What I've been up to over the past week...

Lighting fires: I've rediscovered the upside-down fire. I first heard about these last winter and had great success with them. You basically build the fire the opposite of what we typically think. So, instead of building a teepee style fire with paper on the bottom, then kindling, then a few larger chunks directed up into a point, you layer your items the opposite. Start with large pieces of wood layered across the bottom of the fire (tightely nestled together all paralell). Then lay a few sheets of newspaper flat across that (or torn into strips). Then layer some kindling across. Then more paper. The instructions suggest using firestarters at this point. I don't use fire starters though, and have found if I put my kindling on top lightly layers with scrunched up paper it works just as well.

The idea is that the fire starts at the top and drops hot embers down in the lower layers that then proceed to light up (providing you can keep the top on fire long enough which is why I suppose they suggest firestarters). The real benefit kicks in when the bottom layer catches fire. It seems to burn nice and long and hot and actually takes much longer for it to burn through, so you are not having to keep an eye on your fire when you first light it. It will go for a few hours before you need to top it up.

Here's a pretty good link on how to do it (aside from all the manly man talk).

Garden: My lupin seeds have all sprouted (I hope they don't look too enticing to the chickens).

Laundry: We've had a few wet days and it's meant that the drying racks need to come out. I really try and avoid putting the racks up in the house during winter to avoid adding moisture to our home. But, sometimes it just can't be avoided (as it is I only do one load of washing evey 2 days).

Walking to school: We've managed to walk to school, on average, 4 days a week. It takes us about 15mins with me walking at a fast pace, and the kids on their scooters. It's great exercise for me since it's my only exercise aside from gardening. I really hope to keep that up when the weather takes a turn, but we'll see. As it is, I only use about a 1/3 a tank of petrol a fortnight (and that's in my itty bitty little car).

Technology: I have finally stepped (just a baby step) into the 2000s as far as technology goes. My mum got me a basic iPod for my birthday. I'm not really one to listen to music all the time, nor one to race out and get the newest and latest in technology. I much prefer the sounds of nature around me when I'm out gardening, and my own headspace when at home. I do like music, just don't seem to crave it as others do, but I have been really wanting to listen to quite a few podcasts over the years and finally, now I can! It never appealed to me to sit at the computer and listen to them since I'm not really into needlework crafts that require me to sit, so I never really had the opportunity before. I have several Susun Weed discussions on CD that I want to listen to, and have now found that she does podcasts too. So, I can now do that while doing housework, or even on my walk home from school on my own. Oh, and I have loaded all my music CDs onto it as well, for a bit of light relief between interviews. :)

DVD watching: The kids went to stay at my parents on Saturday night and Simon and I went out for a meal for my birthday. We grabbed some DVDs on the way home, to settle for a night in front of the fire, with the rain pattering down outside.

Oops, heartburn hit me. So, out came the fennel seeds for a cup of soothing tea.

Yay for the rain!

Finally.

It's been ages since we had any sort of rain here that was more than only good for settling the dust down. Unbelivable that we've made it through Autumn with hardly anything at all.

So today the ground is getting a good soaking. Not that there's a lot of garden that needs a water, but my herb garden was looking kinda dry (fortunately it has plants in there that like it that way, but since they are planted in the front of my house which is almost pure sand it gets a lot dryer with the full day sun, they were starting to call for some water). I actually had to water my vegetables in the lower garden during the week because my silverbeets and beetroots looked like they were wilting.

Maybe I just have no idea about rainfall at this time of the year, since I didn't HAVE a garden this time last year (was only in the planning and preparation stages) then I probably wasn't too concerned about rain and in fact probably preferred the no rain status!

Our water tank doesn't need the water since it's super full still as it only gets used to water the garden during summer and we don't draw off it for household use. This is something I am going to investigate though. Back before there was town supply which came in in the mid-80's this tank would have had a pump that supplied the house. So might be nice to investigate this option at some point.

Eating locally

I think out of all the *big* environmental things I'm currently working on to make a difference is trying to eliminate imported food. Since we're a small country, it isn't really possible to say "I will only eat food produced within 200km of my home" otherwise we'd be eating no food except local produce (because all the food manufacturers are mostly located up north and more like 600km away)! So for me, eating local means eating food produced in New Zealand - and even that's tricky. Particularly for our family eating gluten free - it makes it SO tricky finding alternative grains to eat that would be local. Rice is not grown in NZ, nor things like chickpeas (as far as I know) etc. Rice makes up a large part of alternative grains for the gluten free diet - even though Australia grow rice, from what I understand it's not a particularly environmentally friendly way to produce it because of the high use of water which Australia just does not have.

So for now, I am working on sticking with NZ and Australian products and see how I go. I still have work to do on that.

It's not just about cutting back on food miles that is driving my desire to do this - but the fact that food prices are rising (and becoming quite noticeable), the thought of how we would access foods that our family are used to if we are no longer able to afford some of those Australian products and having the security and knowledge on how to work with local products (so the idea is to phase them out now so it is less of a problem later).

Basically, I want to make eating local "the normal thing to do" for our family without a second thought. The more we eat locally, the less I miss the imported products. We no longer eat canned fish and we no longer eat banana's. Two biggies for us to have given away, but I don't (and the kids don't) even think about it any longer (Simon buys himself banana's still for his lunches, but hey, I can't control what he does).

I have been much more mindful when preparing a meal and thinking about just what has gone into it, the top picture was lunch last Monday - homemade guacomole (using NZ made chili sauce which made no mention of sourcing products from overseas), homemade hummus (unfortunately using imported chickpeas, but I intend on growing some sort of white beans next year to substitute in here), home grown potatoes sprinkled with NZ made (very expensive!) cheese.

At last

Some rain...it did a great job too - not too hard, and went on for hours...

Shame the New roof didn't cut it. Actually, the roof is fine, we're waiting on the skylight dude to re-prioritise our job of replacing the seals around the glass or at least do a patch job until he can come and fix things properly in February! Last night there was literally a waterfall of water flowing in. The new roof has obviously just shifted things around more and made the problem worse.

The rain must have also been too much for our apple tree - I found it on the ground this morning. There was only one large, very old, half rotten limb left on the tree growing horizontally and with the fruit loading it down - it (not surprisingly) gave way...boohooo...I'm hoping the apples will still grow since the branch is still attached for now, I can remain wishful anyway.

Where is the rain?!

It seems the rest of the country has been bombarded with rain - we haven't seen a drop for about a month. Things are SOOOO dry! I'm busy out there every few days dipping my watering can into the water trough...but, I'd really like a tiny break, please? On the plus side, it's good exercise for me and my arm muscles are increasing in size as I lug a good 25 x 15 litres of water across the garden every few days...

The water trough is *finally* ready and safe!

Over the weekend I harassed Simon to make me a lid and attach it onto the bathtub so I could finally fill it up from our water tank and feel safe the kids or neighbourhood cats weren't going to fall into it. A hole at the end of the tub needed to be covered over as the ball-cock valve was set just above it and it meant that it was an overflow with the water pouring out the side and the valve not shutting off.

So, we're all sorted and I can water away at my leisure - just need to hope I don't have neighbours who wonder if I'm watering on the "wrong" days and try and dob me in to the council for thinking I'm using town supply when they I shouldn't be!

Rain, rain, go away...

Well, we've had weeks of fairly persistent rain. We've had the odd half day's respite, but it's been pretty relentless. I have hope though. This afternoon the clouds parted and the sun came out and it was warm. Not much of a breeze though to shift that humidity and moisture that seems to have permeated into the house and everything within it.

At least I managed to get one load of washing dry that's been on the drying rack for a few days, switched clothes off the nappy drying rack so I could put out my nappies which were getting down to the last one. I used up the last tonight and fortunately there will be dry ones for the morning.

It's the spring weather that makes me long for a clothes dryer.

I don't have problems in winter trying to dry clothes with having the woodburner to toast them all off in front of overnight (not to mention that over winter we didn't have nearly as much rain as what we have in the last few weeks!). But with it not being cold enough in the evenings to light a fire now, yet having wet days for days on end it really does make for a bit of juggling of things.

All this rain has also escalated a Roof Problem that I kept hoping would go away. We have a leak in one of our lounge skylights that leaks periodically (depending on the wind direction I think). So we've also bit the bullet and decided to have the entire roof replaced since it's starting to get rust holes all over the show and it won't be long before there are leaks elsewhere. Since we have fully committed to staying in this home for the long term it will definitely be a worthwhile investment. No more waking in the middle of the night to a downpour sending Simon out to put a bucket under the drips when I should be snuggling down and enjoying the sound of the rain on the roof.

Progress on the trench and trough

This was the result of last weekend's efforts. Simon has dug it out all the way down the garden and tomorrow plans on laying the hosing and getting the bath in position. The tap (at ground level) has no pressure, so will just trickle down into the bath. Might need to get us some frogs to eat any mozzies. Or maybe we'll get to see some cool dragonflys on the hunt for mozzies too.

Recycling...refashioning

Since Simon finished up with his job on Friday and over this weekend as I was in the process of washing/folding the weeks worth of business shirts which were embossed with his company logo, I started to wonder how I could reuse them.

Then this morning I read on Melanie's blog about making bags, and I've been reading about making cloth bags for yonks and never actually got around to it (lack of random fabrics I think and I didn't really want to go and purchase special fabric for the project). And besides, I have a calico one that I use already for library books on Errand's Day.

So, this evening after the kids were in bed I dragged out my no-often-used sewing machine and whipped this up in about 20mins. It's kinda rough, but pretty functional and I may even funk it up a bit if I feel inspired. The strap is long enough to go across to my opposite shoulder. Looks kind of like a skirt from the side LOL.

Now, I've got another 3 of these shirts out there. I was thinking they could be torn into strips and used to tie up my tomatoes when the time comes since the fabric is quite thin and soft and easily tie-able. Any other ideas on what else I can do with them?

A common sight

This is what the end of my lounge looks like most evenings - winter and summer. In summer though they are just waiting for folding, in winter they are often waiting for drying - so with the fire behind them they get nice and dry overnight. The only issue being that they then put extra moisture into the house that needs drying off. Last night was not cold enough for a fire though, so they are still sitting in my lounge today, yet it is too windy outside and the racks will get blown over. I only wash nappies every 3 days (rack includes traditional flats, a few modern pocket nappies, and a heap of home-made boosters from old towels), but run a load of clothes and miscellaneous items most days.

I have rarely used the washing line since living in this house. It was positioned (recently taken down with the renovations to the backyard going on) in an awkward place inside the dogs run, so not easily accessable, nor to have the kids with me. I also much prefer the ease and adaptability of being able to pop the racks outside on sunny days and bring them in if it rains. I am able to move them to the front porch to catch the afternoon sun once the morning sun has moved off the back deck.

We don't own a dryer, so I have had to be keep on top of the washing or else we run out and have no dry clothes!

90% Emissions Reduction Project

I've been over at Anoushka's blog trying to figure out with her on where to progress with this - the project stared at Simple Living, and you will find out what it's all about including the rules. So, after gaining the conversions for the NZ equivalents based on the US figures, this is my own audit of where we are currently standing. It has taken me about 6mths of slowly implementing more earth friendly ideas to what I was already doing. I still have a way to go to meet some targets though. However, with car emissions being the #1 reduction that all of us can do that currently has the biggest impact - I am pleased that we are looking very good in that area. There was no family holiday in the past year though, so that has had a positive effect on that number - as far as week to week use, I have not been overly conscious of reducing aside from my carfree Tuesday (which sometimes is allocated to another day of the week) - we just happen to live in a small town that I rarely leave.

1- Petrol - Tricky, I haven't included Simon's work travel since his job is as a rep, but we do occasionally use his car in the weekends so will include that. 94% reduction.

2- Power - last year we used 6973 kW, so well over the 10% allocation which puts us at 63% reduction. We don't use heaters, don't use hot water in washing machine/dishwasher - I do suspect our old upright freezer is the culprit and am thinking of ways of reducing this. We have recently replaced our 50 yr old hot water cylinder so that could also have been adding unnecessarily to the issue. I have just started switching my hot water cylinder off every day for 16hrs of the day. Heating for 8hrs provides adequate hot water - so will be interesting to see the results of doing that.

3- Heating - wood allocation only - have included in petrol section as per their calculations - n/a

4- Rubbish - 98% reduction - I weighed ours in at 2.5kg rubbish per week (one plastic rubbish sack every fortnight), also all non-biodegradable, so non-methane producing.

5- Water - room for improvement! 82% reduction . At the moment I don't recycle any water. We do run our washing machine and dishwasher every day (188 litres + 18 litres) - when dd is no longer in nappies it will drop by 2 loads a week. Kids only bath a couple of times a week with a shallow bath, dh and I shower every day but it's a low flow (just did a test) and for 5mins max (if that). But it's things like rinsing dishes, hand washing, cooking water etc that I could be more resourceful with I suspect.

6- Consumer Goods - I went through my visa accounts for the past 6mths and just doubled it (since I've been more concious of all of this since the beginning of the year). We're still only at 68% reduction though. I have included things required for house maintenance, paint, home car maintenance, bed for Danielle etc - mind you figures also include 3 of our own birthdays in that time and I also had a big book buying binge... This one is tough even though I thought we were doing really well.

7- Food - No idea, but definitely not the best it could be. I am hoping by growing our own veges (and plan on providing almost 100% of our needs) that will eliminate our current vege box delivery. We have gone 50% vegetarian (still too much dairy in our diets to be anywhere near vegan) in the past 6mths, not a lot of locally produced items where I live, so there will always be significant food miles involved. I do limit packaging and processed where possible - I think I need to pick a single parameter to stick to reducing rather than a % on total food as I have no idea. I'm happy just focusing on growing produce at the moment and cutting back on one or two more meat meals. Also, gluten free items are often made in Aussie - hopefully all shipped rather than air freighted though!

An easy way to save a bit more power...

Yeah, I'm sure we're all on wagon for saving as much electricity as possible. But there is one thing that while I had previously read of it, I hadn't really paid it much attention. After reading over at Melanie's blog yesterday, I thought I would take up her kettle challenge. We are shockers for filling the kettle right up, boiling then continuing to do that every time despite only needing to draw off about 500ml out of the 2L kettle. So, from now, we are only going to be boiling what we require - and it's *so* much faster!

Back into that jungle out there...

We spent the weekend doing outside work. Last weekend we made a Taranaki gate to close off our 'new' backyard from our driveway so Danielle didn't disappear off up onto the road. So it's meant much more freedom for us to get on and work outside. Layered up we were as a cold Southerly came through and we got down to business.

We wanted to concentrate on moving the dog's electric fence over and out towards the boundary line to make more room on the upper grassed level area for the kids to hang out and then needed to build a fence/screen across to protect the kids from touching the electric fence (rest of the property isn't fenced hence the electric fence).

While Simon was working on the dog's fence, making a gate out of recycled materials left over from dismantling an archway and digging holes for posts, I decided to use some of our bamboo to make the screens. Nathan was my keen helper while I snipped and chopped the entire lot down (and have the calluses to show for it). Danielle wasn't too sure of her purpose, and was wandering around grizzling in the cold so we popped her in the wheelbarrow and she happily played in there for an hour and snuggled right down into it I thought she was going to fall asleep.

So, by end of weekend we have masses of green waste to take away (way too much for us to do much with unfortunately), we've still got the screens to complete (I even got to try out some lashing skills with bailing twine to attach the bamboo sticks together) and then the kids are free to roam their new backyard when we move onto the other outdoor projects in the coming months.

Then up into the house for a nice hot soup and toast for dinner!

A hot cuppa!

Gotta get me one of these!

We finally got around to lighting our fire tonight around 5pm. I'm sure if it had been a rainy day we would have lit it sooner if we'd been in the house. But as it was, the day was quite fine despite the bitter Southerly that was in the air, so there was a birthday party to go to in the morning and then outdoor work to catch up on until dinner time.

This evening I decided to find out how long it would take a pot of water to boil on the cooktop of our fire. I put about a litre of cold water in the pot with lid on and it took around 15mins to bring it to a hard boil, so not too bad I don't think. So we've made several hot drinks on that tonight and plan on doing so from now on, on evenings that it's going (including cooking anything else I can if the day is cold enough for the fire to be lit earlier in the day). I just need to find a vessel that pours and one that might conduct heat better than my good stainless steel pots.

Officially winter....and resisting the urge...

...to light the fire!


(a borrowed photo, we don't have an open fire - ours is an efficient eco-woodbox style).

I really want to get in the habit of layering up before taking the easy option of starting a fire. It's not all *that* cold just yet, but it's kind of in between, and when you get a day like today which has turned a bit blustery and drizzly there is something about a hot fire roaring in the corner of the room that warms the heart and spirit. I've just put a jumper on over my long sleeve t-shirt (so, it isn't that cold if it's taken me till almost 3pm to put one on). In the evening, Simon and I often look like grandma and grandpa with a blanket each to keep us warm while watching TV or at the computer. We have had maybe 1/2 dozen fires during autumn, so we'll see how long we last without without freezing our butts unnecessarily.

More on energy...

For someone who worked 5yrs for this country's state owned enterprise that manages the National Grid (and in a role that was directly related to maintaining and upgrading assets, new projects and managing the budgets), I'm a bit embarassed to say that I'm fairly clueless about it all. I did my job well, I just didn't take a lot of interest outside of what I needed to do back then.

So, since we're upgrading our hot water cylinder, I thought I'd reassess our energy retailer and have been off doing comparisons and particularly looking at "green" providers.

Once having identified our local company, I was then able to plug in our latest details here, which then gave me the cheapest company to go with - and yay for us, they are the same!

Since energy is pooled, you are not actually buying back "green" units that have been produced by your company, but the aim being that you are paying your $$ to a company that you support and that cares about the future instead of supporting a company that provides "dirty" energy.

Saving energy (in more ways than one) while cooking!

Electricity AND labour that is...

I recall my parents talking of hay baskets as a means of keeping food hot all day long while it cooks. Never really having had much interest in that idea, it was something I filed away in my brain until Rach was after ideas on how to manage her family's cooking needs without slaving over a hot stove for hours while away travelling and it seemed like it might be a goer.

Well Rach has gone off and actually tried it and been quite successful at it. Now to actually try it myself. HA!

So, yesterday I did decide to give it a go - and wanted to try out Rach's Beans Bonanza. However, I discovered I did not have a suitable pot without handles that would fit into anything - and my wok was too wide. So I flagged that idea and moved on to the next best idea of electricity saving (after having read this ebook, (pg 83) the night before) by bringing the food to the boil with lid on, boil for a few minutes, turning off the heat but leaving the pot on the element to finish cooking. My attempts over the last few days have included: brown rice (boiled for 10mins opposed to 25-30mins), boiled potatoes (boiled for 2mins opposed to 10mins), boiled kumara slices (brought to the boil only, opposed to 5mins). I would really like to attempt hard boiled eggs.

Haybaskets aside - and with winter approaching - I know I'll be getting my crockpot out for more regular use again after receiving a very old one (but great working condition) from my parents last year.

Hand-me-downs

(Groovy patterned hand sewn apron from my nana - my first apron!)

I love receiving hand-me-downs and buying 2nd hand. It's not even so much that it's a means of saving me money, but much more...

* I find it wonderful to reuse items, especially those that have been treasured by the previous owner. I get the joy out of extending the life of something and often the gifter loves to see their previously treasured items living on. I am mindful of only accepting what I *need*, it can be too easy to say "yes".

* I enjoy coming up with my own unique use of an item or if it's clothing, it can be refashioned into something new.

* It means one less item that I am buying new from a large corporation with goods likely made in China and shipped all across the world to New Zealand.

* Receiving used items is having a flow on effect helping me be more mindful when down at the mall (in fact I rarely go there for the purpose of "browsing" anymore), I know that whatever I *need* or *desire* can often be found at a 2nd hand shop or will *appear* when needed. The less I shop - the less I have the desire to go shop.

* My children are less inclined to see only things of value as coming from a shop.

Then there is a following for what is called The Compact. I investigated doing this, but have decided that where I am at is to just be more mindful rather than have strict rules that don't quite fit with me just yet.

I feel blessed to have people who are willing to offer me used items. I also love to pass on things to others who are open to receiving.

Reducing our household waste...

I'm going to do some posts on environmental issues that we've been looking out in our house.

Reducing our household waste further is something I have been focusing on for the past 6mths. I always thought we did pretty good, but in reality, we were shocking! OK, so possibly not as bad as it can get, but I was pretty unaware when I now consider what I know and do!

As more and more discussions appear on The Nappy Network, TV programmes are produced such as Wa$ted, from reading books and internet browsing, each make me think, reassess and implement another little change. Some of them I've just been plain lazy about and others just totally ignorant. This seems strange to me - I am a thinker, I am a woman of action - why have I had my head in the sand for so long??

So, I've taken action over the last 6mths and these are the changes I've made which have been a long time coming.

* All wet waste is now distributed between - The Dog gets all surplus food scraps and leftovers that have been lying around (we generally eat left overs for lunch the next day that haven't been served up) - said dog has actually put on unnecesary weight and therefore will be sharing his scraps with the chooks when we get around to getting them (we no longer need to buy the dog any food aside from dog biscuits that he gets for breakfast); vegetable/fruit scraps/teabags/vacuum cleaner dust gets popped into the compost bin (I tried a worm bin, but it didn't work too efficiently for us, so I have reverted to the compost bin which we relocated so it was easy access, close to a water source and "brown" material). We compost 1-2 x 2 litre ice cream containers of scraps a day!

* All paper is now recycled. This is the most embarassing one for me. I can not believe I wasn't using the kerbside recycling which is provided (we don't get kerbside recycling offered for plastics/glass etc yet ALWAYS take it to the recylcing station every few months - this is why I felt we were doing pretty good). However, we were tossing the 3 weekly local rags in the bin, all junk mail, boxes from cereal packets etc and other random paper. We had already put a No Junk Mail sign up about the middle of last year and that in itself made a huge difference (I never join mailing lists to receive newsletters). Now I put out one large grocery shopping bag of paper per week. (When I refer to "grocery bags", well they're not really because I don't receive any, but it's how I think of "size").

These were the two major changes I made to our rubbish. I am amazed to say that we have now reduced our weekly rubbish from a small wheelie bin (about 4 grocery bags) down to ONE grocery bag (in fact I no longer need to use a bag as a liner in the bin because it just doesn't get yucky from wet goopy things anymore). It is full of plastic wrapper type stuff only. It occasionally has meat bones. We have always been great at not buying goods that use excessive wrappers or little boxes or whatever else - so really our problem was paper and wet waste. A few days ago I cancelled our wheelie bin which we have been forking out $$ for!