Japan

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

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

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

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

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