rain, no mowing though :D

Cyclone Yasi Photos

2011-02-09T10:48:00.009+10:00

It looks like our internet is running properly as of yesterday afternoon so I am posting our photos from last week.

Our shipping container that we spent the night in when the cyclone came over. My partner in crime and life tied it down with a steel cable and recovery strap, but I am pretty sure that if the cyclone had of gone right over the top of us it would not have been enough. A category five cyclone can lift nearly anything.

We moved the cars onto the veranda in front of the doors, but I guess it depends of which way the doors blew, in or out, to what would be damaged. However my partner in crime and life did tech screw the doors closed, there was a lot of differing information about what was the best thing to do with roller doors.

Our poor chook pen only got one rope over the top of it, next time it will have a lot more as I won't be catching the chooks, they scream bloody murder and I think they would take their chances. Of course I will probably change my mind on that as I don't think I could stand the thought of them being out there.

We moved the boat and trailers to around the back of the containers and filled the boat with water and taped up the windows. Apparently the noughts and crosses style is better than crosses style.

Well I lost half my post as the power went out and the internet went haywire and didn't save properly, so I am now running on the generator and will quickly post and try to remember what else I wrote later :D

Cyclone Yasi

2011-02-03T19:03:00.003+10:00

Well...we have managed to dodge Cyclone Yasi but many haven't. We had been preparing for this for a few days, though was amazed on Tuesday when I had to go into town for jury duty the amount of people piling up trolleys in the hardware store and supermarkets. Every petrol station I saw had lines of cars going down the road as people waited to get fuel.

I only went into the hardware store to get extra rope, but people were in there with loaded up trolleys, buying torches, batteries and tarps. Why don't people have batteries and torches already? Honestly, it just stumps me, officially the cyclone season started in November, why do people wait until the day before a cyclone hits to go get everything?

I stopped in to get some potatoes and onions from the fruit place and could see the people in the supermarket loading up their trolleys with food. I really wanted some chocolate but there was no way I was going in there.
We already had gotten fuel on Monday, both vehicles filled up and we always have three drums of fuel on hand anyway.

I was so glad I didn’t have to do any of those things that lots of others were doing. Admittedly my partner in crime and life also stopped in at the hardware store just to get some stuff in case, not because we really needed anything.

All day we had barely a breath of wind as we moved quickly through the very long day tying down the bore shed and chook pen, taping up the windows and even a cable over the shipping container where we planned to spend the night. We packed up food and clothes, some things went into our bedroom, some things went into the container, we packed up the TV and computers, brought everything in off the veranda to the inside of the shed and moved the cars onto the veranda in front of the roller doors.

When it got a little darker we went and got the chooks and put them in a box to put in the shipping container with us for the night. Well, didn’t they scream blue murder, if you haven’t heard a chook scream, it is the most blood curdling thing ever, and being the wild things they are , really didn’t appreciate being caught. I had to catch eight of them, one twice as it had escaped.

My partner in crime and life tech screwed the roller doors shut later in the day, hoping it would be enough. All the time we were watching the BOM site to see where the cyclone was going. It seemed to go a bit south, which was good for us, and then it would come a bit more north, not so good.

So we prepared for the worst and really hoping for the best.
When the lights started flickering and the TV too, and the shed started to make more noise we decided it was time to move out to the container, so off we went with the dog, and I tell you, it was much quieter in the container. About 30 or 40 minutes later the power went out, we were watching the street light at the end of the road through the door.

We set it up quite well in the shipping container, with our table and chairs and a couple of mattresses and our pillows to sleep on. We sat around for quite a bit have a couple of drinks and talking while listening to the freight train go through the trees on the hills around us. Even though it was very, very windy, it didn’t get as bad as it could have, and as it turns out we caught the edge of Yasi, still very noisy and windy but not the full force.

We were lucky, Yasi turned a bit more south which made us a bit further out than we feared we would be. Unfortunately, though it missed us, it did get others. Homes have been lost, businesses destroyed, farms wiped out, although it missed major centres, smalls ones have been devastated, what has been lucky for us, is not for others.

We currently have the power back, we lost the landline a bit earlier, and now also have no mobile and internet reception. We can’t get down the mountain as there has been a landslide, so we heard, but local news is a bit sketchy at the moment, we are mainly hearing the big stuff like the airport didn’t suffer any damage. However, I want to know if our house near the beach has suffered any damage, but there currently isn’t any news about how the beach suburbs here fared and the people we know down there.

I guess we will know more in a few days, but things for us will go back to normal pretty quickly here, unlike for others. I have already started my list of what we could have done better, and a list of things to get to make life more comfortable for the next time, which there will be. I did forget to check the gas bottles, that was probably my biggest thing I didn’t’ do, but overall we did well, and lucky for us it wasn’t’ worse, and luck is all it was.

PS I am having trouble loading photos so will just post this now while the internet is working and post photos later.

Australia Day

2011-01-28T14:55:00.008+10:00

Australia Day turned out quite good. We went and did some wood chopping, some wood for the few cold days we will get in the dry season, and some for our lunchtime BBQ.

A lot of effort goes into chopping wood, doesn't look like a lot of wood for the fire, and it isn't, but there was much work involved, and this isn't just from one time.

Our BBQ was magnificent, and of course I made so much salad, and we cooked too much meat, that we didn't need to cook that night, tonnes of leftovers.

Of course it was our number one and only son who lit the fire, seeing that is a boy thing, and my partner in crime and life cooked it all, seeing that is a man thing :D

The views from the BBQ plate were pretty good too :))

Eggs And Lasgne

2011-01-26T08:36:00.006+10:00

Whoever said that it takes three minutes to boil an egg is wrong. It takes at least five minutes to cook the perfect egg with all the whites cooked and a soft yolk. I love boiled eggs but have a lot of trouble getting it just right, my partner in crime and life has said I am like Goldilocks, and that is in regard to more than boiling eggs.

I wish I could say that this is an egg from one of our chooks, but they haven't started laying yet. I am thinking that we have the only chooks ever that don't lay eggs, either that or they are lazy :D They are still cute though.

I made the best lasagna EVER the other day. I made the lasagna sheets with my new pasta maker (fresh pasta is so great and will be even better when we have free eggs to make it with)and a lovely mince mixture and cheese sauce. The mince mixture I just made up, just cooked up the mince with veges and put about 1/2 cup homemade mango sauce in with it, no tomato based sauce at all. Put it all together in layers as usual an there you go, the best lasagna ever :))

I do think we (as in, we as a society) make too many meals based on tomatoes, it gets boring and if you have arthritis like my partner in crime and life, it is bad. So it it nice to make something that is not based on tomatoes and it still tastes good, even though traditionally it should be made with tomatoes. So that is my opinion today to throw out into cyberspace :)

Being Australia Day, and seeing we actually are having good weather, we are going to have a BBQ for lunch. We are going to light the fire over in the fire pit, put my new BBQ plate on it and off we go.

I got lazy and bought chicken kebabs to cook instead of making them (sometimes you just have to do that) and also we are having a lamb chop each. My partner in crime and life tells me that everyone HAS to eat lamb on Australia day, it is a tradition. Never heard that personally before, but I can run with it.

All the rain has been sucked away by the cyclone that developed last week and has now moved away taking the rain with it, so we are left with unusually good weather for this time of year. It apparently won't be lasting though as the cyclone is expected to re-develop and come back north, so we are rushing around mowing while things are a little dry. Just enjoying it while it lasts :)

Our number one and only son went back to school this week, two days at school and then another day off, just to add to the two months he just had off. Hey, why not, doesn't make any difference now anyway :) I think he is going to have a really good year this, he is already looking forward to next year when he is a Senior.

Best go do a little Australia Day cleaning and make some salads for lunch, not too much though, it might interfere with the meat eating :D

Sweet Chilli Sauce

2011-01-18T11:06:00.007+10:00

Here is the Sweet chilli recipe that my partner in crime and life made, he loves it.

The site with the recipe also has other information about chillis, and you know, my partner in crime and life loves chilli's, despite having his mouth burned and getting chilli juice in his eyes, so sites with info and recipes are always interesting.....for him :D

Sweet Chilli Sauce

250 grams fresh chillies
8 cloves of garlic
2 medium brown onions
2 teaspoons of salt
2 cups of raw sugar
2 cups of white vinegar
1/2 cup of chopped coriander, leaves and stems
2 cm cube of ginger

Roughly blend the ingredients except the sugar and salt, adding a little vinegar if necessary.
Place in saucepan.
Add the vinegar, sugar and salt, bring to the boil and then simmer for 30 minutes.
Blend thoroughly and place in sterilized jars.

Here is the site the recipe came from http://www.thechilliman.biz/index.htm

A Roaring Creek

2011-01-14T16:17:00.008+10:00

Well, today the rain made me go out in it. It rained so heavy over a short space of time that a tonne of water went down the drain and into the septic tank and tried to kill it. So after much running around in the rain and a phone call I think it is fixed, well, nearly. The water pump for the shed also stopped working at the same time but I won’t tell you why as you will think I am one of those silly women who can’t do anything or fix anything and that will just ruin my reputation :P

After the rain finally stopped, our number one and only son and I rushed out and planted our new lemon tree in the orchard and our banana plant next to the bore shed. I want to have a banana circle there and will, but if I wait any longer there will just be nothing there, so I bought a banana plant out of my pocket money just to get the ball rolling.

The lemon and banana were looking very sad here so I am glad we got to put them in the ground, just have to get a trailer load of dirt and plant the little natives I also have here.

The creek is absolutely roaring and so high, it is normally very canyon like in appearance but not today, and the noise of it was amazing.

The water was also just pouring down the paddocks and the dam is well and truly overflowing.

Our poor little tanks out the front were just overflowing like crazy.

However I am not complaining at all about any of it, there a lot of people in QLD who are doing it very tough right now, and my heart goes out to all of them, makes you appreciate what you have right now.

New Years

2011-01-10T09:55:00.006+10:00

We are getting into it for the new year and I feel organised.

I had to get the car serviced last Friday, it was a major service and there was a few repairs to be done, so a rather large bill, not quite what I wanted for the start of the New Year but some things just need to be done. We ended up having to stay out all day to get it all finished so we didn't have to go back another day but it was worth it, though the day was incredible long.

We have been very busy just trying to keep up with the mowing, rain and hot days means that the grass is growing about a foot a day, well...it feels like it anyway. Usually by the time we finish the whole place we need to start at the beginning again.

New years day we cooked up a storm by making peach pie, mini apricot pies and biscuits, and they were all very yummy. I made up some custard to go with the pies and froze some of the peach pie for later.

My partner in crime and life made a sweet chilli sauce out of Jalapeno chillies from the garden, apparently very hot but getting slightly milder with time, I am not going to find out personally, I will just take his word for it :D

I have given my garden a huge clean up and the chooks loved it as all the weeds, grass and old plants went to them. It still have a bit to go but it is looking good. I planted rocket seeds and okra seeds, and the rocket has come up and is roaring along.

I have heaps of snake beans and wild cherry tomatoes, and I have a paw paw tree that actually has paws paws on it, I didn't' think it was going to but it has. I think I will move another paw paw that isn't doing too well and put it next to the herb/strawberry row that has developed out of cardboard boxes to give them some shade. Now I just have to get another trailer load of soil :D

I have made another garden and it is down by the creek. The soil is really good down there but it is a long way from the other garden so it is going to be a seasonal garden. Only there when the creek is running. I put in some pumpkin seeds and this will be the pumpkin patch, with a couple of Rosella's and pigeon peas thrown in for good measure, couldn't help myself :P

So hopefully the seeds are viable and will germinate soon and grow lots of pumpkins. I am also thinking about putting in some paw paws down there to, as once they get established they can look after themselves.

Best go do something constructive, might go work out our yearly bills, just because I can and haven't done that for a while, needs looking at :D

A Little Bit of Reflection

2010-12-31T06:43:00.007+10:00

Well, the New Year is upon us and we have had an interesting 2010. We have after many years of dreaming about it, bought our little bit of paradise and have been busy doing all the things we planned.

We have built a large vegetable garden, though still expanding it, an orchard, chook pen and chooks, natives plants and bush tucker, and still more things to come. We still need to work on the inside of our home, and in the new year our number one and only son will be out in his own room, once the lino arrives and we put it in. We fixed the old ride on mower, bought a motor bike and another vehicle, bought more tools, chainsaws and stuff, put in a wood fire for our few weeks of cold, the list is rather long.

Financially we will be having a much slower year in 2011, it will be basically a no spend year except for the things we need and a family wedding to go to, not sure we can do more than that, don't think I want to.

Our dam is full now with the rain we have had and our tanks are nearly there too. We did get rain from Cyclone Tasha that crossed the coast on Christmas morning (the dog came and woke me at 5.30am right when the cyclone was crossing but I told her to go away, I think she knew something) however after that it moved south and the rain stopped. Not so good for others though, and my heart goes out to those who have lost.

With the rain that we had a lot of water sat around the tanks and we tried to find the pipe that had been covered up when the new tank went in, actually I supervised and the men dug. We haven't found it yet but we (as in my partner in crime and life) put in our own drainage just to get the water away.

We are now expecting more rain for the New Year, I certainly wouldn't be going out to celebrate, apart form the fact that I am showing my age by not being able to stay up late, they are predicting rain. Besides, I have been there done that and am now in the can't sleep past 6am stage of my life, very frustrating :-D

For Christmas I got a pasta maker, and it makes great pasta, I have never had fresh pasta before and it is yum. So I that is our new thing for the new year, only making own pasta, doesn't take much time and it is fun.

So I am all ready for the new year. The budget has been reviewed, my new diary is already full of stuff for the new year like the school terms, my partner in crime and life gave me an IPOD dock with speakers for my Tai Chi classes so no more Cd's, yay, I am ready to keep track of all our spending this year and I have many many lists.

So, see you all on the other side of midnight for the start of what will be a great year :D